Science, medicine, and quackery

[kerbiloid]

Another explanation of the "neolithic people were weaker and smaller than paleolithic ones".

Once the neolithic agriculture had given a lot of food, even weak persons got a chance to survive.

So, in paleolithic times most of weak children just died soon (and never leave an adult skeleteon), while in neolithic times they started becoming adults, and you can find there adult skeletons.

As a result: you can find the skeletons of paleolithic champions (others died young), but you can find skeletons of both neolithic champions and weaklings (and obviously the latters are more numerous).

So, this claims that there was no paleolithic golden age when champions were stronger.
But there was a neolithic golden age when champions stayed same, but an average surviving adult was weaker.

And this looks much more reasonable for me.

Edited January 16, 2019 by kerbiloid

[kerbiloid]

If paleolithic times were a golden age, would a modern archeologist take a revolver minigun getting to that tribe?

Spoiler

I guess, no difference. Would punch the head and take away.

[YNM]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

It wasn't.

Spoiler

You do realize it wasn't just humans that crossed the bridge, right ? Those other things... be their food source ?

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

That's their nowadays population. When they trade for centuries with others peoples and have guns, ammo, all modern things.
20 ky ago nobody had metals or powder to sell.

They weren't being decimated by plagues either.

Edited January 16, 2019 by YNM

[KerikBalm]

23 hours ago, Green Baron said:

Paleolithic lifestyle was stable for 100.000s of years. There was only little population growth, rather movement and coming and going. While a bottleneck might have happened (though that is unclear), usually humans where well integrated in the environment. That these people were "struggling" is a modern existentialists view, the being in the face of a harsh world, and temporarily a struggle may have happened, driving the groups for example out of stressed environments to warmer areas, but not generally. Human expansion in the paleolithic can rather be seen as being curiosity driven than by need.

Stable populations/low growth argues for struggling. It suggests that the populations were at the carrying capacity. That any increase resulted in insufficient food, or increased density lead to more diseases (which is exacerbated by famine, starvation weakens one's immune system. Something seen in the Donner party as there were deaths due to infections of cuts that should have been minor).

These people didn't have birth control. The would be reproducing often... offset by high mortality rates. High mortality rates don't necessarily mean suffering, but overall it is "struggling" on a population level.

I really don't see how you can say population growth was low, but then argue that things were easy... as if they were just devout practicers of abstinence back then....

[YNM]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

If paleolithic times were a golden age, would a modern archeologist take a revolver minigun getting to that tribe?

That's like the Vogon Constructor Ship telling us that the plans to demolish Earth has been on Alpha Centauri for 50 Earth years.

11 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

I really don't see how you can say population growth was low, but then argue that things were easy...

When we had plagues in cities, and cities only grew out of influx of people, things were easy. (incl. getting killed.)

[Green Baron]

9 hours ago, tater said:

LOL.

They are among their own family.

Warfare among tribal people is utterly normal behavior, even though the raw numbers killed are small, the %s are huge. This was true and observed by Europeans in the Americas. Tribes here were constantly fighting, not "cooperating." (stone age people, BTW). The local tribes here in NM that were sedentary were predated on by warrior tribes like the Apache---there's a reason Pueblos have the door on the roof, with ladders that get pulled up, it's to protect against other human beings. As were the cave dwellings that were so common here.

That is nonsense. You have nothing than prejudice to support that view. I have paleoanthropology and the find situation to support what is taught in universities these days.

Quote

Violence among humans has always been endemic, and has decreased over time, not increased.

No source for that. Pinter has been accused by scientists from anthropology to make up his numbers to support his claims (Wikipedia). This may locally and in certain times be true (example central Europe from the late medieval to today), but in other times or places it is grossly off reality.

Quote

It's also important to understand that what we can actually observe (remains with injuries, etc) is a tiny fraction of people who ever existed. It's like dinosaurs, we get to see those individuals who just happened to die in exactly the right place at the right time to be preserved. Nothing at all like most deaths, or even typical deaths. The best analogs to pre-state humans would be tribal peoples who were extant when people with written language found them, and could write about them. New Guinea, South America, North America, etc.

