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The ancient Homo sapiens Thread

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  • Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    The same guys who did the recronstruction of my aunty mary (neanderthal woman).

    neanderthal.woman.3.jpg


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    The same guys who did the recronstruction of my aunty mary (neanderthal woman).

    neanderthal.woman.3.jpg

    Haha XDD


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    For me Otzi's more real. Well he was a modern human and we know what we look like. :) Aunty Mary IMHO has a few things dubious about it. The blue eyes being one biggy. That's a very recent adaptation/mutation in moderns. The red hair is possible alright as they have genetic evidence for it. White skin possible too. Where are her brow ridges? She's also got fairly strong cheekbones and a chin and a pretty high forehead too. Her mid face seems a lot flatter than skulls would suggest. Looks to me more like fitting her face to be more modern looking as we've discovered how more modern acting they were. The "oh, they acted more like us? Then of course they must have looked more like us too" kinda thinking.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Wibbs wrote: »
    For me Otzi's more real. Well he was a modern human and we know what we look like. :) Aunty Mary IMHO has a few things dubious about it. The blue eyes being one biggy. That's a very recent adaptation/mutation in moderns. The red hair is possible alright as they have genetic evidence for it. White skin possible too. Where are her brow ridges? She's also got fairly strong cheekbones and a chin and a pretty high forehead too. Her mid face seems a lot flatter than skulls would suggest. Looks to me more like fitting her face to be more modern looking as we've discovered how more modern acting they were. The "oh, they acted more like us? Then of course they must have looked more like us too" kinda thinking.

    I was just waiting for you to say something like that :D


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Its an adaptation, of course, but not what most would assume:

    http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/for-pygmies-size-may-not-matter/29086

    Very interesting stuff.

    pygmies22-547x410.jpg


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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    I had never seen the recreation of the animations; they actually invented movies:

    http://news.discovery.com/history/prehistoric-movies-120608.html



  • Registered Users Posts: 25,560 ✭✭✭✭Kess73


    That is very cool.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Then it starts to get interesting(tho for me a little tenuous so far) http://anthropology.net/2012/06/14/were-paleolithic-european-cave-paintings-made-by-neanderthals/

    "A new paper in the journal Science questions if it were Neanderthals or humans who created the oldest known artworks found in the caves of Europe. The lead author is Alistair W.G. Pike who worked with Joao Zilhao and nine other authors on this study."

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Wibbs wrote: »
    Then it starts to get interesting(tho for me a little tenuous so far) http://anthropology.net/2012/06/14/were-paleolithic-european-cave-paintings-made-by-neanderthals/

    "A new paper in the journal Science questions if it were Neanderthals or humans who created the oldest known artworks found in the caves of Europe. The lead author is Alistair W.G. Pike who worked with Joao Zilhao and nine other authors on this study."

    What do you think about that?:cool:


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,551 ✭✭✭Rubecula


    Personally? I think that to get ten scientists to do a research like that cost a lot of money. I am sure one or two at the most could have done it at a lesser cost.

    And how they can tell a lot about the person who did a few paintings is very good, but surely that could have been a theory that was cheaper to do in an office with a few photos.

    I don't mean this as a rant mind you, it is just a few stray thoughts that crossed my mind.


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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Adam Khor wrote: »
    What do you think about that?:cool:
    :D I dunno. It's possible. Looking at other examples of Neandertal visual culture I think it possible. I(very much)MHO at least some of the Aurignacian period ascribed to us moderns may well be Neandertal, more a Neandertal response to the newbies based on their existing cultural expression.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Wibbs wrote: »
    :D I dunno. It's possible. Looking at other examples of Neandertal visual culture I think it possible. I(very much)MHO at least some of the Aurignacian period ascribed to us moderns may well be Neandertal, more a Neandertal response to the newbies based on their existing cultural expression.

    You mean they learned it from humans?


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Maybe, or maybe it was a mutual thing that stressed both into innovation.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Wibbs wrote: »
    Maybe, or maybe it was a mutual thing that stressed both into innovation.

    Well, some sites are already saying that this "proves that Neanderthals were not a separate species" :(


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Oh (again IMH) they defo were a different people to us. On so many levels genetically, physically and behaviourally, but like distant cousins removed enough to be different but with the spark of mutual recognition going on.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Registered Users Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    Adam Khor wrote: »
    Well, some sites are already saying that this "proves that Neanderthals were not a separate species" :(

    I've seen that tagline too and it strikes me as jumping seven miles ahead of the proverbial gun.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor




  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Very cool AK. :) Fashioning stone blades was usually the cutoff for modern humans/modern thinking. Never quite bought it as black and white myself. I even have a couple of Neandertal examples, but microliths like these ones tens of thousands of years before expected really up the ante.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor




  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor




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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,551 ✭✭✭Rubecula


    I saw this mentioned on the BBC, to be honest I have no idea what to make of it. On the face of it, it sounds sort of feasible. Sort of.


