Re:Fossils from Morocco complicate the story of modern humans
by micheljones on Monday September 11, 2017 @01:42PM
(#15220428)
I was always surprised by the tendency of anthropologists to assign hard evolutionary 'milepoints' based on the very limited set of archeological data. Most egregious example is 'behavioral modernity' theory which claims that homo sapiens developed language, culture and art only relatively recently (30kya) because that's how old the currently oldest archeological finds of culture/art expression are. This doesn't stand up even to the simplest application of Occam's razor.
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Re:Fossils from Morocco complicate the story of modern humans
by ralfd on Tuesday September 12, 2017 @06:23AM
(#15226134)
But then the question is why our ancestors didn't invent stuff 100 thousand years earlier.
Re:Fossils from Morocco complicate the story of modern humans
by micheljones on Tuesday September 12, 2017 @07:55AM
(#15226523)
Well, that's not what I'm arguing. What I am arguing is that lack of proof is not proof of lack - the fact that, for example, currently oldest artwork we know of is 30 000 years old does not prove that's when homo sapiens started making art and not any earlier, but instead that it proves that humans have been making art AT LEAST 30kya, AND that they must have started doing it earlier.
P.S. the 'oldest art is 30 thousand years old' bit is in the context of 'behavioral modernity' theory at the time it was posited, based on European cave art; in the meantime, we've found even older art in a cave in Indonesia (40 thousand years old).