Boat. Next question!
Walked. Read the article. At the time there was no channel to cross.
How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?
81–90 of 95 posts
Re: How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was going to post exactly the same. More to the point, Britain wasn't an island a mere 10k years ago. Why would we ever assume that Britain was difficult to reach 1M years ago?
Apparently nobody here has actually read or even skimmed the article. The author obviously knows that Britain has been connected by land to the continent several times in the past million years.
Does the article even have a salient point worth discussing in relation to its clickbait title? I think I can sum up the entire article with just the sentence "a tangle of footprints near Hazebruh (because this is England) has been dated 850,000–950,000 years ago". It certainly doesn't answer the question in a more succinct way than the OP did.
Re: How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?
#83> Ice in the Channel and water in the Channel both cut Britain off. Britain has never been cut off. As the cliche goes: "Storms in English Channel; continent cut off".
I've never heard this phrase and I spent half my life living in England where I could see France out of my window :)
It's a legendary (or mythical) news headline, rather after the manner of "Small earthquake in Chile; few killed".
[Edit] So you must be either near Dover, or in the Channel Islands. And there's not much to see from Dover.
[Edit2] I think the "continent cut off" line perfectly epitomises and mocks English exceptionalism, which is why I find it funny. I was brought up before the UK joined the EU; in those days, we referred to the whole deal as "the continent". If we'd been there, we'd ironically refer to it as "Le cong-tee-nong".
Re: How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You'd have to be lucky, but there is a lot of time to be lucky in (seen from the point of humanity of course, not from the individual dropping in the sea). I’m no biologist, but I think you’d need at least two people to have a chance at sustainability.
I can't remember where I read this but I think you need at least 16 people to have a genomically sustainable population
We are going to need a bigger boat ....
I am not fetching and rereading the paper now but even simpler genomes than ours required many more individuals not to go extinct.
The Origins of Genome Complexity
Abstract Complete genomic sequences from diverse phylogenetic lineages reveal notable increases in genome complexity from prokaryotes to multicellular eukaryotes. The changes include gradual increases in gene number, resulting from the retention of duplicate genes, and more abrupt increases in the abundance of spliceosomal introns and mobile genetic elements. We argue that many of these modifications emerged passively in response to the long-term population-size reductions that accompanied increases in organism size. According to this model, much of the restructuring of eukaryotic genomes was initiated by nonadaptive processes, and this in turn provided novel substrates for the secondary evolution of phenotypic complexity by natural selection. The enormous long-term effective population sizes of prokaryotes may impose a substantial barrier to the evolution of complex genomes and morphologies.
Lynch, M., & Conery, J. S. (2003). Science, 302(5649), 1401–1404. doi:10.1126/science.1089370
Re: How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?
#85It is possible for a well-trained human to swim the distance. In fact, it is possible to just see there is something across the north sea, if you are standing in the right place with the right weather. I see no reason why someone can't end up in Brittain just by accidentally falling in the north sea and maybe clinging to whatever floats around. You'd have to be lucky, but there is a lot of time to be lucky in (seen f…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_dispersal It does happen a lot on evolutionary timescales; it's how lemurs got to Madagascar, for instance. But one would think humans have the situational awareness not to get stuck on a raft of vegetation drifting out to sea.
They'd also have the situational awareness to decide that life there in France sandwiched between coastal tribes A and B and inland tribe C sucks, so they're going to try their chances on that fuzzy bit of land that looks promising on the horizon.
It only takes one small group over a timescale of thousands of years to make that decision. Dispersal is even more likely if people or stories are able to get back and forth; the issue of "we only have 8 people and not enough genetic diversity" is moot if the story or the rumor spreads that there's lots of land and lots of food on that fuzzy spot over there.
Re: How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
See also Bill Bryson. I think it's a bit unfair to criticise these types of books for not being 100% academically rigorous (having citations etc). They're generally ok as entertaining introductions to new subject matter for the reader. After that the reader can then go looking for more authoritative writings of the topics being explored that tickle their fancy.
