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> The recently discovered bones include one Denisovan rib that dated to between 48,000 and 32,000 years ago. This is the same time that Homo sapiens were spread
by abeppu 2y ago
> The recently discovered bones include one Denisovan rib that dated to between 48,000 and 32,000 years ago. This is the same time that Homo sapiens were spreading across Eurasia. We already have evidence that these ancient humans lived in this area 190,000 years ago. The new fossil suggests they endured two cold periods and a warmer interglacial period between the Middle and Late Pleistocene eras.
So without mentioning what the evidence is about 190K years ago, from two points we infer that they were there the whole intervening time? If conditions were harsh, and if we know they eventually got at least as far as SE Asia, why would we not think that in the huge span between those points, they might have wandered away and later returned? 160k years is a long long time. Apparently humans came across the land bridge into the Americas like 16k years ago.
- ummonk 2y agoThe interesting thing is that apparently there were still unassimilated Denisovans in Eurasia 48,000 years ago.
- dyauspitr 2y agoHow do we know a piece of rib is from a Denisovan? Is it just based on the age of the find?
- aaronblohowiak 2y agoDNA
- webstrand 2y agoDNA in bones, in ideal conditions, will completely disappear after ~6.7 million years. Researchers have successfully recovered dna fragments from a 2 million year old mastodon, for instance.
- undersuit 2y agoThere are numerous ways to identify the origin of ancient remains. FTA about the non-Denisovan remains: >Unfortunately, the bones were in such small fragments that they were nearly impossible to identify by sight. Instead, the researchers analyzed the bone collagen using mass spectrometry to figure out what species they belonged to.
- darby_nine 2y ago> from two points we infer that they were there the whole intervening time? This is not deductive, it's abductive. The reasoning is weak but it's all the reasoning paleoarchaeology offers. TBF this is basically all science but we kind of smear the probability aspect and call it scientific fact.