Reminds me of the Barbegal mills, built in ancient Rome. The site produced 4.5 tons of flour per day, according to wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbegal_aqueduct_and_mills
Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)
81–90 of 179 posts
Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)
#82Some would argue they still do. ;)
Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find things like that hard to perfectly square with observations like the Flynn Effect (“the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystallized intelligence test scores that were measured in many parts of the world over the 20th century”): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
Are you suggesting our brains are getting better? I find it far more likely that our improved education techniques and our skyrocketing access to information as being the cause.
I suspect the reverse. If you have easy access to an assistant or search engine it means that the need for recall goes down.
Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find things like that hard to perfectly square with observations like the Flynn Effect (“the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystallized intelligence test scores that were measured in many parts of the world over the 20th century”): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
Are you suggesting our brains are getting better? I find it far more likely that our improved education techniques and our skyrocketing access to information as being the cause.
Better food.
Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
And that’s because IQ is a statistical distribution, not an absolute measurement of intelligence. If everyone suddenly gets twice as smart as before, nobody’s IQ changes.
This is wrong and confused in every possible way. Look up the Flynn effect ... it refers to an actual change in performance. That the scores on a given IQ test are occasionally renormalized so that the mean is 100 has no bearing on whether "IQ is a statistical distribution", whether intelligence or whatever the heck IQ measures can be measured absolutely, or on the validity and meaning of the previous statements by E…
I find it interesting that you are basically saying the same thing, even if the reply you are confused by simply made some assumptions you were not able to make and was a bit less precise.
It’s interesting how people will say things like “This is wrong and confused in every possible way” even though it’s not, making it and them in turn the ones “wrong and confused in every possible way”.
Maybe if we are a bit more generous with others we won’t be compelled to be so pretentious and denigrating by saying things like “This is wrong and confused in every possible way”, about something someone said and believes.
Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Firstly, this is completely orthogonal. But it's also improper reasoning. If Neanderthal had bigger brains (they did) or had different cognitive abilities, there's a chance they were baseline smarter than homo sapiens at the time. Being perhaps a little smarter doesn't mean you win the evolutionary game. There are so many factors at play.
Hmm, more smarter? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_size#Cranial_capacity Not the lady Neanderthals: > average Neanderthal cranial capacity for females was 1300 cm3 and 1600 cm3 for males. [Modern humans, 1473 cm3.] Nor the dude Neanderthals, since they were using the swollen brainparts for vision and coordination: > Neanderthals had larger eyes and bodies relative to their height [...] when these areas were adjus…
We will never get that the cranial volume is not the same as inteligence/brain function, or whatever you might call it. Reminder that Einstein brain was smaller than average, and female brain are smaller than male. Phrenology will haunt us forever, in one form or another.
Most likely, some Neanderthals were asimilated into modern humans, most were exterminated in tribal clashes. Reminder also that our almighty specie was almost wiped out from history around 800,000 years ago (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq7487), being the most intelligent organism ever existed.
Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)
#87That also must mean that Neanderthals must have been very clever, early on. We already knew they were clever, but 125.000 years ago is really pushing that further. Now the main question is still why and how they went extinct. We have some pieces of the puzzles (mitochondrial DNA found in human mitochondrial DNA) but not a complete picture yet (or, somewhat more complete; we can obviously never reconstruct all pieces of the puzzle).
Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)
#88Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)
#89I read this as 'RAT factories' - like Neanderthal decided to breed thousands of rats presumably for food. Assuming rats were meaty and not taboo then, as they are now.
Same, and I also read Netherlands instead of Neanderthals.
Yeah me to!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Rat%2C_IJlst
>De Rat (English: The Rat) is a smock mill in IJlst, Friesland, Netherlands, which was originally built in the seventeenth century at Zaanstreek, North Holland. In 1828 it was moved to IJlst, where it worked using wind power until 1920 and then by electric motor until 1950. The mill was bought by the town of IJlst in 1956 and restored in the mid-1960s. Further restoration in the mid-1970s returned the mill to full working order. De Rat is working for trade and is used as a training mill. The mill is listed as a Rijksmonument (No. 39880).[1]
Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)
#90I am fat so?