Traces of ancient humans found in Vietnam's biggest archaeological discovery

Thanh Nien News ^ | Monday, April 04, 2016 | Tran Hieu,

[SunkenCiv]

In what has been described as a breakthrough, Vietnamese and Russian archaeologists have found valuable artifacts in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai that they say belonged to ancient humans around 800,000 years ago.

The traces of homo erectus or "upright man," including fossils and more than 200 stone tools, were discovered at 12 locations around An Khe Town, according to the findings announced by the scientists on Friday.

It was "the biggest and most important" archeological discovery not only for Vietnam but Asia, Dr. Nguyen Giang Hai, chief of Vietnam's Institute of Archeology, told Tuoi Tre newspaper.

The Russian team worked with the Vietnamese institute on the two-year excavation. The archaeologists are expected to organize an international conference to publish the findings to the world.

Huynh Nu Thu Ha, vice chairwoman of the People's Committee of Gia Lai, said the province will launch a project to preserve the relic sites.

[gleeaikin]

Wow, a Sima de los Huesos in Asia, hope this turns out to be as big. Looking at the big rock in front, it does look as if some cores might have been knocked out of it. Regarding the lousy living conditions in current Vietnam, we have no idea what the climate there was like 800k years ago. It could have been cooler, dryer, or some combination depending on where it was in an Ice Age cycle. We would need more precision than a generalized age of 800K.

[SunkenCiv]

Malaria isn’t confined to Vietnam, and for all we know, it wasn’t even around 800K ago.

Large parts of the continental shelf has been ice-free for much of the past 2 milion years, and it’s not unlikely our ancestors grew up in now-submerged areas. Claiming that Africa *must be* the cradle of humanity is a little like looking around outdoors for the glasses you lost in the dark restaurant, just because the light’s better.

[SunkenCiv]

[Little Bill]

A bit tongue in cheek, but with all recent finds it seems to me that the expansion of Mankind is rather up in the air.

An argument can be made that mankind expanded into Africa rather than out. Wouldn't high genetic diversity accompany early settlers and would these earlies not be affected by the various genetic bottlenecks?

Remember, according to Herodotus, the Pygmies lived around Lake Chad in his time. Another interesting thing is the cluster of R1B DNA in central Africa.

Just musing.

[mad_as_he$$]

We, from time to time, knap obsidian. It behaves exactly that way. Related(sort of):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhlmKHbPFhU

[SunkenCiv]

Higher genetic diversity doesn't speak to antiquity, it speaks to lifestyles. Once agriculture starts up, the relative population of descendants of the sodbusters will be larger and larger over time, leaving more descendants. Hunter-gatherers have lower birth rates, higher infant mortality, and perhaps even more mix-and-match pairing up. Isolation of small populations means the random survival of different chromosomes. And that doesn't take long, I'm looking at my Penn-Dutch (Deutsch) hitchhiker thumbs right now. :')

A pair of parents have 23 chromosome pairs, each -- that works out to 2^23 squared different combos, only a tiny fraction of which will get expressed. So, for example, if there are three kids, and all five family members get their genetic testing done, it will be found that, at any one chromosome, there are four possible outcomes -- 'left' or 'right' from each parent, FM, Fm, fM, fm. With three kids, it's likely 2:1 at any one position, but could be 3:0. Well, that made sense to me, I'd had to have to draw another one of my world-obscure diagrams...

[SunkenCiv]

	Father left	Father right
Mother left	FM	fM
Mother right	Fm	fm

A sibling who receives FM will probably have one sibling with a match on the chromosome from mom, and the other sibling with a match with the chromosome from dad -- but all three could match on both halves. In the latter case, half of the chromosomes available from the parents won't be passed on.

[Little Bill]

Isolation of small populations means the random survival of different chromosomes.

Kind of what I was getting at. If for sake of argument a bunch of people wandered into Africa and were isolated, say the San and the Hottentots, wouldn't that meet this criteria?

I have noticed in passing that these people share certain unique physical differences with the Adman Islanders, I don't know about DNA, but it seems strange.

t is also interesting to note that the Adman Islanders share the same D Hapologroup with those of the Japanese Islanders and very few others.

