Developing Light Skin in Europe

[hbarcat]

I would be very interested in reading it,.....except it was written in 1996.
If it proclaims to know the timeline of when culture and civilization developed, I'll have to pass. Too many things discovered in just the last 20 yrs that rewrite all the books.
Or is it strictly about biology?

The book is about speculations on the evolutionary nature of human intelligence and behavior. It begins with the story of the evolution of all life on Earth from primitive bacteria, with particular attention given to the most recently evolved social mammals, primates, and especially monkeys and apes.

The premise is essentially, we humans are apes and we share behaviors in common with our mutual ancestors over many millions of years.

 

[hbarcat]

Wait a minute........
I just looked up his bio and he died in 96(?) and Druyan was his 3rd wife.
I'm guessing his first 2 wives and 5 kids got whatever he was worth when he croaked, so she just slapped his name on it so sell a few?
Or, maybe it was something he wrote and never published and she slapped her name on it after he died?
I dunno, I just feel like there's a lotta drama going on in that family and I'm not sure I wanna get involved.

The book was written in '93. Carl Sagan died in '96. Ann Druyan is listed as co-author of several of Carl's books, most famously "Cosmos". She was also co-producer of the television series made from the book.

I don't know how much she actually contributed to his work, but she had been an active participant in his career since the late 70s.

 

[RichterScale]

The book was written in '93. Carl Sagan died in '96. Ann Druyan is listed as co-author of several of Carl's books, most famously "Cosmos". She was also co-producer of the television series made from the book.

I don't know how much she actually contributed to his work, but she had been an active participant in his career since the late 70s.

I know that now. I only know Sagan from him being mentioned on shows about space/how the universe works, etc.
It was an unfiltered, pre-coffee, clumsy attempt at humor. I was already yelled at about it.

 

[DirtDog]

Another decent primer on human evolution is Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.

I also liked Bill Bryson’s Short History of the World. Not 100% on human evolution but does put that into a larger biological context (amongst other things).

The way the planet has changed and its impact on the Homo genus is endlessly fascinating. So many unknowns and so many theories that are difficult to prove given the evidence we have.

Take Doggerland, for instance. That didn’t make the geoscience textbooks I studied from in the last 80s, early 90s (hell, even plate tectonics was still somewhat fresh)…it wasn’t until extensive geophysical examination of the sea floor in the 2000s that the some of the circumstantial evidence (flints, etc, picked up in fishing nets) was subtstantiated by empirical data.

Endlessly fascinating.

I hadn’t heard of the link between Vitamin D, solar radiation, diet and skin colour before this. Makes sense on the surface. Would be useful to see the sources that the YT video used….

As for human conflict, even though there’s no archeological evidence for prehistoric wars, some anthopologists/sociologists suggest that the behaviours of “uncontacted” groups of modern humans demonstrate that conflict is just a feature of human social relations.

Population growth and increasing population density since the first agricultural revolution has also been used to explain rise of large scale conflict in the last 12,000 years or so - as far as the competition for resources go. Prior to agriculture, the density of human population (or lack thereof) and hunter-gatherer lifestyles are said to have made large scale conflict a relatively rare event (compared to today).

 

[RichterScale]

Population growth and increasing population density since the first agricultural revolution has also been used to explain rise of large scale conflict in the last 12,000 years or so - as far as the competition for resources go. Prior to agriculture, the density of human population (or lack thereof) and hunter-gatherer lifestyles are said to have made large scale conflict a relatively rare event (compared to today).

My theory is that modern humans started to understand and utilize the benefits of collaboration and large social groups as far back as 50k+ yrs ago. I think that once humans started to recover from Toba and sea levels dropped from the start of the ice age, they were able to successfully venture out of Africa (3rd or 4th attempt). I think it was their ability to adapt and learn to collaborate that was a large factor in being successful and I think humans advanced much faster and earlier than the old books say we did. They are finding new evidence all the time (with advancements in tech, testing, satellite imagery, etc) that support humans migrating out of Africa several times and then dying off, the use of tools much earlier, the use of sea travel much earlier, and so on.
I think we were a much more advanced and peaceful species as far back as 20k and even 30k yrs ago, than is suggested. I think the bulk of our civilization was coastal and I think a sudden, catastrophic (impact) event caused a rapid melting of the ice caps and the survivors were forced inland. Basically sending them back into the stone age. I don't think it's a coincidence that the archeologists of the late 1800s and early 1900s, dated everything they found to be roughly 5000 yrs old. First, they didn't have the tech we do today, to accurately date anything, 2nd, it conflicts with religious beliefs that the earth is only 5-6k yrs old. Suggesting anything is older would offend too many people and archeologists live on funding. So, you have arbitrary ages assigned to things and sadly, much of it is still being regurgitated in our education system. Thankfully, the mindset is changing, research is continuing and new discoveries are being made that aren't being dismissed and hidden.
Anyway, I think that after we recovered from the the rapid sea level rise, we devolved to a much more primitive state of conflict, survival, creating borders and "this is my stuff, my women, my food, you stay on your side.." And we've continued to advance technologically, but with a more warlike, stressed out, hoarder, don't trust your neighbor type mindset. Which is clearly evident in our current behavior.
I think we were on a different path 30-20k yrs ago and accomplished some amazing things.
And for the record,.....NO! I do not believe aliens visited and showed us how to carve rocks with lasers and levitate megaliths with crystal power.
I simply think humans were much more advanced at a much earlier stage and we've had a few major setbacks.
I think this last setback pretty much wiped out all traces of it with a 400' rise in sea level and the few remaining pieces that were left inland have had people scratching theirs heads for a long time.