It is important to understand that a find situation must be set in relation to the context to judge what an apparent injury can be attributed to.

Quote

I just read a book about the Mayflower, and the years afterwards through "King Philip's War" in New England. The most interesting bit was not the Pilgrims, but the natives. They were every bit as Machiavellian as any European. Tribes were constantly at war with each other, and the tribe that helped the Pilgrims did so specifically to counter their hegemonic neighbors who were driving them out of existence. Befriending the Europeans gave that one tribe access to technology the others didn't have, so they could prevent attack by their enemies, or possibly to kill them. They then intentionally did things like try and convince the English that the other tribe was preparing to attack (when they were not), so that the Europeans would attack them. They didn't learn this from the English, they were smart, political players (they just didn't always look far enough ahead).

I suppose the authors wanted to transport a message, not historical exactness. I also suppose they wrote "scientifically accurate" on it ;-), which is usually the case these days. But i do not know the book as i usually stay away from pop science if i can.

 

Sarcasm aside, as soon as you come out with an example for paleolithic violence, we can talk. Until then: no war until the neolithic. This is all pointless as long as prejudice and pop science overlay the laid out situation.

I quit :-)

Edited January 16, 2019 by Green Baron

[kerbiloid]

47 minutes ago, YNM said:

You do realize it wasn't just humans that crossed the bridge, right ? Those other things... be their food source ?

Exactly. And when you have enough food at your current location, you don't need to follow that food into darkness and cold.
So, this just tells that the paleolithic humans were even more dependent on the local food availability than the neolithic ones.

47 minutes ago, YNM said:

They weren't being decimated by plagues either.

Siberia was added to Russia in XVI after a battle between the Russian Yermak's troop (up to several k) and Siberian khan Kuchum's army ~15 k. Then several garrisons of ~100 persons have been settled in existing towns.
(Btw Kuchum's HQ  was not somewhere at the end of the world. It was right aside the populated area. He was actively interacting with Russia and taking part in her wars in other places.)
This illustrates how much populated Siberia was until XIX cent.

12 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Until then: no war until the neolithic.

Of course, it's you right to believe.
Though, it's others' right to not believe in your belief.

Until someone brings any proof that paleolithic people had enough food, had low birth rate and low pre-adult mortality, and were pacifists, personally I'll keep extrapolating interpolating the behavior of the our ape ancestors before and all peoples we know after.

Edited January 16, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Green Baron]

26 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Until someone brings any proof that paleolithic people had enough food, had low birth rate and low pre-adult mortality, and were pacifists, personally I'll keep extrapolating interpolating the behavior of the our ape ancestors before and all peoples we know after.

Science knows much moar than that. Here you go: The outcome of a symposium, written by real scientists from paleao-anthropology and archeology, quaternary and geoscience:

https://www.amazon.com/Hunters-Golden-Age-Palaeolithic-Eurasia/dp/9073368154

And this is just one example. The view has been expanded on other parts of the upper pal, especially the Magdalenian until then because of the extraordinary find situation and environmental reconstructions we have now.

I am not kidding you guys, but you are scoffing at me. Let go your prejudice and you will be free ;-)

Ok, quitting the second time.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Green Baron

[kerbiloid]

(I've read this but found nothing about war and peace. That's about a discussion about how much the paleohumans were like us in terms of arts, burials, etc.)

[Green Baron]

You have read it ?

Yes, there is nothing about war in it and in all of the other serious works on the paleolithic. Does that ring a bell ?

But a whole lot on an abundance of hunting game which contradicts the hypothesis that these people were hunger-driven. And it documents like much of the work before and after it that these people have wandered huge distances.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Green Baron

[kerbiloid]

32 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

You have read it ?

Yes.

32 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Yes, there is nothing about war in it and in all of the other serious works on the paleolithic. Does that ring a bell ?

