Behold! A Neanderthal Child! Reconstructed by the Leipzig Institute of Human Origins in Germany. They took thousand year old child skeletal measurements and projected a 3D image that they could build. Fucking Fascinating. This shit is crazy. (kind of looks like my nephew :x)This pic is the reason I became an Anthropologist. And then it was the reason I became an Evolutionary Archaeologist. And finally, an Archaeological Scientist. Took a while to hone down my specific interest, but at least I know what I want to do.
What I really find interesting in Anthropology is the emergence of man. We talked about it a little in class, but it was quickly washed over, as if it was an uncomfortable topic. I was talking to my mentor the other day about my passion including human origins and human evolution and working with it in Archaeology. She laughed at me! Said there wasn't much of a job field in "digging up 100,000 year old Lucys."
She is obviously getting the wrong idea.
I don't want to dig up 100,000 year old Lucys. I want to do scientific analyses concerning isotopes found in bone and artifacts, while working with ICPMS and XRF machines to find out where people originate, what their diet was like, and what kind of stuff they used.That shit is fascinating.
Hmm on a side note:
There is this website called the Genome Project where you pay 50 bucks to give a sample of saliva to this lab. They can trace back your Mitochondrial DNA thousands of years. Even back before people migrated over the Bering Strait (of course- just a theory). These scientist call the original mt DNA "Eve." What a delicious religious twist. But even so, I'm tempted to give a sample and have these scientists include it in their huge ass database, and show me where MY ancestors originated from. (I'm probably from man-slaughtering vikings that pillaged and raped thousands of women).
But all the while, totally worth an investment ;)
