Sometimes I think people need to spend more time outdoors. Because before even reading the article, I took one look at the pictures, and thought, "Oh, ok, animal tracks."
I just hope the new and 'improved' X files show, won't try to take this subject as an opportunity to make yet another dubious episode ... Seriously though, could simply be a deformed human hand.
That entire process described seems rather bizarre - as just glancing at that image I can see that those are lizard feet stencils - and the fact that she had the brainwave after visiting an crocodile farm underlines how clear they are.
I wonder how many research opportunities are missed because scientists hoard information that is mysterious to them but obvious to others.
I suppose it's the broken publication system that drives this behaviour.
Even if you walk into a cave and say "that's a lizard hand", in the academic world you need to give some proof. Thus resorting to statistical analysis to confirm.
However, your comment made me ask the question "what if we had a website that was a super-hi-res tour of the cave that we all could look at". I'm suprised something like that doesn't exist. Best thing out there seems to be a book with images of all 8000 characters: http://www.fjexpeditions.com/frameset/beasts.htm
Edit: to address the silly comments on this thread, the lizards were likely dead (not sentient) and the people grabbed them to use as stencils.
My point was rather that she went depth-first (i.e. let's exhaustively study baby hands) rather than breadth first, due to her specific domain of knowledge. Had the material been shared with a broader audience of her peers, perhaps it would have saved rather a bit of time and effort.
"It's unclear why the ancient people at Wadi Sūra II used reptile hands as stencils, but Honoré said she's working on a tumblr post that analyzes possible reasons."
...Tumblr is now where scientific articles get published?
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 48.3 ms ] threadTrump?!
I wonder how many research opportunities are missed because scientists hoard information that is mysterious to them but obvious to others.
I suppose it's the broken publication system that drives this behaviour.
However, your comment made me ask the question "what if we had a website that was a super-hi-res tour of the cave that we all could look at". I'm suprised something like that doesn't exist. Best thing out there seems to be a book with images of all 8000 characters: http://www.fjexpeditions.com/frameset/beasts.htm
Edit: to address the silly comments on this thread, the lizards were likely dead (not sentient) and the people grabbed them to use as stencils.
...Tumblr is now where scientific articles get published?