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Author Topic:   Home sapiens older than we realized
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 35 (811421)
06-07-2017 3:52 PM


From the Guardian:
Oldest Homo sapiens bones ever found shake foundations of the human story
Summary: It was believed that Homo sapiens first appeared in East Africa 200,000 years ago. Over the last few years, remains of five members of H. sapiens have been recovered from a mine in Morocco. They have now been dated to be 300,000 years old!
If these results hold up, there is going to have to be some revising about the origins of our species.

Freedom is merely privilege extended, unless enjoyed by one and all. — Billy Bragg

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(1)
Message 2 of 35 (811422)
06-07-2017 4:45 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Chiroptera
06-07-2017 3:52 PM


Summary: It was believed that Homo sapiens first appeared in East Africa 200,000 years ago. Over the last few years, remains of five members of H. sapiens have been recovered from a mine in Morocco. They have now been dated to be 300,000 years old!
I have been thinking and reading a lot about this subject over the last couple of years, and my thoughts have changed quite a bit. In particular, I've come to the conclusion that our taxonomic terms confuse more than they elucidate when it comes to human evolution.
Take the above. You say that H. sapiens was believed to appear in East Africa 200,000 years ago, but is that really the case? It's worth remembering that it has at various times been common to refer to neanderthals as H. sapiens neandertalensis, and some workers still do so today. So, by this classification, there were H. sapiens in Europe more than 250,000 years ago.
But the article authors are using a more narrow sense of H. sapiens. They're equating it to 'anatomically modern humans'. But this is another problematic term. One of the most obvious features of AMHs is the prominent chin, but looking at the reconstructed skull from Jebel Irhoud in the article you link to, my amateur eye can not discern much of a skull.
So it seems what's really being announced here (assuming the reconstruction is acurate) is that there were people in Morocco 300,000 years ago who were not quite like us, but looked a bit more like us than Neanderthals. Which when you think about it is not at all surprising. It's only the arbitrary labels that make it so.
I have come to the conclusion that asking where modern humans arose is an essentially meaningless question; now we know from ancient genomes than Neanderthals and other populations in Asia contributed to the modern genome. The more appropriate question is 'how were the populations of Pleistocene humans structured, and how did that change'. This might be a question that doesn't lead to as catchy headlines, but it also makes more sense.
(Apologies for any lack of clarity in the above - bit drunk).

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 3 of 35 (811423)
06-07-2017 4:48 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Chiroptera
06-07-2017 3:52 PM


Paper is available in Nature
The Guardian article mentions two papers published in Nature and links to one of them.
New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens
The paper is behind a paywall, but the link in the Guardian will get you past it.

Freedom is merely privilege extended, unless enjoyed by one and all. — Billy Bragg

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 4 of 35 (811424)
06-07-2017 4:48 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Chiroptera
06-07-2017 3:52 PM


Actually that just seems to close the gap between H. sapiens and H. heidelberensis
quote:
Human Evolution

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 5 of 35 (811425)
06-07-2017 4:55 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by caffeine
06-07-2017 4:45 PM


Take the above. You say that H. sapiens was believed to appear in East Africa 200,000 years ago, but is that really the case? It's worth remembering that it has at various times been common to refer to neanderthals as H. sapiens neandertalensis, and some workers still do so today. So, by this classification, there were H. sapiens in Europe more than 250,000 years ago.
The oldest "anatomically modern" fossils I am aware of prior to this find is 160,000 years ago:
quote:
160,000-year-old fossilized skulls uncovered in Ethiopia are oldest anatomically modern humans
"We've lacked intermediate fossils between pre-humans and modern humans, between 100,000 and 300,000 years ago, and that's where the Herto fossils fit," said paleoanthropologist Tim White, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a co-leader of the team that excavated and analyzed the discovery site. "Now, the fossil record meshes with the molecular evidence."
It's all good.
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 6 of 35 (811426)
06-07-2017 5:59 PM


Transitional
I'm going with RAZD. The intermediate chin, slightly larger brow ridge, and intermediately sloped forehead seems to be ancestral to anatomically modern humans. Just for comparison, here is an AMH:

  
Adminnemooseus
Administrator
Posts: 3974
Joined: 09-26-2002


Message 7 of 35 (811428)
06-07-2017 7:18 PM


Thread Copied from Links and Information Forum
Thread copied here from the Home sapiens older than we realized thread in the Links and Information forum.

