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posted by on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the time-travellers dept.

In what is quite an amazing discovery, scientists have confirmed that a bracelet found in Siberia is 40,000 years old. This makes it the oldest piece of jewelry ever discovered, and archeologists have been taken aback by the level of its sophistication.

The bracelet was discovered in a site called the Denisova Cave in Siberia, close to Russia's border with China and Mongolia. It was found next to the bones of extinct animals, such as the wooly mammoth, and other artifacts dating back 125,000 years.

The cave is named after the Denisovan people — a mysterious species of hominins from the Homo genus, who are genetically different from both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.

[...] Strangely, however, DNA evidence also suggests that, at some point, the Denisovans must have interbred with an as yet unknown and undiscovered species of humans beings.

Skeletal remains show that the Denisovans were probably far more robust and powerful than modern humans, and were, until now, assumed to be a more primitive, archaic type of humans than us.

But, the discovery of the bracelet suggests this was far from true. Amazingly, the skill involved in making this adornment shows a level of technique at least 30,000 years ahead of its time.

It is an astonishing find, having been exquisitely crafted 30,000 years before the Stone Age, which is considered to have begun 10,000 years ago. It is like discovering a 747, made a thousand years before the Wright Brothers ever flew...


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  • (Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:42PM (1 child)

    by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:42PM (#511209) Journal

    We know NOTHING!

    Here this is demonstrated by a single find upsetting an established "factual" timeline of human history by some 30,000 years. Despite this obvious comeuppance for our supposed understanding of human origins and nature, what do the archaeologists and authors do? Immediately speculate on the function and status of the bracelet-wearer, with nothing other than our projections of elite hierarchies, which weren't manifest until the structuring of human communities around pastoralism and agriculture.

    Then again? Maybe THESE go back another 30-40K years! We know nothing.

    Nothing.

    The really ludicrous "Denisovan princess" statement is a manifold absurdity. It was as likely to be worn by a "Denisovan RuPaul"! Or, more consistent with the anachronism and ignorance of this scholarly speculation, a "Denisovan Wilma Flintstone".

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @06:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @06:14PM (#511271)

    We know NOTHING!

    True, but if we don't know what we don't know then how can we know not project our own biases? Where do we draw the line ... at the truth? Is that what science has come to? ;-)

    The really ludicrous "Denisovan princess" statement is a manifold absurdity.

    I've been called worse that "Denisovan princess" ... this week ... by members or my family ... and one of my cats.