
40k-year-old bracelet made by extinct human species found (2015) - blfr
http://www.digitaljournal.com/science/40-000-year-old-bracelet-from-extinct-human-species-discovered/article/432798
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rflrob
First off, the Denisovan people were named after the Denisova cave, not the
other way around. Second, until very recently (in the last year or so) we did
not have any intact bones confirmed to be Denisovan that are large enough to
say anything about their morphology (the recent classification of some jaw
bones as Denisovan is based on protein sequences, which are more stable than
DNA). I’m skeptical of this article given the facts that I know that they got
wrong and the lack of any evidence describing why the particular piece
couldn’t have been made by some other Homo.

~~~
hyperpallium
And the Denisova cave was named after this guy Denis, a hermit who lived
there.
[https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Denisova_Cave](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Denisova_Cave)

Hermitage and having a human species named after you are not mutually
exclusive.

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vkou
I really wish that these articles didn't run nonsense like the following:

> Shunkov explains:

> "All jewellery had a magical meaning for ancient people. Bracelets and neck
> adornments were to protect people from evil spirits, for instance."

Shunkov, you have no idea whatsoever whether or not jewelry had _any_ magical
meaning for ancient people, let alone that _all_ jewelry had magical meaning
for _all_ ancient people. It's a wild-ass guess, and an embarrassing one,
given the way it is qualified.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
I had a college professor in the nineties who took the whole “goddess culture”
thing very seriously, that those many (many) figurines like the Venus of
Willendorf were indisputable proof of a matriarchal prehistoric society.

Modern archaeologists have noticed that these figures are usually found in the
junk heaps of digs along with broken things and animal bones, while the
“treasures” — tools and jewelry — are found elsewhere, and speculate that the
figures are just cast-off toys. I would love to hear what my professor thinks
of this...

~~~
jgrowl
It could be like what happened in Egypt where a new leader/religion comes in
to power and tries to remove all traces of the previous.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
These figurines are found all over Europe and were made of a period of
hundreds or thousands of years. It was a culture, I'll give the professor that
much.

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brainless
This is a 2015 report, with these sources:

\-
[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3072094/40-000-year...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3072094/40-000-year-
old-bracelet-believed-oldest-suggests-ancient-humans-used-drills.html)

\-
[http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/features/f0100-st...](http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/features/f0100-stone-
bracelet-is-oldest-ever-found-in-the-world/)

~~~
dang
Year added above. Thanks!

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kijin
This discovery doesn't tell us much about the skills, intelligence, and
technology of the Denisovans in general. It only establishes an upper bound,
which can be wildly at odds with the average. Especially in a time with no
writing and terrible long-distance communication, isolated individuals or
groups could have come up with amazing skills only to let it die out soon
after.

There were individuals and/or small groups of Homo sapiens sapiens who built
highly elaborate clockwork mechanisms with dozens of gears 2000 years ago. At
the same time, a significant portion of the remaining population of Homo
sapiens sapiens were picking berries in the forest. Even today, some of us can
build billions of microscopic transistors and arrange them on a chip to do
crazy things while others of the same species are just waiting for rain so
they can grow something to eat. The evolutionary history of our own kind is
already looking far from linear, and it's going to become even more
complicated once we take seriously the fact that a species is nowhere near
homogeneous in its skills and intelligence. Some of the things we've been
placing on the timeline may have been outliers in the first place.

~~~
smhost
you're already cheating when you compare ancient vs modern methods of
production.

technologies are basically extensions of human capabilities in reified form.
so if you choose a method of production that relies heavily on advanced
technologies, of course it's going to seem very impressive in comparison.

