Neanderthals cleared of driving mammoths over cliff in mass slaughter

New evidence suggests it would have been impossible to stampede mammoths to their deaths at site in Jersey Heaps of mammoth and woolly rhino bones found piled up at the foot of a cliff were thought to be the grim results of Neanderthals driving the beasts over the edge. The piles of bones are a major feature at La Cotte de St Brelade on Jersey, one of the most spectacular Neanderthal sites in Europe. But the claim that they mark the remains of mass slaughter has been all but ruled out by a fresh investigation. Researchers have found that the plateau that ends at the cliff edge was so rocky and uneven that mammoths and other weighty beasts would never have ventured up there. Even if the creatures had clambered so high, the Neanderthals would have had to chase them down a steep dip and back up the other side long before the animals reached the cliff edge and plunged to their doom. "I can't imagine a way in which Neanderthals would have been able to force mammoths down this slope and then up again before they even got to the edge of the headland," said Beccy Scott, an archaeologist at the British Museum. "And they're unlikely to have got up there in the first place." Hundreds of thousands of stone tools and bone fragments have been uncovered at the Jersey site where Neanderthals lived on and off for around 200,000 years. The site was apparently abandoned from time to time when the climate cooled, forcing the Neanderthals back to warmer territory. Scott and her colleagues drew on a survey of the seabed that stretches away from the cliff to reconstruct the landscape when the Neanderthals lived there. The land, now submerged under higher sea levels, was cut with granite ravines, gullies and dead-end valleys – a terrain perfect for stalking and ambushing prey. "The site would have been an ideal vantage point for Neanderthal hunters. They could have looked out over the open plain and watched mammoths, woolly rhinos and horses moving around. They could see what was going on, and move out and ambush their prey," said Scott. Details of the study are published in the journal Antiquity. The researchers have an alternative explanation for the bone heaps. Neanderthals living there may have brought the bones there after hunts, or from scavenged carcasses, and used them for food, heating and even building shelters. Older sediments at the site are rich with burnt bone and charcoal, suggesting the bones were used as fuel. The heaps of bones were preserved when Neanderthals last abandoned the site, and a fine dust of silt blew over and preserved the remains. Archaeologists have investigated the site at La Cotte de St Brelade since the mid-19th century. More artefacts have been unearthed here than at all the other Neanderthal sites in the British Isles put together. The exposed coastal site, one of the last resting places of the Neanderthals, was battered by fierce storms in February, raising fears that ancient remains at the site had been destroyed. Neanderthals Anthropology Zoology Geology Jersey Channel Islands Europe Ian Sample theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Neanderthals cleared of driving mammoths over cliff in mass slaughter

New evidence suggests it would have been impossible to stampede mammoths to their deaths at site in Jersey Heaps of mammoth and woolly rhino bones found piled up at the foot of a cliff were thought to be the grim results of Neanderthals driving the beasts over the edge. The piles of bones are a major feature at La Cotte de St Brelade on Jersey, one of the most spectacular Neanderthal sites in Europe. But the claim that they mark the remains of mass slaughter has been all but ruled out by a fresh investigation. Researchers have found that the plateau that ends at the cliff edge was so rocky and uneven that mammoths and other weighty beasts would never have ventured up there. Even if the creatures had clambered so high, the Neanderthals would have had to chase them down a steep dip and back up the other side long before the animals reached the cliff edge and plunged to their doom. "I can't imagine a way in which Neanderthals would have been able to force mammoths down this slope and then up again before they even got to the edge of the headland," said Beccy Scott, an archaeologist at the British Museum. "And they're unlikely to have got up there in the first place." Hundreds of thousands of stone tools and bone fragments have been uncovered at the Jersey site where Neanderthals lived on and off for around 200,000 years. The site was apparently abandoned from time to time when the climate cooled, forcing the Neanderthals back to warmer territory. Scott and her colleagues drew on a survey of the seabed that stretches away from the cliff to reconstruct the landscape when the Neanderthals lived there. The land, now submerged under higher sea levels, was cut with granite ravines, gullies and dead-end valleys – a terrain perfect for stalking and ambushing prey. "The site would have been an ideal vantage point for Neanderthal hunters. They could have looked out over the open plain and watched mammoths, woolly rhinos and horses moving around. They could see what was going on, and move out and ambush their prey," said Scott. Details of the study are published in the journal Antiquity. The researchers have an alternative explanation for the bone heaps. Neanderthals living there may have brought the bones there after hunts, or from scavenged carcasses, and used them for food, heating and even building shelters. Older sediments at the site are rich with burnt bone and charcoal, suggesting the bones were used as fuel. The heaps of bones were preserved when Neanderthals last abandoned the site, and a fine dust of silt blew over and preserved the remains. Archaeologists have investigated the site at La Cotte de St Brelade since the mid-19th century. More artefacts have been unearthed here than at all the other Neanderthal sites in the British Isles put together. The exposed coastal site, one of the last resting places of the Neanderthals, was battered by fierce storms in February, raising fears that ancient remains at the site had been destroyed. Neanderthals Anthropology Zoology Geology Jersey Channel Islands Europe Ian Sample theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Budget 2014: are you better off than this time last year?

