[HN Gopher] 200k-year-old hand art found near a Tibetan hot spring
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200k-year-old hand art found near a Tibetan hot spring
Author : Hooke
Score : 175 points
Date : 2021-09-24 18:36 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gizmodo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gizmodo.com)
| csomar wrote:
| Given that the Tibet is particularly cold place, shouldn't these
| humans wear something to resist the cold? Can humans (or any fur-
| less animals) survive such cold climate without extra-fat or
| really good clothes?
| [deleted]
| Terr_ wrote:
| Yeah, I can't tell if the clothing is supposed to be
| historically accurate (what clothing would survive that long?)
| or whether it's only there to satisfy modern viewers.
| themgt wrote:
| Found at 14,000ft on the Tibetan Plateau. Very likely altitude
| adapted denisovans, whose genetic adaptations to living in such
| low oxygen are still present in modern day Tibetans. Really
| incredible.
| [deleted]
| loonster wrote:
| I wonder how high it was 200k years ago.
|
| Edit: another comment mentions the mountains were formed 40-50
| million years ago. So I would presume roughly the same height.
| Leherenn wrote:
| I don't have an answer, but I would say not necessarily the
| same height. Mountains do not grow all at once or at a
| constant rate. For instance, there are some parts of the
| Himalayas that are currently growing at 1-2 cm/y. It is thus
| not impossible that this place was several hundred meters
| lower 200k years ago.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Yeah, 200k is not much in geological terms.
| Sharlin wrote:
| And they're really young for mountains (which is why they're
| so high!)
| [deleted]
| adriand wrote:
| Really amazing. I find this sort of thing absolutely haunting.
| It's a vivid reminder that there is nothing particularly
| special about this moment in time: it's only special to us
| because we're living it. But their present moment was no less
| vital and immediate and real to them as this moment is to us.
| And yet, it happened so incredibly long ago!
|
| I had the same feeling when I encountered a beautiful statue of
| a woman that was created in ancient Egypt. It was in a museum
| and I lingered at the display case, essentially just gazing
| into her eyes. Her personality shone through in some
| undefinable way: it felt like encountering another human being
| across an incredible expanse of time.
|
| These moments, I find, are very poignant in the way they remind
| us of our own mortality -- but also our deep connection to our
| ancestors and to the past.
| mrspeaker wrote:
| I got the same feeling reading the "Pompeii wall graffiti".
| It's not beautiful, but it hit me hard: 2000+ years, and
| people are the same people!
| (https://kashgar.com.au/blogs/history/the-bawdy-graffiti-
| of-p...)
| jbay808 wrote:
| I noticed the same thing with a Roman marble statue! It was
| so lifelike, it felt like a real person with personality,
| draped with delicately light cloth about the shoulders and a
| keen but still vulnerable look in the eyes. It was hard to
| believe that it was made over a thousand years ago, and made
| me feel much closer as a human to both the sculptor and the
| model.
|
| Each of us feels we are the ones living in a modern age, the
| past so distant and the future so uncertain.
| dint wrote:
| https://www.billemory.com/dillard/dillard.html
| bspammer wrote:
| I disagree, there is something special about this moment in
| time. We're in an insane inflection point of human
| development. For millions of years things stayed roughly the
| same. It's really only in the last 10,000 years that stuff
| has really kicked off, and the last 300 where human
| development has gone absolutely crazy. There's several
| existential threats that might destroy civilization over the
| next few hundred years (eventually a nuke is going to fall
| into the wrong hands, not to mention climate change etc).
|
| There's a very good chance we're living the most comfortable
| lives that any creature on this planet will ever experience,
| past and future. It's truly mindblowing how lucky we are.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| In the face of accelerating change, every moment feels like
| an inflection point, and the past always looks stagnant in
| comparison. Measured from the baseline of where things are
| now, the past was so different. Measured from the baseline
| of how quickly things change now, the past was so slow.
|
| The catch is that it's true no matter when you say it from,
| so long as change is accelerating. Exponential growth is my
| favorite example. Plot y=k^t for any k from t=long time ago
| to t=T. It will look like y is at an 'insane inflection
| point,' regardless of the T you choose.
| willcipriano wrote:
| > I disagree, there is something special about this moment
| in time.
|
| Your ancestors all felt the same way. So will your
| children.
| bspammer wrote:
| It doesn't really matter what my ancestors felt, it's
| blatently obvious that there's more going on right now,
| and faster than 10,000 years ago. Back then, you'd be
| lucky to see a single revolutionary invention in a
| lifetime. Now we're seeing them every decade, if not
| annually.
