----- Original Message ----- From: Keith Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: Ray Evans Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 4:09 AM Subject: Potted History in 7 steps (was: Height and weight)
> 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). So glad you were there. People today don't even know what medieval music or the music of the Aztec truly sounded like but we are never remiss at speaking with authority from a distance of tens of thousands of years. There is one liklihood to all of this. It was magical and filled with rhythms since rhythms bond groups. > > 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. Atlatl is an Aztec word. I think what killed those large species was a bug. They weren't killed off in Africa and Asia until the late 19th and 20th centuries with big game hunters, extensive farming etc. Why would a much smaller population of Proto Aztecs, (20,000 years before the Toltecs) (joke for you serious folks) be more adept than Europeans, Africans or Asians at getting rid of the big beasts? That is just more blowing in the wind by the proto-science (no joke) folks. I once had a physicist tell me that a vocal anatomy article in Scientific American told him more about singing then his girl friend who was a professional singer and her teacher who spent hours trying to make him understand the issues. You figure it. The article made not claims to defining how an anatomy made a singer or not, but he was sure he had the answer. She did however, she left him and went off with another man. > > 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. Richard Leakey said that if the Europeans ever got to seriously studying the Americas he wouldn't be surprised to find a 100,000 year date for Cro-Magnon in the Americas. Thus far there are 33,000 year carbon dates in South America and some near that in the Eastern U.S. Archeology in the Americas has only begun seriously in the last half of the 20th century. > > 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. I don't know. What happened to Europe during the little Ice Age? > > 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. London of Henry VIII was 58,000. It was still a small population comparitavely with the largest city populations in the valley of Mexico, much as it is today. To many people and a lot of pollution at the foot of a volcano. 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). A huge increase in disease world wide. In the Americas it wiped, in some cases over 90% of the population. Whole cities in the Amazon basin disappeared but are still visable from the air and there streets under water run on for miles. > 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. What about the Dinka and the Osage Keith? > > 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. The Shamanic method begins with observation, hypothesis, exploration and conclusion. It is highly individual and is written down in a tongue understood by no one but the Shaman and some other Shamans. I didn't learn about science in the West but in my Cherokee studies where the Christians couldn't taint the evolution. The disease in America made it possible for Europe and Asia to populate with no need for restraint. At one point 80,000 immigrants a month flooded into America from Europe. > 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. That began at the turn of the 19th century when Frederick Jackson Turner wrote his essay about the end of the Frontier. Keith, There is a version of music history that starts with monody and chant and goes through to the 20th century with atonality and modern music. It makes a great story but it is just a story. At the same time that they spoke of the various steps of the history, they knew that there were instruments consigned to the "folk" that contradicted their history, including the complicated atonal women's choral singing from the outer Russian republics. I was asked to make a video years ago about the evolution of vocal music in the West. It was such a mess that when I presented, with data, the reason for rewriting it, they took my research, paid me for it and asked if I would like my name on their video. Since they were not only using the old story but inaccurate vocal data (from another source) I declined and cashed the check. Your story is a linear story with a lot of tea but not much sympathy for the past. REH > 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] > _________________________________________________ >
