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The issue with this kind of reasoning is that without any kind of archeological proof to back your hypothesis what you end up with is informed guessing based mo

The issue with this kind of reasoning is that without any kind of archeological proof to back your hypothesis what you end up with is informed guessing based more on ones knowledge and experience than on scientific facts. For example, I could formulate a completely different hypothesis about how footwear appeared: - doing any kind of activity on rough terrain while barefoot increases the risk of injury, like cuts or punctures - any kind of wound could easily infect and lead to death - the easiest would be to try and protect my feet wrapping something like leaves, animal skins, etc around my feet - this is a good solution but this footwear isn't very resilient, hmm, maybe tree bark would work better, it's still flexible but should be more resilient. - hmm, what else could I do that is better than tree bark, maybe some dried animal skin would be even better - and so on... Is this hypothesis better than yours? I don't know without proof, and the interesting part is that they could both easily be true in completely different contexts: different parts of the world, different cultures, different climatic conditions, etc. So yeah deduction and induction can get you very far but when we're missing so many facts on which to base our hypothesis you can easily get very far in a very wrong direction. This is why I think archeology is fun. EDIT: The wikipedia page on footwear also contains a few lines that add another interesting dimension: > Some ancient civilizations, such as Egypt and Greece however saw no practical need for footwear due to convenient climatic and landscape situations and used shoes primarily as ornaments and insignia of power.

qubex 6y ago
Fair enough, good points, but you’ll find that habitually unshod people have surprisingly thick (and yet still perfectly sensitive!) soles that are very resilient to puncture and yet do not experience pain when walking over terrain that makes us grimace. That doesn’t pertain to all of your hypotheses, and even those it does apply to are not ruled out by it, so I concede you could be correct, as could I. The real question is: which these(s) can be proven. That’s what’s interesting about this article: that they have found archeological evidence that supports an... I’m struggling not to use ‘obvious’ because I’ve been chided for using it... but a... very plausible hypothesis.
- cntainer 6y ago
  The article makes it pretty clear that they have the evidence to support their hypothesis about the history of bedding, so there's no question about that part :). My point was more focused on your example about footwear and on the fact that just using deduction or other reasoning techniques without starting from real archeological proof can easily lead one astray. So I'm not trying to compete on which hypothesis about footwear is better I just gave that example in support of the point I just mentioned above.
dmurray 6y ago
It's easy to say a technology should have been obvious in hindsight, but...grass beds? It would be more surprising to me if humans 200,000 years ago hadn't hit on that. Remember these are modern humans from an evolutionary point of view, as intelligent as us or close. Birds make nests, after all. You could convince me bears or apes make beds of grass, too. It's cool to find evidence that humans did it, just not surprising.
- benibela 6y ago
  >You could convince me bears or apes make beds of grass, too Apes build trees beds: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2012/04/16/how-orangutan-engineers-build-safe-and-comfortable-treetop-beds/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2012/04...

qubex 6y ago

Fair enough, good points, but you’ll find that habitually unshod people have surprisingly thick (and yet still perfectly sensitive!) soles that are very resilient to puncture and yet do not experience pain when walking over terrain that makes us grimace. That doesn’t pertain to all of your hypotheses, and even those it does apply to are not ruled out by it, so I concede you could be correct, as could I. The real question is: which these(s) can be proven. That’s what’s interesting about this article: that they have found archeological evidence that supports an... I’m struggling not to use ‘obvious’ because I’ve been chided for using it... but a... very plausible hypothesis.

cntainer 6y ago
The article makes it pretty clear that they have the evidence to support their hypothesis about the history of bedding, so there's no question about that part :). My point was more focused on your example about footwear and on the fact that just using deduction or other reasoning techniques without starting from real archeological proof can easily lead one astray. So I'm not trying to compete on which hypothesis about footwear is better I just gave that example in support of the point I just mentioned above.

dmurray 6y ago

It's easy to say a technology should have been obvious in hindsight, but...grass beds? It would be more surprising to me if humans 200,000 years ago hadn't hit on that. Remember these are modern humans from an evolutionary point of view, as intelligent as us or close. Birds make nests, after all. You could convince me bears or apes make beds of grass, too. It's cool to find evidence that humans did it, just not surprising.

benibela 6y ago
>You could convince me bears or apes make beds of grass, too Apes build trees beds: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2012/04/16/how-orangutan-engineers-build-safe-and-comfortable-treetop-beds/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2012/04...