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New type of ancient human discovered in Israel
- nextstep 5y agoSince these people’s activity in the area predates any other known settlement, I guess the Israeli government has no choice but to grant citizenship to any descendants of the pre-Neanderthal diaspora automatically.
- yreg 5y agoThis is not the place for political/culture wars.
- nextstep 5y agoOr humor apparently
- tut-urut-utut 5y agoHumour needs to be funny.
- Zenst 5y agoAgreed and a lighter humoristic approach would of been word-play and one example would be: Perhaps they should rename the Palaeolithic era too the Israeolithic era and bring it more in-line with current naming conventions.
- sharikone 5y agoOnly that they are the same people who popularized the Paleolithic era name, while those who oppose it being called Israelolithic appropriated the older term
- hutzlibu 5y agoNot if the humor is as strongly political charged as the original "joke". There are plenty of other places to debate about israel and palestine. Can we here focus on ancient history?
- Aboh33 5y agoI'm a fan of elongated skulls
- southeastern 5y agoEh given it's a current issue there's no surprise that someone might connect the two. It's not gonna be productive of course, but at this point it's just about expected in a area with free speech
- jiofih 5y ago> It all started in Israel. We suggest that a local group was the source population," she told BBC News. "During interglacial periods, waves of humans, the Nesher Ramla people, migrated from the Middle East to Europe Hm, how convenient for people who claim they have divine rights to the land. Odd racial superiority vibes here.
- gypsyharlot 5y agoYeah, that was ridiculously racist! Let's get her cancelled!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- arijun 5y agoI’m sorry are you saying her claim that Neanderthals’ ancestors originated in Israel has something to do with a religion that started hundreds of thousands of years later? Because I just don’t see the connection.
- jiofih 5y agoMe neither. What I’m saying is they will certainly use this to label Israelis as the “original race” supporting their superiority feelings. The claims are bold and already being disputed.
- someperson 5y agoWe'll see if the inflation in ancient human species stands up to scrutiny. Here's a great TED Talk about dinosaur species being mistakenly identified because 'scientists have egos': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQa11RMCeSI&t=102s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQa11RMCeSI&t=102s (well worth a watch, it's a great story)
- shahar2k 5y agoI thought a big part of that was that birds have big variation between juveniles and adults, something that mammalians have less of... (let alone primates) Looking at a time when multiple hominid groups lived in relative isolation over large spans of time, admittedly without expert knowledge, it seems to make sense to me that there would be quite a bit of variation of "species" (though I also suspect the various species are more alike than most breeds of dogs...)
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> I thought a big part of that was that birds have big variation between juveniles and adults, something that mammalians have less of... You should see what insects do. It just isn't possible, using fossil records alone, to identify whether two insects belong to the same or different species.
- shahar2k 5y agoyeah and that's what is behind the idea that some "different" dinosaur species (aka birds) are actually juvanile / adult versions of the same species totally amazing that insects basically rearrange themselves on near celular level though at certain points in their lifespan
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> totally amazing that insects basically rearrange themselves on near celular level though at certain points in their lifespan What I find more amazing is that, in the popular culture, this is usually presented as something unusual that butterflies do. When in reality all insects do it and the metamorphosis of butterflies is notable only for its extreme typicality.
- stormdennis 5y agoNesher largely occupies the site of the Palestinian village Balad Al-Sheikh which was depopulated in 1948. So Balad Al-Sheikh Ramla, maybe?
- flyinglizard 5y agoWhich Indian tribe’s land have you built your high ground on?
- CyberRabbi 5y agoI don’t understand this comment. What does Indian tribal land have to do with the naming of this discovery?
- KingOfCoders 5y agoWhat I assume the poster meant - I might of course be wrong - is that the in the US discoveries are named after the location names of white settlers, not by the names of the locations that the people called them, that the white settlers killed to take the land. e.g. someone says "Discovered in New York" instead of how the land was named by the Native Americans who lived there and were killed.
- stormdennis 5y agoManhattan is derived from a native American phrase or word as far as I know.
