#Human Origins

[katborg82]

Homo sapiens ("thinking man") is a species of bipedal primates that first appeared during the Pleistocene epoch, around 300,000 years ago. Homo sapiens are the only species of humans still alive today.

The first members of the genus Homo trace back to around 2 million years ago somewhere in Africa, but humans really began to thrive during the last ice age. With our upright stance and adventurous nature, we spread across the globe, and with our large brains and problem solving skills, we taught ourselves to make tools, manipulate fire, and even domesticate other animals. These adaptations would lead us to conquer the world... and possibly even destroy it.

[schmergo]

I'm not like other girls, I'm 'Denny,' a girl with a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father whose toe bone was found in a cave in Siberia in 2018

[everythingismadeofchaos]

Hey uh, fellow Tumblists, Tumbloids, whatever. It's probably because she came out with a brand new video a couple of days ago and it was related to Star Wars, but I've seen a lot of noise on here about YouTuber Jenny Nicholson.

Big fan myself. However, I do feel obligated to point something out. If you enjoy Jenny Nicholson and also science, I cannot possibly speak highly enough of the great Gutsick Gibbon. She's another YouTuber who mostly does science related videos; she's currently a PhD candidate with an emphasis on human origins, and her videos are long and fun and very interesting. They're also for a wide audience. You don't have to have a STEM degree in order to appreciate her very entertaining work.

Edit: I've been trying to figure out what I really mean by this when I say I think you'll like this person too if you like Jenny Nicholson. Rather than just saying she has a similar "energy", I think what I'm talking about is a similar level of insight, thoroughness, exactitude, charisma, maybe honesty. There's just something about them both that reminds me of the other when I see one of them. They're not at all in related fields, and they really don't have a whole lot to do with each other I guess except demographics; but I honestly believe that if you like Jenny Nicholson you'll get a kick out of Gutsick Gibbon.

She's only been on for a few years but she has a lot of native ability, she works very hard, and she's got a kind of a specific unique charisma that makes her videos a whole lot of fun. She's also at the optimistic stage of youth where people do the tilting at windmills thing, and her particular windmills are mostly young Earth creationists, which is absolutely hilarious. I mean I admit she's punching down a little bit there but I think it's a worthwhile endeavor.

Just thought I'd throw it out there. I haven't seen any material about her on here so I'm kind of hoping I'm bringing valuable entertainment to some people on the website and also some future fans to GG.

[teledyn]

The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize the ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain. —Richard Feynman

The Hybrid Hypothesis: Introduction

[tomorrowusa]

The first hominins in Europe were Ukrainian. Okay, to be more accurate, we now know that the oldest record of a hominin presence in Europe is in Korolevo in western Ukraine.

These folks were Homo erectus, a species which went extinct before the Neanderthals.

Stone tools in Ukraine dated to 1.4 million years ago may be the earliest solid evidence of humans in Europe, a new study reveals. The makers of these tools likely weren't Homo sapiens but a close, now-extinct relation. Scientists analyzed finds from the archaeological site of Korolevo in western Ukraine, where researchers have unearthed stone tools, such as choppers, from the Paleolithic (2.6 million to 10,500 years ago) since the site's discovery in 1974.  The artifacts at Korolevo were made by hominins — the group that includes modern humans and the extinct species more closely related to humans than any other animal — but it's unknown which species created them. Other hominins reached Europe long before Homo sapiens did. [ ... ] The earliest stone tools at Korolevo may be about 1.4 million years old, the scientists found — meaning the site contains the earliest known evidence of hominins in Europe. "Confidently dated early hominin sites are scarce in Europe," Toshiyuki Fujioka, a senior researcher of cosmogenic nuclide dating at Spain's National Research Center on Human Evolution who did not participate in this study, told Live Science. "This study provides a much-needed reliably dated chronological site to add fuel to our discussion on ancient human migration."  While the tools are too old to be the work of either modern humans or our closest extinct relatives, Neanderthals and Denisovans, they could be the work of Homo erectus, an extinct human species that first appeared in Africa about 2 million years ago and later spread to Asia and Europe, the researchers said. 

The so called "young Earth creationists" like Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson effectively think that Homo erectus or other hominin relatives did not exist because the universe is just over 6,000 years old. 😕

BTW, one practice I find confusing is that in the same article the term "human" is used BOTH to specifically denote Homo sapiens AND to refer to to all species in the genus Homo. Scientists and science journalists need to address this issue. Call me a sapiensist, but I personally use "human" only for Homo sapiens.

This chart from The Economist gets the terminology right.

