Echoes From The Pleistocene: Denisovans Remembered in Indigenous Myths? | Dawn of sapiens
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- Опубліковано 7 кві 2022
- Is it possible that indigenous myths retain memories of long ago encounters with our extinct hominin species? In this video I explore the possiblity using evidence from anthropology, paleoanthropology, archaeology, ancient DNA (aDNA) and climate data. This video makes zero claims and is simply a thought experiment that lets all available evidence tell the story.
Show Notes
References:
Benjamin et al., 2020. Aboriginal artefacts on the continental shelf reveal ancient drowned cultural landscapes in northwest Australia. PLOS One. Open Access journals.plos.org/plosone/art...
Berger, et al., 2015. Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber South Africa. Elife. Open Access elifesciences.org/articles/09560
Bjerre, J., 1960. Kalahari. Hill and Wang; New York, NY
Dirks et al., 2017. The age of Homo naledi and associated sediments in the Rising Star Cave, South Africa. Elife. Open Access elifesciences.org/articles/24231
Dorey, 2019. Homo floresiensis. Australian.museum. Open Access australian.museum/learn/scien...
Hammer et al., 2011. Genetic evidence for archaic admixture in Africa. PNAS. Open Access www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073...
Dirks et al., 2017. The age of Homo naledi and associated sediments in the Rising Star Cave, South Africa. Elife. Open Access elifesciences.org/articles/24231
Jacobs et al., 2019. Multiple Deeply Divergent Denisovan Ancestries in Papuans. Cell. Open Access www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0...
Klein, 2018. DNA Study Finds Aboriginal Australians World’s Oldest Civilization. History.com. Open Access www.history.com/news/dna-stud...
Malaspinas et al., 2016. A genomic history of Aboriginal Australia. Nature. www.nature.com/articles/natur...
Pickrell et al., 2012. The genetic prehistory of southern Africa. NComms. Open Access www.nature.com/articles/ncomm...
Stringer, 2012. What makes a modern human. Nature. Open Access www.nature.com/articles/48503....
Upton, 2015. Tales of Ancient Sea Rise Told for 10,000 Years. Climate Central. Open Access www.climatecentral.org/news/t...
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NatGeo / natgeo - Наука та технологія
Non click baity, thought provoking, well referenced content. Subbed, good shit.
Speaking of Middle Earth, I remember seeing a reconstruction of a neanderthal who, if you slapped a beard on him, looked like he was on his way to an impressive monadnock to reclaim a pile of gold from a dragon.
Dwarves might have been Neanderthals.
When thinking about "what ancient hominids thought when encountering other clades of hominids" I think about my neighbor & me. She is a feather light 4'9 petite chinese girl, while I'm a 6'0 robust red head from viking stock. And this range of difference is present DESPITE us both being homo sapiens. We once went shopping together, and from behind us, a clerk once asked if "my daughter & I" need help (until we turned around, & we all 3 bust out laughing) but I do wonder if I had met Lia millenia ago what would we have thought?
Great vid & thx.
Let me start by saying I am not an archaeologist nor an anthropologist and most of what I know I gleaned from a lifetime of reading and watching a lot of videos. That being said, the chance of ancient Homosapien memories having encountered homo naledi is pretty slim, they are most likely an isolated culture that have a very small brain compared to homosapien. I do believe these ancient memories are in fact recalling encounters with other subspecies of human. But I agree with you that it was probably denisovans. And I also think that stories of Ancient Giants were probably homo heidelbergensis which many of the skeletons show that they were as much as 7 ft tall. To a population of homo sapiens that averaged about 5 ft 4 to 5 ft 6 a seven-foot-tall subspecies would absolutely seem like a giant. Just my opinion. You did a really good job with this video. You have a potential of developing a really good Channel. Your research and general assumptions are pretty much on par with much of what I believe. Keep up the good work! I immediately subscribed to your Channel this is the kind of content that I really enjoy ... good luck my friend, hope to hear from you again soon!
