Wu Liu and others recently reported in Nature/Letter (online, Oct. 14, 2015) that the group had discovered 47 human teeth in the Fuyan Cave in Daoxian. So? Well, the teeth appear to date from at least 80,000 years ago, and they might be as old as 120,000 years. The teeth seem to put previous ideas about the history of human migration from Africa in doubt. If the southern China find is legitimate—and it seems to be so—then humans arrived in Asia before they arrived in Europe.
You might say, “This doesn’t affect me.” But it does, or it has. You are the product of 200 millennia of human development and migration. You don’t know your distant ancestors. You don’t know, even if you have had a DNA test offered by the Human Genome Project or some other organization, the complete history of who you are physically. If you live outside Africa, you might see that your DNA can be traced through the Middle East, for example, but you can’t know who those ancestors were. And, although there are geographical tracks for human migration, you might be the product of that one unidentified small group that broke off from the rest, travelled not by land, but by water, and rejoined the DNA of origin. In that sense we are all orphans, and it is that sense of being an orphan that probably drives so many to seek some information about their ancestry.
Here we are 200,000 years later trying to figure out our past. It’s a research project that we probably will never fully complete. We get a few fragments here or there, some bone, some teeth, maybe a few stone tools. The teeth that Wu Liu’s group found were encapsulated in flowstone in a cave. Flowstone is named for its appearance, not its movement. Like stalagmites and stalactites, flowstone forms very slowly. Its enveloping presence allowed the group to date the teeth, but they gave a range of ages that spanned 40,000 years.
Now think of that range in comparison. If modern thought and technology goes back to the time of the pyramids, that range is a drop in the temporal bucket. Forty thousand years is greater by a factor of 10 than all the time since the Egyptians were making their big tombs. Ancestral humans, living in a cave, losing teeth 80,000 to 120,000 years ago! Now I wonder. Were their concerns just like ours? Did they have their equivalence of dentists. Maybe Liu’s group found the equivalent of a dentist’s office. “Ug, come here; make Ug feel better. Use rock to fix tooth. Be gentle; don’t worry. Ug can ask others. Fix many mouths; no complaints.” (I’m assuming that pronouns hadn’t been invented)
Maybe losing teeth is a bond through history. Certainly, losing tools seems to be what ties us to Homo habilis. Now look ahead. You have teeth and tools. Think you will leave them as the only record of who you are? Some distant descendant is going to wonder who you were and what you were like. Some distant descendant is going to wonder about the trail of your DNA through his or her history. And some distant descendant is going to wonder about the things that concerned you during your “ancient” life. Wouldn’t it be interesting if your concerns were very much the same as those of your ancestors and your descendants?
You might say, “This doesn’t affect me.” But it does, or it has. You are the product of 200 millennia of human development and migration. You don’t know your distant ancestors. You don’t know, even if you have had a DNA test offered by the Human Genome Project or some other organization, the complete history of who you are physically. If you live outside Africa, you might see that your DNA can be traced through the Middle East, for example, but you can’t know who those ancestors were. And, although there are geographical tracks for human migration, you might be the product of that one unidentified small group that broke off from the rest, travelled not by land, but by water, and rejoined the DNA of origin. In that sense we are all orphans, and it is that sense of being an orphan that probably drives so many to seek some information about their ancestry.
Here we are 200,000 years later trying to figure out our past. It’s a research project that we probably will never fully complete. We get a few fragments here or there, some bone, some teeth, maybe a few stone tools. The teeth that Wu Liu’s group found were encapsulated in flowstone in a cave. Flowstone is named for its appearance, not its movement. Like stalagmites and stalactites, flowstone forms very slowly. Its enveloping presence allowed the group to date the teeth, but they gave a range of ages that spanned 40,000 years.
Now think of that range in comparison. If modern thought and technology goes back to the time of the pyramids, that range is a drop in the temporal bucket. Forty thousand years is greater by a factor of 10 than all the time since the Egyptians were making their big tombs. Ancestral humans, living in a cave, losing teeth 80,000 to 120,000 years ago! Now I wonder. Were their concerns just like ours? Did they have their equivalence of dentists. Maybe Liu’s group found the equivalent of a dentist’s office. “Ug, come here; make Ug feel better. Use rock to fix tooth. Be gentle; don’t worry. Ug can ask others. Fix many mouths; no complaints.” (I’m assuming that pronouns hadn’t been invented)
Maybe losing teeth is a bond through history. Certainly, losing tools seems to be what ties us to Homo habilis. Now look ahead. You have teeth and tools. Think you will leave them as the only record of who you are? Some distant descendant is going to wonder who you were and what you were like. Some distant descendant is going to wonder about the trail of your DNA through his or her history. And some distant descendant is going to wonder about the things that concerned you during your “ancient” life. Wouldn’t it be interesting if your concerns were very much the same as those of your ancestors and your descendants?
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