BONUS TRACK v češtině: Czech scientists had a lot to do with the recent research at Korolevo. So if you know any Czech, you might enjoy this vid from the Czech Republic's Academy of Sciences.

[felipithecus]

If you know me in real life, you probably know I save my nerdiest, most sincere love for anthropology-related things. Lucy is a really really sweet Australopithecus afarensis specimen found in Ethiopia in 1974. She has been dated to about 3.2 million years ago and helped us learn a whole lot about early hominins. . (The doodle is just a general A. afarensis, but I am calling her Lucy because I feel like it) -- Moi -- May 2019

[jtem]

Science is gone. It's all gone, replaced by Dogma.

There's nothing "Kooky" about Aquatic Ape theory. In fact, the mainstream has adopted it. You may have noticed yourself that humans managed to spread onto all six inhabitable continents starting long, Long, LONG before anyone got around to inventing anything more complicated than a dugout canoe. And, the mainstream has long accepted that they did this following the coast.

Wait. "Following the coast" is only part of it. Nobody believes that they carried an African savanna on their backs, not even the status quo. Nobody believes there were an abundance of fast food restaurants for them to stop at. Nope. So when everyone agrees that they were following the coast, what they mean is that they were exploiting marine resources in order to sustain themselves. After all, everyone's got to eat, right? So if they were on the coast they had to be finding food on that coast..marine resources..Aquatic Ape.

"Coastal Dispersal"

Our ancestors spread across the globe -- they "Dispersed" -- along water's edge. They dispersed along the coast..

"Coastal Dispersal."

That's what it is called: Coastal dispersal. Even the mainstream accepts coastal dispersal and coastal dispersal *Is* Aquatic Ape Theory. Coastal dispersal posits that they lived waterside, they survived by exploiting marine resources. Modern day "Aquatic Ape" theory simply takes this further. It uses this fact which we all agree on to explain observations, data, and to posit a model for human evolution. "Aquatic Ape" takes something we all agree on and builds from there. That's all Aquatic Ape does.

There's more to it. The human brain is dependent upon DHA, an Omega-3, which we never even evolved a means to better synthesize ourselves until long after so called "Modern Humans" were on the scene!

I am *So* not a fan of molecular dating (it exaggerates age) and I hate DNA evidence because none of us can see it. We have to accept the word of whoever it is "Reporting" this evidence to us. But, there is supposed to be a human adaptation, an evolved ability to better synthesize DHA and according to the those who say they found it, it dates to about 80k years ago. Compare this to the usual dates for the evolution of so called "Modern" humans, which is 200,000 to 300,000 years!

What am I saying? I'm saying that humans, our big brains required a diet rich in DHA in order for us to have evolved big brains in the first place, and the only environment that could provide such a diet was and is the water. DHA is abundant in seafood, it's not on dry land.

So Aquatic Ape Theory takes *Two* things that everyone agrees on -- Coastal Dispersal & the necessity of a DHA rich environment -- and build from there. Kooky? Not in the least. But it does dare to question the status quo.

This is how the status quo reacts towards dissension:

[wildcat2030]

6. We’re a sensitive species Evolution made us more emotionally exposed than we like to imagine. Like domestic dogs, with whom we share many genetic adaptations, such as greater tolerance for outsiders, and sensitivity to social cues, human hypersociability has come with a price: emotional vulnerabilities. We are more sensitive to how people around us feel, and more vulnerable to social influences, we’re more prone to emotional disorders, to loneliness and to depression than our predecessors. Our complex feelings may not always be pleasant to live with, but they are part of key transformations which created large, connected communities. Our emotions are essential to human collaborations. This is a far less reassuring view of our place in the world than the one we had even five years ago. But seeing ourselves as selfish, rational and entitled to a privileged place in nature hasn’t worked out well. Just read the latest reports about the state of our planet. If we accept that humans are not a pinnacle of progress, then we cannot just wait for things to turn out right. Our past suggests that our future won’t get better unless we do something about it.

Six recent discoveries that have changed how we think about human origins

[hirotheinkling]

Here’s my illustration of a Homo erectus man carrying a freshly hunted deer in what is now Java, Indonesia! This individual is from a population that lived along the Solo River in Java at around 117,000 to 108,000 years ago, which is the last known record of the species.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

“We cannot hope to understand Gurdjieff unless we attempt to share his sense of the historical significance of spiritual traditions. He knew that periodic renewals are inevitable, but he was convinced that there is an eternal unchanging core of wisdom to which mankind has always had access. He frequently referred to traditions four or five thousand years old, that were still preserved when he travelled in Asia, as well as to more ancient teachings going back to human origins.”

