Re: Prehistory
Charlie Bell wrote: On 01/08/2006, at 8:45 AM, Brother John wrote: As a child that raised white mice and rats as much as I did snakes, I can attest that white rats are much, much better pets than white mice. Mice bite and their urine stinks something awful. Neither is true of white rats. Rats actually make very nice pets, much better pets than hamsters of gerbils. Of course, that is just my person opinion. But it is based on personal experience. At last, some common ground. (Of course, you were probably raising rodents to feed to snakes, but I'll forgive you...). I never had white rats, I had a pair of dark chocolate brown rats with white bellies. The breed is "Black Berkshire", and they were _Rattus norvegicus_, or the Common Brown or Norway Rat (the most common pet rat, although a few people do breed Black Rats (_Rattus rattus_). Rats are *great* pets. Really social, and really smart. Yes, my brother and I were raising rats to feed to our snakes. But we really liked the rats. They didn't bite like the mice, hamsters and gerbils we owned. And they were much cleaner than the mice. Mice simply stink something awful. I think rats, if a person gets clean, healthy well bred rats, make excellent pets. Obviously disease ridden sewer rats aren't good to have around. But you could say the same thing about diseased, uncared for cats and dogs too. John W. Redelfs [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Since we are all children of the same Heavenly Father, we really are all brothers and sisters." --Uncle Bob All my opinions are tentative pending further data. --JWR ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
Charlie Bell wrote: On 01/08/2006, at 8:45 AM, Brother John wrote: As a child that raised white mice and rats as much as I did snakes, I can attest that white rats are much, much better pets than white mice. Mice bite and their urine stinks something awful. Neither is true of white rats. Rats actually make very nice pets, much better pets than hamsters of gerbils. Of course, that is just my person opinion. But it is based on personal experience. At last, some common ground. (Of course, you were probably raising rodents to feed to snakes, but I'll forgive you...). I never had white rats, I had a pair of dark chocolate brown rats with white bellies. The breed is "Black Berkshire", and they were _Rattus norvegicus_, or the Common Brown or Norway Rat (the most common pet rat, although a few people do breed Black Rats (_Rattus rattus_). Rats are *great* pets. Really social, and really smart. I have a friend with hairless rats. Those sound like fun! (And being furry can be a liability around here for a good chunk of the year.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
On 01/08/2006, at 8:45 AM, Brother John wrote: As a child that raised white mice and rats as much as I did snakes, I can attest that white rats are much, much better pets than white mice. Mice bite and their urine stinks something awful. Neither is true of white rats. Rats actually make very nice pets, much better pets than hamsters of gerbils. Of course, that is just my person opinion. But it is based on personal experience. At last, some common ground. (Of course, you were probably raising rodents to feed to snakes, but I'll forgive you...). I never had white rats, I had a pair of dark chocolate brown rats with white bellies. The breed is "Black Berkshire", and they were _Rattus norvegicus_, or the Common Brown or Norway Rat (the most common pet rat, although a few people do breed Black Rats (_Rattus rattus_). Rats are *great* pets. Really social, and really smart. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
On Sun, 30 Jul 2006 22:21:21 -0800, Brother John <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Doug Pensinger wrote: Brother John wrote: Consider the marvelous book by Jared Diamond called /Guns, Germs and Steel. /It is almost all conjecture. It is very good conjecture perhaps, but conjecture nevertheless. Have you read it? Yes, I read it. And I really enjoyed the first half. Then I got bored with the constant statement of conjectures as fact. Consider the very important paleoanthropological find in the Columbia River Valley called the Kenniwick Man. We know from a study of his skull and other bones that he was not racially related to the Native Americans that now occupy that part of the world. He seems to have been of European ancestry or at least his bones are more European-like than any of the Native Americans today. I thought that they've concluded that he was probably an ancestor of the Jomon, who also were the ancestors of the Ainu people of Japan. Who are "they?" Here: [http://www.cr.nps.gov/archeology/kennewick/powell_rose.htm] and here: [http://www.kennewick-man.com/kman/news/story/7997435p-7890471c.html] and here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man] The last I read "they" were of a multitude of opinions with little if anything upon which to base their opinion. But you stated above that he wasn't "racially related to the Native Americans that now occupy that part of the world." if "they" have "little if anything upon which to base their opinion." how is it that you determined that he's not related? But what chance is there that we will ever be able to figure out where he came from, or what happened to his descendants if he had any? There is no way to answer such questions scientifically. I believe DNA analysis could tell us something (if they could get DNA from the remains.) We do know that he had a stone projectile point embedded in his pelvis. Yes, but we do not know how he died, or how he came to be where he was. The stone point was obviously not what killed him because it was an old injury when he died. My point (yuk yuk) is that the level of technology suggests that the man was not from some advanced civelization as you hinted in your original post. -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
