Make up your minds?

[circumspice]

Same artifacts... two different views?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... -art-human

and

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8448660.stm

[Minimalist]

The rehabilitation of HNS is a slow process.

The way things are going it seems that the "speciation" of humans is an idea which needs serious revisiting. Not too long ago when it was announced that HNS had the FOX2P (speech) gene ( Just Like US!) there was a debate over did they get it from HSS or did HSS get it from them.


Surprisingly, there seemed to be little discussion of the likely probability that both HSS and HNS inherited it from their remote common ancestor...Homo Erectus...or "Gramps", as Rokcet calls him.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Gramps must have had speech! You need speech to cooperate effectively to build 'high-tech' floatation devices capable of supporting and moving groups of people. And you need speech to cooperate within that group once you're on that floatation device in the middle of the sea.

So we can conclude that HE must have developed speech by at least about 1,5 million years BP, because that's when Meganthropus paleojavanensis, an HE sub branch, had already reached Java... across the seas!

'Speech', BTW, could also be a sophisticated sign language. Like deaf people use.

And from that 'boating' we can draw another conclusion as well: HE had recognised social hierarchies when they did that! Because a group of people on a boat needs a captain – more fasionably: an 'executive-in-charge' – to make decisions for the whole group and to coordinate activities to implement those decisions. Or that boat isn't going anywhere. So the concept of 'boss'/Führer – leadership – in a social structure, is also, among hominids, at least 1,5 million years old!

Neither H pekinensis, H heidelbergensis, and HNS, nor HS(S) developed those capabilities out of unexplained sparks of brilliance. They merely inherited them, physically and culturally, from their ancestor. Gramps! So that leaves the question: what caused those 'sparks of brilliance' in Gramps?

I'd speculate the answer is: neccessity! The world changed. Sea levels rose, cutting off and changing Gramps' traditional routes along the coasts. So he and his brethren had to change – adapt – too. And adapt he did! So it's all been going along pretty basic evolutionary rules, really.

I bet Gramps knew how to make and use fire too.

[Minimalist]

'Speech', BTW, could also be a sophisticated sign language. Like deaf people use.

Yes, even sign language implies the inherent "cognition" (to borrow Ishtar's word) to be able to mentally form and transmit ideas. Again, it is the idea of some cultural awareness that matters. HE, based on the evidence of seriously injured members of the group surviving (and thus being tended to by other members of the group) had to have had some sense of "community." Lions hunt in packs, too. But an injured lion lives or dies on its own. The rest do not tend to its needs while its recovering. HE overcame that limitation. I can't believe that they did that without some ability to think and communicate.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Lions hunt in packs, too. But an injured lion lives or dies on its own. The rest do not tend to its needs while its recovering. HE overcame that limitation. I can't believe that they did that without some ability to think and communicate.

Sure, for lions.
Chimps, gorillas, whales/dolphins, dogs, and elephants – to name only a few – are an entirely different matter though, imo. They clearly care for injured tribe/pod/clan/family members. Even, in many documented cases, for individuals of another species: homo sapiens.
So the 'capability of care for community members' is not an exclusively distinctive human quality.

[circumspice]

The one photo of the artifact shown is a pierced and stained/painted scallop shell. In one article, it has been interpreted as a piece of adornment/jewelry. So how did it evolve into a container, used for mixing and storing pigments to be used as makeup/body paint? It seems to me that a pierced object makes a poor container... Unless there are other artifacts that are not pictured, that is a somewhat senseless premise.

[Minimalist]

I got the impression that it was another artifact rather than the one shown. The article is a little vague in its references to which artifact it means at any given point.

[Minimalist]

They clearly care for injured tribe/pod/clan/family members.

Not an infant, R/S. If you have evidence of chimps or dogs, etc. caring for a seriously injured adult (bringing food, water, tending to a wound) I'd love to read it.

We have HE skeletons of individuals with fractured leg bones which have healed...usually badly...but the point is that these individuals lived long enough for the bones to heal. How long for a leg fracture to heal? 6 weeks to 3 months depending on severity?

[Rokcet Scientist]

The one photo of the artifact shown is a pierced and stained/painted scallop shell. In one article, it has been interpreted as a piece of adornment/jewelry. So how did it evolve into a container, used for mixing and storing pigments to be used as makeup/body paint? It seems to me that a pierced object makes a poor container... Unless there are other artifacts that are not pictured, that is a somewhat senseless premise.

Pierced scallop shells, and other shellfish's shells, are the rule on the bottom of the sea. We humans aren't the only ones that feed on them. So do zillions of predatory starfish and sea slugs. They envelope the closed shell and simply drill a hole in it to squirt a muscle relaxing poison in and/or suck the meat out. The shell opens and it's lunchtime! So there are billions of naturally pierced scallop shells to be found on the bottom. Silent remains of unspeakable tragedies.

[Rokcet Scientist]

They clearly care for injured tribe/pod/clan/family members.

Not an infant, R/S. If you have evidence of chimps or dogs, etc. caring for a seriously injured adult (bringing food, water, tending to a wound) I'd love to read it.

What do you mean 'evidence'? Have you forgotten the countless hours you watched Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, and Flipper, Min?
Are you eating enough proteins?

We have HE skeletons of individuals with fractured leg bones which have healed...usually badly...but the point is that these individuals lived long enough for the bones to heal. How long for a leg fracture to heal? 6 weeks to 3 months depending on severity?

Lassie would bring you food every day like clockwork! You know that!
Flipper couldn't do that of course, being in the water, so Flipper would go for help!
Is it coming back to you now?

[Minimalist]

Evidence. I.e. not fairy tales or Hollywood scripts.

I've had 3 collies in my life and while one was a fabulous frisbee catcher not one ever pulled my ass out of a well.

[uniface]

It happens, Min. But you've got to be resonating on the same frequency with them.

The wife adopted a little runt kitten, Smokey. Another cat here, an adolescent herself (Lacey) immediately adopted her and mothered her incessantly. One bitter night last winter, Lacey went crazy, pawing at the bedroom door from outside and meowing. Wouldn't stop. Highly agitated. The wife went on a whole house search with her, looking for what she was bothered about. Finally, she opened the door to the (unheated) garage. In zips little Smokey, shivering. She'd slipped out, un-noticed, on a trip out to the garbage can a couple hours earlier.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Another time, Kaya did something similar, leading the wife to her litter box in the basement. There was a big, scary spider in it she was afraid to deal with herself.

True stories.

[Minimalist]

No doubt that animals' senses of hearing and smell are far more advanced than our's. And once a year there is always some great story of an animal rescuing a human. Most recently it was a dog who took on a cougar to save its owner.

Still, those are rare enough to be "news."

[Minimalist]

From Science Daily this morning. Timely.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 083909.htm

Primates' Social Intelligence Overestimated: Primates Groom Others If Afraid They'd Lose Fight

[uniface]

So if my wife straightens my shirt collar, it's because she's afraid I'll beat her if she doesn't ?

And if I pick lint foosties she can't see off her clothes before she goes out, it's because I'm afraid she'll un-man me in my sleep ?

The puerility of ideas like that is patent.