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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

#271

Post by DarknessFalls »

delecti wrote: post #260
wil421 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and everyone else know exactly what I meant but whatever. Not sure why I train AI on this site anymore.

I wasn't at all sure what you meant. The emphasis in your comment could very easily have been on "We" (another hominid discovered how to harness fire, which seems to be your intent) or on "invent" (fire happens in nature, hominids didn't invent it at all). The latter is perfectly in line with the kind of "attempting to be clever but actually just annoying" pedantry that nerdy internet spaces often see.

I think he's just saying "We didn't start the fire (It was always burnin' since the world's been turnin'.)".

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

#272

Post by dredmorbius »

nashashmi wrote: post #151
barbacoa wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>concrete and cement production are quite bad. Modern concrete construction uses iron rebar liberally. That means every concrete structure built today will crack and crumble in a few hundred years at most, as the iron absorbs oxygen, it swells from the rust. Which is a shame, roman concrete buildings without rebar will still be standing 1000s of years from now.

How about petrified wood? Would that also crack and crumble in the long run?

Petrified wood is stone. The stone matrix has formed around a wood structure, but the properties which remain are those of stone, not wood.

Wood is a composite material, strong under both compression and tension. It's the fibres in wood (lignans) which provide the latter. Stone (and unreinforced concrete) lack such fibre elements, and are strong only under compression.

With stone it's necessary to build compression structures such as arches and domes for heavy load-bearing, and taller structures must be significantly flared out at the base (or utilise buttresses, as with gothic cathedrals) for stability. Structures under tension can be far more lightweight and compact.

Steel-box construction and reinforced concrete both offer tension-based strength, but are also susceptible to metallic oxidation (rust), which limits the life of such structures. A nonmetallic fibre (natural or synthetic) might offer an alternative to this, and I've seen some work investigating this, though there may be other issues (e.g., depolymerisation of plastics over long periods of time).

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

#273

Post by dredmorbius »

globular-toast wrote: post #229
melenaboija wrote: post #114

Ok, since I moved to the US from Europe a few years ago my perception of wood has changed a lot, especially for construction. Seeing this reinforces my view. Wood lasts for fucking ever under the proper conditions. Old construction in Europe often only had the beams made of wood, and I always thought that was orders of magnitude more durable than wooden houses, like thousands of years vs decades. I don’t think that’s…

There are wooden framed houses built in the UK now, particularly in Scotland. The problem with a lot of American houses is the piss poor insulation which leads to energy usage 2-3x that of equivalent European houses. Maybe that's changing now. A big problem with houses is we never rebuild. It's kind of crazy. We replace almost everything else eventually, including commercial buildings. Skyscrapers only last a few dec…

There's no intrinsic reason balloon-framed housing has to be poorly insulated, and properly-insulated (and wrapped) balloon-framed construction is actually far better insulated than the "well-insulated" thick-walled structures based on stone, packed earth, brick, etc., which traditional half-timbered or masonry structures offer.

There is of course a large stock of extant housing which pre-dates best-standards insulation practices, though much of this can be improved dramatically at relatively low cost, especially by improving siding ("wrapping") and insulating attics. Thicker walls (nominal 2x6 rather than 2x4, or greater) can also be retrofit, either extending the exterior or interior wall dimension, though at considerably greater cost, and with trade-offs to either exterior or interior dimensions (lot size, environment, or reduced interior volume).

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

#274

Post by jama211 »

jama211 wrote: post #259
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sounds all very unsubstantiated. Speculation it seems to me What part of the study strikes you as unsubstantiated?

Not the study specifically, the rather huge leaps of logic and faith required to get from the study’s findings to the speculations mentioned in your comment.

But they knew that, so I’ll get no response… ;)

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

#275

Post by rhelz »

shakna wrote: post #140
rhelz wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every part is unsubstantiated. For starters, for the vast majority of H. Sapiens existence on earth--from 300,000 years ago to about 45,000 years ago, we shared the world with 4 or 5 other hominids that we know about. (Neanderthal, Denisoven, H. Luzonensis, H. Floresiensis, and still perhaps a few H. Erectus, and no doubt even more we haven't found yet.) That's 250,000 years of coexistence. We know that we sheboinked…

> We have no evidence of warfare between the species. Thats not correct. We have a neanderthal slain by spear, at a time and place where it was only carried by modern humans. [0] This isn't a singular event. We have a history on injuries consistent with war, on both sides. Yes, we "sheboinked". We also took women as prizes of war and raped them. As humanity has continued to do for most of their history. Sure, the sto…

Thanks for the reference, and I don't want to overstate my case. I'm certainly not claiming that there was no conflict between varieties of humans, after all, Homo Sapiens has plenty of conflict with itself. Oetzi, for example, died of arrow wounds.

The cited article certainly is evidence of conflict. The Neanderthal's bone lesion was consistent with the kinds of bone lesions on pig carcases from projectile weapons, so perhaps even interspecies conflict. Maybe.

But the original claim, that Homo Sapiens conducted some kind of uncanny valley-fueled genocide of every other variety of human, is not supported by the article. "Injuries consistent with war" are also injuries consistent with with not-war. I mean, if we had a single example of a neanderthal bone with an arrowhead in it....but we don't.