Gibson Jonathan wrote: We have three cats who have made a serious dent in the gopher population in our neighborhood - without poisons. Playful ribbing aside, they have been much more patient and ardent hunters than the dogs around here. It's also quite a sight to see our smallish felines carry a struggling rat almost as large as themselves over for approval. I love cats and dogs, but for different reasons. Dogs are great chums and loyal "friends" beyond any reason. They appear to have been bred to fit human needs far more than cats, who obviously understand power politics better than canines. Where Douglas Adams' white mice come in I'm still puzzling out... As a child that raised white mice and rats as much as I did snakes, I can attest that white rats are much, much better pets than white mice. Mice bite and their urine stinks something awful. Neither is true of white rats. Rats actually make very nice pets, much better pets than hamsters of gerbils. Of course, that is just my person opinion. But it is based on personal experience. John W. Redelfs [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Since we are all children of the same Heavenly Father, we really are all brothers and sisters." --Uncle Bob All my opinions are tentative pending further data. --JWR ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
On 01/08/2006, at 3:55 AM, Richard Baker wrote: However, it's at least logically possible - or so it seems to me; Charlie or someone else more knowledgeable might correct me - that some modern humans are descended from Neanderthals but that the characteristically Neanderthal genes have been diluted to the vanishing point. We all seem to have evolved from Neanderthals. But then we're subspecies of _Homo sapiens_. _H. sapiens neanderthalis_ spread out from Africa, a group that remained in Africa became _H. sapiens sapiens_, and spread out in another wave. There are certainly skeletons that are claimed to show both modern human and Neanderthal characteristics, so some interbreeding may have been going on. Yep. There's some disputable morphological evidence. Just not much genetic evidence. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
On 31/07/2006, at 11:00 PM, Alberto Monteiro wrote: Charlie Bell wrote: We do now know that if Neanderthals interbred with modern people, there are no traces of Neanderthal genes left in modern populations. Neanderthals have no genes in common with modern populations??? Are they from an entirely different biological line? Silicon-based lifeforms? Wilful misunderstanding for comic effect? Sort of. Rich should probably have said "uniquely Neanderthal genes" or something. But I know what he meant. I know what he means. I just don't understand _how_ can someone take this step [that we are not descendant from the Neanderthals] based on a DNA analysis of them. That's not what was said at all. What was said was if we *interbred* with them, no traces of their (unique marker) genes remains. If we have genes in common with Chimpanzees [who diverged from us 7 million years ago - please someone corrects me as I am quoting from memory About 3 - 5. Orangs split about 7mya, Gorillas sometime between those two. - not real memory, I don't claim to be so old neither to have past-live experiences] it's not hard to imagine that we have genes in common with Neanderthals. We have genes in common with spiders, sea squirts, and earthworms. It's the genes we *don't* have in common that are interesting in the case of working out ancestry and relationships. So how can a DNA test prove that they are not [a part of] our ancestors? They probably are. Modern man seems to have evolved out of a group of Neanderthals. The question was whether they interbred after the split, and a DNA test can't prove that they didn't. But there's no traces left of their genes, if they did. It's fairly easy to show with modelling or computer simulation how quickly genes can be either fixed or eliminated in a population, I recommend "Evolutionary Genetics" by John Maynard Smith if you're particularly interested. Can't find my copy, though, which is irritating me. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
Alberto said: So how can a DNA test prove that they are not [a part of] our ancestors? I'm sorry for being sloppy, but when I said "there are no traces of Neanderthal genes left in modern populations" I was trying so hard not to say "Neanderthals were not the ancestors of any modern people" that I failed to be sufficiently precise in what I was saying. Of course, we have genes in common with Neanderthals, chimpanzees, and for that matter dogs, fish, lampreys, starfish, insects and squid. However, there are also genes that vary from species to species, and also others that vary for individuals within a species. This last class of genes are the kind that population geneticists deal with. It's quite common for population geneticists to say things like "Alice shares half of her father's genes", whereas strictly speaking she shares almost all of his genes as most genes don't vary from person to person. And in this case, I was talking about this variability as well. The study of both mitochondrial and nuclear genes from Neanderthals show that for those genes that vary between individuals (rather than the ones that all humans and Neanderthals have in common) the Neanderthal genes are far outside the normal range of human variability. Indeed, they're something like four times as far out from the average human