"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim~worldnet.att.net> wrote...

  > John Atkinson wrote:
     >>
     >> point out that, in Australia, styles vary in both time and
     >> space, as one would expect. In Arnhem Land, for example,
     >> the following major periods are recognised:
     >>
     >> Panaramitee Tradition engravings (oldest, perhaps 60
     >> 000 BP)
  >
  > 60,000???
  >
  > That's 50% longer ago than any date I've seen before for the
  > settlement of Australia. Where did the additional 20,000
  > years come from?

Everyone has different opinions on the validity of the
earliest dates that have been proposed for Australia.

As you know, carbon dating is pretty hopeless pre -40 ky,
although recently accelerator mass spectrometry has improved
this, and it also allows the direct dating of fine organic
matter in the crust over rock paintings. However, AFAIK, the
oldest rock art date from this is -25 ky. Older rock art dates
that are quoted have all been based on their association with
other things, such as hearths, rockfalls, etc

Trapped electron resonance techniques (electron spin resonance
and luminescence methods) are not limited to the last 40 ky,
but are still in their trial stages. They have been well
calibrated against radio-carbon back to -37 ky. Nevertheless,
the many claims that have been made for dates of 50-60 ky BP
or older are not universally accepted.

Pollen records seem to show that the fire regime in many
places changes abruptly, in ways suggestive of human
burning-off activity, at dates which range from -60 ky
to -100 ky.

A skull fragment at Willandra Lakes has been "suspected" to be
"more than 50 000 years old", based mostly on degree of
mineralisation.

The big megafauna extinctions come at various dates, most much
younger than -40 ky. Seems there was no single
thousand-year-or-less blitzkrieg, like in the Americas.

"60 000 years" in a nice round figure that has been
generally accepted by the media and by aborigines
themselves. Seems to me that it's about as likely as any, at
this stage in the game.

John.

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim~worldnet.att.net> wrote ...

  > Holly wrote:
     >>
     >> John Atkinson wrote:

     >> > "Holly" <noon_union~yahoo.com> wrote in message
  >
  >
     >> > > nasal sounds like the "ng" used in Mandarin -- an
     >> > > ancient sound.
     >> >
     >> > Why do you call it "ancient"?
     >>
     >> Because I read that it was considered a very ancient sound.
  >
  > Where did you read such a thing?
  >
     >> The sound "NG" that I'm referring to is not used in Modern
     >> English.
  >

Then what sound are you referring to?

One of the sounds of Mandarin, she says! But, there's no
sounds in Mandarin (or any other variety of Chinese, AFAIK)
that, by any stretch of the imagination, cound be written as
"ng" or "NG" -- other than, of course, the one I referred to,
the velar nasal that occurs at the end of syllables in English
<singing> or Mandarin "Zhongguo", China; or, in Cantonese, at
the beginning of "ngo", I, me, and syllabically in the common
family name "Ng".

John.

Ng viet noi diung viet minh An approximation of "Do you speak
Vietnamese" IIRC.

Wickerman festival reported by Ceasar of Celts in Britain,
connection to Wicca, wicked, witch, raja? DD

"Holly" <noon_union~yahoo.com> wrote ...
  >
  > [...]
  >
  > Re Ramachandran ~ After reviewing a series of his lectures
  > from Oxford I came upon the very thing I have been looking
  > for ... although the path I have taken has been richer than
  > any direct root could have been.

Domestic pigs might make a similar observation. Their wild
cousins who root directly for food live much less richly.

  > Thank you again for this direction. Below I quote the end
  > of his lecture on Synesthesia. "Now finally I would like to
  > turn to language, how did language evolve? This has always
  > been a very controversial topic and the question is look,
  > here we have this amazing ability called language with all
  > the nesting of clauses, this hierarchical structure of
  > language, this recursive embedding of clauses, our enormous
  > lexicon and it's an extraordinarily sophisticated
  > mechanism. How could it possibly have evolved through the
  > blind workings of chance through natural selection? How did
  > we evolve from the grunts and howls and groans of our
  > ape-like ancestors to all the sophistication of a
  > Shakespeare or a George Bush? Now there have been several
  > theories about this. Alfred Russell Wallace said the
  > mechanism is so complicated it couldn't have evolved
  > through natural selection. It was done by god, divine
  > intervention. Maybe he's right but we can't test it so
  > let's throw it away. Next theory was by Chomsky. Chomsky
  > said actually something quite similar although he doesn't
  > use the word god. He said this mechanism is so
  > sophisticated and elaborate it couldn't have emerged
  > through natural selection, through the blind workings of
  > chance but god knows what happens if you pack one hundred
  > billion nerve cells in such a tiny space, you may get new
  > laws of physics emerging. Aha, that's how you explain
  > language so he almost says it's a miracle although he
  > doesn't use the word miracle. Now even if that's true we
  > can't test it so let's throw it away. So then what actually
  > happened? How did language evolve? I suggest the clue, the
  > vital clue comes from the booba/kiki example, from
  > synesthesia and I'd like to replace this idea with what I
  > call the synesthetic boot-strapping theory of language
  > origins, and I'll get to that in a minute.
  >
  > So the next idea is Pinker's idea and his idea is look
  > there's no big mystery here. You're seeing the final result
  > of evolution, of language but you don't know what the
  > intermediate steps are so it always looks mysterious but of
  > course it evolved through natural selection even though we
  > don't know what the steps were. Now I think he's right but
  > he doesn't go far enough because as a biologist, we want the
  > devils and the details. We want to know what those
  > intermediate steps are, not merely that it could have
  > happened through natural selection. Of course it happened
  > through natural selection. There is nothing else so let's
  > take the lexicon, words. How did we evolve such a wonderful
  > huge repertoire of words, thousands of words? Did our
  > ancestral hominoids sit near the fireplace and say, let's
  > look at that. OK, everybody call it an axe, say everybody
  > axe. Of course not! I mean you do that in kindergarten but
  > that's not what they did. If they didn't do that, what did
  > they do? Well what I'm arguing is that the booba/kiki
  > example provides the clue. It shows there is a pre-existing
  > translation between the visual appearance of the object
  > represented in the fusiform gyrus and the auditory
  > representation in the auditory cortex. In other words
  > there's already a synesthetic cross-modal abstraction going
  > on, a pre-existing translation if you like between the
  > visual appearance and the auditory representation. Now
  > admittedly this is a very small bias, but that's all you
  > need in evolution to get it started and then you can start
  > embellishing it.

The visual appearance of a given object can vary greatly
depending on its distance, the angle at which it is
perceived, lighting, background, etc. And in real languages,
a given noun can refer to any member of a whole class of
objects which may differ greatly in visual appearance among
themselves _ceteris paribus_. Moreover, real languages have
many nouns referring to "objects" which cannot be perceived
visually at all. A theory which merely maps visual and
auditory representations together cannot explain language,
and sweeping the essential details under the rug as
"embellishments" is no better than Pinker.

  > But that's only part of the story, part one. Part two, I'm
  > going to argue, there's also a pre-existing built-in
  > cross-activation. Just as there is between visual and
  > auditory, the booba/kiki effect, there's also between visual
  > in the fusiform and the motor brocas area in the front of
  > the brain that controls the sequence of activations of
  > muscles of vocalisation, phonation and articulation - lips,
  > tongue and mouth. How do I know that? Well let's take an
  > example. Let's take the example of something tiny, say teeny
  > weeny, un peu, diminutive - look at what my lips are doing.
  > The amazing thing is they're actually physically mimicking
  > the visual appearance of the object - versus enormous,
  > large. We're actually physically mimicking the visual
  > appearance of the object so what I'm arguing is that also
  > again a pre-existing bias to map certain visual shapes onto
  > certain sounds in the motor maps in the brocas area.

