Anthropology
Related: About this forumIs this stunning bracelet made by Paleolithic man for his favourite woman really 70,000 years old?
By The Siberian Times reporter02 August 2017
Startling new scientific evidence is to be reviewed by international experts which - if true - would transform our knowledge of the skills and sophistication of early man.
It is already known as the oldest stone bracelet in the world, believed to have been made not by ancient Homo sapiens but the extinct Denisovan species of early humans, and previously dated as being between 40,000 - 50,000 years old.
The bracelet was found in 2008 in so-called Stratum 11 of world famous Denisova cave in the Altai region of Siberia.
New findings suggest it could be 65,000 to 70,000 years old, long before ancient people were believed to capable of making such remarkable objects.
Maksim Kozlikin, a researcher form the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, Novosibirsk, indicated Australian specialists were among those to obtain exceptional results on the bracelet's age.
More:
http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/features/could-this-stunning-bracelet-be-65000-to-70000-years-old/
Lithos
(26,449 posts)I know people who are self-taught in ways and skills which defy the ages. Who's to argue it did not happen earlier on?
L-
Warpy
(113,130 posts)for a favorite child who was coming of age. Hunter-gatherer societies have a lot of down time.
My own favorite object is a hand axe, a beautifully ergonomic but utilitarian object until you look more closely. In the direct center is a fossilized shell embedded into the rock. It's obvious that this was designed to keep this special object not only in place, but in the center. An artist made this. The date is 250,000 years ago, before modern homo sap sap had appeared anywhere.
DRoseDARs
(6,810 posts)That's a mighty large claim, care to back it up? Your description of that object sounds like something that would completely upend modern understanding of early hominids, yet I can find zero mention of such an object.
Warpy
(113,130 posts)It's in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge. The mention was brief but the object is beautiful. I would love to see it in person.
DRoseDARs
(6,810 posts)Warpy
(113,130 posts)where the date was given as 300,000 years ago. There really isn't that much about it online and there should be, IMO.
Anthropology is opening things wide up, they're finding so much that shouldn't be there that early but indisputably is, like the copper axe found with the body of a 5500 year old corpse in the Alps some years ago or the megalith structure at Gobekli Tepe, dated to 12,000 years ago, several thousand years before people thought such refined stone work was possible.
Our ancestors might not have looked like much, but it seems they were a lot smarter than we've given them credit for.
Botany
(72,360 posts)Not Neanderthal but Homo altaiensis ... Denisovan Man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denisovan
PoindexterOglethorpe
(26,608 posts)a male for his "favourite woman".
Maybe it was made by a woman for herself. Or for her best friend.
All we know is that it's a bracelet that someone made.