3 ms·

Very short article, well worth the time. To note, the supposed builders of the structure also left behind other tools that the researchers identify, not just t

Very short article, well worth the time. To note, the supposed builders of the structure also left behind other tools that the researchers identify, not just the two logs. All that evidence after nearly half a million years is a miracle of a find. Also, Homo heidelbergensis was the supposed builder. The wiki page has a lot of good info on these folks. One interesting point is that Homo heidelbergensis was more closely related to neanderthals than to us. We know tool use occurs in a lot of apes, so finding such evidence isn't to be all that unexpected. Still, amazing stuff and amazing work by the research team. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_heidelbergensis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_heidelbergensis

passwordoops 3y ago
Very exciting! I love that the time line for humanity keeps getting pushed back. HOWEVER, >All that evidence after nearly half a million years is a miracle of a find. I really hope this doesn't turn out to be one of those too good to be true finds. I hate that the nature of academic research is making me so cynical
- dylan604 3y ago
  The cynical skepticism isn't a bad thing, especially as you've pointed out, so much stuff has been published that would make it necessary. Wholehearted acceptance, blindly, on anything new is just not a sound practice. Even if reviewing and confirming the material only takes minutes, it was at least reviewed and confirmed.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  A good scientist is a skeptical/cynical scientist. And never forget the two main rules of understanding scientific findings: 1) pay no attention to what media reports say about a scientific finding. Read the paper instead. The media almost never gets things right and very often completely misrepresents them. 2) One paper is the same as no paper. Don't even think about entertaining the notion that what a single paper says is actually true. Wait until there are other papers from researchers trying to reproduce results.
happytiger 3y ago
Apes don’t carve logs and notch them to build structures. While not “modern humans” it’s important not to fall into the trap of thinking those who came prior to us had some degree of lesser intelligence. Truth is they probably just knew different things that were important to their lives then. Instead of knowing how to drive a car or use credit card they knew what plants to eat, how to make tools, hunt, and apparently build houses with logs. Homo heidelbergensis is the common ancestor between modern humans and Neanderthals. They are pretty darn close to modern humans. And if you took a modern human from, say, 10,000 years ago and raised them in the modern world you’d just have a modern human. While this seems like a long way back, this subspecies probably isn’t that far from that scenario. And recent research into Neanderthal DNA shows that there was intermingling and an ebb and flow of genetic mixing over long periods of time. I only say that to suggest that things are less linear than we were taught. https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/ancient-dna-and-neanderthals#:~:text=If%20one%20was%20to%20look,our%20common%20ancestor%20with%20Neanderthals https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/ancient-dna-an....
- fuzzfactor 3y ago
  >Apes don’t carve logs and notch them to build structures. But we know what people do. >While not “modern humans" This wasn't carpentry, this was a sawmill.
  - happytiger 3y ago
    Well the exciting part to me is that it suggests settlement or at least deeper investment in a location. Not surprising given what we found in Wonderwerk Cave in the Kalahari Desert, but it is totally challenging to some people’s long held beliefs in archeology. https://phys.org/news/2021-04-unveil-oldest-evidence-human-african.amp https://phys.org/news/2021-04-unveil-oldest-evidence-human-a...
- civilitty 3y ago
  The whole concept of different human species may be a taxonomic error of historic proportions despite the morphological differences we see in the fossil record. Information on the genome of archaic humans is a very recent development in a centuries old field so it is still catching up, especially at the level of educational material. Based on my reading of the paper about the sequenced neanderthal bone [1] and a global genetic variation study [2], the difference between neanderthals and modern humans isn't that much bigger than the natural variation within the modern human genome. That difference is much smaller (on the order of 10-40x) than the difference between modern humans and chimpanzees and given the multiple genetic bottleneck events in our evolution, I think it's much more accurate to look at all the different species of archaic humans as breeds of modern humans that happen to show a larger difference with older samples because of the limited founding population and the diversity of our ancestors (of which we have very few biased samples). Where to draw the line in speciation is always controversial but my theory is that once tool use really got going by the second stone industry, early humans started artificially self-selecting for intelligence just like we later did with dogs and eventually the modern human "breed" was born. By the million year ago mark, roughly the time evidence of fire started showing up in the archaeological record, I think the species that is modern humans was already long spreading and out competing other apes. I think shortly after this point is when we started developing clothing and moving into the colder climates, leaving evidence at places like Atapuerca. [1] https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12886 https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/nature128... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature15393 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature15393

