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I've seen similar claims on HN and I'm puzzled: 1) Are you saying people weren't primitive (and how is that defined) in the early Neolithic or, implied by your

I've seen similar claims on HN and I'm puzzled: 1) Are you saying people weren't primitive (and how is that defined) in the early Neolithic or, implied by your claim, the late Paleolithic; or that they weren't genetically identical; or both? 2) How does the OP support that claim? I don't see anything that addresses either issue, unless by 'primitive' you mean something on the level of Acheulean tools - handaxes, essentially stone axeheads held in the hand sans hafts or handles, used for ~1.5 million years until a few hundred thousand years ago. In that case, by the early Neolithic our ancestors had exceeded that for at least a couple hundred thousand years (conservatively, and depending on geography). 3) Most of all, why do people care? Why is there a minor movement to push the capabilities of prehistoric humans? What is the emotional investment here? Why bother to come up with mis/disinformation and spread it about these people (unless such behavior is so ingrained that people do it for any reason)?

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
Re: 3 - because there's an interest in the idea that human history (all of it) is not actually some generally linear, forward-moving story but instead contains (a) parallel, diverse evolution, sometimes with independent discovery of the same thing (b) retrograde motion.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Thank you for explaining it. Whose theory is that? Is there a name for it? A prominent author? I also wonder how that claim is made to fit the evidence: It seems very hard to claim that our lives and abilities haven't improved generally and significantly over the 7 million years since we divorced the chimpanzee taxa, though certainly there have been many years and millenia where we went backward for a short time (short relative to 7 million years - of course it's not always linear improvement, but that's a strawperson). Also, is the theory part of the modern political attempt to reject the Enlightenment and anything associated with it? (Edit: I'm not trying to discuss that movement, just understand the context of these claims.) > parallel, diverse evolution, sometimes with independent discovery of the same thing Does anyone say otherwise? It seems unavoidable that, without modern global communication, many/all discoveries would be too isolated to be known globally. > retrograde motion Temporarily? Again, who says otherwise?
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    Most recently, Graeber and Wengrow would likely the poster children of this approach to long history. When I was a child (say, 50+ years ago), we were taught that agriculture was discovered once, in the Levant. This is no longer accepted: it was discovered at least three times (Levant, China, Meso-America), and it would not be surprising if future archeologists find more. The traditional, still widely accepted view of human long history is that we went from hunter-gathers in small tribes to agriculture to larger communities to heirarchies of control to modernity. There are now (c.f. Graeber & Wengrow) some dissenting voices about this.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      > Most recently, Graeber and Wengrow would likely the poster children of this approach to long history. Thanks. I'll look them up. > When I was a child (say, 50+ years ago), we were taught that ... It's unfair, especially after you volunteered to inform me, to make you the spokesperson. However, to go on a tangent I am always a bit skeptical about my and others' memories of childhood education: First, it was long ago, and details and nuance tend to fade. Also, there's the question of not what was taught, but what was understood at that age. I may have understood a very simplified story, and lacking intellectual tools, one biased by pre-existing drives and beliefs. Think of the last time you tried to communicate something, especially with any detail or depth or nuance, to a 9 year old. Could you teach one about long history, in a way they'd understand and retain the details we're discussing? Just think of all the general contextual knowledge they'd need. Years ago I did come across a childhood textbook (late elementary school, I'd guess) , and it was pretty good. I don't mean it represents all textbooks, but that it was good from my adult perspective - no surprise because it was written by adults, evaluated by adults, taught by adults, and no doubt they thought it was pretty good. But what I understood as a child is an very different matter.
      - jghn 3y ago
        Well, I was taught the same thing 40ish years ago, if that helps. In retrospect when I was in grade school I was being taught things that were about 10-30 years behind the times in terms of state of the art knowledge in their field. Which makes sense. I wouldn't expect an elementary school teacher to be up to date with the most recent knowledge coming out of academia on these topics. As another example I remember being scoffed at by my teacher in 2nd grade by pointing out how it looked like the continents could fit together. Plate tectonics was known by that point but hadn't become ubiquitous knowledge. I don't remember when I was formally taught the concept of Pangea but it was later on.
- a_gnostic 3y ago
  I suggest Thomas Sowell's books on Facts about Geography Not Taught in School https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOpJiy5R9WMWL7-8d0JpCp5g9ZDX2Gl8r https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOpJiy5R9WMWL7-8d0JpCp5...
nradov 3y ago
There is some circumstantial evidence in the form of stone structures and carvings of relatively advanced civilizations before or during the last ice age which were later wiped out thus setting back human technological progress. By "advanced" I don't mean rockets and microchips, just some higher levels of stone and metal working possibly with wooden sailing vessels. It's hard to conclusively prove or disprove this hypothesis given the difficulties in reliably dating stone artifacts. And if such civilizations did exist, much of the evidence has probably been inundated by rising sea levels making it extremely difficult for archaeologists to find. The reason some people care (beyond purely academic interest) is that if those ancient civilizations did exist then one of the ways they might have been wiped out is by multiple bolide impacts around 12000 years ago. This is commonly known as the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis. If it happened to them then it could happen to us. I don't necessarily believe the hypothesis is correct but there is at least some data in geological formations and core samples to support it. https://doi.org/10.1177/00368504211064272 https://doi.org/10.1177/00368504211064272
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > It's hard to conclusively prove or disprove this hypothesis given the difficulties in reliably dating stone artifacts. And if such civilizations did exist, much of the evidence has probably been inundated by rising sea levels making it extremely difficult for archaeologists to find. Why is evidence for that theory more difficult to find and date than evidence for the prevailing theories (which has been found, of course)?

