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430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

nytimes.com

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Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#241

Post by mkoubaa »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #69
throwup238 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tools predate homo sapiens (which emerged about 300 kYA) by millions of years. The first stone industry - Oldowan - is at least two million years old and might be as old as three million. They predate what we call “archaic humans” by a long time. Even this evidence of woodworking is largely unremarkable. We’ve got phytolith [1] and microwear [2] studies showing unambiguous evidence of woodworking going back at least…

> Tools predate homo sapiens (which emerged about 300 kYA) I’m going to use a charged word because Jane Goodall used it. Goodall asserted that humans and chimpanzees (and wolves) are unique among animals in that we have a genocidal tendency [1]. When a group attacks us (or has “land and resources” we want) we don’t just chase them off. We exterminate them. We expend great resources to track them down to ensure they c…

We have the unique ability for genocide but also the unique ability to invent sophisticated tools, one of which is culture, whose functions include ways to override our impulses in ways we deem valuable.

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#242

Post by keepamovin »

Without assuming correctness, assuming instead "risk probability" - if previous advanced civilizations have risen and fallen on Earth, after evolving here naturally - what should we do as a species to not share their fate?

edit: I am not sure backupping to 'Mars', with its lack of magnetic field, inhospitality, and necessity to live underground is a positive idea

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#243

Post by drakythe »

caymanjim wrote: post #167
drakythe wrote: post #5

430,000 years? Am I reading this headline correctly? (since the site seems to have fallen victim to the HN-hug-of-death). That seems wildly further back than I understood humans to have tools, or even homo sapiens to have existed. ETA: Today I learned I had a much much larger gap in knowledge than I thought I did. Thanks to everyone for the information and links!

Others already clarified the confusion about your question. Just wanted to note that the HN audience is not going to hug-of-death nytimes.com.

The original link when I commented was to archeologymag.com -- it was later updated to NYTimes because of the hug of death that went on for multiple hours on archeologymag

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#244

Post by drakythe »

WalterBright wrote: post #198
drakythe wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but I do think it more likely they got a more accurate world history class somewhere along the line. I was taught creationism thanks to the conservatism nature of my family and the area I grew up in. It took a long while to know and accept the world (and universe) is as old as it is.

I went through public elementary and high school. The amount of world history taught there is vanishingly small. Just for fun, ask some high schoolers who were the major combatants in WW2.

20th century history was covered in depth because much of it can be taught with an American Exceptionalism slant easily. I'm more talking about pre-Roman Empire times.

Though you just reminded me of a co-worker I had while I was in University. She had attended a private Christian High School and apparently world history was optional there because (we worked at a movie rental place) when Valkyrie released I commented on how I didn't care to watch it because I already knew how it would end. She asked what I meant and how I knew, and I had to explain that since Hitler survived the bombing attempt to shoot himself in his bunker at the end of WW2 (or be shot, or fake it, whatever your chosen explanation/conspiracy) in Europe that Tom Cruise's character pretty obviously had to fail. She had _no idea_. I was pretty baffled. My grandad enlisted in the army in the tail end of WW2. 2 generations back. And she knew nothing about it except that it had happened.

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#245

Post by vixen99 »

nandomrumber wrote: post #238
nomel wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is part of the reason humans are so stupid during any sort of divisions where "sides" emerge. To be able to do commit this genocide, you need a very ugly "switch" in your head that can make your actions justifiable/right. I think this switch is the same, emotional, unthinking one that makes some people so religion about teams sports, phone OS, political alignment, etc. Related, I think this is also the m…

This was worth reading, thank you. The line between good and evil runs straight down the centre of every human heart. And dogs / wolves too, and definitely many / all cetaceans, because they are also cursed with the ability to be deeply affected by the presence, and absence / loss, of those they form bonds with. And that drives us all to be prepared to kill, or at least encourage others to, not out or physical necess…

Moral philosophers pack up! It's all solved.

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#246

Post by exhumet »

drakythe wrote: post #44
sophacles wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/stefanmilo has a lot of good stuff. I don't know enough to know where he's right or wrong, but provides entry points for to looking more into it. I have gone down a couple rabbit holes based on his videos and while it seems like he's occasionally gotten some facts wrong or misunderstood an argument, I'm pretty confident he's doing a decent job accurately representing the…

Awesome. I've watched plenty of Miniminuteman (Milo Rossi) videos, but his tend to be more pop-sci/debunking outrageous claims and less foundationally educational. I'll check this channel out too.

you can get a lot of good resources here (https://humanorigins.si.edu/education/recommended-books) specifically "The Botanic Age" is about this, challenges the stone based representation and goes into how it was probably a lot of wood and other materials that would rot away etc.

Milo is great! Stefan Milo is also a great resource on youtube, i also really enjoy a youtuber called Fig Tree. there is a lot of good educational stuff on early humanity and early civilizations out there!

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#248

Post by [deleted] »

sam_goody wrote: post #234

Do we know if these were formed intentionally or just happened to be in such a form and were used by those that found them? Do we know if these were used more than once, or if they were in a convenient shape that was grabbed by a local for one time use? How do we know that these were actually used as tools and not just pieces of wood that coincidentally in the site? Do we have any reason to think these were used by (…

[deleted]

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#250

Post by anthk »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #232
anthk wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: Use XSane for it, as if it were an scanner. Look up on how to edit the config files in /etc https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/k...

Getting serial comms to it isn't the problem I'm trying to solve because the photos are on a CF card. There are 320x240 images that are just a plain JPEG, and some larger ones, about 500-odd by whatever, that are in a funny proprietary format. I had this working about 25 years ago...

The file(1) command will identify the files at least. Maybe ImageMagick can parse them somehow.
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