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Science

Footprints Suggest Different Human Relatives Lived Alongside One Another (nytimes.com) 69

A million and a half years ago, amid giant storks and the ancestors of antelopes, two extinct relatives of humans walked along the same muddy lakeshore in what is today northern Kenya, new research suggests. From a report: An excavation team uncovered four sets of footprints preserved in the mud at the Turkana Basin, a site that has led to important breakthroughs in understanding human evolution. The discovery, announced on Thursday in a paper in the journal Science, is direct evidence that different kinds of human relatives, with distinct anatomies and gaits, inhabited the same place at the same time, the paper's authors say. It also raises questions about the extent of the species' interactions with each other.

"They might have walked by one another," said Kevin Hatala, an evolutionary anthropologist at Chatham University in Pittsburgh who led the study. "They might have looked up in the distance and seen another member of a closely related species, occupying the same landscape." Based on skeletal remains found in the region, Dr. Hatala's team attributed the footprints to Paranthropus boisei and Homo erectus, two types of hominins, the group consisting of our human lineage and closely related species. Paranthropus boisei had smaller brains along with wide, flat faces and massive teeth and chewing muscles; Homo erectus more closely resembled modern human proportions and are thought to be our direct ancestors.

Footprints Suggest Different Human Relatives Lived Alongside One Another

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  • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Thursday November 28, 2024 @10:33PM (#64978647)
    My gramma lived in the next house over when I was a kid.
    • Re:Well Duh! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by CaptQuark ( 2706165 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @01:44AM (#64978793)

      Having two different hominids in the same area would be about as common as having both chimpanzees and monkeys in the same area. Or seeing horses and donkeys in the same area. If the environmental conditions were suitable for one species it isn't surprising to find a similar species there also.

      I guess the researchers were surprised to find tracks from those early hominids in the same preserved fossil bed. Finding one preserved footprint set is rare. Finding both preserved side by side is like finding undiscovered works by both Beethoven and Strauss in the same forgotten library.

      • It kind of challenges the idea some people have that all humanoids are genocidal maniacs. We know some of our close relatives (e.g. some chimpanzees) are. We also know that some aren't (e.g. almost all bonobos). If these species lived more or less side by side for hundreds of thousands of years then I feel that's something to be happy about even if you have doubts about why we are (sort of) all alone now.

        • It kind of challenges the idea some people have that all humanoids are genocidal maniacs. We know some of our close relatives (e.g. some chimpanzees) are. We also know that some aren't (e.g. almost all bonobos). If these species lived more or less side by side for hundreds of thousands of years then I feel that's something to be happy about even if you have doubts about why we are (sort of) all alone now.

          Bonobos Pan paniscus and Chimpanzees pan troglodytes are separated by the Congo river. They don't actually intermingle, since pan are not a good swimmers.

      • If the environmental conditions were suitable for one species it isn't surprising to find a similar species there also

        Well, humans like to have it both ways, two species and yet one. It really could have been a family outing. [wikipedia.org]

      • On evolutionary timescales, I would not expect two species to share the same niche in the same territory.

        It's not a stable configuration - there will be competition, and whenever there is stress due to resource shortages there will be conflict. One species will eventually outcompete the other into extinction even if that doesn't mean direct physical confrontation.

        Without a feedback mechanism to prevent that - some kind of interdependence - I would expect extinction to be an inevitable outcome.

      • Finding both preserved side by side is like finding undiscovered works by both Beethoven and Strauss in the same forgotten library.

        One set of foot prints was the 'person' tracking the other set of footprints to kill them and take their stuff. We know who won.

    • At what time did people start to make and wear sandals? That would be the end of footprints.
  • "Well, there goes the neighborhood."

  • Sad reality (Score:2, Interesting)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 )

    Our ancestors probably enslaved them.

    • Actual Reality (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @12:00AM (#64978705) Homepage Journal

      Our ancestors probably enslaved them.

