
Complex Human Cultures Are Older Than Scientists Thought - grzm
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/a-deeper-origin-of-complex-human-cultures/555674/?single_page=true
======
bwang29
I just thought there is a pattern on the "Are Older Than Scientists Thought"
part to make a discovery exciting (it seems to be what is indeed exciting
here), a quick search on "are older than scientists thoughts " you get

Universe Older Than Thought... The moon is older than scientists thought..
Land plants are older than scientists thought... Written zero 500 years older
than scientists thought -... Your dog is 10,000 years older than scientists
thought... Human Species May Be Much Older Than Previously Thought ...

Some [adjective] [commonly known subject matter/celebrities]'s [attribute]
is/are [older/newer/bigger/smaller/...] than scientists/we thought.

~~~
aptwebapps
Scientists usually (hopefully!) try not make bigger claims than the evidence
supports. Occasionally new evidence emerges that allows them to make bigger
claims. Theoretically there should be an asymptotic effect but we're not there
yet in some fields.

~~~
xaedes
It would be very intersting to see an analysis of the evolution over time of
those claims.

------
Alex3917
Given how fast the discovery dates of different technologies are being pushed
back across the globe, it wouldn't surprise me if some of the ideas that
Graham Hancock has popularized about advanced civilizations existing before
the ice age get validated within the next few decades. Even in the five years
since he was banned from TED, a ton of new research has come out about Gobekli
Tepe, the Younger Dryas impact theory, etc.

~~~
rbobby
I had to look up who Graham Hancock is. The wikipedia article on him is less
than complementary
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock))...
I wouldn't put any stock in his "theories" whatsoever.

~~~
Alex3917
I mean if the Wikipedia article said otherwise then my comment wouldn’t really
have been worth writing.

------
goodroot
Whether you're exploring this idea, or more far-out ideas like Graham
Hancock's, one must admit there's a profound romance in this premise.

It excites me to consider that there were once entire axioms of culture,
intellect, technology, spirit, and society as a whole that we have forgotten.
Who knows what sort of mysteries we unlocked through entheogen-enabled
consciousness exploration. Who would we be if we could find reconciliation?

~~~
ColanR
I think a bunch of sources would add a lot to your comment. :)

------
Zigurd
This is something that I have guessed is true for a long time based on the
fact that humans have been genetically modern for hundreds of thousands of
years. It makes sense that they would behave the same, at the same level of
technological development.

~~~
danieltillett
No we haven't. We aren't even the same genetically as people living in
historical times. There has been a huge amount of human evolution since the
rise of agriculture. Living humans are much better adapted to modern society
than our hunter gather ancestors.

What is probably more accurate is to say most human traits have very long
genetic histories. Much the same way as human-like traits can be found in our
great ape relatives, traits quite close to modern traits can be found in our
ancestors.

~~~
pharrington
I'm a complete layman regarding biology, so I'm aware my question might be
completely stupid. I understand that the genotypes within a species change in
response to environmental change. What I do not know is: is the amount of
difference between the genetic difference between two random modern humans and
the genetic difference between a random modern human and a random 100,000 year
old human significant?

~~~
danieltillett
This is a very complex question and it depends on what traits you are looking
at. A single nucleotide change at a single loci can cause a very significant
change in phenotype. On top of this most evolutionary charge is not caused by
new mutations sweeping through the population, but changes in the relatively
frequency of different alleles (genes) in the population.

Also what makes this a difficult question to answer is we don’t have a good
idea what genes contribute to what human traits. We know that individual
humans differ, and we know that a large amount of reason for this difference
is genetic, what we don’t know is what genes are responsible for this
difference.

This is a long way of saying we know that the people living 100,000 years ago
were genetically different to modern humans, but we don’t know how different
and in which particular ways. Evidence points towards us being calmer in large
groups (domestication), better able to digest agricultural foods, and better
at abstract thinking.

------
amenod
> The team found obsidian tools that came from sources dozens of miles away —
> a sign of long-distance trade networks.

Dozens of miles is something a person could walk in a few days, so I don't see
how that signifies a trade network, let alone a long-distance one.

Not that I'm doubting other things from the article, but this sentence seems a
bit far fetched to me. I'm not an expert though - am I missing something?

~~~
apeace
From the article:

> Many of the tools were made from a black volcanic rock called obsidian,
> which was brought to the site and processed there. But from where? There
> aren’t any obsidian outcrops near Olorgesailie. The chemistry of the tools
> suggests that they came from sources up to 100 kilometers away. But “these
> are straight-line distances that, in some cases, go over the top of a
> mountain,” says Alison Brooks from George Washington University.

> “There’s an occasional piece in the Acheulean that gets transported these
> distances,” says Brooks. “But we have thousands of pieces in this one site
> that’s smaller than most people’s kitchens. There has been a really major
> import of raw materials.”

------
ianai
I almost made it through the introduction before the commercials wrecked my
interest.

~~~
anonymfus
Then install uBlock Origin