|
| I don't disagree that my descendents will be justified in
| feeling the same way, as long as the exponential curve
| keeps on going and civilization doesn't end.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Is this really true? If someone from 1950s America time-
| travelled to the present day, is there anything at all
| that they conceptually couldn't fathom?
|
| Maybe if you transported someone from 1950s China to
| present-day China, they would be more shocked, but a
| present day suburban home in 2021 is not all that
| markedly different than a 1950s home -- and neither is
| the workplace, the commute, the cars. Mostly replaced
| paper with screens and tvs with bigger, flatter tvs.
|
| The most conceptually difficult thing would be
| understanding that wireless telegraphs with cameras are
| pocket-sized and everywhere.
| bspammer wrote:
| On the scales we're talking about, I would include the
| 1950s as "present-day". I would include the last 300
| years as "particularly special"
| adventured wrote:
| > is there anything at all that they conceptually
| couldn't fathom?
|
| Well you set the bar artificially high with that
| phrasing. 1950s Americans, or any citizens around the
| world at the time, would be more than astounded by 3-4
| billion people being essentially always connected on a
| gigantic, seemingly instantaneous global communications
| and commerce network. The modern smartphone would
| similarly astound, what they can do all-in-one and the
| quality of it (the audio, the video, the music, movies,
| news, communication, click-button services & purchasing,
| digitization of money, the quality of digital photographs
| and how many you can take with no regard for space, it
| would all astound). Someone from the 1980s would be just
| as astounded by a recent iPhone, they'd feel like a time
| traveler.
|
| People in 2007 were truly astounded by the iPhone. It
| almost felt like a product delivered from the future. It
| put all industry jaws on the floor and reset the grid for
| everyone in the tech industry, without exception. Maybe
| people have now widely forgotten the shock effect it had,
| I haven't forgotten.
|
| That said, the parent's claim was an exaggeration. We're
| not inventing/harnessing such extraordinary stuff every
| year. Maybe a few things of note per decade globally.
|
| CRISPR, cracking the human genome, modern antibiotics,
| Internet, Web, transistor and microprocessor, software,
| computers including personal, space flight, powered
| flight, various engines, electricity and electric light,
| fossil fuels, nuclear power and weapons, various green
| revolution outcomes (food production), etc.
|
| There are several dozen things that can be added to that
| list from the last 100-150 years. A few per decade
| globally might be a reasonable peg.
| gumby wrote:
| > it's blatently obvious that there's more going on right
| now...
|
| Blatantly _obvious_? Not to me. I 'm a technologist (e.g.
| wrote a bunch of code the results of which you use every
| day) with a degree in history and in many ways ancient
| Greece seems more vital than today.
| gumby wrote:
| Well, that is unclear. Writing from Europe 100-1500 years
| ago suggests that most people felt quite different about
| time and did not have the impression the GP espoused. The
| overwhelming impression seems to be that things had
| fallen since the end of the (western) Roman Empire; there
| was a contrast in millenarian movements in the 10th
| century as the turn of the millennium approached.
|
| However people are not uniformly distributed and such
| belief does not seem to have been the case in, say, the
| contemporaneous Arab world.
|
| All that being said: I agree with you that claims that
| our era is somehow amazingly unique are way overblown.
| sgregnt wrote:
| Just wanted to share my opinion. I'm not sure if the number
| of existential threads for humanity is now larger than 200k
| years ago. My take would be it is probably much smallest
| than even 1k years ago. Nukes will not destroy civilization
| (it might be horrible disaster on the scale of WW2 but not
| civ. distruction.). Arguably we are now have better ways to
| adapt to climate changes and it or meteorite impact. And
| who knows, in another 100 years we might be an
| interplanetary species. AI might not be a thread like some
| suggests, and the up sides to productivity are enormous.
| ugh123 wrote:
| I think you could say that about the industrial revolution.
| However, the events in the past 20 years seem to indicate
| humanity is moving backwards
|
| >There's a very good chance we're living the most
| comfortable lives that any creature on this planet will
| ever experience, past and future. It's truly mindblowing
| how lucky we are.
|
| The disparity between the haves and the have-nots in this
| moment in time would truly bewilder anyone in ancient
| history if they could see whats happening today. There are
| likely _more_ people living in poverty today than there
| were 200 years ago, in absolute numbers - not percentage.
| yostrovs wrote:
| In percentage, poverty is probably at its lowest in
| history.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Could it be that in the distant future if you at human
| history (or even the history of life on Earth) from far
| enough away to smooth out the little bumps, it turns out
| that we 20th and 21st century humans are in fact in a
| pretty unremarkable point along an exponential curve?
| katzgrau wrote:
| Def, as far as we know, we're just a little slope upward.
|
| And I'm not sure what the Y axis is even measuring.
