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Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

theguardian.com

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Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#121

Post by Theodores »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #56
ekianjo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about if we were the only apes to not fear fire as much and discovered that we get much more nutrients by cooking stuff?

Stone tools predate even the oldest suggestions of intentional fire use by at least a million years, so the cooking hypothesis isn't particularly compelling. Elsewhere in this thread I've also discussed how it's not really an explanation either.

The cooking hypothesis is not well known, however, from what I understand, this was when we went from having big guts and average brains to small guts and big brains. The fossil record of primates is far from complete, but roughly speaking, we have been eating cooked food for a million years.

The stone tools that predate this by a few million years reinforce the cooked food hypothesis in this 'chicken or egg' situation.

Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#122

Post by luxuryballs »

andsoitis wrote: post #120
goodmunky wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you not observed that science is very often politicized, filled with fraud or just plain mistaken? The anti-intellectual position is anti-skepticism.

Then come with proof or some shred of evidence, rather than asking an unsubstantiated question that undermines the scientific process unnecessarily by trying to insert doubt from a place of zero expertise in the field.

I think they call this the appeal to authority fallacy, it’s the people without expertise in a field that often see the holes in something first, then the holes start glowing after they get hand waved away by smug narrow-minded experts.

Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#123

Post by andsoitis »

timschmidt wrote: post #46
yongjik wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've heard, language is unambiguously unique to humans, if you consider grammar an integral part of languages. You can teach chimpanzees hand signs, but they could never make the leap to stringing them together under a coherent rule: something like the difference between "Mom give me cookies" vs "I give mom cookies." (I'm no expert, so take that with a grain of salt.)

Cetacean communication obeys Zipf's law: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11797547/ As does house finches: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.202... Sperm whale codas exhibit contextual and combinatorial structure: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47221-8 Ants have developed symbolic language: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10093743/ Everywhere we look close enough, w…

Those are interesting examples. Do you know of a species where ALL of those properties (and more) exist?

Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#124

Post by selimthegrim »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #97
AlotOfReading wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to have to explain this one. The only thing I can figure is that you're making a distinction about "traditional" RAO vs modern hybridization models, but my comment already mentions those (albeit indirectly, given that I'm writing to an audience). But if you're genuinely trying to say that the broad strokes out of africa model isn't consensus, I have no idea what you're talking about. Just to make sure I…

OOA is extremely problematic. Lots of hoops are needed to make it work - a double exodus from Africa and a population bottleneck, etc. None of these hoops are needed if we just let go and assume a Middle Eastern origin for homo sapiens. Basically the only reason a Kuhnian paradigm shift isn't happening is because of American politics; OOA is needed to debunk some stupid 19th century American racial theories. (Theorie…

But where’s the evidence? I haven’t heard Reich or Paäbo go about this.

Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#125

Post by AlotOfReading »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #97
AlotOfReading wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to have to explain this one. The only thing I can figure is that you're making a distinction about "traditional" RAO vs modern hybridization models, but my comment already mentions those (albeit indirectly, given that I'm writing to an audience). But if you're genuinely trying to say that the broad strokes out of africa model isn't consensus, I have no idea what you're talking about. Just to make sure I…

OOA is extremely problematic. Lots of hoops are needed to make it work - a double exodus from Africa and a population bottleneck, etc. None of these hoops are needed if we just let go and assume a Middle Eastern origin for homo sapiens. Basically the only reason a Kuhnian paradigm shift isn't happening is because of American politics; OOA is needed to debunk some stupid 19th century American racial theories. (Theorie…

A middle eastern origin presents obvious problems explaining the genetic diversity data and the serial founder effects we observe globally. These naturally fall out of African origin, whereas a middle eastern origin needs a back to Africa that somehow avoids founder effects.

Which stupid racial theories do you think African origin is trying to debunk and why would the many European researchers working on human origins care?

Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#126

Post by kalaksi »

luxuryballs wrote: post #122
andsoitis wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then come with proof or some shred of evidence, rather than asking an unsubstantiated question that undermines the scientific process unnecessarily by trying to insert doubt from a place of zero expertise in the field.

I think they call this the appeal to authority fallacy, it’s the people without expertise in a field that often see the holes in something first, then the holes start glowing after they get hand waved away by smug narrow-minded experts.

> it’s the people without expertise in a field that often see the holes in something first

While it's obvious that everybody makes mistakes and has blind spots, I'd wager that, in general, being more knowledgeable gives you better tools to spot actual holes.

And sure, experts too can be narrow-minded and smug. Just like everybody else.

Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#127

Post by hmm37 »

Razengan wrote: post #109
throwaway173738 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can extrapolate based on my toddler that a modern human dumped in the wild would invent language. He has made several phonemes that aren’t in the language we speak at home. And he’s clever enough that even though he’s never seen us stand on furniture, he still climbs drawers and chairs if there’s something he wants that’s out of reach. I think that tool use and language are borne of some innate drive that’s acceler…

> He has made several phonemes that aren’t in the language we speak at home. No I mean absolutely zero contact with or help from modern (say since the last 10,000 years) human civilization. I mean literally giving birth in a forest and then raising the baby there without ever speaking a word around it or showing it any tools etc. (this assumes that it will survive to 1-2 years old without any fatal sickness etc. but…

I'm pretty sure there were children where the parents basically locked them in cages or chained them to a post in the basement, where they had almost no social contact, etc. And in these cases they were considered effectively mentally disabled by the time they were rescued.

Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#128

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

WalterBright wrote: post #43
acchow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why humans evolved intelligence but orangutans did not". There's a different way to think about this that is closer to how evolution actually works and will make the answer clear. Our common ancestor (common to orangutans and humans) did evolve intelligence (concurrently with harnessing fire, clothing etc.). Not all of them, but some of them. And they broke off from the group. We now call them humans.

Intelligence must surely be a cluster of evolved changes, let's say A-Z. Each of those letters must have appeared, and been advantageous on their own (or they wouldn't have persisted). So why didn't chimps get some of them? For example, chimps have hands, but do not exhibit anywhere near the dexterity and agility of human hands.

Underrated point wrt intelligence is the extent to which it depends on fine motor control. Whether you're building tools, writing, or speaking a complex language, you need fine motor control to make that possible.

So it's not just brainpower, it's likely a combination of potential brainpower - which many species have/had - and fine motor control, which set up feedback loop that translated a mind/body synergy into practical evolutionary benefits.

Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#129

Post by matt_kantor »

slightwinder wrote: post #103
bradley13 wrote: post #85

[flagged]

But the analytics were not made in China or by a Chinese researcher. So unless they tampered with the skull's age somehow, they would have little influence here.

Twelve of the paper's thirteen authors (all except Chris Stringer) are shown as working in China according to https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado9202 (click "Authors Info & Affiliations" near the top), and the research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#130

Post by whimsicalism »

bradley13 wrote: post #85

[flagged]

Dismissing out of hand because it's from China is ridiculous but speaks to the jingoistic times we are living in, particularly when this is a Denisovan skull.

Legitimately saddens me to see such a low-info reply at the top. Highly recommend people read "who we are and how we got here" - it provides a lot of great context to discoveries like this.

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