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Ancient Axes, Spear Points May Reveal When Early

Humans Left Africa


More than 1,000 stone artifacts, some of which may be up to 1.76 million years old, have been
discovered at Wadi Dabsa, in southwest Saudi Arabia near the Red Sea.

The artifacts, which were found in what is now an arid landscape, date to a time when the
climate was wetter; they may provide clues as to how and when different hominins left Africa,
researchers said.

The stone artifacts include the remains of hand axes, cleavers (a type of knife), scrapers (used to
scrape the flesh off of animal hides), projectile points (that would have been attached to the ends
of spears), piercers (stone tools that can cut small holes through hide or flesh) and hammer
stones. One of the hand axes is unusually heavy, weighing just under 8 lbs. (3.6 kilograms), the
researchers said. The discoveries were detailed in the December 2017 issue of the journal
Antiquity. [The 25 Most Mysterious Archaeological Finds on Earth]
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Based on the tool design, archaeologists said they can tell that many of the artifacts are
"Acheulian," a term used to describe types of stone toolsmade between 1.76 million years and
100,000 years ago. When exactly within this time frame the various artifacts at Wadi Dabsa were
made is uncertain, the archaeologists said.

"We hope to try and date the tufa [a type of limestone] and basalt flows within the site, which are
associated [with] the large [stone artifact] assemblage recovered from within the wadi," said
study lead author Frederick Foulds, an archaeology professor at Durham University in England.
Once the team has more-precise dates for the artifacts, the scientists may be able to determine
what type of hominins made the tools, Foulds said.

A wetter time

Archaeologists said they can already tell that the artifacts date to a time when the climate was
wetter. "It's far more arid [today] than it was at certain points in time," Foulds told Live Science.
"It's strange to be walking over hard, dry rocks which were formed by water pooling during a far
wetter period. We think it was during these wetter periods that it's likely the site was occupied."

The climate of the entire Arabian Peninsula has changed multiple times in response to the
massive changes in global climates that accompanied glacial cycles over the last 2.5 million
years, Foulds said.

"During periods when the ice sheets were at their largest, there was widespread aridity in the
Sahara and Arabian deserts, but during periods when the ice sheets shrank, the climate of these
regions became a lot wetter," Foulds said.

One of the big questions is how the changes in climate affected the dispersal of hominins from
out of Africa, Foulds said.

"What's interesting about the Wadi Dabsa region is that the geography of the region may have
created a refuge from these changes," Foulds said.

Because of Wadi Dabsa's topography the region may have received rainfall when other parts of
Saudi Arabia were arid. Hominins were able "to continue living there [at Wadi Dabsa] when they
couldn't live in other areas," Foulds said. Researchers have found that Wadi Dabsa’s topography
includes a basin which may have had streams of water flowing down its slopes, the water
possibly pooling in the basin.

The team is carrying out its research as part of the DISPERSE project, which is analyzing
landscape and archaeological changes in Africa and Asia in order to better understand how
humans evolved and dispersed out of Africa.
Originally published on Live Science.
Source: (https://www.livescience.com/61285-stone-tools-found-in-saudi-arabia.html)

Vocabulary:

Artifact-artefact

Arid landscape- teritoriu arid

Clue-cheie (a unei probleme)

Hominin- hominizi

hand axes-topor de mina

cleaver- persoana care despica ceva

piercer-poanson

scraper-randea, razatoare

projectile- proiectile

basalt flows-fluxul bazaltului

the wadi-wadi

wetter-umectant

pooling-a comasa, a se aduna

widespread-pe scara larga

ice sheets shrank-bucatile de gheata s-au micsorat

rainfall-precipitatii

streams of water-fluxuri de apa

slopes-pante
Physicists are Building the World's Most Perfect
Snowflake
Nothing in nature is perfect — but frosty, shimmery snowflakes come pretty close.

Now one man is trying to push the limits of those shimmery, symmetrical ice crystals, to
make the largest, most perfectly symmetrical snowflake ever, according to the San Jose
Mercury News. Libbrecht said he was inspired by snowflakes he encountered in his
hometown of Fargo, North Dakota.

Kenneth Libbrecht, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, has


spent years trying to create such symmetrical beauties in his lab. By carefully controlling
the conditions, using commercial recirculating chillers and temperature controllers, he
has managed to create 0.5 inch (1.2 centimeters)-across snowflakes that retain their
pristine symmetry.

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But that isn't big enough for him: Libbrecht believes he can make symmetrical crystals as
big as 1 inch (2.5 cm) across or more, the Mercury News reported. There are no physical
laws that prevent the formation of arbitrarily large snowflakes, but just a slight change in
the environmental conditions can make flakes turn out wonky, Libbrecht said.

"It's easy to grow an ugly snowflake," Libbrecht told The Mercury News. "More things
go wrong as they get bigger."

That said, in 2006, NASA scientists measured snowflakes in Ontario, Canada and found
that individual snow crystals of about 0.6 inches (1.5 cm) are not unusual. And not all of
them were ugly.

Outside the lab, snow forms high in the atmosphere when crystals form on particles of
dirt or dust in the atmosphere. As the burgeoning crystal falls, it encounters an ever-
changing set of conditions that continually nudges the snowflake to form in one way or
another, which is why no two flakes are alike, the Mercury News reported.

Originally published on Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/61284-making-most-


perfect-snowflake.html

Vocabulary:

Snowflake-fulg de nea pristine-de odinioara

Frosty-a ingheta, rece, glaciar wonky-subred

Shimmery-stralucitor the burgeoning-inflorirea

Encountered-intilniti an ever-changing-o continua schimbare

Retain-a-si pastra nudge-a da un ghiont

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