Box of donated artifacts turns out to be treasure trove of Neanderthal bones
phys.org
phys.org
One thing I'm curious about is how the pottery connects to the bones. Is this evidence that they made pottery, or did the pottery get deposited later? I thought ceramics weren't around until ~20k years ago, but I'm not super current on this stuff. If it dates back 50k years and neanderthals made it, isn't that a huge deal?
Amazing video I watched yesterday.
"When We Met Other Human Species"
With several! Neanderthals, Denisovans, Floriensis, and a species recently found in the Philippines.
it's my personal project to get people to stop thinking and feeling this: we are not insignificant specks, we are close to all there is.
Till we humans discover any alien intelligence out there (and we've tried), we (and our creations if you want to include AIs) are the most complex and interesting things that we know of. When you look out at the universe you should see a whole lot of nothing: what is the sun but a giant agglomeration of a few processes (a few different fusions, radiation and absorption) and what are the other stars but more of the same, with a deep gravity well here and there.
Rather, it's us who is something, it's us who even created the concept of something, and the concept of significance. We assign those values. Without us, the universe might just be dead.
> In the same way that looking out into the universe makes me feel very large indeed, the notion of history spanning back such a short time to encompass all of us and our thinking, the only thinking we know of, gives us a great connection to these lives of other people, even outside of our own species, and should fill us with pride, the only pride there is in the universe afaik.
Sagan, Harari, Hossenfelder, and Feynmann to name a few, are always selling us ideas like "math and science make nature more beautiful". No, humans make nature, and math and science, beautiful. Everywhere in the universe they say, "you want to make an apple pie from scratch? First you must ask a human."
One viewpoint, I suppose. I think the cosmos and all of the things that compose it (including us) is the most complex and interesting thing that we (partially) know. And there is much yet to learn.
Now with a sample size of one you could argue that I'm being optimistically misleading - and you would be correct. But likewise I respect but respectfully disagree with the notion that we are likely the only intelligent life in the universe. We might never communicate with an extra-solar being, simply due to the sheer size of the universe. But it is extraordinarily pompous to think that we are unique, special, or even alone.
But until then, I'm with the other guy. We're it, buddy.
It's hubris, and some find that particularly ugly. But it's got a foundation.
I think we evolved an inherent sense of value or awe toward size because bigger things are harder to get to the other side of, are more likely to bop us on the head with impunity, but can also feed more people at the same time. Otherwise, what meaning is there in size? Microelectronics work better precisely because they are small.
> Perhaps it’s important to explore both ends of that spectrum.
my point is that the end of the spectrum that you are standing up to defend, I claim is currently, universally, getting all the attention, so deemphasizing it would right now be an unalloyed good.
While I fully support the idea that we should expand our thinking in areas we’ve neglected, how is intentionally deemphasizing a recognition of our relative smallness “unalloyed good”?
For many, this recognition is a primary source of awe and wonder, and has no tension whatsoever with a recognition of the importance and usefulness of smallness. If anything, this recognition of smallness is exactly the thing that highlights how rare and interesting we seem to be. Our “insignificance” is also the source of our significance.
We also seem prone to binary thinking and false dichotomies. Very few things are purely good or purely bad. Recognizing our smallness doesn’t have to be synonymous with concluding that we are unimportant.
Also incomprehensibly messy and vast mass of thermonuclearmagnetohydrodynamic interactions that may very well give rise to some sort of persistent, replicating structure and we'd have no way of knowing.
Some may be more intelligent than us but less able to put it to the domination of their environment. Orcas and sperm whales for example have brain sizes that outrank us by several kilograms, and brain-to-body-size ratios that are comparable to ours. Neanderthals themselves had larger brains than us too. Crows have smaller brains but have problem solving skills on par with 7-year-old humans.
We are far from being the only complex thing on this planet.
I see a sort of irony in that we’re often not intelligent enough to recognize intelligence in others, even within our own species.
But thanks for adding that. It’s a really important thing to consider. It actually feeds into the “smallness”, as well.
In Hindu traditions, this is expressed (I claim) in "atman - Brahman"
Like Brahman, Atman is also eternal, infinite, invisible, formless, and beyond the mind and senses. In beings, Atman remains enveloped by Nature and remains bound to the mind and body and the cycle of births and deaths.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/genetics-spills-secrets-from-...
What if the reason we have problems with wisdom teeth is that some of us have neanderthal sized teeth but a homo sapiens sized jaw.
Our foods used to be way harder to consume. Not only would that lead to people having healthier teeth and gums (just like your pet dog!), but it likely helped people maintain healthier body weights as well.
Impacted wisdom teeth is like number 100 on the list, by frequency and severity.
Everyone responding is coming from a place where they were impacted by wisdom teeth, are you instead talking about extracting wisdom teeth as a precautionary practice, before they become a problem? Because otherwise it reads that you are trying to tell people that they are mistaken about a problem they have experienced.
Probably an emotional topic too, given how painful wisdom teeth can be.
My friend never had an issue and still has his wisdom teeth, his siblings were not so lucky.
If these are from the same period of time, wouldn't that predate all known earthenware ceramics? I'm not an expert at all so idk.