(Edited for spelling errors)
It's true that H. sapiens and H. naledi probably inhabited different niches. But if the recent fossil and genetic discoveries tell us anything, it's don't be surprised that our species interacted with other hominin species. But you are probably right as none of the myths (apart from the Ebu Gogo myths of Flores, Indonesia) specifically mention small statured figures. I include several possibilities as a means to accept as possible or reject. I would suggest that myths of giants are based on ancient people discovering the fossil remains of megafauna. Historian Adrienne Mayor writes about this in her book The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times. I also wrote about it here dawnofsapiens.com/2021/01/22/behind-scientific-and-historical-narratives-the-past-is-alive/ Thanks for your thoughts and support!
Good work. I liked the title of the video so I clicked. Titles are important. I was not disappointed.
Subscribed!
I loved this video. Very informative and made me think. Honestly the notion of myth being echoes from the deep past has always interested me. I hope you make more videos like this in the future.
In the Amazon they talk about people that came from a cold place and wore furs
What about the hazda tribe of Africa their creation story would prove your point even more
As R Spock said, “fascinating!” What a well explored concept! I love the you related the concepts behind the myths to give another dimension to the accusatory meanings. Thank you!
Great video I happen to believe very strongly and cultural memories. My husband being native, it is something we talk about often. I'm glad to see this is a subject that others are interested in ♥️ just found your channel, new subscriber!
I always had a theory around folk memories and the various wild man stories all over the world.
Subbed as a really well researched video.
Good luck mate and hope you post regularly.
I find artifacts depicting ape like beings.ill send pics to anyone who wants to see them.ive been trying ti determine what species it could be cause the rock art is very accurate,accurate enough that I've learned of animals I'd never heard of from them then further did reserch just to find it's exactly what it is..and best thing I've found them in 4 states oh wv pa and fl
Homo Erectus lived in Indonesia till quite recently. It was around 5' tall and was possibly a better runner than us.
To see if those legends could be true, do any aboriginal and polynesian myths match. If they separated around the time they met the denisovans then matching, or at least similar, myths, especially of different people would be really interesting
That's an interesting thought. An upcoming video will shed a little more light on your question. Not necessarily the myths portion but the overall situation in the area, stay tuned.
The Polynesians are an offshoot of the Malay peoples, and both Malays and Polynesians are descended from seperate group of Johnny come lately invaders from mainland Asia MUCH later by thousands of years than the New Guinea, and Australian Aboriginies. So their mythology would have little relevance.The Malayo-Polynesians did not "branch off" from the Australian aborigies and New Guinea natives. They were later invaders who took over what is now Indonesia and the Phillipines FROM the ancestors of the Australian and New Guinea peoples.
I'm the 10th suscriber! I've never gotten in on a new channel this early. Great stuff.
Strap in, it's going to be a long ride!
Looking forward to more videos!
Awesome job. Great content &
very informative. Keep'm coming
Great work. I really like it.
There was a time when several Homo species were living simultanously with Homo sapiens. Interbreeding between some of them is proven by genetic data, more interbreeding is at least possible if not probable. Without a doubt there were many occations when different human specied met and interacted. Interbreeding proves they considered themselves being basically the same.
It is unclear if everything we call species today actually is a real species. Maybe some are more like local, early or late races of the same species. If that's true, unfortunately we'll have to find a new term because the term race has been abused so much it can't be used in a scientific manner anymore.
One thing we should not forget is, the anthropological record is very incomplete. Much is still buried in the ground, waiting to be discovered. Much more is lost to time and no remains can ever be found. Everything that we consider being the truth is reconstructed from very incomplete records. Dates like the lifespan of a species are based on the oldest and youngest specimen we know of. It is totally possible that the real lifespan was longer. Every single new discovery can rewrite the timeline of anthropology by thousands or even hundredthousands of years. Just a few decades ago the age of Homo sapiens was considered to be no more than 200000 years. Today we know of 300000 years.
