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Archaeologists discover half a million-year-old wooden structure -- and it's not built by Homo sapiens

The researchers don’t know which ancient human species made the structure and the tools, but it’s unlikely to have been Homo sapiens. The earliest fossils of Homo sapiens found so far date from around 300,000 years ago and were found in Israel, Dull told CNN. He believes the people who made the structure were cognitively sophisticated and it would be very exciting to figure out who constructed this.

m3t00 ,
@m3t00@lemmy.world avatar

looks like a prop rod for a big box trap. jk www.google.com/search?q=500+000+years+ago

DeathsEmbrace ,

If fossilization is the only way for you to recognize history its never going to be complete you will always be missing fragments that changes everything. I guarantee you their are billions if not trillions of species missing because we can only determine by fossilization.

PersnickityPenguin ,

Here’s the nature article. I’ve been meaning to read it but have been by had the time.

www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9

bert_brause ,

Thanks mate!

Hexadecimalkink ,

I’ve seen enough films to know someone broke their time machine

tallwookie ,

to a certain extent, a wooden structure is just a bunch of wooden spears stacked in a specific way. anyone who can figure out hand-axes and spears can build a fence or a house. homo erectus or whichever genus it was werent idiots.

Mouselemming ,

Assuming they weren’t idiots is a bit of a reach if they were our ancestors, or outsmarted by our ancestors

elbarto777 ,

That’s not how evolution works, though. Our ancestors could have very well been way smarter than us, but didn’t have enough time to accumulate enough knowledge for significant technology advancement. Then in came us, reproduced like rabbits, survived better the current conditions, and bam. No more ancestors.

I’m not saying this is what happened. I’m saying that just assuming that “our ancestors were less than us” is also quite the reach.

Maybe 10,000 years from now, “people” will say that our ancestors (that is, us), were smarter than them, except for the whole fucking up the climate. Or maybe not. Evolution is chaotic.

frezik ,

There’s some theories out there that Neanderthals were smarter than Homo Sapiens, but they didn’t form larger social structures. That’s part of our evolutionary advantage.

theodewere ,
@theodewere@kbin.social avatar

above a 235-meter waterfall on the border between Zambia and the Rukwa Region of Tanzania, at the edge of Lake Tanganyika

this must have been an awesome sight at the time.. they were real masters of their environment from a strategic position like that.. tremendous access to resources, and perhaps easily defensible against other hostile hominids.. at least the best view around, which is worth a lot in the Stone Age both economically and spiritually..

Pyr_Pressure ,

I imagine it may not have been 235m tall 500,000 years ago

jmd_akbar ,

Oh that was Bob…

/j

In all seriousness, this is such a cool find…

iAmTheTot ,
@iAmTheTot@kbin.social avatar

Could be Neanderthals, no?

Lycerius ,

No. It was found in a region Neanderthals never inhabited.

iAmTheTot ,
@iAmTheTot@kbin.social avatar

Ah, just looked at the time range.

soupspoon ,

I read this in the voice of Zoidberg

captainlezbian ,

I’d be much more concerned if a half million year old structure was built by homo sapiens

Blapoo ,

Why?

snooggums ,
@snooggums@kbin.social avatar

Homo sapians didn't exist a half million years ago.

Blapoo ,

As far as we know. Shouldn’t be concerning :)

DragonTypeWyvern ,

Yes, it should be, because that would double the age of the species.

Blapoo ,

Can you explain why that would be concerning though? I would celebrate that richness of history.

Pregnenolone ,

Mostly because we’ve been studying H. Sapiens for a long time so being so wrong would suggest a big gap in a dating methodology and the way we’ve tracked human migration of their history.

elbarto777 ,

Why should it be concerning as opposed to, say, fascinating?

robdor ,

Yeah but what about time traveling homo sapiens?

Honytawk ,

Those still don’t exist now

Efwis ,

Curious, why do you say that?

Fondots ,

Like others and the article said, it predates when we believe homo sapiens first evolved by a few hundred thousand years.

So if it was built by H. Sapiens either A. We really missed the mark on when we first evolved and we need to go back and really examine our findings, or B. Time travel shenanigans.

Hint: it’s pretty much definitely not B.

blargerer ,

Or C this thing was dated incorrectly (which still would be my guess tbh).

thallamabond ,

Dating wood can get really specific, sometimes narrowing down the year structures were built.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology

Unfortunately this structure is too old for this method

Fondots ,

Certainly an option, and that crossed my mind as well. But in the context of this part of thread, it kind of seemed like we were taking it for granted that the structure was as old as they claim for the sake of argument.

chaogomu ,

While radiocarbon dating is limited to about 50k years, there are other methods that work quite well. Potassium–argon dating can be used to date clay layers, but in more accurate for lava flows...

Other than that, you look for soil layers and look for global (or known local) events, then figure a date for those.

There can still be error, but less than you'd think. Tens of thousands of years at this scale, not hundreds.

maporita ,

There is always an error. The important thing (apart from eliminating bias) is to know the magnitude. Radio chronological analysis is well understood and laboratories can reliably report the magnitude of the error (or more specifically the uncertainty) accompanying any determination of age. But news articles rarely publish it.

In this case the age is quoted as “at least 476,000 years” so we can infer a precision estimate of plus or minus 1,000 years.

Efwis ,

They already have fossil footprints on photographic record of h. Sapient and dinosaurs roaming together. I’ll see if I can find a pic to post. There are a lot of fossil records predating what the Bible says happened.

Efwis ,

The photo I was talking about. Someone tried to claim it was fake, but dating proved it wasn’t.

https://i.imgur.com/PBQmfNX.jpg

Squibbles ,

There’s an interview with one of the researchers who found this on quirks and quarks last weekend. Quirks and quarks is a long running science show on CBC in Canada. Rather interesting, the scientist said at first they thought maybe the flood waters had washed the wood into that formation or something but there are apparently clear tool marks and signs it was deliberately formed.

theodewere ,
@theodewere@kbin.social avatar

are we looking at the house of the mother and father of us all

Qwaffle_waffle ,

Don’t open the bedroom door…

ShittyBeatlesFCPres ,

Truly astonishing that hominids had the instinct to build couch cushion forts long before couches, cushions, or forts were even invented.

elbarto777 ,

Instinct?

And if they built couch cushion forts, then they invented the couch, the cushions and the forts.

Marsupial ,
@Marsupial@quokk.au avatar

Truly nature is healing. Ecosystems are now abundant with couches and cushions where none existed before. It’s a return to environmental normalcy.

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