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New research in recent human evolution.

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  • New research in recent human evolution.

    Recent research in paleontology and evolution has further determined that evolution driven by environmental change.

    Note: my key board is malfunctioning so I cannot do citations. My 'equal' is dead. Getting a new computer

    https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/...drum-1.9835193


    Israeli Archaeologists Resolve Ages-old Evolutionary Conundrum: Enter the Elephant and the Hand Ax


    Unified theory of human evolution suggests explanation for the mystery of technological persistency: Why some tools were used for over a million years.

    There is a mystery in human evolution. As we progressed from knuckle-walking to striding, from swinging from branches to throwing rocks and then spears, surely our tools developed in parallel. Right?

    Put backwards, many assume that inferences can be made about our evolutionary state going by our industry. Right?

    Well, there’s a snag. What does it mean that stone choppers, among the earliest tools, persisted for around two million years, and stone “Acheulean” hand axes for over a million years? The upscale Levallois-style tools were also used for hundreds of thousands of years. Did our evolution stagnate in that time?

    It did not. Evolution is the nature of all things, but in thrall to neophilia (“love of the new”), and we tend to view human evolution through the prism of physical and mental change. Leaving the trees for the savanna necessitated physical and mental changes. Among other things, we grew: we’re about a third bigger than our australopithecine predecessors. Now, Dr. Meir Finkel and Prof. Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University offer a paradigm-changing interpretation, published in Science Direct (Anthropology) of the stasis in these basic tools in the context of our continuing development.

    As long as the animal environment remained stable, so did the tools we used to obtain these animals (to eat). If anything, this stability provided “safe ground” for technological and behavioral innovations, Barkai and Finkel write.

    “The paradigm says these are problems in innovation, that the hominids didn’t innovate [during that time], for whatever reasons. For instance, that Homo erectus didn’t have sufficiently developed cognition, or that there were difficulties in innovation relating to social aspects. We say the opposite!” Finkel explains to Haaretz. “There wasn’t a problem with innovation: it was conservatism by choice. Innovation has a price.”

    The myxozoan and the mosaic

    Thinking on evolution in general has been changing. For example, we tended to simplistically perceive evolution as a roughly linear procession from primitive to complex. But evolution is broader than that. Take the delight that is myxozoans: microscopic parasitic jellyfish that evolved backwards, from sublime to slime. They evolved from proper multicellular animals to single-celled ones, or a few cells; and one went so far backwards as to even lose its genes for breathing.






    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

    go with the flow the river knows . . .

    Frank

    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

  • #2
    Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post

    Note: my key board is malfunctioning so I cannot do citations. My 'equal' is dead. Getting a new computer
    It might be that all you need is a new keyboard. They're a lot cheaper to replace.

    Until then you can copy pasta this to use: =


    I'm always still in trouble again

    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

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    • #3
      Originally posted by rogue06 View Post

      It might be that all you need is a new keyboard. They're a lot cheaper to replace.

      Until then you can copy pasta this to use: =
      Yes it is cheaper, but there are other problems with the computer.
      Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
      Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
      But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

      go with the flow the river knows . . .

      Frank

      I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

      Comment


      • #4
        Source: https://www.explica.co/chimpanzees-and-humans-share-a-common-ancestor-that-lived-in-the-late-miocene.html



        Chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor that lived in the late Miocene

        To understand the origins of our lineage it is necessary to reconstruct the morphology, behavior and environment of the last common ancestor between modern humans and other apes. However, there is no scientific consensus on the phylogenetic positions of the diverse and widely distributed Miocene apes.

        These fossil apes are often at the center of the debate, as some scientists dismiss their importance in the origins of the human lineage (the “hominins”) and others confer a star role in evolution.

        According to a study published in the journal Science, these prehistoric remains can inform us about essential aspects of evolution, including the nature of our last common ancestor: a species of ape unlike any currently alive.

        The researchers reviewed the main theories about the origin of the human lineage in the Miocene, as well as the evolutionary role of the apes of that period, since the publication of “The origin of the man” 150 years agoDarwin, 1871). The work includes discoveries in the fields of comparative anatomy, paleontology, geology, genetics, phylogenetic methods, and functional morphology, among others.

        “Every extinct species is a window to the past. Chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor that lived towards the end of the Miocene. To infer what this last common ancestor between apes and humans was like, it is essential to understand what the apes that lived before the divergence were like ”, Spanish paleontologist Sergio Almecija, from the American Museum of Natural History, who is leading the research, tells SINC. The Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont and the New York Institute of Technology (USA) also participate in the study.

        Deciphering the origin of our lineage


        There are two main approaches to solving the problem of human origins: the “descending”, which is based on the analysis of living apes, especially chimpanzees; and the “ascendant”, which gives importance to the largest tree of the apes, most of which are extinct.

        In this way, some scientists assume that hominids arose from an ancestor that walked with the knuckles, similar to chimpanzees. Others argue that it was from an ancestor more similar, in some features, to part of the strange apes of the Miocene.

        “Darwin speculated that humans originated in Africa from an ancestor different from any living species. However, he remained cautious given the scarcity of fossils at the time,” Almécija explains.

        © Copyright Original Source



        Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
        Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
        But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

        go with the flow the river knows . . .

        Frank

        I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
          Source: https://www.explica.co/chimpanzees-and-humans-share-a-common-ancestor-that-lived-in-the-late-miocene.html



          Chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor that lived in the late Miocene

          To understand the origins of our lineage it is necessary to reconstruct the morphology, behavior and environment of the last common ancestor between modern humans and other apes. However, there is no scientific consensus on the phylogenetic positions of the diverse and widely distributed Miocene apes.

          These fossil apes are often at the center of the debate, as some scientists dismiss their importance in the origins of the human lineage (the “hominins”) and others confer a star role in evolution.

          According to a study published in the journal Science, these prehistoric remains can inform us about essential aspects of evolution, including the nature of our last common ancestor: a species of ape unlike any currently alive.

          The researchers reviewed the main theories about the origin of the human lineage in the Miocene, as well as the evolutionary role of the apes of that period, since the publication of “The origin of the man” 150 years agoDarwin, 1871). The work includes discoveries in the fields of comparative anatomy, paleontology, geology, genetics, phylogenetic methods, and functional morphology, among others.

          “Every extinct species is a window to the past. Chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor that lived towards the end of the Miocene. To infer what this last common ancestor between apes and humans was like, it is essential to understand what the apes that lived before the divergence were like ”, Spanish paleontologist Sergio Almecija, from the American Museum of Natural History, who is leading the research, tells SINC. The Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont and the New York Institute of Technology (USA) also participate in the study.

          Deciphering the origin of our lineage


          There are two main approaches to solving the problem of human origins: the “descending”, which is based on the analysis of living apes, especially chimpanzees; and the “ascendant”, which gives importance to the largest tree of the apes, most of which are extinct.

          In this way, some scientists assume that hominids arose from an ancestor that walked with the knuckles, similar to chimpanzees. Others argue that it was from an ancestor more similar, in some features, to part of the strange apes of the Miocene.

          “Darwin speculated that humans originated in Africa from an ancestor different from any living species. However, he remained cautious given the scarcity of fossils at the time,” Almécija explains.

          © Copyright Original Source


          There doesn't appear to be anything new in this article. Rather a short summary of what has already been known for a number of decades.

          I'm always still in trouble again

          "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
          "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
          "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

          Comment

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