200,000-year-old human hair found in dung.
Paleontologists have discovered strands of hair belonging to a human who lived 200,000 years ago in fossilized hyena dung from a cave in South Africa. Lucinda Backwell, a paleontologist at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, found 40 strands of hair preserved inside the dung. “This find is so unusual as the human fossil record at this time is exceedingly poor, and of course hair is fragile and degrades easily. It is the first non-bony material in the early hominid fossil record,” Backwell said. Experts think it could belong to the first Homo sapiens who evolved 195,000 years ago but the possibility that it could come from a totally new human species was also not ignored.
I came across this piece of news recently in the Times of India. Now, the question is not why it's exciting or relevant or intriguing or worth-being-blogged-about, the question is why, why and why-in-the-world would anyone experiment on dung? Fossilized hyena dung? How can anyone know that some dung, any dung is a hyena’s? And well, really, if you can tell the difference between the various types of excreta, you need to rethink your life’s aims & ambitions. Was it ugly? (That’s a wrong question of course.) Was it emitting a weird kind of laughter?
I just did a wiki on our hyena friends; seems like you wouldn’t really like to have one by your side; they look and sound real dicey characters to me. First, they are extremely conscientious when it comes to dietary behavior, they’ll eat you up whole if you happen to be zonked and befriend them. And when I mean whole, I mean whole- bones, skin, teeth and horns too if you happen to be flaunting some fashion fad. Second, they are born with their eyes open and teeth already fully developed. To me that signifies extremely highly developed senses- Extra Sensory Perception- and that anyway automatically qualifies one’s entry in the psychotic-wannabe bracket. Third, they belong to a group of mammals that commit neonatal siblicide. In simpler terms, in case 2 chaps/babes are born, one will end up killing the other ASAP. Gives quite a turn to the phrase sibling rivalry and makes me an extremely benign sister.
Well, it can be easily determined that how questionable the dung of such sinister beings would be like. Is that what makes it so very apparent and recognizable? A little more online digging helps in establishing that the various species of the hyena clan maintain latrines far from the denning area where the dung is deposited. So, did the paleontologists discover a DDD- a Designated Dung Ditch? And how could they be so sure that this particular DDD belonged to our giggling pals and not to some other distant relative who practiced its excretory habits in a DDD too?
Moving on to the more pertinent discovery of human hair- what exactly do we hope to “discover” by the presence of the 40 strands? That human hair can survive in feces? That non-bony material flourishes in a ‘number twos’ habitat? That the usage of spoor and droppings can be investigated in the manufacture of hair conditioners?
My gripe is not with the purpose or the validity of the research specifically but with the research itself per se. But then again, I wonder if it is just me or is something really wrong with the scientific community? There are so many worthwhile things that can be investigated, discovered, unraveled- a practical example could be to ascertain the psychology of an individual who is the right behind you in a standstill, mind-numbing traffic jam but still insists on honking away to glory.
I guess my thinking is just not perceptive enough- if vanilla fragrance and flavoring can be extracted from cow dung, hairs can certainly be mined from a hyena’s poo!
