3 ms·

Why is the location so important? Does pinning down an origin help to fill-in gaps and reinterpret the (scarce) findings? I.e. use spatial proximity to infer b

Why is the location so important? Does pinning down an origin help to fill-in gaps and reinterpret the (scarce) findings? I.e. use spatial proximity to infer biological relations? Given the enormous timescales and the fact one can walk across eurasia/africa many times over in a lifetime it feels a bit odd that territory seems to be treated as a defining factor.

contingencies 3y ago
Precisely, it's ridiculous.
jfengel 3y ago
You can walk across the continent in a lifetime, but you probably don't. You have no reason to. They probably spent their entire lives within a few tens of miles of their birthplace, possibly within mere miles. And the same applied to generations around them. It's not perfect, but that's how paleontology has to work. They make their best guesses based on the data they are able to (literally) dig up. That means sometimes making substantial revisions based on one new, tiny piece of data.
- ramblenode 3y ago
  > They probably spent their entire lives within a few tens of miles of their birthplace, possibly within mere miles. While the land area required to support a single human or human ancestor might have been as little as a square mile in ideal conditions [0] that is very different from the range of a human or human ancestor over a lifetime. For simplicity we can consider hunter-gatherer humans who at least would have had similar caloric needs. For one, humans come in groups, which during most of our hunter-gatherer past would have been 150-300. If one is strictly gathering, this means all the resources around base camp would eventually be harvested and the group would need to migrate their base camp to another location. The group's foraging strategy could form a circuit where they return to their original base camp, but it's unlikely that every foraging location is as good as every other one, so the circuit will likely change over time, extending the lifetime range of a single individual. Secondly, there is a huge variation in hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Fishing communities are more sedentary while hunting communities are more nomadic and might travel hundreds of miles over a year. This is what one would expect from a generalist species like ourselves. [0] [David Pimentel and Marcia H. Pimentel, ‘Food, Energy, and Society’, third edition, (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2008), p. 45-46.]
- nologic01 3y ago
  Many modern humans would travel for no good reason on a moment's notice. Ofcourse here are talking about our greater family tree and its entirely possible that more confined lifestyles (like e.g. the great apes of today) where more typical earlier on. I would think though bipetalism did not get selected just to increase the daily range from the home base. At some point some hominid species started roaming and reasons to do so would be abundand (overpopulation, drought, following animal migrations etc). The trouble is (starting already with archeology) that the stuff that survives the aeons to be found today is always "special" in some way. Like being burried in certain conditions, being in a collapsed cave etc. Nature is a great recycler and doesnt leave many traces of its pathways.

contingencies 3y ago

Precisely, it's ridiculous.

jfengel 3y ago

You can walk across the continent in a lifetime, but you probably don't. You have no reason to. They probably spent their entire lives within a few tens of miles of their birthplace, possibly within mere miles. And the same applied to generations around them. It's not perfect, but that's how paleontology has to work. They make their best guesses based on the data they are able to (literally) dig up. That means sometimes making substantial revisions based on one new, tiny piece of data.

ramblenode 3y ago
> They probably spent their entire lives within a few tens of miles of their birthplace, possibly within mere miles. While the land area required to support a single human or human ancestor might have been as little as a square mile in ideal conditions [0] that is very different from the range of a human or human ancestor over a lifetime. For simplicity we can consider hunter-gatherer humans who at least would have had similar caloric needs. For one, humans come in groups, which during most of our hunter-gatherer past would have been 150-300. If one is strictly gathering, this means all the resources around base camp would eventually be harvested and the group would need to migrate their base camp to another location. The group's foraging strategy could form a circuit where they return to their original base camp, but it's unlikely that every foraging location is as good as every other one, so the circuit will likely change over time, extending the lifetime range of a single individual. Secondly, there is a huge variation in hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Fishing communities are more sedentary while hunting communities are more nomadic and might travel hundreds of miles over a year. This is what one would expect from a generalist species like ourselves. [0] [David Pimentel and Marcia H. Pimentel, ‘Food, Energy, and Society’, third edition, (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2008), p. 45-46.]
nologic01 3y ago
Many modern humans would travel for no good reason on a moment's notice. Ofcourse here are talking about our greater family tree and its entirely possible that more confined lifestyles (like e.g. the great apes of today) where more typical earlier on. I would think though bipetalism did not get selected just to increase the daily range from the home base. At some point some hominid species started roaming and reasons to do so would be abundand (overpopulation, drought, following animal migrations etc). The trouble is (starting already with archeology) that the stuff that survives the aeons to be found today is always "special" in some way. Like being burried in certain conditions, being in a collapsed cave etc. Nature is a great recycler and doesnt leave many traces of its pathways.