7 ms·

Dating the Arrival of Modern Humans in Asia

67 points by Hooke 3y ago

amriksohata 3y ago
I'd like to see studies done on Indian scriptures that claim humans are a lot older than the X number of thousands of years currently thought to be true. Many people across Asia reject the Aryan invasion theory as its been revised many times.
- simonh 3y ago
  What sort of study would you like to be done? A comparison of what the scriptures say and what the known physical evidence says wouldn’t take much study really. A problem with investigations of physical evidence of bible stories is they are often paid for by christian organisations in the US, with the explicit goal of ‘proving the bible true’. As a result we get a lot of extremely low grade, deliberately misinterpreted amateur archaeology that’s really only designed to please the sponsors, but is obvious junk. Any attempt to verify something from any form of scripture with modern adherents risks suffering from this problem of motivated reasoning.
- Affric 3y ago
  That means there needs to be science education. New evidence = hypothesis falsified. New hypothesis needed. That’s science working right.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dhfbshfbu4u3 3y ago
  Vishnu comes in the form that is needed most and sometimes that is radiometric dating.
- nkrisc 3y ago
  > the X number of thousands of years currently thought to be true. Which is based on currently available archeological and genetic evidence. What do you wish to study? How ancient writings are contradicted by modern evidence?
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > Many people across Asia reject the Aryan invasion theory Really? Does anyone outside India reject it? It's true that there are many people inside India who reject it, but they are doing that for the most transparent, and stupid, ideological reasons. No one is proud of the Catholic rejection of heliocentrism today.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    Almost everyone competent outside India now rejects the "Aryan invasion theory" in terms of rejecting that term for the arrival of the Indo-European languages from the northwest. Today terms like "Aryan migration theory" are preferred. Not that this placates Hindu fundamentalists; it is the very notion that their sacred language arrived from outside (and is just about 3000 years old, not millions of years old) that they find offensive, not the term itself. There are a few European or American scholars (or "scholars") who reject the idea that the Indo-Aryan languages ultimately arrived from outside the continent. They usually tend to be converts to Indian spirituality and so their objections have a partly religious basis. Koenraad Elst is perhaps the most famous. The OP's claim that the notion is rejected across Asia is something he pulled out of his arse; India aside, linguists across the region very much uphold the scholarly consensus.
- mikhailfranco 3y ago
  Completely different timescale. Not relevant for this discussion.
  - gus_massa 3y ago
    I agree. I wanted some numbers: From the article: > The age of the lowest fossil, a fragment of a leg bone found 7 meters deep, suggests modern humans arrived in this region between 86,000 and 68,000 years ago. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_migrations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_migrations > From the BMAC, the Indo-Aryans migrated into northern Syria and, possibly in multiple waves, into the Punjab (northern Pakistan and India), while the Iranians could have reached western Iran before 1300 BCE, both bringing with them the Indo-Iranian languages.
- dghughes 3y ago
  I know a Tamil guy we often discussed things and would end up on culture, language, ethnicity. He would say to me and I'm paraphrasing obviously, "Look at my nose it is flat but your nose isn't you look like the people from the north. Look at my skin it is dark but the ones up north it is light like your skin" meaning Indians. At the time I didn't realize he was most likely referring to the "Aryan Invasion" theory which is now seen as false. Even his own comment about his own nose I don't know if he knew nose shape was used to divide people into Aryan and Dravidian. Probably inspired by Eugenics ideas of the time. Another person in our group was Mi'kmaq First Nations aka "Indian" he was also there when we were discussing this. So it was a bit bizarre or funny since the Indian was not an Indian and the Indian was Tamil and didn't consider themselves ethnically Indian.
  - ralfd 3y ago
    But the Aryan invasion is not false? https://scroll.in/article/936872/two-new-genetic-studies-upheld-aryan-migration-theory-so-why-did-indian-media-report-the-opposite https://scroll.in/article/936872/two-new-genetic-studies-uph... It is a political issue in India, obviously, but the North has more Aryan steppe ancestry than the south: https://araingang.medium.com/south-asia-ancestry-map-637092c0728a https://araingang.medium.com/south-asia-ancestry-map-637092c...
    - dghughes 3y ago
      It was and then wasn't back and forth. I think I'll just wait for the book to come out..
      - amriksohata 3y ago