sequences as the human distribution is wide. Comparisons of hypervariable gene sequences between Neanderthals, modern Europeans and native human populations from other continents show that Neanderthals are no closer to modern Europeans than to other human populations. The current estimate is that humans and chimpanzees diverged 4-5 million years ago, humans and Neanderthals about 0.5 million years ago, and modern humans about 0.1 million years ago. However, it's at least logically possible - or so it seems to me; Charlie or someone else more knowledgeable might correct me - that some modern humans are descended from Neanderthals but that the characteristically Neanderthal genes have been diluted to the vanishing point. There are certainly skeletons that are claimed to show both modern human and Neanderthal characteristics, so some interbreeding may have been going on. Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
On Jul 30, 2006, at 11:33 PM, Brother John wrote: Charlie Bell wrote: Your lack of imagination is unsurprising. Recently, a cat baiting exercise near my old house resulted in the poisoning of many pet and stray cats. Including all three of mine. This was done for "pest control" reasons by some locals. 3 months later, there is a serious rat and cockroach problem in the area. If rats and mice are your reason for having a pet, then keep a snake. They do a much better job than any cat. We have three cats who have made a serious dent in the gopher population in our neighborhood - without poisons. Playful ribbing aside, they have been much more patient and ardent hunters than the dogs around here. It's also quite a sight to see our smallish felines carry a struggling rat almost as large as themselves over for approval. I love cats and dogs, but for different reasons. Dogs are great chums and loyal "friends" beyond any reason. They appear to have been bred to fit human needs far more than cats, who obviously understand power politics better than canines. Where Douglas Adams' white mice come in I'm still puzzling out... - Jonathan - Jonathan Gibson www.formandfunction.com/word ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
At 11:22 PM Sunday 7/30/2006, The Fool wrote: > From: Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 09 AM > > The Fool wrote: > > > > Well if you mean writing. The sphynx is estimated as being 8000+ years > > ago. About 1-2000 years after the domestication of the cat. > > > Most egyptologists think that the Sphynx was build at the same time as > the Great Pyramids. If you want to conjure non-official opinions, then > there are theories that made the Sphynx as young as 1000 years and > as old as 1 billion years old :-P There was a NOVA program (or some orther pbs science program) on the sphynx a number of years ago. It was about how the sphynx had way more rain erosion than historical rainfall averages could ever account for if it was the same age as the the other artifacts around it. Perhaps for the same (alleged) reason as the big stain on the Statue of Liberty . . . ? -- Ronn! :) "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever." -- Konstantin E. Tsiolkovskiy ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
Charlie Bell wrote: > >>> We do now know that if Neanderthals interbred with modern people, >>> there are no traces of Neanderthal genes left in modern populations. >> >> Neanderthals have no genes in common with modern populations??? >> Are they from an entirely different biological line? Silicon-based >> lifeforms? > > Wilful misunderstanding for comic effect? > Sort of. > Rich should probably have said "uniquely Neanderthal genes" or > something. But I know what he meant. > I know what he means. I just don't understand _how_ can someone take this step [that we are not descendant from the Neanderthals] based on a DNA analysis of them. If we have genes in common with Chimpanzees [who diverged from us 7 million years ago - please someone corrects me as I am quoting from memory - not real memory, I don't claim to be so old neither to have past-live experiences] it's not hard to imagine that we have genes in common with Neanderthals. So how can a DNA test prove that they are not [a part of] our ancestors? Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
On 31/07/2006, at 4:33 PM, Brother John wrote: Charlie Bell wrote: Your lack of imagination is unsurprising. Recently, a cat baiting exercise near my old house resulted in the poisoning of many pet and stray cats. Including all three of mine. This was done for "pest control" reasons by some locals. 3 months later, there is a serious rat and cockroach problem in the area. If rats and mice are your reason for having a pet, then keep a snake. They do a much better job than any cat. No, enjoying cat behaviour was the reason I had a cat. I was just point out a use for cats, as you couldn't think of one. Cats do a pretty good job, and they're legal to keep. Snakes aren't in many parts. When I was a child, my brothers and I kept quite a few snakes. They even got written up in the Omaha newspaper when herpetologists from neighboring states visited us to see our snake collection. That's what my brother and I did with our paper route money. Lucky you. I've always wanted a snake. Instead, I've had dogs, cats, fish, birds, and rats. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
