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210k-year-old skull in Greece is earliest sign of modern humans in Europe, Asia
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago...if the DNA testing proves out. Which hasn't been done yet?
- losvedir 7y agoCan someone link to a kind of summary of the current best understanding of human evolution and dispersal? It's really fascinating to me. Until recently, I had naively understood "Out of Africa" to mean that homo sapiens evolved in Africa from some sort of ape like thing and then went out and conquered the world. But the idea that homo sapiens is just one of many kinds of human species, and that other ones like Neanderthals and Denosivans left Africa earlier (or evolved from homo erectus who left earlier still...?) is really mind blowing. It's weird to me to think of multiple human species living at the same time.
- wazoox 7y agoHomo ergaster had its own "Out of Africa" moment several hundred thousand years earlier, and branched into several subspecies like homo erectus; up to a million years before, there was even other homo species (maybe homo habilis?) that left Africa to become for instance homo georgicus.
- otterteeth 7y agoThis is a good site - https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-history-of-our-tribe/ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-history-of-our-tribe/
- criddell 7y agoYou might enjoy Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens. It's written for a general audience and I got a lot out of it.
- devoply 7y agoHowever Sapiens is not about pre-history. It's about history and written by a historian.
- blisterpeanuts 7y agoThe general consensus up until now is, roughly: Homo Erectus: 1 million B.C. to about 500,000 B.C. Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens split off from common ancestor: 500,000 B.C. Homo Sapiens dominate Africa until about 70,000 B.C. when they spread into Europe, Middle East, and Asia. Neanderthals dominate Europe, Middle East, and Asia, until 70,000 B.C. when Homo Sapiens return out of Africa. There are a few other variations of humans in the 300KYA to 70KYA period, including: Denisovans (found in Siberia and other places), the "hobbits" found in Indonesia. It's possible and likely that around 100KYA, there were several species of humans cohabiting the earth, including modern humans (H. sapiens), Neanderthals, Denisovans, a few remaining H. Erectus, the hobbits, and some mixtures of the above. Each discovery sheds new light and sometimes, as with this possible modern human skull, shatters old theories about the timeline. It's fascinating to think that at one time in the not-too-distant past, there were multiple species of humans in existence, of which only one survived, though most non-African humans today carry 2-4% Neanderthal genes, so in a sense, some traits of the Neanderthals survived. We are the Neanderthals. It's time we stopped using the term "Neanderthal" as an insult. They were possibly as smart as modern humans, had larger brains, had tools, ritual burial, weapons technologies, and art work. Their anatomical structure indicates that likely they had language. It's possible that they were gentler than H. Sapiens which would explain how they got gobbled up and made extinct, despite their vast strength (Neanderthals bone structure and muscle attachments indicate that they were many times stronger than modern humans.)
- war1025 7y agoSort of a tangent, but I've wondered before if the "Nephilim" mentioned in Genesis could have been some distant memory of when Humans coexisted with Neanderthals. From Wikipedia: When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. Then the Lord said, "My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years." The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown. — Genesis 6:1–4, New Revised Standard Version Basically says that there were people like humans, but different and larger and stronger. And that at some point they died out. Sounds a lot like what we know about Neanderthals. Also Genesis is sort of the "deep memory" of humanity. Especially the first few chapters.
- jacurtis 7y agoIn the beginning of Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens, he discusses the history of Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals), Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens. He discusses their history amongst eachother and why/how Homo sapiens succeeded. It then goes onto explain why Homo sapiens succeeded and grew into what humans are today (animal husbandry, agriculture, culture, industry, technology, information, etc).
- bhalley 7y agohttps://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/what-happened-to-the-neanderthals.htm https://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/what-happened-to... Doesn't exactly hit your question but gives a good overview.
- NeoBasilisk 7y agoOn a darker note, one could almost see it as a form of mercy that none of the other species survived into the era of civilizations. Given our willingness to enslave other humans, I can only imagine what would have been done with "lesser" humans.
- Taniwha 7y agowell they sort of did - modern Europeans are now acknowledged to carry some Neanderthal DNA (estimates go somewhere between 1.5-20% depending on how you count) People who think that Neanderthals/etc were "lesser" humans (for whatever bogus reasons) probably also need to conclude (for the same reasons) that Europeans are also lesser humans
- f2f 7y agoadding australian aborigines, who some consider to be the oldest human civilization, dna-wise https://www.history.com/news/dna-study-finds-aboriginal-australians-worlds-oldest-civilization https://www.history.com/news/dna-study-finds-aboriginal-aust...
- Taniwha 7y agoYou forget about Africa which seems to have the largest genetic diversity of Homo Sapiens (the prehistoric dispora seems to have been a genetic narrowing point) - that means wider tails on bell curves - it's why they have the tallest and shortest populations, the fastest (and probably slowest), etc etc
- inawarminister 7y agoYeah, the Khoisan seem to be the FIRST population group to diverge from mainstream homo Sapiens (or was it the other way around?), and IIRC supposedly compose half of humanity by numbers back 100,000-20,000 years ago. It seems Ice Age Central and Southern Africa were the best biome for hunting-gathering humans. Of course, post-agriculture most humanity lives in (East and South) Asia, except in Cyrus' age where a third of humanity lives in West Asia and Eastern North Africa. Persia ruled 1/3rd of humanity then, the most out of any empire after that. Except perhaps China of some periods
- maxlamb 7y agoYou would probably want to read "The Journey of Man" by Spencer Wells, great book on this topic.
