Experts have unearthed a technological device that may alter our understanding of our most ancient cousins.
Throughout human history, experts have made several findings deep in the Earth that have changed the way we look at our history. Human evolution is complex, with multiple layers of cognitive skills revealing the history of our ancestry and what it took to get us to this point in history.
How would you feel if we told you that over 160,000 years ago, our species was capable of so much more than we ever thought?
We’ve been on this planet for 200,000 years. Nothing compared to other animals
Humans have existed, as far as we know and can prove, for roughly 200,000 years.
Early findings have painted a picture of basic species that had few cognitive skills to speak of; at least, fewer than we now have. But Earth is much, much older than we are, and there are some animals that have a much longer family tree than that of our species, such as crocodiles, for example.
Humans can only lift roughly 1% of our bodyweight, while our cousins of the gorilla family can easily outperform any human in a weight-lifting competition, as they can carry up to ten times their weight.
Recent discoveries have proven that even the smallest microbes are capable of “thought.”
Another recent discovery of an ancient tooth may further deepen our understanding of the earliest humans. There is so much more about our history that is yet to be unearthed.
Perhaps we were “born” more intelligent than we initially believed
For the vast majority of our intelligent history, we thought that the first hominids were a basic species, no different from our distant ape relatives.
The plethora of cave paintings we have collectively found paints a picture of a basic species with very few cognitive skills to speak of. We have, for the most part, imagined our ancestors running away from fire and expressing their limited cognitive ability through buffalo paintings.
However, a new discovery has lifted the veil on our ancestry, revealing we may have misunderstood our early cousins’ cognitive skills altogether.
A team of researchers from Griffith University unearthed what could be a history-changing find in central China. Our collective understanding of our history is filled with gaps and misunderstandings, but this finding has altered our understanding of our earliest lineage.
While we now know that our brains take time to fully develop, humans are nothing if not adaptable.
And considering the dangers that our species must have faced around 200,000 years ago, the reality is that evolution is more complex than we thought, and perhaps we were “born” without more intelligence than previously imagined.
It’s 160,000 years old, but may they rewrite human history
Excavations at the Xigou site in central China have found a new tool that our ancient family may have created.
Archaeologists found advanced stone tools, proving once and for all that we were much more intelligent than previously thought possible. The discovery paints a picture of tools with handles attached that were created over 200,000 years ago.
The find shows that early hominids in the region had far more cognitive skills than we thought. Our understanding of our history is now getting a whole lot clearer.
As new technology allows an “extension of our brains,” the findings in China show us that our ancestors were capable of careful planning, skilled workmanship, and a much deeper set of cognitive skills than we think.
The study’s important findings were disclosed in the technology news publication Nature Communications.
How does this new discovery make you feel about our earliest family members?