Re: Kris Hirst's page on Why Don't We Call Them Cro-Magnon Anymore? updated

J.LyonLayden wrote:
On Feb 12, 4:51 pm, Doug Weller <dwel...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:20:11 -0800 (PST), in sci.archaeology, J.LyonLayden
wrote:





On Feb 12, 4:13 pm, "J.LyonLayden" <JosephLay...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 12, 2:19 pm, Doug Weller <dwel...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:49:33 -0800 (PST), in sci.archaeology, J.LyonLayden
wrote:
On Feb 12, 5:56 am, Doug Weller <dwel...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Seehttp://archaeology.about.com/od/earlymansites/a/cro_magnon.htm
Sorry, no giants there. :-)
Doug
--
Nope just homo sapiens up to 6'4 and over with thicker bones and
larger brains than us. And natufian man was prolly only 5'4...
The highest figure she gives is 176.2 cm, and that's just over 5'9, no
where near 6'4. She doesn't mention Natufians, but I agree that they were
short, but there is nor reason to go beyond that to claim they were the
average height of HSS worldwide.
Here is the quote where she gives the measurement of 6'4.
Sorry it was in a different article.
"The physical characteristics of Cro-Magnon are very similar to
modern
humans, although a bit more robust, particularly in the skull. The
earliest Cro-Magnon were taller than we are (often reaching over 6
foot four inches), with longer limbs, especially the lower legs; but
after about 26,000, the size of Cro-Magnon begin to fall within the
modern human range."
-Kris Hirst
The words "taller than we are" are very clearlt written.
As I said, no giants there. I don't understand your attempt to make people
think otherwise.
Saying that there were no giants then is like saying there are no
giants now. There are families that average around 6 and half feet
now...in the twentieth century when we've finally figured out how to
get back a diet as good as the one we abandoned at the end of the
paleolithic. It's non-sensical to insist that there weren't such
families in the ice age, in a time when many scientists say that the
representatives of our species were slightly taller than we are even
now in modern times. Put this together with the fact that at that time
you have populations taking up agriculture, and therefore shrinking
considerably. Now couple that with the fact that the cro-magnons were
stronger and more robust than such populations as the natufians,
jomon, etc. Now consider that most cultures talk about giants in their
oral and written histories. They talk about bossajaun, oni, and
woodwoses (neanderthals) too in the northern hemispheres. Wala! Common
sense.
And she also says
"The physical characteristics of Early Modern Human are quite similar to
modern humans, although perhaps a bit more robust, particularly seen in
femora--the leg bones. The differences, which are slight, have been
attributed to the shift away from long distance hunting strategies to
sedentism and agriculture."
Doug
--
Doug Weller --
A Director and Moderator of The Hall of Ma'athttp://www.hallofmaat.com
Doug's Archaeology Site:http://www.ramtops.co.uk
Amun - co-owner/co-moderatorhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/Amun/-Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
What the living hell? I copied and pasted that quote just TWO days ago
and now it's gone. I believe it WAS in that article. I SWEAR I copied
and pasted that quote from one of her articles, and I am 99.999% sure
it was that one. What gives? Did you write her or something?
I did NOT write that quote. I will swear on all I believe in that I
copied and pasted it within the last 48 hours.
I believe you. I know Kris and I knew that if she looked at the article
again she would update it. So, yes, I wrote to her explaining that her
post was being used to support the idea of giants (right?).
It really isn't a conspiracy. I was unhappy with the way she had a title
that said Why we don't call them Cro-Magnon any more and yet continued to
refer to Cro-Magnon, and pointed out that she needed to check on more
current information about height.

Sorry if you weren't clear, that's why it says 'updated' in the subject
line, the article was updated.

As you have probably guessed, it is rare to find a complete skeleton and
over time, for a species in a given time period, you will find different
figures for something like height which has to be estimated from the
material that is available.

I think the idea of giants comes from a variety of sources, some being
confusing fossils such as leg bones of other mammals with human fossils,
some being the fact that there are 'sports', extremely tall people, etc,
plus an explanation for giant ruins, etc. But Nephilim? Nah, they aren't
any more real than those giants with double rows of teeth.

I hope to find time to report more on what Adrienne Mayor has to say about
giants at some point.

from K. Kris Hirst
Doug Weller, moderator of Skeptical Views of Fringe Archaeology and one of
my favorite archaeology webmasters, told me last week that my article Why
Don't We Call Them Cro-Magnons Any More? was being used to support some
wild notion of there having been giants in prehistory--I suppose based
partly on the story in the book of Genesis in the Judeo-Christian
religious text known as the bible. I thought that was interesting, so I
did so more poking around, and updated my page accordingly.
--
Doug Weller --
A Director and Moderator of The Hall of Ma'athttp://www.hallofmaat.com
Doug's Archaeology Site:http://www.ramtops.co.uk
Amun - co-owner/co-moderatorhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/Amun/- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Damnit Doug thanks to conservatives like you all the quotes from
scientists that say that cro-magnons are taller than us are
disappearing from the web.

Do you know how to operate the Wayback machine? Very little actually disappears from the Web.

And so what if the Web disappeared tomorrow? Science does not depend on the Web, and it certainly does not operate by dueling quotations.

Go to the primary sources. See what they have to say. If you want to know the present state of knowledge about, for instance, the skeletons of Cro-Magnon, their contemporaries and their apparent descendants, hit the library.

And don't stop with the first 'authority' who says what you want to hear.

I don't think it's a conspiracy, but I do think that at least one
population "cro-magnons" were taller than us on average and definitely
taller than Natufians and such.
But it is a bed of coals to suggest that they were even an inch taller
than us thanks to you and your ilk. Any scientist who does that will
have people emailing her saying she's supporting fringers, and it
seems that scientist loath fringers enough to even disquise evidence
that they know to be true.

Bull***. You made an argument based on something you read--and apparently not even from a primary source. Doug contacted Hirst, asked whether the article needed to be updated, and apparently she felt that it did.

If you disagree, email her yourself and state your case.

But don't do that before you research the primary literature. Otherwise you will be doing what you accuse others of--putting political pressure on a scientist to alter their writing in favor of your personal views.

Cro-magnons before 26,000 were taller than us on average, and you've
just destroyed the last quote that was brave enough to say so.

Science does not give a flying *** about quotes. They simply do not matter.

You know what does depend upon quotations? Two things: politics and religion. Politics have devolved to the sound bite. And many religious folk use quotations from their chosen scriptures (called 'proof texts') to make a case that other religious folk, using the same scriptures, find reprehensible.

Remember the 30 Years War? Good Christian folk killing each other for no other reason than their differing interpretation of the same quotes.

Recently, we have been treated to another person (Lars Wilson) who uses the 'proof text' method to beat scientists over the head with carefully selected (and idiosyncratically interpreted) 'quotes'. I had hoped that you would be beyond that. I still hope so.

But for ***'s sake, Joe! Shake loose a little from that suspicion. You are a smart guy. You are completely capable of reading the relevant scientific literature first-hand, and getting any help you need to understand what you read. And then keeping up to date, since science doesn't stand still.


.

Loading