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Fossils from Morocco complicate the story of modern humans

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Re: Fossils from Morocco complicate the story of modern humans

#51

Post by tombh »

anderspitman wrote: post #26
evolve2017 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting! I'm not sure I agree with your reasoning for the mitochondrial mutation point: > * Mitochondrial DNA is passed by mothers only and so undergoes very little mutation It's true that mothers pass on mitochondrial DNA but this doesn't necessarily require the absence of mitochondrial DNA mutations. I would imagine the lower rates of DNA mutation are due to the importance of the mitochondrial genome for g…

I would expect the mutation rates of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA to be about the same, unless the mitochondria have additional repair proteins not involved with nuclear DNA, or the shorter length of the mitochondrial chromosome affects the rates, or some other process I'm not familiar with. I think maybe parent meant to refer to diversity, not mutation. With nuclear DNA, the offspring chromosomes are made up from a…

Diversity! Not mutation. Thanks for clearing that up. I'd edit my original comment if I still could.

Re: Fossils from Morocco complicate the story of modern humans

#52

Post by micheljones »

kbenson wrote: post #46
micheljones wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I was not referring to the Black Sea deluge. That one is responsible for flood myths in Indo-European cultures (and also for the spread of the Indo-European cultures themselves), and it is more recent (6.5kya if I'm not mistaken). The article I linked clearly states that it was a fertile land basin until 8kya. I decided to ignore kbenson's lack of reading comprehension hiding behind an attempt to insert himself a…

> I decided to ignore kbenson's lack of reading comprehension hiding behind an attempt to insert himself as an arbiter through nitpicking about a thing he obviously knows nothing about While I see how it's possible you could interpret me as trying to insert myself as and arbiter instead of expressing my own lack of knowledge and asking for clarification, it was fully your own choice to not only decide that was the in…

You literally didn't read a very short article I linked in the comment you objected to; in that article the date of cca 8kya is mentioned at least twice very clearly.

But like I said, that's ok.

Re: Fossils from Morocco complicate the story of modern humans

#53

Post by micheljones »

flukus wrote: post #48
micheljones wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some tribes in north of Australia have verifiable myths about the geography of the lands that have been under the sea off the north of Australia for 6-8 thousand years at least (meaning, the description of the land features matches the sea floor geography).

Has anyone quantified their myths properly? If not then they're just cherry picking.

Do you have any proof that they are just cherry picking?

Re: Fossils from Morocco complicate the story of modern humans

#54

Post by flukus »

micheljones wrote: post #53
flukus wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone quantified their myths properly? If not then they're just cherry picking.

Do you have any proof that they are just cherry picking?

No, I just assume they are until they provide data to prove otherwise. We don't even know if the same tribes were in the same area that long ago.

Re: Fossils from Morocco complicate the story of modern humans

#55

Post by ralfd »

micheljones wrote: post #21

I was always surprised by the tendency of anthropologists to assign hard evolutionary 'milepoints' based on the very limited set of archeological data. Most egregious example is 'behavioral modernity' theory which claims that homo sapiens developed language, culture and art only relatively recently (30kya) because that's how old the currently oldest archeological finds of culture/art expression are. This doesn't stan…

But then the question is why our ancestors didn't invent stuff 100 thousand years earlier.

Re: Fossils from Morocco complicate the story of modern humans

#56

Post by danieltillett »

twelvechairs wrote: post #38
danieltillett wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed what is probably the most important thing about human evolution and that is due to the rapid population rise after the invention of argriculture more human evolution has happened in the last 10,000 years than the previous million. The other is that human population is filled with new genes that are under positive selection which have only partially spread through the population. Humans are probably the wor…

> your evidence of the oldest oral tradition is not very strong as there are only four major points on the compass. The likelihood of chance and cherry-picking is high. I think the point is that the palms are introduced (not native) more than their cardinal direction (i dont believe they were using a western compass at the time so as to have four directions)

If you read the articles linked the evidence that this "knowledge" has been passed down for 30,000 years is not strong. Firstly, the palms are native to Australia, just other populations are found 1000 km to the north. Secondly, the palms have only being separated for 15,000 years at most. Thirdly, the northern evidence is actually "gods brought the palms from the north".

Re: Fossils from Morocco complicate the story of modern humans

#57

Post by micheljones »

ralfd wrote: post #55
micheljones wrote: post #21

I was always surprised by the tendency of anthropologists to assign hard evolutionary 'milepoints' based on the very limited set of archeological data. Most egregious example is 'behavioral modernity' theory which claims that homo sapiens developed language, culture and art only relatively recently (30kya) because that's how old the currently oldest archeological finds of culture/art expression are. This doesn't stan…

But then the question is why our ancestors didn't invent stuff 100 thousand years earlier.

Well, that's not what I'm arguing. What I am arguing is that lack of proof is not proof of lack - the fact that, for example, currently oldest artwork we know of is 30 000 years old does not prove that's when homo sapiens started making art and not any earlier, but instead that it proves that humans have been making art AT LEAST 30kya, AND that they must have started doing it earlier.

P.S. the 'oldest art is 30 thousand years old' bit is in the context of 'behavioral modernity' theory at the time it was posited, based on European cave art; in the meantime, we've found even older art in a cave in Indonesia (40 thousand years old).

Re: Fossils from Morocco complicate the story of modern humans

#58

Post by posterboy »

detritus wrote: post #12
tombh wrote: post #11

Coincidently I've been reading and youtubing about human evolution recently. If anyone's interested here are some bullet point facts that may surprise other laymen. * In the last few years the Out Of Africa theory (modern humans originated solely in Africa) has received stiff competition from the Multi Regional theory. Namely that waves of human species have left Africa since we diverged from chimpanzees 4 million ye…

Wow. That last bullet point is particularly remarkable to me - both the implied level of 'technological understanding' and presumed foreplanning for significant journeys 30K years back and for the capacity of oral history to record what come today might not be the most pertinent information. Also quite amusing in the context of contemporary Australia's philosophy where alien plants and animals are concerned! :)

Maybe their digestive tract had carried the seeds ...
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