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430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

nytimes.com

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Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#91

Post by yieldcrv »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #69
throwup238 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tools predate homo sapiens (which emerged about 300 kYA) by millions of years. The first stone industry - Oldowan - is at least two million years old and might be as old as three million. They predate what we call “archaic humans” by a long time. Even this evidence of woodworking is largely unremarkable. We’ve got phytolith [1] and microwear [2] studies showing unambiguous evidence of woodworking going back at least…

> Tools predate homo sapiens (which emerged about 300 kYA) I’m going to use a charged word because Jane Goodall used it. Goodall asserted that humans and chimpanzees (and wolves) are unique among animals in that we have a genocidal tendency [1]. When a group attacks us (or has “land and resources” we want) we don’t just chase them off. We exterminate them. We expend great resources to track them down to ensure they c…

Given enough time of human survival, the only species left on this planet will be ones that are aesthetically pleasing to us

Everything selectively bred due to environmental or artificial pressures to have big eyes, big heads, high vocal sounds, attributes of human babies

It is very strange and an aberration amongst species, one being tolerating other beings because of their entertainment value and the joy they give from looking at them, but seems to be consistent and validate what's happened over eons of homo sapien propagation

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#93

Post by staplers »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #69
throwup238 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tools predate homo sapiens (which emerged about 300 kYA) by millions of years. The first stone industry - Oldowan - is at least two million years old and might be as old as three million. They predate what we call “archaic humans” by a long time. Even this evidence of woodworking is largely unremarkable. We’ve got phytolith [1] and microwear [2] studies showing unambiguous evidence of woodworking going back at least…

> Tools predate homo sapiens (which emerged about 300 kYA) I’m going to use a charged word because Jane Goodall used it. Goodall asserted that humans and chimpanzees (and wolves) are unique among animals in that we have a genocidal tendency [1]. When a group attacks us (or has “land and resources” we want) we don’t just chase them off. We exterminate them. We expend great resources to track them down to ensure they c…

Army ants do something similar as well.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ants-and-the-art-...

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#94

Post by awesome_dude »

sophacles wrote: post #40
drakythe wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait hang on, would they "control" file by finding natural sources (volcano, lightning strike wildfire, etc.) and then make use of that source for controlled sources of light/heat/etc? I guess I've always thought of "control" of fire including the intentional starting thereof.

There's pretty strong evidence that the use of fire to cook food is what enabled modern humans, with their short (and relatively fragile) digestive systems and giant energy hungry brains to evolve. Cooking food makes more calories bio-available in food and also reduced the amount of energy the body needs to expend on that food to harvest calories... so there's more energy available for thinking (etc).

I had thought (perhaps wrongly) that our brains got a massive "boost" in capacity when our ancestors moved to coastal areas and the diet was dominated by (Omega 3 heavy) shellfish and crustaceans.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9505798/

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#95

Post by zahlman »

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #29
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's wild! Thanks for sharing. I didn't realize these things went so far back. So are you saying these were straight up non-human primates using tools? Or is this all traceable to our lineage?

The first identified tools were 3.3 million years ago, which is before the homo genus emerges. Thus, those were either by Australopithecus afarensis or by a yet unidentified hominid species -- they were still very likely our ancestors (but technically TBD). Then around 2-2.5 million years ago you get the first homo species in the genus homo such as Homo habilis and they created the Oldowan tool culture. Both Australo…

> The first identified tools were 3.3 million years ago

I assume these are made of stone? What kind of tools?

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#97

Post by zahlman »

MengerSponge wrote: post #60
drakythe wrote: post #5

430,000 years? Am I reading this headline correctly? (since the site seems to have fallen victim to the HN-hug-of-death). That seems wildly further back than I understood humans to have tools, or even homo sapiens to have existed. ETA: Today I learned I had a much much larger gap in knowledge than I thought I did. Thanks to everyone for the information and links!

You might be old enough to have been taught that Humans are tool-using apes. That's tragically incomplete: lots of apes use tools. Birds use tools. And now, cows use tools! Cow tools: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj0n127y74go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_tools

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronika_(cow) might be a better Wikipedia link.

Honestly I would have expected a pig or horse to be discovered to use tools, rather than a cow. Cattle are generally... not thought of as particularly intelligent.

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#98

Post by staplers »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #76
MarcelOlsz wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part of reading this thread is I know I won't be able to google image anything interesting related to "non-human hominids" :( Your comment was oddly depressing lol. Real "are we the baddies?" moment this morning.

> won't be able to google image anything interesting related to "non-human hominids" We were a large family [1]. > Real "are we the baddies?" moment We were animals. We acted in accordance with our natures. Wolves and chimpanzees aren’t baddies any more than bees or hyenas. Nature is brutal. Today, however, we are more than our natures. We have the capacity to criticize it when it arises in ways we disapprove of. In…

  humans have a unique capacity to reduce suffering in a way
With low cost to our wellbeing as well. Which I think is the main point. Our advances in logistical transportation and food production allow us to be kinder and more plentiful than ever before. Unfortunately we see "instinctual" echoes of past strife seemingly arise from minor inconveniences (those ppl do something that annoys me).

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#99

Post by w0de0 »

an0malous wrote: post #37
drakythe wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That book name is... off putting, and his wikipedia article ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cremo ) isn't encouraging in a quick scan...

Why not just watch the talk and hear his argument from himself? Wikipedia has a bias against everything outside of mainstream academia, there are activist groups like Guerrilla Skeptics that go through articles and rewrite them to undermine anything remotely fringe. It's not as objective as people like to think it is.

Can you imagine was a useless mishmash of lies Wikipedia would be if it did not have a bias for mainstream academia!? Wither epistemology?

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#100

Post by unfitted2545 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #76
MarcelOlsz wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part of reading this thread is I know I won't be able to google image anything interesting related to "non-human hominids" :( Your comment was oddly depressing lol. Real "are we the baddies?" moment this morning.

> won't be able to google image anything interesting related to "non-human hominids" We were a large family [1]. > Real "are we the baddies?" moment We were animals. We acted in accordance with our natures. Wolves and chimpanzees aren’t baddies any more than bees or hyenas. Nature is brutal. Today, however, we are more than our natures. We have the capacity to criticize it when it arises in ways we disapprove of. In…

That's kinda ridiculous to think we're not animals anymore, our nature is to use intellect for survival (and though we know we can reduce suffering further we choose not to).
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