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.

Comments

First post

[Anonymous Coward]

In the name of the profit (PBUH)!!!!!ONE!!!ELEVEN

we are

[Anonymous Coward]

posting on a fossil of a site about fossils found at a sight

Re:we are

[Anonymous Coward]

sight = vision
site = location

Re:we are

[slipped_bit]

Posting on a fossil of a site about the sight of a fossil at a site.

Re: we are

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it was autoerection? Dammit, I mean autocorruption. Whatever.

Look outside of Africa, too.

[ScentCone]

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...

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[110010001000]

I think it is more likely that the method used for dating these discoveries is horribly inaccurate. For decades we were using inaccurate methods, and we might still be.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's very true, since we know as documented, incontrovertible fact that Man has only been on Earth for 6000 years.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[110010001000]

Yeah, but what about Women?

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Spy Handler]

Pak breeders. They are the missing link.

300,000 years ago is the correct time frame for their arrival, new science from Morocco has proven it

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Oswald McWeany]

Yeah, but what about Women?

Women didn't arrive on earth until much later, they stopped off to buy shoes first, and then had to use the restroom, apply sunscreen, return the shoes because of buyer's remorse, and then get an overpriced drink from StarBucks before coming to earth.

Re: Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not interesting. Early humans from 300,000 years ago or knee high horses from millions of years ago do nothing to help modern humans. Paleontology is not interesting, but it is a complete waste of money. I'm all for funding basic science research, provided it's actually useful and even has a tiny amount of potential to benefit modern humans. Paleontology does not meet even that incredibly low standard. Nobody should be studying 300,000 year old humans or knee high horses.

Re: Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Luckily, you have no funds to fund anything, and your opinion is just as worthless.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

....politically incorrect discoveries,....

I am sorry, but with language like that, I have to assume you have a political agenda. i.e. I don't take you seriously.

Discoveries are not political - unless reported as being political or interpreted as being political.

Re: Look outside of Africa, too.

[DarkEdgeX]

Sure it's useful. It refutes all the religions that claim mankind was made be some deity. That's money well spent in my mind.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

The familiar narrative is being disturbed by other politically incorrect discoveries, such as 7.2 million year old ancestors in Bulgaria:

Eh, "politically incorrect".. Other 7 million year old findings have been found in Africa, with the knees suggesting walking upright. Our brothers and sisters in walk seem to have been walking around lot. Also, if that reporting is really meant to be politically incorrect, then the suspected parties are easy to find in the nearby geographic area. They just can't stop sucking each others ideological and political dicks after all this time, can they?

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[GLMDesigns]

Unfortunately there are some people out there who derive self-worth from the fact that humans evolved from Africa. I have already passed by some Judah ben Judah folks who were calling humans arising from elsewhere than Africa as racist lies.

It's a shame - but there it is. So calling it politically incorrect - well, for some, it is. Just look at the Native American tribes who don't want to hear anything that challenges the established narrative,

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[jfdavis668]

Did the find Tree of Life seeds, too?

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that's what he's trying to say. Politically tainted science is science fiction. I'm glad you two are in agreement.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[drinkypoo]

Women didn't arrive on earth until much later, they stopped off to buy shoes first, and then had to use the restroom, apply sunscreen, return the shoes because of buyer's remorse, and then get an overpriced drink from StarBucks before coming to earth.

I think the real revelation from your unbelievable comment is just how fucking many Starbucks there are. I guess we know how there could be days before there was light; God was hanging out at Starbucks in between work sessions. I guess he saw that some burnt-ass coffee is good?

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[ScentCone]

You're deliberately pretending to miss the point. Just like there are "Native American" types who get all upset when you point out they're just Asian immigrants who walked over (and didn't spring magically forth from any particularly sacred land, etc), there are plenty of people who are really invested in the Mankind Is From Africa narrative, and who then tack onto it all sorts of nonsense. Because of political correctness, that nonsense is never simply pointed out for being what it is. Some nice new finds that take all the fun out of rabid Afrocentrism might help to get people to stop obsessing about that.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[s122604]

We are
when the great flood happened in 4004BC many of the order "scientists" use to date things got all messed up

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

The sphinx in the Sahara desert has many thousands of years of rain erosion and the Sahara is over 10,000 years old.

There are theories of older civilizations lost in a great flood (not referring to Noah and his magic ark).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDejwCGdUV8

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[JonnyCalcutta]

I would mod you but unfortunately there isn't a '-1 interesting but you ruined it'

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

you're an idiot

it's not rain erosion, it's being sandblasted constantly because its in the desert

you wasn't kangz

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[butchersong]

I am sorry, but with language like that, I have to assume you have a political agenda. i.e. I don't take you seriously.

I don't think that is fair. Most any scientist will tell you that the entire process of publication and review is political. Have you ever heard the quote from Max Planck "science advances one funeral at a time"?