| bspammer wrote:
| If that's true (and I hope it is, because it means things
| go very well for humanity), we're still one of the first
| generations to see major change _within_ our short lives.
| For millions of years, technology and tools stayed
| roughly the same from generation to generation. I'm 25,
| and the technological progress since I was born is mind-
| blowing.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > we're still one of the first generations to see major
| change _within_ our short lives.
|
| One could argue that people were seeing major
| technological/scientific/philosophical/cultural changes
| within their lives at least as far back as the
| Enlightenment (and I'd argue much further back than
| that), and what has actually changed is just that the
| number of people affected by those changes has grown
| (perhaps exponentially). Likewise in the future the rate
| of change we're so impressed by now may look laughable,
| and that's even ignoring the possibility of significant
| lifespan extension in the future!
| spullara wrote:
| Only if we populate the galaxy. Which isn't that hard if
| we try. But even then we lived at the origin of the
| galactic species. Pretty special.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument
| tshaddox wrote:
| The Universe is a lot bigger than our galaxy though. Why
| is it more special to live near the beginning of humans
| populating the galaxy than, say, living near the
| beginning of humans populating that new subdivision
| they're developing out at the edge of my town?
| f0e4c2f7 wrote:
| I know just the feeling you mean. I get it when I read
| history too, especially biographies that cover a whole life.
|
| I can't remember where I originally read this but once
| someone suggested that you could also invert this idea for a
| fresh perspective on the modern world.
|
| If there was a time machine that I could step into to meet
| these ancient people and ask them about the hand prints they
| left I would take that trip in a snap! (assuming there is
| enough fuel in the Delorean to get back of course) In fact I
| would take that chance to time travel to any period and see
| what that time was like up close.
|
| While we can't go back and see that, we can time travel to
| exactly one place. You can look around and see how humans
| were living in September 2021. Maybe this is the moment
| stranded time travelers 200k years from now would really like
| to visit. It was a weird time in human history. Lots of
| interesting things to observe, questions to ask, and people
| to meet.
| neilv wrote:
| And one could help those people we find today to tell their
| stories, in a way that will be accessible to people in the
| future (decades, centuries, or hours in the future).
| cletus wrote:
| What was the evolutionary advantage that being able to live at
| high altitudes 200,000 years ago gave you? There really weren't
| that many people around so finding land with available food and
| water doesn't seem like it would be that much of an issue.
|
| One possible argument is that such people would transit high
| altitudes going between hunting grounds (for example) but is
| this really enough pressure to produce a genetic advantage like
| this?
|
| Now nature does tend to want to find niches because having food
| only you can eat tends to be of more value than having abundant
| food other people can also eat (eg pandas and bamboo).
|
| But it's not easy for humans to live at 14,000 feet elevation.
| Animals are scarce. Vegetation is limited (eg trees likely to
| be conifers).
|
| This is different to just, say, living in Arctic regions as
| those do have much more available food options (eg fish,
| migrating game, plants that can grow in the summer) than high
| altitudes.
|
| Has anyone put much thought into this?
| prescriptivist wrote:
| Just spitballing but maybe at that altitude humans tipped
| some sort of scale where they were more efficient predators
| of whatever was up there but below that altitude the larger
| pleistocene megafauna of the time represented a higher
| predation risk to humans themselves or there was less post
| kill (scavenger) competition.
| toshk wrote:
| There are lots of them. In many places in Tibet I've seen them,
| especially in the old Kham area, they were all over the place.
| The Tibetans believe it's prove of the depth of meditation that
| one can put the hand in the rock.
|
| Source:
| https://books.google.es/books?id=OUhmDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA101&lpg=P...
| subsubzero wrote:
| Thats right, the explanation for these handprints is that
| Tibetan Buddhist monks have transcended normal human
| abilities and made handprints in stone. This is for Vajrayana
| Buddhism or what westerners refer to as Tibetan Buddhism.
| mysecretaccount wrote:
| This is covered in the article, but: the term art is quite
| generous here. These may not even have been imprinted
| intentionally. Fascinating nonetheless.
| unknownOrigin wrote:
| It doesn't dispute that they were made intentionally - in fact,
| it says the opposite. (These are carefully made so they don't
| overlap and they were not produced by locomotion.)
|
| If this is "art" art... is up to everyone to interpret for
| themselves.
|
| But then again, today you can give yourself a paint enema,
| squirt it from your asshole all over a canvas and some people
| will call it art.
| mysecretaccount wrote:
| > It doesn't dispute that they were made intentionally - in
| fact, it says the opposite.
|
| > The fossil impressions, which date to between 169,000 and
| 226,000 years ago and _seem_ to have been created
| intentionally, _could_ represent the earliest known art of
| its kind.
