Widespread Cultural Diffusion of Knowledge Started 400 Thousand Years Ago - Phys.Org

Some new discoveries have almost stupefyingly huge implications for our understanding of the human past. Tim Senden suggests the antiquity of cultural diffusion is over five times older than the c. 70,000-years previously believed. The interdisciplinary team behind this conclusion describes the publication of their research findings as "Exciting and at the same time terrifying," anticipating the scholarly reaction. 100,000 years closer to the Present, another astounding find is that an Ancient Siberian Cave Hosted Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Modern Humans--Possibly at the Same Time. Elizabeth Pennisi's "unprecedented insight into the past" is rather complex. Speaking of Neanderthals, A 51,000-year-old Carved Bone is One of the World's Oldest Works of Art, Researchers Say. Tom Metcalfe notes this "highlights that Neanderthals were capable of symbolic thought--something once attributed only to our own species." And Jennifer Micale has a major challenge to Traditional Understanding in Resilience, Not Collapse: What the Easter Island Myth Gets Wrong. "New research suggests that the demographic collapse at the core of the Easter Island myth didn't really happen," says Micale. We may need to adjust our present-conditioned thinking about past societies--perhaps in more instances than just this, though very significant, case. (WM)

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from THE ANOMALIST https://bit.ly/3iH8uKZ