 

[Tom Bomb]

This is pretty cool. (Bookmarked at the last ice age )​

​

 

[RichterScale]

I think our species has had a rough road to travel and have experienced several global catastrophies that would have been difficult to survive.
I just feel like, at our state of advancement during the last ice age, having it all wiped out practically over night, would have been even more catastrophic and would have a much more profound impact on us, psychologically.
Just like a catastrophic event today would likely be more damaging than the same event 200 yrs ago.

 

[DirtDog]

There are so many theories and not a lot of hard evidence.

I think it was Bill Bryson who wrote the sum total of archaic human fossils ever found would fit into the bed of a pickup truck. I’m paraphrasing from memory ; point being is that archeological fossil record for archaic humans is REALLY sparse. Add to that, DNA extraction/analysis from those fossils is difficult with existing tech. What we do know is far exceeded by what we don’t know.

The behaviours of archaic humans is even more difficult to decipher. It is fun to imagine and theorize, though!

 

[LBS-bass]

I know that now. I only know Sagan from him being mentioned on shows about space/how the universe works, etc.
It was an unfiltered, pre-coffee, clumsy attempt at humor. I was already yelled at about it.

Sagan was a bit of a cultural icon for people of a certain age. Though science has advanced considerably in the last few decades, there's still quite a lot of interesting thought to be experienced there if you have a taste for such things.

 

[RichterScale]

The behaviours of archaic humans is even more difficult to decipher. It is fun to imagine and theorize, though!

It is. I love this stuff. Always been fascinated by it.
On the point of fossil remains, I agree.
I was speaking more to the other stuff being found, like structures, tools, etc that suggests we were far more advanced, much much earlier than assumed in the past.
It seems like we are finding more evidence at a much faster rate, due to advancements in tech in just the last decade or 2.
I don't remember the exact numbers, but erosion patterns on the sphinx and surrounding rock, puts it being built back when N Africa was a lush jungle and received a lot of rainfall. I think I've read that it could be anywhere from 9-30k yrs old.
And Gobekli Tepe is at least 12k yrs old and they were making beer and partying with people from all over.
No human remains found at either site,....but there's still an elephant in the room that mainstream archeology, especially egyptologists, refuse to discuss and simply dismiss out of hand.
Someone has to explain all these advanced structures all over the planet that date back to 10, 20, 30k yrs ago.

 

[RichterScale]

Not to mention, a ton of money is invested in finding shipwrecks with multimillion$ treasures.
Almost nothing is spent on searching for remains of ancient coastal cultures that were lost to a 400' sea level rise.
Granted, it would be extremely difficult, expensive and there's no payout at the end, other than knowledge.
But, they're not looking. Just a few researchers looking in the shallows.

 

[DirtDog]

It is. I love this stuff. Always been fascinated by it.
On the point of fossil remains, I agree.
I was speaking more to the other stuff being found, like structures, tools, etc that suggests we were far more advanced, much much earlier than assumed in the past.
It seems like we are finding more evidence at a much faster rate, due to advancements in tech in just the last decade or 2.
I don't remember the exact numbers, but erosion patterns on the sphinx and surrounding rock, puts it being built back when N Africa was a lush jungle and received a lot of rainfall. I think I've read that it could be anywhere from 9-30k yrs old.
And Gobekli Tepe is at least 12k yrs old and they were making beer and partying with people from all over.
No human remains found at either site,....but there's still an elephant in the room that mainstream archeology, especially egyptologists, refuse to discuss and simply dismiss out of hand.
Someone has to explain all these advanced structures all over the planet that date back to 10, 20, 30k yrs ago.

yep. There’s lots still to to uncover, pardon the pun. The preponderance of evidence we do have are for things like tools, flints and shell heaps.

Before the Mesolithic, stone structures are pretty rare. Archeologists look to trace patterns in the soil for things like wooden posts that would support some sort of roof. Most of these structures, being made of organic materials, just don’t survive. I really dig it when landscape investigators work to tie the point level archaeology to the larger landscape/environment. Then the ecology investigators bring in things like seeds and pollen. It’s a huge jigsaw puzzle that varies from place to place and from time to time.

