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Evidence Found for Earliest Modern Humans
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu Oct 18, 2007 06:56 AM
from the flintstones-the-early-years dept.
from the flintstones-the-early-years dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Researchers at Arizona State University report that they have pushed back the date for the earliest modern humans to 164,000 years ago, far earlier than previously documented. Paleoanthropologists now say that genetic and fossil evidence suggests that modern human species — Homo sapiens — evolved in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago and in seeking the "perfect site" to explore for remains of the earliest populations, researchers analyzed ocean currents, climate data, geological formations and other data to pin down a location. "The world was in a glacial stage 125,000 to 195,000 years ago, and much of Africa was dry to mostly desert; in many areas food would have been difficult to acquire. The paleoenvironmental data indicate there are only five or six places in all of Africa where humans could have survived these harsh conditions," said Curtis Marean, a professor in ASU's School of Human Evolution and Social Change. Photos from the cave at Pinnacle Point in South Africa show where the team found ochre, bladelets and evidence of shellfish — findings that reveal the earliest dated evidence of modern humans."
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Cavemen (Score:4, Funny)
Are they really looking at the right places? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Are they really looking at the right places? (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea is basically that as the climate dried up human ancestors stuck closer to rivers and oceans, where the trees and water were, and ate shellfish and other seafood. (It doesn't mean we became fully aquatic, like mermaids. Just that we became as aquatic as we are now.)
The rich seafood diet has plenty of all the stuff needed to fuel a large brain. It also explains why we can hold our breath and babies can instinctively hold their breath underwater, and why we have no body hair, downward pointing nostrils, webbed fingers, dilute urine, and why we find homo fossils in sediment but not chimpanzee fossils, and why baboons, which came down from the trees and onto the savannah, didn't become human-like, etc, etc.
The savannah theory says that as the climate dried up human ancestors that had previously lived in trees started to move out into the savannah.
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Standing on the shoulders of giants (Score:5, Insightful)
Humans did use their intelligence to try to live better, but each step had to solve certain problems before they could move on to the next step.
E.g., before you can have agriculture, you needed to have (A) the right conditions, which is why it evolved in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and (B) a calendar.
Being able to just flood a plot of land, or have it naturally flooded for you, is godsend at that point in time. For starters it allows you to live on far less "modern" plants, and with less work. To put things in perspective, even as late as European middle ages, you'd harvest 2 to 7 grains of grain for each grain planted. (By comparison, nowadays you'd get several hundred grains per grain planted.) Now move backward a bit more, and griculture evolved on really really shitty plants. So the fertility boost of irrigation may have been not just an extra, but actually _needed_ to be able to subsist on agriculture at all. You _had_ to have that to get agriculture "bootstrapped".
The type of soil is important too. A plough usable on northern european soil, for example, wasn't even invented until AD times. (That and the invention of the horseshoe by Germans was one of the factors that suddenly allowed them to challenge the Romans.) So having a bunch of earth turned into mud regularly may have been the _only_ way to start planting anything at all.
A calendar is also more important than it sounds, because the seasons go on whether you like it or not. If you don't start, say, harvesting at the right point of time, the next flood of the Nile comes and destroys your whole crop right there. So someone has to figure out how to count the days right, and/or how to build a stick in the ground and some markers that tell him when to start doing this or that.
That's just one example of a problem which looks trivial in retrospect, but it was the culmination of a whole chain on non-trivial discoveries.
To make things worse, now picture that:
A) You have a chicken-and-egg problem: before you have agriculture, the pressure is a heck of a lot lesser to figure out the calendar. You don't have a tech tree, like in Civilization games, to look ahead at and see "oh, now we have to work on inventing the calendar, or we'll never get agriculture in time."
As a hunter-gatherer, you just go hunting and gathering daily, and live off whatever you find. There's no use even trying to plan ahead, until you can actually store stuff for the winter, and that won't happen with berries and hunted meat. (Until you can cure meat somehow, there's no way to keep it around in a useful form anyway, so you have to go hunt your dinner daily regardless of whether you figured out the seasons or not. And to give you a timeline, AFAIK, it wasnt until the Roman empire that someone finally figured out how to, essentially, ferment meat and make a sausage out of it.)
B) You have small isolated populations, and everyone has to spend most of their day either hunting/gathering their dinner, so there aren't that many people to stay around and think up new stuff and experiment with new stuff.