      Homo Sapiens evolved roughly 200,000 to 300,000 years ago.

      So no, our species hadn't evolved yet.

      At about 100,000 years ago, there were about 7 known species of Homo, including Homo Sapens and Homo Neanderthalis ("Man from the Neander valley"). Interestingly, Neanderthals were larger, more muscular, and had bigger brains than Homo Sapens. There were probably more species of Homo, but evidence from that far back is scarce.

      (The mental image of Neanderthals [theconversation.com] being short, squat, and monkey-like is now thought to be in error, from one deformed skeleton. A Neanderthal would probably have visible racial characteristics, but would also probably have a body style acceptable as normal in modern days.

      Around 70,000 years ago Homo Sapiens got a mutation that allowed them to "believe in fiction" (aka understand abstract concepts), which allowed them to understand systems that don't exist in reality. Such as religion, countries, money, corporations, and so on. This allowed Sapiens to cooperate in the same culture without having to know each other personally: two Christians could go on a crusade together, or collaborate to start a hospital, without knowing each other in detail, only knowing that they both believed the same fictional culture of "Christian".

      Up until that time humans could only cooperate in groups of up to around 150, because when your tribe gets larger than that you can't keep track of the personal attributes and interactions of everyone in your tribe.

      Because of that mutation, many more than the typical 150 tribal members could cooperate, by believing in the same fictional system. Some people suggest that the mutation in question was with the FOXP2 gene [wikipedia.org], which allowed complex language that could describe abstract concepts and analogies. It's believed that the mutation was random, in that it could just as easily have been Neanderthals, or one of the other species of Homo.

      Around 40,000 years ago Homo Sapiens was the last species of Homo surviving.

      But yes, slavery goes back further than human recorded history. Humans have had slaves for much longer than humans have *not* had slaves.

      Actually, humans keep slaves [wikipedia.org] today, so we could also say that humans have always had slavery. (Example.) [thecollector.com]

      • Yes humans have had slavery for thousands of years and all humans have ancestors who were slaves and also some ancestors who enslaved people.

      • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        A Neanderthal would probably have visible racial characteristics, but would also probably have a body style acceptable as normal in modern days.

        Must. Resist. MTG. Jokes...

      • Re:Actual Reality (Score:5, Informative)

        by RockDoctor ( 15477 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @02:50AM (#64978863) Journal

        Homo Sapiens evolved roughly 200,000 to 300,000 years ago.

        There are "Anatomically Modern Humans" ("AMH" ; more "modern" than Neanderthals and Denisovans, at least as far as teeth go) found dated to around 300,000 years in both Morocco and the Ethiopian Highlands. The 200,000 year date is out of the window now.

        Given the genetic divergence between modern humans, Denisovans and Neanderthals, the genetics people reckon the last common ancestor of all three lived around 400,000 years ago, which is comfortably in range for the divergence to have occurred in sub-Saharan Africa around 400,000 years ago with the Neanderthal-Denisovan ancestors heading out of Africa through the Sinai to differentiate in Eurasia, while AMHs stayed in Africa for a few hundred thousand years before they too came out of Africa.

        At about 100,000 years ago, there were about 7 known species of Homo, including Homo Sapens and Homo Neanderthalis

        Leaving aside the "lumper vs splitter" eternal false dichotomy, the 100 kyr "hominid" listing includes Homo sapiens, H. Neanderthalensis (the specific name comes from a proper noun location, so capitalised), H. Denisova (is that the right Latin case? H. Denisovensis? ; for the Denisova cave), H. Luzonensis (Luzon island), H. Floresiensis (Flores island), and much more controversially (because of the low sample count), Harbin man (not sure on the formal name for that one ; locality Harbin city, China, IIRC). There was also a cryptic sub-Saharan African population which the genetics people can see, but no bones (yet), and finally Homo naledi in southern Africa. (For which we don't have any genetic data. Yet.)

