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Oldest Fossils of Homo Sapiens Found in Morocco, Altering History of Our Species (nytimes.com)
Carl Zimmer, writing for The New York Times: Fossils discovered in Morocco are the oldest known remains of Homo sapiens, scientists reported on Wednesday. Dating back roughly 300,000 years, the bones indicate that mankind evolved earlier than had been known, experts say, and open a new window on our origins. The fossils also show that early Homo sapiens had faces much like our own, although their brains differed in fundamental ways (alternative source). Until now, the oldest fossils of our species, found in Ethiopia, dated back just 195,000 years. The new fossils suggest our species evolved across Africa. "We did not evolve from a single cradle of mankind somewhere in East Africa," said Phillipp Gunz, a paleoanthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Liepzig, Germany. Today, the closest living relatives to Homo sapiens are chimpanzees and bonobos, with whom we share a common ancestor that lived over six million years ago. After the lineages split, our ancient relatives evolved into many different species, known as hominins. For millions of years, hominins remained very ape-like. They were short, had small brains, and could fashion only crude stone tools. Original research paper here.
posting on a fossil of a site about fossils found at a sight
300,000-year-old homo sapiens in Morocco is pretty interesting. But near precursors weren't only in Africa. The familiar narrative is being disturbed by other politically incorrect discoveries, such as 7.2 million year old ancestors in Bulgaria:
http://archaeologyinbulgaria.c...
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Obviously an alien (from outer space) 'probe'
So we count this as the same species even though the skulls (and presumably brain) are dramatically different?
A group of time travelers missed the return trip, and had to live out their lives lost in the past in Morocco.
How does a single species evolve in multiple places?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
So I do not believe it. Why it says in $holybook "$cherryPickedVerse1" and "$cherryPickedVerse2." Because of $personalWorldView and $personalFavoriteInterpretation I believe this is yet another ploy by $evilGod to fool us into believing a false narrative as to how the world came into being and to lead us astray from $goodGod.
Did I get the form letter right?
fashioning crude websites with a small brain, yet very large body.
This is pretty far down on my outrage scale. State schools have entire departments dedicated to studying classic literature. People are actually getting subsidized degrees in it. Sometimes learning can be for learning's sake - and I'm pretty sure "where did we come from" has very broad appeal.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Morocco is a pretty happening place.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
These guys lived in Africa 300,000 years ago, 294,000 years before before god made the earth!
Impressive.
A group of time travelers missed the return trip, and had to live out their lives lost in the past in Morocco.
Yes but not from our timeline. When they arrived, the universe branched and they were lost because their future was no longer reachable with the technology they were using.
Or about as likely, life here began 'out there' and it's only a matter of time before we dig up a Colonial Raptor and have a true WTF moment as a species. Sometimes I still miss BSG.
It's anthropology, not paleontology. Learn the fucking difference.
Everyone knows humans were created 5777 years ago ( 3761 BC). What's this world coming to?
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For millions of years, hominins remained very ape-like. They were short, had small brains, and could fashion only crude stone tools.
They're still here. We just call them politicians now.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Any time a Slashdot poster predicts that his or her post will be modded down, I automatically discount whatever else they had to say, because it's almost guaranteed that none of it will be especially insightful or original.
To put it plainly, my take is that understanding our origins is reasonably important to understanding our potential (as a species) for the future. It lets us check current trends against historical trends. I wouldn't mod you -1 for asking legitimate questions, but I also don't have very thorough answers to provide. Hopefully someone else with better insight on the subject can fulfill that.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
By your command...
It cannot correctly be identified as paleontology. Do you often reclassify scientific disciplines that you can't comprehend?
You don't know what you'll find out if you don't look. You may as well discount all of astronomy because we're not likely to end up visiting any but perhaps the closest of stars.
Did you remember Wall Street the 1987 movie?, in there we have the asshole in chief making a speech to glorify himself and Wall Street and he disparages the VPs assholes who earn $200k while he's earning like 30x that and parasitizing everyone.
So, we can afford PHDs earning $50k or $40k or whatever doing that kind of shit, needing supplies of paper, pen, pencil, chalkboard and a few field trips maybe. (make that salary 2x or 3x or 10x less depending on country)
You're too kind. I print their post out and then I wipe my ass with it.
Peer review is rendered rather pointless and ineffective if every peer considers the inaccurate methodology to be authoritative and fails to question it.
Raptor? I thought it was a Viper. I think your are getting your birds and snakes mixed up (or did one evolve from the other?)
"Today, the closest living relatives to Homo sapiens are chimpanzees and bonobos."
