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How many bathrooms have Neanderthals in the tile?
- queuebert 2y agoTalk about the downtrodden.
- clucas 2y agoTo what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole?
- zeristor 2y agoYikes, seeing someone's jawbone each day is off putting. The odd ammonite would be sad, you'd think that this would be rejected on quality grounds.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoTravertine Man is not on my Anthropology bingo card.
- defrost 2y agoDentist floored by Precarbonite Man?
- visarga 2y agoThey got civilised now, from caves to bathrooms.
- INTPenis 2y agoThis blows my mind because it reminds me of how we find dinosaurs! I love time team, and I know it's not even close to neanderthals. But I've grown accustomed to them finding human remains in soil. But this is in sedimentary rock! It's like a fossilized human, sort of.
- _xerces_ 2y agoI found out not long ago that Time Team episodes are officially available on YouTube, both old and new: https://www.youtube.com/@TimeTeamClassics https://www.youtube.com/@TimeTeamClassics https://www.youtube.com/@TimeTeamOfficial https://www.youtube.com/@TimeTeamOfficial
- lostlogin 2y agoThank you. I thought it ended years ago.
- INTPenis 2y agoIt did, but they've crowd funded at least one new episode through patreon subscriptions.
- INTPenis 2y agoOh I know! :D And also Prof. Alice Roberts has a great series called Unearthed History[1] where Phil Harding featured recently. 1. https://www.youtube.com/@UnearthedHistoryChannel https://www.youtube.com/@UnearthedHistoryChannel
- throwway120385 2y agoDoes Phil still wear short shorts?
- INTPenis 2y agoFor that dig he sported a very trendy pair of naturally torn jeans.
- nomdep 2y ago"And if you do happen find a jawbone in your bathroom, my suggestion is first to contact the local authorities. Sure, a fossil in travertine likely comes from hundreds of thousands of years ago. It isn't a crime scene. But depending on your state or nation of residence, laws governing discovery of human remains on your property may be complicated and having the paperwork in order with the police, sheriff, or coroner is the first step for most investigations." No thanks. I'm not going to complicate my life with paperwork and police investigators because of a small piece of a might-be-a-fossil from Turkey.
- lucioperca 2y agoCorrect me if I am wrong, but this was in a cut limestone plate. So if it was a crime, I am sure the murderer is long deceased and probably not even a homo sapiens.
- tokai 2y agoStill human remains.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- iopq 2y ago[citation needed] it's humanoid remains, but not modern human
- tokai 2y agoRight back at you with the citation needed. Humanoid is not a taxonomic term anymore. All Homo are humans. Never said modern, which it obviously isn't.
- iopq 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human > Although some scientists equate the term "humans" with all members of the genus Homo, in common usage it generally refers to Homo sapiens, the only extant member.
- belter 2y ago[flagged]
- vagrantJin 2y agoNow now. No need for that.
- annoyingnoob 2y ago23andMe says that I have more Neanderthal genes than 85% of their customers. I do not work in Politics or in Boardrooms.
- Anon84 2y agoTime for a career change?
- davidmurdoch 2y agoYet
- anikan_vader 2y agoIt is incredibly insulting to neanderthals to make an unsubstantiated comparison between them and politicians.
- meijer 2y agoI think it is likely that politics is exactly the type of stuff where Homo sapiens outperforms Neanderthals.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- throwitaway222 2y agoWe actually have no idea if the IQ of Neanderthals is much higher than our own, so shrug?
- _yb2s 2y agoProbably the opposite of that- it seems likely that neanderthals were physically stronger, and may have even been smarter as well but we killed them off because we had more of the type of traits you're stereotyping them with: humans band together in large groups and systematically eliminate our competition through organized war/violence, politics, etc. I think it's pretty ironic that humans have formed a cultural idea of us being superior to Neanderthals based on stereotyping them as having traits that are actually more characteristic of us. "Projections change the world into the replica of one's own unknown face." -Carl Jung
- krisoft 2y agoWould it be possible (even just theoretically) to discover fossils like this non-destructively via some form of scanning? If we would have a huge chunk of stone on a table, could we somehow tell if there is any humanoid bones in it without cutting it up? I suspect the very low contrast between the fossil and the surrounding rock would mean that either we need a very sensitive sensor, very long exposures or likely both.
