12 ms·

Ancient human ancestors carved handaxe from a hippo femur 1.4M years ago: study

80 points by clouddrover 6y ago

catalogia 6y ago
I wonder if they were hunting hippos, or if they scavenged the bone from a carcass. Hunting hippos must either be an act of extreme confidence, or extreme desperation.
- prennert 6y ago
  Humans have hunted mammoths and other dangerous animals with low tech weapons and a lot of ingenuity, planning and teamwork. So I would not be surprised if it was extreme confidence.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    They often used things like cliffs to help hunt mammoths though, right? Seems a trickier thing to accomplish with hippos, although I suppose you could lure them away from the water. Planning and teamwork must have been key.
    - JackFr 6y ago
      Along with a higher tolerance for risk.
    - arrosenberg 6y ago
      Dig a pit, fill it with sharp sticks, and cover with branches and brush. Then all you have to do is taunt a hippo into charging.
- netcan 6y ago
  I think this whole line of thinking is wrong. People are incredible hunters, those that specialize in hunting. Crafty, dangerous, innovative. We have plenty of modern examples of people hunting dangerous animals with very basic tools. An average lion pride can't kill an elephant. A specialized lion pride can. Humans are like this, but way more. Way, way more. My default assumption is "these people knew how to hunt hippos." A neighboring band may not have.
bosswipe 6y ago
Back of the napkin estimation: a million years is 40,000 Homo generations, you might get a valuable mental mutation maybe every 500 generations, that's only 80 mental mutations between us and the Homo species that made this axe. So these guys were just about as smart as us. On the other hand, modern human's super-intelligence might have come from a lucky admixture of Neanderthral and Denisovan genes rather than slow mutation. There's evidence from cultural artifacts that even 100,000 years ago humans were less intelligent then us.
- nemo 6y ago
  >There's evidence from cultural artifacts that even 100,000 years ago humans were less intelligent then us. Do you have more info on this idea? What approach did researchers use to try to measure intelligence based on cultural artifacts used in a context we can't see for purposes we can only guess at?
- mtgp1000 6y ago
  You don't have enough information to go from this >that's only 80 mental mutations between us and the Homo species that made this axe. To this >These guys were just about as smart as us. You don't know how much of an influence any individual mutation could have made. Also there's no reason to suspect more than [or less than] one mutation per generation. Just look at the range of "gifted" people in our society - mutations which likely enable savants and such. Men like Newton and Da Vinci, if their successes are due to genetic mutations (I suspect to a significant degree this is the case) placed in another time could individually make the difference between a stone and metal age. Point being, 80 generations of mutation may be enough to drastically change the human mind - especially considering the immense selection pressure for certain kinds of intelligence, which varies with culture and technology (e.g. stone vs metal age). Edit: I suppose this comes down to how much evolution you believe happens in the form of punctuated equilibria
- zipwitch 6y ago
  Perhaps not less intelligent, but just possessed of a mental framework that was less capable. From a paper describing "the Romulus and Remus hypothesis"[1], "the leap from rich-vocabulary non-recursive communication system to recursive language 70,000 years ago was associated with acquisition of a novel component of imagination, called Prefrontal Synthesis, enabled by a mutation that slowed down the prefrontal cortex maturation simultaneously in two or more children" 1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/166520v9.full https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/166520v9.full And here's a summary: https://neurosciencenews.com/language-imagination-evolution-14656/ https://neurosciencenews.com/language-imagination-evolution-...
dutch3000 6y ago
this is a complete joke. probably a bone fragment sheered off from the hippo fighting with a saber tooth tiger. these “discoveries” from so long ago are at best theories. maybe a since extinct giant beaver, carnivore rodent species was chewing into the femur to create a notch to secure it to another bone while framing out it’s bone, beaver den.
- yobi-ponti 6y ago
  Academics, under pressure to produce new studies, rushing to conclusions and making lofty claims on limited evidence? No way! Not these people! /s
sradman 6y ago
> The craftsmanship of the tools at the Konso site, as well as other sites, "suggest that Homo erectus technology was more sophisticated and versatile than we had thought. And the bone handaxe occurrence fits in nicely," Suwa said. H. erectus used advanced flaking techniques to create the hand axe. Tools, fire, advanced social organization, and migration through a large part of Eurasia; all without spoken language. I don’t think the name H. erectus is meaningful to the general population. I wonder if we shouldn’t associate Turkana Boy as a stand-in much the way Lucy is well known in popular culture. This is a unique and important Homo species; “ancient human ancestor” is too nebulous for my liking.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  How do we know they didn’t have spoken language? I haven’t heard that before.
  - sradman 6y ago
    According to Wikipedia [1] the science is not as settled as I thought but my understanding is that from the nerves needed for breath control to various vocal apparatus, erectus’ speech would have been primitive at best. Speech, however, is not the only way to express language. An innovation in spoken language is one of the theories used to explain the Great Leap in modern sapiens. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_erectus#Language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_erectus#Language
    - sebastialonso 6y ago
      I'm trying to come up with alternative ways to convey meaning as precise and detailed as to carve handaxes from bone without using spoken language, primitive or not. Maybe some mix of sign language, sound and pantomime?
      - mkl 6y ago
        Hand axes would be easy to convey: demonstrate creation and use, repeatedly, and help learners do both. Homo Erectus made hand axes the same way for a million years, without much innovation, to the point that it's been hypothesised they were more like bird song or bird nests than cultural artefacts. See e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5066817/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5066817/
29athrowaway 6y ago
Curious fact: the hippos that were imported to Colombia by the infamous narco Pablo Escobar are now an invasive species. - 4 hippos were introduced to Escobar's private zoo in 1981. - The animals escaped in 1993. - By 2007, they were approximately 16. - In 2020, they're at least 80. - By the end of next decade it is estimated they will be at least 150. Those hippos are reported to have increased fertility. African hippos begin reproduction at age 7, while Colombian hippos begin at age 3.
decasteve 6y ago
What was published about the Kalahari Bushmen by the Marshall family (Laurence Marshall, co-founder of Raytheon) provides some of the best real connections we have to early human life. If you’re interested in this stuff, I really enjoyed Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’s “The Old Way” and recommend it.