        This is what I mean
      - thaumasiotes 3y ago
        The book came out a while ago. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101873469/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101873469/ Here's a review of the part that applies to India: https://www.brownpundits.com/2018/03/30/the-indian-chapter-of-who-we-are-and-how-we-got-here/ https://www.brownpundits.com/2018/03/30/the-indian-chapter-o... There has never been a back-and-forth on the issue, only ideological insistence on ignoring the facts.
shusaku 3y ago
> The evidence from Tam Pà Ling has pushed back the timing of H. sapiens’ arrival in Southeast Asia. This suggests the mainland, along with the coastal and island locations, may have also been a viable dispersal route. I’m curious what is the implication of this paragraph. If the first date was later, why would the route change?
- detourdog 3y ago
  Overtime the geographic changes could open and close various routes.
- defrost 3y ago
  There's a broader deeper debate|question about the expansion of H.Sapiens across the planet: Proponents of a coastal migration model for H. sapiens out of Africa argue that coastlines would have provided for a fast, directional population expansion with predictable resources and supplies of potable water. Those opposing, point out that there is little direct evidence to support a coastal-highway hypothesis and that there is evidence that early humans were able to make use of savanna and rainforest environments. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-42946-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-42946-9 The cave in north east Laos being excavated here is well away from the coastline. Later H.Sapiens evidence in the interior of S.E.Asia can be explained by coastal expansion followed by a later push into the interior (as there are early signs of H.Sapiens in coastal areas). Early H.Sapiens evidence in the interior of S.E.Asia as old as coastal evidence supports the notion that expansion may have been through interior routes crossing steep terrains and passing through jungles.
  - masklinn 3y ago
    Wouldn’t coastal evidence be basically nonexistent outside of the Eemian though?
    - defrost 3y ago
      Mostly but not always. I don't know much about the Laos | Vietnam area and any evidence there, but I can reference the Sahul (Greater landmass creater by the lower seas and joing of PNG - Australia - Tasmania) and Sundaland. If you look at the coastline graphics in the linked wikipedia articles you can see that in various places the coastlines almost aligned - additionally various islands of today were hilltops near the coastlines of old. Dated remains on a modern island can line up with hilltop dwellings with views of the coastline of old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland
lifeisstillgood 3y ago
I have a mental model of how humans spread across the world, something like - many years ago there were several species of upright apes in Africa, (much like there are species of big cats now). These started to move out of Africa as climate and other pressures / opportunities presented them selves. About 200,000 years ago one species (modern humans) joined the others and we fucked up the rest of them so bad they all were wiped out wherever we went. Probably all the species had flint knapping, and fire tools and also had clothes from around 100,000 years ago. I am not clear where I get that model from - science journalism mostly. Just that story rocks me back on my heels every time I walk it through. But I am wondering if it is "supported by the evidence" or not or if discoveries like this blow through that basic sort of model (apart from timings which I see as important scientifically but not directionally - ie Ptolemy and Erastothenes thought the world was round but different circumference - important but directionally the same) Finally - The awfulness of the web page layout and pop ups. I am slowly finding I can only use "Page Reader" on ios. It might just be old and grumpy name but it seems to be getting worse
- verisimi 3y ago
  Its really impossible to go back in history, at all. Its pretty much impossible to agree about what is going on in the present. Scientists, historians, everyone really attempts to show how they deal in facts, ones which mere mortals should just accept, but when you dig into any area, you will realise that its all highly ambiguous, whether that's the facts that are being presented, the way its presented, the money trail, the way it is framed, etc. People disparage 'anecdotal experience' but to me its all any of us has. Its our 'golden source'. Whenever we start undertaking actions that are not coherent with our personal, lived experience, we are walking on thin ice.
  - joshuahedlund 3y ago
    > Its really impossible to go back in history, at all Sequencing ancient DNA allows us to do this in some respects. We’ve learned a lot in the last <10 years about population movements, relations, and timing from this. See “Who We Are and How We Got Here” by David Reich. Main takeaway: there was a lot more mixing of early modern human population groups than anyone expected.