Re: Look outside of Africa, too.

[JonnyCalcutta]

Yeh, its Luddite troll. I was wondering when you'd turn up. I was beginning to think you wouldn't make it.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[JonnyCalcutta]

You guys are too funny. What I like best is you don't see the irony of your fake narratives about fake narratives.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[AvitarX]

Considering the last major claim of that was indeed a racist lie, they aren't absolutely off base.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

This is not to say that the Balken claim is either racist or a lie.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[the gnat]

I am sorry, but with language like that, I have to assume you have a political agenda. i.e. I don't take you seriously.

That's not the worst of it - the claim about human ancestors in Bulgaria 7.2 MYA is incredibly speculative and based on a single study with very sparse evidence that just got published a few weeks ago. There are many alternative hypotheses, but as tends to be the case, the researchers went with the one that's likely to get them the most citations and media coverage. It's a perfect example of academic hand-waving combined with lousy science journalism.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just look at the Native American tribes who don't want to hear anything that challenges the established narrative,

Indeed. Case in point: Archeological findings at a buffalo jump in Montana revealed that the Native American tribes who used it would jump heards in the spring time. That didn't jive with the tribe's narrative that they jumped heards in the fall. But the facts didn't stop Ted Turner from threatening to full his financial support for the research or try to coerce the lead archeologist into changing his findings to fit the tribe's version of events.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Mankind is from Africa narrative

Nice that this is the accepted viewpoint. It wasn't so too long ago. I can't remember if it was Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy, but in one routine he mocks white people contemplating that, in a mock white voice, "That could be true, you know."

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[phantomfive]

They found a jaw bone. Jaw bones aren't very complete evidence, especially given the number of fossils found actually within Africa.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[gtall]

So, the Bulgarians think humans were evolved before hominins split from apes. And we are to believe this why? This sounds like something the Greek guy with the electric hair would push, telling us they were really ancient astronauts.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[gtall]

No, you have that wrong. Christians have only been on Earth for 6000 years. Some of them are still alive today and being elected to Congress. Take a good look at Sen. Richard Shelby from Alabama, definitely 6000 years old. Jeff Sessions, former Senator from Alabama and now patsy at the Justice Dept, isn't 6000 years old, but his ideas are.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[gtall]

G-d visits Eve in the Garden of Eden:

G-d: Eve, darling, where's my apple? Did you eat it?

Trump: (standing nearby) Hey, how do you know I didn't eat, I love to eat apples.

G-d: It was from the Tree of Knowledge, Einstein!

Re: Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

If only more people spent their money, time and energy on things OTHER than simply trying to crap on religions held by people who don't affect you at all ("bu.. but... they do ", NO they don't. A very small number of religious people compared to the total, do things like terrorism or spreading hatred.). I have met people who take time out of their own day to do nothing but find Christians or other religious groups online and try to make life hard for them. You seem an awful lot like the type to do that. Instead of wasting your energy and brainpower on trying to stamp out the beliefs of people who aren't exactly like you, think of what you could accomplish. You might even find a true hobby out of it.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It was not "a racist lie", it was a fake.

Re: Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of wasting your energy and brainpower on trying to stamp out the beliefs of people who aren't exactly like you, think of what you could accomplish.

If the religious groups were willing to reciprocate, this would be a much easier idea to sell.

Since many religious folk can't abide people who disagree with them, they exert constant pressure to conform to their particular brand of crazy. The rest of us respond in kind.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[laie_techie]

No, you have that wrong. Christians have only been on Earth for 6000 years. Some of them are still alive today and being elected to Congress. Take a good look at Sen. Richard Shelby from Alabama, definitely 6000 years old. Jeff Sessions, former Senator from Alabama and now patsy at the Justice Dept, isn't 6000 years old, but his ideas are.

The Julian calendar places Jesus' birth in the year 1 AD (aka first year of our Lord). Some Christians took that year and did math (taking the genealogies of Jesus literally) to come up with Adam being created some 4,000 before Jesus was born. This is how supporters of the Young Earth Theory believe the earth is only 6,000 plus change years old. Suggesting that Christians have been on Earth for 6,000 years means Christianity started during the lifetime of Adam.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[PopeRatzo]

Trump: (standing nearby) Hey, how do you know I didn't eat, I love to eat apples.

G-d: Who is this asshat? Cue the flood.

Re: Look outside of Africa, too.

[PopeRatzo]

religions held by people who don't affect you at all

You've clearly never lived in Texas or Utah.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Gavagai80]

It's politically incorrect if you're worried about offending 0.1%. The other 99.9% just want to see clear evidence before giving up on the best working explanation we've had so far, because it makes a lot of things harder to explain.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[PopeRatzo]

Unfortunately there are some people out there who derive self-worth from the fact that humans evolved from Africa.

