DailyDirt: Looking Back At Ancient Humans

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

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. If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.
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Filed Under: ancestors, evolution, genetics, homo erectus, homo floresiensis, homo sapiens, neanderthals


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

    More signs in my home state of Ohio:

    http://www.ohioexploration.com/mounds.htm

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    HAY BITCH SAY GOOD BUY NOW GET THE HELL OUT OF THIS WEBSITE HAHAHAHAHAHA I AM SO EVIL

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    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! :-)

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      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 :-)

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    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).

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      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,

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        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.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    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.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      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.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    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.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    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.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Ninja (profile), 31 Aug 2012 @ 6:04am

    Is it me or the last evolutionary link in the cartoon looks like Chuck Norris?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      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 :-)

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 31 Aug 2012 @ 10:48am

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

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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