Sheesh. This sort of claptrap was already old hat when Plato
wrote the _Cratylus_. The only "amazing thing" here is that
Ramachandran gets away with pretending to have made a profound
new discovery.

  > Lastly, the third factor - I think there's also a
  > pre-existing cross-activation between the hand area and the
  > mouth area because they are right next to each other in the
  > Penfield motor map in the brain and let me give you an
  > example, and I got scooped. Charles Darwin first described
  > this. What he showed was when people cut with a pair of
  > scissors you clench and unclench your jaws unconsciously as
  > if to echo or mimic the movements of the fingers. He didn't
  > explain why but I'd like to give it a name. I call it
  > synkinesia - and that's because the hand and mouth areas are
  > right next to each other and maybe there is some spill-over
  > of signals. Now so what? Well, imagine your ancestral
  > hominids evolving a system of gestures for communication,
  > and this would have been important because vocalisation, you
  > can't engage them in your hunting. Now the right hemisphere
  > produces guttural emotional utterances along with the
  > anterior singular. Now your mouth and tongue are already,
  > there's a pre-existing translation of the visual symbols
  > into mouth lip and tongue movements. Combine that with
  > guttural utterances coming from the right hemisphere and
  > anterior cingulate, what do you get? You get the first
  > words, you get proto-words.

Gestures are better than vocals for hunting? Yeah, right. The
prey will never see you jumping around trying to get the
attention of your partners hidden behind the trees.

How is this leaky-brain fantasy any better than Wallace,
Chomsky, or Pinker? Presumably the Ramachandran model brain
leaks all over, like a phrenology head with fuzzy
compartments, or Chia Guy planted with seeds from Three Mile
Island. Why should one arbitrary leakage scenario be elevated
to the One True Theory of Language Origin?

  > So now you've got three things in place - hand to mouth,
  > mouth in brocas area to visual appearance in the fusiform
  > and auditory cortex, and auditory to visual, the booba/kiki
  > effect. Each of these is a small effect but acting together
  > there's a synergistic boot-strapping effect going on and an
  > avalanche effect, culminating in the emergence of language.
  > Finally you say well what about the hierarchical structure
  > of syntax? How do you explain that? Well I think like when
  > you say he knows that I know that he knows that I know that
  > I had an affair with his wife. How do you do this hierarchic
  > embedding in language? Well partly I think that comes from
  > semantics, from the region of the TPO where I said you'd
  > engage in abstraction and I already explained how
  > abstraction might have evolved, so partly abstraction feeds
  > into syntactic structure, but partly from tool use. Early
  > hominids were very good at tool use and especially what I
  > call the sub-assembly technique in tool use where you take a
  > piece of flint, make it into a head - step one. Then you
  > haft it onto a handle - step two, and then the whole thing
  > becomes one entity which is then used to hit you the
  > subject, you hit the object. You do something to the object
  > and this bears a certain operational analogy with the
  > embedding of noun clauses. So what I'm arguing is what
  > evolved for tool use in the hand area is now exapted and
  > assimilated in the brocas area to be used in syntactic
  > hierarchic embedding. So now look, each of these has a small
  > bias but acting in conjunction they culminate in language.
  > It's very different from Steve Pinker's idea which is that
  > language is a specific adaptation which evolved step by step
  > for the sole purpose of communication. What I'm arguing here
  > is no, it's the fortuitous synergistic combination of a
  > number of mechanisms which evolved for other purposes
  > initially and then became assimilated into the mechanism
  > that we call language. This often happens in evolution but
  > it's a style of thinking that has yet to permeate neurology
  > and psychology and it's very odd that neurologists don't
  > usually think of evolution given that nothing in biology
  > makes any sense except in the light of evolution as
  > Dobzhansky once said.

Yes. Early hominids were very good at tool use, we all know
that. They were like a tribe of Tim Allens without the cocaine
conviction. And it's absolutely clear that if I can haft a
piece of flint onto a handle, then use the whole thing as one
entity to hit me the subject, I also hit the object, thus
giving birth to the relative clause. I'm glad that's all
cleared up!

"If the only tool you have is a hammer ..."

  > So let me summarise what we've done. We begin with a
  > disorder that's been known for a century but treated as a
  > curiosity. And then we showed that the phenomenon is real,
  > what the underlying brain mechanisms might be, and lastly
  > spelt out what the broader implications of this curious
  > phenomenon might be. So what have we done here with
  > synesthesia? Let's take a look. One day we might be able to
  > clone the gene or genes, because if you find a large enough
  > family you might be able to do this. Then we can go on to
  > the brain anatomy and say look, it's expressed in the
  > fusiform gyrus and you get lower synesthesia. You go to
  > angular gyrus you get higher synesthesia. If it's expressed
  > all over you get artsy types! Then from the brain anatomy
  > you go to detailed perceptual
  > psychophysics. Either the pop-out effect, you know the 2s
  > against the 5s which you can measure, and then finally all
  > the way to understanding abstract thought and how it might
  > have emerged, metaphor, Shakespeare, even the evolution of
  > language - all of this in this one little quirk that
  > people used to call synesthesia. So I agree wholeheartedly
  > with what Huxley said in the last century just across the
  > road here at the University Museum, contrary to Benjamin
  > Disraeli's views and the views of Bishop Wilberforce. We
  > are not angels, we are merely sophisticated apes. Yet we
  > feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts,
  > craving transcendence and all the time trying to spread
  > our wings and fly off, and it's really a very odd
  > predicament to be in, if you think about it."

This character rambles more than Jack Kemp. Over here he could
have been a noted Republican politician.

Douglas G. Kilday wrote:
  > "Holly" <noon_union~yahoo.com> wrote ...
     > >
     > > [...]
     > >
     > > Re Ramachandran ~ After reviewing a series of his lectures
     > > from Oxford I came upon the very thing I have been looking
     > > for ... although the path I have taken has been richer
     > > than any direct root could have been.
  >
  > Domestic pigs might make a similar observation. Their wild
  > cousins who root directly for food live much less richly.

Thank goodness one's species is not determined by one's
misspelling or typos.