Just a few decades ago Neanderthals were considered dumb, club swinging cave men. Now we know they were pretty much like us, probably even superior to the early, archaic Homo sapiens. Possibly interbreeding with sister species like Neanderthals and Denisovans even helped in developing form archaic to modern Homo sapiens.
Aboriginal Australians have the longest, continous culture of any people in the world. Their traditions go back more than 50000 years in an unbroken line. Their tales of the past should be considered more believable than tales that had been told from one culture to another.
Tales of fires and smoke made by older species are a highly interesting topic. Do the tales of the old races raising fire and smoke mark the end of the older species? Is it possible that they actually are mystified memory of natural disaster like eruptions, impacts, extreme wildfires or something like that? Back then, all human species had a lifestyle closely liked to nature. They experienced every change of environment much more directly than we do today. Small or local populations or tribes are more prone to extinction due to natural disaster than widely spread populations.
Proves nothing. Humans just appeared out of nowhere.
I just find it funny how when Europeans realized they share heritage from Neanderthals suddenly this caveman where intelligent, had cultures, and "even superior" to the early humans.
If they were so good then why did they die? They where not the fittest for its environment.
@@antoniomv9444 Neanderthals are a 600000 years old species. They already had established a culture that was able to make every equipment needed to survive in cold climate when the early, archaic Sapiens came to light a little over 300000 years ago. These archaic Sapiens were not yet what we are today. They still were unable to find solutions to survive cold climate. That's what made them stick to Africa for so long. At that time, Neanderthals certainly were able to do things archaic Sapiens were not able to do yet.
It's not easy to survive in cold climate when you don't have fur. Knowing how to keep a fire going and how to make basic clothes is not enough. You have to be able to make warm, weatherproof cloths, including shoes. You have to be able to store your fire starting equipment dry and safe no matter how the weather is. You have to be able to collect food in the summer and store it safely for the winter becaues hunting alone is not enough to geht through the winter. To be at least partially independent from caves (for example when going hunting in the winter for a few days) you have to be able to build at least basic shelters or tents. Neanderthals had all of this. They already had it when archaic Sapiens still was a pure tropical species, not being able to go further north than the Levante.
Somewhere in western Africa there was a so called ghost population in the same timeframe. We have no physical evidence from them yet, but there is a hybridization event with an unknown Homo species visible in the DNA of people native sub saharan Africa, most prominent in western Africans.
That interaction and interbreeding with sister species (or subspecies or whatever they had really been) started in the timeframe when archaic Sapiens became modern Sapiens. It makes a lot of sense that genetic exchange was one of the factors that had an influence to that developement. Not only interbreeding with Neanderthals. Certainly it was not the only, probably not even the major factor. But it most likely was one of the factors that speeded up evolution in that timeframe.
It still is not clear what exactly was the advantage of the hybridization with Neanderthals. But there is a disadvantage known. People who are not from subsaharan Africa are more prone to get really sick due to covid. Afaik it has been proven that the difference has something to do with a Neanderthal gene. For hybridization with Denisovans there is an advantage known. Peoples native to the Himalaya have a Denisivan gene that helps them breath in high altitude.
Any references i can look into about tales of fire and smoke? It sounds like they have some amazing stories. Books names or video links would be great. Thnx
Very good video!! Well done
Absolutely! The tribe I come from has a story Called the six peoplings of the world....we know there's been five mass extinction events.....
I love your conjecture. Our past and future seem to be linked. People lived a lot longer in sustainable interdependence with nature than our short lived "dominance" myth. I imagine that interest in how cognitive integration with nature can and must grow will spark more discussions very much along the lines your pursuing in this vid. Viewing nature and other humans largely from the point of view of personal profit is perhaps just the time of recorded history - approx. 10,000 years.
Maybe these old stories tell us what questions to ask rather than providing us with the answers? The Lyon and tiger produce a hybrid called a Lyger. Lygers are considerably bigger than their parents. Could this be a clue to the origins of giant legends?
I am subscriber #40. Best of luck with your channel!
Thank you so much!!
