Re: Moon hopping around?

jmfbahciv@xxxxxxx wrote:
In article <1168095103.739320.77790@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Edward Green" <spamspamspam3@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

jmfbahciv@xxxxxxx wrote:

If you assume that lifespans back then were short, I've always wondered
how long cycles such as this were learned by observation. It can
explain how religions started.

The average life span may have been shorter, but given semi-settled
conditions, some people lived to be ancients. Perhaps their respect as
elders was increased, because there were few of them.

Sure. Any minor accident would lose a whole lifetimes accumulation
of observation. Unless there was some kind of recording language.
Each little group or tribe would have had to make their own
collection. Unless this knowledge was spread via traders or
wandering minstrels, I don't see how something like Stonehendge
could have been erected.

I conjecture there was a local priestly caste. Also, the amount of
knowledge which can be passed down by word of mouth is huge. Also, it
seems like ancients at a certain stage of development had a knack for
organized building projects. Also, Great Britain is lousy with weird
ancient sites.

At the dawn of history, when settlement and agriculture first gave man
a significant surplus, video games and cable television had not yet
been invented to soak up all this dangerous excess energy, so they were
at the mercy of any shaman who suggested it might be cool to set up
some huge stones, 'n such.

Actually, this almost instinctual urge for organized building activity
can be seen active quite recently. You may remember the Texas A&M
bonfire pile collapse? I was just reading the FEMA report on this,
complete with history of the tradition. From something like a
spontaneous gathering of trash and scrap wood, the project grew more
and more elaborate through the years, with a special student team
(priests) overseeing the construction, including clear-cutting of land
and using borrowed heavy equipment to gather the logs into a huge pile.

The structures had collapsed before burning previously, without loss of
life; by the time disaster struck they were up to a spiraling six
log-tier construction which looked uncannily like medieval
representations of the tower of Babble -- presumably itself an ancient
memory of one or more events where the same urge to pile stuff up had
similarly run out of luck. Pyramids and cathedrals merely represent
refinements.

We'd probably be happier if we could still spontaneously band together
and pile up huge heaps for the shear joy of it, without any of that
boring environmental impact and safety stuff.

.