        But three of those (sapiens, Neanderthalensis, Denisova) are known to have exchanged genetic material - so calling them separate species is very fraught. Yes, there are on average morphological differences between the groups (remembering we have I think two teeth, a few finger bones, one jaw fragment, and one skull fragment for all of Denisova) ; but where we have sufficient data the within-group variation is bigger than the between-group variation. It's a classical example of the "lumper" versus "splitter" argument within taxonomy - do we "lump" all this variation into one species, or "split" every single fossil into a separate species (becasue no two fossils are identical. One danger of the latter is that in sexually dimorphic taxa (which includes AMH humans and all other hominids for which we have sufficient specimens) you count the sexes as being two distinct species. (In geology there are many such discussions going on about various organisms - dilemmas and trilemmas about ceratopsian dinosaurs ; arguments roared within the Tyrannosaur community ; an occasional flap in the pterosaur people ; and much mud being stirred up by trilobite bottom-feeders. It's a debate that will probably never have a solution, but it's important to know that there is a debate, and you have to be cautious to understand the evidence, not just the headlines.

        Returning to the human "species" list, Luzonensis and Floresiensis have some similarities and parallels. But ... since there are AMH humans in Australia, possibly as far back as 70 kyr BP, then there must also have been an as-yet undiscovered AMH population in the Indonesian archipelago. At least, intermittently.

        What the fsck was happening with naledi, nobody knows. Which is good. Encouraging. Gives the next generation some nice big puzzles to bring them into the game.

        I wonder if a creationist idiot has turned up on the thread while I've been typing. Probably - it is an American-dominated board, and they are a common disease organism over there. Far rarer on this side of the Pond.

        • Thanks for the update.

          I'm writing a novel (fiction) that includes some anthropology and would love to talk to someone more current on the subject. All the info I can find (on the net, or in popular books) is at various stages of out-of-date.

          Up for a chat?

          niroz (dot) 9 (dot) okianwarrior (at) spamgourmet.com

        • by cusco ( 717999 )

          There is another just referred to as "Unknown" found in the genetics of some Pacific Island and Southeast Asian peoples, different from the African 'Unknown'.

      • by lsllll ( 830002 )

        Around 70,000 years ago Homo Sapiens got a mutation that allowed them to "believe in fiction" (aka understand abstract concepts)

        Okay, I'll bite since I must be a neanderthal and my DDG search results don't turn anything up. Do you have a source for this? Because, to me, it doesn't make logical sense. Mutations have physiological and physical manifestations. I fail to see how a mutation might introduce something like logic, or acceptance of abstract concepts into the brain. Again, I could be completely wrong and that's why I'm trying to see if there are sources out there about this that I can educate myself.

        • by Calydor ( 739835 )

          Mutation causes a physical change in the brain, creating different branching neural pathways, in turn creating different ways of thinking. The earliest example of actual imagination is a mammoth tusk carved to resemble a man with a lion's head - something that does not exist in reality and had to be fully imagined.

          • the earliest example of actual imagination is a mammoth tusk carved to resemble a man with a lion's head

            The famous "lion-man" of ... Hofels cave, IIRC ; Swabian "Alps" of SE Germany, found just before the outbreak of WW2, and dated to around 30~35 kyr BP. IIRC.

            Which is a genuine enough find - even if I've spelled the site wrong and am off by 5 kyr - I's slightly suspicious of my memory, and can't be bothered to look it up. Because as evidence of a "new way of thinking" (Okian's description as "belief in fi

        • It actually appears that the jury is still out on this one:
          https://www.frontiersin.org/jo... [frontiersin.org]
          but then again there is this:
          https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380... [doi.org]
          (The second article cited the first, so you get the idea that there is a discourse going on...)
          Personal thought: I would say that "mutations [that] have physiological and physical manifestations" on your brain will be able to change how your brain works on a cellular level, and thus also influence the brain's ability for logical or abstract thinkin
        • Here's a popular science article supporting the thesis [berkeley.edu], from a Berkley neuroscientist but without any clear references.