Morocco is in Africa, Adolph.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[hduff]

Yeah, but what about Women?

Women were here first but needed someone to get things from the top shelf and take out the trash, ergo men.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[ScentCone]

Actually, the funny guy, here is you - quick with the lazy ad hominem and slow (well, can't even be bothered) with pointing out how the actual substance of the comment is incorrect. That's the very mechanism of political correctness hard at work. "I don't like your tone! Never mind what you said, the fact is you're a bad person making bad points saying bad things and I shall condescendingly call you funny and your behavior ironic!" Meanwhile, I made a perfectly valid point. It's a shame it got under your skin so directly, but that actually is the point I was making. Thanks for helping out!

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

No more homo-nibberlands ... be dem white devls studein makin' dem fus ...

Re: Look outside of Africa, too.

[Trogre]

Or India. Or the Middle East.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

....politically incorrect discoveries,....

I am sorry, but with language like that, I have to assume you have a political agenda. i.e. I don't take you seriously.

Discoveries are not political - unless reported as being political or interpreted as being political.

Everything is politics, unless you're a robot.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

It was not "a racist lie", it was a fake.

And a fine test for, and of the scientific method...slow, but fine.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, the Bulgarians think humans were evolved before hominins split from apes. And we are to believe this why? This sounds like something the Greek guy with the electric hair would push, telling us they were really ancient astronauts.

Well, they could've been time-traveling Sapiens from the future, and they ran out of Plutonium. This explains everything.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL cause they both behave the same you clearly have no idea wtf i was referring to.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, yea, that's sort of the whole point. Adam just didn't realize he was a Christian until much later. Same for Islam. And why all of the above is such bullshit.

Re: Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or Indiana. Or most the US, really. There's some truth to the notion that the US is a Christianity country. There's this point that there's a lot of orange/blue morality on Earth and a lot of them are pretty tolerable, although invariably my orange/blue and your orange/blue morality can lead to a lot of frustration if yours is the one with much more of a majority and pushes stuff that's hard to agree with (burial rights are a big one to me). I can only imagine what it'd be like to move to another country for a year and see their orange/blue morality.

*sigh* But it's always just great to hear when the majority feels oppressed because the minority doesn't want to be oppressed.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, yeah, you're always going to give the white guy for being first. Sorry, Americans were first. They are God's chosen people. And the swamp people came from Asia

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they all wear red dresses, curious 80's hats and look like a young Kim Basinger?

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[skam240]

Oh sure, political incorrectness has to get involved here. You can't just mention alternate theory, you have to play the race card?

Meanwhile it seems awfully convenient that your one source not only defies consensus on the subject but also is from a source that actively labels itself along a regional agenda.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[tehcyder]

politically incorrect discoveries

Twat

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[tehcyder]

Yeah, but what about Women?

Women didn't arrive on earth until much later, they stopped off to buy shoes first, and then had to use the restroom, apply sunscreen, return the shoes because of buyer's remorse, and then get an overpriced drink from StarBucks before coming to earth.

"I don't understand why I'm still a virgin".

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Maritz]

The familiar narrative is being disturbed by other politically incorrect discoveries, such as 7.2 million year old ancestors in Bulgaria:

7.2 million years ago hominins had not yet split off from the rest of the apes.

Please describe this 'familiar narrative'. Like most people who whinge about 'politically correct' I suspect you're a dickhead with an axe to grind?

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[fisted]

Maybe it's because you're ugly af. You will eventually get laid though, don't worry about it for now.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[JonnyCalcutta]

See that's what's funny - you make up my reactions and intentions to make sure it fits your 'political correctness' narrative, no matter what. Its wasn't even an ad hominem as you make no arguments (sorry, apart from 'that nonsense is never simply pointed out for being what it is' which is clearly wrong because apart from anything else, you and others spend a lot of time pointing these things out). You just make vague, half-assed, pointless comments about groups of people so you can then tack on some stupid narrative about political correctness.

The irony is that you didn't even say anything offensive, so my comment was about your trite and boring attempt to string together the narrative you want. You were the only one wanting it be politically incorrect but you couldn't even achieve it. Exactly the same is true of your initial post, you point out something and then shoehorn in the bit about political correctness.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[GLMDesigns]

I know that.

The case for some is simply "sub-saharan"; but let's not forget that there have been several findings that indicate that we left Africa far earlier. I'm only vaguely interested in paleo-anthropology so I can't list them.

I also couldn't care less (outside of scientific curiosity) if we all came from a small band of humans in eastern Africa or if Mitochondrial Eve existed or not.

Dude, how did you get to Godwin so quickly? That's sad.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[PopeRatzo]

Dude, how did you get to Godwin so quickly?