  >
     > > Thank you again for this direction. Below I quote the end
     > > of his lecture on Synesthesia. "Now finally I would like
     > > to turn to language, how did language evolve? This has
     > > always been a very controversial topic and the question
     > > is look, here we have this amazing ability called
     > > language with all the nesting of clauses, this
     > > hierarchical structure of language, this recursive
     > > embedding of clauses, our enormous lexicon and it's an
     > > extraordinarily sophisticated mechanism. How could it
     > > possibly have evolved through the blind workings of
     > > chance through natural selection? How did we evolve from
     > > the grunts and howls and groans of our ape-like ancestors
     > > to all the sophistication of a Shakespeare or a George
     > > Bush? Now there have been several theories about this.
     > > Alfred Russell Wallace said the mechanism is so
     > > complicated it couldn't have evolved through natural
     > > selection. It was done by god, divine intervention. Maybe
     > > he's right but we can't test it so let's throw it away.
     > > Next theory was by Chomsky. Chomsky said actually
     > > something quite similar although he doesn't use the word
     > > god. He said this mechanism is so sophisticated and
     > > elaborate it couldn't have emerged through natural
     > > selection, through the blind workings of chance but god
     > > knows what happens if you pack one hundred billion nerve
     > > cells in such a tiny space, you may get new laws of
     > > physics emerging. Aha, that's how you explain language so
     > > he almost says it's a miracle although he doesn't use the
     > > word miracle. Now even if that's true we can't test it so
     > > let's throw it away. So then what actually happened? How
     > > did language evolve? I suggest the clue, the vital clue
     > > comes from the booba/kiki example, from synesthesia and
     > > I'd like to replace this idea with what I call the
     > > synesthetic boot-strapping theory of language origins,
     > > and I'll get to that in a minute.
     > >
     > > So the next idea is Pinker's idea and his idea is look
     > > there's no big mystery here. You're seeing the final
     > > result of evolution, of language but you don't know what
     > > the intermediate steps are so it always looks mysterious
     > > but of course it evolved through natural selection even
     > > though we don't know what the steps were. Now I think he's
     > > right but he doesn't go far enough because as a biologist,
     > > we want the devils and the details. We want to know what
     > > those intermediate steps are, not merely that it could
     > > have happened through natural selection. Of course it
     > > happened through natural selection. There is nothing else
     > > so let's take the lexicon, words. How did we evolve such a
     > > wonderful huge repertoire of words, thousands of words?
     > > Did our ancestral hominoids sit near the fireplace and
     > > say, let's look at that. OK, everybody call it an axe, say
     > > everybody axe. Of course not! I mean you do that in
     > > kindergarten but that's not what they did. If they didn't
     > > do that, what did they do? Well what I'm arguing is that
     > > the booba/kiki example provides the clue. It shows there
     > > is a pre-existing translation between the visual
     > > appearance of the object represented in the fusiform gyrus
     > > and the auditory representation in the auditory cortex. In
     > > other words there's already a synesthetic cross-modal
     > > abstraction going on, a pre-existing translation if you
     > > like between the visual appearance and the auditory
     > > representation. Now admittedly this is a very small bias,
     > > but that's all you need in evolution to get it started and
     > > then you can start embellishing it.
  >
  > The visual appearance of a given object can vary greatly
  > depending on its distance, the angle at which it is
  > perceived, lighting, background, etc. And in real languages,
  > a given noun can refer to any member of a whole class of
  > objects which may differ greatly in visual appearance among
  > themselves _ceteris paribus_. Moreover, real languages have
  > many nouns referring to "objects" which cannot be perceived
  > visually at all. A theory which merely maps visual and
  > auditory representations together cannot explain language,
  > and sweeping the essential details under the rug as
  > "embellishments" is no better than Pinker.

I hope you have read more about this than I have
presented here.
  >
     > > But that's only part of the story, part one. Part two, I'm
     > > going to argue, there's also a pre-existing built-in
     > > cross-activation. Just as there is between visual and
     > > auditory, the booba/kiki effect, there's also between
     > > visual in the fusiform and the motor brocas area in the
     > > front of the brain that controls the sequence of
     > > activations of muscles of vocalisation, phonation and
     > > articulation - lips, tongue and mouth. How do I know that?
     > > Well let's take an example. Let's take the example of
     > > something tiny, say teeny weeny, un peu, diminutive - look
     > > at what my lips are doing. The amazing thing is they're
     > > actually physically mimicking the visual appearance of the
     > > object - versus enormous, large. We're actually physically
     > > mimicking the visual appearance of the object so what I'm
     > > arguing is that also again a pre-existing bias to map
     > > certain visual shapes onto certain sounds in the motor
     > > maps in the brocas area.
  >
  > Sheesh. This sort of claptrap was already old hat when Plato
  > wrote the _Cratylus_. The only "amazing thing" here is that
  > Ramachandran gets away with pretending to have made a
  > profound new discovery.

Does the argument of age diminish truth? Or are you saying
just because Ramachandran got his initial idea from the inside
of a Bazooka Bubblegum wrapper that it lacks validity?

  >
     > > Lastly, the third factor - I think there's also a
     > > pre-existing cross-activation between the hand area and
     > > the mouth area because they are right next to each other
     > > in the Penfield motor map in the brain and let me give you
     > > an example, and I got scooped. Charles Darwin first
     > > described this. What he showed was when people cut with a
     > > pair of scissors you clench and unclench your jaws
     > > unconsciously as if to echo or mimic the movements of the
     > > fingers. He didn't explain why but I'd like to give it a
     > > name. I call it synkinesia - and that's because the hand
     > > and mouth areas are right next to each other and maybe
     > > there is some spill-over of signals. Now so what? Well,
     > > imagine your ancestral hominids evolving a system of
     > > gestures for communication, and this would have been
     > > important because vocalisation, you can't engage them in
     > > your hunting. Now the right hemisphere produces guttural
     > > emotional utterances along with the anterior singular. Now
     > > your mouth and tongue are already, there's a pre-existing
     > > translation of the visual symbols into mouth lip and
     > > tongue movements. Combine that with guttural utterances
     > > coming from the right hemisphere and anterior cingulate,
     > > what do you get? You get the first words, you get
     > > proto-words.
  >
  > Gestures are better than vocals for hunting? Yeah, right.
  > The prey will never see you jumping around trying to get the
  > attention of your partners hidden behind the trees.

Ergo we might conclude that being mute and slow to move would
be viable traits for all successful hunters ..... hmm...

"The silent means of communication afforded by the use of
gesture was particularly useful to warriors in combat, who
were able to give signs to each other over a considerable
distance in order to surprise the enemy."

"A system of intertribal communication through the use of
ideographic gestures made with the hands, sign language was
first noted by explorers as early as 1535."

http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e-resources/ebooks/records-
/7132.html

  >
  > How is this leaky-brain fantasy any better than Wallace,
  > Chomsky, or Pinker? Presumably the Ramachandran model brain
  > leaks all over, like a phrenology head with fuzzy
  > compartments, or Chia Guy planted with seeds from Three Mile
  > Island. Why should one arbitrary leakage scenario be
  > elevated to the One True Theory of Language Origin?

What I have noticed about this NG is some contributors use
sarcasm as a form of argument. Although it does suggest some
cleverness on the part of the "sarco-vocateur," like those who
have perfected card tricks to dazzle their guests ...it is not
a valid way to dispute another person's hypotheses.

  >
     > > So now you've got three things in place - hand to mouth,
     > > mouth in brocas area to visual appearance in the fusiform
     > > and auditory cortex, and auditory to visual, the
     > > booba/kiki effect. Each of these is a small effect but
     > > acting together there's a synergistic boot-strapping
     > > effect going on and an avalanche effect, culminating in
     > > the emergence of language. Finally you say well what about
     > > the hierarchical structure of syntax? How do you explain
     > > that? Well I think like when you say he knows that I know
     > > that he knows that I know that I had an affair with his
     > > wife. How do you do this hierarchic embedding in language?
     > > Well partly I think that comes from semantics, from the
     > > region of the TPO where I said you'd engage in abstraction
     > > and I already explained how abstraction might have
     > > evolved, so partly abstraction feeds into syntactic
     > > structure, but partly from tool use. Early hominids were
     > > very good at tool use and especially what I call the
     > > sub-assembly technique in tool use where you take a piece
     > > of flint, make it into a head - step one. Then you haft it
     > > onto a handle - step two, and then the whole thing becomes
     > > one entity which is then used to hit you the subject, you
     > > hit the object. You do something to the object and this
     > > bears a certain operational analogy with the embedding of
     > > noun clauses. So what I'm arguing is what evolved for tool
     > > use in the hand area is now exapted and assimilated in the
     > > brocas area to be used in syntactic hierarchic embedding.
     > > So now look, each of these has a small bias but acting in
     > > conjunction they culminate in language. It's very
     > > different from Steve Pinker's idea which is that language
     > > is a specific adaptation which evolved step by step for
     > > the sole purpose of communication. What I'm arguing here
     > > is no, it's the fortuitous synergistic combination of a
     > > number of mechanisms which evolved for other purposes
     > > initially and then became assimilated into the mechanism
     > > that we call language. This often happens in evolution but
     > > it's a style of thinking that has yet to permeate
     > > neurology and psychology and it's very odd that
     > > neurologists don't usually think of evolution given that
     > > nothing in biology makes any sense except in the light of
     > > evolution as Dobzhansky once said.
  >
  > Yes. Early hominids were very good at tool use, we all know
  > that. They were like a tribe of Tim Allens without the
  > cocaine conviction. And it's absolutely clear that if I can
  > haft a piece of flint onto a handle, then use the whole
  > thing as one entity to hit me the subject, I also hit the
  > object, thus giving birth to the relative clause. I'm glad
  > that's all cleared up!

