New / Updated timeline for human habitation in Europe.

[blackmme]

There's a lot to take in from this new research and it is fascinating.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-663...

We Homo-Sapiens really did replace those poor Neanderthals rather quickly didn't we..... Although from reading NP&E I'm not so certain the eradication was quite as complete as supposed.

[Simpo Two]

Odd, the feature I heard about this on the news yesterday was based on a core sample from Norfolk which was tested in Spain.

'Ocean sediments from 1.1 million years ago show temperatures suddenly dropped more than 5C'.

Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But going from that to completely re-writing human history seems rather a big leap to me.

(PS We are Homo sapiens or H. sapiens, not Homo-Sapiens)

[blackmme]

Simpo Two said:

Odd, the feature I heard about this on the news yesterday was based on a core sample from Norfolk which was tested in Spain.

'Ocean sediments from 1.1 million years ago show temperatures suddenly dropped more than 5C'.

Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But going from that to completely re-writing human history seems rather a big leap to me.

(PS We are Homo sapiens or H. sapiens, not Homo-Sapiens)

I wont correct the above but I will remember that in future!

[Skeptisk]

blackmme said:

There's a lot to take in from this new research and it is fascinating.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-663...

We Homo-Sapiens really did replace those poor Neanderthals rather quickly didn't we..... Although from reading NP&E I'm not so certain the eradication was quite as complete as supposed.

Shh. Some of them on NP&E will be taking the evidence of a cold spell as “proof” that climate variability is “natural” and therefore current warming is not caused by humans.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so it is still possible that humanoids continued to exist in Europe but we haven’t found fossils from that period. Further work should increase our confidence (or find contradictory evidence).

2000 years for the disappearance of Neanderthals is quite long when you think that recorded human history is only about twice that.

[Simpo Two]

Skeptisk said:

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so it is still possible that humanoids continued to exist in Europe but we haven’t found fossils from that period.

Indeed; I was surprised that they based conclusions on the fact they hadn't found something. I suppose this is what happens when the media try to do science.

Skeptisk said:

2000 years for the disappearance of Neanderthals is quite long when you think that recorded human history is only about twice that.

That doesn't make sense to me; a species can become extinct in much less than 2,000 years, and H. sapiens' 'recorded history' is not relevant, it's just when we started writing things down.

[glazbagun]

Really annoys me that the BBC seldom link to papers or even summaries.
Quick google suggests it's from the paper sexily titled "Extreme glacial cooling likely led to hominin depopulation of Europe in the Early Pleistocene" by Chronis Tzedakis et al.

Closest I can find is this summary:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf444...

Gist seems to be that disappearance of human fossil evidence in that part of Europe coincides with likely cold spell which strikes me as a decent enough hypothesis.

I've often wondered at how old the longest continuous civilisation to vanish without a trace was. Even last millennium a five year famine can end a country. When our ancestors and relative species' were mere tribes existence must have been super precarious.