It's 2017. Godwin is the default state.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[GLMDesigns]

It's 2017. Godwin is the default state.

Fair enough. Things are fairly polarized right now. (An understatement if ever there was one.)

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[david_thornley]

I have a friend who's referred to himself as African-American, and it's true that his European ancestors had African ancestors.

I have friends who are somewhat involved with what happens on Lakota reservations, and know what many of the off-reservation whites think of the Lakota. I think that challenging the established white narrative might be a good idea.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[GLMDesigns]

What is the "white narrative." I'm white but maybe my narrative is different that another white persons. Does that mean one of us doesn't have a "white narrative?"

Re: Look outside of Africa, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, of course it doesn't, in any way. Never heard of deism?

And I suppose it refutes all future claims to genetic engineers claiming to create a new species, no?

Keep up the wishful thinking, though. Evolution will give you your wish and eliminate you into permanent total irrelevance very soon.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[david_thornley]

There are at least common threads. Narratives will differ. I don't narrate the same things the same way twice.

However, from your "Native American tribes who don't want to hear anything that challenges the established narrative,", I assumed you were referring to some narrative common among the descendants of the people who got here first. The tribes are at least as varied as the dominant US culture, which is one reason I preferred to refer to the Lakota rather than generalized Native American tribes.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[GLMDesigns]

There seems to be hostility among many Native Americans to any inquiry that challenges the belief that there was a migration across the Bering Straight about 12 -15,000 years ago and then spread out across previously empty continents. (Empty of humans.)

I really have no stake in this outside of scientific curiosity. If that description of our history fits the facts, great. If it doesn't why should anyone be upset about it? And yet ... I've read numerous articles where Native Americans are impeding investigations (more than simply burial rights) and decrying alternative theories. WTF?

Who cares if the Americas were settled by numerous migrations over tens of thousands of years. Let's explore the facts; create reasoned hypotheses based upon evidence and do more research. What happened in the past happened.

There it is. End of story. (For me, anyway.)

we share a common ancestor

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously an alien (from outer space) 'probe'

Homo sapien?

[butchersong]

So we count this as the same species even though the skulls (and presumably brain) are dramatically different?

Re:Homo sapien?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes

We do that with modern day africans, native americans, etc, etc

What are you some kind of a bigot?

Re: Homo sapien?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be silly, everyone knows that a big buck n1gger isn't even on the level of a gorilla.

It's just time travelers who didn't make it back

[jfdavis668]

A group of time travelers missed the return trip, and had to live out their lives lost in the past in Morocco.

Not a single cradle?

[Nutria]

How does a single species evolve in multiple places?

Re: Not a single cradle?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a useful question to ask. Nobody will benefit from studying 300,000 year old humans fossils or knee high horses from millions of years ago. Please don't diverted any more funding away from medical research, NASA, or virtually any basic scientific research, to fund junk paleontology science.

Re: Not a single cradle?

[110010001000]

Sorry buddy. No amount of money is going to make you live forever or go to Mars or whatever your scifi fantasy is.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[alvinrod]

The more likely explanation is that it evolved somewhere else at an earlier time, spread to multiple places, and there aren't enough remaining traces of it to get the full picture. The other alternative is that two distinct species (with obvious common ancestor) became similar because evolutionary pressures strongly favored a particular outcome. The first seems more likely to me at this time, but as we learn more about genetics and their role in various lifeforms the second might become more plausible.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[Lumpy]

Timeshare Condos. They have been the bane of humanity forever.

Re: Not a single cradle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Make fossils great again. #covfefe

Re:Not a single cradle?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does a single species evolve in multiple places?

Mostly semantics.

A species that is an ancestor of Species X but lacks one or more specific features that have been chosen as the features that define "species X" rather than "Genus Y that includes species X" spreads out then later develop said features separately for similar reasons (say a particular mutation which activates a latent gene occurs several times by chance).

For example, dogs are considered a different species from wolves because of traits they got from domestication by humans. If several tribes of humans independently domesticate wolves they will likely end up with several distinct but intebreeable breeds of "dog".

Re: Not a single cradle?

[JonnyCalcutta]

You're funny

Re:Not a single cradle?

[phantomfive]

Furthermore, similar evolutions can happen multiple times. For example, a group of sparrows might grow longer beaks, then shorter beaks over time as their available diet changes. Indeed, we know such things have happened in the past to hominids.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[ceoyoyo]

A population is either spread across a wide area or there are semi-isolated pockets of it. The species evolves, and there's enough contact among the geographically distant bits of the population that the useful traits get passed around. The species doesn't evolve in multiple places at once completely independently, but it also doesn't evolve in a single place.