Charlie Bell wrote: Your lack of imagination is unsurprising. Recently, a cat baiting exercise near my old house resulted in the poisoning of many pet and stray cats. Including all three of mine. This was done for "pest control" reasons by some locals. 3 months later, there is a serious rat and cockroach problem in the area. If rats and mice are your reason for having a pet, then keep a snake. They do a much better job than any cat. When I was a child, my brothers and I kept quite a few snakes. They even got written up in the Omaha newspaper when herpetologists from neighboring states visited us to see our snake collection. That's what my brother and I did with our paper route money. --JWR ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
Doug Pensinger wrote: Brother John wrote: Consider the marvelous book by Jared Diamond called /Guns, Germs and Steel. /It is almost all conjecture. It is very good conjecture perhaps, but conjecture nevertheless. Have you read it? Yes, I read it. And I really enjoyed the first half. Then I got bored with the constant statement of conjectures as fact. Consider the very important paleoanthropological find in the Columbia River Valley called the Kenniwick Man. We know from a study of his skull and other bones that he was not racially related to the Native Americans that now occupy that part of the world. He seems to have been of European ancestry or at least his bones are more European-like than any of the Native Americans today. I thought that they've concluded that he was probably an ancestor of the Jomon, who also were the ancestors of the Ainu people of Japan. Who are "they?" The last I read "they" were of a multitude of opinions with little if anything upon which to base their opinion. But what chance is there that we will ever be able to figure out where he came from, or what happened to his descendants if he had any? There is no way to answer such questions scientifically. We do know that he had a stone projectile point embedded in his pelvis. Yes, but we do not know how he died, or how he came to be where he was. The stone point was obviously not what killed him because it was an old injury when he died. --JWR ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
The Fool said: Well if you mean writing. By the usual definition, the boundary between history and prehistory isn't the same as the boundary between civilised and uncivilised cultures, but between those periods for which we have written evidence and those for which we don't. Clearly there were sophisticated societies with complex economies and cultures, urbanisation, monumental architecture and relatively advanced technologies before the beginning of history. The sphynx is estimated as being 8000+ years ago. Perhaps by some people, but most Egyptologists date it to the Fourth Dynasty, the time in the middle of the third millennium BC when the nearby large pyramids were built by the pharaohs Khufu, Khafra and Menkaura. The construction of the Great Sphynx is often attributed to Khafra (as was believed in New Kingdom Egypt a thousand years later) or his brother Djedefra. Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
> From: Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 09 AM > > The Fool wrote: > > > > Well if you mean writing. The sphynx is estimated as being 8000+ years > > ago. About 1-2000 years after the domestication of the cat. > > > Most egyptologists think that the Sphynx was build at the same time as > the Great Pyramids. If you want to conjure non-official opinions, then > there are theories that made the Sphynx as young as 1000 years and > as old as 1 billion years old :-P There was a NOVA program (or some orther pbs science program) on the sphynx a number of years ago. It was about how the sphynx had way more rain erosion than historical rainfall averages could ever account for if it was the same age as the the other artifacts around it. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
On 30/07/2006, at 11:01 PM, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: Richard Baker wrote: We do now know that if Neanderthals interbred with modern people, there are no traces of Neanderthal genes left in modern populations. Neanderthals have no genes in common with modern populations??? Are they from an entirely different biological line? Silicon-based lifeforms? Wilful misunderstanding for comic effect? Rich should probably have said "uniquely Neanderthal genes" or something. But I know what he meant. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
The Fool wrote: > > Well if you mean writing. The sphynx is estimated as being 8000+ years > ago. About 1-2000 years after the domestication of the cat. > Most egyptologists think that the Sphynx was build at the same time as the Great Pyramids. If you want to conjure non-official opinions, then there are theories that made the Sphynx as young as 1000 years and as old as 1 billion years old :-P Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
At 02:01 PM Sunday 7/30/2006, Doug Pensinger wrote: We do know that he [Kenniwick Man] had a stone projectile point embedded in his pelvis. A warning to us all about being careful where we sit . . . -- Ronn! :) "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever." -- Konstantin E. Tsiolkovskiy ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
Richard Baker wrote: > > We do now know that if Neanderthals interbred with modern people, > there are no traces of Neanderthal genes left in modern populations. > Neanderthals have no genes in common with modern populations??? Are they from an entirely different biological line? Silicon-based lifeforms? Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