- crote 2y agoI believe this can be done with CT scans - they are already applied to non-destructively learn more about known fossils. Routinely scanning random chunks of stone would be prohibitively expensive, of course.
- defrost 2y agoDepends really .. if the source quarry is pulling blocks and thin slicing them for tiles | counter tops then it's relatively easy (in the world of industrial mining) to photographically scan the top and bottom of every slice of stone after it's been cut to tile thickness. A number of quarries already automate the slicing and "inspect" surfaces for defects via computer vision. The trick is pattern recognition to catch things of interest so that if required the raw slices can be retrieved before they're shipped. It's destructive tomography .. with an option to digitally reconstruct a solid, or even to physically rejoin slices.
- MadnessASAP 2y agoObviously the solution is to CT scan the whole planet. Then it'll be easy to spot the fossils.
- perihelions 2y agoIndiana Jones and the Tomography of Doom
- throwway120385 2y agoFinally, after all these years, I have a use for all of my real-estate investments in subterranean cave systems.
- em-bee 2y agomy first read of this title was: "how many bathrooms did neanderthals have?" making me wonder "neanderthals had bathrooms?"
- madeofpalk 2y agoI was stuck for ages trying to parse the title, thinking it was a Google-style interview question - "How many bathrooms are there in the Netherlands?"
- g105b 2y agoMe too. It really crossed a wire in my brain!
- navane 2y agoIt's because up until the very last word the sentence can be passed very differently: "How many bathrooms have Neanderthals in the average household?"
- thaumasiotes 2y ago> thinking it was a Google-style interview question - "How many bathrooms are there in the Netherlands?" Where does the idea that this is a Google-style interview question come from? They've never interviewed that way.
- madeofpalk 2y agoWhether it's true or not, there is the "How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?" meme interview question https://www.wired.com/2014/08/how-to-solve-crazy-open-ended-google-interview-questions/ https://www.wired.com/2014/08/how-to-solve-crazy-open-ended-...
- thaumasiotes 2y agoThat style of question was notorious long before Google existed. It has never been associated with Google.
- drooby 2y agoI read that title and I was nearly convinced I was having a stroke.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tiborsaas 2y agoBut how many bathrooms Neanderthals had?
- xattt 2y agoContinuing with the Neanderthal theme: > how is babby formed? How girl get pragnent? [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-is-babby-formed https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-is-babby-formed
- jdubb 2y agoI still don't understand the title, no matter how hard I try. Is there a word missing? A misspelling?
- thedanbob 2y ago"How many bathrooms have (fossilized remains of) Neanderthals in the (wall/floor) tile?" I had to start reading the article before I was able to parse it correctly.
- starkrights 2y agoJust got it. Have is the possessive definition, not the helper verb for a past participle. Read like: How many tiles contain Neanderthals within their tiles?
- alamortsubite 2y agoFrom the title, I fully expected the story to be about a next-generation CAPTCHA.
- AndrewKemendo 2y ago
- RIMR 2y agoAbsolutely wild the number of people in the comments on the original Reddit thread who earnestly think OP should call the police to report human remains.
- outworlder 2y agoThey should look up applicable laws in their jurisdiction. Police may not be appropriate, but most places govern how human remains should be handled.
- coding123 2y agoI couldn't parse the title until I read the article.
- tomxor 2y agoI couldn't parse the tile until I read the article.
- NovemberWhiskey 2y agoOh god, I couldn't deal with having that in my floor; that tile would definitely be getting replaced.
- mongol 2y agoMe neither.That is basically part of corpse in your home, right?
- creshal 2y agoLimestone is generally made of dead corals and marine animals, this batch just included a slightly wider variety of species than average.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoThis makes it especially fun to climb on, there are pretty little shell indentations and such to appreciate on your way up.
- 13of40 2y agoThe magic ingredient in concrete is cement and the magic ingredient in cement is limestone, so our cities are literally built out of bones. Sleep tight.
- outworlder 2y agoInteresting. Cities are built on death and suffering, literally and figuratively.
