3 ms·

The current uncontroversial bound is roughly 15kya--as the article notes, the White Sands fossil footprints are still controversial. The Clovis First hypothesis

The current uncontroversial bound is roughly 15kya--as the article notes, the White Sands fossil footprints are still controversial. The Clovis First hypothesis has been considered thoroughly discredited in the academic community for about 20 years now. The Cerutti Mastodon site is not compelling to me, because a date of 130kya would put it before any other site of homo sapiens outside of Africa. Being so far out of line with other evidence means that the evidence in favor of hominids needs to be exceptionally rock solid, which it isn't.

maxbond 4y ago
For sure, thanks for keeping me honest. I'm a decidedly a nonexpert, I just watch some documentaries and such. I would submit we should be cautious with metaobservations like, "this is much older than other sites," because we should be trying to prove ourselves wrong, whereas these sorts of metaobservations amplify confirmation bias. I'm not saying skepticism is unwarranted, just that we need to be careful with this sort of reasoning. As a side note, I've seen people strike through stuff out on HN, and I'd like to strike through this claim to emphasize there's a correction; it's not in the undocumented features repo[1], and I've tried a few standard things like ~this~ and ~~this~~ and -this- and --this-- and have never figured it out. Can anyone tell me what the markdown is? [1] https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  I think they use Unicode strike-through characters.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    T̵e̵s̵t̵i̵n̵g̵ Beautiful, thank you.
    - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
      Are you able to generate those characters on mobile, or were you on a laptop?
      - maxbond 4y ago
        I used this site: https://unicode-table.com/en/tools/strikethrough-text/ https://unicode-table.com/en/tools/strikethrough-text/
- kuhewa 4y ago
  > I would submit we should be cautious with metaobservations like, "this is much older than other sites," because we should be trying to prove ourselves wrong, whereas these sorts of metaobservations amplify confirmation bias. Both 'we should be trying to prove ourselves wrong' and 'Being so far out of line with other evidence means that the evidence in favor of hominids needs to be exceptionally rock solid' can both be valid at the same time. The base rate of a 'false positive' for extraordinary claims that conflict with an existing body of evidence is typically much higher so confidence in the evidence would need to quite strong for that piece of evidence to move the consensus. I'd consider myself largely a frequentist but the relevant xkcd [1] comes to mind I'd argue that ignoring that aspect can amplify one's susceptiblity to confirmation bias if one is predisposed to believing in a very early American hominid story for whatever reason. [1] https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/frequentists_vs_bayesians_2x.png https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/frequentists_vs_bayesians_2x.pn...
masklinn 4y ago
Cerutti being real doesn't mean it's H. Sapiens tho does it? It could be an older hominin, an other descendant of H.Erectus (after all as far as we know H. Neandertalensis did not evolve in africa, and H. Erectus reached the sea of china and the pacific ocean) Although Fuyan also shows H.Sapiens may (its datation is also disputed) also have reached out of africa much earlier than otherwise supported.
- merpnderp 4y ago
  Absolutely. Many H. subspecies were tool using.
- AlotOfReading 4y ago
  The problem of cerutti's dating is that the archaeological record of hominids in the high Arctic begins <50kya, 80k after the hypothetical dating. There's some middle paleolithic stuff in southern/central Siberia, but also few options to get to the new world without boats or beringia (which was submerged during previous interglacials).
  - moloch-hai 4y ago
    That is not, in fact, a problem of Cerutti's dating. Its dating is rock solid. The problem is clearly in preconceptions about H. migration, and beliefs about the capabilities of our ancestors long ago. People constructed boats and settled Crete 200,000 years ago. Like it or not. Were they H. sap., in Europe already? Maybe!

maxbond 4y ago

For sure, thanks for keeping me honest. I'm a decidedly a nonexpert, I just watch some documentaries and such. I would submit we should be cautious with metaobservations like, "this is much older than other sites," because we should be trying to prove ourselves wrong, whereas these sorts of metaobservations amplify confirmation bias. I'm not saying skepticism is unwarranted, just that we need to be careful with this sort of reasoning. As a side note, I've seen people strike through stuff out on HN, and I'd like to strike through this claim to emphasize there's a correction; it's not in the undocumented features repo[1], and I've tried a few standard things like ~this~ and ~~this~~ and -this- and --this-- and have never figured it out. Can anyone tell me what the markdown is? [1] https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented

actionfromafar 4y ago
I think they use Unicode strike-through characters.
- maxbond 4y ago
  T̵e̵s̵t̵i̵n̵g̵ Beautiful, thank you.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    Are you able to generate those characters on mobile, or were you on a laptop?
    - maxbond 4y ago
      I used this site: https://unicode-table.com/en/tools/strikethrough-text/ https://unicode-table.com/en/tools/strikethrough-text/
kuhewa 4y ago
> I would submit we should be cautious with metaobservations like, "this is much older than other sites," because we should be trying to prove ourselves wrong, whereas these sorts of metaobservations amplify confirmation bias. Both 'we should be trying to prove ourselves wrong' and 'Being so far out of line with other evidence means that the evidence in favor of hominids needs to be exceptionally rock solid' can both be valid at the same time. The base rate of a 'false positive' for extraordinary claims that conflict with an existing body of evidence is typically much higher so confidence in the evidence would need to quite strong for that piece of evidence to move the consensus. I'd consider myself largely a frequentist but the relevant xkcd [1] comes to mind I'd argue that ignoring that aspect can amplify one's susceptiblity to confirmation bias if one is predisposed to believing in a very early American hominid story for whatever reason. [1] https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/frequentists_vs_bayesians_2x.png https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/frequentists_vs_bayesians_2x.pn...

masklinn 4y ago

Cerutti being real doesn't mean it's H. Sapiens tho does it? It could be an older hominin, an other descendant of H.Erectus (after all as far as we know H. Neandertalensis did not evolve in africa, and H. Erectus reached the sea of china and the pacific ocean) Although Fuyan also shows H.Sapiens may (its datation is also disputed) also have reached out of africa much earlier than otherwise supported.

merpnderp 4y ago
Absolutely. Many H. subspecies were tool using.
AlotOfReading 4y ago
The problem of cerutti's dating is that the archaeological record of hominids in the high Arctic begins <50kya, 80k after the hypothetical dating. There's some middle paleolithic stuff in southern/central Siberia, but also few options to get to the new world without boats or beringia (which was submerged during previous interglacials).
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  That is not, in fact, a problem of Cerutti's dating. Its dating is rock solid. The problem is clearly in preconceptions about H. migration, and beliefs about the capabilities of our ancestors long ago. People constructed boats and settled Crete 200,000 years ago. Like it or not. Were they H. sap., in Europe already? Maybe!