Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Humans 40k yrs ago developed a system of conventional signs

pnas.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 74 posts

Re: Humans 40k yrs ago developed a system of conventional signs

#61

Post by OJFord »

WalterBright wrote: post #60
card_zero wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, but that's totally a tin can telephone. Would be a fun project for an experimental archeologist. The cans - I mean gourds - have little drumskin membranes stretched over them! The twine looks like the only dubious part, too stretchy maybe. Not sure what qualities an acoustic transmission line should have.

Make one out of gourds and see if it works. If you have to yell in it, though, the other end can hear you 75 feet away just fine without it!

Why would it not? The string/twine is more the key to it really, are you thinking the gourd would be too dampening? They do say it's resin-coated.

I'm not saying I buy that that's what this was made for or how it was used, but I do reckon you can make a functional 'telephone' of this style with gourds.

Re: Humans 40k yrs ago developed a system of conventional signs

#63

Post by erikerikson »

amatecha wrote: post #22

The X's on the animal forms (Fig. 1B) ... isn't that likely to be "hit here" type markings, for hunting reference? Shoulder, side, stomach... surprised this wasn't really touched on in the paper, since it seems really likely. Though, the paper doesn't seem to care so much about the actual meanings, seemingly just narrowing down the number of possible interpretations /shrug

The Xs are in the wrong place relative to modern ethical kill standards, selected for immediate lethality. Instead those are around the heart and lungs.

Re: Humans 40k yrs ago developed a system of conventional signs

#64

Post by konfusinomicon »

eucyclos wrote: post #56
dhosek wrote: post #45

I remember in my literary theory class, one of the theorists made the (deliberately) absurd claim that writing preceded speech. Reading this, and I wonder if he was correct (as an aside, I tend to wander into the weeds in language articles on Wikipedia as I find myself increasingly curious about language evolution and I always wonder whether the different language families are “merely” a result of linguistic drift ov…

I have a theory that song used to communicate emotional states precedes and probably evolved into language as we think of it.

I like to think that bird song, evolved over millions of years going back to their dinosaur ancestors, is a language that encodes vast amounts of information that our brains can't even begin to understand the complexities of

Re: Humans 40k yrs ago developed a system of conventional signs

#65

Post by Arch485 »

amatecha wrote: post #22

The X's on the animal forms (Fig. 1B) ... isn't that likely to be "hit here" type markings, for hunting reference? Shoulder, side, stomach... surprised this wasn't really touched on in the paper, since it seems really likely. Though, the paper doesn't seem to care so much about the actual meanings, seemingly just narrowing down the number of possible interpretations /shrug

I like JR's "shaggy fur" interpretation, but my initial thought for the mammoth was that it might be butcher markings? (as someone who is not a butcher and knows less than they should about anatomy)

Re: Humans 40k yrs ago developed a system of conventional signs

#66

Post by empath75 »

card_zero wrote: post #47
dash2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they explicitly discuss it!

I wouldn't mind a quote, because the paper was incredibly hard to read, full of hedging, and never seemed to get to the point. OK, there's this section: > The Question of Decoration. > Recent studies have measured the regularity of notches on bones to determine whether they are more or less visually striking as a decoration. Increasing the regularity of distances between notches—up to the differences just about perce…

I think the paper was just an exploration of various possibilities and doesn't come to any firm conclusion, because there isn't enough information to conclude anything.

I would assume that people in the past generally did things because they found it useful, though, and the idea that they were merely idly creating art is a more remarkable claim than that they were doing something primarily utilitarian, at least from their point of view.

To me, all of it seems like tally marks and counting and tally marks are among the earliest forms of writing we have in pretty much every case that I am aware of.

Re: Humans 40k yrs ago developed a system of conventional signs

#68

Post by nucleardog »

konfusinomicon wrote: post #64
eucyclos wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a theory that song used to communicate emotional states precedes and probably evolved into language as we think of it.

I like to think that bird song, evolved over millions of years going back to their dinosaur ancestors, is a language that encodes vast amounts of information that our brains can't even begin to understand the complexities of

I'd easily believe that bird songs are vastly more complex and interesting than we currently understand!

If you haven't seen it, you might enjoy Benn Jordan's video of "saving" a PNG to a bird:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCQCP-5g5bo

(Besides the hook-y title, some interesting info on the acoustics of bird songs with some cross-over into tech.)

Re: Humans 40k yrs ago developed a system of conventional signs

#69

Post by WalterBright »

OJFord wrote: post #61
WalterBright wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make one out of gourds and see if it works. If you have to yell in it, though, the other end can hear you 75 feet away just fine without it!

Why would it not? The string/twine is more the key to it really, are you thinking the gourd would be too dampening? They do say it's resin-coated. I'm not saying I buy that that's what this was made for or how it was used, but I do reckon you can make a functional 'telephone' of this style with gourds.

Try it and see.

I seriously doubt twine would be a good carrier of vibrations over 75 feet. The fibers would dampen it out. Then there's the mass of the gourds, I doubt the faint vibrations left would vibrate them to a point you could hear anything.

I also suspect that the reason nobody tries it is because then the theory that it is a Fred Flintstone telephone falls apart.

Re: Humans 40k yrs ago developed a system of conventional signs

#70

Post by OJFord »

WalterBright wrote: post #69
OJFord wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it not? The string/twine is more the key to it really, are you thinking the gourd would be too dampening? They do say it's resin-coated. I'm not saying I buy that that's what this was made for or how it was used, but I do reckon you can make a functional 'telephone' of this style with gourds.

Try it and see. I seriously doubt twine would be a good carrier of vibrations over 75 feet. The fibers would dampen it out. Then there's the mass of the gourds, I doubt the faint vibrations left would vibrate them to a point you could hear anything. I also suspect that the reason nobody tries it is because then the theory that it is a Fred Flintstone telephone falls apart.

The onus isn't really on me, it's not my device, I'm not even the organisation/article author claiming it is functional. You claim it can't work, have you tried it and seen? (Although admittedly you can't really show by practical experiment that it can't possibly be done.)

I do think it's more likely it was for use as a rope, with gourd weights to ease throwing.

Post reply on HN