A skull that rewrites the history of man

[Danno 1,228]

I found this front page story interesting both by the information offered and by it being the latest example of experts possibly being so wrong they may have to rewrite basic flow chats of human development. Many of us believed with-out-doubt that man originated in Africa (and it may yet be true) but this theory is taught as fact, when it may not be so.

How many other areas fall in this same category?

September 9, 2009

A skull that rewrites the history of man

By Steve Connor, Science Editor

It has long been agreed that Africa was the sole cradle of human evolution. Then these bones were found in Georgia...

The conventional view of human evolution and how early man colonised the world has been thrown into doubt by a series of stunning palaeontological discoveries suggesting that Africa was not the sole cradle of humankind. Scientists have found a handful of ancient human skulls at an archaeological site two hours from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, that suggest a Eurasian chapter in the long evolutionary story of man.

The skulls, jawbones and fragments of limb bones suggest that our ancient human ancestors migrated out of Africa far earlier than previously thought and spent a long evolutionary interlude in Eurasia - before moving back into Africa to complete the story of man.

Experts believe fossilised bones unearthed at the medieval village of Dmanisi in the foothills of the Caucuses, and dated to about 1.8 million years ago, are the oldest indisputable remains of humans discovered outside of Africa.

But what has really excited the researchers is the discovery that these early humans (or "hominins") are far more primitive-looking than the ** erectus humans that were, until now, believed to be the first people to migrate out of Africa about 1 million years ago.

The Dmanisi people had brains that were about 40 per cent smaller than those of ** erectus and they were much shorter in stature than classical H. erectus skeletons, according to Professor David Lordkipanidze, general director of the Georgia National Museum. "Before our findings, the prevailing view was that humans came out of Africa almost 1 million years ago, that they already had sophisticated stone tools, and that their body anatomy was quite advanced in terms of brain capacity and limb proportions. But what we are finding is quite different," Professor Lordkipanidze said.

"The Dmanisi hominins are the earliest representatives of our own genus - ** - outside Africa, and they represent the most primitive population of the species ** erectus to date. They might be ancestral to all later ** erectus populations, which would suggest a Eurasian origin of ** erectus."

Speaking at the British Science Festival in Guildford, where he gave the British Council lecture, Professor Lordkipanidze raised the prospect that ** erectus may have evolved in Eurasia from the more primitive-looking Dmanisi population and then migrated back to Africa to eventually give rise to our own species, ** sapiens - modern man.

"The question is whether ** erectus originated in Africa or Eurasia, and if in Eurasia, did we have vice-versa migration? This idea looked very stupid a few years ago, but today it seems not so stupid," he told the festival.

The scientists have discovered a total of five skulls and a solitary jawbone. It is clear that they had relatively small brains, almost a third of the size of modern humans. "They are quite small. Their lower limbs are very human and their upper limbs are still quite archaic and they had very primitive stone tools," Professor Lordkipanidze said. "Their brain capacity is about 600 cubic centimetres. The prevailing view before this discovery was that the humans who first left Africa had a brain size of about 1,000 cubic centimetres."

The only human fossil to predate the Dmanisi specimens are of an archaic species ** habilis, or "handy man", found only in Africa, which used simple stone tools and lived between about 2.5 million and 1.6 million years ago.

"I'd have to say, if we'd found the Dmanisi fossils 40 years ago, they would have been classified as ** habilis because of the small brain size. Their brow ridges are not as thick as classical ** erectus, but their teeth are more H. erectus like," Professor Lordkipanidze said. "All these finds show that the ancestors of these people were much more primitive than we thought. I don't think that we were so lucky as to have found the first travellers out of Africa. Georgia is the cradle of the first Europeans, I would say," he told the meeting.

"What we learnt from the Dmanisi fossils is that they are quite small - between 1.44 metres to 1.5 metres tall. What is interesting is that their lower limbs, their tibia bones, are very human-like so it seems they were very good runners," he said.

He added: "In regards to the question of which came first, enlarged brain size or bipedalism, maybe indirectly this information calls us to think that body anatomy was more important than brain size. While the Dmanisi people were almost modern in their body proportions, and were highly efficient walkers and runners, their arms moved in a different way, and their brains were tiny compared to ours.

"Nevertheless, they were sophisticated tool makers with high social and cognitive skills," he told the science festival, which is run by the British Science Association.

One of the five skulls is of a person who lost all his or her teeth during their lifetime but had still survived for many years despite being completely toothless. This suggests some kind of social organisation based on mutual care, Professor Lordkipanidze said.

[The Dude 206]

Danno, is this your subtle way of telling us that you don't want to admit that somewhere down the line, your ancestors came from Africa?

[PlatyPius 5]

One of the five skulls is of a person who lost all his or her teeth during their lifetime but had still survived for many years despite being completely toothless. This suggests some kind of social organisation based on mutual care, Professor Lordkipanidze said.

Obviously not from the US, as the others would have left him/her to fend for him/herself. Just say No to Obamacare!

[The Dude 206]

One of the five skulls is of a person who lost all his or her teeth during their lifetime but had still survived for many years despite being completely toothless. This suggests some kind of social organisation based on mutual care, Professor Lordkipanidze said.