you personally might feel like a genius because you figured out how to piece
together stackoverflow answers, bits of libraries, and algorithms that someone
else wrote, but it doesn't actually mean that you're a genius. it just means
that you have access to tools that augment your memory, your reasoning, and
other abilities.

~~~
sokoloff
Those systems were all built by humans. Built by humans while other humans are
relying on the vagaries of weather and chance for their long-term food supply.
From 20K feet, that’s a huge gulf and 20K years from now, you’re liable to
stumble across a CPU or phone vs a stone gristmill and get two very different
views of what humans’ capability was.

I don’t think the point above was about individual heroism, but rather the
spread of technological capabilities.

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blue_devil
A better expose on the subject from Jan 2019 here:
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cave-that-
housed-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cave-that-housed-
neandertals-and-denisovans-challenges-view-of-cultural-evolution/)

------
graycat
40 K years sounds like a long time, but there's a lot of evidence that human
DNA has hardly changed at all in that time. I.e., for making fancy bracelets,
our ancestors back then were just as bright, artistic, etc. as we are now so
that given the materials, tools, and technology they had then they could do as
well as we could and we couldn't do any better. I don't know about the
"extinct human species", but there is there is a simple argument based on (i)
mitochondrial DNA and (ii) a simple observation.

We take humans (a) in western Europe and (b) east Asia. For (i) we argue that
from the rate of change in mitochondrial DNA the most recent common ancestor
was about 40 K years ago. A guess is that that ancestor was in or near present
India. So, some descendants walked NW to western Europe and others walked NW
to east Asia.

Now for (ii), compare western Europeans and east Asians on essentially any
attributes you want and observe that they are very close. Well, necessarily
each is even closer to their most recent common ancestor: I.e., to get the DNA
changes from western Europe to east Asia, have to have the changes going back
in time to the most recent common ancestor and then more changes forward in
time from that ancestor to east Asia; i.e., each of western Europe and east
Asia is closer to the common ancestor than to each other and, since Europe and
Asia are close now, they are even closer to their common ancestor.

So, conclusion: We are still really close to the most recent common ancestor.

Or, in simple terms, take the that ancestor, wash them up and give them some
modern clothes, and they'd look just like us except with a different language.
And they might be wearing a very nice bracelet.

~~~
thrower123
40k years is between 1000 and 2000 generations. Why would it be unreasonable
to think there could be significant genetic drift over that many iterations?

We have bred entirely new strains of dogs or other livestock that are almost
unrecognizable from the starting population in a fraction of that time.

What we have done to plants through relatively unsophisticated selection
pressure is even more illuminating.

Why humanity would be immune from similar processes, I cannot understand.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>We have bred entirely new strains of dogs or other livestock that are almost
unrecognizable from the starting population in a fraction of that time.

But we specifically set out to do that. Random variance is going to mostly
balance out unless it gives a competitive advantage.

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TheEndless
This may seem naive, but considering the different homo classifications, are
all homo species today the same i.e. Homo Sapiens. I am not well versed in
genetic classifications, but couldn't our ancestors and other homos breed?
What is the distinction between this, just like how a chihuahua and a husky
can technically produce offspring? Thanks for any clarification.

~~~
fulvous
There are several examples of cross-species breeding resulting in viable
offspring that can reproduce. You mentioned two breeds of domestic dog but
domestic dogs can also breed with grey wolves. The domestic dog is considered
a sub-species of the grey wolf. Coyotes can also breed with the grey wolf.
Dingoes and jackals also fall in with domestics dogs, wolves, and coyotes. It
isn't just canines either. The Savannah cat is a cross breed between African
servals and domestic cats and that is not the only example for felines.
Beefalo and Żubroń are examples of cattle/bison crossbreeding. Sumatran and
Borenean orangutans are different species that are able to crossbreed.

~~~
TheEndless
Hmm very interesting, I was unaware of some of your example such as the
Orangutan. Upon further research, at the Genus level "Two organisms from one
genus might or might not produce an offspring with sexual fertility, but it is
very certain that organisms from two different genera (plural of genus) can
never produce a fertile offspring." While species has the same number of
chromosomes and will produce fertile offspring. I guess my question, or
perplexion, is why every verbally articulate human being on the earth now are
solely the same species. Questions 1) Either by selection. 2) Even though
genetic diversity. Maybe all our classifications are semantic, I'm still
processing this. (Quote source: [https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-
between-genus-a...](https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-
genus-and-vs-species/))

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bananatron
I love the 'tag' alert options at the bottom of this site.

