Today's interesting fact, again has to do with our ancestors.

The sequencing of DNA from a thousand humans from around the world, has thrown out some interesting results. For the most part, we have a very limited genetic diversity, with a few exceptions.

The additional sequencing of DNA from a Neanderthals bones has thrown light on some of these differences.

If you are descended from Europeans, you are likely been 1% and 8% of genes that seem to have come from one or more Neanderthal ancestors, depending on the articles you read. The genes identified do not match with genes found in the general populations of Africa or China.

This research has also identified that the Chinese also have a set of genes that seems to have come from another unidentified ancestor.

I find this fascinating, as this may partially support the idea of a multi-regional origin of modern humans, where ancestors of the modern human left Africa, and then mated with modern humans after they left Africa about 60,000 years ago.

The Recent Out-of-Africa model seems to be supported by more scientists at the moment suggests that modern man didn't leave Africa before that, or if they had, they had died out. The multi-region theory suggests that there was a merging of several different subspecies of humans creating our modern selves. One recent dig has placed modern humans in China 100,000 years ago has placed more emphasis on this possibility.

There are those of course, who will bridle at the prospect of having Neanderthal genes. The Neanderthal has been portrayed as a brutish lout, that was so hideous that no modern man or woman would want to have anything to do with them. They were thought to be unable to speak, to have no culture, unimaginative, no religion, forced to use substandard tools, and eventually out competed by modern man.

The mixing of our genes along with recent archaeological finds, possibly tells a completely different story.

For over 130,000 years Neanderthal lived in Europe and parts of east Asia. As species go, this is successful run. The latest finds, suggest that they looked after their infirm, may have had religion (often burying their dead with tools, flowers and food for the afterlife), and were far more innovative than they have been credited by popular culture, even using grindstones to create flour from roots for the making of bread.

When the Neanderthal was found in the 17th Century, it was decided that they had to be sub-human, brutish and images created of them showed this bias. Recently, using techniques used by the police on finding dead individuals, by using their skulls and recreating the looks of those individuals by skilled artists, Neanderthal images were recreated. When these images were placed in modern clothing, even scientists who were primed with the information that one or more images in a picture would be a Neanderthal, were unable to determine with any accuracy, the modern humans verses the Neanderthals.

This just proves are not as different as many suspected.

Today's interesting fact has to do with diet. Mostly because I'm constantly told to diet, but partially because we have been told that our ancient ancestors ate mostly meat and vegetables, without foods that are high in carbohydrates. This impression seems to have come about because archaeologists in the past have been too diligent to clean and sterilise both the tools they used as well as the artefacts they have found, without checking the embedded plant materials within or on the surface.

When I was a child, the scout troop I belonged to used to go on survival hikes. Our scout masters had made arrangements with certain farmers for the use of their woods and fields in our search for food. We were required to only find wild forage, and not allowed to raid local crops. We spent our time, searching for wild food which consisted of, roots, berries, fungus, leaves and the like, then preparing it what we found, getting it ready for our three meals. While we were taught how to create snares and traps, except for catching fish, we were not allowed to use what we had learnt for getting meat. Instead, we would be provided with a certain amount of eggs and meat, which were kept refrigerated by our scout masters and doled out every morning and evening to have with what ever we had found in the surrounding forests and fields.

One of the foods we ate, on a limited basis was the root of bull rushes, which we called Cattails. When foraging, you must be careful to leave enough behind to feed wild animals as well as to continue successful survival of the food source. The American Indians supplemented their diet with Cattails, drying the roots, then grinding them to create a flour, before making bread which was baked in fires and small bread kilns. The flour produced is high in carbohydrates and makes a bread that tastes very good to a small boy who has spent the day making the flour.

Recently in Italy, Russia and the Czech Republic archaeologists found grindstones, that by identifying the plant material embedded on them were used to create flour from the roots of rushes and ferns. From the remains, these grindstones have been dated to have been last used over 30,000 years ago. So our European ancient ancestors were making flour and as other fragments confirm, bread. Instead of having just mastodon burgers and veggies, they may have even put their meat between two slices of bread. Which could put the sandwich's invention many thousands of years before the Earl of Sandwich thought of it.

Today's interesting fact has to do with our possible ancient ancestors, Homo Heidelbergensis. This species lived about a half a million years ago, and is thought by some to be the joint ancestors of Homo Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens.

They have recently discovered the bones of one individual who would have been about 45, who's spine was severely bent over and had slipped disks in his lower vertebra. There is no way that this individual could have done more than move around slowly and probably only with the use of a cane.

As there is no way this individual could have fed himself, he had to have been kept alive from the actions of the others in his tribe.

This coupled with the discovery of bones of a 12 year old child from the same group with skull malformations, this suggests that our distant ancestors were as caring as modern humans, and looked after their invalids and infirm as we do ours.