DailyDirt: Looking Back At Ancient Humans

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Thu, Aug 30th 2012 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Our ancient ancestors had a pretty tough life without fire, farming techniques and 4G wireless internet connections. But they managed to create cave paintings that still exist today, and we're still finding cool stuff that pre-historic people left behind. Here are just a few interesting links to our great-great-great...-great grandparents.

The mother of humanity lived approximately 200,000 years ago, according to a statistical analysis of a sampling of our genes that could be linked to a "mitochondrial Eve." Note that dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago. [url]
Red Deer Cave people lived in China thousands of years ago and seemed to like eating cooked venison meat (so they were nicknamed after their meals). These Stone Aged people could be a new species in human evolution, and they show that Neanderthals had plenty of company in Asia. [url]
Homo floresiensis is another human ancestor who lived in Asia and could possibly have met Homo sapiens about 13,000 years ago. These folks were nicknamed 'Hobbits' because they're the smallest human species ever discovered. [url]
Recently discovered fossils show that Homo erectus wasn't alone in East Africa, and at least two other Homo species lived nearby around the same time. These findings suggest that the evolution of Homo sapiens wasn't a linear progression (as depicted in many cartoons), and there's no "missing link" in the human family tree. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: ancestors, evolution, genetics, homo erectus, homo floresiensis, homo sapiens, neanderthals

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Wally (profile), 30 Aug 2012 @ 5:56pm

More signs in my home state of Ohio:

http://www.ohioexploration.com/mounds.htm
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BITCH I AM KING OF ALL TROLLS YOU CANT STOP ME I A, 30 Aug 2012 @ 6:08pm

HAY BITCH SAY GOOD BUY NOW GET THE HELL OUT OF THIS WEBSITE HAHAHAHAHAHA I AM SO EVIL
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- Wally (profile), 30 Aug 2012 @ 6:16pm
  
  Re:
  Dude....it's good bye....not "good buy"....learn to spell before you troll.
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  - Wally (profile), 30 Aug 2012 @ 7:31pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Mike, I think we should see how far this troll takes it. You would have to look at the end of last week's Most Funny and Insightful Comments to understand.
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- SujaOfJauhnral (profile), 31 Aug 2012 @ 5:42am
  
  Re:
  'Good' buy? I want my money back.
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Spaceman Spiff (profile), 30 Aug 2012 @ 7:09pm

Tree of evolution
Rather than a tree, I think the model for human evolution would more resemble a bramble! Branching, merging, cross-breeding, genocide, adoption, ... What a crooked path we've been on! And I'm sure you'll find some T-Rex in there somewhere! :-)
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- Wally (profile), 30 Aug 2012 @ 7:28pm
  
  Re: Tree of evolution
  Spaceman Spif you get my funny and insightful vote :-) Mrs. Wally and I could not help but laugh :-)
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Beta (profile), 30 Aug 2012 @ 8:32pm

little did she know
Mitochondrial Eve was not the "mother of humanity" in any meaningful sense; she was the last female-line ancestor common to all human beings alive today. There were other human females alive in her time, she lived roughly 60,000 years before Y-chromosome Adam, and when enough current-day female lines die out, the title will pass to one of her daughters (she must have had more than one).
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- Anonymous Coward, 30 Aug 2012 @ 8:58pm
  
  Re: little did she know
  Mitochondrial Eve was not the "mother of humanity" in any meaningful sense; she was the last female-line ancestor common to all human beings alive today
  
  do you note you said "Ancestor common to ALL HUMAN BEING ALINE TODAY". That is why show is the "mother of HUMANITY, humans.. it's just not possible for 'one of her daughters' to take that role. by being her daughter, Eve is her mother, a daughter can be a mother, but not the daughter of the mother..
  
  there is ONLY one linege of Homo, there is no indication at all in the dna record, or fossal record that indicates any intermixing of species..
  
  It is common knowledge that Homo Erectus was not the only Homo species living in Africa, but there is no indiates that interbred, or that we are 'from' more than one species.
  
  The "new species' in china, has been disproved for the last 20 years, that was a construct of Mao, infact the native chinese are closely related to American Indian according to DNA analysis.
  
  Ho you are always good for some misinformation,
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  - Beta (profile), 30 Aug 2012 @ 9:51pm
    
    Re: Re: little did she know
    Umm... your first paragraph ("do you note...") is wrong, and the rest has nothing to do with what I wrote.
    
    I'd try to explain the science, but I don't think it would do any good.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Aug 2012 @ 9:03pm

Note that dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago. ALOT of dinosaurs did go extinct at that time, but certainly NOT all, and certainly not "THE Dinosaurs", have a look outside one day, if you happen to see a bird, that is a dinosaur, so are lizards, crocs, aligators and so on..

animals go extint all the time, but dinosaurs did not go extinct.
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- Wally (profile), 31 Aug 2012 @ 7:45am
  
  Re:
  The rest of the dinosaurs died out as the result of a nuclear winter brought about by a metor impact. Meanwhile, the then evolving mammals were safe underground. The impact crater just happens to be in the Gulf of Mexico near the Ucatan Peninsula.
  
  People often ask how we know this and I only respond like this:
  
  There is a layer of earth where we see a grey vein. The vein appears just below or above everywhere we have found dinosaur fossils. Above this line we find very few species, below we find a ton of them. The grey line is a vein of decaying uranium (which is safe to touch considering the age) so based on the measurements of the half-life of uranium we can deduce roughly when an impact happened. Judging by the measurements, 65 million years is fairly accurate.
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 30 Aug 2012 @ 9:05pm

We Are Evolved For Technology
Not only do we have hands for making tools, but we also have a digestive system that can�t tolerate most uncooked food. That means our species was born using fire to cook its food with�the actual discovery of fire belongs to a precursor species, that took advantage of its newfound food-preparation technology to evolve into us.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2012 @ 5:02am

Has anyone looked on the Moon or Mars yet?

Now that would shake things up if evidence of human existence were found there especially if such existence proved inter galactic flight.
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Ninja (profile), 31 Aug 2012 @ 6:04am

Is it me or the last evolutionary link in the cartoon looks like Chuck Norris?
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- Wally (profile), 31 Aug 2012 @ 7:31am
  
  Re:
  Take it from all those dead cardboard boxes and the bloodbath in his wake, he's a species of his own :-)
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2012 @ 10:48am

How could a "human ancestor" have met homo sapiens? Homo sapiens are humans, right?
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