[blam]

"Wow, a Sima de los Huesos in Asia, hope this turns out to be as big. Looking at the big rock in front, it does look as if some cores might have been knocked out of it. Regarding the lousy living conditions in current Vietnam, we have no idea what the climate there was like 800k years ago. It could have been cooler, dryer, or some combination depending on where it was in an Ice Age cycle. We would need more precision than a generalized age of 800K."

There's a rain forest in Malaysia ( Taman Negara) that is 130 million years old. It appears to have been fairly stable for that time and I would expect nearby Vietnam to be the same.

We may have another excellent site.

[wildbill]

You know I’m really really curious about the occurrences of elongated heads across cultures and continents. Examples are in Peru, Egypt, and now in Viet Nam. Maybe you are aware of other examples.

Of course, it could be just a form of natural evolution from a closely related species called the Cone Heads.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

80,000 or 800,000 years? The article and caption are different.

[SunkenCiv]

That jiggled a wire up inside there...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2863146/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1440141/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3271067/posts?page=10#10

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1421454/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/fenambosychevrons/index

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3417913/posts?page=10#10

[TXnMA]

I picked photos of hard-hammer knapped obsidian -- because the reflective surface shows the features well.

Interestingly, the speed of propagation of acoustic waves through almost any knappable (amorphous or microcrystalline) material consistently produces that 60 degree conical shockwave pattern (of which you see only a part when the stone is hit on an edge).

Any kid who has ever shot thick glass with a low-powered BB gun has seen the complete 60-degree shock cone...

FWIW, my practice-knapping obsidian substitutes include Carerra Glass and the thick glass from the front of old CRT TV sets.

For practice on tougher, microcrystalline cherts, I substitute "johnstone" (slabs of old toilet tanks)... '-)

[BroJoeK]

Little Bill: "Why would anyone, in their right mind, such as they may have had in that day and age, leave readily available Wildebeest..."

Well... let me ask, do you live in the same home you were born in?
How many miles separate your current home from where you were born?
Now, based on that number of miles, how many generations would it take for your descendants to travel the whole globe?

Right.
It only takes a few miles per generation, and in time, some will reach every corner, barring a great barrier, such as an ocean.

You ask, "why would people want to move?", and the answer is: sometimes it's not a matter of "want" but of "must, no choice, move or die".
Consider any number of examples:

1. You are a second, third or fourth son in a land only "fat" enough to support the eldest.

2. A rival clan, much bigger than yours, invades your territory and you must either flee or die.

3. A drought, a flood, a storm, a forest fire, too hot, too cold, too something else forces whole peoples to leave their ancestral homes and search out greener pastures, so to speak.

4. Specifically, one theory is that humans (or pre-humans) first left Africa along the coastlines of southern Arabia, India & Asia.
   Living off the bounty of sea-shores, humans simply expanded generation by generation until they reached the far coasts of Vietnam & China.
   Once settled along a shoreline, we go back to items #1-3 above to find reasons for moving inland.

Little Bill: "I am beginning to to think that we haven't a censored clue about human origins or migrations."

No, we have many clues, literal hills filled with clues, but of course they are not conclusive in answering every question imaginable.
Still plenty we don't know.

Migration seems like a good answer to how we find certain clues in one place dated to an ancient time, say Africa a million years ago, then similar clues somewhere else at a later time.
Are there other possible explanations?
Sure, including time travel and teleportation ("beam us up, Scotty"), but so far we've found no evidence of such activities in pre-historic times.

[mad_as_he$$]

Interesting. I have never tried “ceramics” for knapping. Have to try that. Most obsidian around here is in round nodules. Picking the place to start is always interesting.

Thsnks for the insight!

[SunkenCiv]

Sure, including time travel and teleportation ("beam us up, Scotty"), but so far we've found no evidence of such activities in pre-historic times.

That's pretty insulting.

[BroJoeK]

Sorry, I should have said: we've found no scientifically confirmed evidence of such activities in pre-historic times.

Of course, I never watch those "ancient aliens" TV shows, maybe something did happen and I never realized it? ;-)

Ancient aliens?

Teleportation?:

[SunkenCiv]

No, you shouldn’t have stated that the only alternative is time travel.

[BroJoeK]

So "ancient aliens" is A-OK with you, Kemosabe?