It's incredible to think that instead of isolated evolutionary tracks, early human groups were exchanging ideas, tools, and even burial customs
Why? People are people.
People have been people for 200k years. There’s a built in assumption in these sorts of stories that before the pyramids or whatever, everyone was running around like apes. Pounding their chests and each other.
I’d say of course people communicated and helped each other out. There were far fewer of us, and for the most part they lived in a world of great abundance.
There are indicators, for example, the neanderthals and all other human like great apes have mysteriously disappeared except for us. (Or gotten assimilated, I mean, we have a tiny bit neanderthal DNA) Check out killer ape theory. Also look at how violent humans are to their own species.
So no evidence, just more of the cutting edge, widely followed, paper-thin theory of inevitable evil. > There are indicators, for example, the neanderthals and all other human like great apes have mysteriously disappeared except for us. (Or gotten assimilated, I mean, we have a tiny bit neanderthal DNA) That's not an indication at all. It's an outcome. > Also look at how violent humans are to their own species. Human…
This is one of the themes in Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari: the extinction of many large animal species. Harari discusses how Homo sapiens, as they spread across the globe, contributed to the decline and extinction of megafauna (large animals) due to hunting practices and environmental changes, and offers various explanations for the disappearance of other humanoids due to the rise of the homo sapiens.
Does this have implications for understanding the abilities of Neanderthals? For instance, might more advanced tools found in Neanderthal sites have been created by non-Neanderthals, and exchanged in trade or captured/ stolen?
> Species is a construct though, our genes have no idea about species. You could also say that atoms are a construct, also molecules and nuclei. Nature has no concept of any of those. But the clumping is repeatable enough at everyday energies so that it's useful to think about it in those terms.
> You could also say that atoms are a construct, also molecules and nuclei. You could say it, but they are real things that interact with the environment. DNA is a real thing that interacts with the environment. Species, the periodic table, etc. are constructs. They are useful because they help us understand the world.
It's just clumps of matter. Ssme way species is just a clump of individuals.
> Species, the periodic table, etc. are constructs. They are useful because they help us understand the world.
Also, we are more peaceful species now, than 40 000 years ago.
Perhaps all that Neanderthal DNA we assimilated changed us. Cold-adapted mammals tend to be more cooperative within their species.
Isnt autism and other traits from neanderthal related genes? When I grew up I was told neanderthals died out because they werent capable of making big tribes and adapting themselves.
So its just guess after guess. Now it seems non subsaharan people have some neanderthal dna, they were more capable than we thought and some theories say they could see in the dark
> Also look at how violent humans are to their own species. Species is a construct though, our genes have no idea about species. Also I think that organisms feel most threatened by same-niche competitors, and least threatened by non-competitors. Similar but just different enough is like the worst case in terms of same-niche competition. Like how geese and ducks will act really adversarial towards each other, and then…
> Species is a construct though, our genes have no idea about species. You could also say that atoms are a construct, also molecules and nuclei. Nature has no concept of any of those. But the clumping is repeatable enough at everyday energies so that it's useful to think about it in those terms.
My point is that it isn’t really unexpected from a biological perspective that humans are violent towards “their own species”, because our instincts don’t know about the concept of species.
My impression is that people who bemoan man’s inhumanity to man typically act as if all humans should be interpreted as family members by our instincts and somehow they aren’t due to culture, and I don’t think that line of thinking is supported by biology (because species is a construct).