// We also took women as prizes of war and raped them //

There is absolutely no evidence of this. You've got to remember, every single Neanderthal fossil we've ever found could fit on a large dining room table. They lived light on the land, and left hardly a trace.

There probably was only on the order of 10k Neanderthals alive at any one point, and that population was spread over all of Europe and half of Asia. The vast majority of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals would go their whole lives, generations, without even seeing a member of the other species.

We can speculate, but that's all it is, speculation. Theories of the "uncanny valley" and raids by women-raping, spear-throwing humans are fanciful, and say a lot more about what our psychological hang ups are. Cf. with historical speculations about Neanderthals as brutish and stupid. Any theory which gets too far ahead of the evidence has a very short shelf life.

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

#276

Post by shakna »

rhelz wrote: post #275
shakna wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have no evidence of warfare between the species. Thats not correct. We have a neanderthal slain by spear, at a time and place where it was only carried by modern humans. [0] This isn't a singular event. We have a history on injuries consistent with war, on both sides. Yes, we "sheboinked". We also took women as prizes of war and raped them. As humanity has continued to do for most of their history. Sure, the sto…

Thanks for the reference, and I don't want to overstate my case. I'm certainly not claiming that there was no conflict between varieties of humans, after all, Homo Sapiens has plenty of conflict with itself. Oetzi, for example, died of arrow wounds. The cited article certainly is evidence of conflict. The Neanderthal's bone lesion was consistent with the kinds of bone lesions on pig carcases from projectile weapons,…

All I've done is speak where the evidence leads. They didn't live light and leave hardly a trace - they lived a very long time ago. Few weapons are designed to last millenia.

Dismissing half of academia's findings with a wave of your hand and an alternate speculation is... Leaning on speculation.

You said specifically "We have no evidence of warfare between the species."

I showed that to be incorrect. I followed the evidence, where you followed your gut.

> The vast majority of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals would go their whole lives, generations, without even seeing a member of the other species.

This is an absolutely ridiculous assertion, and entirely speculative. We have Neanderthal DNA intermixed with our own. For it to be possible, then the numbers intermixing cannot be some one in a lifetime event - its a global phenomena.

We have evidence of war, trade, and sex. There is no great division that these people rarely met.

That's akin to saying the Chinese never meet the Americans.

But to go further than just genetic history, Tinshemet Cave and Nesher Ramla show that we traded and lived together. (Which incidentally are neither in Europe nor Asia). We built societies together. We were not nearly as isolated as you speculate.

> Theories of the "uncanny valley" and raids by women-raping, spear-throwing humans are fanciful, and say a lot more about what our psychological hang ups...

No. Flatly no. It speaks to the consistency of human history. Our ability to trace genetic legacy, is not because of a psychological hangup.

The Rape of Nanjing was not a one time moment. And machine guns are hardly spears. The Crusades through the Middle East did not leave behind no legacy. Kidnapping prizes was the norm for so very long, it was a norm of our mythology. Who was Helen of Troy? How did the Chu marry his wife?

Why did the Assyrians put record of these spoils into stone? Anyone who disregards the massive historical evidence that mankind has always raped its way through war, is one who is utterly blind to all evidence before them.

Saying homo sapiens kidnapped Neanderthal woman, and vice versa, is not a claim of intelligence. It is an understanding of historical behaviour.

... All of our evidence points towards not homo sapiens and Neanderthals doing things. Rather, it points towards people acting as people. Tribal boundaries, but not species. They made war, crime, love and trade. They were people.

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

#277

Post by rhelz »

shakna wrote: post #276
rhelz wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reference, and I don't want to overstate my case. I'm certainly not claiming that there was no conflict between varieties of humans, after all, Homo Sapiens has plenty of conflict with itself. Oetzi, for example, died of arrow wounds. The cited article certainly is evidence of conflict. The Neanderthal's bone lesion was consistent with the kinds of bone lesions on pig carcases from projectile weapons,…

All I've done is speak where the evidence leads. They didn't live light and leave hardly a trace - they lived a very long time ago. Few weapons are designed to last millenia. Dismissing half of academia's findings with a wave of your hand and an alternate speculation is... Leaning on speculation. You said specifically "We have no evidence of warfare between the species." I showed that to be incorrect. I followed the…

// I showed that to be incorrect. I followed the evidence, where you followed your gut. //

Even the authors of the original article didn't claim this was evidence of conflict between the species. They only claimed that it was evidence consistent with conflict between the species.

You are extrapolating far, far, beyond what the evidence would support.

There's one bone which is fractured in a way which is *consistent* with its being caused by a homo sapiens-style rock hitting it.

And nobody is claiming that we never got into the pleistocene version of a bar fight. Of course we did. Perhaps the bone mentioned in the article you cited was the result of such a fight. Perhaps not.

We have no evidence whatsoever of war between the species. None. Zero. A bar fight is not a war. And we have absolutely no evidence of any kind of genocidal berzerking. Any attempt to recruit the Assyrians or the rapists of Nanjing is anachronistic. That kind of warfare requires social coordination on the a scale which we wouldn't even invent until the Assyrians.

sigh it is an easy mistake to make---the evidence is consistent with what you want to believe. Therefore, it must support what you believe. :-( You have to resist the temptation. The more you want something to be true, the more suspicious you should be that it isn't true.

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