But convictions are not always habit forming. Does he
proselytize?

  > "If the only tool you have is a hammer ..."

Well ... yes ... I suppose that would make for more
generalizations.

  >
     > > So let me summarise what we've done. We begin with a
     > > disorder that's been known for a century but treated as a
     > > curiosity. And then we showed that the phenomenon is real,
     > > what the underlying brain mechanisms might be, and lastly
     > > spelt out what the broader implications of this curious
     > > phenomenon might be. So what have we done here with
     > > synesthesia? Let's take a look. One day we might be able
     > > to clone the gene or genes, because if you find a large
     > > enough family you might be able to do this. Then we can go
     > > on to the brain anatomy and say look, it's expressed in
     > > the fusiform gyrus and you get lower synesthesia. You go
     > > to angular gyrus you get higher synesthesia. If it's
     > > expressed all over you get artsy types! Then from the
     > > brain anatomy you go to detailed perceptual
     > > psychophysics. Either the pop-out effect, you know the 2s
     > > against the 5s which you can measure, and then finally
     > > all the way to understanding abstract thought and how it
     > > might have emerged, metaphor, Shakespeare, even the
     > > evolution of language - all of this in this one little
     > > quirk that people used to call synesthesia. So I agree
     > > wholeheartedly with what Huxley said in the last century
     > > just across the road here at the University Museum,
     > > contrary to Benjamin Disraeli's views and the views of
     > > Bishop Wilberforce. We are not angels, we are merely
     > > sophisticated apes. Yet we feel like angels trapped
     > > inside the bodies of beasts, craving transcendence and
     > > all the time trying to spread our wings and fly off, and
     > > it's really a very odd predicament to be in, if you
     > > think about it."
  >
  > This character rambles more than Jack Kemp. Over here he
  > could have been a noted Republican politician.

If only.

Holly wrote:
  > Greetings, I am interested in understanding the process of
  > language acquisition (development) from monosyllabic
  > representative sounds, such as onomatopoeia <e.g. ruff-ruff
  > and moo> to the use of grammatical decisions of word order.
  > I have read that in the Aurignacian culture language was
  > "artificial" -- perhaps not as sophisticated as ours but on
  > its way. This means 35,000 years ago the advancement of
  > language was as good as the advancement of artistic know-how
  > .... which was no less advanced then Picasso (according to
  > his own assessment). Is there a theory that make sense, that
  > explains the way in which artificial language evolves and
  > the time it takes from simple grunts of need to words that
  > express conceptual principles?
  >
  > Also .. please forgive my lack of knowledge... but did
  > rhinos really live in Southwest France 35,000 years ago or
  > did the artists of Chauvet Cave remember them from their
  > nomadic travels?
  >
  > Is there any evidence that these folks traveled from areas
  > as far as the great expanse south of the Urals ... perhaps
  > as far as Kazakhstan?
  >
  > I am fascinated by the red dots found in the Chauvet cave
  > ... the red ochre palm prints. Could these be systems for
  > counting? The artists did not live in the cave and they
  > built fires to produce the charcoal with which they drew ...
  > they were artisans ... perhaps there was a practical purpose
  > to the red dots ... or perhaps the lack of oxygen in the
  > caves caused temporary physiological phenomena that in some
  > way relates to the red dots. I know from having been, on a
  > few occasions, lightheaded that dots blurred my vision. I am
  > not negating the possible use of "magic mushrooms" by these
  > early home sapiens, as some finds have suggested, but I
  > would like to exhaust the possibilities of the natural
  > effects of the environment first ... before I look at the
  > art as wholly shamanistic.
  >
  > I would greatly appreciate any kindly and pertinent guidance
  > you might offer. Holly
  >

Who knows. Every child traces his hand on a piece of paper at
one time or another, so maybe it was all done by a lot of
bored kids.

We are complicated, so we tend to assign complicated theories
to the ancients. I think that their superstitions and
religious beliefs were probably a lot more simple than we
presently imagine.

Or else, perhaps they were handing down old knowledge, for
which there was no useful description, their having lost
all science.

As far as psychic abilities go, they were a lot closer to
nature than we are today, so they would have had a more
natural tendency toward telepathic ability, whereas today, it
must be taught during childhood, or it will be lost. Mushrooms
and cacti probably did play a large role in enhancing those
abilities.

Here are some links that might interest you:

Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson
http://www.gurdjieff.org/beelzebub.htm

In Search of the Miraculous http://skepdic.com/ouspensk.html

The Jung Page http://www.cgjungpage.org/

Edgar Cayce http://www.are-cayce.com/about_edgarcayce/about_e-
dgarcayce.asp

Note that the men in the above references did not use drugs
of any kind, but neither did they live in caves, or use
stone tools.

Michael

--
RLU #352695
35.14N - 101.50W

Day Brown wrote:
  > < The evolution of cave paintings 35 kya may have been more
  > of a function of expanding/larger population, and changes in
  > environment, rather than something different about our
  > brains. > Interesting. It occurs to me, that this is the
  > very era when Homo Neanderthalis and Sapiens were in
  > contact, and therefore sharing traditions. Quite often we've
  > seen since how, when two cultures meet, a new art form
  > emerged.
  >
  > And as for religion, the earliest evidence I know of, of
  > religion, is the Shanidar Iraq grave where a crippled shamen
  > was ritually buried with flowers and seven important
  > medicinal herbs. 52,000 years ago. The shaman was a
  > Neanderthal.
  >
  > So, it would seem *Neanderthals* invented religion.
  >

I do wonder why, since Neanderthals and Sapiens co-existed,
that they never cross-bred? I think they were mostly
segregated. Or was there a genetic difference, which made
cross-breeding impossible?

Why do you assume that burial has to do with religion? It
seems just as plausible to me that the Neanderthals may have
buried their dead to avoid attracting scavengers.

Or perhaps they just didn't like the smell, and didn't want to
move. This might also explain the flowers.

It may be that the Neanderthals invented sanitation, rather
than religion.

Michael

Sorry to be so late. My internet access was down for 8 days.

Regarding Chinese & Tocharian... while tonality is critical in
Chinese and Tocharian relies on suffixes and prefixes, both
evolved out of Neolithic agrarian technologies with a need to
plan according to the seasons, and manage inventory to survive
the winter. The ideas of distance, time, tense, case, and
gender were important to both.

"Life along the Silk Road" by Whitfield takes place mostly on
the eastern end, from Xian to Jade Gate to Kucha about 1000
years ago. Bi-linguality in Tocharian and Chinese was pretty
common. There were *lots* of cultural ties. "The Mummies of
Urumchi" by Barber notes that the Shang court had Tocharian
astrologers about as far back as you can trace the contact.
Then, as now, 'Western' music was a big hit in the Chinese
capital, and Tocharian green eyed/fair haired musicians
and/or call girls were in high class demand, practiced in
Tantric sexuality and what would look to us like the arts of
the Geisha.

The sex manuals of Taoism look a lot like the Kama Sutra, and
both cultures at the time had very powerful female figures.
Then too, the upper classes on both sides of the Jade Gate had
a habit of sending daughters to marry or become nuns in the
religious orders of the other.