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

Re: 3 - because there's an interest in the idea that human history (all of it) is not actually some generally linear, forward-moving story but instead contains (a) parallel, diverse evolution, sometimes with independent discovery of the same thing (b) retrograde motion.

wolverine876 3y ago
Thank you for explaining it. Whose theory is that? Is there a name for it? A prominent author? I also wonder how that claim is made to fit the evidence: It seems very hard to claim that our lives and abilities haven't improved generally and significantly over the 7 million years since we divorced the chimpanzee taxa, though certainly there have been many years and millenia where we went backward for a short time (short relative to 7 million years - of course it's not always linear improvement, but that's a strawperson). Also, is the theory part of the modern political attempt to reject the Enlightenment and anything associated with it? (Edit: I'm not trying to discuss that movement, just understand the context of these claims.) > parallel, diverse evolution, sometimes with independent discovery of the same thing Does anyone say otherwise? It seems unavoidable that, without modern global communication, many/all discoveries would be too isolated to be known globally. > retrograde motion Temporarily? Again, who says otherwise?
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  Most recently, Graeber and Wengrow would likely the poster children of this approach to long history. When I was a child (say, 50+ years ago), we were taught that agriculture was discovered once, in the Levant. This is no longer accepted: it was discovered at least three times (Levant, China, Meso-America), and it would not be surprising if future archeologists find more. The traditional, still widely accepted view of human long history is that we went from hunter-gathers in small tribes to agriculture to larger communities to heirarchies of control to modernity. There are now (c.f. Graeber & Wengrow) some dissenting voices about this.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    > Most recently, Graeber and Wengrow would likely the poster children of this approach to long history. Thanks. I'll look them up. > When I was a child (say, 50+ years ago), we were taught that ... It's unfair, especially after you volunteered to inform me, to make you the spokesperson. However, to go on a tangent I am always a bit skeptical about my and others' memories of childhood education: First, it was long ago, and details and nuance tend to fade. Also, there's the question of not what was taught, but what was understood at that age. I may have understood a very simplified story, and lacking intellectual tools, one biased by pre-existing drives and beliefs. Think of the last time you tried to communicate something, especially with any detail or depth or nuance, to a 9 year old. Could you teach one about long history, in a way they'd understand and retain the details we're discussing? Just think of all the general contextual knowledge they'd need. Years ago I did come across a childhood textbook (late elementary school, I'd guess) , and it was pretty good. I don't mean it represents all textbooks, but that it was good from my adult perspective - no surprise because it was written by adults, evaluated by adults, taught by adults, and no doubt they thought it was pretty good. But what I understood as a child is an very different matter.
    - jghn 3y ago
      Well, I was taught the same thing 40ish years ago, if that helps. In retrospect when I was in grade school I was being taught things that were about 10-30 years behind the times in terms of state of the art knowledge in their field. Which makes sense. I wouldn't expect an elementary school teacher to be up to date with the most recent knowledge coming out of academia on these topics. As another example I remember being scoffed at by my teacher in 2nd grade by pointing out how it looked like the continents could fit together. Plate tectonics was known by that point but hadn't become ubiquitous knowledge. I don't remember when I was formally taught the concept of Pangea but it was later on.
a_gnostic 3y ago
I suggest Thomas Sowell's books on Facts about Geography Not Taught in School https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOpJiy5R9WMWL7-8d0JpCp5g9ZDX2Gl8r https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOpJiy5R9WMWL7-8d0JpCp5...

nradov 3y ago

There is some circumstantial evidence in the form of stone structures and carvings of relatively advanced civilizations before or during the last ice age which were later wiped out thus setting back human technological progress. By "advanced" I don't mean rockets and microchips, just some higher levels of stone and metal working possibly with wooden sailing vessels. It's hard to conclusively prove or disprove this hypothesis given the difficulties in reliably dating stone artifacts. And if such civilizations did exist, much of the evidence has probably been inundated by rising sea levels making it extremely difficult for archaeologists to find. The reason some people care (beyond purely academic interest) is that if those ancient civilizations did exist then one of the ways they might have been wiped out is by multiple bolide impacts around 12000 years ago. This is commonly known as the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis. If it happened to them then it could happen to us. I don't necessarily believe the hypothesis is correct but there is at least some data in geological formations and core samples to support it. https://doi.org/10.1177/00368504211064272 https://doi.org/10.1177/00368504211064272

wolverine876 3y ago
> It's hard to conclusively prove or disprove this hypothesis given the difficulties in reliably dating stone artifacts. And if such civilizations did exist, much of the evidence has probably been inundated by rising sea levels making it extremely difficult for archaeologists to find. Why is evidence for that theory more difficult to find and date than evidence for the prevailing theories (which has been found, of course)?