67 points by Hooke 3y ago

I'd like to see studies done on Indian scriptures that claim humans are a lot older than the X number of thousands of years currently thought to be true. Many people across Asia reject the Aryan invasion theory as its been revised many times.

simonh 3y ago
What sort of study would you like to be done? A comparison of what the scriptures say and what the known physical evidence says wouldn’t take much study really. A problem with investigations of physical evidence of bible stories is they are often paid for by christian organisations in the US, with the explicit goal of ‘proving the bible true’. As a result we get a lot of extremely low grade, deliberately misinterpreted amateur archaeology that’s really only designed to please the sponsors, but is obvious junk. Any attempt to verify something from any form of scripture with modern adherents risks suffering from this problem of motivated reasoning.
Affric 3y ago
That means there needs to be science education. New evidence = hypothesis falsified. New hypothesis needed. That’s science working right.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dhfbshfbu4u3 3y ago
Vishnu comes in the form that is needed most and sometimes that is radiometric dating.
nkrisc 3y ago
> the X number of thousands of years currently thought to be true. Which is based on currently available archeological and genetic evidence. What do you wish to study? How ancient writings are contradicted by modern evidence?
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> Many people across Asia reject the Aryan invasion theory Really? Does anyone outside India reject it? It's true that there are many people inside India who reject it, but they are doing that for the most transparent, and stupid, ideological reasons. No one is proud of the Catholic rejection of heliocentrism today.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  Almost everyone competent outside India now rejects the "Aryan invasion theory" in terms of rejecting that term for the arrival of the Indo-European languages from the northwest. Today terms like "Aryan migration theory" are preferred. Not that this placates Hindu fundamentalists; it is the very notion that their sacred language arrived from outside (and is just about 3000 years old, not millions of years old) that they find offensive, not the term itself. There are a few European or American scholars (or "scholars") who reject the idea that the Indo-Aryan languages ultimately arrived from outside the continent. They usually tend to be converts to Indian spirituality and so their objections have a partly religious basis. Koenraad Elst is perhaps the most famous. The OP's claim that the notion is rejected across Asia is something he pulled out of his arse; India aside, linguists across the region very much uphold the scholarly consensus.
mikhailfranco 3y ago
Completely different timescale. Not relevant for this discussion.
- gus_massa 3y ago
  I agree. I wanted some numbers: From the article: > The age of the lowest fossil, a fragment of a leg bone found 7 meters deep, suggests modern humans arrived in this region between 86,000 and 68,000 years ago. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_migrations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_migrations > From the BMAC, the Indo-Aryans migrated into northern Syria and, possibly in multiple waves, into the Punjab (northern Pakistan and India), while the Iranians could have reached western Iran before 1300 BCE, both bringing with them the Indo-Iranian languages.
dghughes 3y ago
I know a Tamil guy we often discussed things and would end up on culture, language, ethnicity. He would say to me and I'm paraphrasing obviously, "Look at my nose it is flat but your nose isn't you look like the people from the north. Look at my skin it is dark but the ones up north it is light like your skin" meaning Indians. At the time I didn't realize he was most likely referring to the "Aryan Invasion" theory which is now seen as false. Even his own comment about his own nose I don't know if he knew nose shape was used to divide people into Aryan and Dravidian. Probably inspired by Eugenics ideas of the time. Another person in our group was Mi'kmaq First Nations aka "Indian" he was also there when we were discussing this. So it was a bit bizarre or funny since the Indian was not an Indian and the Indian was Tamil and didn't consider themselves ethnically Indian.
- ralfd 3y ago
  But the Aryan invasion is not false? https://scroll.in/article/936872/two-new-genetic-studies-upheld-aryan-migration-theory-so-why-did-indian-media-report-the-opposite https://scroll.in/article/936872/two-new-genetic-studies-uph... It is a political issue in India, obviously, but the North has more Aryan steppe ancestry than the south: https://araingang.medium.com/south-asia-ancestry-map-637092c0728a https://araingang.medium.com/south-asia-ancestry-map-637092c...
  - dghughes 3y ago
    It was and then wasn't back and forth. I think I'll just wait for the book to come out..
    - amriksohata 3y ago
      This is what I mean
    - thaumasiotes 3y ago
      The book came out a while ago. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101873469/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101873469/ Here's a review of the part that applies to India: https://www.brownpundits.com/2018/03/30/the-indian-chapter-of-who-we-are-and-how-we-got-here/ https://www.brownpundits.com/2018/03/30/the-indian-chapter-o... There has never been a back-and-forth on the issue, only ideological insistence on ignoring the facts.

