Ancient Stone Tool Find Suggests Mystery Human Species

I've always believed there was a time reminiscent of fantasy. A time when multiple human species roamed the land in competition, surrounded by great beasts of immense proportions. Science seems to keep coming up with support for it. Our legends and myths are filled with stories of little people, beast men, giant monsters and magic. People once wore paints, had spirit mentors, went on vision quests, explained the elements in terms of spirits, magic and gods.

It seems to me, that there once was a world similar to what we call fantasy. There were different human species, there were giant monsters, and people saw the world as a magical place. Our myths and legends, many of them seem to simply be carrying bits and pieces of a time long forgotten influenced by the alterations of time and word of mouth.

a reply to: OpenMindedRealist

To be fair,when Alan Wilson first hypothesized OOA, he meant to apply it only to the distribution of AMH's and not other hominid species. The science behind OOA when applied only to AMH/HSS is totally sound and is based on diligent mapping of mtDNA across the entire world. Wilson is also the guy who coined the phrase "Mitichondrial Eve" which is also based on mtDNA distribution. This does not mean that precursors to HSS didn't leave Africa and Independently evolve because that is exactly what happened. Up until the last 30-40KA, there were multiple branches of humans coexisting. Sometimes for prolonged periods of time such as AMH/Neanderthal cohabitation in the Levant

a reply to: randyvs

Don't get me wrong Randy, I am after all posting on a conspiracy based website and all manner of Fortean oddities is what initially led me to study Anthropology. While I won't argue in favor of giant humans, it's because of the lack of objective evidence. I'm totally open minded to just about anything if the evidence bears it out. Everything I've ever seen put forth as "evidence" of giant humans fails to meet the burden of proof and is typically based on subjective confirmation biases. I will be thrilled to admit I was wrong if real evidence ever emerges.

a reply to: peter vlar

I will be thrilled to admit I was wrong if real evidence ever emerges.

I got you heffe'.

a reply to: peter vlar

Just some additional thoughts I wanted to add in...

Even under the multiregional hypothesis, everyone is descended from H. Erectus who began to leave Africa nearly 2MA with the earliest European examples at 1.8MA called Homo Georgicus. I'm probably shooting myself in the foot here but I think it's important to understand that in Paleontology(especially so) and Anthropology, professionals get off on being able to name a new find and it's usually based on morphological differences that in some cases are quite small.

A good example of this is with paleontology and I'll have to look around to dig it up but a recent article I read by Jack Horner discusses this issue in depth. With that said, the example I will use is with T-Rex and several years ago someone had found what they decided was a "pygmy" version of the T-Rex. What has been learned, slowly, is that dinosaurs grow in similar fashion to birds. This should be no surprise as we all know now that birds today are the descendants of the scant few survivors of the Paleogene extinction event which was formerly known as the K-T extinction event 66MA that wiped out all large life forms on Earth. Lest I digress further, Jack Horner gave a Ted talk titled "Where are the baby dinosaurs?" Essentially, the Pygmy T-Rex wasn't a pygmy or different type of T-Rex. It was merely a juvenile.

And it comes down to a couple of things. First off, scientists have egos, and scientists like to name dinosaurs. They like to name anything. Everybody likes to have their own animal that they named. (Laughter) And so every time they found something that looked a little different, they named it something different. And what happened, of course, is we ended up with a whole bunch of different dinosaurs.

In 1975, a light went on in somebody's head. Dr. Peter Dodson at the University of Pennsylvania actually realized that dinosaurs grew kind of like birds do, which is different than the way reptiles grow. And in fact, he used the cassowary as an example. And it's kind of cool -- if you look at the cassowary, or any of the birds that have crests on their heads, they actually grow to about 80 percent adult size before the crest starts to grow. Now think about that. They're basically retaining their juvenile characteristics very late in what we call ontogeny. So allometric cranial ontogeny is relative skull growth. So you can see that if you actually found one that was 80 percent grown and you didn't know that it was going to grow up to a cassowary, you would think they were two different animals.

Now that I have set up the context with a frame of reference, my point is that there is a great deal of dimorphism within the same taxonomic descriptors, even from the same sites with remains dated to the same age. I mentioned H. Georgicus earlier. The morphology varies, more so in cranial morphology than the post cranial anatomy. What this means for those that don't speak fluent nerd is that while they are all the same "people", their faces could look very different even within the same small population. It would be somewhat like having people who's faces resembled an Aboriginal Australian, a Swede and a Korean living in the same small area. Just the facial features, not skin tone. They were all comparable in height etc... but cranial morphology had a wide variety within local populaces.