Morocco and Ethiopia are close enough to each other that it's conceivable populations in both places were in semi-frequent contact, so that kind of thing could happen. As opposed to an isolated population evolving in the rift valley and then deciding one day they were going to leave and go settle the planet.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[gtall]

Very long legs. And fast, they were very fast back then.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[Enigma2175]

Morocco and Ethiopia are close enough to each other that it's conceivable populations in both places were in semi-frequent contact, so that kind of thing could happen. As opposed to an isolated population evolving in the rift valley and then deciding one day they were going to leave and go settle the planet.

At their closest Morocco and Ethiopia are about 4500 km apart and that's if you go straight across several thousand kilometers of the Sahara. The more probable migration route through equatorial Africa then up the coast is an even longer trek. How frequently could pre-technology homonids cross such a huge geographic barrier? I guess it's conceivable as you say, but I certainly wouldn't call it probable. This find certainly doesn't preclude H. sapiens arising out of east Africa, but if their dating is accurate it certainly looks like it happened earlier than previously thought.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[Farmer Tim]

This is pre-agriculture, so the simplest explanation is nomadic tribes occasionally running into each other and interbreeding (plenty of ways that could happen, from war prisoners to exchanges to form alliances, which isn't unheard of with chimpanzees, royalty and other lower primates). It wouldn't take many generations for dominant genetic traits to traverse the continent, given a suitable lack of geographic barriers and a few droughts temporarily reducing the range of viably habitable territories.

Think of it this way: modern populations which had been mostly isolated on different continents for thousands of years have obvious genetic variations from each other, but we can all still interbreed and pass useful adaptations on. For example, two thirds of the world's adult population don't produce lactase, so can't properly digest cow's milk, but adult lactose intolerance is unusual enough to be considered a malady in people of European descent. Given sufficient interbreeding (say, a catastrophe causing mass migration from the Americas to Asia) and a food shortage where digesting milk is an advantage, producing lactase into adulthood could become a globally dominant trait. And that's how you can have distributed evolution in a single species.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[I'm New Around Here]

The Sahara wasn't the Sahara then.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Measured to the cubic micron ... no! And further, most genetic variation is not measured in units of "beak".

Re:Not a single cradle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sahara is new development. Most of it got there after the last great ice-age

Re:Not a single cradle?

[Enigma2175]

It wasn't? This paper says the "widely" believed age is 2-3 million years and the paper argues for much older origins, 7-10 million years old. The fossils we are discussing here are on the order of 300,000 years old which is well within both ranges. Yes, there have been some periods where it received more rain than it currently does but it has been a very dry place for a long time.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the tree of evolution isn't a tree, it's a graph.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[david_thornley]

Convergent evolution of particular traits is reasonable. Convergent evolution of DNA seems to me a lot less likely.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[ceoyoyo]

The Sahara didn't exist 300,000 years ago. Instead, it seems it was a fairly lush grassland. You probably wouldn't have one dude walking between the two fathering children as he went, but it's not an unreasonable geography for genes to cross back and forth, over a thousand generations.

Clearly pre-technology hominids COULD cross the barrier because their bones have been found in both places (as have apes, other primates, and lots of other animals). The question is whether their genes could slosh around enough to keep the whole area from going off on individual evolutionary tangents. It's not unreasonable that happened.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[ceoyoyo]

Edit: it appears more recent evidence makes the Sahara older, although there do seem to have been wet periods in the meantime. Even so, pre-human hominids clearly made it between Ethiopia and Morocco.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[phantomfive]

I don't see anywhere that they sequenced the DNA of this jawbone. Did they?

Re:Not a single cradle?

[I'm New Around Here]

I was basing my comment on the Wikipedia entry:

People lived on the edge of the desert thousands of years ago[38] since the last ice age. The Sahara was then a much wetter place than it is today. Over 30,000 petroglyphs of river animals such as crocodiles[39] survive, with half found in the Tassili n'Ajjer in southeast Algeria. Fossils of dinosaurs, including Afrovenator, Jobaria and Ouranosaurus, have also been found here. The modern Sahara, though, is not lush in vegetation, except in the Nile Valley, at a few oases, and in the northern highlands, where Mediterranean plants such as the olive tree are found to grow. It was long believed that the region had been this way since about 1600 BCE, after shifts in the Earth's axis increased temperatures and decreased precipitation, which led to the abrupt desertification of North Africa about 5,400 years ago.[40] However, this theory has recently been called into dispute, when samples taken from several 7 million year old sand deposits led scientists to reconsider the timeline for desertification.[41]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I took it to mean that some areas may have been desert for quite some time, but those were low-precipitation areas in a large region that had adequate rainfall to sustain those plants and creatures. That certainly seems to be what it claims, but I of course can't verify those claims. It's entirely possible the whole region was desert for millions of years, as the last quoted sentence alludes.

Thank you for the link.