        • by znrt ( 2424692 )

          I fail to see how a mutation might introduce something like logic, or acceptance of abstract concepts into the brain.

          what else would introduce that? god? aliens?

          technically it would have probably been by duplication and divergence, which involves mutations. at the end of the day everything our hardware is capable of is coded in genes, and that codification must have happened in discrete steps.

          Do you have a source for this? (...) Again, I could be completely wrong and that's why I'm trying to see if there are sources out there about this that I can educate myself.

          gp actually included a link to the foxp2 hypothesis.

          • by lsllll ( 830002 )

            I hear where you're coming from and if we go back, then, technically, yes. All physical and physiological changes have happened because of mutations.

            What I was alluding to, though, was that because knowledge is accumulative (you learn much from parents, peers, and environment) that it was inevitable that an expanded mind would start to wander off into abstract thoughts and that specific change may not be because of a physiological mutation, but because of expanded knowledge.

            • What I was alluding to, though, was that because knowledge is accumulative (you learn much from parents, peers, and environment)

              I've long expressed the opinion that while genomes evolve by Darwinian evolution, culture in contrast evolves by Lamarkian evolution. Very literally, the offspring generation inherits traits developed by their parents. Chop, if you want to repeat a Victorian era experiment, the tails off ten successive generations of juvenile mice, and you won't breed tailless mice (no need to do

              • by lsllll ( 830002 )

                The Weismann experiment is interesting and sure enough, it reinforces Darwin's theory. And in a way, also disproves soft inheritance as well. But these all have to do with gene passing. So (and in agreement with what you wrote about mice being afraid of humans), it's entirely plausible that over generations Homo Sapiens may have become aware of abstract ideas just by forming neural links alone.

        • Reference cited (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @11:50AM (#64979461) Homepage Journal

          Around 70,000 years ago Homo Sapiens got a mutation that allowed them to "believe in fiction" (aka understand abstract concepts)

          Okay, I'll bite since I must be a neanderthal and my DDG search results don't turn anything up. Do you have a source for this? Because, to me, it doesn't make logical sense. Mutations have physiological and physical manifestations. I fail to see how a mutation might introduce something like logic, or acceptance of abstract concepts into the brain. Again, I could be completely wrong and that's why I'm trying to see if there are sources out there about this that I can educate myself.

          I'm getting this from the book "Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind" [amazon.com] by Yuval Noah Harari.

          It's an interesting read, and I'm currently stuck at the point where he describes all our cultural beliefs as fiction, as a way for massive numbers of humans to cooperate. As he points out, one Serb will be inclined to help out another Serb, simply because they both believe the concept of Serbia as a separate nation.

          The description of culture as a fiction (ie - not existing in reality) that allows large numbers of humans to cooperate was profound, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

          For example, this completely explains the "Plato's Cave" model of the world.

          • by Rinnon ( 1474161 )

            It's an interesting read, and I'm currently stuck at the point where he describes all our cultural beliefs as fiction, as a way for massive numbers of humans to cooperate. As he points out, one Serb will be inclined to help out another Serb, simply because they both believe the concept of Serbia as a separate nation.

            The description of culture as a fiction (ie - not existing in reality) that allows large numbers of humans to cooperate was profound, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

            How insightful! That's a super interesting way of looking at it, I totally see the value of the description.

            My immediate thought is to delve into the connotative baggage of the word "fiction" and try to disentangle it. Clearly the author decided "fiction" would spark the thoughts they were trying to evoke better than "abstraction", but also clearly there is a difference between the "fiction" of Canada and the "fiction" of The Horde (Warcraft nation). On the other hand... is there really that big a differenc

            • How insightful! That's a super interesting way of looking at it, I totally see the value of the description.

