2 ms·

If they had been doing the ritual regularly enough to preserve it for over 12,000 years in a relatively small range, it seems surprising that the excavations di

by gwern 2y ago

If they had been doing the ritual regularly enough to preserve it for over 12,000 years in a relatively small range, it seems surprising that the excavations didn't turn up way more instances than it did. They can find 2 perfect instances within centuries of each other 12kya in the same excavation, then it just teleports without a trace to the 1880s? This sounds more like a birthday paradox. There are so many rituals and superstitions in indigenous peoples over the millennia that it would be shocking if you could never find cases of things that looked vaguely similar when reduced to an archaeological residue and you cast a net as wide as 'anything which anyone has ever described which sounds similar no matter how many millennia'. (I would also note that 'fat smeared on stuff and involving fires' is not nearly as rare as it might sound. Fat is important and used in many sacrifices or medicines - eg Homer, with all that fat wrapped on or stacked on top of bones in a holocaust to the gods.)

stubish 2y ago
Its a stick in the ground. People might have tripped over thousands of them, and millions lost to the elements and time. This find was only noticed because someone with the right specialized knowledge was looking in a specific location for artifacts, bothered to test the stick, and managed to link it to an obscure document written 150 years earlier, itself amazing that this particular ritual from this particular region was documented, unlike the unknown but huge number that were not. It is surprising we find this sort of thing at all. They might have cooked their lunch with a 35,000 year old stick without realizing it.
- gwern 2y ago
  > People might have tripped over thousands of them Obviously not, because when these guys tripped over them, they were struck enough to then spend years looking for explanations. > unlike the unknown but huge number that were not. The more that are not documented, the more plausible it becomes that vaguely similar rituals which yield the same residue may exist in many times and places, and enter into the sum total of rituals available for birthday-paradox collision. Arguing that it must be the same with zero intervening evidence is like arguing that that because an Aboriginal word for dog is 'dog' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbabaram_language#Word_for_%22dog%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbabaram_language#Word_for_%22...) both Mbararam and English must be descended from the same language which existed hundreds of thousands of years ago and have remarkably preserved one word for all that time. What are the odds?!
  - stubish 2y ago
    Its a stick they found in an area being actively examined, next to megafauna bones giving the age, that on inspection would have shown burn marks and probably not the megafauna lunch they thought it might be. Birthday paradox? I guess it might originate from a similar but now extinct ritual, rather than the modern documented one. But given the near infinite number of potential rituals, it seems reasonable to suggest that because of the similarities it has been passed down over the 12,000 years. Even if the original ritual would be completely unrecognizable apart from the remaining similarities and performed by a different tribal group. Or maybe that is like claiming modern druidic rituals have been passed down for thousands of years.

by gwern 2y ago

stubish 2y ago

Its a stick in the ground. People might have tripped over thousands of them, and millions lost to the elements and time. This find was only noticed because someone with the right specialized knowledge was looking in a specific location for artifacts, bothered to test the stick, and managed to link it to an obscure document written 150 years earlier, itself amazing that this particular ritual from this particular region was documented, unlike the unknown but huge number that were not. It is surprising we find this sort of thing at all. They might have cooked their lunch with a 35,000 year old stick without realizing it.

gwern 2y ago
> People might have tripped over thousands of them Obviously not, because when these guys tripped over them, they were struck enough to then spend years looking for explanations. > unlike the unknown but huge number that were not. The more that are not documented, the more plausible it becomes that vaguely similar rituals which yield the same residue may exist in many times and places, and enter into the sum total of rituals available for birthday-paradox collision. Arguing that it must be the same with zero intervening evidence is like arguing that that because an Aboriginal word for dog is 'dog' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbabaram_language#Word_for_%22dog%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbabaram_language#Word_for_%22...) both Mbararam and English must be descended from the same language which existed hundreds of thousands of years ago and have remarkably preserved one word for all that time. What are the odds?!
- stubish 2y ago
  Its a stick they found in an area being actively examined, next to megafauna bones giving the age, that on inspection would have shown burn marks and probably not the megafauna lunch they thought it might be. Birthday paradox? I guess it might originate from a similar but now extinct ritual, rather than the modern documented one. But given the near infinite number of potential rituals, it seems reasonable to suggest that because of the similarities it has been passed down over the 12,000 years. Even if the original ritual would be completely unrecognizable apart from the remaining similarities and performed by a different tribal group. Or maybe that is like claiming modern druidic rituals have been passed down for thousands of years.