4 ms·

> I am genuinely glad we are progressively leaving the "ancestors were dumb" narrative. It seems to have been a long and slow process, I fully root for it. Oth

> I am genuinely glad we are progressively leaving the "ancestors were dumb" narrative. It seems to have been a long and slow process, I fully root for it. Other than the "our dumb ancestors dumbly believed their ancestors were dumb" narrative, I don't think I have ever seen this among people who who have actually seriously thought about it. And if you're referring to dumb cavemen hitting everything with clubs "narrative" that's seen in comedy and other entertainment, I don't see why you think this article indicates we're moving away from that. Or really what the problem with it is at all, or why we would want to move away from it. Larson et al. rigorously proved it to be hilarious.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
Archaeologists' insistence on defining anything they don't immediately understand as "for ritual purposes" - implying our ancestors were prone to superstition, instead of admitting the archaeologists' own ignorance. Every time we say "civilisation started with X" and then discover a city from before that time. We still don't understand how the Australian Aborigines got to Australia 50K years ago. You can't get to Australia without good boats. Yet there's a blank refusal to admit that this means that early humans had sophisticated boats. It's really common to write off early humans as less sophisticated.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  Are these all things you're just making up? It's a common theory that first people reached Australia with the help of boats (and lower sea levels), for example. Who claims they can not possibly have used boats?
- bigodbiel 5y ago
  I always considered rituals to be a form of proof of intelligence.
yongjik 5y ago
Well, FWIW, there was this weird guy who claimed our ancestors weren't dumb, they weren't even conscious. And by "our ancestors" he didn't mean Homo erectus, he meant ancient Greeks. (The so-called "bicameral mind" theory.) I think that's completely bonkers but apparently some people like the theory. Previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27917316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27917316

marcus_holmes 5y ago

Archaeologists' insistence on defining anything they don't immediately understand as "for ritual purposes" - implying our ancestors were prone to superstition, instead of admitting the archaeologists' own ignorance. Every time we say "civilisation started with X" and then discover a city from before that time. We still don't understand how the Australian Aborigines got to Australia 50K years ago. You can't get to Australia without good boats. Yet there's a blank refusal to admit that this means that early humans had sophisticated boats. It's really common to write off early humans as less sophisticated.

throwawaylinux 5y ago
Are these all things you're just making up? It's a common theory that first people reached Australia with the help of boats (and lower sea levels), for example. Who claims they can not possibly have used boats?
bigodbiel 5y ago
I always considered rituals to be a form of proof of intelligence.

yongjik 5y ago

Well, FWIW, there was this weird guy who claimed our ancestors weren't dumb, they weren't even conscious. And by "our ancestors" he didn't mean Homo erectus, he meant ancient Greeks. (The so-called "bicameral mind" theory.) I think that's completely bonkers but apparently some people like the theory. Previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27917316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27917316