I've been watching a TV series called Human which covers the rise of humanity and the eventual dominance of Homo Sapiens.
But there's one part of this story that I think deserves its own thread, a particular species of human called Homo Floresiensis. These humans evolved from a small number of Homo Erectus who migrated - possibly accidentally, in flooding - to the island of Flores, which in modern terms is part of Indonesia.
Floresiensis lived there for 700,000 years. The really unsettling thing, for me anyway is - they evolved to be less intelligent. They adapted to their environment by becoming smaller (not much more than a metre tall) and by developing smaller brains.
That's the really perverse thing to me - evolution making humans develop backwards (in a sense). Smaller brains require less energy, and their environment didn't require higher cognitive abilities. Consistent food sources, no large predators. Natural selection favoured smaller brains. Their brains were about 30% the size of ours. By contrast Homo Erectus, from whom they evolved, had nearly Homo-Sapiens-sized brains.
They spent the entire history of their species on one island the size of Wales. The nearest land mass was only 5km away - but they never thought to explore, to cross the water. 700,000 years with land 5km away that was forever unknown to them, even though they could see it on a clear day.
They just didn't even have the cognitive ability to be able to think "what's over there?". No abstract reasoning, no curiosity. And in all that time they never developed the technology to build a simple raft, or the imagination to want to.
700,000 years on one island. They used caves as shelters. They never invented the wheel, probably didn't even use fire for heat or cooking. Only the simplest stone tools made by bashing stones together. No language, no cave paintings, no roads or paths. Definitely no digital watches or electric guitars. Never left their island. 700 millenia.
Evolution doesn't always make creatures more sophisticated, it just makes them fit their environment.
Maybe there was some strange natural pond where beer brewed accidentally. Fancy a 5km swim? Nah, your alright, I'm going down the pond.
Curious and interesting.Never heard of this but come to think of it, of course things can either go forward or backward. Plato's allegory of the cave comes to mind when reading this.
Oddly enough I thought about this recently in an entirely different context: children nowadays learn to deal with the digital realm we live in, soon to be taken over by AI mostly, and basic skills like calculus, actually understanding what it is that you read or even finding stuff out for yourself will be a thing of the past. Except for the top 1% of curious ones that would want to continue investigating. Aren't we going backwards as well?
They didn't even know they lived on an island, they couldn't even build a simple mental map with the concept "island". Very limited spatial awareness.
Quote from: Thenop on July 23, 2025, 11:54:32 AMCurious and interesting.Never heard of this but come to think of it, of course things can either go forward or backward. Plato's allegory of the cave comes to mind when reading this.
Oddly enough I thought about this recently in an entirely different context: children nowadays learn to deal with the digital realm we live in, soon to be taken over by AI mostly, and basic skills like calculus, actually understanding what it is that you read or even finding stuff out for yourself will be a thing of the past. Except for the top 1% of curious ones that would want to continue investigating. Aren't we going backwards as well?
Couldn't agree more, Nop. The more forms of communication we develop as a species, the more we seem to be losing a grip on the basics. Spelling, punctuation, vocal interaction, numeracy. All taken care of by machinery.
When I read comments on FB or YouTube I wonder if it's laziness or illiteracy. It's such a relief to come on here and be picked up on a lack of paragraphs in a piece.
I listened to a group of teenagers on the train recently. They weren't the roughest examples, but their discussions seemed to lack fundamental structure. I don't remember it being like that as a youth. In amongst the undoubted babble there always seemed to be a foundation of a storyline or theme. Things seem to be a bit staccato now.
Difficult to tell in short snapshots I suppose and I don't have children myself, so I'm probably just out of touch.
I think we're definitely going backwards. When you look at a a site such as Newgrange built approximately 5000 years ago. To have designed a site that allows the sun to penetrate it's core to a specific point only on the Winter Solstice is an amazing feat of engineering.
All done with basic tools of course at a time where conditions were harsh and most people were dead by the age of 40.
We barely have to think nowadays - everything is available in the palm of our hands.