- dwaltrip 2y agoMuch (most?) of the entire biosphere of earth comes from billions of years of life forms killing and eating other life forms. The universe is a rough place. Beautiful in many ways, but quite gnarly.
- Archelaos 2y agoIn 2022, I was able to visit the excavation site Bilzingsleben, which is mentioned in the article, and can highly recommend a visit to everyone interested in science. The site itself is just a quarry, but they have built a museum right above the place where they found fossils of thousands of creatures. You can then stand over a control table like in the spaceship Enterprise and trigger 3D animations of those animals and humans in their natural environment on a large screen on the wall on other side over an excavation ditch. But the best thing was getting to know to the curator of the site. He himself took part in the excavation, published scientific articles about it and seems to know everything about the site, its excavation history and palaeological topics related to it. I was able to talk with him for more than an hour. The excavation site is located about 20km north of Erfurt (Thuringia, Germany). In the summer it is open Weddensday to Sunday and on holidays from 10:00 to 17:00. For those with a camper-van: it is no problem to stay in their very quite car park for the night for free. Its Web-site can be found at http://www.steinrinne-bilzingsleben.com/ http://www.steinrinne-bilzingsleben.com/ (in German).
- treprinum 2y agoHow about Grube Messel? Is it similar to Bilzingsleben?
- Archelaos 2y agoGrube Messel is still on my agenda. (It is literally like this: I have bookmarked the location in my navigator app.) However, from what I heared, both must be quite different. In contrast to Messel, there are no spectacular finds on display in Bilzingsleben. What is associated with Homo Erectus is on display in the Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte in Halle.[1] The scientific worth of Bilzingsleben is that it is sort of a Homo Erectus version of Pompeji (of a much, much smaller size, though): the place was covered with mud at a certain time during a flood disaster, which hindered decomposition and later errosion. It is now more or less completely excavated. So the site itself is just a big ditch. As I said, the best thing about my visit was the opportunity to talk with a real expert curator. I have hardly ever met a museum guide who knew so much about his subject matter. I hope he is still there. [1] Photos and descriptions of this and a few other nice finds are available online https://nat.museum-digital.de/search?q=Bilzingsleben https://nat.museum-digital.de/search?q=Bilzingsleben (texts in German, navigation available in English)
- Jacob__ 2y ago[flagged]
- gravescale 2y agoSomehow I find marble and travertine in things like hotels a bit depressing. It took millions of years to form and it's a marvel of serendipitous geological processes. Then it gets sliced and stuck to a wall for a decade or two before another renovation or a demolition happens and it gets smashed up and thrown away.
- golergka 2y agoWould it be better for billions of tons of it to just sit locked away in the Earth and never see the light of day?
- iamgopal 2y ago[flagged]
- Joker_vD 2y agoOr consider iron. Almost all of it has actually sank into the Earth's core, the deposits we extract it from are but tiniest scraps of the metal left on the face of the planet. So irreverent!
- gravescale 2y agoAh well, but we could always get as much more of it as we want with an exciting enough mining project! And if that fails, just sit tight and it'll be most of the universe for a few quadrillion years, somewhere between "cold, dark and quiet" and "very cold and very dark and very quiet"
- acchow 2y agoWe could probably even make more iron in a fusion reactor. But anything heavier than iron would probably require a supernova.
- laurencerowe 2y agoI don't think there's anything stopping us from making trace amounts of elements heavier than iron. The superheavy elements have only been synthesised in the laboratory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superheavy_element https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superheavy_element
- dclowd9901 2y ago> Dating of the travertine by Anne-Marie Lebatard and collaborators in 2014 suggests that the individual lived sometime between 1.6 million and 1.2 million years ago. What the…? Am I misunderstanding something? I didn’t think human ancestry started so long ago.
- djur 2y agoHomo habilis existed as long as 2.8 million years ago.
- danans 2y agoTIL, fossils exist from < O(1M+)ya Also TIL, (from tangential reading) even dinosaur fossils contain original bone material from the organism, not just rock in the shape of the original bones. Of course it makes complete sense in retrospect.
- pimpampum 2y agoWow, I wasn't aware that was a correct sentence.
- adamc 2y agoMakes me sad to think of the fossils lost, but it's also kind of inevitable.