|
| > According to Matthew Bennett, a geologist at Bournemouth
| University who specializes in ancient footprints and
| trackways, it's _likely_ that these ancient imprints were
| intentional.
|
| Emphasis mine.
| jrsdav wrote:
| Whenever I see things like this, I'm reminded of Arthur C.
| Clarke's novel Childhood's End.
|
| _spoilers_
|
| I like to imagine I've been given the device used by the
| overlords to monitor earth for X years, and I can stand affixed
| in a position to experience the timelapse as I push "rewind". It
| would be so cool to watch history unfold this way.
| dmux wrote:
| Sounds like something I'd really enjoy. Observing one
| particular space over time is the concept behind the graphic
| novel** "Here" by Richard McGuire.
|
| ** It's really light on dialogue (and characters for that
| matter). Way more emphasis on the Graphic part than the Novel
| part.
| aomobile wrote:
| Hello message from the ancestors!
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Oldest "Hello world!" ever
| tclancy wrote:
| More like a dirty joke, surely.
| redleggedfrog wrote:
| Art is (almost) forever.
| jfengel wrote:
| Some of those hand prints are highly distorted. Is that just due
| to the topology of the rock?
| werdnapk wrote:
| Or the fact that these have been slowly eroded over 200,000
| years.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| 200k years ago, that's incredible, not even the wildest science
| fiction can imagine what the world will look like 200k years from
| now
| toshk wrote:
| The assumption by some of the scientist is that the handprints
| were created in the mud and then stones formed. But others
| question this, could also be created after:
| https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/art-not-ancient...
|
| It's very common to find handprints in the Himalayas in rocks,
| they are everywhere.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| probably like Mercury looks today - a ball of fire
| Bobylonian wrote:
| Mercury today is ball of fire from one side and ball of cold
| charcoal from other.
|
| 200k is quite a massive time period and the only thing is
| certain that modern humans would be long dead and most of
| them would share fate of Denisovans, where most of modern
| people would not be direct ancestors to people of that
| distant future. That is a very long time for humanity to
| exterminate itself to near extinction and achieve the same
| technological level 3-4 times over again.
| bradlys wrote:
| Maybe you mean Venus.
|
| Regardless of which - it's a massive over exaggeration. We're
| not gonna be experiencing fluctuations of 500C+ on the
| surface of our planet or an atmospheric pressure of 90x+
| ours.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| In case anyone else forgot the timeline, I just googled, and
| there's evidence going back to ~2 million years ago of huminoids
| in Eurasia.
| mc32 wrote:
| Wouldn't that upend most theories about when the people who
| left Africa left Africa?
|
| Never mind, new estimates go as far back as 300,000ya.
| elvongray wrote:
| There are other hominids apart from homo sapiens during those
| periods. These will probably be Denisovans
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| No, it's known that Homo Erectus left Africa and colonised
| Eurasia up to East Asia a bit more than 2 million years ago.
|
| The estimate on when "we" left Africa often means modern
| humans, Homo Sapiens.
| grillvogel wrote:
| most of the established timelines are based on "well this is
| the oldest thing we've found so far". most of it is probably
| wrong
| vonadz wrote:
| Impressive that this didn't get worn away.
| neaden wrote:
| "These prints, however, are more carefully made and have a
| specific arrangement--think more along the lines like how a child
| presses their handprint into fresh cement." A good reminder of
| the fact that for all that society has changed we as people
| haven't really.
| sva_ wrote:
| It is interesting to see how people seem to intuitively
| experience joy from changing their environment, in particular
| when it seems to not serve any direct use.
| delecti wrote:
| It leaves me feeling very connected to think that across
| hundreds of thousands of year, you'll still find humans being
| humans. Creating handprint art has to be one of the most
| lasting and quintessentially human behaviors.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It's inspiring to get hints at what life was like back then when
| the universe was younger.
| Razengan wrote:
| I think that even at the scale of "just" a two hundred thousand
| years, to the _universe_ it's probably just yesterday.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| "When humanity was younger" would have been a perfect
| phrasing.
| dylan604 wrote:
| or even just an hour ago.
| tejtm wrote:
| It was, (and still is), 40-50 million years since the mountains
| formed.
| Sharlin wrote:
| When the universe was an appreciable fraction younger, all life
| on Earth was unicellular.
| scollet wrote:
| And those uncultured bastards didn't even think to leave a
| note.
| nanna wrote:
| Hugely enjoyed The Hunters of Prehistory by Andre Leroi-Gourhan.
| Such an inspiring introduction to paleolithic archeology, even if
| it's inevitably a bit dated these days, and it is Eurocentric.
| Great as an introduction to structuralism too, and philosophy of
| technics.
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