Hi Keith, I've been avoiding the list recently - too much high-powered stuff on classical economics and all for my tiny brain. However, your potted history caught my attention. I don't think it was quite like the way you describe it. Or, at least, there is some conflicting thought on what human history really was like.
One of the most interesting questions is that of when we became fully human -- that is, when did we start thinking and behaving as we now do? The human brain, in its current anatomical form, has existed for at least 100,000 years, and probably much longer, but it would seem that it has only been used as we use it now for part of that time. Something happened about 40,000 to 60,000 years ago that made people use abstract concepts (e.g. past, present, future, the infinite, the afterlife) and symbols (complex language, drawings, paintings, decorative patterns, perhaps pictographic writing, numbers). Before that, people had not done these things even though it is thought that the brain had a capacity to do them. Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History deals with this matter in the current issue of Scientific American. It is also dealt with in a passage in "The Ingenuity Gap", in which Thomas Homer-Dixon refers to somebody who makes the point that something rather profound happened to human cognition some 60,000 years ago. The question this seems to pose is whether whatever happened was another step in biological evolution or whether it was an example of what Tattersall calls "exaptation", the usage of an adaptation that had been there for a long time but was not used until some sequence of events required it to be used. However it came about, it was probably after it happened that people were able to adapt to a variety of environments, invent things like the atlatl, the boomerang, the harpoon, the domesticated dog, the boat and a variety of other things that made life progressively easier. Another issue focuses on whether we are a distinct or hybrid species. Though some may consider the matter settled, there are still conflicting points of view on the matter. One that seems to holding the field right now is that we are all descended from a single female who lived in Africa some 200,000 years ago. This is based on research on mitochondrial DNA. A competing point of view, one which is losing ground, is that, over the past five hundred or so millennia, there were multiple migrations of essentially different human species out of Africa, and that these mixed and interbred in various parts of the world to produce fully modern humans. The idea here is that we are the product of an enormous, widespread, and prolonged mixing of gene pools, including those of poor old Neanderthal Man who was not displaced but continues to live within us. You say that people migrated from Asia to North America between 22,000 and 13,000 years ago, so you must be implying widespread glaciation and the existence of the Beringian land bridge at about that time. I have no real quarrel with that. That is about when Beringia existed as a home to migrating animal species and the hunting societies that followed them in a general eastward drift. However, your point about the sudden ten degree drop in temperature some 13,000 years ago raised my eyebrows. I know that temperatures fluctuated considerably glaciation receded, but ten degrees seems rather excessive. I would like to know where you got that. As you probably know, the concept of migration over the Beringian land bridge as being the only way that early people got to the Americas has come under fire recently. Kennewick man has raised a number of questions that have made proponents of the land bridge and some North American Native people rather uncomfortable. Some authorities now hold that South America was inhabited before North America, and that North America may have been inhabited in the southeast before it was inhabited in the northwest. One theory, based on the similarity of tools between Solutrean Europe (18,000 to about 15,000 BP) and those found along the eastern seaboard of the US and even Clovis tools suggests that people may actually have migrated to North America along the edge of the ice-sheet that covered the north Atlantic during the last glacial period. Much of this is written up in a fascinating book called "Bones" by Elaine Dewar. Dewar is a journalist, not a scientist, but in her research she interviewed many scientists in both North and South America. To my knowledge, none of them have sued her for misrepresentation yet. I could go on and argue that the scientific method pre-existed the Enlightment, but I'll stop here. My main point, perhaps the only one worth making, is that human history is far more complex than something that can be boiled down into seven points, with or without morning tea. Regards, Ed Weick > Hi Ray, > > I can't cope with the encyclopaedic detail of your last post, so let me try > a potted history of mankind: > > 1. 100,000/50,000BC-30,000BC > Appearance of modern man (Cro-Magnon version of Homo Sapiens) coming out of > Africa and migrating preferentially along seacoasts and up to the edge of > the retreating Ice Age across EurAsia. Small group social structure. Stone > and bone tools, including primitive hunting spear. Variety of hunting > methods according to various habitats. Consecutive inter-group trade of > absolutely essential materials such as salt to enable migration to succeed. > Beginnings of art (ornaments and instructional cave drawings), music (bone > flutes) and probably prose (oral history). > > 2. 30,000BC-20,000BC > Discovery and use of spring-loaded hunting spear (atlatl) enabling large > animals to be systematically hunted and the beginning of extinction of many > large grazing species. Migration of man across all of EurAsia, > necessitating considerable development of trade, including important > local-consecutive trading in obsidian (volcanic stone capable of sharp > edges) and various varieties of wood for different tools and weapons. > > 3. 20,000BC-11,000BC > Further development of atlatl into the bow-and-arrow enabling smaller > animals and competitive predators to be systematically hunted and many made > extinct or scarce. Migration across EurAsia into the Americas. > > 4. 11,000BC-10,000BC > Sudden lowering of temperature by 10 degrees C. Not enough is yet known > about habits/population of man during this important climatic period, but > probably a mixed regime of hunting and early development of primitive > agriculture. > > 5. 10,000BC-circa 1600AD > Resumption of "normal" inter-Glacial temperatures. Agricultural Revolution. > Systematic breeding of a small number of pacific grazing animals and > species of cereals. Foundation of large hierarchical empires. Huge increase > in world population. Gradual evolution of local-consecutive trading into > long-distance caravan and ship-based trading. Migration to every > habitatable island on earth (with the accidental exception of Madagaskar). > Diminution of normal height and weight of the average man in agricultrual > regimes. Brief, local attempts at industrialisation in China and elsewhere. > Extensive ship-based trade along coastlines of empires/cultures -- Chinese, > Arabic, Mediterranean. The arts also flowered enormously on the basis of > this prosperity. > > 6. 1600AD-2000AD > The Enlightenment and systematic start of the scientific method leading to > Industrial Revolution. Gradual stabilisation of population in developed > countries only and the gradual regaining of normal height and weight. > Medical improvements in undeveloped agricultural-based countries causing > further boost to already over-large populations. Beginning of breeding of > his own species (starting with weeding out Downs Syndrome, etc, at foetal > stage). World-wide ship-based trade. Several developed and undeveloped > countries on verge of steep population decline due to man-induced illness > of Aids. Realisation that another Ice Age is due, mainly due to changes in > large oceanic currents but perhaps delayed by global warming possibly > produced by CO2 from extensive fossil-fuel use. First ventures into space. > > 7. 2000AD- > Sudden realisation that mankind, and possibly most species on earth, face > inevitable extinction from either super-volcanoes and/or asteroids of 15-20 > kilometre size and above. Serious discussion of possible migration to > artificial or existing habitats to enable man to survive and, probably, > rapid evolution of new species of mankind as a result. > > ----- > > The above is off the top of my head during my morning pot of tea and I'd > welcome corrections from FWers. > > Keith Hudson > > __________________________________________________________ > "Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in > order to discover if they have something to say." John D. Barrow > _________________________________________________ > Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > _________________________________________________ >