Course, pushing them together were the common enemies, the
Zongnu/Mongols of the North and the Tibetans of the south, and
invasion and banditry was a recurrant problem for folks trying
to do business. All the common spirituality they shared in
Taoism, Confucianism, & Buddhism is another clue to Chinese
and Tocharians being able to understand each other. Nor were
either ever very big on heresy trials and inquisitions. The
relative egalitarianism of the Tocharians (who share so much
DNA with other Europeans) is a testament to the delterious
narrowmindedness that came out of European acceptance of
Levantine scriptures with a very different world view, and and
a concept of the divine as an alpha male tyrant.

Some of the Levantine dualism is seen in Manichean,
Nestorian, and Zoroastrian traditions, but these never gained
wide acceptance in either Chinese or Tocharian cultures, but
only existed because of the tolerant traditions along the
Silk Road cities.

The meeting of Chinese and Tocharians did produce a flowering,
and tonite I saw a TV piece suggesting that the flowering of
European cave art came out of the meeting between Neanderthals
& Cro Magnon... another example of how exposure to a new
culture expanded horizons for everyone.

"Stone Age Soundtracks" by Deveroux begins with an acoustic
analysis of the ice age caves, and suggests that the placement
of dolmens and monliths in Europe were quite deliberate to
permit a speaker, at a specific point, to be heard by everyone
within a stone circle like Stone Henge. (I dunno how he missed
the 'Goddess temples' at Malta in his analysis) The ancients
seemed also aware of the "Helmholtz resonance", based on
matching the volume of a space with the placement of large
flat stones to reflect sound.

Several places are setup such that the echo returns in time to
match the beat of a drum, which when continued, build up
somewhat like the feedback resonance we all remember from a
high school gym's PA system.

I'm looking for more reports on the use of entheogens, which
would have greatly magnified the artistic experience in a
sacred place at the sacred time. Wasson, "Persephone's Quest",
traces the origin of the Vedic "Soma" which was even known in
the Chinese end of the Silk Road. Since we see anthropology
reports of stone age cultures using shamantic potions, we can
assume they were also in wide spread use in Europe... until
Christian repression begun under Justinian (and continuing
today as the 'war on drugs').

Gimbutas, in 'The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe' shows
us stone carvings and pottery samples of the Amanita
Muscaria Wasson says was used to make 'Soma' dating from
7000 BP. My personal experience is that its a very powerful
potion whose ancient use is evident in the eidetic art of
Buddhism & Hinduism.

But it would have had just as magical an effect in stone age
sacred caves. The notorious habit of such potions to make the
walls appear to 'breathe' would have naturally led to the
crafting of images on those walls to correspond to the animals
seen to be breathing in the stone. Inasmuch as it was the
Neanderthals in the caves when the Cro Magnon shows up, it was
prolly the former who knew about the magical effect of Amanita
Muscaria. With a high meat diet and no alcohol at all, the
Soma trips must have been very enjoyable, and entirely lacking
in the stomach distress we see reported today.

The recent discovery of a Neanderthal Hyppoid bone suggests
that they did indeed have language, altho I'd like to see an
acoustic analysis of the skulls to get an idea of what they
sounded like. It would have been quite different. HNS had a
much more robust skeleton, and I expect this included a thick
skull. However, the HNS lived in very small and highly inbred
family groups that therefore had a lot of genetic variation,
and there's no way of knowing that the few Neanderthal skulls
we do have is very representative.

And to complicate matters further, when HNS & HSS began
hybridizing, there would have been even more genetic
variation. I daresay that the acoustic properties of the
Chinese skulls has something to do with the tonal way that
culture evolved language... and again, the effect of that
hybridization. Tocharian singers were huge hits in Xian, which
was partly due to the skull resonance as well as the larger
frames, and hence bigger chest cavities of Tocharian women...
who could hold a note until the audience just went nuts.

And where did the Tocharians get the larger frames?
Neanderthals.

Day Brown wrote:
  > Sorry to be so late. My internet access was down for 8 days.
  >
  > Regarding Chinese & Tocharian... while tonality is critical
  > in Chinese and Tocharian relies on suffixes and prefixes,
  > both evolved out of Neolithic agrarian technologies with a
  > need to plan according to the seasons, and manage inventory
  > to survive the winter. The ideas of distance, time, tense,
  > case, and gender were important to both.
  >
  > "Life along the Silk Road" by Whitfield takes place mostly
  > on the eastern end, from Xian to Jade Gate to Kucha about
  > 1000 years ago. Bi-linguality in Tocharian and Chinese was
  > pretty common. There were *lots* of cultural ties. "The
  > Mummies of Urumchi" by Barber notes that the Shang court had
  > Tocharian astrologers about as far back as you can trace the
  > contact. Then, as now, 'Western' music was a big hit in the
  > Chinese capital, and Tocharian green eyed/fair haired
  > musicians and/or call girls were in high class demand,
  > practiced in Tantric sexuality and what would look to us
  > like the arts of the Geisha.
  >
  > The sex manuals of Taoism look a lot like the Kama Sutra,
  > and both cultures at the time had very powerful female
  > figures. Then too, the upper classes on both sides of the
  > Jade Gate had a habit of sending daughters to marry or
  > become nuns in the religious orders of the other.
  >
  >
  > Course, pushing them together were the common enemies, the
  > Zongnu/Mongols of the North and the Tibetans of the south,
  > and invasion and banditry was a recurrant problem for folks
  > trying to do business. All the common spirituality they
  > shared in Taoism, Confucianism, & Buddhism is another clue
  > to Chinese and Tocharians being able to understand each
  > other. Nor were either ever very big on heresy trials and
  > inquisitions. The relative egalitarianism of the Tocharians
  > (who share so much DNA with other Europeans) is a testament
  > to the delterious narrowmindedness that came out of
  > European acceptance of Levantine scriptures with a very
  > different world view, and and a concept of the divine as an
  > alpha male tyrant.
  >
  > Some of the Levantine dualism is seen in Manichean,
  > Nestorian, and Zoroastrian traditions, but these never
  > gained wide acceptance in either Chinese or Tocharian
  > cultures, but only existed because of the tolerant
  > traditions along the Silk Road cities.
  >
  > The meeting of Chinese and Tocharians did produce a
  > flowering, and tonite I saw a TV piece suggesting that the
  > flowering of European cave art came out of the meeting
  > between Neanderthals & Cro Magnon... another example of how
  > exposure to a new culture expanded horizons for everyone.
  >
  > "Stone Age Soundtracks" by Deveroux begins with an acoustic
  > analysis of the ice age caves, and suggests that the
  > placement of dolmens and monliths in Europe were quite
  > deliberate to permit a speaker, at a specific point, to be
  > heard by everyone within a stone circle like Stone Henge. (I
  > dunno how he missed the 'Goddess temples' at Malta in his
  > analysis) The ancients seemed also aware of the "Helmholtz
  > resonance", based on matching the volume of a space with the
  > placement of large flat stones to reflect sound.
  >
  > Several places are setup such that the echo returns in time
  > to match the beat of a drum, which when continued, build up
  > somewhat like the feedback resonance we all remember from a
  > high school gym's PA system.
  >
  > I'm looking for more reports on the use of entheogens, which
  > would have greatly magnified the artistic experience in a
  > sacred place at the sacred time. Wasson, "Persephone's
  > Quest", traces the origin of the Vedic "Soma" which was even
  > known in the Chinese end of the Silk Road. Since we see
  > anthropology reports of stone age cultures using shamantic
  > potions, we can assume they were also in wide spread use in
  > Europe... until Christian repression begun under Justinian
  > (and continuing today as the 'war on drugs').
  >
  > Gimbutas, in 'The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe' shows us
  > stone carvings and pottery samples of the Amanita Muscaria
  > Wasson says was used to make 'Soma' dating from 7000 BP. My
  > personal experience is that its a very powerful potion whose
  > ancient use is evident in the eidetic art of Buddhism &
  > Hinduism.
  >
  > But it would have had just as magical an effect in stone age
  > sacred caves. The notorious habit of such potions to make
  > the walls appear to 'breathe' would have naturally led to
  > the crafting of images on those walls to correspond to the
  > animals seen to be breathing in the stone. Inasmuch as it
  > was the Neanderthals in the caves when the Cro Magnon shows
  > up, it was prolly the former who knew about the magical
  > effect of Amanita Muscaria. With a high meat diet and no
  > alcohol at all, the Soma trips must have been very
  > enjoyable, and entirely lacking in the stomach distress we
  > see reported today.
  >
  > The recent discovery of a Neanderthal Hyppoid bone suggests
  > that they did indeed have language, altho I'd like to see an
  > acoustic analysis of the skulls to get an idea of what they
  > sounded like. It would have been quite different. HNS had a
  > much more robust skeleton, and I expect this included a
  > thick skull. However, the HNS lived in very small and highly
  > inbred family groups that therefore had a lot of genetic
  > variation, and there's no way of knowing that the few
  > Neanderthal skulls we do have is very representative.
  >
  > And to complicate matters further, when HNS & HSS began
  > hybridizing, there would have been even more genetic
  > variation. I daresay that the acoustic properties of the
  > Chinese skulls has something to do with the tonal way that
  > culture evolved language... and again, the effect of that
  > hybridization. Tocharian singers were huge hits in Xian,
  > which was partly due to the skull resonance as well as the
  > larger frames, and hence bigger chest cavities of
  > Tocharian women... who could hold a note until the
  > audience just went nuts.
  >
  > And where did the Tocharians get the larger frames?
  > Neanderthals.