I struggled with your speech pattern, being long and slow, but the content of what you are actually saying is fascinating.
Deeply interesting food for thought.
Playback speed 1.25
@@mudshovel289
A simple but invaluable fix, thank you so much, it worked wonders for my brain and ears.
@@mudshovel289
I should have thought of that, Many thanks.
It sounds so much better to my ears.
@@mudshovel289 thank you! Saved the video for me
There's also the legend of Orang Pendek, on Sumatra I believe. Similar legend as Ebu gogo but there many claimed RECENT sightings (including an intriguing video that's probably fake, but still....)
Orang Pendek and related names (like Ebu gogo) is a fairly widespread legend in Indonesia. I suspect it is a deep cultural memory of the remaining Homo Florensesis, which almost certainly survived until the arrival of Homo sapiens, and might have lasted until early historical times.
Wow! This was a really interesting video! Thanks for sharing this!
Thanks for watching!
@@DawnofSapiens you are very welcome!
Keep it up great video
This was an awesome video
Polynesia is rife with legends of little people. Europeans talk of elves,dwarves,fairies...they were probably Australopithecines, a dead end branch of Hominins.
Australopithecus lived like millions of years ago. They were apes, just bipedal apes. There’s no way that they made it to the Pacific Islands.
Disagree, mate. The Australopithecine is still being written...count nothing out.🍔🍔🍔
Quality info.
Greek mythology also belongs to the series of mythical tales, that can tell of other human races. Here we're told that another race of titans, i.e. giants, lived before humans. These titans were stronger than humans. Ooops, according to the current state of research, the Neanderthals were much stronger than Homo sapiens. apparently they were built as bodybuilders. Couldn't it be that behind the tale of the Titans lies the memory of the Neanderthals? May be you have a closer look at the Titan stories under this aspect!
Young girl flinging burning sandals in to the air - if this is a memory of very very long ago....does it indicate that her species did have sandals, etc., or are 'the sandals' a refinement/enhancement/assumption in the story that got added merely a long time ago?
In my opinion, it's likely a cultural adaptation. But like I argue in the video, the specifics of the stories themselves are less important than core information they contain. I.E. the memory that a people of a different elder 'species' once existed alongside their ancestors.
@@DawnofSapiens That seems likely to be the most reasonable assumption.... But assuming that one fact ('there were once another kind of people') is contained in the story and not an elaboration of 'a different tribe of people' leaves one open to wondering if there are other True Facts contained in the story. I am comfortable assuming that European myths about 'elves and dwarfs' contain a smidgen of memory of there being distinctly different human cultures living nearby and not 'another human species' because we know enough about the population turnovers in Europe to know that the folks that met Neanderthals have been largely replaced and their successors were largely replaced...but it may well be that there is cultural continuity in some parts of the world with the ancestors who met/interacted with another human species..... If so...the fact of 'we once met a different kind of people' may (maybe, perhaps) not be the only memory in the story. [Note: I find it very plausible that one or more of our near-relatives were approximately as technologically sophisticated as our ancestors were at that time...]
Everybody was cool til the flesh turned pink.
Please make more of these kinds of videos
I am considering remastering and re-uploading this video as I lost the original video files audio tracks when upgrading my PC and the only track I could salvage (the audio in this video) is not the best quality or tempo. I plan on eventually making other videos in a similar vein. Thanks for watching.
There is a chance that the Homo Floresiensis feet structure may have varied so some may have been able to run well.
We usually consider "running" a purely bipedal action. But what about the way chimpanses run? They can be pretty fast too. They use a combination of bipedal and quadrupedal movement with varying weight distribution, constanty changing depending on terrain. It is possible that when running in uneven terrain Homo floresiensis also used the help of their arms to some extend.
Another factor is size. When something small is moving, it looks faster than when something tall is moving at the same speed. Children look fast when they run but in reality they don't reach the speed of healthy adults. Homo floresiensis was not very tall.
this adds to my thoughts over the last year about how fairy tales actually depict real life from thousands of years ago. trolls could be early hunans
Wot a top notch video m8 keep it up
I appreciate it! When you are neck deep in a project you never really know if the result is good or not.
