85,000-Year-Old Finger Bone May Rewrite the Story of Human Migration Out of Africa

By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | April 9, 2018 02:17pm ET

A sliver of bone the size of a Cheeto may radically revise our view of when and how humans left Africa.

The 85,000-year-old fossilized human finger bone, unearthed in the Saudi Arabian desert, suggests that early humans took completely different routes out of Africa than was previously suspected, a new study finds.

The finding is the oldest human fossil on record unearthed outside of Africa and the Levant (an area encompassing the Eastern Mediterranean, including Israel), and the oldest human remains uncovered in Saudi Arabia, the researchers said. [7 Bizarre Ancient Cultures That History Forgot]

Until now, many scientists thought that early humans left Africa about 60,000 years ago and then hugged the coastline, living off marine resources, said study senior researcher Michael Petraglia, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany.

"But now, with the fossil finger bone from the site of Al Wusta in Saudi Arabia, we have a find that's 85,000 to 90,000 years old, which suggests that Homo sapiens is moving out of Africa far earlier than 60,000 years ago," Petraglia told reporters at a news conference. "This supports a model not of a single, rapid dispersal out of Africa 60,000 years ago, but a much more complicated scenario of migration."

Continued  

Mers virus: Saudis warned to wear masks near camels

Saudi Arabia has urged its citizens to wear masks and gloves when dealing with camels so as to avoid spreading the deadly Mers virus.

The agriculture ministry advised people not to come into contact with camels unless necessary and to wash their hands if they did.

Saudia Arabia is the country by far most affected by Mers, with 133 deaths since the virus was detected in 2012.

Nearly 500 people in the kingdom have been infected.

Mers is part of a large family of viruses

Mers - Middle East respiratory syndrome - has also spread to other countries in the Middle East.

The disease is a coronavirus, a large family of viruses that also includes the common cold and Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome). It causes fever, pneumonia and kidney failure.

"It is advisable to wear protective gloves, especially when dealing with births or sick or dead (camels)," the agriculture ministry said in a statement.

It suggested boiling camel milk and only eating cooked camel meat.

Read on

First Dinosaur Fossils from Saudi Arabia Discovered

A plant-eating titanosaur and a sharp-toothed theropod are the first confirmed dinosaur fossils ever found in Saudi Arabia, scientists reported Dec. 26 in the journal PLOS ONE.

Dinosaur fossils are rare in the Arabian Peninsula; previous finds mainly include teeth and bone fragments of similar species from Jordan, Oman and Lebanon, the researchers report.

Read on

Ivory being sold openly inside Moevenpick hotel

November 2013. With wild elephants being driven towards extinction by the scourge of poaching, Möevenpick Hotels are feeding, and possibly creating, the demand for ivory by renting shops inside their hotels to ivory traders, and thus profiting from the ivory trade. 

Promotion for this shop involves leaving booklets in each hotel room promoting the shop. 

Our reader took a video of this shop inside the Möevenpick Hotel in Madinah in Saudi Arabia in October 2013 (see below).

By promoting ivory sales and creating demand for ivory products, Möevenpick hotels are encouraging the poaching of elephants. By displaying ivory openly for sale in their hotels, they are marketing ivory to people who may not have previously thought of buying any.

This has a terrible human cost, as well as threatening the existence of elephants. As many as13,000 people have lost their lives protecting wildlife in the last eight years around the world, and it is estimated that up to 50,000 elephants are killed by poachers every year. 6 tonnes of ivory have been seized by authorities in East Africa in the last few weeks, and seizures only represent a small percentage of the ivory that is exported every year.

Sustainability policy or lip service?Möevenpick Hotels own sustainability policy states "For Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts sustainability is about meeting current needs while at the same time preserving and contributing to the future for generations to come.

Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts is convinced that the combination of its values and global approach to sustainability will help the company to be recognized as one of the world's most trusted hotel management companies."

Like many large organisations, it appears that Moevenpick pay lip service to ‘sustainability' whilst the reality is that if someone wants to pay them some rent for a shop, then the need for cash overcomes "preserving and contributing to the future for generations to come."

If elephants are to survive demand for ivory needs to be stopped.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/moevenpick-hotel.html

Saudi Environmentalists Warn Against Lizard Over-Hunting - via Herp Digest

 PANORIENT NEWS (Tokyo, Japan) 5/9/12 Dubai: Saudi Arabian Wildlife Conservation activists have warned against the danger of over-hunting the dhabb or dabb, lizard as many young Saudis regard the month of May as high season for a meat that is considered a delicacy and provides the successful hunter with status. 

The dabb is a spiny-tailed desert lizard found in the Arabian Peninsula. The tail is used for defense but is also where fat is stored. The increasing demand to show prowess in the number of dabb caught in one day, has lead to various hunting methods. Once shot, chased, caught by hand or by traps, competition has invented new methods.


Abdul Rahman al-mqati, a young man of Dwadmi prefecture, told Alarabiya net that he comes out every week with his rifle to hunt with his companions. He described other methods that were popular - flooding the burrows with water to kill large numbers of the lizard and the most dangerous method directing car exhaust which at the entrance of the Lizards den to force them out where they could easily be caught.


A lizard is priced at 20-50 riyals (USD5 – 14), depending on its size and weight. Major habitats of the dabb are in the desert prefectures of Afeef and Dawadmi Hafr al-Baten. It lives mainly on desert grass, and can go without water for long periods of time despite the harsh climate in the desert.


Displaying numbers of lizards on the sides of vehicles and roads has become a source of achievement and pride among young people, one person hunted and killed more than 300 lizards in one day, according to Alarabiya net.


Faihan al- Aydh, a researcher and academician, told the Saudi owned Alarabiya net that excessive hunting of the lizard will lead to complete extinction of the dabb. He called on the authorities to set up private farms for breeding and to educate the community about the danger of over-hunting. He believes violators should be punished.


While many websites promote hunting tours and provide details on how to kill them, other sites in Arabic have started to call on people to take a break from what they called "the Lizzard annual genocide in May". They said most of the hunted meat is trashed because it is only good when eaten fresh.


Interestingly, the Saudi National Commission for Wildlife Conservation, very clearly stipulates a policy of protection of the lizard from excessive hunting.

Vulture arrested for spying

Saudi Arabian security services have captured a vulture suspected of being a Mossad spy sent over by Israel.

The bird, which was carrying a GPS transmitter and a tag from Tel Aviv University, strayed into Saudi Arabian territory, according to a report in the Israeli daily Ma'ariv.

Residents and reporters told Saudi Arabia's Al-Weeam newspaper the matter seemed to be linked to a "Zionist plot" and swiftly alerted security services. The bird has since been placed under arrest.

The accusations went viral with hundreds of posts on Arabic-language websites and forums claiming "Zionists" had trained the birds for espionage.

Israeli authorities said the bird's activities were innocent and that it was part of a long-term study of the migratory habits of the vulture.

The incident comes amid growing paranoia among Israel's neighbours over the nation's growing military might.

An Egyptian official reportedly claimed a shark that attacked tourists off the coastal resort of Sharm el Sheikh was acting on behalf of the Israeli spy service.
http://web.orange.co.uk/article/quirkies/Vulture_arrested_for_spying