Wow, half a million year old scratches.
Some may laugh, I’m blown away.
I can’t help trying to imagine the wonder that filled those eyes and hands, that were scratching on that shell.
Our head scratching began way long before we were human.
And I ain’t one bit surprised.
How cool to ponder… and we dear friends are at the end of that long long pageant,
what a long strange wonderful, but mostly tragic trip it’s been.
"These scratches may not look like much but they predate the existence of our species,
Homo sapiens, and upend any claim we have on symbolic thought, a requirement for language development. …"
Kate Wong
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/image-of-the-week/2014/12/10/a-modest-mussel-making-waves/
...
How does a 500,000 year old clam shell predate humanity?
Please don't tell me the human race is 5,000 years old.
Please.
Even the Archaic Homo Sapiens, (anatomic forerunners of current Homo Sapiens) are, apparently, currently, not thought to have originated prior to 400,000 yrs ago.
I think the post that you replied to referenced the "species of homo sapiens", rather than "the human race". However, if one considered species such as Cro Magnon man to be included as part of the human race, I think they did exist earlier than 500,000 years ago, and for some time after that.
I think the post that you replied to referenced the “species of homo sapiens", rather than “the human race". However, if one considered species such as Cro Magnon man to be included as part of the human race, I think they did exist earlier than 500,000 years ago, and for some time after that.
Right, and there's really no way of telling which hominin was the scribbler either. According to Chris Stringer there may have been at least four species of them in existence in the same time period. It would depend on where the shell was found. It could just as easily have been one of our Neanderthal cousins penning a shopping list!
Cap't Jack
I think the post that you replied to referenced the “species of homo sapiens", rather than “the human race". However, if one considered species such as Cro Magnon man to be included as part of the human race, I think they did exist earlier than 500,000 years ago, and for some time after that.
Right, and there's really no way of telling which hominin was the scribbler either. According to Chris Stringer there may have been at least four species of them in existence in the same time period. It would depend on where the shell was found. It could just as easily have been one of our Neanderthal cousins penning a shopping list!
Cap't Jack
Hey that’s my password! :lol:
What evidence is there that it was a human species that wrote on the shell? History says humans were gathers. So they may have just pick up the shell with writing on it already.
My observation from the many pieces of the puzzle that are coming to light from our past.
Just as we have pre-history, DNA is telling us that about 20K years ago man expanded to the many the varieties of humans that we see today with different color hair and eyes and sizes. Just like every other animals that has been domesticated. Most likely the person who wrote on the shell was of the original wild branch of mankind. Just like the cows, dogs and horses. Well, you could say just about every non-wild animals we know today.
And just like every animal that got domesticated. Domestication brought many varieties, just look at the dog, from two types to, what, over 300 breeds after domestication.
Point being. People today are most likely hybrid humans that were created at a domestication period in the past. And the original humans are no longer with us.
And that would make the shell of even move value and uniqueness.
All that on just two cups of coffee this morning.
The same people who domesticated the wild grasses and the small wild fruit into the cereal grains and fruits, vegetables and nuts that we use today. Nature did not create earth for mankind. The earth was a hostile place for early man and animals until domestication.
Just look at what was done to the dog and cow at domestication. Or even the chicken. Several new studies now claim that the light skin, blond haired people that became that way from living in northern Europe in the cold is a bunch of bunk. The ancient graves they are finding don’t support that belief.
The history that has been passed down says it was God who created humans and earth.
And when you look at the oldest Genesis from the Vedas. It says that earth is made from star dust. Then man came to be. Then God came to be.
This is quite interesting because the oldest creation stories had man on earth before God.
Then the newer Genesis stories had God creating earth for man. Then creating man.
Now take a look at God. Before God was a without form, God was in human form. Before that, half human and half animal form. Before that, God was in an all animal form. But the earliest God was not a noun. God was a meaning. That meaning was “the knowledge of mankind".
This could be a clue. If early man had domesticated man along with all the plants and animals. Then the newer Genesis stories would make sense when they say that “God/the knowledge of mankind" created man and earth.
Recap. If the oldest Genesis were talking about natural humans and the newer Genesis were talking about domesticated humans, then both Genesis stories would be correct.
Note, don’t use the Christian Genesis, it is just a modern story with scraps and little bits of the older stories.
Or maybe a Cro Magnon, was just testing the sharpness of a spear head that he just made, and there was no abstract meaning whatsoever. But even so, it seems to me that such behavior could have been a precursor to the emergence of textual behavior.
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How does a 500,000 year old clam shell predate humanity?
Please don't tell me the human race is 5,000 years old. {OK, I won't. You wouldn't believe me if I did! :zip: :lol: }
Or maybe a Cro Magnon, was just testing the sharpness of a spear head that he just made, and there was no abstract meaning whatsoever. But even so, it seems to me that such behavior could have been a precursor to the emergence of textual behavior.
Please.
The question my lad rests on how you would define "human" - but there's more fun stuff to think about.
When I saw that picture and read the write up I recalled an experience I had this past summer.
Walking in a dried creek bed scanning the rocks (as I usually do)
I found one that was about ±5' long rock,
it was sort of chert, at least high lime content, rounded smoothed at one end
with the other long and slender having a sharp edge coming to a point.
The thing slipped into my palm as though I'd chipped it to size, it felt at home,
my thumb, forefinger and middle finger slide around the "hilt" without thinking,
and the rock broadcast 'use me'.
Pretty much reflexively I found myself slicing away at a fallen branch (later even some meat)
wondering if that's how it was way back when.
Imagine, finding something like that, figuring our what it can do, figuring out how to make one's own,
one step at a time, the rest is prehistory.
Nilly Willy, bet you dollars to donuts that whoever scratched those "M"s first used that implement to pry food off tidal zone rocks.
Then after filling their bellies they had a chance to play around, absorb the world around and step by step gain more lessons.