For contrast sake: we all know how many great things the Greeks invented or thought up, but the thing is: the Greeks could afford to have as much as 1/3 of the population (the free males) sitting around playing philosopher in between wars. Because the other 2/3 of the population (the women and slaves) supported them. That was a _lot_ of manpower dedicated to figuring out how the world works in ancieng Greece.
And remember that as late as the ancient Egyptian Old Kingdom era, if you plotted a Gauss curve with the age at which people died, the peak would be in the 30's. (Plus a spike in the first 3 years of life.) In caveman times, I wouldn't be too surprised if it was even less. You just didn't have the time to learn a lot, think a lot about the world, make great discoveries, etc. You'd marry at 12, make a bunch of kids in a hurry, and die, and work the whole
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Modern human BEHAVIOR, not modern humans! (Score:5, Informative)
What is new in this article is the early date for the use of ochre dye, small "complex" tools, and shellfish in the diet which are all taken as evidence for modern-like human cultural behavior at 165,000 years ago.
To date, the most incontrovertible evidence for modern-like cultural behavior dates back to around 45,000 years ago, with some more ambiguous evidence (similar to that presented in the article in question) dating to around 100,000 years ago.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Agriculture IS a stretch. (Score:5, Interesting)
You look at, say, modern wheat and thing, "sure, any idiot can see how useful it is". But it only became that after a long period of development from wild stock. Try to live off the wild stuff and you'll either switch to hunter-gatherer or starve.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because you're using a modern human brain to think things through. Try using a much more primitive, almost animal-like brain, and you'll see why your questions make no sense.
To us, having farms seems like a simple idea. Instead of running around finding f
Hold off with the tinfoil, just hear me out (Score:5, Interesting)
The old accepted model of human development is that man in his modern form, homo sapiens sapiens, appeared 30k years ago with recorded history marking the rise of civilization some 6000 years ago. The theory is that humans lived in nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes until the end of the last ice age. With the warming of the climate, agriculture became possible and with it the surplus of food that allows for civilization.
Ok, that's the accepted model. But I've always wondered about the likelihood of human civilizations from before accepted recorded history. As I understand it, the science points against it because if there were such civilizations, we should see some proof of it. But what sort of proofs would civilization leave behind and how long would they last with the passage of time? Most human populations like along coastlines and we've seen historic records of cities lost to rising waters. There are many underwater archaeological sites being explored along the English Channel. And when one considers the destructive power of a 2 mile tall wall of ice rolling over a city, what would even be left for us to see? If there were a Hyperboria, a Lemuria, a Mu, what remnants should we expect to see of them, if any?
Aligning with Creationism (Score:3, Funny)
Superyooser's Law of Evolutionary Dating of Humans: As scientific research continues, the probability of the date of "modern humans" equaling the date of the beginning of the Earth approaches one.
Then the only thing left to be corrected would be the time scale, but that knowledge would be accepted in the process of "approaching one."
That Tears it . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
This proves conclusively that modern humans are responsible for global warming. As soon as we developed, the Earth started warming up. We did not even need SUVs to cause global climate change.
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To quote Eric Cartman... (Score:2, Funny)
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Cro-magnon is called Homo Sapiens Sapiens Palistinus.
Modern man is just Homo, which can understandebly can cause some confusion, as it's the same as the genus.
What Does God Have to Say About This? (Score:5, Funny)
So, it appears God is in trouble. He is claiming to have invented Man 6000 years ago. (Al Gore made a speech earlier in which he claimed to have invented man and that certain parts of the Bible were based on his and Tipper's love affair.)
However, it now appears that there is prior art, far predating God's claims. While no suit has been filed, experts believe God would lose handily if the originator of the earlier design can be found. God did not return any calls when a message was left with his representatives, the Vatican Cathedral and Boys Ranch (Rome), Beth-Bagel Temple (NYC), LDS Church and Wife Emporium (Salt Lake City).
Noted patent and copyright critic, Richard Stallman, stated that this is exactly why copyright and patent laws are bad, "It is clear that God is in the same group as all other profit hungry capitalist swine, like Bill Gates and that smelly Steve Jobs. Really, man is just an idea, and believe me, I have a few ideas about a few men. Which is why I don't use Google because then most of you would know the sites I'm going to, and that would be embarrassing. But...Where was I? Oh, yeah, God is evil. I'm hearby demanding that the new discoveries be called GNU/Homos. Heh, heh, I said, 'Homo.' But, enough of that, if God thinks he can control me..." We were unable to contact Stallman after the line went dead.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yay science!
