
40,000-year-old bracelet made by extinct human species found (2015) - curtis
http://www.digitaljournal.com/science/40-000-year-old-bracelet-from-extinct-human-species-discovered/article/432798
======
thoughtsimple
I always love quotes like this: "All jewellery had a magical meaning for
ancient people. Bracelets and neck adornments were to protect people from evil
spirits, for instance."

And we know this how? Maybe it was just made to be pretty. A rich person
giving their partner a gift etc. No one could possibly be able to make any
further inferences from a species of human we know almost nothing about.

~~~
TeMPOraL
My mother studied archaeology and she told me once what she heard during her
classes - that "religious significance" is the default label that is put on
things they found when they have no clue what those things were for.

~~~
NoGravitas
I went to grad school in archaeology, and I can tell you that this is
absolutely the case. Part of the problem is that archaeologists are generally
terrible at cultural anthropology (compared to other anthropologists, not
compared to the general population). The other part is that in most societies,
there is not a firm dividing line between the religious/magical and the
mundane.

~~~
pavement
Which is curious, because you'd think there'd be conceptual understanding with
regard to " _ornamentation_ ," " _amusement /diversion/boredom_" and "
_craftsmanship /showmanship_."

The amount of time spent fixating on ornamentation should be obvious, just by
spending time in a flea market, looking at the trays upon trays of common
jewelry people toss tens of dollars at.

Amusement, and diversions should be obvious from watching people engage in
repetitive tasks like crossword puzzles, card games and knitting. Fidget
spinners fit into this category. Boondoggles have a utility in letting the
mind wander. Polishing stone by hand was probably rewarding, when there were
no consequences tied to failure.

Craftsmanship as a sign of status is probably the closest secular concept to
the token "religion or magical thinking" and goes hand in hand with fashion
and ornamentation. There are extremely slim reasons for the geek cred
associated with odd piercings or those decorative spin tops based on the one
from the movie _Inception_. Being able to show that you know about something,
and or how to do something, displays skill sets without having to brag openly.
The subculture of skin piercing and body modification displays a capacity for
tolerating pain, awareness of anatomy, and a taming of wound infection in edge
cases. Spin tops really represent membership within a nerd subculture that has
money to burn, and fetishizes metallurgy trivia juxtaposed with movie trivia,
but the craftsmanship of the pieces justifies their price, earning it's owner
status, since there remains the authentic barrier to simply making a DIY
inception top, contrasted against buying the collector's item.

Rare sneaker subculture probably encapsulates all three of these ideas without
being religious at all. But observing sneaker collectors in the wild leaves me
with the impression that maybe it really is a religion after all.

These are probably difficult concepts to communicate in academic papers that
often must get translated into multiple languages, so the catch all religious,
magical shrug will probably persist.

------
dandare
> The cave is named after the Denisovan people — a mysterious species of
> hominins from the Homo genus

Nope. The Denisovan people are named after the cave and the cave is named
after a hermit Denis who lived there in the 18th century.

~~~
mholmes680
i wonder then if Denis drilled the hole in the thing. How would one determine
the age of a drilled hole?

~~~
mabbo
IANAA[0] but there are some pretty good techniques for telling the difference,
from what I understand. Publishing something like this only for it to be
something like 'Oh wait, I guess Denis did it' is a great way to end your
career as a scientist.

[0] I am not an archeologist

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TezlaKoil
This article about the bracelet is from 2015. No updates since then, and it
does not link to anything peer-reviewed. All in all I would take this with a
huge grain of salt.

~~~
c0nducktr
A simple google search shows further updates...

[http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0711-worlds...](http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0711-worlds-
oldest-needle-found-in-siberian-cave-that-stitches-together-human-history/)

[https://www.nature.com/articles/srep23559](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep23559)

~~~
martey
Except the Siberian Times article also doesn't link to anything peer-reviewed,
and the Nature paper is about bone identification, not bracelets or other
artifacts.

The only academic paper about the bracelet I could find is from 2008 and was
submitted to the journal "Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia",
whose editor-in-chief, Anatoly Derevyanko, is also the paper's primary author.

~~~
BuckRogers
True but to be fair they're still fresh findings. And oldest as well, so
comparison to other findings is pretty low.

~~~
martey
> _True but to be fair they 're still fresh findings._

Your "fresh finding" was found _nine years ago_ \- this is even explicitly
stated in the 2015 Siberian Times article.

All of the citations for the paper describing the "bracelet" [1] are for
uncontroversial findings (that Denisovans existed, that they interbred with
Neanderthals, etc.) - none of them make any reference to the supposed
"bracelet".

[1]:
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1563011008...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1563011008000378)

~~~
BuckRogers
I figured someone who has no idea what they were talking about would say that.
They're fresh but I'm not going to teach as to all the reasons why, as it's
clear you don't do much with science, research or archaeology. Good luck.