I don't have a strong opinion on the subject, but I believe/hope it should be possible to be accessible and entertaining while still being academically "acceptable" in terms of references (which doesn't need to be of the form 1 claim, 1 reference) and without taking misleading shortcuts or trying to sell your new universal theory of history, but sticking to consensual understandings and/or prefacing your novel ideas…
> it's a better feeling to think that you now understand the gears of history through this new lens
This is the thing, there's no harm in reading something like this where the author may be "pushing a narrative", but so long as the reader maintains a modicum of critical thinking I see no harm.
Re: How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people are not aware that the sea level rose with more than 120 meters in the past 20k years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.pn...
Great point. Most people are also not aware that sea level will rise even more in the coming 20k years if we go on like that.
Not to detract from your valid point that we should curb global warming, but if all the glaciers and ice caps melts the sea level will rise by approximately 70 meters according to the USGS[1], so that would make it impossible for it to rise even more than what it did in the past 20k years, but I also think that if that rise of 70 meters will happen, it will take less than 1k years.
[1]: https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-would-sea-level-change-if-all-...
Re: How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't remember where I read this but I think you need at least 16 people to have a genomically sustainable population
There's no bright-line "minimum viable population" above the trivial answer of 2. You'll see people suggest numbers anywhere from a couple thousand down, but these don't mean that rebuilding a population is impossible , just that there will be severe effects. We've observed populations of as few as two individuals go on to become invasive, wildly successful populations when introduced to new habitats.
> We've observed populations as few as two individuals go on to become invasive, wildly successful populations
That sounds fascinating. What species?
Re: How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no bright-line "minimum viable population" above the trivial answer of 2. You'll see people suggest numbers anywhere from a couple thousand down, but these don't mean that rebuilding a population is impossible , just that there will be severe effects. We've observed populations of as few as two individuals go on to become invasive, wildly successful populations when introduced to new habitats.
> We've observed populations as few as two individuals go on to become invasive, wildly successful populations That sounds fascinating. What species?
That particular case was Pinta Island in the Galapagos, where a breeding pair of goats was introduced in 1959. The population eventually reached a peak of 41,000 before a long and ultimately successful eradication campaign eliminated them.
Re: How did people get to Britain 950k years ago?
#90As far as I understand, Ian Morris's books are not taken very seriously in the academic world. I've read the first part of /Why the West rules/ and must admit that it reads a bit like trying to push a narrative: spinning up facts the right way to make them support his ideas and asserting universal truths without much backing… but I think I'm biased by the reviews I checked before reading the (first part of the) book.
Genuine question: I've heard this criticism for literally every pop-history book I've read (Guns, Germs, and Steel; Sapiens; The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, etc). Are there any history books that are taken seriously in the academic world that are actually fun to read? If so, any recommendations? If not, is the issue basically that if you want some history book to be fun, you've got…
What about Mommsenʼs History of Rome (itʼs actually only about the Roman Republic, he didnʼt finish planned further volumes):
- On the one hand, Mommsen was a professional historian and his work was (and is[1]) highly acclaimed. [2] cites: “Equally great as antiquary, jurist, political and social historian, Mommsen lived to see the time when among students of Roman history he had pupils, followers, critics, but no rivals. He combined the power of minute investigation with a singular faculty for bold generalization and the capacity for tracing out the effects of thought on political and social life.”
- On the other hand, his History of Rome got the nobel prize for literatur, so at least some people found it fun to read, too. Again from [2]: “Its sureness of touch, its many-sided knowledge, its throbbing vitality and the Venetian colouring of its portraits left an ineffaceable impression on every reader.” “It was a work of genius and passion, the creation of a young man, and is as fresh and vital to-day as when it was written.”
Itʼs freely available at Project Gutenberg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rome_(Mommsen)#Exte...
[1] “Still read and qualifiedly cited” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rome_(Mommsen)#firs...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rome_(Mommsen)#1902...