As we approach Budget day on March 19, we'd like to to find out whether you're better, or worse off, than this time last year. Share your video stories via GuardianWitness Guardian readers

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Budget 2014: are you better off than this time last year?

As we approach Budget day on March 19, we'd like to to find out whether you're better, or worse off, than this time last year. Share your video stories via GuardianWitness Guardian readers

URL: http://feeds.theguardian.com/c/34708/f/663877/s/37a49087/sc/4/l/0L0Stheguardian0N0Cuk0Enews0C20A140Cfeb0C280Cbudget0E20A140Ebetter0Eoff0Elast0Eyear0Evideo/story01.htm

We need to understand victims of domestic violence, not shame them | Lola Okolosie

The absence of accurate figures on domestic violence speaks volumes about a society that disbelieves women who live in fear More than 10,000 women and children face the possibility of being murdered or seriously injured by their partners or exes. Even more saddening is that this figure is an underestimation of the true scale of the domestic violence problem. Almost 40% of female murder victims, that is two women a week, die at the hands of someone that is, or was, an intimate partner. These statistics, horrific as there are, have an ability to simply wash over us and become part of the drip drip of things to feel awful about but powerless to change. The numbers never manage to fully convey the reality of a life terrorised by a person who insists a slap, punch or kick is a sign of love. This week the organisation Co-ordinated Action Against Domestic Abuse published research on how agencies can effectively help children living with domestic violence, 50% of whom are unknown to public bodies. They are the faceless many: 130,000 to be exact. These children appear overly aggressive, at times agitated, and prone to jumping at the sound of bodies aggressively moving against each other, doors being slammed and objects smashed. Or they are distant in social contexts, unwilling and unable to bring friends back home, and particularly attuned to the ways in which voices can carry gut-wrenching fear of imminent physical pain. The figures attest a type of violence that is endemic within modern society. Yet the data shows that the very public institutions that should be protecting vulnerable women and children are continuing to fail them, viewing the threat as too pernicious a problem to tackle systematically. Of the police forces asked to share their data on domestic violence with the Guardian, Cambridgeshire, Durham, Humberside and Lancashire were unable to provide figures for the numbers of women under high risk of death and injury. In London, where 10 calls an hour are the result of domestic violence incidences, only 87 at-risk women were identified. The absence of accurate figures speaks volumes about a society that continues to disbelieve women who, more than anyone else, know what their abusers are capable of. The same society that isn't up in arms over cuts to domestic violence services and a culture that, rather than holding perpetrators of abuse accountable, seeks instead to blame victims for their abuse, endlessly asking "why doesn't she leave?", as if staying, not the violence, is the real problem. If only leaving were that simple. It isn't. A third of women will continue to experience violence even once they have ended the relationship. Many still will find that any help in civil cases related to divorce and contact rights are now gone, thereby increasing the difficulty of leaving an abusive partner. As a result of drastic cuts to legal aid, survivors of domestic violence will be able to receive it only when they have logged abuse either with their GP or the police. The onus of support for the survivor is placed squarely on her shoulders. If she is unable to gain it, the abuse becomes, yet again, her fault. Society begins to sound rather like her abuser. Home, with its expansive suggestions of love and safety, is not where you expect to find violence and intimidation. We should choose to remember this before blaming victims. Home shouldn't be a place of pervasive and constant dread; a place where rape is a reality, in a room directly adjacent to that of children rather than in a dark alleyway. It shouldn't be a place where a parent uses a child as a tool in the abuse of a partner, labelling, often, mothers as bad, stupid or simply unworthy of a life free from such violence. Shame and guilt are supplementary tools in physical violence prone to emerge at the drop of a hat. Such violent acts are, invariably, followed by an insistence that these actions are tolerable and therefore normal. It is a double psychic wounding that leaves children feeling rootless and afraid. Some become so consumed by rage that it is all ooutsiders expect from them, while others still will be unable to trust and form meaningful relationships with friends and potential partners. Children become adults carrying traumatic experiences rarely reflected upon if ever talked about with others. We can begin to help by understanding young people who act up and women that stay. Shame is such a powerful emotion – it is a pity it should be displaced from those responsible for such agony, to the victims and survivors. Domestic violence Women Crime Lola Okolosie theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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We need to understand victims of domestic violence, not shame them | Lola Okolosie

