Here We Go Again - 5.7 Million Yr Old Human Ancestors Now

Discussion in 'Science and Technology' started by Vanilla Gorilla, Sep 1, 2017.

  1. Vanilla Gorilla

    Vanilla Gorilla Go Ape

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    https://phys.org/news/2017-08-fossil-footprints-theories-human-evolution.html


    Hominid footprints in Crete in rock dated 5.7 million years old



    Add another 1 1/2 million years to previously oldest fossil find of ape like feet, in africa when we supposedly hadnt emmigrated out of Africa


    This find in Crete close to 3 million years more than the previously oldest human like feet fossils found



    [​IMG]
     
  2. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    This is proof that time travel is possible.
     
  3. Tyrsonswood

    Tyrsonswood Senior Moment Lifetime Supporter

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    Yeah.... I put that there.


    Just to fuck with some future scientist's head.
     
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  4. soulcompromise

    soulcompromise Member HipForums Supporter

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    I may be the stupidest person on the planet, but does it even look like a footprint? :)
     
  5. Deidre

    Deidre Visitor

    I've been reading recently on fossil dating, etc and wonder how anyone can know with certainty the difference between thousands of years and millions. Like we don't have any reference point, since thousands of years also sounds hard to fathom. To me, anyway. lol
     
  6. pensfan13

    pensfan13 Senior Member

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    There is a book called 'a short history of nearly everything '

    It explains a lot of things about how we know things that seem unknowable.
     
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  7. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    Radiometric dating.
     
  8. I'minmyunderwear

    I'minmyunderwear Newbie

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    i suppose you don't see these obviously human footprints either?

    [​IMG]?
     
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  9. WOLF ANGEL

    WOLF ANGEL Senior Member - A Fool on the Hill Lifetime Supporter

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    One wonders when someone with mark the date when ape turned to man - a eureka moment of clarity is always going to be opaque - unless the aliens actually tell us when they came, saw and interfered accordingly
     
  10. egger

    egger Member

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    It's not known with certainty. Two of the authors of the paper on the Crete footprints describe the dating method.

    https://theconversation.com/our-controversial-footprint-discovery-suggests-human-like-creatures-may-have-roamed-crete-nearly-6m-years-ago-82326

    From the article:

    "The footprints were dated using a combination of fossilised marine microorganisms called foraminifera and the character of the local sedimentary rocks. Foraminifera evolve very rapidly and marine sedimentary rocks can be dated quite precisely on the basis of the foraminifera they contain. These indicated an age somewhere in the span 8.5m to 3.5m years. However, at the very end of the Miocene, about 5.6m years ago, an extraordinary thing happened: the entire Mediterranean sea dried out for some time. This event left a clear signature in the sediments of the surrounding areas. The sediments that contain the footprints suggest they probably date to the period immediately before this, at about 5.7m years."
     
  11. WOLF ANGEL

    WOLF ANGEL Senior Member - A Fool on the Hill Lifetime Supporter

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    - And then once the ice melts in areas of Antarctica (and with climate change going the way it is...!) - who knows what discoveries will be to made there?
     
  12. egger

    egger Member

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    The footprints near Crete share fhe features of modern human feet: a large first toe parallel with other toes; prominant ball of foot; pronounced heel; and soles fully on the soil (plantigrade as opposed to digitigrade). It's a remarkable find considering that the dating techniques (stratigraphy and analysis of embedded marine microfossile) are showing the soil to have been formed in a distinct layer about 5.7 million years ago. Even if the prints are only 3.6m years, it's still a remarkable find.

    The Crete footprints show a big toe that appears to be even more aligned with the other toes compared to the footprints of Ardipithecus ramidus discovered in Africa which show some divergence of the big toe.and that are believed to be about 4.4 million years old, which is about 1.3 million years younger than the Crete footprints.. The Laetoli footprints in northern Tanzania.are 3.6 million years old and are believed to have been made by Australopithecus afarensis.

    The length of the Crete prints varies from about 94 to 223 mm (3.7 to 8.8 inches),. Such beings might have been 2 to 4.8 feet tall. For modern humans, there is about 6.6 inches of body height for each inch of the length of the foot.

    The print findings in Crete and the dental findings in Bulgaria call into question the place of origin of the earliest hominins assuming they belong to hominins. The dental finding of Bulgaria are still the subject of dispute in the archeological community as to whether they are hominin. Northern Africa has been well documented for its hominin finds but limited evidence is showing southern Europe as a possible early hominin habitat. The archeological finds for early hominins in Europe are currently very few compared with the large collection of evidence from Africa. Actual bones of early hominins need to be found in Europe and preferably ones that are associated with the Crete prints.
     
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  13. egger

    egger Member

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    Publication about the tracks discovered near Crete. Pdf of complete paper is free.

    It's open to debate as to what type of creature made them. It could have been a non-human ancestor but something related to others in the ape family (hominid, not hominin). It's possible it was neither hominid nor hominin but rather something outside this type of clade that happened to develop feet that look very similar. To conclude that the prints are those of human ancestors is premature at this point.

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001678781730113X

    Abstract:

    "We describe late Miocene tetrapod footprints (tracks) from the Trachilos locality in western Crete (Greece), which show hominin-like characteristics. They occur in an emergent horizon within an otherwise marginal marine succession of Messinian age (latest Miocene), dated to approximately 5.7 Ma (million years), just prior to the Messinian Salinity Crisis. The tracks indicate that the trackmaker lacked claws, and was bipedal, plantigrade, pentadactyl and strongly entaxonic. The impression of the large and non-divergent first digit (hallux) has a narrow neck and bulbous asymmetrical distal pad. The lateral digit impressions become progressively smaller so that the digital region as a whole is strongly asymmetrical. A large, rounded ball impression is associated with the hallux. Morphometric analysis shows the footprints to have outlines that are distinct from modern non-hominin primates and resemble those of hominins. The interpretation of these footprints is potentially controversial. The print morphology suggests that the trackmaker was a basal member of the clade Hominini, but as Crete is some distance outside the known geographical range of pre-Pleistocene hominins we must also entertain the possibility that they represent a hitherto unknown late Miocene primate that convergently evolved human-like foot anatomy."
     
  14. egger

    egger Member

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  15. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    five and a half and a little bit is two and a half times two. but its still kind of small change compared to five or six BILLION.
     

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