  • Registered Users Posts: 714 ✭✭✭Ziphius


    Neat little video on New Scientist which shows how the various superimposed "frames" of prehistoric cave art can be used create animations.

    Fascinating to speculate that our ancestors may have had some light trick that could animate their drawings.


    http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2013/01/stone-age-cinema-cave-art-conceals-first-animations.html


  • Registered Users Posts: 714 ✭✭✭Ziphius


    Darn you New Scientist. This wasn't new at all!


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Ziphius wrote: »
    Darn you New Scientist. This wasn't new at all!

    No worries, they do have a bad habit of announcing the same stuff as "new" more than once...


  • Registered Users Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    It's not their fault the Boards.ie Palaeontology forum is consistently ahead of the game.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    +1. They also had much better formed dental arches too, no overcrowding. While I've seen prehistoric jaws with missing teeth - the old man of La Chappelle, a Neandertal an example* - the kind of misalignment that is very common today is nowhere to be seen**. Plenty of space for the full set of gnashers including the wisdom teeth. In a pre modern society without the science of dentistry an impacted wisdom tooth would likely spell death from infection. Then again Neandertals in particular seemed real bloody tough bastards on that score, given the range of injuries inc limb loss that they survived so maybe not...

    While I'd go along with the bacteria theory and think it an important factor, I'd also add another and IMHO bigger influence, to whit the toughness of food. Today and since farming we've tended to eat much more soft foods, particularly in childhood. I call it the Liga Hypotheses(tm)(do they even have that anymore :D). We quite simply chew less than we did back in the day. Again IMHO this causes developmental issues in the arch and the teeth as we grow. Like a muscle if you don't work it it atrophies. Ditto with the mouth, jaw, dental arches and teeth. If you look at modern folks who live the hunter gatherer lifestyle their kids aren't eating rusks and semolina etc, they're chewing hard on adult foods, not long after weaning and while age related wear and tear occurs they generally have better teeth with no dentists around compared to us. Some tribes that purposely break and point teeth as a cultural thing don't have the rates of decay western types do, or at least it's slower and they're exposing the tooth pulp to do so. Do that with the average westerner and you're looking at abscess time in short order.

    I'd also add another factor, vitamin D. Very few people living the western lifestyle produce enough vit D. Yep diet can make a difference but you'd want to be eating a lot of oily fish. Vit D is very important for bone growth and health(among a startlingly varied amount of other stuff it does) and I would presume that impacts on dental health too.

    Someone page one of the Dentistry mods to get some pro input on this. :)




    *one reason I reckon he's much older than the 40 plus they attribute to the chap is because of this tooth and jawbone loss(never mind the poor bugger was riddled with arthritis). We have others of his kind we reckon are around the same 40 odd age and they've got the full set going on. IMHO I reckon the man was 60 plus, if not knocking on the door of 70. Why? Hunter gatherers are more robust in skeletal structure than us and farmers, so that could skew things if you're used to looking at modern/farming folk. Plus while I say they're as "human" as you or me, they're slightly removed from us moderns in a few developmental areas. They matured faster it seems, so why apply modern age markers to them?

    ** Neandertals do have a unique dental signature in one way. They show excessive wear on the front teeth, with some outward splaying. One theory has it that they used their teeth as a third hand while preparing hides and the like and this is were the wear came from

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,537 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Humble fork 'gave humans an overbite because food was consumed in smaller chunks than before'

    The introduction of the fork, meaning smaller portions of food were put into the moth, saw the incisors grow and therefore the overbite become standard.#

    The clincher for him was that he discovered this change in teeth actually happened some 900 years earlier than Europe, in China.

    Around the same time chopsticks were introduced as etiquette.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2283052/Humble-fork-gave-humans-overbite-food-consumed-smaller-chunks-before.html


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Wibbs wrote: »
    Plenty of space for the full set of gnashers including the wisdom teeth. In a pre modern society without the science of dentistry an impacted wisdom tooth would likely spell death from infection.

    Oh man, this all brings such painful memories. :(
    Wibbs wrote: »

    ** Neandertals do have a unique dental signature in one way. They show excessive wear on the front teeth, with some outward splaying. One theory has it that they used their teeth as a third hand while preparing hides and the like and this is were the wear came from

    Or maybe they WERE hairy as hell and used their front teeth to groom themselves like lemurs do :D


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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor




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