I love it when archaeologists can’t explain the purpose of a particular find: “it seems to be related to ritual”!

I wonder what future archeologists will say when they uncover a trove of discarded electronics from the 20th and 21st centuries…..ritual behaviours? Arguably, yes.

 

[LBS-bass]

I love it when archaeologists can’t explain the purpose of a particular find: “it seems to be related to ritual”!

I wonder what future archeologists will say when they uncover a trove of discarded electronics from the 20th and 21st centuries…..ritual behaviours? Arguably, yes.

This is what gets me. There's an obsession with ritual that, I think, obscures some of the practical survival needs. It seems there's an attempt to link every object with a ritual use, whereas if you look around at modern, daily life, ritual doesn't explain much of what we do, even among those who are very religious. So I have my doubts about some of this, but what do I know?

It does remind me of all those old pictures of dinosaurs with reptilian features I grew up with. Now we know that many of them were feathered and colorful ancestors of our modern turkeys. Our interpretations of things are not really all that reliable

 

[TOOL460002]

gobekli tepe is a good example of things we're discovering that are changing our understanding of what humans were like prior to the- "nothing is more than 5000 yrs old" ideas that were established by theologian/archeologists over 100 yrs ago.

I want my history done by guys named Lord or Sir Something.

 

[Bob_Ross]

There's an obsession with ritual that, I think, obscures some of the practical survival needs. It seems there's an attempt to link every object with a ritual use, whereas if you look around at modern, daily life, ritual doesn't explain much of what we do, even among those who are very religious.

I think it depends on how rigidly you define "ritual". I think it could be easily argued that modern daily life revolves around a significant amount of "ritual" ...we've just stopped referring to it as such, because we don't necessarily see how ingrained the ritualistic aspect of our behaviors have become.

 

[LBS-bass]

I think it depends on how rigidly you define "ritual". I think it could be easily argued that modern daily life revolves around a significant amount of "ritual" ...we've just stopped referring to it as such, because we don't necessarily see how ingrained the ritualistic aspect of our behaviors have become.

Yes, I suppose so. I'm looking at the phone/wallet sitting next to me and trying to imagine what someone would say about that device if they didn't know anything about it. What was it used for? It has all these plastic cards in it. What did they represent? They must have been important. And how about the device itself? Seems everyone in this culture had one. Not everyone had theirs in a place where they also stored those cards. What does that mean? Does it signify someone of higher cultural status, to combine the plastic cards with the mysterious device? And the device shows signs of frequent use. Why would it be used so much?

You could go on and on trying to make inferences about my phone and the credit cards in my wallet. Without doubt they are things that receive frequent use, but I don't consider any of that to be ritualistic. However, drinking coffee in the morning is a ritual of sorts, but it isn't a religious one.

 

[hbarcat]

I think it depends on how rigidly you define "ritual". I think it could be easily argued that modern daily life revolves around a significant amount of "ritual" ...we've just stopped referring to it as such, because we don't necessarily see how ingrained the ritualistic aspect of our behaviors have become.

Every year, for the entire month of October, homes in America are festooned with Halloween decorations. Then there's about 6 weeks or so of Christmas decorations. These are both rituals that might perplex future anthropologists.

Then there's the way we show support for our favorite sports teams. What will
they think when they unearth the Stanley Cup?

 

[StereoPlayer]

...What will
they think when they unearth the Stanley Cup?

They'll think it was the Holy Grail!

 

[Gaolee]

yep. There’s lots still to to uncover, pardon the pun. The preponderance of evidence we do have are for things like tools, flints and shell heaps.

Before the Mesolithic, stone structures are pretty rare. Archeologists look to trace patterns in the soil for things like wooden posts that would support some sort of roof. Most of these structures, being made of organic materials, just don’t survive. I really dig it when landscape investigators work to tie the point level archaeology to the larger landscape/environment. Then the ecology investigators bring in things like seeds and pollen. It’s a huge jigsaw puzzle that varies from place to place and from time to time.

I love it when archaeologists can’t explain the purpose of a particular find: “it seems to be related to ritual”!

I wonder what future archeologists will say when they uncover a trove of discarded electronics from the 20th and 21st centuries…..ritual behaviours? Arguably, yes.

Night clubs are, at root, a place for mating rituals of a sort. So there's that.

 

[RichterScale]

They'll think it was the Holy Grail!

If there's a global catastrophe that sends us back to the stone age and the survivors uncover the Stanley cup 5-10k yrs from now, they will probably see all the names and assume it is a list of all the people who were sacrificed and who's blood was drank(drunk?) from the cup.
(Based on what we assume when we find things now, from 10k yrs ago)