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40,000-year-old bracelet made by extinct human species found (2015)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- peter303 9y agoA better term for species would be 'race'. Modern homo sapiens interbred with Denosovians at times and acquired some of their genes. Species means a lack of cross-bredability.
- nickserv 9y agoSpecies means that there is normally no cross breeding in the wild. You can have two species which will reproduce in captivity, but in the wild are blocked by some geographic feature such as mountains or water, or by some behavioral aspect such as a mating ritual. It's not uncommon for two species in the same genus to be able to have offspring, for example equines (mules) and felines (ligers). In some cases the resulting hybrid offspring are fertile, for example the "Savanna" cats which are domestic cats hybridized with servals. In the wild, when previously separated species are put in contact with each other, there can be instances of natural hybrids. This is what happened with the various Homo species, due to various migrations.
- TezlaKoil 9y agoThis article about the bracelet is from 2015. No updates since then, and it does not link to anything peer-reviewed. All in all I would take this with a huge grain of salt.
- hprotagonist 9y agoand quotes the daily mail. as far as i'm concerned that puts it immediately in "bigfoot discovered in noah's ark" territory until definitively shown otherwise.
- horus_the_cat 9y agoDaily Mail's holding company has a serious data operation in place though, maybe they're leaking their inside info, like where the ark of the covenant is warehoused, now that earth is totally fucked
- c0nducktr 9y agoA simple google search shows further updates... http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0711-worlds-oldest-needle-found-in-siberian-cave-that-stitches-together-human-history/ http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0711-worlds... https://www.nature.com/articles/srep23559 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep23559
- martey 9y agoExcept the Siberian Times article also doesn't link to anything peer-reviewed, and the Nature paper is about bone identification, not bracelets or other artifacts. The only academic paper about the bracelet I could find is from 2008 and was submitted to the journal "Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia", whose editor-in-chief, Anatoly Derevyanko, is also the paper's primary author.
- BuckRogers 9y agoTrue but to be fair they're still fresh findings. And oldest as well, so comparison to other findings is pretty low.
- martey 9y ago> True but to be fair they're still fresh findings. Your "fresh finding" was found nine years ago - this is even explicitly stated in the 2015 Siberian Times article. All of the citations for the paper describing the "bracelet" [1] are for uncontroversial findings (that Denisovans existed, that they interbred with Neanderthals, etc.) - none of them make any reference to the supposed "bracelet". [1]: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1563011008000378 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1563011008...
- BuckRogers 9y agoI figured someone who has no idea what they were talking about would say that. They're fresh but I'm not going to teach as to all the reasons why, as it's clear you don't do much with science, research or archaeology. Good luck.
- mirimir 9y agoThere's an article in Pleistocene Coalition News from 2015.[0] But I note: "The Pleistocene Coalition is now into its sixth year of challenging mainstream scientific dogma. If you would like to join the coalition please write to the editors." So ... I find no peer-reviewed followup about the Denisovan bracelet. However, I do find an article in Current Biology about Denisovan and Neanderthal ancestry in modern humans.[1] The date estimate is about right: "[W]e estimate 44,000–54,000 years ago for Denisovan admixture." 0) http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.695.1178&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.695... 1) http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2816%2930247-0 http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2816...
- madaxe_again 9y agoIndeed, it's poorly written (no morphological similarities to modern humans?? They were alive before they were extinct? Daily mail as source), and this scans more like the mystical bullshit you read in Russian media all the time (Jesus was Russian, all peoples are descended from the pure Slavic archetype, dinosaur spotted in Yekaterinburg, putin wrestles ten bears saving orphanage).
- ythn 9y agoHow do we know that 5000 year old humans didn't make jewelry out of 35000 year old materials?
- throwaway7645 9y agoInteresting question. I didn't read the article and don't know anything about the subject, but maybe you can tell if the chisel marks are 5000 or 35000 years old? Probably not, but just a thought.
- ehsanu1 9y agoIANAA (I am not a archaeologist), but I'm guessing the dating is based on the materials that encased/surrounded the artifact rather than the material of the artifact itself.
- gnaritas 9y agoBecause archaeologist's aren't dumb.
- delecti 9y agoYou've managed to quite rudely respond without actually answering their question except with an appeal to authority. While I'm sure the archaeologists who determined it was 40,000 years old had a good reason for it, jeez.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- pranavsinghca 9y agoThis is interesting. Could modern scientists today create a piece of jewellery using ancient material? Surely they can. I'd be interested in knowing what techniques modern scientists would use to 'fool' other scientists, and then knowing when these techniques generally became available.
- ars 9y ago"and they confirm that it could not have been made by homo sapiens or Neanderthals" Could not? Really? I would be very interested in seeing how that could possibly be true. Without a better explanation of this line, I find this article very suspect.
- contingencies 9y ago200km is not necessarily 'imported'. People can walk 5km/hr easily. You are talking about 4 days' comfortable walk. Many nomadic groups would have had ranges exceeding 200km at least on occasion. For example I believe there is evidence that some Australian aboriginal societies regularly communicated over vaster distances, at least sporadically - eg. annually in certain seasons.