------
ars
"and they confirm that it could not have been made by homo sapiens or
Neanderthals"

Could not? Really? I would be very interested in seeing how that could
possibly be true.

Without a better explanation of this line, I find this article _very_ suspect.

------
dghf
> the recent discovery of a female Denisovan finger bone and various teeth
> shows that they had no morphological similarities to either Neanderthals or
> modern humans.

Does "morphological similarities" have a particular definition in
palaeoanthropology beyond the apparently plain meaning of the words? Even if
"they" refers to the finger bone and teeth rather than the Denisovans as a
whole, I would have thought they would have had _some_ morphological
similarities to modern humans, otherwise they wouldn't be recognisable as a
finger bone and teeth.

~~~
icebraining
Also, how could they have mated, let alone have hybrid children?

~~~
mabbo
For some modern people, as much as 5% of their DNA comes from neanderthals.
Pretty-close species can have hybrid children, but the more distant the less
likely the child will be fully-functional.

Consider mules (horse + donkey) which are sterile or the infamous Ligers and
Tigons (Lion + Tiger can make some monstrously large cats).

~~~
goodJobWalrus
I remember reading that Australian aboriginals have up to 5% of Denisovan
genes (don't remember source, but it was widely reported after the discovery)

------
contingencies
200km is not necessarily 'imported'. People can walk 5km/hr easily. You are
talking about 4 days' comfortable walk. Many nomadic groups would have had
ranges exceeding 200km at least on occasion. For example I believe there is
evidence that some Australian aboriginal societies regularly communicated over
vaster distances, at least sporadically - eg. annually in certain seasons.

~~~
jankotek
Many people walked that distance every year for seasonal jobs even in 20th
century.

~~~
icebraining
They still do for pilgrimage - the main "Camino de Santiago" (St. James' Way)
from France to Spain is 700km+, and some people make the journey every year.
Obviously nowadays they have modern comforts, but the Way stretches back
centuries.

------
JPLeRouzic
This is not uncommon:

* In Europe which was home of Neanderthals at that time (middle/upper paleolithic) , there are beautiful artifacts in places such as: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohle_Fels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohle_Fels)

* In Africa were Homo Sapiens comes from, there are similar places at that time where beautiful artifacts are retrieved like: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enkapune_Ya_Muto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enkapune_Ya_Muto)

------
EGreg
_Until now, scientists had believed that such skills had only evolved among
humans in the Neolithic period, which began at about 10,000 BC. Indeed,
originally, they believed that the bracelet had somehow become mixed up with
materials dating from a later period. However, experiments have now definitely
ruled that out, and they confirm that it could not have been made by homo
sapiens or Neanderthals. After 7 years of analysis, the scientists are
confident that the piece was made 30,000 years before the beginning of the
Stone Age._

What experiments??

Thanks article! Useless.

~~~
dotancohen
> the piece was made 30,000 years before the beginning of the Stone Age.

Considering that the Stone Age began almost three and a half million years
ago, that is quite a statement of precision.

------
peter303
A better term for species would be 'race'. Modern homo sapiens interbred with
Denosovians at times and acquired some of their genes. Species means a lack of
cross-bredability.

~~~
nickserv
Species means that there is normally no cross breeding in the wild. You can
have two species which will reproduce in captivity, but in the wild are
blocked by some geographic feature such as mountains or water, or by some
behavioral aspect such as a mating ritual.

It's not uncommon for two species in the same genus to be able to have
offspring, for example equines (mules) and felines (ligers).

In some cases the resulting hybrid offspring are fertile, for example the
"Savanna" cats which are domestic cats hybridized with servals.

In the wild, when previously separated species are put in contact with each
other, there can be instances of natural hybrids. This is what happened with
the various Homo species, due to various migrations.

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vonnik
It's a little outdated, but anyone interested in "extinct human species", or
proto-humans, should read Jared Diamond's book "The Third Chimpanzee", which
is about the small genetic and vast cultural differences that separate us from
other large primate, including the two other types of chimp...

------
ythn
How do we know that 5000 year old humans didn't make jewelry out of 35000 year
old materials?

~~~
gnaritas
Because archaeologist's aren't dumb.

~~~
delecti
You've managed to quite rudely respond without actually answering their
question except with an appeal to authority.

While I'm sure the archaeologists who determined it was 40,000 years old had a
good reason for it, jeez.

------
ada1981
Obviously the Nephilim.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim)

Ie. The half man / half God creatures from the Old Testimate that some believe
are Alien hybrids.