- denton-scratch 2y agoGood article. I thought I was going to hear that some type of ceramic consisted in part of ground-up Neanderthal bones. I think I'd be unpleasantly surprised to find a human jawbone on the bathroom floor.
- jbandela1 2y agoI believe statistically, you are almost certain when you are peeing in the bathroom to be peeing out some of the exact same water molecules that exact same Neanderthal who is in the tile peed out when they were alive.
- Jeremy1026 2y agoI read this title early in the morning. Thought it said "Netherlands", now that I'm reading it more awake, I'll be honest when I say I'm not sure if Neanderthals is more or less comforting.
- glyphy177 2y ago[dead]
- leto_ii 2y agoIn Bucharest we have an entire subway station tiled with marble containing countless very visible fossils [1], specifically of rudists [2]. Here are a few nice photos: https://www.descopera.ro/wp-content/uploads/media/401/321/5946/15187502/3/politehnica-subway-station.jpg https://www.descopera.ro/wp-content/uploads/media/401/321/59... https://www.descopera.ro/wp-content/uploads/media/401/321/5946/15187502/2/politehnica-subway.jpg https://www.descopera.ro/wp-content/uploads/media/401/321/59... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politehnica_metro_station https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politehnica_metro_station [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudists https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudists
- refactor_master 2y agoSame thing can be seen in Bologna, Italy [1]. And if I’m not mistaken, several other Italian cities as well. [1] https://pauls-bologna.blog/dsc08058/ https://pauls-bologna.blog/dsc08058/
- _yb2s 2y agoAmazing... I have this stuff in my own bathroom, and assumed it was some sort of synthetically generated random pattern, e.g. a type of ceramic or concrete tile with coloring swirled in or something. To be honest, I find it a bit ugly and didn't understand why anyone would design a tile to look like this. Can't wait to get home and actually look carefully. I suspect I'll appreciate it a lot more knowing what it actually is.
- dropbox_miner 2y agoCan you post a picture?
- _yb2s 2y agoThere are photos in the article here, mine looks identical other than the jaw bone.
- frutiger 2y agoTravertine is a pretty “famous” stone and was used extensively by the Romans to build some of their most famous structures (including the Coliseum). Since then architects have used it in many famous buildings (e.g. the Seagram building’s lobby).
- krick 2y agoUnless you are certain "this stuff in your own bathroom" is real travertine, it most likely is "some sort of synthetically generated random pattern". They make it out of colored cement, which is pretty similar to a real thing, but obviously cheaper and more resistant to some hardships of everyday life.
- _yb2s 2y agoYou’re right, it’s fake! A pretty good fake until I found 2 identical tiles.
- WalterBright 2y agoI'm not an anthropologist, but I saw right away that it was a jawbone. How could anyone miss it?
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2y agoTo be fair, you're only seeing that one small part in isolation.
- ricardobeat 2y agoThis title made absolutely no sense until I read the article. Fascinating stuff.
- BrandoElFollito 2y agoThere is a concrete pour next to the place I lived as a child which was done around 1970. A cat walked through and my parents showed the traces to me when I was a small kid, explaining how fossiles were created. Fast forward 35 years or so, I live 2 km from the place I was born after travelling the world and I went there with my own child to "discover" the steps again, together with the story about fossiles. I then had my kid take my parents to that place when they were visiting so that he could show them the traces and explain how fossiles are formed. Full circle of life :)
- IAmGraydon 2y agoIt’s a heartwarming story, but I don’t understand how cat tracks have anything to do with fossils, which are usually the remains of a once-living animal.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_track https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_track
- danparsonson 2y agoAfter 35 years, I'm sorry to say, that cat is a once-living animal :-)
- BrandoElFollito 2y agoWell, that is the sad part I left to my wife to explain :)
- BrandoElFollito 2y agoThe idea was to explain that one can find traces in stone in the form of imprints. Typically these would be trilobites or shells, but also leaves and actual animal steps. It was more an introduction to the idea of fossilization, layers of sediments etc. than a university course :) with the general message of "you can find traces of stuff in stones, and next we will crack open a stone to show you that". Not far away from that place there is a church with steps built from sedimentary stone where there are plenty of fossiles so it was a nice introduction.
- The28thDuck 2y agoThis building has people in it.