Ancient woodworkings found in Zambia suggest early humans built complex structures and were more settled than previously thought
  • Bridger@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    7 months ago

    Depends what you mean by human. If you restrict the term to homo sapiens you put yourself in a small minority. I’d say the fact that these people used tools in a sophisticated way pretty much defines them as human.

    • Skyrmir@lemmy.world
      0·
      7 months ago

      Human is specifically Homo Sapiens. The rest of the Homo genus, be they ancestors or not, are not recognized as human.

      • grue@lemmy.world
        0·
        7 months ago

        Considering the fact that we interbred with H. neanderthalensis and H. denisova (and still carry the residual DNA to prove it), I think it’s pretty well proven that considering only H. sapiens to be “human” is overly narrow.

        Personally, I would argue that anything within the Homo genus is human by definition (that’s what the word means!), and that anything non-human belongs in a genus like Australopithecus or Paranthropus instead.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
      0·
      7 months ago

      I mean, that’s why it’s so exciting! Who is human and who isn’t? I agree that a lot of folks who were our cousins could also be classified as human, but I think that requires re-examining the definition. That’s why this is so interesting to me. This find redefines a lot of expectations.

      If we considered ourselves special because we alone did x, y, z things, we aren’t so special anymore.