Madden combed through this sparse record, confirming the oldest-known dice and establishing an unbroken, previously hidden lineage of chance-based games dating back at least 12,000 years, 6,000 before any counterpart in the Old World.
The first study analyzes canid remains from two sites: Pnarbas, on the Central Anatolian Plateau, and Gough's Cave, in Somerset, UK. The fragments from Pnarbas are extraordinarily small, but the team still managed to extract enough nuclear DNA to confirm that they were domestic dogs and not wolves.
I'm always looking for books that challenge the status quo, and when I learned about Roland Ennos' new book The Powerful Primate: How Controlling Energy Enabled Us to Build Civilization, I couldn't wait to get my eyes on it, and I'm thrilled I did. In this landmark book, Ennos offers "a compelling argument that flips the traditional view of humanity on its head."