It's not mentioned in $holybook

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:It's not mentioned in $holybook

[MightyYar]

Your $goodGod and $evilGod variables need to be able to handle arrays.

Re:It's not mentioned in $holybook

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who would utilize said form letter would not need them to handle arrays.

For any of the Abrahamic descendant religions, there's only one $evilGod (who has minions but only one top boss) and only one $goodGod (ditto). Even the pseudo-polytheistic 3-in-1ers arbitrarily decide if we're talking about 1 God or 3 Gods based on context so they'll just jam it in and think it works anyway.

Those who would not utilize the form letter wouldn't be so automatically closed minded at the get-go to make such statements in the first place.

Some of them are still around today

[Anonymous Coward]

fashioning crude websites with a small brain, yet very large body.

Simple question

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares? How does this affect anyone at all? These beings have been dead for a very long time. Their presence in Morocco doesn't affect present day humans in any way, except for someone to draw in grant money that could be used to fund research that's far more useful than paleontology. This is a complete waste of money and funding agencies should stop funding paleontology so that money can be diverted to useful research that actually benefits people who are alive now. Can anyone justify this research or how any paleontology research has ever improved the quality of life for modern humans? Of course not, but it continues to be funded for no good reason at all. Now, I'll be modded down to -1 for asking this important question, but that's only because Slashdot readers would rather avoid seeing this post than admit I'm right. I'll all certainly be on the receiving end of ad hominem logical fallacies and personal attacks, but those only bolster my claim that paleontology research is utterly useless. If you must abuse the moderation system or engage in personal attacks, so be it, but it won't change the fact that paleontology is a worthless field that contributes nothing to modern humanity. And no, I'm not a bot, just a person who would like to see useful research be funded instead of more paleontology.

Re:Simple question

[MightyYar]

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.

Re:Simple question

[clone73]

It's anthropology, not paleontology. Learn the fucking difference.

Re: Simple question

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans are animals. This research is on fossilized humans, meaning can correctly be described as paleontology. I am simply pointing out how a larger class of research is completely worthless. Whether it involves 300,000 year old humans or knee high horses from millions of years ago, it doesn't affect anyone who is alive now or will be alive in the future. Calling useless research by another name does not change the fact that it is useless.

Re:Simple question

[the gnat]

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.

Re:Simple question

[thegreatbob]

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.

Re: Simple question

[clone73]

It cannot correctly be identified as paleontology. Do you often reclassify scientific disciplines that you can't comprehend?

Re:Simple question

[Gilgaron]

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.

Re:Simple question

[Anonymous Coward]

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)

Re: Simple question

[Anonymous Coward]

You're too kind. I print their post out and then I wipe my ass with it.

Re: Simple question

[JonnyCalcutta]

Still at it I see ;). Remember, ignorance is power!

Re:Simple question

[GreatDrok]

"paleontology research is utterly useless"

Without palaeontology, oil would be much harder to find. Is that useful enough for you?

Re:Simple question

[0111 1110]

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.

Re:Simple question

[Kjella]

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".

Re:Simple question

[Gilgaron]

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.

Re: Simple question

[KGIII]

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.

Re: Simple question

[KGIII]

I'll probably be modded down for this, but you're right.

Yo dawg

[Anonymous Coward]

we waz kangs an sheeit in aferkca every homie know dat son

fuckin honkey wif yo raciss science!

Can you blame them?

[jpellino]

Morocco is a pretty happening place.

Re:Can you blame them?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say Morocco is pretty close to Africa, so this doesn't really change much of anything. But they had to come up with a click bait headline.

Re:Can you blame them?

[0111 1110]

I would say Morocco is pretty close to Africa

I find this statement disturbing on at least two levels. One that you don't think Morocco is an African country and two the "I would say" as if it is a matter of opinion or something.

Re:Can you blame them?

[Megol]

I would say I'm situated pretty close to me.

That is correct and doesn't imply that the "I" and the "me" doesn't refer to the same thing.

Wow!

[DougDot]

These guys lived in Africa 300,000 years ago, 294,000 years before before god made the earth!

Impressive.

Re:It's just time travelers who didn't make it bac

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Blasphemers

[fred911]

Everyone knows humans were created 5777 years ago ( 3761 BC). What's this world coming to?

Still around

[ArhcAngel]

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.

Re:Still around

[jfdavis668]

and People of Walmart.

Re:It's just time travelers who didn't make it bac

[jfdavis668]

By your command...

Cautionary tale about peer review?

[macraig]

Peer review is rendered rather pointless and ineffective if every peer considers the inaccurate methodology to be authoritative and fails to question it.

Re:Cautionary tale about peer review?

[david_thornley]

A peer review can comment on known deficiencies in methodology, but not on unknown ones. Peer review is not the last line of defense against inaccuracy. Everybody in science knows that peer-reviewed papers can be wrong, but that a consensus among peer-reviewed papers for some time is very likely to be reasonably correct.

