Re: When Burial Begins
- From: "Paul Crowley" <slkwuoiutiuytciuyik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 11:13:36 -0000
"Lee Olsen" <paleocity@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1162180698.802965.269700@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Several things germane to discussions here. Because human graveyards
are found in close proximity to home bases, more than one skeleton can
be expected to be found in the same area as has happened at Krems. This
is not so with Pliocene or early Pleistocene, with the First Family
being a rare exception and was more parsimonious with a flooding event.
This is strong evidence against any idea that early hominids utilized
home bases or buried their dead.
Not so. Try to get the basic facts right about
the theory you are seeking to undermine.
There are no facts to undermine because you don't have any. You also
don't have a theory. What you have is imagination. You have a negative
argument until you devise a test or cite others who have done tests in
support of your imaginary scenario.
We all put forward theories (or, if you prefer,
'imaginary scenarios'). We have an obligation
to set out, as far as we can, how they would be
proved or disproved. Standard PA skips this
duty all the time. It does not even recognise
one. Its supporters have to duck all hard
questions.
One test of a theory is its coherence. Does
it have major gaps? No account is ever
provided of crucial stages in the PA model --
such as when, why and how early hominids
began to sleep on the ground. The only
explanation for most of the major steps in its
model would be 'fairy dust spread by aliens'.
Once again, imagination is only the
first part of the scientific method. You have provided no tests, no
data or any other person's data to support your imaginary hypothesis
that Lucy buried her dead. You have only provided faulty logic in
support of your claims.
What tests does standard PA propose for
its theory? The finding of fossils is so
haphazard and unpredictable that one can
only say that (a) individual cases will support
one theory rather than the other, and
(b) the overall patterns emerging will support
one rather than the other.
Little Lucy's 'rolled-up-into-a-ball' state
certainly supports mine, and defeats yours.
The 'First Family' supports mine and defeats
yours. The identification of major pathologies
in fossils, providing highly probable causes
of death -- such as the tooth infection of
15000 and the hypervitaminosis of 1808 --
support mine and defeat yours,
The finding of numerous fossils on uplifted,
formerly coastal, land supports mine. Their
rarity and strange nature on inland sites
defeats yours. The predominance of young
males on inland sites defeats yours.
If hominid home bases were readily found, and
if hominids had been burying their dead for a
few million years, then hominid graves would
exist by the million. They don't -- since their
habitat was close to the coast, and constant
rise and fall in sea-levels wipe out such sites.
You are making a false statement, just as you did in 1996 when you
claimed Neandertals didn't hunt because there were no lions in Europe.
Going back ten years is pathetic. Presumably
you never make mistakes, because everything
you say is copied from a book. You don't
possess a mind, and are incapable of having
your own ideas.
Neither Lucy's (or later Homo e) habitat was not primarily close to
the coast, but ubiquitous over nearly all of Africa.
Of course. Lucy was a successful species,
and could compete with lions, hyenas, elephant,
buffalo, zebra, hippo and so on. Erectus and its
successors were tens, hundreds and thousands
of times MORE successful. That's why around
1800 A.D. (200 years ago), Africa had a hominid
population in the billions,
Most of the fossils that have been found
are those of individuals from small groups
wandering around the uplands; they were
strangers on alien ground. We have good
Most were found all over Africa except the rain forests. The only thing
alien here is your UFO based argument. You have absolutely no evidence
on how large their groups were.
You are careful to NEVER confront the facts
of the 1808 case.
evidence for that with KNM-ER 1808 who
died from eating many meals of carnivore
liver, much like Mawson's party in the
Antarctic.
Your fundamentally flawed argument fails to take into consideration
that the Hadza and the Maasai do not bury their dead.
Many human tribes and cultures do not
bury their dead. They are obliged to burn
them, or leave them out for the vultures
(e.g. Tibetans). The reasons are usually
obvious -- such as the absence of suitable
ground (and for Tibetans, the scarcity of
wood). Sun-baked earth is hard to dig.
The Maasai are cattle-herders and not much
use as models for early humans. The Hazda
live in semi-desert, and are just as bad.
Humans did not evolve in semi-desert --
as is very obvious from our anatomy.
They simply
abandon the terminally ill when they can no longer keep up with the
group.
'Terminally ill' is not the same as 'dead'.
They certainly don't leave corpses to
rot in their camp sites.
A similar fate obviously happened to 1808.
They had looked after her for weeks -- feeding
her soft liver. If they had just abandoned her,
she'd have been consumed by scavengers
(including vultures) within minutes, whether
she was alive or dead. They obviously
waited till she died, and then covered her
body with rocks, or dug a shallow grave,
or both.
Paul.
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: When Burial Begins
- From: Lee Olsen
- Re: When Burial Begins
- References:
- When Burial Begins
- From: Lee Olsen
- Re: When Burial Begins
- From: Chapstick
- Re: When Burial Begins
- From: Lee Olsen
- Re: When Burial Begins
- From: Paul Crowley
- Re: When Burial Begins
- From: Lee Olsen
- When Burial Begins
- Prev by Date: Re: When Burial Begins
- Next by Date: Re: Not Enough Data
- Previous by thread: Re: When Burial Begins
- Next by thread: Re: When Burial Begins
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