- jankotek 9y agoMany people walked that distance every year for seasonal jobs even in 20th century.
- icebraining 9y agoThey still do for pilgrimage - the main "Camino de Santiago" (St. James' Way) from France to Spain is 700km+, and some people make the journey every year. Obviously nowadays they have modern comforts, but the Way stretches back centuries.
- madaxe_again 9y ago200km is also well within the range of river transport washing erratics downstream.
- ada1981 9y agoObviously the Nephilim. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim Ie. The half man / half God creatures from the Old Testimate that some believe are Alien hybrids.
- thoughtsimple 9y agoI always love quotes like this: "All jewellery had a magical meaning for ancient people. Bracelets and neck adornments were to protect people from evil spirits, for instance." And we know this how? Maybe it was just made to be pretty. A rich person giving their partner a gift etc. No one could possibly be able to make any further inferences from a species of human we know almost nothing about.
- wavefunction 9y agoI think if you reference the Dungeon Master's Guide tables regarding loot, you'll notice a preponderance of protective magic when it comes to magical necklaces. +1s and +2s to general saves, resistance to elemental damage types, that sort of thing. Which is probably what they're going off of.
- drewmate 9y agoThis is true, however it is generally accepted that proto-humans had much higher constitutions as well as greater general resistance to fire, water, etc... due to their lack of advanced structural dwellings and plate armor. If this is the case, the +1s and +2s would be less necessary and bracelets could, in fact, have been merely decorative. That said, if archaeologists take the time to attune to the bracelets, I'm sure they will discover some magical properties.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoMy mother studied archaeology and she told me once what she heard during her classes - that "religious significance" is the default label that is put on things they found when they have no clue what those things were for.
- willvarfar 9y agoYeap, in Time Team (warning: you can lose days binging on those videos on youtube!) they use the term "ritual". Everything is ritualistic, every pathway is for "processions" and so on, until they find evidence of something that makes said object or pathway or location mundane :)
- hsavit1 9y agoWas this planted there by the green lantern?
- Arizhel 9y agoNo, it was made by the guy we know as Jesus, when he was still young and hadn't figured out yet that he doesn't age.
- EGreg 9y agoUntil now, scientists had believed that such skills had only evolved among humans in the Neolithic period, which began at about 10,000 BC. Indeed, originally, they believed that the bracelet had somehow become mixed up with materials dating from a later period. However, experiments have now definitely ruled that out, and they confirm that it could not have been made by homo sapiens or Neanderthals. After 7 years of analysis, the scientists are confident that the piece was made 30,000 years before the beginning of the Stone Age. What experiments?? Thanks article! Useless.
- dotancohen 9y ago> the piece was made 30,000 years before the beginning of the Stone Age. Considering that the Stone Age began almost three and a half million years ago, that is quite a statement of precision.
- JPLeRouzic 9y agoThis is not uncommon: * In Europe which was home of Neanderthals at that time (middle/upper paleolithic) , there are beautiful artifacts in places such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohle_Fels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohle_Fels * In Africa were Homo Sapiens comes from, there are similar places at that time where beautiful artifacts are retrieved like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enkapune_Ya_Muto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enkapune_Ya_Muto
- dandare 9y ago> The cave is named after the Denisovan people — a mysterious species of hominins from the Homo genus Nope. The Denisovan people are named after the cave and the cave is named after a hermit Denis who lived there in the 18th century.
- mholmes680 9y agoi wonder then if Denis drilled the hole in the thing. How would one determine the age of a drilled hole?
- mabbo 9y agoIANAA[0] but there are some pretty good techniques for telling the difference, from what I understand. Publishing something like this only for it to be something like 'Oh wait, I guess Denis did it' is a great way to end your career as a scientist. [0] I am not an archeologist
- dghf 9y ago> the recent discovery of a female Denisovan finger bone and various teeth shows that they had no morphological similarities to either Neanderthals or modern humans. Does "morphological similarities" have a particular definition in palaeoanthropology beyond the apparently plain meaning of the words? Even if "they" refers to the finger bone and teeth rather than the Denisovans as a whole, I would have thought they would have had some morphological similarities to modern humans, otherwise they wouldn't be recognisable as a finger bone and teeth.
- icebraining 9y agoAlso, how could they have mated, let alone have hybrid children?
- mabbo 9y agoFor some modern people, as much as 5% of their DNA comes from neanderthals. Pretty-close species can have hybrid children, but the more distant the less likely the child will be fully-functional. Consider mules (horse + donkey) which are sterile or the infamous Ligers and Tigons (Lion + Tiger can make some monstrously large cats).
- goodJobWalrus 9y agoI remember reading that Australian aboriginals have up to 5% of Denisovan genes (don't remember source, but it was widely reported after the discovery)
- icebraining 9y agoMy question was how they could mate without having any morphological similarities. Horses and donkeys surely do!
- vonnik 9y agoIt's a little outdated, but anyone interested in "extinct human species", or proto-humans, should read Jared Diamond's book "The Third Chimpanzee", which is about the small genetic and vast cultural differences that separate us from other large primate, including the two other types of chimp...