In the Cradle of Humankind, hair 200,000 years older than the current "record holders" was found. Scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg believe that the hair was human
Previously, the oldest hair found was the Chinchorro mummy. Their age was estimated at 9 thousand years. The current find, which has become a real archaeological success, from 195 to 257 thousand.
The hair was found inside the Gladysvale cave in petrified hyena excrement. Apparently, this practice is quite common among archaeologists.
"Hair from ancient mammals is commonly found in amber, in permafrost rocks and in the faeces of carnivores," explains the head of the study, paleontologist Lucinda Backwell.
They have survived due to the fact that coprolites of predators (fossilized remains of excrement) are rich in calcium.
Scientists were able to extract about 40 hairs using special tweezers. Their further analysis showed that there are no traces of proteins in the fossils, and the study of DNA is also impossible. Since the hair has passed through the digestive tract of the animal, no conclusions can be drawn about their pigmentation and shape (whether they were straight or curly).
It was possible to establish precisely that before scientists it was human hair that was allowed by scanning with a scanning electron microscope: the size and shape of the hair, a special pattern of cuticle scales, peculiar only to humans, testified in favor of this fact.
The discovery, described in an article in the Journal of Archaeological Science, suggests that hyenas ate humans. It is not clear only whether the animals attacked living people or fed on "sapiens" after their natural death, paleontologists note in a university press release. Despite the fact that hyenas are considered scavengers, there are cases when modern Hyaena brunnea hunted baboons, and therefore the first scenario cannot be completely ruled out.
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The authors' article can also be downloaded here (PDF-file, 1.1 MB).
It is still difficult to say who exactly the found hair belonged to. In terms of time, these may be Heidelberg people (Homo heidelbergensis), and maybe other hominid species, as yet unknown.