3 ms·

This might be a stupid question, but if the hominin needed a boat to get there, then didn't the rhino also need one?

alejohausner 8y ago
Exactly my thought. Mammals without opposable thumbs or well-developed cerebella can cross large bodies of water, clinging to floating material. I don't see why a group of hungry and adventurous proto-humans didn't cross a channel from one island to another. No boat needed. The miracle is that rhino got there. How well can rhinos swim?
amag 8y ago
Well, it must've used a Rhino Boat[1]... [1] http://www.rhinoboat.com/boat-models http://www.rhinoboat.com/boat-models
gus_massa 8y ago
The rhino didn't get there by boat, it got there walking. Actually, their ancestors got there walking when the island was connected by a land bridge to Asia, and they lived there happily for a few million years while the sea level changed and the position of the island changed. The rhino family evolved something like 20 million years ago. See more details in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros#Evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros#Evolution I still not sure how to read all the data in the table, but 20mya looks like an good approximation. In Google I got this two maps of the Earth 20mya. Notice the difference in the shape of the Philippine area. http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/flipbook/flipbook.htm http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/flipbook/flipbook.h... http://www.thearmchairexplorer.com/geology/neogene-period http://www.thearmchairexplorer.com/geology/neogene-period I'm not sure that the rhinos reached that place (the current island) 20 million years ago, but they had plenty of time and a lot of difference in the geography that makes a simple walk possible. <oversimplification warning. See an accurate version in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo#Evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo#Evolution > On the other hand, Homo Habilis evolved only 2mya and they lived only in Africa, they had tool but they were not very smart. I think that at that time the Philippines were already isolated from Asia. Homo Erectus evolved 1.5mya. They were quite smart and hd more tools! They went outside Africa to Europe and Asia, but they never crossed some big sea, and never reached America or Australia. They neither crossed some smaller extensions of water to reach some island that were not too close to the continens. So ... the conclusion is that they didn't have good enough boats. Homo Sapiens evolved 0.3mya. (I was going to write 0.1mya, the number changes too often.) They could cross to some places no Erectus has gone before, so the conclusion is that they have some kind of boats even in ancient times. So if the rhino was butchered 0.7mya then it must have be killed by some variant of Homo Erectus that have never been found in an island that is not very close to a continent because they didn't have good enough boats because they were smart but not smart enough. So the lack of boats is a problem for the hominin.

Exactly my thought. Mammals without opposable thumbs or well-developed cerebella can cross large bodies of water, clinging to floating material. I don't see why a group of hungry and adventurous proto-humans didn't cross a channel from one island to another. No boat needed. The miracle is that rhino got there. How well can rhinos swim?

amag 8y ago

Well, it must've used a Rhino Boat[1]... [1] http://www.rhinoboat.com/boat-models http://www.rhinoboat.com/boat-models

gus_massa 8y ago

The rhino didn't get there by boat, it got there walking. Actually, their ancestors got there walking when the island was connected by a land bridge to Asia, and they lived there happily for a few million years while the sea level changed and the position of the island changed. The rhino family evolved something like 20 million years ago. See more details in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros#Evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros#Evolution I still not sure how to read all the data in the table, but 20mya looks like an good approximation. In Google I got this two maps of the Earth 20mya. Notice the difference in the shape of the Philippine area. http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/flipbook/flipbook.htm http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/flipbook/flipbook.h... http://www.thearmchairexplorer.com/geology/neogene-period http://www.thearmchairexplorer.com/geology/neogene-period I'm not sure that the rhinos reached that place (the current island) 20 million years ago, but they had plenty of time and a lot of difference in the geography that makes a simple walk possible. <oversimplification warning. See an accurate version in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo#Evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo#Evolution > On the other hand, Homo Habilis evolved only 2mya and they lived only in Africa, they had tool but they were not very smart. I think that at that time the Philippines were already isolated from Asia. Homo Erectus evolved 1.5mya. They were quite smart and hd more tools! They went outside Africa to Europe and Asia, but they never crossed some big sea, and never reached America or Australia. They neither crossed some smaller extensions of water to reach some island that were not too close to the continens. So ... the conclusion is that they didn't have good enough boats. Homo Sapiens evolved 0.3mya. (I was going to write 0.1mya, the number changes too often.) They could cross to some places no Erectus has gone before, so the conclusion is that they have some kind of boats even in ancient times. So if the rhino was butchered 0.7mya then it must have be killed by some variant of Homo Erectus that have never been found in an island that is not very close to a continent because they didn't have good enough boats because they were smart but not smart enough. So the lack of boats is a problem for the hominin.