passwordoops 3y ago

Very exciting! I love that the time line for humanity keeps getting pushed back. HOWEVER, >All that evidence after nearly half a million years is a miracle of a find. I really hope this doesn't turn out to be one of those too good to be true finds. I hate that the nature of academic research is making me so cynical

dylan604 3y ago
The cynical skepticism isn't a bad thing, especially as you've pointed out, so much stuff has been published that would make it necessary. Wholehearted acceptance, blindly, on anything new is just not a sound practice. Even if reviewing and confirming the material only takes minutes, it was at least reviewed and confirmed.
JohnFen 3y ago
A good scientist is a skeptical/cynical scientist. And never forget the two main rules of understanding scientific findings: 1) pay no attention to what media reports say about a scientific finding. Read the paper instead. The media almost never gets things right and very often completely misrepresents them. 2) One paper is the same as no paper. Don't even think about entertaining the notion that what a single paper says is actually true. Wait until there are other papers from researchers trying to reproduce results.

happytiger 3y ago

Apes don’t carve logs and notch them to build structures. While not “modern humans” it’s important not to fall into the trap of thinking those who came prior to us had some degree of lesser intelligence. Truth is they probably just knew different things that were important to their lives then. Instead of knowing how to drive a car or use credit card they knew what plants to eat, how to make tools, hunt, and apparently build houses with logs. Homo heidelbergensis is the common ancestor between modern humans and Neanderthals. They are pretty darn close to modern humans. And if you took a modern human from, say, 10,000 years ago and raised them in the modern world you’d just have a modern human. While this seems like a long way back, this subspecies probably isn’t that far from that scenario. And recent research into Neanderthal DNA shows that there was intermingling and an ebb and flow of genetic mixing over long periods of time. I only say that to suggest that things are less linear than we were taught. https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/ancient-dna-and-neanderthals#:~:text=If%20one%20was%20to%20look,our%20common%20ancestor%20with%20Neanderthals https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/ancient-dna-an....

fuzzfactor 3y ago
>Apes don’t carve logs and notch them to build structures. But we know what people do. >While not “modern humans" This wasn't carpentry, this was a sawmill.
- happytiger 3y ago
  Well the exciting part to me is that it suggests settlement or at least deeper investment in a location. Not surprising given what we found in Wonderwerk Cave in the Kalahari Desert, but it is totally challenging to some people’s long held beliefs in archeology. https://phys.org/news/2021-04-unveil-oldest-evidence-human-african.amp https://phys.org/news/2021-04-unveil-oldest-evidence-human-a...
civilitty 3y ago
The whole concept of different human species may be a taxonomic error of historic proportions despite the morphological differences we see in the fossil record. Information on the genome of archaic humans is a very recent development in a centuries old field so it is still catching up, especially at the level of educational material. Based on my reading of the paper about the sequenced neanderthal bone [1] and a global genetic variation study [2], the difference between neanderthals and modern humans isn't that much bigger than the natural variation within the modern human genome. That difference is much smaller (on the order of 10-40x) than the difference between modern humans and chimpanzees and given the multiple genetic bottleneck events in our evolution, I think it's much more accurate to look at all the different species of archaic humans as breeds of modern humans that happen to show a larger difference with older samples because of the limited founding population and the diversity of our ancestors (of which we have very few biased samples). Where to draw the line in speciation is always controversial but my theory is that once tool use really got going by the second stone industry, early humans started artificially self-selecting for intelligence just like we later did with dogs and eventually the modern human "breed" was born. By the million year ago mark, roughly the time evidence of fire started showing up in the archaeological record, I think the species that is modern humans was already long spreading and out competing other apes. I think shortly after this point is when we started developing clothing and moving into the colder climates, leaving evidence at places like Atapuerca. [1] https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12886 https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/nature128... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature15393 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature15393