shusaku 3y ago

> The evidence from Tam Pà Ling has pushed back the timing of H. sapiens’ arrival in Southeast Asia. This suggests the mainland, along with the coastal and island locations, may have also been a viable dispersal route. I’m curious what is the implication of this paragraph. If the first date was later, why would the route change?

detourdog 3y ago
Overtime the geographic changes could open and close various routes.
defrost 3y ago
There's a broader deeper debate|question about the expansion of H.Sapiens across the planet: Proponents of a coastal migration model for H. sapiens out of Africa argue that coastlines would have provided for a fast, directional population expansion with predictable resources and supplies of potable water. Those opposing, point out that there is little direct evidence to support a coastal-highway hypothesis and that there is evidence that early humans were able to make use of savanna and rainforest environments. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-42946-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-42946-9 The cave in north east Laos being excavated here is well away from the coastline. Later H.Sapiens evidence in the interior of S.E.Asia can be explained by coastal expansion followed by a later push into the interior (as there are early signs of H.Sapiens in coastal areas). Early H.Sapiens evidence in the interior of S.E.Asia as old as coastal evidence supports the notion that expansion may have been through interior routes crossing steep terrains and passing through jungles.
- masklinn 3y ago
  Wouldn’t coastal evidence be basically nonexistent outside of the Eemian though?
  - defrost 3y ago
    Mostly but not always. I don't know much about the Laos | Vietnam area and any evidence there, but I can reference the Sahul (Greater landmass creater by the lower seas and joing of PNG - Australia - Tasmania) and Sundaland. If you look at the coastline graphics in the linked wikipedia articles you can see that in various places the coastlines almost aligned - additionally various islands of today were hilltops near the coastlines of old. Dated remains on a modern island can line up with hilltop dwellings with views of the coastline of old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland

lifeisstillgood 3y ago

I have a mental model of how humans spread across the world, something like - many years ago there were several species of upright apes in Africa, (much like there are species of big cats now). These started to move out of Africa as climate and other pressures / opportunities presented them selves. About 200,000 years ago one species (modern humans) joined the others and we fucked up the rest of them so bad they all were wiped out wherever we went. Probably all the species had flint knapping, and fire tools and also had clothes from around 100,000 years ago. I am not clear where I get that model from - science journalism mostly. Just that story rocks me back on my heels every time I walk it through. But I am wondering if it is "supported by the evidence" or not or if discoveries like this blow through that basic sort of model (apart from timings which I see as important scientifically but not directionally - ie Ptolemy and Erastothenes thought the world was round but different circumference - important but directionally the same) Finally - The awfulness of the web page layout and pop ups. I am slowly finding I can only use "Page Reader" on ios. It might just be old and grumpy name but it seems to be getting worse

verisimi 3y ago
Its really impossible to go back in history, at all. Its pretty much impossible to agree about what is going on in the present. Scientists, historians, everyone really attempts to show how they deal in facts, ones which mere mortals should just accept, but when you dig into any area, you will realise that its all highly ambiguous, whether that's the facts that are being presented, the way its presented, the money trail, the way it is framed, etc. People disparage 'anecdotal experience' but to me its all any of us has. Its our 'golden source'. Whenever we start undertaking actions that are not coherent with our personal, lived experience, we are walking on thin ice.
- joshuahedlund 3y ago
  > Its really impossible to go back in history, at all Sequencing ancient DNA allows us to do this in some respects. We’ve learned a lot in the last <10 years about population movements, relations, and timing from this. See “Who We Are and How We Got Here” by David Reich. Main takeaway: there was a lot more mixing of early modern human population groups than anyone expected.