Today (June 15, 2009; 2pm local), University of Leiden, The Netherlands.
If the tiny country of The Netherlands – which, 10,000 to 70,000 years ago, was one huge delta/estuary/swamp/alluvial flood plain (4 to 6 times the size of the current country) – harbours 40,000 year old hominin remains, the odds are overwhelming that the paleontological American landmass (its current continental shelf!) also does!(Babel Fish translation from Dutch)
First Dutch Neanderthaler had a tumour
Published: 15 June 2009 14:10
LEIDEN - for the first time in the Netherlands a fossil of a Neanderthaler has been discovered. The more than 40,000 years old skull cap of a young man has been found along the Zeeuwse coast (southern Dutch coast) and is originating from the North sea floor. The find was presented Monday by minister Ronald Plasterk (science) in the realm museum of antiquities (RMO) in Leiden.
In the bone fragment found by an amateur paleontologist sits a small cavity, caused by a benign tumour. From study into the composition of the bone has become clear that the young man ate mainly flesh, just like other Neanderthalers. The research results are published in the illustrated magazine 'Journal of Human Evolution'.
Team
An international scientific team under the guidance of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig) has examined this Neanderthal fossil from the North sea. The team did that in association with employees of the university of Leiden. THE RMO speak of "an important expansion of Dutch cultural heritage" and "a mile stone for Dutch archaeology and paleontology".
Wealth
Moreover, according to the scientists the find indicates the archaeological and geological wealth of the North Sea. In the ice age the North Sea was a large alluvial plain instead of a sea. Of the North Sea floor stone tools of Neanderthalers and lots fossil bones of mammoths and other ice age animals are regularly dug up/trawled up.
Shell sucker
This skull fragment was found some years ago in the detritus of a shell sucker. The material was 'vacuumed up' from the Middeldiep, an area in the North Sea 15 kilometres from the Zeeuwse/southern coast. As a result the exact location of the find is not clear. The exhibition, accessible to the public as of Tuesday, has been co-financed from the Spinoza Premium of the Leiden professor Roebroeks, one of the scientists concerned.
Those hominin remains would clearly be much older than Clovis (I'm betting HE). Wherefore 'The Club' sabotages efforts to find them.
