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

On Feb 12, 10:48 pm, Tom McDonald <kilt...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
J.LyonLayden wrote:
On Feb 12, 7:38 pm, Tom McDonald <kilt...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
J.LyonLayden wrote:
On Feb 12, 4:51 pm, Doug Weller <dwel...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

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

Actually I don't.

Go here:

http://www.archive.org/index.php

Enter the URL of the web page you want to check on. Then hit
"Take Me Back".

I used the URL Doug gave at the beginning of this thread, and got
this:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://archaeology.about.com/od/earlyman...

Or:

http://tinyurl.com/2g9c6e

I don't know how often this is updated.

This is from the image of the page from May 17, 2007:

"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. By 12,000 years ago,
Cro-Magnon are fully human. Or rather, we are fully human,
because Cro-Magnons are our direct ancestors."

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.

You're right I haven't been to a real one since college so that would
be a good idea. the local one has nothing.

Mine is similar. Interlibrary Loan is a good way to go.





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.

He told her it was being used for arguements for giants, which sounds
really bad when you aren't don't know the context.

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

I tried briefly to find her email addy...

Go to her article, click on her blue underlined name. This takes
you to a page with her bio, and a link that says, "Email me".
Click on "Email me" and you come to a page with her email
address--at least the one for the About.com stuff.





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.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

But you have estimations of peoples like the Tutsi by respectable
people of their day saying they average 6 and a half foot. And then 30
years later a new study is done, after the Tutsi have been integrated
with another "tribe," and possibly have been the victims of ethnic
cleansing, and the old study is proven false by mainstream science
because the new study has found them to be of only average height!

Not by archaeology and physical anthropology, which is what we
are talking about here. Archies and physical anthropologists have
been key to bringing the truth about genocide/ethnic cleansing to
light. If you actually read some 'mainstream science' that fails
to take history into account, then you are reading either poor
science or political spin.

Sigh. I guess I'll have to find references to every bone of cro-magnon
and estimations by every individual by scientists from no less recent
than 2007 just to be able to say, "Even the shortest of the outsiders
stood a head above Naftu and his men, and their arms and legs were
twice as big around."

If you are looking for background to write a story, you don't
need to do that depth of research. If you are looking for the
best information we have today on the issue, you need to do some
research; and you can ask for help from folks who know where to look.

OK thanks Tom. Perhaps I should do less argueing and instead present
some of my fictional prose to you all. If you would eye it with the
same scrutiny as you've afforded me here it will be most helpful, and
perhaps interesting to you as well.

It's a very rough draft and any feedback would help me get it to
final.

Comments/suggestions appreciated:

No Working Title

The giants stood upon a hill, gazing down at the valley. There were
seven of them, and all of them were thicker of frame than any man that
Nufta had ever seen. And though Nufta was a tall man, in fact the
tallest man in all the hamlets this side of the inner sea, he would
have had to stand on his tiptoes to look even the shortest of them eye
to eye.
The giants were looking down upon the fields where Nufta's people had
been working, reaping wild wheat from the bountiful fields that lay
across the slope. Now the men stood still, faces grim and scythes held
defensively braced before them, or before a woman near them. Some of
the women were scurrying back towards the hamlet, and one just a
second before had let out a disheartening scream. Beyond them, far off
in the center of the valley, small pillars of smoke rose from clusters
of huts, one of which Nufta called his home. The intruders had come
just at the ending of the day, and the sun was beginning to set behind
a further hill.
Dusk draped the tallest giant like a cloak. He was eyeing Maya, the
girl who had screamed. She was running down the hill towards the
smokey huts, her attractive skin glowing bronze in the fading light
and her dark brown hair and garments flowing out behind her like wake
in the wind. the giant looked satisfied; he looked like a man who had
come home.
Nufta breathed in the Mana from the air. He visualized the energy
swelling up around him. He saw his spirit rise above his body, saw it
drop down into the body of the giant, and looked at his own body from
the giant's eyes. Then Nufta imagined a brilliant chord of light,
flowing from the center of his own chest to the giants, and flowing
from the giant's chest to his. He allowed the rest of the world to
fade away, so that only he and the giant existed, poised in time for a
moment, seperate from the world...
But then the giant shook his head and thundered a roarous laugh down
into the valley below. As it echoed among the hills, the other giants
joined in, and the world came back into quick focus for Nufta. his
magic had failed.
The giants words were strange to Nufta, but he understood them for the
most part, being very close to the speech of the woodsmen who lived to
the north of nufta's people. And in those days men had not yet fully
learned to hide their communications with words.
"I have come to protect you," laughed the giant. "It is a wonder my
people have not yet come to claim you. But you will harvest for ME,
now, and we will keep them and all others at bay."






Hirst appears to know a lo; but the About.com article (and its
mutations over time) is only a summary of other people's work.
Why not ask her where to go to answer your questions?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

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