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210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia

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Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia

#81

Post by inawarminister »

Taniwha wrote: post #61
f2f wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

adding australian aborigines, who some consider to be the oldest human civilization, dna-wise https://www.history.com/news/dna-study-finds-aboriginal-aust...

You forget about Africa which seems to have the largest genetic diversity of Homo Sapiens (the prehistoric dispora seems to have been a genetic narrowing point) - that means wider tails on bell curves - it's why they have the tallest and shortest populations, the fastest (and probably slowest), etc etc

Yeah, the Khoisan seem to be the FIRST population group to diverge from mainstream homo Sapiens (or was it the other way around?), and IIRC supposedly compose half of humanity by numbers back 100,000-20,000 years ago. It seems Ice Age Central and Southern Africa were the best biome for hunting-gathering humans.

Of course, post-agriculture most humanity lives in (East and South) Asia, except in Cyrus' age where a third of humanity lives in West Asia and Eastern North Africa. Persia ruled 1/3rd of humanity then, the most out of any empire after that. Except perhaps China of some periods

Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia

#82

Post by trendoid »

yellowapple wrote: post #69
astrodust wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there's basically a zero percent chance of surviving that long intact. If we do survive it will be by changing and adapting to the point of not being human any more.

I wonder if humans/hominids from 210,000 years ago had similar speculations?

I doubt they had the ability to speculate about the future of their (or any) species.

Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia

#83

Post by zaat »

doubleunplussed wrote: post #71
zaat wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the link you provided as evidence to the improbability of GP's premise. Consider that common daily used words can change to a degree that they at best resemble their origin, and that in just a single or two millenniums. Do you believe any oral tradition can survive and preserve anything from it's original meaning after 20k years? Do you know any story about your family from 300 years ago? Do you know anyone who…

We don't have strong oral traditions anymore, so I really have no way to guess how long things can be passed down by cultures that do. There's evidence the indigenous Australians passed down knowledge of the end of the last glaciation period [1] 10000 - 13000 years ago. [1] https://theconversation.com/ancient-aboriginal-stories-prese...

Again, 10000 - 13000 years ago is much closer to us than the Neanderthals are to the ancient Aboriginal Australians or the ancient Hebrewes. And this stories, if they indeed are 13,000 years old, are by far the oldest example we have.

Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia

#84

Post by Razengan »

Razengan wrote: post #53
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general consensus up until now is, roughly: Homo Erectus: 1 million B.C. to about 500,000 B.C. Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens split off from common ancestor: 500,000 B.C. Homo Sapiens dominate Africa until about 70,000 B.C. when they spread into Europe, Middle East, and Asia. Neanderthals dominate Europe, Middle East, and Asia, until 70,000 B.C. when Homo Sapiens return out of Africa. There are a few othe…

> Homo Erectus: 1 million B.C. to about 500,000 B.C. Can you imagine the period of sheer.. uneventfulness? It's an indescribable unease for me, imagining a planet where nothing really happens, just animals doing their thing... Even worse if you're a semi-sapient species, with just enough awareness to know that things could be better, but not seeing any improvement in your entire life.. I mean, imagine us staying basi…

On the other hand, it also sounds like paradise, untainted by sentient wills.

Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia

#85

Post by DrScump »

maxlamb wrote: post #72
losvedir wrote: post #3

Can someone link to a kind of summary of the current best understanding of human evolution and dispersal? It's really fascinating to me. Until recently, I had naively understood "Out of Africa" to mean that homo sapiens evolved in Africa from some sort of ape like thing and then went out and conquered the world. But the idea that homo sapiens is just one of many kinds of human species, and that other ones like Neande…

You would probably want to read "The Journey of Man" by Spencer Wells, great book on this topic.

There is also a good PBS miniseries of his work using the same title. One benefit is seeing his interactions with different aboriginal societies and how respectfully he treats their origin stories.

Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia

#86

Post by ralfd »

ummonk wrote: post #64
f2f wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

adding australian aborigines, who some consider to be the oldest human civilization, dna-wise https://www.history.com/news/dna-study-finds-aboriginal-aust...

There is no such thing as oldest, dna-wise. Not like dna is frozen in time for some people but not others.

What is meant here is "most divergent" genetics, but that sounds potentially loaded and less nice than "oldest".

See also the genetics of the San people here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_people#Genetics

Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia

#87

Post by ralfd »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #9
losvedir wrote: post #3

Can someone link to a kind of summary of the current best understanding of human evolution and dispersal? It's really fascinating to me. Until recently, I had naively understood "Out of Africa" to mean that homo sapiens evolved in Africa from some sort of ape like thing and then went out and conquered the world. But the idea that homo sapiens is just one of many kinds of human species, and that other ones like Neande…

The general consensus up until now is, roughly: Homo Erectus: 1 million B.C. to about 500,000 B.C. Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens split off from common ancestor: 500,000 B.C. Homo Sapiens dominate Africa until about 70,000 B.C. when they spread into Europe, Middle East, and Asia. Neanderthals dominate Europe, Middle East, and Asia, until 70,000 B.C. when Homo Sapiens return out of Africa. There are a few othe…

> They were possibly as smart as modern humans, had larger brains, had tools, ritual burial, weapons technologies, and art work.

But the new discovery discussed in the article throws that into question. As the Atlantic writes:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/apidima-...

> The identity of Apidima 1 could also cast doubt on other archaeological finds from Europe, such as stone tools with no accompanying fossils. Researchers had long assumed that within a certain time window, “any archaeology was all the work of Neanderthals,” says Wragg Sykes. But if modern humans also occupied this “safe range,” which species actually created those artifacts?

Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia

#88

Post by [deleted] »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #78
Taniwha wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well they sort of did - modern Europeans are now acknowledged to carry some Neanderthal DNA (estimates go somewhere between 1.5-20% depending on how you count) People who think that Neanderthals/etc were "lesser" humans (for whatever bogus reasons) probably also need to conclude (for the same reasons) that Europeans are also lesser humans

> People who think that Neanderthals/etc were "lesser" humans (for whatever bogus reasons) probably also need to conclude (for the same reasons) that Europeans are also lesser humans The strongest real inferiority argument is that we survived and they didn't. But if they/we are still here then that's right out the window.

[deleted]

Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia

#89

Post by devoply »

criddell wrote: post #8
losvedir wrote: post #3

Can someone link to a kind of summary of the current best understanding of human evolution and dispersal? It's really fascinating to me. Until recently, I had naively understood "Out of Africa" to mean that homo sapiens evolved in Africa from some sort of ape like thing and then went out and conquered the world. But the idea that homo sapiens is just one of many kinds of human species, and that other ones like Neande…

You might enjoy Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens . It's written for a general audience and I got a lot out of it.

However Sapiens is not about pre-history. It's about history and written by a historian.

Re: 210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia

#90

Post by lm28469 »

eloff wrote: post #17
Swenrekcah wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also think in terms of generations. If everyone has a kid at 20 then you can draw 100 stick figures in a line to go 2000 years back. Not so long when you look at it.

So this person 200k years ago was roughly 10000 generations ago. That's long in human terms and very short in the history of the earth.

The entire history of mammals is already quite small when you compare it to the history of earth. Protohumans/humans history is a drop in the ocean.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Earth#/media/File...

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