The point I'm trying to drive home is that much like the dinosaurs where a multitude of taxonomic descriptors were created to differentiate(and sometimes boost the ego of the lead scientist on the dig where the remains were located) the "new" finds may not be a different species. Now this isn't the case for every find or new discovery but there is a growing consensus that many members of our own genus Homo, may not be different species at all and are instead localized variations of H. Erectus. They may have instead had a much wider variety of cranio-facial morphologies and perhaps even earlier member of our Genus all the way back to H. Habilis are simply variations within what we call today H. Erectus.

The answer to that could potentially be solved as the ability to do far more sensitive genetic testing increases and becomes less expensive. Right now we can see remnants of DNA from older species within the genomes of ourselves, Neanderthal and Denisovan so the potential to uncover H. Erectus genetics is not too far off into the horizon and this is also how we know that there is another as yet unidentified human species from W. Africa. I say unidentified because we have found no remains as yet, but the genetics are there and is just more evidence of even further admixture than we thought possible or even contemplated just 20 years ago. When we are able to decode the genome of H. Erectus we can do even farther genetic comparisons and it will give the world a much better sense of just how tangled and tricky the past of humanity actually was. This is seriously the most amazing time to be studying Anthropology since the Louis Leakey first arrived in East Africa nearly 90 years ago.

originally posted by: jellyrev
it makes you wonder if elf, dwarf, and hobbit were real.

Pshhhhh

Makes you wonder if the whole middle earth lore was real. Haha

Love love
Alien Supernova

a reply to: peter vlar

Interesting to note that you assimilate this web article, which has no peer-reviewed aspect whatsoever, so quickly because it falls in line with your contemporary worldview. Is that all it takes for you to accept or deny something?

Checkout this array of skulls from the Mutter Museum in Philadelpha:
Mutter Museum Skulls

These are all homo sapiens, despite the morphological differences. I could beguile (not as if the beguiling has been done on purpose, if at all, but rather by ignorance) anyone into thinking the skull on the left belonged to a dwarf species.

How about this one, would this make you believe in unicorns?
Unicorn Woman

Would this one lead you to believe aliens visisted earth, or is it just a development aberration?
Homo Alienis

Perhaps many Egyptians, demonstrating a similar elongated skull, are homo alienis?
Egyptian Homo Alienis

My point is, maybe a misnomer of skeletal remains have caused a similar rash assimilation of falsehood?

a reply to: peter vlar

In that time, is the difference in crainial morphology between proposed members of a wider scale H. Erectus substantially larger than among nationalities of HSS today?

Before modern times, was cranial morphology of HSS more uniform in a given geographic area (in that we can distinguish faces which look japanese from those who look zulu) than in this H Erectus period? What would be the difference?

If there were mutual fertility doesn't it seem unlikely that such strong variability would persist in a localized geographic ara?

a reply to: cooperton

I appreciate the links, but the last one is Peruvian.

IIRC, there have been some elongated skulls found in Egypt. Two, I think, but it might be a few more.

Harte

originally posted by: Harte
a reply to: cooperton

I appreciate the links, but the last one is Peruvian.

IIRC, there have been some elongated skulls found in Egypt. Two, I think, but it might be a few more.

Harte

I did find Peruvian Elongated Skulls, but that one was listed as Egyptian. Maybe Homo Alienis resided in Africa and South America?

originally posted by: cooperton
a reply to: peter vlar

Interesting to note that you assimilate this web article, which has no peer-reviewed aspect whatsoever, so quickly because it falls in line with your contemporary worldview. Is that all it takes for you to accept or deny something?

Interesting to note that once again you're speaking about things you have no clue about. I didn't realize that trolls bridges were portable. Since Hooked in Phonics apparently didn't work out, let me assist you. See, had you read the article, you would have read paragraph 2 which states:

The discovery, published today in Nature, overturns the view that humans first entered the island between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago as Homo sapiens dispersed out of Africa on the way to Australia.

Nature is one of the most respected peer reviewed journals in the world. If they published it, it has been reviewed by multiple parties. But then again! none of this has anything to do with the OP. You're on the offensive over a sidebar discussion with Randy that is only tangentially to do with the OP because the lead author makes reference to a potential relationship between the people who crafted the lithics found at this site and H. Floresiensis.

Checkout this array of skulls from the Mutter Museum in Philadelpha:
Mutter Museum Skulls

These are all homo sapiens, despite the morphological differences. I could beguile (not as if the beguiling has been done on purpose, if at all, but rather by ignorance) anyone into thinking the skull on the left belonged to a dwarf species.

And why would I think anything of the sort based on a 2D photo? And why would you even bring any of this up as it's so far off the topic of the OP? Were I to examine the skull in person I would be able to tell quite a bit about it. I don't make blind assessments off of an out of context photo though.