Day, Thank you very much for all your references. I have
diligently queried each and saved them for further
investigation. Many of the writers and topics you offer here
have lead me to other excellent areas for exploration as well.

Prior to posting this thread I had come across this website. I
offer it here in case you haven't seen it. I think it will
interest you. http://www.shroomery.org/index.php/par/25043

As for Neanderthals and Tocharian women exchanging DNA, all
the current research indicates that Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon
did not co-generate offspring. Furthermore, the Neanderthal is
thought to have become extinct around 30 KBP whereas the
Tocharian enter stage right considerably later. To address the
size of the chest cavity and/or any physical capability
(excluding speech mechanisms and cognitive functioning) I am
sure such variations in physical attributes can be explained
in a similar way that "racial" differences are currently
understood.

If you haven't done so already, I have as part of my profile a
website that you might like to explore. This is one I recently
added in place of another website equally pertinent to this
topic. This is the older website:
https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html

Of course you can access the current website by clicking on
my profile.

In preparing to write a fictional piece that is to a large
extent situated in any time and space other than my own,
requires many months of research, if not years, to gather a
true sense of place and time and being. As I've matured my
patience is greater and, consequently my enjoyment of this
process has grown proportionately.

What I have found most curious about this particular artistic
endeavor is that I have been fighting using humor for fear
that the humor would be anachronistic. But more and more,
trusting in our similarities -- those of Cro-Magnon and modern
man -- I have found through humor another perspective that is
enriching my research. Humor is a very natural element
(strategy) in the learning process. If you know anything about
children or the process of developing self-efficacy then you
know what I am talking about. One cannot be self-conscious and
not find humor an effective strategy to deal with
embarrassment and conflict. For example, in wolves and many
other social animals we see the Alpha males and females being
cajoled by those of lesser status ... humor is used as a way
of being accepted as well as a way to test (establish?) one's
dominance. Contrarily, it is noticeably clear that alpha
males, e.g. in baboon troupes, do not use humor to mate. In
fact they can be quite belligerent and still get their way. Of
course the female baboon has little choice.

I am mentioning this because I have found no reference to
humor in any of the scientific anthropological studies of
pre-historic humans. Furthermore, it is clear from some of
those scientists who post here that scientists take themselves
and their work very seriously. I wonder if this seriousness
isn't also a strategy to establish themselves as dominant? But
what might work in the field of science may be disastrous in
other arenas ~ after all, they are not baboons. ;-)

Holly wrote: <snip>
  > If you haven't done so already, I have as part of my profile
  > a website that you might like to explore. This is one I
  > recently added in place of another website equally pertinent
  > to this topic. This is the older website:
  > https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html
  > Of course you can access the current website by clicking on
  > my profile.
<snip>

Holly: Just so's you knows, the maps in the "Atlas" part of
that NatGeog site are unreliable, re: paleoenvironment. The
most obvious failing is the depiction of ice coverage.

The definitive survey of glacial limits over the last 40,000
years in North America indicates that there has been no icy
barrier to migration from Alaska to the southern U.S. except
from about 30,000 to about 12,500 years ago: "The Late
Wisconsinan advance of the Laurentide Ice Sheet started from
a Middle Wisconsinan interstadial minimum 27-30 14C ka BP
when the ice margin approximately followed the boundary of
the Canadian Shield."

http://cgrg.geog.uvic.ca/abstracts/DykeTheThe.html

If people could get to Alaska by 25 ka BP, they could have
walked from there to Tierra del Fuego.

And now, details of how the maps are wrong:

The National Geographic's Genographic Project has a static,
simplistic mapping of ice extent. Apart from the 200,00
B.C. map, which has a version of a glaciated Canadian
Arctic Archipelago that I've never seen before, there is
only one version of ice extent prior to the Last Glacial
Maximum. There should be at least two, for the Early and
Middle parts of the last glacial episode,
i.e. the Early Wisconsinan Stade and the Middle Wisconsinan
Interstade in North America. There should have been an
almost complete disappearance of West Coast Cordilleran
ice on the 40,000-30,000 B.C. maps (and maybe on earlier
maps), and a retreat of the Laurentide Ice Sheet almost
to the first "A" in "America". I would also have expected
a depiction of some contraction of the Fennoscandian Ice
Sheet then. On the maps for the period 30,000-15,000 B.C.
there are a couple of very large lakes northeast of the
Caspian Sea, in western Siberia. The last time that there
could have been any such lakes there would have been
90,000 years ago, and the West Siberian ice sheet that
would have dammed them also could not have existed since
then. The major proponent of such lakes admitted as much
(though not explicitly) about five years ago, but the
evidence for their recent existence was never strong. At
the LGM, the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet covered the Russian
border area near Finland, but to the east of the White
Sea, the southern edge of the Arctic ice sheet was north
of the modern coastline of Russia; there was not nearly
enough ice on the Russian mainland to dam up river
drainage and create such lakes.

The 15-10,000 B.C. map shows the situation at the beginning
of that period, only.

On the 10-5,000 B.C. map the islands of the Canadian Arctic
Archipelago is again shown as iced-up in their current
coastlines, and that is just not the way it was; very large
parts of those islands were submerged under seawater, and I
cannot think of any justification for simply including the
modern island outline and presenting them all as
glaciated-to-modern-tideline. Whatever the depiction of the
Archipelago, that map shows the situation at the end of
that period, only.

There is no depiction of any time between 15,000 B.C. and
5,000 B.C.. I would have hoped for a map showing the
beginning of the Holocene, or the onset of the Younger
Dryas, or _something_ to show one of the most important
climatic changes in the history of our species.

There are also problems withthe shoreline depictions,
notably for Beringia.

Altogether, a poor showing.

