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What Happened Before History? Human Origins

Name: What Happened Before History? Human Origins
Description: Kurzgesagt's animated overview of human origins and the vast prehistory before recorded history. It covers how modern humans emerged and spread.

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

50 videos recommended on HN

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2 HN users recommended this explainer2 months2016–2022 score 2

Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN commenters recommend it as a compact, well-sourced intro to human evolution that even led one viewer to read Sapiens.

Kurzgesagt's animated overview of human origins and the vast prehistory before recorded history. It covers how modern humans emerged and spread.

“there is a great 10 minute video from the Youtube Kurzgesagt channel that lead me to read Sapiens.” (HN, 2016)

2 recommendations · 1 citations · Explainers · partly dated

Evolution & genetics World history Explainers Life Sciences, Mind & Health

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@joshbaptiste Aug 2016 Recommends

on HN thread Did Our Ancestors Become Bipedal So They Could Throw?

I live in a world where 90% of my friends and family believe that they came from the sins of a woman who decided to eat an apple. I recently read a book called Sapiens, this book really drilled into my mind that we homo-sapiens are a derivative of a single great ape that had two daughters, one that became the ancestor of all chimpanzees and the other all humans. If human origin interests you there is a great 10 minute video from the Youtube Kurzgesagt channel that lead me to read Sapiens. [this video] [link]

Short overview of human origins that prompted reading Sapiens.

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@doctoboggan Jan 2018 Recommends

on HN thread Jawbone of Earliest Modern Human Out of Africa Discovered in Israeli Cave

It might not be what you were thinking, but the YouTube channel Kurzgesagt has 2 very good videos on the topic: [this video] [link] His stuff is well sourced and generally reliable.

Well-sourced Kurzgesagt videos on human origins.

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Citations, criticism and jokes

@sillysaurusx Feb 2022 Cites it

on HN thread Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54k years ago at Mandrin

It's possible. It's just one of those explanations that we'd really love to believe, since the alternative is so unthinkable. It's been a hobby of mine to be skeptical of it. Even Kurzgesagt mentioned in passing that we're not sure if it was due to "a series of minor genocides." - [this video] - [link] If anyone knows of breadcrumbs to follow, please chime in. Genetic testing implies it should be possible to figure out how much interbreeding took place. We seem to be able to trace extinction events with some degree of accuracy, so it would be surprising if a genocide-type extinction event was easy to confuse with interbreeding.

Mentions uncertainty about Neanderthal extinction causes.

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