Chimpanzees' stone tool choices may mirror ancient human ancestors' techniques | Hacker News Reader

Chimpanzees' stone tool choices may mirror ancient human ancestors' techniques

phys.org

35 pointspseudolus22 comments

The paper has an exciting conclusion, at least to this non-expert:

"Here, we show that rock types similar to those found at Oldowan archaeological sites can be distinguished by chimpanzees (Plummer, 2004; Braun et al., 2008, 2009b; Plummer et al., 2023). The patterns of selection by the chimpanzees at Bossou show levels of selectivity that are similar to those identified in the earliest hominin toolmakers (Fig. 10). In fact, selection for pounding tools in the Oldowan archaeological record (Lokalalei 2C) shows lower levels of selectivity than that seen in chimpanzees (although the reasons for selection may be governed by different activities that hominins at Lokalalei 2C were engaged in)."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004724842...

It'd be interesting if we could witness a new species of hominid evolving to a "human-like" level. Would probably create a lot of moral/legal issues.

Hopefully it happens within my lifetime or we discover immortality first.

I really wish there were a ton of drug discovery startups paying software engineer salaries. It'd be exciting to see faster advancement.

Every pharmaceutical company including the startups hires software engineers. But the hard parts aren't really a software problem.

I doubt that the discovery rate is a salary issue. Large numbers of extremely intelligent people are employed by the pharmaceutical industry, but due to the immense number of confounding factors and biological realities, it takes a long time to get reliable data from any test when compared to software.

From what I have heard, inside pharma companies it's often extremely dysfunctional and inefficient though.

> It'd be interesting if we could witness a new species of hominid evolving to a "human-like" level.

We might, but it takes millions of years so you wouldn't notice it in your lifetime. The evolutionary line that produced homo sapiens separated from the chimpanzee line ~7 million years ago. It took ~1 million years to begin to walk upright. It took another ~3 million years to learn to use tools, and another ~2.8 million years for homo sapiens to evolve. If you were around for 75 years during one of those intervals, you probably wouldn't notice any evolution happening - it would seem the same when you were born and when you died.

What's truly astounding is that almost everything that we consider to be "civilization" developed over the past 10,000 years or so. The historical turning point was the move from the wandering hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture and permanent human settlements. Before agriculture, the life of humans wasn't a lot different from any other animals, despite the tools.

I agree that the last 10,000 years are astounding, though that came after 7 million years of evolution (or ~540 million years, or billions of years, depending on how you look at it).

> Before agriculture, the life of humans wasn't a lot different from any other animals, despite the tools.

Pace Silicon Valley; we are far more than our technology! If you took away my permanent structures, agricultural products, computer, writing, and other post-paleolithic technology, I still would be much more than an animal, thank you. And so would you.

> If you took away my permanent structures, agricultural products, computer, writing, and other post-paleolithic technology, I still would be much more than an animal, thank you. And so would you.

I disagree.

I post on Hacker News, therefore I am.

But on the Internet, nobody knows that you are a moose.

That's unfair. I think I've made it clear!

I also disagree. I contend that the person who wrote "I still would be much more than an animal" knows very little about animals

Please explain what you would be doing and how it is dramatically different from other animals? You have no social groups larger then extended family and no free time to dedicate to anything other then substance gathering.

:) Use your imagination.

Here, they drew you a picture:

https://archeologie.culture.gouv.fr/lascaux/en/lascaux-cave-...

Both of these are incorrect. There's plenty of evidence of trade between disparate groups and plenty of evidence of art, craft, etc. that indicate our pre-agricultural ancestors had free time and contact with other groups.

> The historical turning point was the move from the wandering hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture and permanent human settlements.

This is due, of course, to the invention of brewing.

I'd feel like current humans would kill them off

> Would probably create a lot of moral/legal issues.

Read 'Flowers for Algernon' first!

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

Paper:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004724842...

I literally read "Chimpanzees stool tone choices may mirror ancestors..." and thought we had some insight into chimpanzee poop and how humans poop differs. I ll see myself out

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