3 ms·
It's possible the tooth happens to be an ex-situ discovery. However that seems unlikely. I can't really think of any natural process that would have carried a t
by BitwiseFool 4y ago
It's possible the tooth happens to be an ex-situ discovery. However that seems unlikely. I can't really think of any natural process that would have carried a tooth so far away. It would be odd for a predator or scavenger to consume the tooth, migrate so far, and just so happen to defecate it in a cave environment just like the ones our hominid ancestors preferred to dwell inside.
The other explanation I can think of is that some other hominid ancestor of ours had a culture that liked to collect teeth and happened to carry them around as keepsakes. Or maybe molars were treated as a kind of trade token and that's how it got so far. Then again, I figure there would be other kinds of evidence to suggest such a phenomenon occurred. We would probably see a lot more teeth from disparate places in caves if this were true.
- hulitu 4y agoMy comment was a half joke. I remember as a kid seeing documentaries with native people and some had a necklace with teeths around their neck.
- addaon 4y ago> a cave environment just like the ones our hominid ancestors preferred to dwell inside While it's known that some of our ancestors were cave dwellers, it's unclear how common this was, and how much it was a preference (vs., say, a last resort). The problem is that there's a massive selection bias towards finding remains in caves because they're preserved so much better than those that are more exposed to elements.
- BitwiseFool 4y agoThat's a good point and I wasn't aware of that nuance. I'm glad you brought it up.