Obviously not from the US, as the others would have left him/her to fend for him/herself. Just say No to Obamacare!

Post of the day.

[Danno 1,228]

Danno, is this your subtle way of telling us that you don't want to admit that somewhere down the line, your ancestors came from Africa?

Another manifestation of your racial obsession.

And another example of your -one line, meaningless contributions to any topic.

Come on Smurf, you can do it... put a actual thought together.

[The Dude 206]

Danno, is this your subtle way of telling us that you don't want to admit that somewhere down the line, your ancestors came from Africa?

Another manifestation of your racial obsession.

And another example of your -one line, meaningless contributions to any topic.

Come on Smurf, you can do it... put a actual thought together.

Are you really that ignorant, or just lazy?

Why contribute to meaningless drivel?

It's pointless as are a large proportion of your posts in general.

Edit: There, I made each sentence it's very own line like you do to stretch out the length of your posts. Does this make this post more in line with your quality standards?

Edited September 9, 2009 by Naked_Smurf

[HAL 9000 96]

All this really does is push back the initial African migration further back in time.

[Danno 1,228]

All this really does is push back the initial African migration further back in time.

You see Hal, this is why many get such a laugh at folks like you......

You "hang on to old ideas" even when new and substantial evidence presents its self.

I could not care less which theory turns out to be accurate, why do you care?

[PlatyPius 5]

All this really does is push back the initial African migration further back in time.

You see Hal, this is why many get such a laugh at folks like you......

You "hang on to old ideas" even when new and substantial evidence presents its self.

I could not care less which theory turns out to be accurate, why do you care?

I disagree with your politics, but I applaud you for being one of the few people who gets that phrase right.

[HannahP 119]

"More primitive looking" doesn't actually mean anything, especially since we have soooo few even semi-complete skeletons. Really, we have no idea what most of our ancestors (and all the dead-ends, it's a BUSH people but not that kind of bush) really looked like. Compounded with the tendency to mix, revert, and "evolve" in all directions...

I'm still with the genetic evidence, which points definitely towards the Out of Africa scenario.

[HannahP 119]

Also, I'm pretty sure that danno's little intro was getting at evolution being taught as "fact" (despite the FACT that it's not but whatevs) -- obviously there is more paleontological AND genetic evidence than a single article about a single finding.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Platy,

You might find this interesting...

A bit of history first: the original expression, of course, was I couldn’t care less, meaning “it is impossible for me to have less interest or concern in this matter, since I am already utterly indifferent”. It is originally British. The first record of it in print I know of is in 1946, as the title of a book by Anthony Phelps, recording his experiences in Air Transport Auxiliary during World War II. By then it had clearly become sufficiently well known that he could rely on its being recognised. It seems to have reached the US some time in the 1950s and to have become popular in the latter part of that decade. The inverted form I could care less was coined in the US and is found only there. It may have begun to be used in the early 1960s, though it turns up in a written form only in 1966.

Why it lost its negative has been much discussed. It’s clear that the process is different from the shift in meaning that took place with cheap at half the price. In that case, the inversion was due to a mistaken interpretation of its meaning, as has happened, for example, with beg the question.

In these cases people have tried to apply logic, and it has failed them. Attempts to be logical about I could care less also fail. Taken literally, if one could care less, then one must care at least a little, which is obviously the opposite of what is meant. It is so clearly logical nonsense that to condemn it for being so (as some commentators have done) misses the point. The intent is obviously sarcastic — the speaker is really saying, “As if there was something in the world that I care less about”.

However, this doesn’t explain how it came about in the first place. Something caused the negative to vanish even while the original form of the expression was still very much in vogue and available for comparison. Stephen Pinker, in The Language Instinct, points out that the pattern of intonation in the two versions is very different.

There’s a close link between the stress pattern of I could care less and the kind that appears in certain sarcastic or self-deprecatory phrases that are associated with the Yiddish heritage and (especially) New York Jewish speech. Perhaps the best known is I should be so lucky!, in which the real sense is often “I have no hope of being so lucky”, a closely similar stress pattern with the same sarcastic inversion of meaning. There’s no evidence to suggest that I could care less came directly from Yiddish, but the similarity is suggestive. There are other American expressions that have a similar sarcastic inversion of apparent sense, such as Tell me about it!, which usually means “Don’t tell me about it, because I know all about it already”. These may come from similar sources.

So it’s actually a very interesting linguistic development. But it is still regarded as slangy, and also has some social class stigma attached. And because it is hard to be sarcastic in writing, it loses its force when put on paper and just ends up looking stupid. In such cases, the older form, while still rather colloquial, at least will communicate your meaning — at least to those who really could care less.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ico1.htm

[HannahP 119]

^oh darling, don't be such a bore

[one...two...tree 2,762]

^oh darling, don't be such a bore

I find the history of words and phrases interesting.

[Danno 1,228]

All this really does is push back the initial African migration further back in time.

You see Hal, this is why many get such a laugh at folks like you......

You "hang on to old ideas" even when new and substantial evidence presents its self.

I could not care less which theory turns out to be accurate, why do you care?

I disagree with your politics, but I applaud you for being one of the few people who gets that phrase right.

I don't know why so many use it the other way... it never even makes sense considering what they are trying to say.