No. There is nothing about interstellar ships in physics books. This doesn't mean the books reject them, this just means they are out of scope.

Several hundred not mutilated bodies just tell nothing if there were wars or not. They prove no pov, the sampling is just too small and dilute. 
So, it's absolutely normal that this question is not discussed in this work, as not enough material to discuss.

Also the article confirms that there was no art before 30k ago.
So, looks like until 30k they didn't care about personality and its rights at all.

32 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

But a whole lot on an abundance of hunting game which contradicts the hypothesis that these people were hunger-driven.

Also afair it's known that (many? all?) peoples in their hunter-gatherer times have/had hunter bootcamps for youngsters and many of them had rituals like Spartan crypteia when a gang of youngsters was released to rob the neighbors, and that's definitely not neolithic ritual.

Edited January 16, 2019 by kerbiloid

[YNM]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Exactly. And when you have enough food at your current location, you don't need to follow that food into darkness and cold.

By this standard we wouldn't even need to leave Africa.

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Siberian khan

Khanate, tl;dr technology and power. Modern.

Still then after they slaughter people they're slaughtered back. They knew those 'siberian' people made a mound of their ancestor's skulls in their city center, who wouldn't want to make a mound of their past oppressor's skulls ?

Also, you're out of place. This is where Khanate of Sibir was :

... not east enough ?

They're only a stepping stone in their true range and extent.

Sadly it doesn't seem there's any left as descendants of the first people who made it onto Eastern Siberia. They've in general left their halt, and spread east and west. The last left are probably various indigeneous Kamchatkans.

Oh, just to remind where Kamchatka is.

[kerbiloid]

15 minutes ago, YNM said:

By this standard we wouldn't even need to leave Africa.

Exactly. So, as they've done it, they probably had to.

15 minutes ago, YNM said:

Still then after they slaughter people they're slaughtered back. They knew those 'siberian' people made a mound of their ancestor's skulls in their city center, who wouldn't want to make a mound of their past oppressor's skulls ?

Didn't understand this. What skulls, what slaughter... Just another battle between the neighbors, much smaller than many other battles before and after.

15 minutes ago, YNM said:

This is where Khanate of Sibir was :

This is where the last armed force between Siberia and Russia was.

15 minutes ago, YNM said:

Sadly it doesn't seem there's any left as descendants of the first people who made it onto Eastern Siberia. They've in general left their halt, and spread east and west. The last left are probably various indigeneous Kamchatkans.

Don't worry, the Paleoasian peoples live across the whole Siberia where their ancestors were.
(You saw their list a few posts before.)

Edited January 16, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Green Baron]

If people actually think they do better than scientists when they argue that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence then it is pointless to argue with reason against this refusal. I had hoped that the somebody might take an insight from this with him/her at home.

Quitting the 3rd time, and now for real. I am out, think what you want, and have a nice day :-) Really !

[kerbiloid]

4 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

 

[YNM]

27 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Didn't understand this. What skulls, what slaughter... Just another battle between the neighbors, much smaller than many other battles before and after.

Oh yeah, so small.

(tl;dr what was held in 1800 CE probably didn't held in 18000 BCE.)

[kerbiloid]

3 minutes ago, YNM said:

Oh yeah, so small.

(tl;dr what was held in 1800 CE probably didn't held in 18000 BCE.)

How does the Middle Asia relate to the Siberia story?

Middle Asia is to the South, and it's very populated region with its own history.

Edited January 16, 2019 by kerbiloid

[YNM]

13 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

How does the Middle Asia relate to the Siberia story?

Middle Asia is to the South, and it's very populated region with its own history.

The "siberian" conquered the "middle asian".

You said it yourself that the khanate of Sibir was siberian. Obviously they got the idea off the other "siberian".

Unless now you question, was the siberians in 18000 BCE the same as the ones you met in 1800 CE ?

