Archeologists in Siberia made a very interesting discovery earlier this month, a sewing needle believed to be over fifty thousand years old. This needle was discovered in an ongoing dig that has been yielding surprising, even shocking finds since 2008. The needle, for instance, reveals that humans were sewing clothes many eons ago.
The location of this and many other finds is known as the Denisova Cave. The cave is located near the borders of Russia, China, and Mongolia. As scientists have descended further into the cave and dug down from one strata to another, they have reached the conclusion that the earliest inhabitants moved to the cave around 288,000 years ago. I imagine that many college texts will be re-written after all this information is compiled, analyzed, and published. A very interesting conclusion these scientists have reached is that the later Denisovans, Neanderthals, and homo sapiens all occupied this same area, the only such place known of on this earth at this time. This rather startling conclusion is not only based on physical evidence and relics, but on DNA samples found in the cave as well.
The needle found recently is causing quite a stir among the brainy professor set for a couple of reasons. First, the very fact that humans made a needle that long ago defies the accepted story of human archeology. Second, the needle, which is made of the bone of a bird that lived (obviously) in that time period, has a hole in it so that thread could be inserted into the needle. Of course, you say. Well, what is truly mystifying is that the hole appears to have been drilled, not punched. Not only does it appeared to be drilled, but the drilling is so precise and done in such a way that the bone was not otherwise damaged. In other words, the scientists believe that the hole in this particular needle was drilled with some type of high-speed drilling device! Of course, no high speed drilling device existed at that time, right? We can no longer be sure of this.
Pre-historic high speed drills and homo sapiens cavorting with Neanderthals? This is the stuff of good science fiction, yet it is being unveiled before our very eyes. Another surprising finding is evidence linking the inhabitants of the Denisovan Cave to earlier people from Africa, and to trade with people who used a trading route that would later become known as the Silk Road. Some of the "younger" finds include bones of a young female, yet this female is believed to have died around forty thousand years ago.
So much of the information and the artifacts being unearthed at the Denisovan Cave is startling, controversial...and mysterious. I am great admirer of the mysterious. I know that science prides itself on having the answer to every question, or at least being on the way to that answer. But science also loves to tell us that things, events, happened a certain way because of perfectly logical natural laws, physics, etc. So I am always pleased when things of mystery arise and cannot be easily explained, or if explained, do not fit into the classical explanation of things.
All around the world, from Siberia to South America, strange and wonderful things have been discovered, and are yet to be discovered, which cannot be fully explained, which do not fit into the classical explanation of the origin, history, and even the age of our world. Even such an ordinary thing as a sewing needle, when found in the right set of circumstances, becomes instead an exotic object of awe and mystery. One of the things that makes life interesting is the discovery of extraordinary things, or better, the discovery of ordinary things in extraordinary circumstances...like a 50,000 year old sewing needle. This needle defies explanation...how was a such a precise hole drilled by a high-speed drill centuries before high-speed drills were even invented? How could homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans have existed all together in one location? I sometimes hope that at least some questions like these go unanswered until the very end of time. For me, life is so much more interesting when mysteries pop up every now and then, so much more fun when "we just don't know everything."
The location of this and many other finds is known as the Denisova Cave. The cave is located near the borders of Russia, China, and Mongolia. As scientists have descended further into the cave and dug down from one strata to another, they have reached the conclusion that the earliest inhabitants moved to the cave around 288,000 years ago. I imagine that many college texts will be re-written after all this information is compiled, analyzed, and published. A very interesting conclusion these scientists have reached is that the later Denisovans, Neanderthals, and homo sapiens all occupied this same area, the only such place known of on this earth at this time. This rather startling conclusion is not only based on physical evidence and relics, but on DNA samples found in the cave as well.
The needle found recently is causing quite a stir among the brainy professor set for a couple of reasons. First, the very fact that humans made a needle that long ago defies the accepted story of human archeology. Second, the needle, which is made of the bone of a bird that lived (obviously) in that time period, has a hole in it so that thread could be inserted into the needle. Of course, you say. Well, what is truly mystifying is that the hole appears to have been drilled, not punched. Not only does it appeared to be drilled, but the drilling is so precise and done in such a way that the bone was not otherwise damaged. In other words, the scientists believe that the hole in this particular needle was drilled with some type of high-speed drilling device! Of course, no high speed drilling device existed at that time, right? We can no longer be sure of this.
Pre-historic high speed drills and homo sapiens cavorting with Neanderthals? This is the stuff of good science fiction, yet it is being unveiled before our very eyes. Another surprising finding is evidence linking the inhabitants of the Denisovan Cave to earlier people from Africa, and to trade with people who used a trading route that would later become known as the Silk Road. Some of the "younger" finds include bones of a young female, yet this female is believed to have died around forty thousand years ago.
So much of the information and the artifacts being unearthed at the Denisovan Cave is startling, controversial...and mysterious. I am great admirer of the mysterious. I know that science prides itself on having the answer to every question, or at least being on the way to that answer. But science also loves to tell us that things, events, happened a certain way because of perfectly logical natural laws, physics, etc. So I am always pleased when things of mystery arise and cannot be easily explained, or if explained, do not fit into the classical explanation of things.
All around the world, from Siberia to South America, strange and wonderful things have been discovered, and are yet to be discovered, which cannot be fully explained, which do not fit into the classical explanation of the origin, history, and even the age of our world. Even such an ordinary thing as a sewing needle, when found in the right set of circumstances, becomes instead an exotic object of awe and mystery. One of the things that makes life interesting is the discovery of extraordinary things, or better, the discovery of ordinary things in extraordinary circumstances...like a 50,000 year old sewing needle. This needle defies explanation...how was a such a precise hole drilled by a high-speed drill centuries before high-speed drills were even invented? How could homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans have existed all together in one location? I sometimes hope that at least some questions like these go unanswered until the very end of time. For me, life is so much more interesting when mysteries pop up every now and then, so much more fun when "we just don't know everything."
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