[HN Gopher] Fossils in the 'Cradle of Humankind' may be more tha...
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       Fossils in the 'Cradle of Humankind' may be more than a million
       years older
        
       Author : rntn
       Score  : 66 points
       Date   : 2022-06-28 09:05 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (phys.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
        
       | otabdeveloper4 wrote:
       | Has a headline been ever made about fossils dated _younger_ than
       | previously thought?
        
         | AlotOfReading wrote:
         | It happens occasionally. The Wrangel Island Mammoths are a
         | famous example of remains that date far younger than anyone
         | expected [1]. For human origins, "human ancestors are older
         | than we thought" is usually more sensational than "survived
         | later than we thought" though, so you might not remember
         | examples like [2].
         | 
         | [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/25/us/dwarf-mammoths-may-
         | hav...
         | 
         | [2] https://www.newsweek.com/our-ancient-neanderthal-
         | relatives-w...
        
         | _djo_ wrote:
         | Occasionally yes, however scientists generally err on the side
         | of being conservative in their calculations for things like
         | this so corrections will generally be in one direction.
        
         | adastra22 wrote:
         | Yes, but usually of a species that was thought to have gone
         | extinct earlier.
         | 
         | If dinosaur bones were found in 55 million year old strata,
         | that'd be news :)
        
       | rmbyrro wrote:
       | I find it fascinating to watch human evolution.
       | 
       | More than three Million years. Our history is captivating.
       | 
       | It's a gift to be part of that.
       | 
       | I still don't understand why is there so much negativity about
       | the humankind, when the good overwhelms the bad and the trend is
       | towards improvement.
        
         | AlotOfReading wrote:
         | It's honestly amazing how fast the field has evolved. I have
         | textbooks that were bleeding edge when they were written less
         | than a decade ago that are now so profoundly out of date that I
         | couldn't recommend them to anyone. It'll be great to see what
         | we know in another 10 or 20 years time.
        
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