51–57 of 57 posts
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No, both Neanderthals and humans are generally believed to have each evolved from Homo habilis separately, and then later interbred to varying degrees in various locales.
Right, the ancestors of Europeans and East Asians include Neanderthals.
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Right, the ancestors of Europeans and East Asians include Neanderthals.
Yes. And while "ancestors" is technically correct, I'm honoring my Neanderthal ancestors by calling them great^N grandparents. In other places, they had different names, but they were closely related.
For instance, the Denisovans are another archaic human population who split off from a common ancestor and then interbred with humans later on. And there was a recent paper which detected archaic DNA from an unknown source in West Africans. Given that species can typically interbreed for at least a million years after splitting from a common ancestor, combined with the fact that Africa had tons of hominids who coexisted with anatomically modern humans, we're probably going to discover that the story of human ancestry is highly convoluted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaic_human_admixture_with_m...
I think there's a trend in archaeology of us realizing we've been underestimating the past. The Polynesians were capable of voyaging across the Pacific to South America, and another Austronesian group made it all the way to Madagascar. This was pretty controversial until Kon-Tiki; even now, Polynesian-South American contact isn't fully accepted. (IIRC, we weren't sure how the Polynesians even found so many islands, u…
Frankly, all of the examples have a click-bait tone and deal in those topics related to "secrets of the pyramids" cable shows: controversial until proven by an amateur; science in the dark until it asks the primitive people about one "simple algorithm;" surgeons use stone age tools; Greek objects on a Pacific island (but not really).
My debunking, in order:
Yes, we now know Polynesians were long-distance intentional sea-farers, but Kon-Tiki did not prove that and was very controversial (and unscientific) in itself. Polynesian-South American contact is hypothesized but doesn't have solid evidence (sounds more neutral than "isn't fully accepted"). Currently only the sweet potato and palm tree genomics show it was likely, still waiting for artifacts or human remains that could provide solid evidence.
About Polynesian sailing, others have covered the complexity and accomplishment of their navigation, I will add that they also likely travelled seasonally: go in one season, come back when the winds shift 6 months later. Recently, the crew of the Polynesian Voyaging Society sailed around the world using these ancient techniques.
There was likely a land-bridge across the Torres Straight at glacial maximum, but not across the Wallace line further east (see the Sundaland comments). Anyway, this comment is so vague as to not really say anything.
I get the idea that we modern industrial humans under-estimate what is possible with stone-age technology and ingenuity, but the link to modern scalpels is but one minor point (that they had sharp tools). You need a lot of other properties to build things, some cultures had them available and developed them (rope for binding, cloth making, etc). One thing to remember: when Captain Cook landed in Hawaii in 1778, the Hawaiians were essentially in the stone age (though some contact with Spanish galleons or the floating remains thereof is speculated). Very soon thereafter, an ambitious local chief used western advisors and purchased guns to conquer all other islands.
You say "Greco-Roman lamps turning up [in] Palau" but the article you linked shows that it is only the design of ceramic oil lamps in Palau that might be traced back to a 6th c. bronze Byzantine lamp found in Thailand. The article itself does much to play up the sensationalist nature of Greek influence in Micronesia, but draws lots of tenuous connections between a few pottery shapes. And both the article and your short summary both fail to mention the possibility of parallel development of a basic implement (only so many ways to burn oil with a wick in a vessel). All in all, the article reads more like Popular Science (with unrelated-topless-native-woman image) than a scientific paper.
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Yes. And while "ancestors" is technically correct, I'm honoring my Neanderthal ancestors by calling them great^N grandparents. In other places, they had different names, but they were closely related.
Exactly. Though it's more complicated because if you go back even more generations, they're extremely distant cousins as well. The thing we're discovering about human ancestry is that it's not really a tree. Instead, it's more of a directed acyclic graph, where things branch off only to re-merge downstream. For instance, the Denisovans are another archaic human population who split off from a common ancestor and then…
Off topic, I'm guessing that your username is a reference to Battlestar Galactica. Yes?
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Exactly. Though it's more complicated because if you go back even more generations, they're extremely distant cousins as well. The thing we're discovering about human ancestry is that it's not really a tree. Instead, it's more of a directed acyclic graph, where things branch off only to re-merge downstream. For instance, the Denisovans are another archaic human population who split off from a common ancestor and then…
Yes, it was highly convoluted. I mean, in some unregulated bordellos, non-human primates (and other species) are available. Some of which are also food animals. Off topic, I'm guessing that your username is a reference to Battlestar Galactica. Yes?
No, just kind of a silly joke between me and my wife. Sorry to disappoint!
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Yes, it was highly convoluted. I mean, in some unregulated bordellos, non-human primates (and other species) are available. Some of which are also food animals. Off topic, I'm guessing that your username is a reference to Battlestar Galactica. Yes?
> I'm guessing that your username is a reference to Battlestar Galactica. Yes? No, just kind of a silly joke between me and my wife. Sorry to disappoint!