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Oldest Fossils of Homo Sapiens Found in Morocco

nytimes.com

51–60 of 76 posts

Re: Oldest Fossils of Homo Sapiens Found in Morocco

#51
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Carbon 14 has a half-life of 5,730 years. After 57,300 years, only 1/1024 of the original carbon 14 will remain. After 300,000 years, about 1.73 * 10^-16 of the original carbon will remain, which is obviously too little.

> which is obviously too little

To fill in the detail: Carbon-14 has an abundance of about 1 part in 10^12, and one gram of carbon contain about 10^23 carbon atoms, so about 10^11 C-14 atoms. Every single C-14 atom will have decayed in about 200k years.

Re: Oldest Fossils of Homo Sapiens Found in Morocco

#52

i am just happy to see my country Morocco in hacker news. it means also that we are the origin of humanity haha

Only for this week! Last week's New Scientist contained an article that had hom. sap. being of eastern european origin rather than african. There was quite a lot of controversy and conjecture though.

(IANAA) The archaeological record is sketchy at best for our prehistory and huge amounts of conjecture is based on very fragmentary evidence. Entire (sub) species are known only from a single bone or a few teeth.

Anyway - cheers to Morocco - cradle of humanity, for now 8)

Re: Oldest Fossils of Homo Sapiens Found in Morocco

#53

The clock is "reset" on these types of things so frequently that I can help wondering why we speak so confidently about the origins of our species, and how long we've been here, and ultimately where we came from on this earth.

This is more a problem with science reporting than with the science itself.

Saying 'modern humans' or 'homo sapiens' are X years old is a misleading statement. Evolution isn't some binary where all of a sudden you have modern humans. It's genetic change over time.

Better reporting would be to compare this find with relatively modern features in Morocco at 300,00 years ago, to Homo Naledi with archaic features in South Africa at 335,000 to 236,000 years ago. As other users put it, compare this data point to other data points.

This find implies that relatively modern humans had spread to multiple parts of Africa by 300,000 ya, while at the same time evolutionary cousins like H. naledi persisted in other parts.

"And if that is true, Dr. Gunz and his colleagues argue, then our species may have been evolving as a network of groups spread across the continent." This IMO is the best sentence summarizing the impact of this find, and makes the most sense evolutionarily. Instead of having one group evolve all modern traits, and then 70,000 years ago explode across Africa and then the globe, you have several groups with limited interbreeding evolving 'modern' traits. The interbreeding allows the traits to cross into other groups, and modern humans are the result of a particularly successful combination of traits where some traits arose in one group or location and some in others.

So sure, in evolutionary deep time (1-2 million years) East Africa remains the cradle of humanity. But this find updates the story that by 300,000 years ago, the groups that became human had left the cradle. That's a big story, and is a much better summation than the misleading "Humans are X years old, older than Y that we previously thought".

Re: Oldest Fossils of Homo Sapiens Found in Morocco

#54
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The clock is "reset" on these types of things so frequently It really isn't; this doesn't change anything, we previously knew we were at least 200k years old, that fact is still true. We now know we're at least 300k years old, that fact will also always remain true. What's at fault is your understanding of what science is saying rather than what it's actually saying. > that I can help wondering why we speak so conf…

But seriously, what the heck makes more current information better? We aren't talking about significant technological advancements in the last 30 years in dating. What about releasing the click bait news story when a date is corroborated by a new piece of evidence, instead of every time some new find is dated we change the scientifically accepted just to the new number. gnaritas, its hilarious how you ask a very legi…

It's not about the newest number being the best number, it's simply an older number that changes our idea of the timeline. So yes, it there is validity in it because it's "new" data that differs from our existing data giving us a fuller understanding of the timeline.

And I think you're confusing me with the OP, I didn't ask any question at all, nor do I think the OP's question is legitimate. The OP is assuming incorrectly that current science states definitively when homo sapiens began, but it doesn't, it merely says here's the oldest evidence we currently have so we're at least this old; science never said we're not older. As we cannot time travel, we can never definitively say when homo sapiens began, it will always be an estimate based on the oldest fossils found and as such that estimate can be changed anytime new fossils are found that pre-date the existing oldest fossil.

Re: Oldest Fossils of Homo Sapiens Found in Morocco

#55
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's ground-penetrating_radar but that just helps you know where to toil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-penetrating_radar

Hmm, turns out there is a whole wiki page devoted to that and other methodologies for archaeological surveying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophysical_survey_(archaeolog...

Non-invasive technologies are super-cool because we may not actually want to disturb stuff until we have the technology to do it properly. Some stuff we may never want to disturb for cultural or other reasons.

Re: Oldest Fossils of Homo Sapiens Found in Morocco

#56
post #18

> Since 2004, Dr. Hublin and his colleagues have been working through layers of rocks on a desert hillside at Jebel Irhoud. I have so much respect for archeologists. Spending over a decade in one spot, literally on hands and knees, digging and meticulously sifting through anything that is found, is to me the epitome of dedication to a craft. But another part of me thinks: there must be a better way! I know that exped…

There was recently a segment on 60 Minutes about using satellite data, such has been very effective in some cases: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/space-archaeology-transforms-how...

Re: Oldest Fossils of Homo Sapiens Found in Morocco

#59
post #52

i am just happy to see my country Morocco in hacker news. it means also that we are the origin of humanity haha

Only for this week! Last week's New Scientist contained an article that had hom. sap. being of eastern european origin rather than african. There was quite a lot of controversy and conjecture though. (IANAA) The archaeological record is sketchy at best for our prehistory and huge amounts of conjecture is based on very fragmentary evidence. Entire (sub) species are known only from a single bone or a few teeth. Anyway…

It wasn't a homo sapien in Europe, it was a much earlier hominid, ~8 million years earlier.

Re: Oldest Fossils of Homo Sapiens Found in Morocco

#60
post #27

Morocco is a great country with great resources, too bad its king takes most of them and sells them for his own benefit.

why the down votes ? i can confirm he is right

Because it's not relevant to the story or discussion?
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