How about this one, would this make you believe in unicorns?
Unicorn Woman

Since unicorns are mythical horses with a magical horn growing out of their head, no I wouldn't believe in unicorns based on this photo. Which again, has no context. You really don't get how the scientific method works do you? Anyone with a passing knowledge of biology would be able to ascertain that the photo is of a woman with a keratinous tumor. It's a form of skin cancer.

Would this one lead you to believe aliens visisted earth, or is it just a development aberration?
Homo Alienis

Perhaps some Egyptians, demonstrating a similar elongated skull, are all homo alienis?
Egyptian Homo Alienis

On the Egyptian cranium I can clearly see the marks from head binding, on the other I see the same indentation. But again, I can't make any sort of determination based on a 2D photograph. It's an asinine proposition

My point is, maybe a misnomer of skeletal remains have caused a similar rash assimilation of falsehood?

And my point is that you are making ridiculous strawmen simply,for the sake of trolling me. The H. Floresiensis find included post cranial anatomy, the determination was not made on skull morphology alone. But if you had done even a cursory search and read the material this would have been quite clear. When looking at the complete remains in proper context, it is quite clear that none were juveniles and there were several archaic features consistently present in all Floresiensis remains that indicate that they are not H. Sapiens Sapiens. They have carpal features that are much closer to Chimpanzees than HSS for example. They also possess features found in H. Erectus such as an occipital torus and a mastoid fissure. They also used lithic technology that is more similar to Olduwan lithics than with contemporary H. Erectus or HSS as well. The Floresiensis find was peer reviewed and published in Nature back in 2012.

Furthermore, this site predates the appearance of AMH.

With that out of the way, why don't we move onto the actual topic of this thread instead of swinging around that boner you seem to have for me.

a reply to: peter vlar

I'll add that there was also an unknown hominid branch in Central Africa. Their DNA is still present in the DNA of the Aka, Efé and Mbuti people, also known as the "African pygmy" ethnic groups.

And yeah, I think people don't realize humans/hominids go back at least 2 million plus years. Homo Sapiens are simply the new/modern ones that have only existed for 160,000-250,000 years. And homo Sapiens indeed "started" in Africa.

originally posted by: peter vlar

originally posted by: cooperton
a reply to: peter vlar

Interesting to note that you assimilate this web article, which has no peer-reviewed aspect whatsoever, so quickly because it falls in line with your contemporary worldview. Is that all it takes for you to accept or deny something?

Interesting to note that once again you're speaking about things you have no clue about. I didn't realize that trolls bridges were portable. Since Hooked in Phonics apparently didn't work out, let me assist you. See, had you read the article, you would have read paragraph 2 which states:

The discovery, published today in Nature, overturns the view that humans first entered the island between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago as Homo sapiens dispersed out of Africa on the way to Australia.

Nature is one of the most respected peer reviewed journals in the world. If they published it, it has been reviewed by multiple parties. But then again! none of this has anything to do with the OP. You're on the offensive over a sidebar discussion with Randy that is only tangentially to do with the OP because the lead author makes reference to a potential relationship between the people who crafted the lithics found at this site and H. Floresiensis.

Checkout this array of skulls from the Mutter Museum in Philadelpha:
Mutter Museum Skulls

These are all homo sapiens, despite the morphological differences. I could beguile (not as if the beguiling has been done on purpose, if at all, but rather by ignorance) anyone into thinking the skull on the left belonged to a dwarf species.

And why would I think anything of the sort based on a 2D photo? And why would you even bring any of this up as it's so far off the topic of the OP? Were I to examine the skull in person I would be able to tell quite a bit about it. I don't make blind assessments off of an out of context photo though.

How about this one, would this make you believe in unicorns?
Unicorn Woman

Since unicorns are mythical horses with a magical horn growing out of their head, no I wouldn't believe in unicorns based on this photo. Which again, has no context. You really don't get how the scientific method works do you? Anyone with a passing knowledge of biology would be able to ascertain that the photo is of a woman with a keratinous tumor. It's a form of skin cancer.

Would this one lead you to believe aliens visisted earth, or is it just a development aberration?
Homo Alienis

Perhaps some Egyptians, demonstrating a similar elongated skull, are all homo alienis?
Egyptian Homo Alienis

On the Egyptian cranium I can clearly see the marks from head binding, on the other I see the same indentation. But again, I can't make any sort of determination based on a 2D photograph. It's an asinine proposition

My point is, maybe a misnomer of skeletal remains have caused a similar rash assimilation of falsehood?