~ J.G.Bennett, 'Gurdjieff: Making a New World'

[unwelcome-ozian]

Hey, again. Last night another peice came into my mind regarding human genetic material, blood purity and racism. There is a lot of evidence that points to the orgins of modern human consciousness evolving in Africa. Those originating from this area typically have the highest melanin expression of anyone. A lot of this evidence and history has been intentionally destroyed and white washed. Egyptian library being destroyed, scuplters with African features being destroyed, Jesus being white washed, and Budda being depicted with stretched earlobes and bantu knots, which are Africa traditions. So why do belief systems like nazism consider humans who retained higher levels of melanin expression to be the least pure?

I met an interesting woman the other day. Without getting into all the details of our conversation, she shared with me that when she recognizes a demon she sees their hair turn blonde. I don't believe all blondes are demons, thats ridiculous lol. There are many factors at play but I believe there is real significance to what she shared with me, I can't stop thinking about it, and wondering how I could decipher what she is seeing.

T.W. Racism; T.W. Antisemitism (ideas and history in the some of the links may be triggering)

If I understand you correctly, you are asking, " Why (when given scientific evidence to suggest that humans originated from Africa, as evidenced in Human Genome Project, that would disprove science stating otherwise) groups continue to embrace ideas found in Nazism and continue to maintain a belief in the possibility and advancement of “racial purity”. 

My answer is there is probably not one reason but many.  Because white-supremist groups that influence Nazism were birthed out of a culture that already held the belief in the supremacy of “white-ness”, the groups did not suddenly become “white-supremist” because of “science” that started with the assumptions of supremacy and then looked for reasons to back their claim, and they are not going to change with the discovery of better science.

For those whose only reason for joining a group was the “science”, maybe the new evidence has changed their mind, but the groups were formed to garner power and influence, and the beliefs of the groups were not formed to prove anything rationally.  The beliefs give the members of those groups meaning.  For some it could mean a sense of power to meet a feeling of powerlessness.  For some they connect with a sense of identity or destiny and purpose, whether an identity formed from birth or an identity adopted when their brains were searching for a way to navigate their world.  For some they might connect with a sense of belonging.  For some they offer an explanation or relieve a feeling of chaos or fear related to the changes.  For some they had spiritual meaning. For some they satisfied a desire for revenge regarding a feeling of offense.  

It would seem that white-supremist groups build on white supremist beliefs that already exist within a person and then add then add details that connect to those other points of connection.  In this way, others become the scapegoats for unresolved feelings, and thoughts and actions toward “purifying” whiteness maintain a sense of “calm” within one’s brain.  At the same time critical thinking is limited within the group through the use of control tactics and propaganda.  

Changing beliefs often requires an openness to think critically, ask questions, to challenge and investigate beliefs.  Because the leaders of these groups are able to exploit the resources from those who follow their beliefs, it is not in their best interest to promote questioning or descent.  If however, one’s beliefs are challenged through other areas where they have found connects, cognitive dissonance may occur in such a way that someone is able to embrace a different belief, and an individual may be motivated to consider a different way of thinking.  At this point, if an individual may be willing to embrace science that informed a different belief.

Below I have included several links that discuss some of the white supremicist and nationalistic thoughts that were embraced by the Nazi Party and some of the ideas that continue to be embraced by Neo-Nazis, Volkish and other white-supremicist groups today.  Likely not all groups or members of groups believe every belief, and I have not included every possible nuance of every belief held by these groups.

White supremacy and western imperialism:

link

link

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Racist theories and science embraced by Nazis

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Volkish Movement and influence on Nazism

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Formation of Ideas regarding German Master Race and Racial Purity.

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Neo-Nazi movement

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Modern science of human origins

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Beliefs and changing them

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I hope this helps with understanding the complexity surrounding these ideas and beliefs.

~Josha

[jantaclaus79]

Well... I drew this..... what does it feel like to you?

Please share no matter how old this post gets!

[melcowpland]

Boncuklu Tarla - Oldest Human Settlement c11,000BC!

At school we were taught that until about 6000BC humans were hunter gatherers, or cave men. It was the stone age with small family groups roaming and hunting. Of course there is evidence to support this but it seems this story, like many others we have been told is not being updated with new information, especially if that information might cause a hiccup in post modern perceptions of reality…

[joerojasburke]

"Traveling" by Sally Saul (1998)

Australopithecus afarensis diorama at the American Museum of Natural History in New York