Re:It's just time travelers who didn't make it bac

[Anonymous Coward]

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 sapien

[Anonymous Coward]

"Today, the closest living relatives to Homo sapiens are chimpanzees and bonobos."

Somehow they forget to mention the Trumps.
Just sayin....

Re:It's just time travelers who didn't make it bac

[smooth wombat]

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.

Altering our history?

[slew]

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...

Re:Altering our history?

[Anonymous Coward]

History is the what is written and believed, not the truth. You can alter history by discovering evidence that something different happened, and getting the new evidence accepted.

It will be interesting to see what gets written about the current presidency...

As far as we know

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: As far as we know

[KGIII]

I'm a mathematician. I point that out, just so I can point out how much I agree with your statement. I don't mind and I am inclined to believe the current science is a pretty good guess, for most subjects. I don't dislike science. I love it.

Somehow, it has turned into a belief system. It's as if some folks have adopted science as the new religion, including thinking that it can't be questioned. The whole point of the scientific method is that it can be questioned. I have no idea how this happened.

Basically, I woke up one day and found out that consensus is considered fact. I am not even sure where the idea of settled science came from. If the science was settled, we'd stop doing it. Hell, I am a scientist. I am wrong more times in a day then most people are all week. If you don't believe me, ask the girlfriend.

Re: As far as we know

[Megol]

I have a belief in science. The scientific method that is. In that belief is also the core of adapting in the face of new data. That makes my belief completely different than the belief in gods or other religious ideas. Other core assumptions are that the world is real, that one can collect data about the world and that one can use that data combined with logic to describe the real world.

A scientific fact is _in_itself_ something that could adapt to fit new data but is unlikely to do so given the data that points to that fact being indeed the correct interpretation of available data. Of course calling that a fact is in fact an error but an understandable one given how languages work. In fact having the idea of "fact" as a non-changeable axiom of the real world is also wrong, in most cases where facts are discussed they are opinions and often based on bad, biased and incomplete data.

You seem to have a bad understanding of science in general and the scientific method in particular.
--

Your implication that a mathematician is a scientist is funny but indicates that you actually aren't much of either. In mathematics there are actual facts, they exist because mathematics in essence creates artificial worlds with a set of rules that are defined as absolute truths and then builds upon that. Mathematics is a tool, science is a model.

Re: As far as we know

[KGIII]

That's funny.

However, I could have expressed myself better. You aren't an example of the type of person that I'm referring to. No, from reading your post, you seem to have a good understanding.

I'll try to explain a little bit.

Not long ago, someone made the claim that the oceans were going to rise 27', by the year 2050. I pointed out that I was not a climate scientist and then linked them to a number of sources that showed the real predictions, as opposed to his one cite of a journalist who appears to be citing a crackpot.

At this point, they decided that I wasn't a climate scientist (which I'd told them) and that made me unqualified to provide the citations. They also decided I was a Trump voter - curiously enough. They also decided I was a climate change denier and several others joined in.

For starters, the oceans aren't going to rise that much, that quickly - according to all but one paper. I sure as hell didn't vote for Trump. I'm quite comfortable expressing my belief that AGW is real - and have even made a quasi-scholarly pursuit to understand the science in-depth.

That's just one example, of many, that I've seen. Hell, it's not even the worst example, it's the one that was most recent and quickest to type out.

I probably could have expressed this better.

Finally, yes - a scientist. I modeled traffic. My Ph.D. is in Applied Mathematics. If you don't understand why that's science, and why that makes me a scientist, I'm pretty sure we can't have a reasonable discussion.

Re: As far as we know

[david_thornley]

Basically, I woke up one day and found out that consensus is considered fact.

Is it supposed to work some other way? Scientists are going to interpret consensus as "almost certainly true to within appropriate limits". For practical purposes, when non-scientists work with sciency stuff, scientific consensus is fact (again within appropriate limits). There's no other way to do it.

I am not even sure where the idea of settled science came from. If the science was settled, we'd stop doing it.

Pretty much you do. There's a whole lot of settled things that scientists just assume, and don't work on. That's how it's got to be, for more esoteric scientific observations to be properly interpreted. A chemist using a mass spectrometer is assuming that molecular masses are pretty much what you'd expect from the atoms involved. It's not possible to detect dark matter without knowing the effects of mass. Scientists work on the unsettled stuff in general. (Every so often somebody comes up with a new or more precise tool or technique and decides to go over settled stuff in greater detail to see if anything changes when you look at it closer or differently, but given that settled science is settled to certain limits rather than absolutely this makes sense.)

Of course, one of the really neat things about science is that settled science can become unsettled at any time. It can start with one person saying "That's funny...it really shouldn't work that way." and go almost anywhere from there.