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Re:wait (Score:5, Insightful)
I can respect their desire to conform to the Word of God, for they feel if the Creation story is an allegory, what else is an allegory? However, the physical evidence is there, and many of us belive God does not lie in either nature or in scripture. For us, the answer is "We don't have enough evidence yet to understand the whole picture." There really are no such things as paradoxes, merely incomplete models. We'll find out soon enough.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting argument, but a logical fallacy.
On this basis we should reject the "Good Samaritan" as a parable (i.e. a fictitious story): "If the 'Good Samaritan' is a parable, what else is a parable?"
The obvious reply is: "Whatever else has the characteristics of a parable."
The very early stories in the Bible have a few features in common with figurative stories - e.g. the story of the Garden of Eden has a talking snake (and explains
Hotter than hell (Score:2)
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Re:but... but... (Score:5, Insightful)
So far, the only act-of-god I have seen this year, is helping the Bears beat the Packers. Other than that, I see no proof left.
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Re:but... but... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Understood by whom? By theologists or regular believers? Which timeframe covers "always"?
That God ultimately controls health, weather, and so forth followed from that and still does, and there's no moving target here.
There's a large spectrum of interpretations between "God ultimately controls X" and "God directly and personally controls X". If someone becomes ill or recovers, should they take it personally or not? A lot of people
Re:but... but... (Score:5, Funny)
Pffft. Swinburne is for community college drop-outs and pedophiles. You want a real treatise on the subject? Check out Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret." [amazon.com] That book will knock your fucking socks off. Not wearing socks? Get some fucking socks, man; you want to catch a cold?
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Recently, some religious folks have tried to prove the opposite, and that religion is still spurring scientific progress. Some are also now claiming proof that Christianity is what helped us out of the dark ages. Do some reading...I think you will find it entertaining.
Also, I find it interesting to tie in
Re:but... but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Far better to let God dissolve, like sugar in water, invisible but still there. A sort of carrier signal for reality. But then I guess you wouldn't have much of a foundation for bashing gays.
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Re:but... but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've seen two main arguments for where god fits in a modern, scientific understanding of the universe. The first is "Well, science is just wrong," and the second is much like what you're proposing.
My question is, if god is indistinguishable from natural events, why even assume it exists? It makes it seem like the difference between god existing and god not existing is just a warm fuzzy feeling. And if I want that I can go hold my newborn daughter.
(And please don't come back with that old "God is what you feel when you hold your newborn daughter" crap.)
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Indistinguishable God (Score:3, Insightful)
There are two short-ish (b'cos its
1. If God is just the creator-sustainer then true, in day-to-day existence it would be indistinguishable to believe that or not believe that. However, if the creation had a purpose, then understanding that purpose might make living in and understanding our world easier.
However, whats to say that any specific r
Oh stop it... (Score:4, Interesting)
Bird got to fly.
Man got to sit and wonder. Why? Why? Why?
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land.
Man got to tell himself - He understand.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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nah, it's evolution (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no God in this.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you implying that the scientific method is just a thinly-veiled form of faith? As experiments are repeated and results are confirmed over time, the probability of a result that hasn't "happened so far" approaches zero. Is it mere faith that the Sun will rise again tomorrow? That just because that that's what has happened "so far", it's still possible that when I wake up to
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree with your premise:
"According to a 2007 Gallup poll, about 43% of Americans believe that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." This is only slightly less than the 46% reported in a 2006 Gallup poll.[64] Only 14% believe that "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process." [wikipedia.org]
And if you think tho
Jewish Cosmic Zombie (Score:5, Insightful)
who lives in the sky. Makes perfect sense really.
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Re:Jewish Cosmic Zombie (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't valid to construct an organized religion that doesn't have any basis on any observed fact. How is it less "ridiculous" to just make up explanations of snakes in gardens and follow those rules? If anything, theists are inhibiting our ability to figure out a "meaning of life" by their need to make up stories that must be strictly believed in. Pretending that there are little angels flying around, and little demons just waiting to poke us with a stick gets us nowhere. Do you not see something "ridiculous" and wrong with believing that such things are believed as absolute fact without any evidence other than a poorly-translated, often-edited written word?
