Echoes from the Past (Feb 12)

Some more links for you. 

I'm also lifting the temporary comment moderation filter, hopefully lessons have been learned and no more such measures will be needed. Thanks for your patience.

Prehistory of Europe

Pileta: Más sobre Unas focas pintadas por neandertales podrían ser la primera obra de arte...[es] - Salaman mentions that lack of economic resources do not allow to research further by the moment the possibility that the Nerja seals could have been drawn by Neanderthals. 

Pileta: Catalogan pinturas de Altamira que son 15.000 años más antiguas que los bisontes[es] - Some Altamira paintings are found to be 15,000 years older than the famous bisons. This may make them the oldest rock art in Europe (with permission of Nerja and comparable to Grotte Chauvet). No images of the early Aurignacian art are available yet but it is coincident with a trend to reclassify European rock art as of earlier age and Aurignacian period, as discussed here, but mostly not as early as in this case (before 30 Ka BP).

Neanderfollia[cat] offers us some interesting maps of the MP-UP transition in Europe: 

• Mapa de jaciments Chatelperronians (Chatelperronian sites)
• Mapa de jaciments Aurinyacians (Aurignacian and Proto-Aurignacian, but not Bohunician, sites)

Prehistory of South Asia

AIOC: Lithic continuity & innovation in Holocene South India - D. Fuller introduces a new paper (ppv) on the Holocene industries of India (pictured below).

AIOC: Sourcing the 'lost Saraswati' river: new geological evidence - the same author, discusses how the lost Saraswati river does not match the Holocene geology of the subcontinent but could correspond with that of the Pleistocene.

AIOC: A widening range of textiles on Harappan trading ships

Paleodiet

How to feed a pregnant Neanderthal (AVRPI) - the almost always interesting archaeologist Julien Riel-Salvatore discusses several papers on the apparent myth of high protein Paleolithic diets.

Genetics

Max Planck Institute Leipzig | A High Coverage Denisovan Genome - The Denisovan genome is available for all to explore (the researchers however request courtesy if used for academic publication).

Ultraconserved regions of the genome do not seem to have any particular importance:

PLoS Genetics: Evaluation of the Role of Functional Constraints on the Integrity of an Ultraconserved Region in the Genus Drosophila (open access).

Linguistics

Il tente de décrypter l'ADN de la langue basque (SudOuest)[fr] - Basque cultural journalist Hasier Etxeberria prepares a documentary on the various theories on the origins of the Basque language. 

Psychology and Biology

Brains may be wired for addiction

Preference for fatty foods may have genetic roots

Why do cells age? Discovery of extremely long-lived proteins may provide insight into cell aging and neurodegenerative diseases

Tiny primate 'talks' in ultrasound - our distant Pinoy wild cousin, the tarsier, is not as silent as was thought, they just talk in ways we can't hear.

What elephants want: Ranging and raiding in Asia and Africa | EveryONE  - elephants in fragmented habitats need more land, they also follow the lead of the old ones when raiding crops.