We've already passed the responsibility of remembering stuff onto our phones. AI means that we won't ever have to put serious thought into anything ever again. And just as well as our brains are just too distracted by the dopamine hit of phones constantly sending notifications to be able to seriously concentrate
Classic case of Island dwarfism, where Large species decrease in size, indeed the Stegodon - Elephant like animal - decreased in size on Flores to having a shoulder height of 4'3". Indeed, on Sicily and Malta there were dwarf Elephants the size of a Shetland Pony which may have become extinct only 19,000 years ago.
On the other hand small creatures can grow in size, the Flores Giant Rat can grow to 4' long, a nice meal for a Hobbit!
Given the paucity of Home Floresiensis remains on Flores itself, we'll probably never know if they did attempt crossing to the mainland. If they did, they'd have been clobbered by Homo Erectus or indeed whatever Homo species was around and would either end up as Long Pig or would do a quick about face :)
Quote from: Nickslikk2112 on July 23, 2025, 05:24:06 PMClassic case of Island dwarfism, where Large species decrease in size, indeed the Stegodon - Elephant like animal - decreased in size on Flores to having a shoulder height of 4'3". Indeed, on Sicily and Malta there were dwarf Elephants the size of a Shetland Pony which may have become extinct only 19,000 years ago.
On the other hand small creatures can grow in size, the Flores Giant Rat can grow to 4' long, a nice meal for a Hobbit!
Given the paucity of Home Floresiensis remains on Flores itself, we'll probably never know if they did attempt crossing to the mainland. If they did, they'd have been clobbered by Homo Erectus or indeed whatever Homo species was around and would either end up as Long Pig or would do a quick about face :)
They'd probably be considered a starter.😆
Quote from: Nickslikk2112 on July 23, 2025, 05:24:06 PMGiven the paucity of Home Floresiensis remains on Flores itself, we'll probably never know if they did attempt crossing to the mainland.
They didn't have the spatial reasoning to understand the shape on the horizon as another place, or to understand the very concept of crossing the water. No sense of scale. No capacity to imagine themselves reaching it. I've just read that they likely had less curiosity than modern dogs.
These poor early humans didn't even have the cognitive abilities of Green Party supporters.
Quote from: Slim on July 23, 2025, 09:34:32 PMQuote from: Nickslikk2112 on July 23, 2025, 05:24:06 PMGiven the paucity of Home Floresiensis remains on Flores itself, we'll probably never know if they did attempt crossing to the mainland.
They didn't have the spatial reasoning to understand the shape on the horizon as another place, or to understand the very concept of crossing the water. No sense of scale. No capacity to imagine themselves reaching it. I've just read that they likely had less curiosity than modern dogs.
These poor early humans didn't even have the cognitive abilities of Green Party supporters.
And yet we cannot say that. Indeed if you read elsewhere
QuoteLB1 has derived frontal andtemporal lobes and a lunatesulcus in a derived position, which are consistent with capabilities for higher cognitive processing.
https://doc.rero.ch/record/14871/files/PAL_E2009.pdf
Indeed, no natural selection pressure = no need to do much more than find food and procreate; evolution will tend to take the path of least resistance.
Quote from: Nickslikk2112 on July 23, 2025, 09:52:02 PMQuote from: Slim on July 23, 2025, 09:34:32 PMQuote from: Nickslikk2112 on July 23, 2025, 05:24:06 PMGiven the paucity of Home Floresiensis remains on Flores itself, we'll probably never know if they did attempt crossing to the mainland.
They didn't have the spatial reasoning to understand the shape on the horizon as another place, or to understand the very concept of crossing the water. No sense of scale. No capacity to imagine themselves reaching it. I've just read that they likely had less curiosity than modern dogs.
These poor early humans didn't even have the cognitive abilities of Green Party supporters.
And yet we cannot say that. Indeed if you read elsewhere
QuoteLB1 has derived frontal andtemporal lobes and a lunatesulcus in a derived position, which are consistent with capabilities for higher cognitive processing.
https://doc.rero.ch/record/14871/files/PAL_E2009.pdf
Interesting, thanks Nick. I put this to ChatGPT and it suggested:
(https://i.ibb.co/XkpyN4rX/gptf.png)