Surprise discovery “fundamentally changes” history of humans and Neanderthals in northwest Europe
Surprise discovery “fundamentally changes” history of humans and Neanderthals in northwest Europe
cosmosmagazine.com
Surprise discovery “fundamentally changes” history of humans and Neanderthals in northwest Europe
There's a lot of domain terminology that's fairly opaque to non-specialists. Anyone care to take a stab at summarizing the revelation for us lay-people?
Humans and Neanderthals were neighbours for longer than previously thought. Also, we’re maybe back to humans making more tools.
Is there more?
Oh. "Fundamentally changes" for paleontologists, not for your typical person. Got it.
Basically they revisited a former excavation site and found new evidence, tools and human fossils, that suggests Homo Sapiens arrived a fair bit earlier in the region than previously assumed, extending the time Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals lived there simultaneously. They also found tools that were previously, due to their age, attributed to the Neanderthals and could now be identified as part of the Homo Sapiens toolkit. All in all it rewrites part of our species history during that time, especially its migration into europe.
Just means that their ignorant and vague theories of the past are now shaken up, leading to new, even more ignorant and vague theories of the past. None if it has any relevance to modern life at all.
Just a self-sustaining cash-grab. You could get rid of the entire discipline and the effect on current events would be zero.
Not sure if you forgot the /s
The back story of humanity is very interesting, and informative. It gives us explanations for how and why we live the way we do today. It shows the basis of our morals and attitudes, and shows us patterns we can learn from.
Dismissing an entire field of study is like kids who hate learning trigonometry or algebra at school because they don't think they'll ever use it.