“Oldest Homo sapiens bones ever found shake foundations of the human story”

This is, of course, scientifically interesting in its own right:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/07/oldest-homo-sapiens-bones-ever-found-shake-foundations-of-the-human-story

But there’s another lesson in it, if the advocates of this find are correct:

It isn’t just slightly older than previous relevant finds.  It’s a lot older.  It’s from 300,000 years before the present.  The previous oldest analog, which set the standard story, dates to slightly less than 200,000 years before the present.  And it doesn’t just slightly adjust the prevailing account.  If accurately evaluated, it changes that account substantially.

What to draw from this?

Among many other things, these lessons can be drawn:  The archaeological record isn’t complete.  Most human remains and artifacts don’t survive long.  They’ll never be found.  Be we can seldom if ever guarantee that we’ve found a representative sample of what has survived, let alone most of it or even all of it.  And we can’t be sure that we’ve properly interpreted what we’ve found.

We’re telling stories — sketching out theories — based upon partial pictures.

We can hope that we’re doing it competently.  But we can’t be certain of that.  And surprises may, likely will, come.

Posted from Boston, Massachusetts