Homo Just Became Less Special

[Anomalocaris]

You went to stony brook?  Who was your advisor?

Robert Shrock of the YITP was my masters thesis advisor,  why,  you know people there?

Indirectly.   My parents are friends with professors Yang, van Nieuwenhuizen, and a couple of others formerly in the institute of theoretical physics.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Are we still surprised by this?

We know there were several other now extinct humanoid species we are closely related to, it's really not surprising they could use tools and I'd assume they could probably talk as well. Neanderthals survived for hundredes of thousands of years in then austere Europe, I doubt they could have done that without at least primitive tools.

Neaderthals used so-called "Mousterian" tool kits, more primitive than the kits used by H. Sapiens' "Aechulean" kits. Mousterian tool kits used by Neanderthals didn't really evolve much, but they are documented in the fossil record.

[Minimalist]

The dating methods are fawlty. The samples are contaminated. The archaeologists have a theory and are making the results fit. The speed of light wasn't always constant. God put them there......

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

You forgot "the devil is trying to trick us."

[Anomalocaris]

I always thought God was devil's invention intended to divert us from the truth of the fossils.

[Jackalope]

Neat article, and I'm not really surprised.

Is it bad that I read the subject as "Homo just became less fabulous"?

[Anomalocaris]

Neat article, and I'm not really surprised.

Is it bad that I read the subject as "Homo just became less fabulous"?

You confuse "special" in the sense of "uniquely powerfully and proactively self-destructive" with "fabulous".

[Minimalist]

Going out on a limb here but this....

“The cores and flakes we recovered are clearly knapped and are not the result of accidental or natural rock fracture,” Harmand said. “The Lomekwi 3 knappers were able to deliver sufficient intentional force to detach repeatedly series of adjacent and superposed flakes and then to continue knapping by rotating the cores.”

Implies not only a plan but the intelligence to execute a plan.  Add in the fact that they found "dozens" of artifacts and it is clear that the plan was executed multiple times.

[Anomalocaris]

I think chimps that strip branches off twigs, wet the stalk with saliva to make it sticky, and then stick the stalk down ant holes to get ants to stick to the stalk so it can get at them exhibits quite considerable planning as well as repeatable implementation.

I am not sure if the chimp brand of planning is really that different from the planning involved with the first manufactured stone tools.

[Minimalist]

Yes, but we're talking 3 million years ago.  You're getting perilously close to Australopithecus afarensis.  

[Jackalope]

I think chimps that strip branches off twigs, wet the stalk with saliva to make it sticky, and then stick the stalk down ant holes to get ants to stick to the stalk so it can get at them exhibits quite considerable planning as well as repeatable implementation.

I am not sure if the chimp brand of planning is really that different from the planning involved with the first manufactured stone tools.

Qualitatively I don't think it's much different but quantitatively its possible that champs exhibit a lower degree of intelligence than Homo precursors such as Australopithecus. They are obviously intelligent tool-users though.

Obviously I'm not a biologist.