[HN Gopher] Box of donated artifacts turns out to be treasure tr...
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Box of donated artifacts turns out to be treasure trove of
Neanderthal bones
Author : wglb
Score : 53 points
Date : 2023-09-25 14:35 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| datavirtue wrote:
| [flagged]
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| The more I learn about Neanderthals, the more I suspect they were
| very, very similar to us in many ways. In the same way that
| looking out into the universe makes me feel very small, the
| notion of history spanning back incomprehensibly with all of
| these lives of other people, even outside of my own species, is
| so humbling.
|
| One thing I'm curious about is how the pottery connects to the
| bones. Is this evidence that they made pottery, or did the
| pottery get deposited later? I thought ceramics weren't around
| until ~20k years ago, but I'm not super current on this stuff. If
| it dates back 50k years and neanderthals made it, isn't that a
| huge deal?
| pests wrote:
| I find it insanely crazy that a mere 50k years ago we shared
| the planet with another human species. Then only a little
| further back there were potentially multiple.
|
| Amazing video I watched yesterday.
|
| "When We Met Other Human Species"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdYwMLSNHnU
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| > with another human species
|
| With several! Neanderthals, Denisovans, Floriensis, and a
| species recently found in the Philippines.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _In the same way that looking out into the universe makes me
| feel very small_
|
| it's my personal project to get people to stop thinking and
| feeling this: we are not insignificant specks, we are close to
| all there is.
|
| Till we humans discover any alien intelligence out there (and
| we've tried), we (and our creations if you want to include AIs)
| are the most complex and interesting things that we know of.
| When you look out at the universe you should see a whole lot of
| nothing: what is the sun but a giant agglomeration of a few
| processes (a few different fusions, radiation and absorption)
| and what are the other stars but more of the same, with a deep
| gravity well here and there.
|
| Rather, it's us who is something, it's us who even created the
| concept of something and the concept of significance. We assign
| those values. Without us, the universe might just be dead.
|
| > In the same way that looking out into the universe makes me
| feel very _large indeed_ , the notion of history spanning back
| _such a short time to encompass all of us and our thinking, the
| only thinking we know of, gives us a great connection to_ these
| lives of other people, even outside of our own species, _and
| should fill us with pride, the only pride there is in the
| universe afaik_.
|
| Sagan, Harari, Hossenfelder, and Feynmann to name a few, are
| always selling us ideas like "math and science make nature more
| beautiful". No, humans make nature and math and science,
| beautiful. Everywhere in the universe they say, "you want to
| make an apple pie from scratch? First you must ask a human."
| HankB99 wrote:
| > ... we (and our creations if you want to include AIs) are
| the most complex and interesting things that we know of.
|
| One viewpoint, I suppose. I think the cosmos and all of the
| things that compose it (including us) is the most complex and
| interesting thing that we (partially) know. And there is much
| yet to learn.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| I've read a few place that the population of Neanderthals peaked
| around 10,000 and the lack of genetic diversity was what
| contributed to their downfall and replacement by Homo Sapiens.
| However, I found this interesting article that tries to
| rationalize the sheer volume of bones and tools from Neanderthals
| against their seemingly negligible populations. The scientist
| believes populations peaked at over 100,000 across Europe.
| Amazing what genetic analysis can attempt to prove nowadays.
|
| https://www.quantamagazine.org/genetics-spills-secrets-from-...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ftxbro wrote:
| > they found a wisdom tooth that had once belonged to one of the
| individuals whose bones were found
|
| What if the reason we have problems with wisdom teeth is that
| some of us have neanderthal sized teeth but a homo sapiens sized
| jaw.
| mikea1 wrote:
| According to the book Breath by James Nestor, humans did not
| always have wisdom teeth problems: today, modern humans have
| small jaws because, during our youth, we spend less time
| chewing our food, so the muscles and bones in our skulls are
| stunted. Old skulls, like those found in crypts of old European
| cities, had larger jaws. (I'm going off of memory - my
| apologies if this explanation is too reductionist.)
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(page generated 2023-09-26 23:00 UTC)