- KingOfCoders 5y agoYou're right, looks like a bastardized version of "manaháhtaan" says Wikipedia.
- gelert 5y agoI think the reply is meant to be a critique of the above comment. They assumed that the first commentator was American, so said that given America entirely consists of land inhabited by displaced peoples (American Indians) that it's hypocritical to criticise Israel, which partially consists of that kind of land, for the same injustice.
- torginus 5y agoI've read that there are "genetic bottlenecks" in human DNA that imply that one point in time, the population of homo sapiens consisted of only a couple thousand individuals. It stands to reason that there are tons of human subspecies that didn't make it.
- Bayart 5y agoMore interestingly, there were several bottlenecks over the course of our evolution and we could have gone extinct at multiple points.
- koheripbal 5y agoThis isn't accurate.
- jefft255 5y agoHe didn’t give a source, you didn’t either, come on I’m curious to know!
- SonicScrub 5y agoWiki article on the Toba Catastrophe theory. Sparks Notes: - It is thought that the Toba Super-Volcano eruption is linked to a severe drop in human populations due to it's influence on global climate - Some genetic evidence supports today's humans are descended from a very small population of between 1,000 and 10,000 breeding pairs that existed about 70,000 years ago - This hypothesis isn't yet solid, and there is some evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless it's discussion is an important topic in the history of mankind. Now I understand your comment might be referring to that third point. If so, it would be excellent if your comment made some sort of reference to your reasoning. Simply saying "this isn't accurate" aren't the kinds of comments that make Hacker News the site it is. Instead let's make comments that further discussion and increase learning of the topics at hand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20genetic%20bottleneck,to%203%2C000%E2%80%9310%2C000%20surviving%20individuals.&text=A%2010%2Dyear%20volcanic%20winter,severe%20reduction%20in%20population%20sizes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory#:~:tex....
- jaygray0919 5y agoPalestinians
- sammalloy 5y ago> There are several human fossils from the caves of Qesem, Zuttiyeh and Tabun that date back to that time that we could not attribute to any specific known group of humans. Are there any geologists or experts who can explain the difference between these caves in Israel and the ones in Europe and North America? They all seem incredibly different.
- shahar2k 5y agoI'm not a geologist, but at least in terms of the geography Israel is a chokepoint between africa and the landmasses north of it if you are on foot. It's why historically it was such a trade hub in the ancient world(not to mention several mediterranean and a red sea port also within relatively short distance of each other) I wonder if there was a time when there was an easier land route leading to more northern climates (the theory that at some point in the nearish past the mediterranean was dry makes me wonder what kind of flooded fossils lie at the bottom too)
- iconoklastik 5y agoHere in Palestine. Fixed it. Abrahamists are always attempting to skew science to support their biblical agenda. #BDS Fuck israel
- streamofdigits 5y agoI suspect our overall picture of early human development will have a type of availability bias to control for. The arid middle eastern climate / soil conditions are more conducive to the preservation of remains so that is what you tend to find. How representative these finds of what happened in the huge Eurasia region? On the other hand the Africa / Asia land bridge would logically always have been an "interesting" area as the conduit for any population migrations.
- ourmandave 5y ago"This is it! This is the big one!" ~ Discovery Channel production executive
- aaron695 5y agoHere's a take down - https://twitter.com/johnhawks/status/1408127932015464450 https://twitter.com/johnhawks/status/1408127932015464450
- ProjectArcturis 5y agoCan you sequence DNA from something that old?
- AlotOfReading 5y agoWe've sequenced human DNA that's older, but only from pretty miraculous finds. Once you get past a thousand years, you're well into serious degradation territory and have to start pulling out the aDNA tricks. However, the authors of this paper have stated they looked for DNA and couldn't find any.
- mellosouls 5y agoInterestingly the BBC Radio News actually led on the "Dragon Man" find mentioned in the OP: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57432104 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57432104 PR departments competing, I find it difficult to believe two important different ancestors published on the same day for any other reason?