[kerbiloid]

9 minutes ago, YNM said:

The "siberian" conquered the "middle asian".

You said it yourself that the khanate of Sibir was siberian. Obviously they got the idea off the other "siberian".

Please, have a geographical study. Middle Asia mentioned by you is a hot, highly-populated region to the South from the Kazakhstan, which is to the South from South Siberia. It has nothing common with the Siberian climate at all.
The battle between Yermak and Kuchum was a next-door-size battle between (~600 Russian cossaks - the troop core, some amount of East-European soldiers, some amount of Tatars, so up to several thousand involved) vs (~15 thousand of probably Tatars, I'm not sure, of Kuchum's khanate). It had nothing common neither with the events you mention later, nor with other states named "khanate".

Big battles usually included 50+k from each side and more.

Edited January 16, 2019 by kerbiloid

[YNM]

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Siberia was added to Russia in XVI after a battle between the Russian Yermak's troop (up to several k) and Siberian khan Kuchum's army ~15 k.

25 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Middle Asia mentioned by you is a hot, highly-populated region to the South from the Kazakhstan, which is to the South from South Siberia. It has nothing common with the Siberian climate at all.

They overlapped. The Khanate of Sibir was an indirect continuation of the whole Mongol Empire/Khanate.

And this all happened in the last one millenia.

We were talking of something 20 millenia ago.

So now, back to Kamchatka.

Edited January 16, 2019 by YNM

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, YNM said:

They overlapped. The Khanate of Sibir was an indirect continuation of the whole Mongol Empire/Khanate.

I'm happy that you have included China, Middle East, and some other territories into what is called here "Middle Asia", but that's what I mean.

(Probably I should first have a look to learn that in English our "Middle Asia" corresponds to "Soviet Central Asia".)

And anyway this is much, much farther to the South than anything related to Siberia. And has nothing common with it.

Also, I don't understand what do you mean mentioning Kamchatka every time. I know where it is, so what?

[YNM]

55 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

so what?

Right, so, does the Kamchatkans stay alive from the time of Beringia or not ? Were they there since so long ? Did they thrive ? Did they have any kind of oral histories that chronicles their past ?

Or has it all been left freezing in the cold since you guys came in and claim sovereignty ?

 

The polynesians knew their histories of the voyages from oral recounts. Those in the western islands and central Polynesia knew they came from asian mainland. Those in Hawai'i, Rapa Nui and Aotearoa knew they came from the various central polynesian islands.

It also appears that the Inuit recounted of Tunit people - a group which lived even further north, in even colder conditions, and even hardier. We would know them as Dorset culture.

 

So, has anything of similar measures been taken on the Kamchatkans ?

[kerbiloid]

33 minutes ago, YNM said:

does the Kamchatkans stay alive from the time of Beringia or not ?

Unlikely you can meet any people anywhere in the world living since Beringia times. Even 1000-2000 years old.
All of them have been mixed with neighbors many times and long ago, so other questions make no sense in this context.
Of course they have tales and so on, but don't wait for a Beringian epic.

Spoiler

The closest approach which you can probably find are probably the Paleoasian Itelmens and Koryaks.

33 minutes ago, YNM said:

Or has it all been left freezing in the cold since you guys came in and claim sovereignty ?

You can refer to wiki, their population stably grows, +50..200% since early XX. In total: 130 k in 1920s, 180 k in 1980s as I already have quoted.

 

33 minutes ago, YNM said:

The polynesians knew their histories of the voyages from oral recounts. Those in the western islands and central Polynesia knew they came from asian mainland. Those in Hawai'i, Rapa Nui and Aotearoa knew they came from the various central polynesian islands.

 

33 minutes ago, YNM said:

So, has anything of similar measures been taken on the Kamchatkans ?

Do you await that 50 peoples 180 k in total living for several millenia in a frozen desert (in summer - a bog with clouds of insects) in small family groups in 50 km from each other have same amount of epic poems as a million of Polynesians living on tropic islands with birds and flowers?
I don't think so.