Re: As far as we know

[KGIII]

I just typed and deleted a whole, very silly, reply.

David... I'm just gonna say it like this. I've seen your name before. I haven't been on Slashdot in a while. I've interacted with you. I know you're not dumb. I know better.

Re: As far as we know

[david_thornley]

Okay, here's what I'm saying.

Scientific consensus means that pretty much all scientists in a field agree on something. They've been convinced by the evidence. They're usually in a much better position than I am to judge that. If the evidence isn't convincing, there will almost certainly be scientists who aren't convinced.

We pretty much have to take scientific consensus as scientific fact when we're doing things. In the case of climate science, we have a consensus is that global warming is happening, it's driving climate changes that are going to have some seriously bad effects, and that it's primarily caused by people burning fossil fuels. There's no consensus on the details. Given that, should I consider that a good argument in favor of getting off fossil fuels? I know that scientists can find out differently, but I'm occasionally wrong on facts anyway.

There is science nobody really doubts. Physicists are not generally trying to prove that Special Relativity works. (This doesn't stop the occasional reproduction of Michelson-Morley that gets the same result with greater precision.) They use it in their calculations and models. Massive scientific instruments (like the Large Hadron Collider) are designed and built on the assumption of Special Relativity. There was a lot of uninformed speculation about it, but what I mostly read was fear of creating black holes, not pushing particles faster than the speed of light so the magnets wouldn't work right. When they did have strong experimental evidence that neutrinos were going faster than light, they published a paper that basically asked what they did wrong. Is it wrong to consider this "settled science"?

Obviously, settled science can become unsettled fast. Practically nobody doubted that there was such a thing as space and such a thing as time in the Nineteenth Century. I doubt any physicist believes that in the Twenty-First.

Seriously, after consideration I don't see where any of these claims are false. I could well be wrong, in which case I'd appreciate some indication of how.

Re: As far as we know

[KGIII]

I don't want to type, "you should." I try to avoid that. So...

I accept consensus as being, "correct given the information that we have at hand." I am also intimately aware that we've been wrong, pretty much always. To assume that we're no longer wrong is hubris. In fact, I assume we are wrong.

Now, we're often right enough. We can still use Newton's figures and be 'close enough.' However, they're still wrong. Special Relativity? Just last year, yet another paper was released that insists it's wrong.

This is one example:

Link.

There are more.

What many accept as fact, is not actually fact.

Let's try to put this together?

On the subject of AGW... I actually have taken the time to make a quasi-scholastic study of the science. I have read a great deal and spotted no flaws that were glaringly obvious. However... I also see that, if you read the actual papers, there remain parts that are poorly understood and are speculative.

This doesn't mean I don't think we should stop burning fossil fuels. No. I absolutely agree that we should reduce CO2 outputs. In fact, I'm really, really positive we should do that.

What it does mean is that I'm tired of hearing that it's settled science, well understood, or that the predictions are certain.

Again, I absolutely think we should reduce emissions of problematic gases. Just don't bullshit me and tell me that we understand it completely. We don't. We might not ever understand it completely. We could even be completely wrong.

To go on... Models, such as the Standard Model, are useful. They are "close enough." They are incomplete, as well. That doesn't mean I think we should discard them. It means I think we should continue to refine them. I also think we should stop pretending to know things as certainties when, in fact, we don't. That's why we have confidence ratings, after all.

I do wish I were more adept at putting this into text. My apologies for my lack of communication skills.

So that's

[Anonymous Coward]

when the Galactica showed up.

Piltdown, Morrocan style

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Today, the closest living relatives to Homo sap

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Not mine

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't alter my history nor my species. Perhaps your an ape and that explains the limited thought on this.

green timber

[epine]

Most any scientist will tell you that the entire process of publication and review is political.

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.

Re:green timber

[david_thornley]

What science of imminent ruin? The climate change stuff I read talks about very serious consequences by the end of the century. I haven't seen any scientific suggestion of imminent ruin ever, so there's no surprise that it's not a tradition.

The political consensus that climate change is happening and we should do something about it is way over 50%. The US is atypically stupid in this regard.

Re:green timber

[Anonymous Coward]

I've found most Americans who deny climate change think that movie "The Day After Tomorrow" is a scientific documentary about climate change, which perfectly explains their detachment from reality.

the pitch that restores

[epine]

"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.

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.

Re:the pitch that restores

[turp182]

That movie is called "The Gods Must be Crazy".

And it wasn't a "clam shell of rancor", it was just a Coke bottle that fell from an airplane.

Impossible to watch as an adult, loved it when I was a kid.

Our history is what it is

[Anonymous Coward]

Our history is what it is. It is the understanding of our history that has changed.

next not so politically correct discovery is

[Anonymous Coward]

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.