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Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

(news.asu.edu)
273 points geox | 2 comments | 17 Jun 24 21:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.019s | source
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cpncrunch ◴[18 Jun 24 04:25 UTC] No.40714063[source]▶
News article says humans, but earliest human (homo sapiens) was around 300kya. The actual paper uses the word hominids rather than humans.
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AlotOfReading ◴[18 Jun 24 07:11 UTC] No.40714924[source]▶
The word human is commonly used for both modern humans and members of the entire genus Homo. Hominids is a more general superset that isn't strictly correct here. The term hominin is more appropriate in this context and what they actually use in the abstract.

In my opinion though, "human" is the better word here for conveying the right mix of informality without implying the specific semantics of "Hominini sans Pan".

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MattPalmer1086 ◴[18 Jun 24 07:24 UTC] No.40714996[source]▶
Is it?

This is literally the first time Ive seen the word human applied to other hominids. I see many discussions about neanderthals and denisovians and so on. I have never seen them referred to as human.

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1. Aardwolf ◴[18 Jun 24 14:40 UTC] No.40718380{3}[source]▶
If 500,000 years ago a hominid sits by the fire they lit and is working on sharpening a stone tool, would you say:

"someone / a person is sharpening a tool" or "it / a hominid is sharpening a tool"?

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2. Dgrin ◴[18 Jun 24 15:04 UTC] No.40718637[source]▶
I personally would call them a human, but this seems like a false equivalence unless you believe that personhood is something exclusive to humans. “Someone / a hominid” is perfectly valid and could at the same time be “someone / a person”.