              My immediate thought is to delve into the connotative baggage of the word "fiction" and try to disentangle it. Clearly the author decided "fiction" would spark the thoughts they were trying to evoke better than "abstraction", but also clearly there is a difference between the "fiction" of Canada and the "fiction" of The Horde (Warcraft nation). On the other hand... is there really that big a difference between "Meet me by Hachiko in Shibuya" (Tokyo) and "Meet me by the Auction House in Orgrimmar?"(World of Warcraft) In both cases we're talking about a specific piece of location data (Hachiko/Auction House) situated in a larger "fictional" area (Shibuya/Orgrimmar), but we certainly wouldn't find it easy to say to someone that there is no difference. Hmm...

              I want to say that the author's use of the word "fiction" to describe culture may not be as straightforward as meaning "not existing in reality" but... Maybe I should check out this book.

              His (Harari's) point is because you believe the same fiction, you know enough about the other person to predict their behaviour. So in your example, you could meet another WoW player online and invite him to your house for a night of drinking and gaming. You have the same interests, you're probably similar personality types, and you can get along together. You can have a WoW party IRL at your house and not be too worried about the outcome.

              Jordan Peterson pointed out that it doesn't matter which culture you'

              • His (Harari's) point is because you believe the same fiction, you know enough about the other person to predict their behaviour.

                So ... if I predict that an Nazi that I punch in the face will get angry, does that mean that I believe the same fictions that he does? (Accepting a bloody nose as blunt reality intruding into theoretical space.)

                Being able to predict behaviour does not involve sharing beliefs. It can be done by observation of multiple [event:prompted behaviour] pairs and developing a predictive mo

          • by lsllll ( 830002 )

            But tribalism *Serb with Serb) is nothing new. The question is 1) what's the breadth of the issue that's at work via tribalism (i.e. country attacked, black vs white, migrant vs. citizen, etc) and 2) whether one has the faculty to overcome tribalism and see past it.

            By definition, real things aren't fiction. I looked up the definition of "culture" [merriam-webster.com] so that I'm not talking out of my ass, but even if I go by definitions 1a and 2b in the referenced dictionary, even though what's referenced is not tangible, its

            • by Rinnon ( 1474161 )

              By definition, real things aren't fiction. I looked up the definition of "culture" [merriam-webster.com] so that I'm not talking out of my ass, but even if I go by definitions 1a and 2b in the referenced dictionary, even though what's referenced is not tangible, its manifestation is and thus cannot be fiction. I'm wondering if Harari is misusing the word "culture".

              I do not think you are talking out of your ass, but I think the way you are relying on definitions is misguided. Words convey meaning regardless of whether that meaning has reached the common parlance such that it can be documented. The first time the kids said something was "Fire" to mean it was "Cool" was it misused, or was it a novel use? If the intent is correctly interpreted, the the word has successfully carried meaning. Is the entire English speaking world misusing it's language because it does not c

          • by Yuval Noah Harari.

            I recognise the name ; I've had him (?) recommended by various people over the years. Never with sufficiently interesting grounds for me to actually look for him in the library (certainly not to spend money on).

            at the point where he describes all our cultural beliefs as fiction

            If ("if") that's his hypothesis, is the corresponding null hypothesis he tests it against that "cultural beliefs are physically real"?

            If cultural beliefs are real, then there can be an objectively verifiable ran

      • Is there any evidence of humans living together in groups of larger than ~150 before agriculture came along?
        • There are hunting grounds in, Eurasia with temporal settlements.
          100,000 thousands of dead mini horses, chased over cliffs.
          The settlements have millions of bones from eating.
          Does not really sound plausible that the wandering humans where only the size of packs of 150.

          There is no real reason to assume there is such a limit. Consider american Indian tribes, they were several thousands big.

          • There are hunting grounds in, Eurasia with temporal settlements.
            100,000 thousands of dead mini horses, chased over cliffs.

