81–90 of 103 posts
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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?
Now I'm picturing two cave dwelling fellows in front of a fire knapping flint and shooting the shit, and one goes "hold on, what about cave paintings... as a service!"
They couldn’t find seed investors.
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A thought experiment. It has been said that if a modern "average" human were transported back in time, it would be difficult for that person to build anything useful, because of the lack of material manufacturing (c.f. "Toaster from Scratch" and "Primitive Technology" channels) and lack of specific knowledge. So goes my thought experiment. If I were transported 100,000 years back, I would big-scale industrialize the…
Or you’d just cut your toe on an rock and die (with no medical care).
Explaining what soap does and why people should value it would be the real challenge. Communication in general would need to be built from scratch. No english, no latin languages, no modern gestures like thumbs up and hand shakes, no common ground.
Depending on the era, I would bet on agriculture and fermentation as my empire-building tech. Wine first, then bread which is a little bit harder. Maybe spices also, I heard some pretty large empires were built on the power of funny flavors.
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In addition, a timeline of culture & technology: Oldowan industry - simple flaked stone tools (~2.9-1.7 million years ago) Acheulean industry - advanced tools like hand axes (~1.7 million - ~160,000 years ago) Archaic humans in Southeast Asian islands like Indonesia (~1.8-1 million years ago, dating is a bit uncertain on this one) First control of fire (~1 million - ~700,000 years ago) First archaic humans living in…
A thought experiment. It has been said that if a modern "average" human were transported back in time, it would be difficult for that person to build anything useful, because of the lack of material manufacturing (c.f. "Toaster from Scratch" and "Primitive Technology" channels) and lack of specific knowledge. So goes my thought experiment. If I were transported 100,000 years back, I would big-scale industrialize the…
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Or you’d just cut your toe on an rock and die (with no medical care).
Soap actually increases his chance of survival in this scenario. Clean wound == less chance of infection. Explaining what soap does and why people should value it would be the real challenge. Communication in general would need to be built from scratch. No english, no latin languages, no modern gestures like thumbs up and hand shakes, no common ground. Depending on the era, I would bet on agriculture and fermentation…
So, 100,000 years ago you would need to convince people to join you in this crazy agriculture thing without any metal tools.... without domesticated animals either, by the way... as that would still be thousands of years in the future...
Finally, just taking a large amount of food and leaving it for a long time to ferment somewhere well protected, while everyone around is hungry, would be a huge challenge already. You might need to protect it both from people and from very large wild animals that had not gone extinct yet and would love to take that food from you (and likely use you as food also).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In addition, a timeline of culture & technology: Oldowan industry - simple flaked stone tools (~2.9-1.7 million years ago) Acheulean industry - advanced tools like hand axes (~1.7 million - ~160,000 years ago) Archaic humans in Southeast Asian islands like Indonesia (~1.8-1 million years ago, dating is a bit uncertain on this one) First control of fire (~1 million - ~700,000 years ago) First archaic humans living in…
A thought experiment. It has been said that if a modern "average" human were transported back in time, it would be difficult for that person to build anything useful, because of the lack of material manufacturing (c.f. "Toaster from Scratch" and "Primitive Technology" channels) and lack of specific knowledge. So goes my thought experiment. If I were transported 100,000 years back, I would big-scale industrialize the…
2. Behavioral modernity in humans including the way we use language is thought to have emerged 70000-55000 years ago. You can’t go further back and expect to be understood.
3. Humans keep changing. The domestication of the dog ca. 28000-26000 years ago also changed the human brain by turning the dog into our wild senses.
4. Humans self-domesticated themselves the past 6000 years. Human brains show the same changes that domesticated cows have versus wild cattle species. Have you noticed that you can stay in a room with 50 strangers and not attack or sexually assault anyone? This same change led to the development of civilizations.
5. Your thought experiment only really makes sense if you go the furthest, say 12000 years back. Trade might not make sense to humans before.
6. Humans still keep changing.
7. Culture is more diverse than you think. By far more diverse. Just an example: Among human tribes across the globe 40% practice kissing, 60% never kiss. Your concepts will not translate.
If we look at the origins of major groups of animals, the first dinosaurs or at earliest stages of bird evolution, we see often see multiple related groups evolving convergently due to similar pressures. My favorite example of this is that powered flight may have been acquired three or more times in closely related but distinct groups of theropod dinosaurs. When we think of the other branches of the Human family tree…
The thing is that normally the change happens in the speciesation first and then these traits are used for something distinctive - dinosaurs grew feathers first, and then used them for flight. Humans grew intelligence first, and then used it for civilization. The resource has to be already there to be used. The resource will not be developed by evolution. The lungfish already had limbs and joints (while living purely aquatically), thus it could use it to walk outside the water.
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 (??)
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 (??)
They’re not terribly sophisticated markings, or obviously social. Even if brain size correlates exactly with capability, doing these at ~40% brain size seems quite plausible.
Sperm whales don't have much of a chance to manipulate their environment, but they have the largest brains on earth [2].
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-brain-size-m....
[2] https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/extreme-mammals/extreme-bod....
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A thought experiment. It has been said that if a modern "average" human were transported back in time, it would be difficult for that person to build anything useful, because of the lack of material manufacturing (c.f. "Toaster from Scratch" and "Primitive Technology" channels) and lack of specific knowledge. So goes my thought experiment. If I were transported 100,000 years back, I would big-scale industrialize the…
1. Try selling soap blocks and porno comics to an Amazon tribe or Australian native. Do they have "sell"? Do they need soap blocks? Do they need porno comics? It’s very narrow how you paint it. 2. Behavioral modernity in humans including the way we use language is thought to have emerged 70000-55000 years ago. You can’t go further back and expect to be understood. 3. Humans keep changing. The domestication of the dog…
Citation for that? There's clear evolutionary selection for language capabilities a long time before that isn't here?