The absence of accurate figures on domestic violence speaks volumes about a society that disbelieves women who live in fear More than 10,000 women and children face the possibility of being murdered or seriously injured by their partners or exes. Even more saddening is that this figure is an underestimation of the true scale of the domestic violence problem. Almost 40% of female murder victims, that is two women a week, die at the hands of someone that is, or was, an intimate partner. These statistics, horrific as there are, have an ability to simply wash over us and become part of the drip drip of things to feel awful about but powerless to change. The numbers never manage to fully convey the reality of a life terrorised by a person who insists a slap, punch or kick is a sign of love. This week the organisation Co-ordinated Action Against Domestic Abuse published research on how agencies can effectively help children living with domestic violence, 50% of whom are unknown to public bodies. They are the faceless many: 130,000 to be exact. These children appear overly aggressive, at times agitated, and prone to jumping at the sound of bodies aggressively moving against each other, doors being slammed and objects smashed. Or they are distant in social contexts, unwilling and unable to bring friends back home, and particularly attuned to the ways in which voices can carry gut-wrenching fear of imminent physical pain. The figures attest a type of violence that is endemic within modern society. Yet the data shows that the very public institutions that should be protecting vulnerable women and children are continuing to fail them, viewing the threat as too pernicious a problem to tackle systematically. Of the police forces asked to share their data on domestic violence with the Guardian, Cambridgeshire, Durham, Humberside and Lancashire were unable to provide figures for the numbers of women under high risk of death and injury. In London, where 10 calls an hour are the result of domestic violence incidences, only 87 at-risk women were identified. The absence of accurate figures speaks volumes about a society that continues to disbelieve women who, more than anyone else, know what their abusers are capable of. The same society that isn't up in arms over cuts to domestic violence services and a culture that, rather than holding perpetrators of abuse accountable, seeks instead to blame victims for their abuse, endlessly asking "why doesn't she leave?", as if staying, not the violence, is the real problem. If only leaving were that simple. It isn't. A third of women will continue to experience violence even once they have ended the relationship. Many still will find that any help in civil cases related to divorce and contact rights are now gone, thereby increasing the difficulty of leaving an abusive partner. As a result of drastic cuts to legal aid, survivors of domestic violence will be able to receive it only when they have logged abuse either with their GP or the police. The onus of support for the survivor is placed squarely on her shoulders. If she is unable to gain it, the abuse becomes, yet again, her fault. Society begins to sound rather like her abuser. Home, with its expansive suggestions of love and safety, is not where you expect to find violence and intimidation. We should choose to remember this before blaming victims. Home shouldn't be a place of pervasive and constant dread; a place where rape is a reality, in a room directly adjacent to that of children rather than in a dark alleyway. It shouldn't be a place where a parent uses a child as a tool in the abuse of a partner, labelling, often, mothers as bad, stupid or simply unworthy of a life free from such violence. Shame and guilt are supplementary tools in physical violence prone to emerge at the drop of a hat. Such violent acts are, invariably, followed by an insistence that these actions are tolerable and therefore normal. It is a double psychic wounding that leaves children feeling rootless and afraid. Some become so consumed by rage that it is all ooutsiders expect from them, while others still will be unable to trust and form meaningful relationships with friends and potential partners. Children become adults carrying traumatic experiences rarely reflected upon if ever talked about with others. We can begin to help by understanding young people who act up and women that stay. Shame is such a powerful emotion – it is a pity it should be displaced from those responsible for such agony, to the victims and survivors. Domestic violence Women Crime Lola Okolosie theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Politics Weekly podcast: Ukraine, IRA letters and the Daily Mail v Harriet Harman

The crisis in Ukraine continues this week amid a power vacuum, a currency crash and the manoeuvrings and military incursions of its neighbours. Kiev has requested the attention of the UN security council as Russian forces amass in the largely pro-Moscow and historically Russian region of Crimea. Joining Tom Clark in the studio are the Guardian's former Moscow correspondent Luke Harding, political columnist Michael White and political diarist Hugh Muir. Also this week: the collapse of the trial of a suspected former IRA killer has led to a judicial inquiry and the near resignation of Northern Ireland's first minister. The suspect – John Downey – was able to produce a letter from the British government that amounted to a "get out of jail free" card dating from the peace talks during Tony Blair's time as prime minister. Plus: the Daily Mail, which last year branded Ed Miliband's father Ralph "the man who hated Britain", has been campaigning to extract an apology from senior Labour figures who worked at the National Council for Civil Liberties in the 1970s. The NCCL, it transpires, allowed a group called the Paedophile Information Exchange to gain affiliate status. Several of its members were later convicted of sex offences. Has the row done lasting damage to Labour? Leave your thoughts below. Tom Clark Michael White Hugh Muir Phil Maynard Luke Harding

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