
Dating of bones from Indonesia confirm Homo erectus roamed planet for 1.8M years - alberto_ol
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/dec/18/first-human-ancestors-to-leave-africa-died-out-in-java-scientists-say
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mikorym
I went to the Sterkfontein Caves [1] [2] recently and the most poignant thing
for me was the diminutive size of _Australopithecus_. While larger huminoid
species [3] were evolving, our direct (well, disregarding cross breeding)
ancestors were tiny. _Australopithecus_ is about the size of a 5 or 6 year
old.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterkfontein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterkfontein)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle_of_Humankind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle_of_Humankind)

[3] That would be the precursors to Neanderthals and Denisovians.

Edit: The males were somewhat larger. _Modern humans do not display the same
degree of sexual dimorphism as Australopithecus appears to have._
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus)

~~~
seszett
We have the same _Australopithecus_ ancestors as Neanderthals and Denisovans
though. The sapiens/neanderthal split is much more recent than that, "only" a
few hundred thousand years, while Australopithecus became extinct two million
years ago.

~~~
mikorym
I think you are right, yes. I asked the guide (a professor) about this at the
time. When specifically asked about _Australopithecus_ and its small size, and
about the contemporary hominids at the time, the remark was along the lines
of: "The other contemporary hominids were much larger, but died out."

But you are right that these would then be a split prior to Neanderthals and
Denisovians. Looking at Wikipedia's available articles, I guess the hominids
that he was talking about don't necessarily have clear names and branches. I
am not sure what those hominids would have been.

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Perenti
I wouldn't be surprised if the red hairy people of Australian Aboriginal
mythology turn out to be the last stand of Homo erectus, it's just that no
fossils have been found yet.

~~~
jacobush
I always wonder about troll mythology and Neanderthals...

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littledorky
Make sense, Java was isolated dead end on the southeastern edge of the
Eurasian landmass

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account73466
Alternatively, they didn't come from Africa but from Asia.

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learnstats2
I'm unclear that the verb 'died out' is helpful to understanding here.

'survived longest' makes more sense - the point is that Homo erectus died out
everywhere else much earlier.

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personjerry
That's why they moved to Scala instead

~~~
jmkni
Or Kotlin Island -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotlin_Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotlin_Island)

~~~
campfireveteran
They'll surely find evidence h. erectus ran Android in an archaic app store up
until 100k BCE. Tablet computing way back.

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xallace
stay away from Java

~~~
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20600357](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20600357)

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akskos
Came for the Java jokes, was not disappointed

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alvatar
I almost die in Java too.

~~~
shabeepk
It would have been better to die in Java 2.

~~~
alvatar
You are right. Sometimes I wish I were better at English.

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Pigo
Wow, that is an annoying website to visit. I would rather have downloaded a
text file than wade through all of that.

The first ad takes up half of my screen, and then I had to see a fullscreen
amazon preview. When I tried to click the cookie policy it thought I clicked
an ad that led to a pop-up.

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mothsonasloth
Did they get garbage collected though?

~~~
vectorEQ
i think that is was scientists are doing now :D

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louis8799
If they had not died, they would have told us to stay away from Java.

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ssshdonttell
Meta: And as I often do when I read the Guardian I donated.

Why I write this?

1\. Hopefully someone reading HN works for newspapers and can tell them that
there exist a good number of people who doesn't want to subscribe but who want
to pay for quality content[0].

I guess on average I pay $5 every time I glance over an article in the
Guardian.

2\. I want to urge more people around here to support companies and
organizations that do the right thing. I guess many of you already do but many
do not.

When we go to school or work in low paying jobs it is hard to pay and I guess
it is easy for that habit to stick long after we cross into the richest 10 or
20% of the population.

[0]: I do also subscribe to two newspapers and one magazine and buy the paper
from the kid who sell it every Sunday morning. Oh, and buy magazines and
books. And pay my mandatory news tax (about $500 alone) that funds the
national somewhat lopsided broadcasting channel. I'm happy to pay a bit more
for individual articles but I cannot _subscribe_ to every paper (and I
wouldn't have a chance to read them all either)

(Feels extremely weird to brag like this. That's why I made a new account.)

~~~
Pigo
I'm curious why you think the Guardian is a company doing the right thing? I
don't know much about them apart from being a news outlet, but it seems at
least as biased as the rest of them.