- Daryl Krupa

Daryl Krupa wrote:
  > Holly wrote: <snip>
     > > If you haven't done so already, I have as part of my
     > > profile a website that you might like to explore. This is
     > > one I recently added in place of another website equally
     > > pertinent to this topic. This is the older website: https-
     > > ://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html Of
     > > course you can access the current website by clicking on
     > > my profile.
  > <snip>
  >
  > Holly: Just so's you knows, the maps in the "Atlas" part
  > of that NatGeog site are unreliable, re: paleoenvironment.
  > The most obvious failing is the depiction of ice coverage.
  >
  > The definitive survey of glacial limits over the last
  > 40,000 years in North America indicates that there has
  > been no icy barrier to migration from Alaska to the
  > southern U.S. except from about 30,000 to about 12,500
  > years ago: "The Late Wisconsinan advance of the Laurentide
  > Ice Sheet started from a Middle Wisconsinan interstadial
  > minimum 27-30 14C ka BP when the ice margin approximately
  > followed the boundary of the Canadian Shield."
  >
  > http://cgrg.geog.uvic.ca/abstracts/DykeTheThe.html
  >
  > If people could get to Alaska by 25 ka BP, they could have
  > walked from there to Tierra del Fuego.
  >
  > And now, details of how the maps are wrong:
  >
  > The National Geographic's Genographic Project has a
  > static, simplistic mapping of ice extent. Apart from the
  > 200,00 B.C. map, which has a version of a glaciated
  > Canadian Arctic Archipelago that I've never seen before,
  > there is only one version of ice extent prior to the Last
  > Glacial Maximum. There should be at least two, for the
  > Early and Middle parts of the last glacial episode,
  > i.e. the Early Wisconsinan Stade and the Middle Wisconsinan
  > Interstade in North America. There should have been an
  > almost complete disappearance of West Coast Cordilleran
  > ice on the 40,000-30,000 B.C. maps (and maybe on
  > earlier maps), and a retreat of the Laurentide Ice
  > Sheet almost to the first "A" in "America". I would
  > also have expected a depiction of some contraction of
  > the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet then. On the maps for the
  > period 30,000-15,000 B.C. there are a couple of very
  > large lakes northeast of the Caspian Sea, in western
  > Siberia. The last time that there could have been any
  > such lakes there would have been 90,000 years ago, and
  > the West Siberian ice sheet that would have dammed them
  > also could not have existed since then. The major
  > proponent of such lakes admitted as much (though not
  > explicitly) about five years ago, but the evidence for
  > their recent existence was never strong. At the LGM,
  > the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet covered the Russian border
  > area near Finland, but to the east of the White Sea,
  > the southern edge of the Arctic ice sheet was north of
  > the modern coastline of Russia; there was not nearly
  > enough ice on the Russian mainland to dam up river
  > drainage and create such lakes.
  >
  > The 15-10,000 B.C. map shows the situation at the
  > beginning of that period, only.
  >
  > On the 10-5,000 B.C. map the islands of the Canadian
  > Arctic Archipelago is again shown as iced-up in their
  > current coastlines, and that is just not the way it was;
  > very large parts of those islands were submerged under
  > seawater, and I cannot think of any justification for
  > simply including the modern island outline and presenting
  > them all as glaciated-to-modern-tideline. Whatever the
  > depiction of the Archipelago, that map shows the
  > situation at the end of that period, only.
  >
  > There is no depiction of any time between 15,000 B.C. and
  > 5,000 B.C.. I would have hoped for a map showing the
  > beginning of the Holocene, or the onset of the Younger
  > Dryas, or _something_ to show one of the most important
  > climatic changes in the history of our species.
  >
  > There are also problems withthe shoreline depictions,
  > notably for Beringia.
  >
  > Altogether, a poor showing.
  >
  > - Daryl Krupa

Thank you for that assessment. I'd like to study the correct
depiction of climate change in Europe and Eurasia from 50 kbp
to about 10 kbp. Do you have any reference for me? I have the
Penguin Atlas of Ancient History by McEvedly first published
in 1967 ... sad comment on my resources for climate change
during that time and place.

Ya, humor is hard to track. But Bonobos and Chimps seem to
delight in certain aspects of their setting in which surprise
is followed by relief.

As for the hominid hybridization, its lots more complicated
than anyone imagined. Perhaps you remember "Sperm Wars"? In
any case, there is considerable variation in the mobility
and/or duration of sperm. Longer lived sperm from one donor
mite very well be present with faster moving sperm of a
later donor.

Moreover, conception aint all its cracked up to be. In the
natural conditions, it takes the presence of a myriad of sperm
to deliver an enzyme that makes the ovum wall permeable. And
when it is, there are times when more than one sperm is
present. This is no biggie if both are XX or XY, but when
there is one of each present, hermaphroditism is a common
result. And it turns out, that that is far more common (now
that medical personnel are more professional) than once
imagined. I have met two people in two different states that
have XXY; in one case apparently male, but the other, a ballsy
blonde, as she neared menopause was having problems. When they
did the ultrasound, they discovered that *she* really was
ballsy. She had undescended testes.

She's decided to keep them; its been good for her career.

But anyway, when you look into how long the ovum wall remains
permeable, and how the DNA actually interacts, you see there
is no "moment of conception", and that while we all only have
one mother, some of us have more than one Y chromosome donor.

Which brings us to the Neanderthal. Even tho all the
chromosomes dont line up perfectly, that aint they way they
join anyway. quite often it dont just zip up like a new
jacket, but more like an old one, with loops of code left
hanging out there that may, or may not, join later, or that
may be joined with a stretch of code from another sperm donor.

So even tho none of us may have a pure Neanderthal Y
chromosome, some of us clearly have snippets of HNS code that
endows us with fair skin, light hair and eyes, shortened
forlimbs and digits, as well as an HNS spectrum of hormones
that make Native Europeans tolerate cabin fever.

This same process works with many other species, which is why
horses and donkeys, which are more different than HNS & HSS,
sometimes do produce a sexually fertile mule. But-
understandably, because the female reproductive process is so
much more complex, they are all Jacks. This complicated
hybridization wiped out all of the Neanderthal mtDNA, which is
the only kind of DNA that is stable enough to be examined at
this late date. So, everyone assumed that no Neanderthal DNA
remains. But no Y chromosome DNA of Homo Sapiens exists from
that era either.

The hybridization is process is not yet entirely complete,
which is why there still are so many Native European women
with fertility and birthing problems. In the era before modern
medicine, the maternal mortality rate was much higher for
European women than any other kind, which made them more rare,
and therefore valuable to the men that could afford them.

And thus we have the trophy blonde wife.

