41–50 of 160 posts
In case anyone else forgot the timeline, I just googled, and there’s evidence going back to ~2 million years ago of huminoids in Eurasia.
Wouldn’t that upend most theories about when the people who left Africa left Africa? Never mind, new estimates go as far back as 300,000ya.
200k years ago, that's incredible, not even the wildest science fiction can imagine what the world will look like 200k years from now
It's very common to find handprints in the Himalayas in rocks, they are everywhere.
Found at 14,000ft on the Tibetan Plateau. Very likely altitude adapted denisovans, whose genetic adaptations to living in such low oxygen are still present in modern day Tibetans. Really incredible.
There are lots of them. In many places in Tibet I've seen them, especially in the old Kham area, they were all over the place. The Tibetans believe it's prove of the depth of meditation that one can put the hand in the rock. Source: https://books.google.es/books?id=OUhmDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA101&lpg=P...
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Really amazing. I find this sort of thing absolutely haunting. It's a vivid reminder that there is nothing particularly special about this moment in time: it's only special to us because we're living it. But their present moment was no less vital and immediate and real to them as this moment is to us. And yet, it happened so incredibly long ago! I had the same feeling when I encountered a beautiful statue of a woman…
I disagree, there is something special about this moment in time. We're in an insane inflection point of human development. For millions of years things stayed roughly the same. It's really only in the last 10,000 years that stuff has really kicked off, and the last 300 where human development has gone absolutely crazy. There's several existential threats that might destroy civilization over the next few hundred year…
Given that the Tibet is particularly cold place, shouldn't these humans wear something to resist the cold? Can humans (or any fur-less animals) survive such cold climate without extra-fat or really good clothes?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really amazing. I find this sort of thing absolutely haunting. It's a vivid reminder that there is nothing particularly special about this moment in time: it's only special to us because we're living it. But their present moment was no less vital and immediate and real to them as this moment is to us. And yet, it happened so incredibly long ago! I had the same feeling when I encountered a beautiful statue of a woman…
I know just the feeling you mean. I get it when I read history too, especially biographies that cover a whole life. I can't remember where I originally read this but once someone suggested that you could also invert this idea for a fresh perspective on the modern world. If there was a time machine that I could step into to meet these ancient people and ask them about the hand prints they left I would take that trip i…
Found at 14,000ft on the Tibetan Plateau. Very likely altitude adapted denisovans, whose genetic adaptations to living in such low oxygen are still present in modern day Tibetans. Really incredible.
One possible argument is that such people would transit high altitudes going between hunting grounds (for example) but is this really enough pressure to produce a genetic advantage like this?
Now nature does tend to want to find niches because having food only you can eat tends to be of more value than having abundant food other people can also eat (eg pandas and bamboo).
But it's not easy for humans to live at 14,000 feet elevation. Animals are scarce. Vegetation is limited (eg trees likely to be conifers).
This is different to just, say, living in Arctic regions as those do have much more available food options (eg fish, migrating game, plants that can grow in the summer) than high altitudes.
Has anyone put much thought into this?
Found at 14,000ft on the Tibetan Plateau. Very likely altitude adapted denisovans, whose genetic adaptations to living in such low oxygen are still present in modern day Tibetans. Really incredible.
Really amazing. I find this sort of thing absolutely haunting. It's a vivid reminder that there is nothing particularly special about this moment in time: it's only special to us because we're living it. But their present moment was no less vital and immediate and real to them as this moment is to us. And yet, it happened so incredibly long ago! I had the same feeling when I encountered a beautiful statue of a woman…