New Ancient Human DNA Found

[Hashi Lebwohl]

From the New York Times. Baffling 400,000-Year-Old Clue to Human Origins

The main point is that that not only is this the oldest known instance of human ancestor DNA discovered thus far, but it belongs to a group called Denisovans (I am unfamiliar with that group) and was found in a location (Spain) which is thousands of miles from every other known Denisovan location found to date. Anthropologists are now going to have to rethink their positions about which groups were located where and when, and how they might have interacted. This isn't just one guy saying "oh, look what I found"; no, apparently the extracted DNA has already been independently verified so the find is legitimate.

We are still suffering from a lack of evidence to give us a clear picture of the history of our earliest ancestors. I would say "if only they had invented writing 150,000 years ago" but how do we know they didn't have a written language? Just because we haven't found it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. *shrug*

Fascinating stuff.

edit: d'oh! my typos have absolutely nothing to do with that Shiner I was drinking at the time. honest. really.

[Fist and Faith]

Here we go. Minus the green. Heh
Baffling 400,000-Year-Old Clue to Human Origins

[TheFallen]

From the New York Times. [irl=www.nytimes.com etc etc

Aww Fist... I rather liked Hashi's new Web 2.0 html tag... [irl], huh? Presumably only used for something that really REALLY happened.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

We may have to start having [irl] tags. Pics or it didn't happen, am I right?

[Vraith]

The first time I ran across the Denisovans...it wasn't that long ago, maybe a year or two or three or four?? [my brain does funny things with time...the connections are rubbery] I was sure it was a hoax, and didn't even bother to check for at least a few months, when they popped up again.

Anyway, I saw an article on the same topic elsewhere [though probably from the same original source] and there are several oddities in that sample location as well as other things related to where we find remnants of Denisovan and Neandertal DNA in modern populations.

We don't know...I don't know if we ever can/will without some sort of time-traveling device...whether Denisovans/Neandertal and/or the Homo-sapiens who overlapped them had writing or not, at least of the modern kind.

However, there IS evidence for all three groups that indicates usage of symbols...and what is written language except symbols?
So, I'd guess they had the capacity for it at least to some extent...but probably made extremely limited use of it because until you have reached a certain level of security, leisure, and technology, complex writing isn't very useful. There is probably a paradigm shifting point, or social/technical platform/level where the time-energy involved in creating and using writing changes from being difficult/inefficient...wasted energy...to efficient, energy-saving.

P.S....the [irl] tag had me belly laughing and my wife looking at me funny, even if you did it accidentally. Brilliant.