In sum: Believing that something exists outside of our perception is not the same as believing in a very rigidly defined deity. I wouldn't have nearly as big a problem with it if was possible for people not to allow their religious beliefs affect the world around them, unfortunately, this is (by the definition of these religions) impossible.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sheesh, don't the
Re:but... but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Though, to be honest, I'd rather think the Bible and all the scriptures are God's test of humanity. Whether we actually accept his idea of free will or whether we're just following some old books like sheep, no matter whether logic and reason tell us that something can't be quite right.
The problem with Gods is that by their very definition it is impossible for mortal man to understand their motivations. IIRC, there is also no part of the Bible telling you that the Bible is by default always correct by the letter and the word. Not to mention that clinging to the letter of a translated version to English is bollocks by the way it came into existance. Claiming that every word should be weighed in a text that's a translation of a translated translation is, to put it mildly, stupid.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Though, to be honest, I'd rather think the Bible and all the scriptures are God's test of humanity. Whether we actually accept his idea of free will or whether we're just following some old books like sheep, no matter whether logic and reason tell us that something can't be quite right.
To all the atheists out there (and I don't know if the poster I'm replying to is an atheist or not): If we religious people are just sheep blindly following what we've been taught, I really think you have to forgive us. Because if there is no spiritual world, then "belief" and "knowledge" really must boil down to chemical reactions in animal brain tissue - which makes all of our reasoning very limited and potentially very error-prone. We are all then "just sheep". We are cells reacting to stimuli, and
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Now if you believe (as I do), that what I described above is contrary to your experience and your nature, then believing in a "soul" or some other agent of "free will" isn't a big leap. Think about it - if you really have free will, science can never address the mechanism by which you make choices.
True, but your premise is wrong. Free will *is* an illusion. We *are* just cells reacting to stimuli. It's just that the decision tree is so complex that it's not easily understood.
We are cells reacting to
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Maybe that really means that our will isn't so free as it seems, and that our future actions can be determined by examining our past. Though maybe the Heisenberg phenomenon kicks in
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In a closed system, you can make deterministic predictions about the behaviour of any part of the system as long as its own parts are deterministic, and they are for the most part unless they rely on quantum physics.
But we are not a closed system. We constantly react with the world and in fact, the continuous interaction with the world not only help us to have free will, but in fact is a fundamental part of the free will. In other words, tak
Re:but... but... (Score:5, Interesting)
His reasoning went like this. When Adam was created, what kept him from immediately fainting away with hunger? Obviously his bloodstream and digestive tract contained food and its metabolites - remnants of meals he never ate. A human body isn't just a machine, it's an ongoing process. The muscles and skeleton are not just the products of inheritance, but of years of growth and exercise that in Adam's case never happened.
Therefore, to create a human, God had to create a body that perfectly bore the marks of a history it did not, in fact have. What if God made the entire world that way? If natural selection is a fundamental to the operation of the world as metabolism is fundamental to the operation of the body, then certainly the world would bear the signs of evolution in the same way Adam's body bore the signs of having had breakfast that morning (note also this argues for Adam having a belly button). There would be no point in arguing over whether human precursors disproved creation, because the logic of creation requires them to be there. There would be no point in arguing over whether those precursors ever, in fact, existed, beause there would be no empirical observation or theological argument that could sway the question one way or another.
The minister was thrilled. Surely people would live and let live, go back to the things they knew best and leave others to do what they do best, unmolested. Unfortunately, this shows that while he was a clever man, he didn't understand human nature very well.
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Re:Modern Anatomy vs Behavior (Score:4, Interesting)
This actually brings up one of my serious hangups with the currently accepted view of history. Forty thousand years is an incredibly long amount of time. Consider that the ancient civilization of Sumeria (Epic of Gilgamesh) is only dated at 3100 BC with the first evidence of civilization in Egypt also around that time. How much has happened in the last 5000 years? Consider that we even consider the Dark Ages as ancient history and that was only 1000 years ago. We know very little about the history of that time.
When you consider the advances that mankind has made in technology over the past 5000 years, it is astounding. It is even more astounding to think that for the preceding 35,000 years, there was virtually no technological advancement at all! Now we hear that the date may be pushed back even further, and my incredulity grows.
The picture gets even more murky when you consider population growth. Population only really stagnates in a primitive society based on limited resources. Even with the worst estimates of the extent of impact from the last ice age, there would be plenty of land mass available for very habitable land for man to expand into. If mankind had been reproducing for 35,000 to 200,000 years, would we not have many, many more people today? Something is just not adding up here.
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Depends what you mean by "acts human".
TFA says;
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Suddenly Paris & Britney et al make sense.