And my point is that you are making ridiculous strawmen simply,for the sake of trolling me. The H. Floresiensis find included post cranial anatomy, the determination was not made on skull morphology alone. But if you had done even a cursory search and read the material this would have been quite clear. When looking at the complete remains in proper context, it is quite clear that none were juveniles and there were several archaic features consistently present in all Floresiensis remains that indicate that they are not H. Sapiens Sapiens. They have carpal features that are much closer to Chimpanzees than HSS for example. They also possess features found in H. Erectus such as an occipital torus and a mastoid fissure. They also used lithic technology that is more similar to Olduwan lithics than with contemporary H. Erectus or HSS as well. The Floresiensis find was peer reviewed and published in Nature back in 2012.

Furthermore, this site predates the appearance of AMH.

With that out of the way, why don't we move onto the actual topic of this thread instead of swinging around that boner you seem to have for me.

Take a deep breath. couldn't you tell it was in the tone of satire?

"I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know." -Socrates

More Proof of Homo Alienis-1
More Proof of Homo Alienis-2
Plural Homo Alienises

Perhaps this is the first species found that post-dates the homo sapien; masters of time and space which had an unfortunate death on one of their vacations back in time to ignorant planet earth?

a reply to: enlightenedservant

I may have written West Africa instead of Central Africa for the undiscovered hominid. I was going off of memory and trying to make something for my daughter to eat while replying. I'm apparently not as good at multitasking as I thought I was. Thanks for pointing that out for me. And yes... The genus Homo is nearly 3MA. The oldest H. Habilis remains date to ~2.8 MA and there are a ridiculous number of species within the genus that have all died out entirely while a few others survive through us as a result of admixture.

Basically, this goes against the "Out of Africa" theory and supports the Replacement Hypothesis then..?

a reply to: peter vlar

It's all good. I actually thought you were referring to a speculated other hominid branch in Northern Africa. I'm a noob with this, though I was always fascinated by genetics. In fact, genetic engineering was my dream job through middle school & 9th grade until I read "The Island of Doctor Moreau" and saw the movie.

a reply to: truthseeker84

Nope. The "Out of Africa" theory deals with Homo Sapiens aka "modern humans". This is about another human species that came before modern humans, kind of like Neanderthals.

originally posted by: cooperton

originally posted by: Harte
a reply to: cooperton

I appreciate the links, but the last one is Peruvian.

IIRC, there have been some elongated skulls found in Egypt. Two, I think, but it might be a few more.

Harte

I did find Peruvian Elongated Skulls, but that one was listed as Egyptian. Maybe Homo Alienis resided in Africa and South America?

I found it listed as Egyptian on several sites. Several claims it was Akhenaten's skull. Even claims it was Tut's skull.

Your source states this:

the only known example from Egypt of clear adjustment of the skull was from a Coptic cemetery 1800 years after the existence of Akhenaten

so maybe it is Egyptian (Coptic.) I saw it identified as Peruvian on far more websites though.

Maybe it's my fuzzy memory, but I think there are two examples in Egypt, like I said.

Harte

I dunno, with most modern humans having Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA, and the only "pure" humans coming out of Sub Sahara Africa. It could be argued that modern humans, those not of pure human blood have origins from more than Africa.

If you have Neanderthal or Denisovan DNA, saying you're origins originate in Africa is not definitely accurate. We aren't pure Sub Sahara humans. Any other blood we share is also a part of our origins.

Many of us are Neanderthal, Denisova, and probably others not yet discovered as well. Only giving credit to our African Ancestors seems a bit unfair.

originally posted by: Puppylove
I dunno, with most modern humans having Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA, and the only "pure" humans coming out of Sub Sahara Africa. It could be argued that modern humans, those not of pure human blood have origins from more than Africa.

Neanderthal and Altaiensis are both human. HN and HA share a common ancestry with HSS as all three are directly trace our mutual lineages to H. Heidelbergensis who was the precursor to all 3. Beyond that, we can all trace the mutual lineages to H. Erectus who was the first member of our genus to leave Africa ~2 Ma

If you have Neanderthal or Denisovan DNA, saying you're origins originate in Africa is not definitely accurate. We aren't pure Sub Sahara humans. Any other blood we share is also a part of our origins.

Even the Khoi San have, albeit much more limited than Europeans, evidence of admixture based on recent(on a geological time scale) back migrations from Europe back into Africa 3Ka

Many of us are Neanderthal, Denisova, and probably others not yet discovered as well. Only giving credit to our African Ancestors seems a bit unfair.

Whether people like it or not, all roads don't lead to Rome, they lead to East Africa and South Africa. No matter which member of the genus Homo you're talking about, every lineage began in Africa.