80 points by clouddrover 6y ago

I wonder if they were hunting hippos, or if they scavenged the bone from a carcass. Hunting hippos must either be an act of extreme confidence, or extreme desperation.

prennert 6y ago
Humans have hunted mammoths and other dangerous animals with low tech weapons and a lot of ingenuity, planning and teamwork. So I would not be surprised if it was extreme confidence.
- catalogia 6y ago
  They often used things like cliffs to help hunt mammoths though, right? Seems a trickier thing to accomplish with hippos, although I suppose you could lure them away from the water. Planning and teamwork must have been key.
  - JackFr 6y ago
    Along with a higher tolerance for risk.
  - arrosenberg 6y ago
    Dig a pit, fill it with sharp sticks, and cover with branches and brush. Then all you have to do is taunt a hippo into charging.
netcan 6y ago
I think this whole line of thinking is wrong. People are incredible hunters, those that specialize in hunting. Crafty, dangerous, innovative. We have plenty of modern examples of people hunting dangerous animals with very basic tools. An average lion pride can't kill an elephant. A specialized lion pride can. Humans are like this, but way more. Way, way more. My default assumption is "these people knew how to hunt hippos." A neighboring band may not have.

bosswipe 6y ago

Back of the napkin estimation: a million years is 40,000 Homo generations, you might get a valuable mental mutation maybe every 500 generations, that's only 80 mental mutations between us and the Homo species that made this axe. So these guys were just about as smart as us. On the other hand, modern human's super-intelligence might have come from a lucky admixture of Neanderthral and Denisovan genes rather than slow mutation. There's evidence from cultural artifacts that even 100,000 years ago humans were less intelligent then us.

