What frontier archeology research is necessary to resolve the question of, e.g., ancestral human reproductive community size, then? I know we’re confused as a civilization. If you don’t think it’s because there’s some great theorist we haven’t caught up with, then what evidence remains uncollected?
I think the evidence simply doesn’t exist and can’t be collected. We might get lucky and find something definitive, but more likely we’ll keep finding tiny clues that can be interpreted multiple ways with low confidence.
This is akin to the problems we face in paleontology. It just doesn’t take very long to lose so much inforamtion that we’re left guessing based on crumbs.
I think ancient DNA analysis is the space to watch here. We’ve all heard about Neanderthal intermixing by now, but it’s only recently become possible to determine e.g. that two skeletons found in the same grave were 2nd cousins on their father’s side, or whatever. It seems like this can tell us a lot about social behavior that would otherwise be obscure.
What frontier archeology research is necessary to resolve the question of, e.g., ancestral human reproductive community size, then? I know we’re confused as a civilization. If you don’t think it’s because there’s some great theorist we haven’t caught up with, then what evidence remains uncollected?
I think the evidence simply doesn’t exist and can’t be collected. We might get lucky and find something definitive, but more likely we’ll keep finding tiny clues that can be interpreted multiple ways with low confidence.
This is akin to the problems we face in paleontology. It just doesn’t take very long to lose so much inforamtion that we’re left guessing based on crumbs.
I think ancient DNA analysis is the space to watch here. We’ve all heard about Neanderthal intermixing by now, but it’s only recently become possible to determine e.g. that two skeletons found in the same grave were 2nd cousins on their father’s side, or whatever. It seems like this can tell us a lot about social behavior that would otherwise be obscure.