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Rock engravings made by Homo Naledi ~300k years ago

biorxiv.org

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Re: Rock engravings made by Homo Naledi ~300k years ago

#21

Post by irrational »

akiselev wrote: post #16

The news is that homo naledi did these things at the same time as humans despite a much smaller brain size, contradicting the social brain hypothesis somewhat. Their cranial capacity was 465-610 cubic cm compared to about 1,300 for humans [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_naledi Edit: this was a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36345824 and dang moved it (??)

If humans were around at the same time as homo naledi, how do they know that it was homo naledi? Couldn't a random human just wander in one afternoon and make the marks?

Re: Rock engravings made by Homo Naledi ~300k years ago

#22

Post by r13a »

PM_me_your_math wrote: post #19
revicon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement "Large variances in human populations come from different hybrid compositions" seems a particularly provocative statement. Is there a source where this comes from?

I don't see how. Many of us have Neanderthal DNA. Objective facts are only considered (falsely) provocative if the provoked has an axe to grind, or a pursuit other than objective truth.

I definitely see how this statement is provocative when overwhelming scientific consensus underlines a very low variance in human population that is NOT explained by variance in traces of non-homo sapiens DNA.

Re: Rock engravings made by Homo Naledi ~300k years ago

#23

Post by tsimionescu »

PM_me_your_math wrote: post #19
revicon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement "Large variances in human populations come from different hybrid compositions" seems a particularly provocative statement. Is there a source where this comes from?

I don't see how. Many of us have Neanderthal DNA. Objective facts are only considered (falsely) provocative if the provoked has an axe to grind, or a pursuit other than objective truth.

There are no large differences between human populations though: that is the provocative part of the statement.

Re: Rock engravings made by Homo Naledi ~300k years ago

#24

Post by hackinthebochs »

revicon wrote: post #12
greatpostman wrote: post #10

The big secret: “Homo sapiens” are hybrid combinations of different species that have long disappeared. “Non human hominids” are frequently groups that mixed with Homo sapiens. Large variances in human populations come from different hybrid compositions

The statement "Large variances in human populations come from different hybrid compositions" seems a particularly provocative statement. Is there a source where this comes from?

I'm not sure what part specifically you take issue with, but this provides some relevant citations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbreeding_between_archaic_...

Re: Rock engravings made by Homo Naledi ~300k years ago

#25

Post by hexator »

PM_me_your_math wrote: post #19
revicon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement "Large variances in human populations come from different hybrid compositions" seems a particularly provocative statement. Is there a source where this comes from?

I don't see how. Many of us have Neanderthal DNA. Objective facts are only considered (falsely) provocative if the provoked has an axe to grind, or a pursuit other than objective truth.

You imply that it's a significant percentage though, which is highly debatable.

Re: Rock engravings made by Homo Naledi ~300k years ago

#26

Post by akiselev »

sys32768 wrote: post #4

Maybe that's how they got edges on their tools?

There's little evidence of ground stone tools until very recently [1], like tens of thousands of years ago. It wasn't until agriculture that the technology became widespread.

Knapping [2] - which has been around for over 3 million years at this point - is much more predictable and efficient than grinding while requiring less intuitive knowledge of the materials. Paleolithic people just didn't have the resources to experiment with enough materials to figure out hardness, grain size, etc. for proper grinding.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_stone

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithic_reduction

Re: Rock engravings made by Homo Naledi ~300k years ago

#27

Post by EamonnMR »

irrational wrote: post #21
akiselev wrote: post #16

The news is that homo naledi did these things at the same time as humans despite a much smaller brain size, contradicting the social brain hypothesis somewhat. Their cranial capacity was 465-610 cubic cm compared to about 1,300 for humans [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_naledi Edit: this was a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36345824 and dang moved it (??)

If humans were around at the same time as homo naledi, how do they know that it was homo naledi? Couldn't a random human just wander in one afternoon and make the marks?

Now I'm picturing two cave dwelling fellows in front of a fire knapping flint and shooting the shit, and one goes "hold on, what about cave paintings... as a service!"

Re: Rock engravings made by Homo Naledi ~300k years ago

#28

Post by NegativeLatency »

sys32768 wrote: post #4

Maybe that's how they got edges on their tools?

If you look at the video some of the patterns are very regular and geometric, not what I'd expect for a regular sharpening of a tool. It's possible they sharpened tools artfully but then that's just a different way of creating the inscriptions.

https://youtu.be/fFbgQhY4Yxw?t=769

Re: Rock engravings made by Homo Naledi ~300k years ago

#30

Post by edgyquant »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #20
dheera wrote: post #18

I wonder how society would behave if those homonids were still around today. A lot of society norms are based on our intelligence levels being remarkably approximately equal across all of our species. What if there existed a bunch of beings on Earth that were somewhere in-between a human and a monkey in intelligence, cognitive, and language abilities? Would they go to school and be a part of the economy and job marke…

Frankly, they'd either be exterminated, or slaves. Extermination is likely because humans generally don't like competition. Just look at all the other apex predators/megafauna that have disappeared (or practically so) when humans showed up. Otherwise, humanity's extensive history of slavery of anything we can de-humanize would apply to any survivors.

Not sure why you think dehumanization was a prerequisite for slavery.
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