nemo 6y ago
>There's evidence from cultural artifacts that even 100,000 years ago humans were less intelligent then us. Do you have more info on this idea? What approach did researchers use to try to measure intelligence based on cultural artifacts used in a context we can't see for purposes we can only guess at?
mtgp1000 6y ago
You don't have enough information to go from this >that's only 80 mental mutations between us and the Homo species that made this axe. To this >These guys were just about as smart as us. You don't know how much of an influence any individual mutation could have made. Also there's no reason to suspect more than [or less than] one mutation per generation. Just look at the range of "gifted" people in our society - mutations which likely enable savants and such. Men like Newton and Da Vinci, if their successes are due to genetic mutations (I suspect to a significant degree this is the case) placed in another time could individually make the difference between a stone and metal age. Point being, 80 generations of mutation may be enough to drastically change the human mind - especially considering the immense selection pressure for certain kinds of intelligence, which varies with culture and technology (e.g. stone vs metal age). Edit: I suppose this comes down to how much evolution you believe happens in the form of punctuated equilibria
zipwitch 6y ago
Perhaps not less intelligent, but just possessed of a mental framework that was less capable. From a paper describing "the Romulus and Remus hypothesis"[1], "the leap from rich-vocabulary non-recursive communication system to recursive language 70,000 years ago was associated with acquisition of a novel component of imagination, called Prefrontal Synthesis, enabled by a mutation that slowed down the prefrontal cortex maturation simultaneously in two or more children" 1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/166520v9.full https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/166520v9.full And here's a summary: https://neurosciencenews.com/language-imagination-evolution-14656/ https://neurosciencenews.com/language-imagination-evolution-...

dutch3000 6y ago

this is a complete joke. probably a bone fragment sheered off from the hippo fighting with a saber tooth tiger. these “discoveries” from so long ago are at best theories. maybe a since extinct giant beaver, carnivore rodent species was chewing into the femur to create a notch to secure it to another bone while framing out it’s bone, beaver den.

yobi-ponti 6y ago
Academics, under pressure to produce new studies, rushing to conclusions and making lofty claims on limited evidence? No way! Not these people! /s

sradman 6y ago

> The craftsmanship of the tools at the Konso site, as well as other sites, "suggest that Homo erectus technology was more sophisticated and versatile than we had thought. And the bone handaxe occurrence fits in nicely," Suwa said. H. erectus used advanced flaking techniques to create the hand axe. Tools, fire, advanced social organization, and migration through a large part of Eurasia; all without spoken language. I don’t think the name H. erectus is meaningful to the general population. I wonder if we shouldn’t associate Turkana Boy as a stand-in much the way Lucy is well known in popular culture. This is a unique and important Homo species; “ancient human ancestor” is too nebulous for my liking.

amanaplanacanal 6y ago
How do we know they didn’t have spoken language? I haven’t heard that before.
- sradman 6y ago
  According to Wikipedia [1] the science is not as settled as I thought but my understanding is that from the nerves needed for breath control to various vocal apparatus, erectus’ speech would have been primitive at best. Speech, however, is not the only way to express language. An innovation in spoken language is one of the theories used to explain the Great Leap in modern sapiens. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_erectus#Language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_erectus#Language
  - sebastialonso 6y ago
    I'm trying to come up with alternative ways to convey meaning as precise and detailed as to carve handaxes from bone without using spoken language, primitive or not. Maybe some mix of sign language, sound and pantomime?
    - mkl 6y ago
      Hand axes would be easy to convey: demonstrate creation and use, repeatedly, and help learners do both. Homo Erectus made hand axes the same way for a million years, without much innovation, to the point that it's been hypothesised they were more like bird song or bird nests than cultural artefacts. See e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5066817/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5066817/

29athrowaway 6y ago

Curious fact: the hippos that were imported to Colombia by the infamous narco Pablo Escobar are now an invasive species. - 4 hippos were introduced to Escobar's private zoo in 1981. - The animals escaped in 1993. - By 2007, they were approximately 16. - In 2020, they're at least 80. - By the end of next decade it is estimated they will be at least 150. Those hippos are reported to have increased fertility. African hippos begin reproduction at age 7, while Colombian hippos begin at age 3.

decasteve 6y ago

What was published about the Kalahari Bushmen by the Marshall family (Laurence Marshall, co-founder of Raytheon) provides some of the best real connections we have to early human life. If you’re interested in this stuff, I really enjoyed Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’s “The Old Way” and recommend it.