            100,000 dead mini-horses in one sitting, or using the same trap site every couple of years for, say, 5000 years and getting 50~100 of the young, inexperienced members of the herd during their annual migration each time.

            The two would be very hard to distinguish at this time range.

            [Thinks : fresh bone breaks differently from "dry" bone. True. Maybe that could differentiate the two case

        • The nominal start of agriculture is typically given at about 10 kyr BP (obviously it didn't happen all at once).

          The megalithic monumental site of GÃbekli Tepe (no, Slashdot, I'm not going to water it down ; learn to handle non-Latin characters!), whatever rituals the megaliths and drystone walls were associated with, is dated to around 11.5 kyr BP. The animal bones deposited in various "middens" (rubbish heaps/ pits) do not show the morphological characteristics which those species later acquired unde

          • by cusco ( 717999 )

            Something I found interesting was that the African bottle gourd was being cultivated on the southern coast of the Caribbean around 10,000 years ago. Because of the dismal state of archeological research in Africa its domestication date is unknown, but by the time it arrived in the Americas it had already been domesticated so long that it no longer could reproduce in the wild.

      • by Calydor ( 739835 )

        Not to be a pedant but I'm absolutely gonna be a pedant. Even if Homo sapiens hadn't distinctly evolved yet we would still have ancestors in that time period. It's literally impossible not to until you've gone back so far in time that you're talking about the initial creation of single-cell organisms somewhere in the oceans.

      • The number you are looking for is 5!, not 150. (the exclamation point is a math symbol, not an actual exclamation point!)

    • Or were the enslaved.

      Why does everyone want to have ancestors who were rich and/or famous, but whose bloodlines have descended since to the relative anonymity of today's comment-writer. Every second reincarnation is of Pharaoh Narmer or Hannibal, when you'd expect 9999 reincarnations of one of Narmer's kilt-clad soldiers to every Narmer. Or even 40 of Hannibal's elephants reincarnated to every Hannibal.

      • Or were the enslaved.

        Why does everyone want to have ancestors who were rich and/or famous, but whose bloodlines have descended since to the relative anonymity of today's comment-writer. Every second reincarnation is of Pharaoh Narmer or Hannibal, when you'd expect 9999 reincarnations of one of Narmer's kilt-clad soldiers to every Narmer. Or even 40 of Hannibal's elephants reincarnated to every Hannibal.

        To be fair, the rich and/or famous frequently had lots of offspring, legitimate and otherwise.

        And the way the branches cross and recross, most of us probably have some ancestors of both flavors ...

      • It's mathematically inconceivable that we don't have ancestors who were slave, and some who were (at minimum) tribal leader or king of some region.

    • Enslaving the goblins? Surely the mythologies would have captured that.

    • Why? Did they worship the wrong imaginary friend?

    • You "social justice" fake-woke types who seem to thrive on digging up / making up every single bit of your ancestors past misbehavior so you can chastise them in public -- thus in your mind earning you brownie points with... someone.. I'm not sure who, so I just assume it's all one big self-gratifying circle jerk.

      You lot would do well to read Moby Dick. Or watch Wrath of Khan, same fucking thing.

      You're out for revenge, and would burn down your own country to get it. You're out for revenge for something

  • So, basically Homo Erectus outbred everybody else, which is what would be expected from a name like that

  • by FridayBob ( 619244 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @08:39AM (#64979145)
    Knowing that H. sapiens is now all that's left of the various hominin lineages and that P. boisei and H. erectus (which look quite different) were contemporaries for some 850k years, could this be evidence of the one hunting the other? If racism is still alive and kicking today, it was probably extra fierce back then.
    • I'm pretty sure my ancestors ate most of the other hominids. You have to be mean like a chimp or high in the trees like an orangutan to survive in this tough world.

  • "Pretty women walkin' with gorillas down my street. From my window I'm staring while my coffee goes cold."

I'd rather just believe that it's done by little elves running around.

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