Man your right and uh just helped me prove my part of it..I've been finding portable rock art with symbols and wierd beings like apes.i have lots n lots all the same and they only come from sites 13500 yrs ago n older..thanks for the insight my friend
WTF 😳
I'll break it down..keep it simple...I have artifacts I have found that's depicts these things..if anyone wants to see pictures let me know..
Do u have a link.
@@JohnDoe-mk9nf alright let me see these artifacts..
@@PaleoPassion I'd be happy to send pics .u have a email or a way to send them to u....are you a antheopologist.ive been searching for someone with more professional knowledge to review these..
fantastic video on an interesting subject! good research and a very good visualization; but please do some vocal training, you have a very "washed out" accent. According to your channelname i´m eager to await more videos of this kind, you got great potential!
Thank you.
I was wondering too about this some cultural things can be passed on look at the Australian aboriginal people and cultural or language it would be fantastic if they did music
Thanks again
The àeta or negritos of the Philippines by basic values has the most denosovin gene's
🤠👍🏿
I'm sure one of our ancestors said, not another one, lol
I will evolve...
oh hum
Have they done DNA testing of the people who tell the myths?
Of the people specifically? I am not sure but some peoples in the Sundaland/Sahul regions have a higher percentage of Denisovan ancestry in there genome. Between 2-5% versus
Tolkien never encountered any archaic species.
He made them up as entertainment.
He was following a long tradition of imagination and mythology.
Small people giants gods and monsters inhabit the mythology of all humanity.
Not because there is any real memory but because it is a way of explaining the mysterious natural phenomenon.
Indian stories of the monkey men that built the bridge to Sri Lanka
The sheer number of generations between the last of another human species and the present is so vast, that it seems highly unlikely that folk memory, even in myth, would survive.
There are also innumerable impossible creatures too, which I take to mean the human imagination is the more likely origin of myths that coincidentally resemble ancient humans. Are you (we) not perhaps guilty of seeing what we want to see, because we now know that these ancient people's existed, and blithely dismissing all the other fantastic beings, because we know they didn't exist?
In other words, cherry picking to fit a narrative.
It's absolutely unlikely. But then again we constantly underestimate our ancestors. Some of their myths have been found to contain correct information from 10 kya. The stories themselves? Probably useless, but these myths and stories were a verbal container to transmitting information generation after generation. Our literate societies can't really contemplate how this transmission works. It took anthropologists many years to understand how Native Americans use place names and stories to transmit information and values to the next generation.
Historian Adrienne Mayor, for example, shows that much of the fantastic beings of Greek and other myths, likely originate in encounters with fossils of megafauna.
So sure they are fantastic but even they provide information. Jumping straight to "it was their imagination" means you would have never considered that these humans of the past lived in a living breathing world and were not divorced from its geology and evidence of the past. Dragons didn't exist but jumping to imagination means you lack the understanding that due to geology in the Mongolian region dinosaur fossils were often inches to feet from the surface.
Do I think myths or oral stories accurately recount memories from 1 million or even 100,000 years ago? Probably not. But from 10k, 20k, or 30k years ago? It's unknown but its possible. Could it be that rather than people of another species they are describing a highly divergent population of H. sapiens? Absolutely. The point of the video was not to necessarily argue that indigenous peoples orally retained 100k year memories. But that oral transmission of knowledge does appear capable of surviving for thousands of years.
BTW, 30,000 years is the equivalent of only 1,000-1,200 generations. When the ability to accurately pass down knowledge is a matter of survival, it's not that crazy to think that our species is incapable of accurately disseminating knowledge 1,200 times.
How do they know there first name was Denis.maybe it was Dave or mark or something. I think its racist calling them all Denis ovan. The birds wouldn't like to be called a mans name. Some racist people make me shake with triumphant spite. They are not my mates