- DrScump 7y agoThere is also a good PBS miniseries of his work using the same title. One benefit is seeing his interactions with different aboriginal societies and how respectfully he treats their origin stories.
- est31 7y agoAlso discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20410982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20410982
- dang 7y agoThanks. We'll merge that thread into this one.
- Yajirobe 7y ago> When bone is buried in the ground, it can absorb U-238 from the environment. How? Is there traceable amount of Uranium-238 in every handful of dirt around the world?
- checkyoursudo 7y agoI don't remember specifics from college, but yes, I think there is uranium pretty much everywhere. Oceans, rocks, dirt, maybe not airborne, but everywhere else.
- eloff 7y agoThere is actually enough in the oceans that people have proposed concentrating it for commercial extraction. Probably not viable, but surprising to think about.
- mxcrossb 7y agoIt seems like it should be the opposite right? There is no uranium being exchanged with the environment after burial, so you can determine the age by how much has decayed.
- quadcore 7y agoTo have a feel of long period of time, I always use one metric: my grand father. He's lived 93 years, so almost 100. 2000 years ago was then 20 grandad away. Not so long ago after all. 200K ago is 2000 grandad away. Quite some time but nothing astronomical yet.
- Numberwang 7y ago25 years is probably a better approximation than 100 years. So 8000 gr. That's a lot of people.
- Swenrekcah 7y agoYou can also think in terms of generations. If everyone has a kid at 20 then you can draw 100 stick figures in a line to go 2000 years back. Not so long when you look at it.
- eloff 7y agoSo this person 200k years ago was roughly 10000 generations ago. That's long in human terms and very short in the history of the earth.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- lm28469 7y agoThe entire history of mammals is already quite small when you compare it to the history of earth. Protohumans/humans history is a drop in the ocean. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Earth#/media/File%3AGeologic_Clock_with_events_and_periods.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Earth#/media/File...
- riffraff 7y agoIf I recall correctly this is one measure used in one of "the science of discworld" books.
- zarathustraa 7y ago> When it comes to figuring out how old something is, archaeologists are interested in one element in particular: uranium. I though fossils were dated with Carbon-14. Did that change?
- chubasco 7y agoDoes it strike anyone else as odd that the two skulls found practically "nose-to-nose" are 40,000 years apart in age? How do two humanoid skulls coincidentally end up right next to each other with 40,000 years gap between them?
- riffraff 7y agoNeanderthal had rituals of some kind, maybe they just buried one of theirs with a skull s/he had found laying around? Although I imagine the likely explanation is just that sometimes things fall next to each other.
- arcadeparade 7y agoIt was an ancient museum.
- Jill_the_Pill 7y agoYou probably mean this as a joke, but we often underestimate our ancestors who were as smart and curious as we are (and surely as dopey and uncurious as well).
- Sylamore 7y agoOne of the articles I read stated they suspected the skulls were originally in different caves but had been caught in a flood that washed them into a common area.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- EliRivers 7y agoSea mines placed miles apart during the second world war sometimes end up settling right next to each other, several miles away. Sometimes tens of miles away. Sometimes next to a leftover mine from the first world war that arrived the same way. The environment in which they exist subjects them to varying pressures and forces, making them move. When do they stop moving? When they reach a point at which those pressures and forces cease. That point is the same for all items that get swept there. Wait long enough, and if another one is part of the same system of forces that directs towards the same null point, it'll turn up. Happens with sea mines over the course of a few decades. Could it happen with skulls over tens of thousands of years? Sure could. Happens with lots of objects.
- otabdeveloper4 7y agoTake the dates with a grain of salt. Nobody ever got a grant or a paper published for revising towards a younger date. No discovery in that.
- jhare 7y agoNice try, Satan. First dinosaur bones are planted to trick us, and now this?!
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- neonate 7y agohttp://archive.is/8qW4B http://archive.is/8qW4B
- iamgopal 7y agoIt's scary what humankind set to achieve in next 210k.
- sneak 7y agoExtinction?
- astrodust 7y agoYeah, there's basically a zero percent chance of surviving that long intact. If we do survive it will be by changing and adapting to the point of not being human any more.
- yellowapple 7y agoI wonder if humans/hominids from 210,000 years ago had similar speculations?
- trendoid 7y agoI doubt they had the ability to speculate about the future of their (or any) species.
- astrodust 7y agoThey weren't stupid, they just had very limited knowledge and experience to draw on, and very limited tools. Most importantly they didn't have the ability to directly edit their own genes.
- darkpuma 7y agoAh, a fellow optimist.