Rock engravings made by Homo Naledi ~300k years ago

Post by dekhn » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 8:48 PM UTC

MilStdJunkie wrote: post #3

Lee Berger's announcement video on the find - it's long-ish, but it's very very interesting if you're into this stuff. https://youtu.be/fFbgQhY4Yxw Something very evocative is the resemblance to Neanderthal cave engravings (@16:45 in the video) - that same theme of cross hatching, with multiple length verticals. As Lee points out, ascribing meaning to these things is going to be pretty much impossible, but it's very…

Post by neovialogistics » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 8:50 PM UTC

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…

Post by ethanbond » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 8:53 PM UTC

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?

Post by akiselev » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 8:56 PM UTC

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?

    There is no evidence of *homo sapiens* use or presence beyond the light zone of the cavern system
    Cultural context: there are *homo nadeli* graves in the cave system with the drawings
    Access to the cavern system has not changed and would have been much easier for the smaller *homo nadeli* (Lee Berger had to lose 55 pounds to fit into the caves)
    The burials and drawings were made over a long period of time, implying an ongoing settlement
    The evidence for *homo nadeli* burials meets or exceeds that accepted for ancient *homo sapiens* burials

Post by TechBro8615 » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

edgyquant wrote: post #30

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.