Ravn
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Mainly posting for the irresistible headline 


Just as I got used to seeing myself as a dauering - is that a word? - nematode I may have to readjust my self-image to prehistoric fossil, or rather to semi-incompetent-at-hibernating prehistoric fossil. Stuff those illness beliefs...


https://www.sciencealert.com/early-humans-may-have-hibernated-through-long-winters
Link to study (all about old bones, perhaps unsurprisingly):
Antonis Bartsiokas, Juan-Luis Arsuaga
Hibernation in hominins from Atapuerca, Spain half a million years ago/Hibernation des hominidés d’Atapuerca, en Espagne, il y a un demi-million d’années
L'Anthropologie, Volume 124, Issue 5, 2020
Abstract in English, Sci-Hub goes to the wrong article.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003552120300832#!

Just as I got used to seeing myself as a dauering - is that a word? - nematode I may have to readjust my self-image to prehistoric fossil, or rather to semi-incompetent-at-hibernating prehistoric fossil. Stuff those illness beliefs...
Hmm.... but did we?While many of us might long to just sleep through this entire winter , humans - unlike a lot of other mammals - do not have the capacity to hibernate.
But a newly published study has investigated if early humans had this ability at some point. The results - although preliminary - surprisingly suggest that they did, even if they were not great at it.
[...]
We will need a lot more info before we can confirm if these ancient human ancestors were indeed hibernating, and if it was the case, how human species ended up losing the ability entirely.

https://www.sciencealert.com/early-humans-may-have-hibernated-through-long-winters
Link to study (all about old bones, perhaps unsurprisingly):
Antonis Bartsiokas, Juan-Luis Arsuaga
Hibernation in hominins from Atapuerca, Spain half a million years ago/Hibernation des hominidés d’Atapuerca, en Espagne, il y a un demi-million d’années
L'Anthropologie, Volume 124, Issue 5, 2020
Abstract in English, Sci-Hub goes to the wrong article.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003552120300832#!