Edited January 16, 2019 by kerbiloid

[YNM]

2 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

their population stably grows

... But do they stay intact culturaly ?

2 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Unlikely you can meet any people anywhere in the world living since Beringia times. Even 1000-2000 years old.
All of them have been mixed with neighbors many times and long ago, so other questions make no sense in this context.

Maybe they'd remember their demise instead, like the Inuit who remembered the demise of paleo-Eskimos.

3 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Do you await that 50 peoples 180 k in total living for several millenia in a frozen desert (in summer - a bog with clouds of insects) in small fmily groups in 50 km from each other have same amount of epic poems as 
a million of Polynesians living on tropic islands with birds and flowers?

Hahah, so funny.

It's not always all full of flowers.

The stories of the Inuit, and probably the various Kamchatkans, would probably be full of fishes, ice, seals, and sometimes, bears.

[kerbiloid]

53 minutes ago, YNM said:

... But do they stay intact culturaly ?

Some of them herd reindeers, some of them are hunters or fishers, like always.
Of course, in XX they have been (grouped? associated?) with corresponding (state) collective farms, (state) fisheries, (state) hunting companies, etc, like other rural population.
Though due to the specifics of the reindeer herding and polar fishing/hunting this is mostly a family group travelling on their own and returning to the local company as a base.
Others do not differ from workers/fishers of other ethnicities. The reindeer herding is all theirs.

"Stay intact culturally" means what? They are getting urbanized as any other people, they use the same technical goods like others, and fuel a snowbike with petrol, not with a whale fat. 

53 minutes ago, YNM said:

Maybe they'd remember their demise instead, like the Inuit who remembered the demise of paleo-Eskimos.

I don't know what remember the Inuits (or what they think they remember).

Russia has been totally urbanized in XX, the urban population has grown from ~15% to 75% and keeps growing.
Peasants of all nationalities have been associated into collective farms and became farm workers using machinery.
The North has been populated by a million of industrial workers, using machinery, aviation, etc. The local ethnicities are getting involved as well.
So, unlikely a lot of people should/could stay in neolithic times in XXI. 

53 minutes ago, YNM said:

Hahah, so funny.

It's not always all full of flowers.

The stories of the Inuit, and probably the various Kamchatkans, would probably be full of fishes, ice, seals, and sometimes, bears.

Afaik, a walrus and a polar bear rule, depending on local nature.

Spoiler

The Easter Island is nice, but now compare its horrors to a -40° frost, a small family tent made of sticks covered with deer skins (fur inside).
The space inside is divided into a small dormitory where all family sleeps in clothes, separated with skins from the colder kitchen where they make a fire and eat.
Once a kettle boils, you extinguish the fire and keep semi-burned sticks to use them next time. Because there is no wood, only bush along the river valleys in proper places to know.
In evening the skin which is used as a door is fixed with laces till morning, to keep the warm air inside, and because if try to (liquid) or (dump) in -40° you can loose something.
Any toilet until morning and in case of bad weather - just here in the kitchen, into a common use pot, to be dumped out next day.

Oh, yes, it's a yaranga - a palace compared to a simple chum (a small wigwam).

No water to wash hands and body, because you have to save the wood, so to have a bath you have wait for the summer.
Typical food - pieces of frozen fish cut off with knife or boiled meat. As a delicious meal - guts of a whale if gotten.
No potatoes, no bread, no vegetables. Only meat and fat. Sometimes - berries. Always - tea and tobacco (yes, bought ones).
(As a result they have problems with fruits and hydrocarbones, as this was found in XX. So, no fruits - no vitamines (except from raw meat and berries), with fruites - diabetes due to the sugar overdose (yes, even from apples)).
Pre-XX lifespan - ~30 years or so. A hospitality tradition including a night of a guest with some female member of the family, to add some external "blood" (i.e. genes) into a closed group.

Epic poems? Demise? Hm...
 

Edited January 16, 2019 by kerbiloid