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Isn't it true that anatomically modern homo sapiens date back 400,000 years? Go back further, and you probably have something close to a chimp. Chimps hunt in
by noetic_techy 8y ago
Isn't it true that anatomically modern homo sapiens date back 400,000 years? Go back further, and you probably have something close to a chimp. Chimps hunt in packs, so I'm not surprised some hominid group could bring down a Rhino 700,000 years ago.
- DougWebb 8y agoWe couldn't have jumped from "close to a chimp" to homo sapiens. Evolution is a gradual thing, and if we've been largely the same for 400k years, then someone 400k years ago could look back another 400k years and also see someone that's largely the same. So whoever butchered that rhino would be much more like us than like a chimp.
- radicaldreamer 8y agoEvolution isn't necessarily a gradual thing... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
- pvaldes 8y agoNot necessarily. Chimps eat carrion gladly when available. Some chimp (cultures?) populations in Côte d'Ivoire are also known to look actively for marrow in bones
- hyperpape 8y agoStone tools and fire were used more than 1 million years ago. The last common ancestor with chimps is estimated somewhere more than 4 million years ago, so it was probably not “something close to a chimp”. I’m not sure from the article or the limited bit I know whether the butchering was the surprising part, or just the presence of hominids in the Phillipines. It sounds a bit more like the latter.
- gnulinux 8y agoIt is the latter. In my understanding, if this were in Africa or closer parts of Eurasia, this wouldn't be that surprising, since earlier Hominids than Homo sapiens are known to hunt and butcher animals.