
Neanderthals cooked and ate vegetables - nice1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12071424
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wallflower
It is barely alluded to in the article but the reason this is significant is
that humans are the only animals that can make fire and cook their food. This
may change the evolutionary timeline.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human>

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tokenadult
The finding about Neanderthals is not at all unexpected based on lines of
research more than a decade old (at least). It has been known for some time
that hominin species who predated Homo sapiens made fires and cooked food.
This information is well incorporated in the current evolutionary timeline.

<http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/wrangham/wrangham_index.html>

[http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/06/invention-
of-c...](http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/06/invention-of-cooking-
drove-evolution-of-the-human-species-new-book-argues/)

Cooking was essential in the development of the ancestral line leading to Homo
sapiens (for what it allowed in changes in body structure) but it is not a
defining characteristic of the difference between species Homo sapiens and
earlier species or contemporary species in the genus.

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InclinedPlane
Many people mistakenly believe that the defining characteristic of humanity is
the ability to use tools. More fundamentally it is _technology_ , the ability
to _learn_ and to _teach_ and to _create_ new tools which makes humans
special. And thus the ability to surpass genetic evolution via technological
evolution.

~~~
iwwr
The fundamental difference between humans and animals is the ability to export
and maintain state across generations in a Turing-complete language. This
allows knowledge to be built upon up to arbitrary levels of abstraction.
Language is not just a communication tool, it's a meta-tool that defines the
human being. We don't know if the Neanderthal had this ability, but if it did,
it was obviously less adept at it.

~~~
wallflower
I've never heard human learning expressed this way. Can you please write up
more of your thoughts about this?

Brief State Machine anecdote: Any automated door that swings out has a FSM or
circuit equivalent that blocks swinging out if someone is standing on the
pressure pad of the outside portion. We used to have fun blocking in friends
this way...

~~~
Scriptor
I'm not sure about the specifics of what iwwr is thinking, but basically I
think he means that humans have the ability to create and pass on knowledge
(state) from one generation to the next. Because each generation only has to
build off of the knowledge of previous ones there is no set limit to how much
humans as a whole can know.

Technically, this ability isn't unique to humans alone. Other species, such as
dolphins and chimpanzees, are also able to create and pass on knowledge. For
example, certain dolphins around Florida have developed a strategy of catching
fish by first encircling areas of water by kicked up sand:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArsoMcVi5MM&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArsoMcVi5MM&feature=player_embedded)
This is purely a learned behavior and has to be taught to offspring.

~~~
iwwr
Dolphins or apes may have a recognizable culture, but they don't have a
Turing-complete language. This is the main distinction.