Brother John wrote: Consider the marvelous book by Jared Diamond called /Guns, Germs and Steel. /It is almost all conjecture. It is very good conjecture perhaps, but conjecture nevertheless. Have you read it? Consider the very important paleoanthropological find in the Columbia River Valley called the Kenniwick Man. We know from a study of his skull and other bones that he was not racially related to the Native Americans that now occupy that part of the world. He seems to have been of European ancestry or at least his bones are more European-like than any of the Native Americans today. I thought that they've concluded that he was probably an ancestor of the Jomon, who also were the ancestors of the Ainu people of Japan. But what chance is there that we will ever be able to figure out where he came from, or what happened to his descendants if he had any? There is no way to answer such questions scientifically. We do know that he had a stone projectile point embedded in his pelvis. -- Doug No bullet wounds, maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
At 11:35 AM Sunday 7/30/2006, Brother John wrote: The Fool wrote: From: Charlie Bell On 30/07/2006, at 1:03 PM, The Fool wrote: Well if you mean writing. The sphynx is estimated as being 8000+ years ago. About 1-2000 years after the domestication of the cat. "Domestication"? ;) Parasitication? The only good use I've ever been able to imagine for a cat is to grind it up for dog food. Why spay them when they can serve such a useful purpose? --JWR It is not good to provoke a brother to anger . . . -- Ronn! :) "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever." -- Konstantin E. Tsiolkovskiy ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
On 31/07/2006, at 2:35 AM, Brother John wrote: The Fool wrote: From: Charlie Bell On 30/07/2006, at 1:03 PM, The Fool wrote: Well if you mean writing. The sphynx is estimated as being 8000 + years ago. About 1-2000 years after the domestication of the cat. "Domestication"? ;) Parasitication? The only good use I've ever been able to imagine for a cat is to grind it up for dog food. Why spay them when they can serve such a useful purpose? --JWR Your lack of imagination is unsurprising. Recently, a cat baiting exercise near my old house resulted in the poisoning of many pet and stray cats. Including all three of mine. This was done for "pest control" reasons by some locals. 3 months later, there is a serious rat and cockroach problem in the area. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
The Fool wrote: From: Charlie Bell On 30/07/2006, at 1:03 PM, The Fool wrote: Well if you mean writing. The sphynx is estimated as being 8000+ years ago. About 1-2000 years after the domestication of the cat. "Domestication"? ;) Parasitication? The only good use I've ever been able to imagine for a cat is to grind it up for dog food. Why spay them when they can serve such a useful purpose? --JWR ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
> From: Charlie Bell > > > On 30/07/2006, at 1:03 PM, The Fool wrote: > > > > > Well if you mean writing. The sphynx is estimated as being 8000+ > > years ago. > > About 1-2000 years after the domestication of the cat. > > "Domestication"? ;) Parasitication? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
On 30/07/2006, at 1:03 PM, The Fool wrote: Well if you mean writing. The sphynx is estimated as being 8000+ years ago. About 1-2000 years after the domestication of the cat. "Domestication"? ;) Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
At 10:03 PM Saturday 7/29/2006, The Fool wrote: Well if you mean writing. The sphynx is estimated as being 8000+ years ago. About 1-2000 years after the domestication of the cat. You mean the domestication of humans by cats. -- Ronn! :) "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever." -- Konstantin E. Tsiolkovskiy ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
-- > From: Richard Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > The Fool said: > > > Troll, Both Egyptian and Chinese history goes back about 8000 years. > > I thought that the earliest known historical documents from Egypt > were the Early Dynastic palettes, such as the famous Narmer palette, > which shows the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt and which dates > back to 3200BC. (There are some examples of Egyptian writing that are > perhaps a few centuries older, but so far as I know none that shed > any light on history.) > > The earliest Chinese writing that I know about are "oracle bones" > from the late Shang period in the second millennium BC. Well if you mean writing. The sphynx is estimated as being 8000+ years ago. About 1-2000 years after the domestication of the cat. > And in an act of shameless self-promotion, I present: > > http://www.theculture.org/rich/sharpblue/archives/000147.html > ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
The Fool said: Troll, Both Egyptian and Chinese history goes back about 8000 years. I thought that the earliest known historical documents from Egypt were the Early Dynastic palettes, such as the famous Narmer palette, which shows the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt and which dates back to 3200BC. (There are some examples of Egyptian writing that are perhaps a few centuries older, but so far as I know none that shed any light on history.) The earliest Chinese writing that I know about are "oracle bones" from the late Shang period in the second millennium BC. And in an act of shameless self-promotion, I present: http://www.theculture.org/rich/sharpblue/archives/000147.html Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