  
LamarkNewAge
Member (Idle past 737 days)
Posts: 2236
Joined: 12-22-2015


Message 8 of 35 (811433)
06-07-2017 9:30 PM


I shocked an Ethiopian immigrant just recently.
This was somebody that I had talked to off and on for months, but I told him that he was obviously a Semitic Ethiopian ( he never said where he was from, but Semitic Ethiopians have very distinct and unmistakable faces ) months later during a conversation. This was no big deal at all.
But he then started talking about alot of issues ( and they were nothing I really brought up ,they seemed to be taking my language questions in quite a far off direction into human history ) and one comment he made was something like, "supposedly the ancestor of man was discovered in the town I was born in " , and he was really talking about a large ton of historical issues ( I noticed he was wrapping history into a Christian outline though he covered a ton of stuff ) .
When I got to talk, I mentioned that he was probably from Afar.
He was about as shocked as a genuinely shocked person could be. He was wondering how I knew because he considered Afar a small town that he never mentions to people. He earlier said that he was from a much larger city that he lived in when in Ethiopia.
I told him that he gave it away with a small line he threw in earlier and then explained that this discovery is a very important piece of evolutionary history - very much well known. The Latin name was well known ( southern ape of Afar or AustraloPithecus Afarensis ) .
He didn't seem to know just how much it is seen as not just another find and not just another so so theory.

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 9 of 35 (811434)
06-07-2017 10:00 PM


I really like that mix of ancient and more modern features.
The chin is not as prominent as in a lot of modern Homo sapiens but it is more pronounced than the folks that came before.
I'd like to see additional dating, but otherwise this looks pretty good. A lot better than that recent claim out of England.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
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In the name of diversity, college student demands to be kept in ignorance of the culture that made diversity a value--StultisTheFool
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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(1)
Message 10 of 35 (811473)
06-08-2017 1:17 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by RAZD
06-07-2017 4:55 PM


The oldest "anatomically modern" fossils I am aware of prior to this find is 160,000 years ago:
Omo I is generally considered anatomically modern, and that is now dated to ~195,000 years ago.
But my point was that 'anatomically modern' is an arbitrary term, so searching for the oldest example is a bit quixotic.

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 11 of 35 (811474)
06-08-2017 1:44 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by caffeine
06-08-2017 1:17 PM


caffeine writes:
But my point was that 'anatomically modern' is an arbitrary term, so searching for the oldest example is a bit quixotic.
Indeed. Finding the oldest AMH is like trying to find the youngest adult.

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 12 of 35 (811478)
06-08-2017 5:12 PM


New York Times article
The New York Times has an article on this:
Oldest Fossils of Homo Sapiens Found in Morocco, Altering History of Species
Added by edit: I just noticed that the NYT article has a link to the second paper that was published in Nature, and that link also avoids the paywall.
Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.

Freedom is merely privilege extended, unless enjoyed by one and all. — Billy Bragg

  
Porkncheese
Member (Idle past 267 days)
Posts: 198
From: Australia
Joined: 08-25-2017


Message 13 of 35 (818326)
08-27-2017 7:12 AM


Humanity... Not so intelligent perhaps
So modern man is 200,000 years old.
And modern man started becoming civilised (written language, cultivation, etc) about 6,000 years ago.
So it took mankind 194,000 years to actually start showing signs of intelligence. Once they did a rapid acceleration of technology, wisdom and understanding propelled us to this point.
So for 194,000 years man was dumb and still living out of caves. Man never created written language, they never built any structures or created any machines or tools, nor did they produce any art.
Think about that for a while people. Use logic and common sense
Edited by Porkncheese, : No reason given.

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 14 of 35 (818329)
08-27-2017 8:07 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by Porkncheese
08-27-2017 7:12 AM


Re: Humanity... Not so intelligent perhaps
Welcome to the fray porkandcheese,
So modern man is 200,000 years old.
And modern man started becoming civilised (written language, cultivation, etc) about 6,000 years ago.
So it took mankind 194,000 years to actually start showing signs of intelligence. Once they did a rapid acceleration of technology, wisdom and understanding propelled us to this point.
So for 194,000 years man was dumb and still living out of caves. Man never created written language, they never built any structures or created any machines or tools, nor did they produce any art.
Think about that for a while people. Use logic and common sense
Man started showing signs of intelligence when making and using tools. Do you know when that happened?
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we are limited in our ability to understand
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RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
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This message is a reply to:
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Porkncheese
Member (Idle past 267 days)
Posts: 198
From: Australia
Joined: 08-25-2017


Message 15 of 35 (818335)
08-27-2017 9:19 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by RAZD
08-27-2017 8:07 AM


Re: Humanity... Not so intelligent perhaps
Man was probably using tools from the start.
But man was fairly dumb for a very long time

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