Re: A More Reasonable Interpretation of the Evidence


claudiusdenk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Will in New Haven wrote:
claudiusdenk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Lee Olsen wrote:

Marc claims:
"There's not the slightest evidence that our ancestors ever ran over
your savannas. Zero.
Nada."

To make a claim like this is totally irresponsible,

Well, it depends how you interpret it. The supposition that early man,
including homo, regularly walked or ran over, across, or through
treeless savanna habitat is not viable in that they were largely if not
completely defenseless against the predators thereof. IOW, it makes
about as much sense to emplace human ancestors, including homo,
neanderdudes, and even early humans (before the advent of jeeps and
guns) in treeless savanna habitat as it does to emplace them swimming
alongside crocodiles.

Jeeps and GUNS? I know you have an argument to make and I am not being
disrespectful but men on horseback or afoot armed with bows or spears
will run or ride across any savanna you care to describe. That doesn't
help the early hominids and your basic argument is not refulted but
jeeps and guns? Gimme a fucking break.

You're right. I got carried away. Horses and metal based weapons
might have been the difference.

This leaves us with a bit of a dilemma when it comes to interpreting
the evidence. If human ancestors were not regularly venturing across
treeless habitat chasing down prey and defending themselves against
predators then what purpose do the stone weapons (spears, bow and
arrow) serve that show up in the fossil record starting about 2.5 mya?
(My answe to this question is below.)

if not downright
dishonest and typical of a total amateur like Marc. Olduvai Gorge cuts
right through two million years of sediments of the Serengeti Plain,
which is about as savanna as you can get.

I agree mostly, but keep in mind that the world climate generally was
wetter (and warmer) prior to 2 mya. This means that the treed
localities where early hominids resided were more expansive than these
same treed localities are presently at Serengeti and similar regions.

The thousands of artifacts
that have been found there speak for themselves.

Artifacts never speak for themselves. They have to be interpreted in
the context of reconstructed paleohabitats.

"The earliest Eurasians preferentially occupied
grasslands and open scrub- and wood-lands, as in
East Africa.

They didn't occupy grasslands and open scrub. They occupied the treed
localities in the vicinity of grassland and open scrub. These were the
locations that had the resources--fruit trees, nuts, vegetables--that
were most essential to them surviving the dry season.

The first major expansion into Europe went by way of the steppes of
west-central Asia and not via the obvious route through Anatolia and
the Balkans. That has been widely interpreted as being becaue they
favored open country. However, they weren't early hominds. They were
modern humans with a very decent suite of weapons.

Good point. Yes, I agree.

Homo ergaster/erectus in East Africa after 1.7 Ma is
associated with hot and dry conditions, and open
grasslands; its post-cranial anatomy, with its long
limbs was geared to long-distance walking across
open ground, and to heat dispersal through upright
posture (Dennell 2003:442)."

Might later hominids have ventured across open habitat more often than
A'pith? Sure. But to suggest that these adapatations indicate a shift
to a lifestyle that often involved long distance walking through hot,
treeless habitat is inconsisten with the predatory realities thereof.
What, then, were the stone weapons for? I think the answer to this
question is fairly obvious when you consider the fact that all the
evidence inidcated that hominids are and always have been highly
communal and territorial. The stone weapons served the purpose of
keeping food-competitor species out of their garden-like communal
territory which was part of their larger strategy to survive the dry
season and its rather dramatic predatory implications (predatory
massacres). Does this mean that they never used their weapons for
hunting? No, that too is too simplistic. In addition to keeping these
food-competitor species out off of their garden-like communal property
they employed them to ambush these same species once they had entered
their communal property. (And they also employed these stone weapons
to fend off or deter lesser predators.)


Is this all an Eden fantasy?

Yes, the garden of eden. Notice it's not the savanna of Eden. Is it
not a good thing that we now have a hypothesis that dovetails with
man's most ancient story of hominid origins?

Hominids are the proprietors of the garden. This is the niche we fill
in the habitat. We preserve the garden as our strategy to survive the
annual dry season--the season of death. The means by which we achieved
this explains the origins of the adaptations that other hypotheses are
so completely unable to explain. For example, it explains the origins
that are associated with the peculiar hominid tendency to conduct war.
The earliest wars would have been conducted against inmigrating,
food-competitor species.

Forays into the open to hunt and return to
the protection of the trees, where the young and infirm could shelter,
aren't possibly a better explanation of the weapons because they
violate some kind of vision of innocence?

Why would they bother to leave treed habitat where they had a
tremendous strategic advantage. And keep in mind that every year
during the dry season all kinds of potential prey species would
desperately try to come into the garden habitat. These prey species
would be vulnerable to ambush tactics. There was no reason for early
hominid (including all of stone age man) to stray from treed habitat.

I think this interpretation of the evidence better matches up with the
overwhelming evidence that present day humans are primarily communal,
non-migratory.

Humans stopped HAVING to be communal with the invention of the bow and
arrow.

Uh . . .? I don't see how you would say this. Humas are currently the
most communal species known to exist.

I agree that "migratory" is pretty rare.

Cladiuginn!

This entire piece would be good for McClark's collection of quotes. Its
not enuf for you to call Sabrecats the ancestors of big cats, now you
want hominids & human ancestors up until 10k (or later) to be confined
to treed areas. Its good when you actually propose something new (first
in several years)... but it doesn't make your case any more plausible.
-Spiznet

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