> From: Brother John <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Richard Baker wrote: > > Brother John said: > > > >> Where do you think our primitive cultures came from? They are all > >> descended from higher cultures, descended from the drop outs and > >> "hippies" of prior civilizations. > > > > Where did those higher cultures come from in the first place if not > > from earlier primitive cultures? > From earlier higher cultures? I don't know. Written human history only > goes back about 6,000 years. And the earliest records of literate Troll, Both Egyptian and Chinese history goes back about 8000 years. -- "One of the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. ...[This] convention protects them, and so they proceed with their blather unwhipped and almost unmolested, to the great damage of common sense and common decency. that they should have this immunity is an outrage. There is nothing in religious ideas, as a class, to lift them above other ideas. On the contrary, they are always dubious and often quite silly. Nor is there any visible intellectual dignity in theologians. Few of them know anything that is worth knowing, and not many of them are even honest." ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Totally meaningless comment: In a message dated 7/29/2006 3:26:09 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: We know from a study of his skull and other bones . Bottom line. I don't know. But I don't think anyone else does either. I would rather trace my ancestry from a line of skulls than from a bottom line. I would rather humbly admit my ignorance and not trace my ancestry than to make something up without sufficient evidence. Others, I'm sure, would rather make something up. --JWR ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
Brother John said: From earlier higher cultures? In an infinite regress? Or was some initial higher culture just created ex nihilo? I don't know. Written human history only goes back about 6,000 years. And the earliest records of literate societies having a written history show those societies to be very sophisticated with mathematics, literature, laws, a knowledge of astronomy, etc. We can go back even further than that if we accept the "evidence" of old campfires, stone spear points, bit of bone, etc. There's quite a lot of archaeological evidence that fills in the gap between stone spear points and campfires and literate societies like Early Dynastic Egypt or Uruk-period Mesopotamia. We can trace back urbanisation as far as at least 9000BC in Jericho. There is evidence for accounting systems stretching back in the Neolithic across the Middle East. There's evidence for the development of mining across tens of thousands of years. We can follow the development of stone tools way back into the Palaeolithic. Almost every type of technology that existed at the very beginning of written history in the fourth millennium BC has prehistory which has been studied in some detail. And the further back we look, the more primitive, on average, are the technological assemblages. This is not what we'd expect if there were earlier higher civilisations, as lower technology products would not be increasingly preferentially preserved over longer periods of time. We don't even know if Neanderthal was driven to extinction by modern man or was intermarried with modern man to the point of extinction. We do now know that if Neanderthals interbred with modern people, there are no traces of Neanderthal genes left in modern populations. Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
Totally meaningless comment: In a message dated 7/29/2006 3:26:09 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: We know from a study of his skull and other bones . Bottom line. I don't know. But I don't think anyone else does either. I would rather trace my ancestry from a line of skulls than from a bottom line. Vilyehm ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Prehistory
Richard Baker wrote: Brother John said: Where do you think our primitive cultures came from? They are all descended from higher cultures, descended from the drop outs and "hippies" of prior civilizations. Where did those higher cultures come from in the first place if not from earlier primitive cultures? From earlier higher cultures? I don't know. Written human history only goes back about 6,000 years. And the earliest records of literate societies having a written history show those societies to be very sophisticated with mathematics, literature, laws, a knowledge of astronomy, etc. We can go back even further than that if we accept the "evidence" of old campfires, stone spear points, bit of bone, etc. But there is no way whatever to know who those people were, where they came from, or what happened to them. As a result, it is impossible to know whether or not they were the people who "evolved" into the ancient literate cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus River Valley, and similar cultures in the Western Hemisphere. There is just so much that we do not know and can never know because the evidence is simply not there. Consider the marvelous book by Jared Diamond called /Guns, Germs and Steel. /It is almost all conjecture. It is very good conjecture perhaps, but conjecture nevertheless. Consider the very important paleoanthropological find in the Columbia River Valley called the Kenniwick Man. We know from a study of his skull and other bones that he was not racially related to the Native Americans that now occupy that part of the world. He seems to have been of European ancestry or at least his bones are more European-like than any of the Native Americans today. But what chance is there that we will ever be able to figure out where he came from, or what happened to his descendants if he had any? There is no way to answer such questions scientifically. We don't even know if Neanderthal was driven to extinction by modern man or was intermarried with modern man to the point of extinction. Bottom line. I don't know. But I don't think anyone else does either. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
