SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Bears do it. Bats do it. Even European hedgehogs do it. And now it turns out that early human beings may also have been at it. They hibernated, according to fossil experts.
[...] [S]cientists argue that lesions and other signs of damage in fossilised bones of early humans are the same as those left in the bones of other animals that hibernate. These suggest that our predecessors coped with the ferocious winters at that time by slowing down their metabolisms and sleeping for months.
[...] In a paper published in the journal L'Anthropologie, Juan-Luis Arsuaga – who led the team that first excavated at the site – and Antonis Bartsiokas, of Democritus University of Thrace in Greece, [suggest that] these early humans found themselves "in metabolic states that helped them to survive for long periods of time in frigid conditions with limited supplies of food and enough stores of body fat".
[...] The researchers admit the notion "may sound like science fiction" but point out that many mammals including primates such as bushbabies and lemurs do this. "This suggests that the genetic basis and physiology for such a hypometabolism could be preserved in many mammalian species including humans," state Arsuaga and Bartsiokas.
The pattern of lesions found in the human bones at the Sima cave are consistent with lesions found in bones of hibernating mammals, including cave bears. "A strategy of hibernation would have been the only solution for them to survive having to spend months in a cave due to the frigid conditions," the authors state.
Journal Reference:
Antonis Bartsiokas, Juan-Luis Arsuaga, Hibernation in hominins from Atapuerca, Spain half a million years ago, L'Anthropologie (DOI: 10.1016/j.anthro.2020.102797)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 03 2021, @05:08AM (3 children)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/study-finds-seasonal-affective-disorder-doesn-t-exist/ [scientificamerican.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 03 2021, @07:28AM
Hey, anti-science pussies:
pussies:........_____........
pussies:........|_ _|........
pussies:...n....(O O)....n...
pussies:...H..._|\_/|_...H...
pussies:..nHnn/ \___/ \nnHn..
pussies:.<V VV /.....\ VV V>.
pussies:..\__\/|.....|\/__/..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by istartedi on Sunday January 03 2021, @08:54AM (1 child)
I took a look at the abstract and the article. The abstract mentions that they polled for *depression* indicators (emphasis mine), and the article expands on the idea that SAD may be characterized as something other than depression. The "doesn't exist" in the headline is a bit sensationalist--shame on them. I thought SA was holding up; but it's been a long time since I've read them.
SAD may be characterized with a different set of questions, or measurement of sleep habits. I don't think that one study can bury it.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday January 04 2021, @02:46AM
I read it and said... correlation not causation. Thyroid decline (through age or disease) = higher parathyroid levels (compensating for effects on calcium cycle) = osteoporosis. Thyroid decline = SAD ie. can't keep up in colder weather. Hibernation mechanism may be related, but doesn't mean humans hibernated, only that the endocrine complex is more or less universal in mammals.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.