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Rock engravings made by Homo Naledi ~300k years ago

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

#41

Post by georgeg23 »

jrumbut wrote: post #11
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…

I found it interesting that they appear to interact with these fossils that look a little like parasites on the rocks. Obviously this is pure imagination but I wonder if that was why they felt the need to scratch the rock or create lines to block it from spreading.

Interesting theory!

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

#43

Post by famouswaffles »

mjhay wrote: post #14

In light of recent news, this is an extremely misleading choice of title, given that the orginal was "241,000 to 335,000 Years Old Rock Engravings Made by Homo naledi in the Rising Star Cave system, South Africa". It's not news that non- homo sapien sapiens had things like art, music, an mortuary practices.

Non homo sapiens sapiens can still be humans. Neanderthals are considered humans.

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

#44

Post by wsgeorge »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #40
edgyquant wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I can see the argument that it's definitionally impossible to enslave someone without dehumanizing them, if you believe that certain inalienable freedoms are part of being human, and thus you cannot take them away from someone without dehumanizing them. But if by "dehumanization" you really mean "racist," then yes indeed, slavery was originally based more on generic power imbalances (prisoners of war, or offspring of…

> I'm not sure that race was even an attribute that the ancients felt worthy of mentioning

> Wikipedia [0] seems to agree ("skin tones did not carry any social implications")

When I read this comment (before your edit), I was a bit surprised, since ethnicity and "blood/familial" relations were absolutely huge in ancient Rome.

I generally use a definition of race that's much broader than skin tone, and I see it as interchangeable with loosely defined ethnicity and cultural background.

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

#45

Post by famouswaffles »

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.

Dehumanization is a prerequisite for slavery. It just doesn't have to be grounded in "race"

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

#46

Post by dang »

mjhay wrote: post #14

In light of recent news, this is an extremely misleading choice of title, given that the orginal was "241,000 to 335,000 Years Old Rock Engravings Made by Homo naledi in the Rising Star Cave system, South Africa". It's not news that non- homo sapien sapiens had things like art, music, an mortuary practices.

Ok, we've changed the title to be more precise. Submitted title was "Engravings Made by Non-Human Hominids ~300K Years Ago".

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

#47

Post by mkl »

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…

Harry Turtledove's book of short stories A Different Flesh is based on this idea, though with homo erectus, not homo naledi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Different_Flesh

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

#48

Post by POiNTx »

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…

Longer video with better resolution of the images and video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4WsgMUtJTU

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

#49

Post by mkl »

mcguire wrote: post #33
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #6

Are we only calling Homo Sapiens human? Some how I got the idea that all of Homo was human.

The Homoninid family tree has gotten fairly confusing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape#Changes_in_taxonomy_and_te... You will often see mention of Hominin (Homo and Pan (chimpanzees), I think) as well, where you would have once heard Hominid.

Hominin doesn't include chimpanzees, but all members of the human tree after the split from chimpanzees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae

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

#50

Post by Kaijo »

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 (??)

You took the trouble to italicize the binomial, but didn't capitalize the generic name, whereas the OP's title failed to not capitalize the species epithet.
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