Somehow they forget to mention the Trumps.
Just sayin....
Still at it I see ;). Remember, ignorance is power!
Raptor? I thought it was a Viper.
Adama flew Laura Roslin in a Raptor. He parked it near a place where he carried her up a hill then sat with her and told her all about the home he would build for them.
And yes, I know you're joking.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"paleontology research is utterly useless"
Without palaeontology, oil would be much harder to find. Is that useful enough for you?
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Unless they discovered some time-travelling relic, our history remains unaltered...
Perhaps what was meant was "oldest fossil of homo sapiens found in morocco suggests an update to our current understanding of the history of our species"...
Science is of course never settled...
I wish every statement of scientific facts was preceded by the words "as far as we know," or "what we believe based on the evidence," precisely because of discoveries like this. My brother is a science teacher and I've been shouted down whenever I've questioned the Ethiopian-cradle-of-mankind narrative. He would tell me "these are the facts!" and "there is absolute scientific consensus!" and "the fossil record is indisputable!" But the only real fact is that we don't know nearly as much shit as we pretend to, and everything we think we know today could be completely changed by what we discover tomorrow. So any time someone wants to make declarations of unimpeachable "fact" and misuse "science" as their bludgeoning tool, feel free to kick them in the groin. I forwarded the link to this article to my brother with a big fat middle finger emoji.
when the Galactica showed up.
Love it! Love Trump! Love Putin! Love to love! Misty green and blue!
We all know it's Lucy
Lucy walked gently
Between the damp barrels
And shut out my eyes
With the width of her fingers
Said she'd guessed the number
Of bales in the back room
While the seagulls were screaming
Lucy was eating
Then we hauled up our colours
The way the mother had told us
And together we just watched the sails
Lucy I said
In a passage of cotton kegs
Can we hold hands
I'm sure that it's warmer
Then the gulls ate the crumbs
Of Lucy's sandwich
I have not found that to be the case at all. Usually it just means they have a minority view and since the majority is often wrong that can be a good thing.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
You don't know what you'll find out if you don't look. You may as well discount all of astronomy because we're not likely to end up visiting any but perhaps the closest of stars.
Well, you can try wielding that as a shield but we also have a huge history of recording things that serve very little purpose other than entertainment and trivia. Some are essentially pack rats for knowledge, collecting it for no particular end other than knowing what 16th century English cuisine was like or the mating habits of the spotted hummingbird. If we were compiling a treatise of useful information for a post-apocalyptic society I'd gladly let 90%+ be STEM and give most other subjects a cursory summary. And no, Elvis and Mozart would not make the cut. The rest you could put in a vault with a sign saying "for when you've got society working again and happen to be curious about what the past was like".
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
For post-apocalypse, I'd hazard to guess that 'historical' science would be especially important. 90% of STEM would be useless, too... basic hygiene, how disease works, pre-industrial manufacturing methods (informed by anthropology i.e. how to make steel or concrete with minimal processing), pre-industrial farming methods, etc, would be the most basic necessities if you were starting from scratch. How dogs were domesticated would be more useful than how to build a space shuttle.
Hey Bill! Is your wife's butt still sore from the beating she took from Trump? We know it's not sore from anything you did to her.
It doesn't alter my history nor my species. Perhaps your an ape and that explains the limited thought on this.
Are you kidding me? Have you not seen some of the comments on astro or quantum physics?
We will redefine it, call it wrong, and use piss poor understanding of the scientific process to support or mistakes. We can't even spell standard model, but we will tell you why it's wrong.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I'll probably be modded down for this, but you're right.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
And dinner is mostly made of water. But is that the key thing?
The point here is not that science escaped politics, but that it somehow progresses (over the long run) nevertheless.
This has long been one of my complaints about climate science. The window to fully separate science from politics has historically been 50 to 100 years. As such, the "science" of imminent ruin is not a valid, established tradition.
And yet, here we are, forced to make decisions at climate gun point, on a still 50% political consensus that this gun even exists, which is surely but slowly turning into what I count as real science. When the dust settles, the present consensus will not necessarily endure as the story we presently tell ourselves in its primary outline.
I really dislike science conducted at gun point.
So one individual decides to make a long, solo trek to toss an alien, divisive artefact off the edge of the world, and now our entire "cradle" theory is shot, all because some magnetically addled frigatebird dropped a clam shell of rancor right down the maw of some inland rift valley.
Our history is what it is. It is the understanding of our history that has changed.
next not so politically correct discovery (more like finally admitting the truth) is that most black Africans are actually not the same species as humans, but something between ape and a man.