Day Brown wrote:
  > Ya, humor is hard to track. But Bonobos and Chimps seem to
  > delight in certain aspects of their setting in which
  > surprise is followed by relief.
  >
  > As for the hominid hybridization, its lots more complicated
  > than anyone imagined. Perhaps you remember "Sperm Wars"? In
  > any case, there is considerable variation in the mobility
  > and/or duration of sperm. Longer lived sperm from one donor
  > mite very well be present with faster moving sperm of a
  > later donor.
  >
  > Moreover, conception aint all its cracked up to be. In the
  > natural conditions, it takes the presence of a myriad of
  > sperm to deliver an enzyme that makes the ovum wall
  > permeable. And when it is, there are times when more than
  > one sperm is present. This is no biggie if both are XX or
  > XY, but when there is one of each present, hermaphroditism
  > is a common result. And it turns out, that that is far more
  > common (now that medical personnel are more professional)
  > than once imagined. I have met two people in two different
  > states that have XXY; in one case apparently male, but the
  > other, a ballsy blonde, as she neared menopause was having
  > problems. When they did the ultrasound, they discovered that
  > *she* really was ballsy. She had undescended testes.
  >
  > She's decided to keep them; its been good for her career.
  >
  > But anyway, when you look into how long the ovum wall
  > remains permeable, and how the DNA actually interacts, you
  > see there is no "moment of conception", and that while we
  > all only have one mother, some of us have more than one Y
  > chromosome donor.
  >
  > Which brings us to the Neanderthal. Even tho all the
  > chromosomes dont line up perfectly, that aint they way
  > they join anyway. quite often it dont just zip up like a
  > new jacket, but more like an old one, with loops of code
  > left hanging out there that may, or may not, join later,
  > or that may be joined with a stretch of code from another
  > sperm donor.
  >
  > So even tho none of us may have a pure Neanderthal Y
  > chromosome, some of us clearly have snippets of HNS code
  > that endows us with fair skin, light hair and eyes,
  > shortened forlimbs and digits, as well as an HNS spectrum of
  > hormones that make Native Europeans tolerate cabin fever.
  >
  > This same process works with many other species, which is
  > why horses and donkeys, which are more different than HNS &
  > HSS, sometimes do produce a sexually fertile mule. But-
  > understandably, because the female reproductive process is
  > so much more complex, they are all Jacks. This complicated
  > hybridization wiped out all of the Neanderthal mtDNA, which
  > is the only kind of DNA that is stable enough to be examined
  > at this late date. So, everyone assumed that no Neanderthal
  > DNA remains. But no Y chromosome DNA of Homo Sapiens exists
  > from that era either.
  >
  > The hybridization is process is not yet entirely complete,
  > which is why there still are so many Native European women
  > with fertility and birthing problems. In the era before
  > modern medicine, the maternal mortality rate was much
  > higher for European women than any other kind, which made
  > them more rare, and therefore valuable to the men that
  > could afford them.
  >
  > And thus we have the trophy blonde wife.

Hmm...very interesting. Can you give me a reference? I'd like
to understand better about what you wrote:
  >with loops of code left hanging out there that may, or may
  >not, join later."

<snip> Holly wrote:
  > Thank you for that assessment. I'd like to study the correct
  > depiction of climate change in Europe and Eurasia from 50
  > kbp to about 10 kbp.

That would be the middle (or "mid-") and Late Weichselian
(or "Weichsel") in northern Europe (Wurm or "Wurmian" in
the Alps), and the Khalvinian (or "middle Valdai") and
Valdai in Russia, and the last glaciation is called the
Sartan in Siberia.

The last glacial limit (Late Weichselian) is called the
Last Glacial Maximum that last glacial episode is the
Late Weichwelian stade (or "stadial") (isotope stage 2),
the preceding
not-very-cold-but-still-not-as-warm-a-today interval is
the mid-Weichselian interstade (isotope stage 3).

  > Do you have any reference for me?

If you have access to scientific periodicals, this is the
best review:

John Inge Svendsen, Helena Alexanderson, Valery I. Astakhov,
Igor Demidov, Julian A. Dowdeswell, Svend Funder, Valery
Gataullin, Mona Henriksen, Christian Hjort, Michael
Houmark-Nielsen, Hans W. Hubberte, =D3lafur Ing=F3lfsson,
Martin Jakobsson, Kurt H. Kj=E6r,

Eiliv Larsenn, Hanna Lokrantz, Juha Pekka Lunkka, Astrid
Lys=E5, Jan Mangerud, Alexei Matiouchkov, Andrew Murray, Per
M=F6ller, Frank Niessen, Olga Nikolskaya, Leonid Polyak, Matti
Saarnisto, Christine Siegert, Martin J. Siegert, Robert F.
Spielhagen and Ruediger Stein 2004 Late Quaternary ice sheet
history of northern Eurasia Quaternary Science Reviews vol:23
iss:11-13 pg:1229-1271

http://www.uib.no/People/ngljm/Svendsen_et_al_2004,_QSR.pdf

The most useful bits of that info are in here:

Ice-dammed lakes and rerouting of the drainage of northern
Eurasia during the Last Glaciation Jan Mangerud, Martin
Jakobsson, Helena Alexanderson, Valery Astakhov, Garry K.C.
Clarke, Mona Henriksen, Christian Hjort, Gerhard Krinner,
Juha-Pekka Lunkka, Per Moller, Andrew Murray, Olga Nikolskaya,
Matti Saarnisto, John Inge Svendsen Quaternary Science Reviews
23 (2004) 1313-1332

http://www.uib.no/People/ngljm/Mangerud_et_al_2004,_QSR_.pdf

There is also this:

Hans W. Hubberten, Andrei Andreev, Valery I. Astakhov, et al.
2004 The periglacial climate and environment in northern
Eurasia during the last glaciation Quaternary Science Reviews
vol:23 iss:11-13 pg:1333-1357

" Abstract [ ... ] Inversed modelling based on these results
shows that a progressive cooling which started around 30 ka
BP, caused ice growth in Scandinavia and the

northwestern areas of the Barents-Kara Sea shelf, due to a
maritime climate with relatively high precipitation along the
western flank of the developing ice sheets. In the rest of the
Eurasian Arctic extremely low precipitation rates (less than
50 mm yr-1), did not allow ice sheet growth in spite of the
very cold temperatures. Palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental
conditions for the time prior to, during, and after the LGM
have been reconstructed for the non-glaciated areas around the
LGM ice sheet with the use of faunal and

vegetation records, permafrost, eolian sediments, alluvial
deposits and other evidences. The changing environment, from
interstadial conditions around 30 ka BP to a much colder and
drier environment at the culmination of the LGM at 20-15 ka
BP, and the beginning of warming around 15 ka BP have

been elaborated from the field data, which fits well with the
modelling results. "

You might also try this:

Velichko, A A; Zelikson, E M 2005 Landscape, climate and
mammoth food resources in the East European Plain during the
late Paleolithic epoch Quaternary International vol:126-128
pg:137-151

" Abstract Typical mammoth inhabited the East European Plain
during the second half of the Late Pleistocene glaciation.
Under conditions of extremely arid climate, periglacial,
mostly open landscapes formed a vast hyperzone (cryohyperzone)
that occupied the place of the modern tundra, forest and
steppe zones. To assess the available foodstuffs for mammoth
provision, data concerning productivity and nutritive value of
modern herb and grass vegetation that may be considered as
more or less close analogues of periglacial communities can be
used. The central part of the Late Pleistocene periglacial
hyperzone was most favorable for mammoths. Those regions were
well endowed with water (in large rivers, as well as snow and
ice) and presented the richest fodder base, because trees and
bushes persisted in valleys, while higher watersheds were
occupied by periglacial steppe.

Climate warming and consequent degradation of permafrost
resulted in instability of the land surface, thermokarst, and
expansion of wetlands. The snow thickness increased due to
more abundant snowfall in winter and made grazing difficult
for mammoths. The first interstadial warming affected the less
hardy early mammoths, while the progressive warming towards
the Holocene appeared fatal to the typical mammoth. "

Mangerud and Astakhov (and Velichko) are the most prolific
writers on

this subject; ignore anything with Mikhail Grosswald as
an author.

And then there is this group:

http://www.esc.cam.ac.uk/oistage3/Details/Homepage.html

  > I have the Penguin Atlas of Ancient History by McEvedly
  > first published in 1967 ... sad comment on my resources for
  > climate change during that time and place.

McEvedy's okay as a general reference, but you'll note that
for the Soviet Union, at least, the data sources are rather
sketchy. I only saw one reference for the population of that
area at 1 AD, for instance, and that was only for Turkestan,
and that was descibed as

unreliable for the time before the 19th Century Russian
conquest.

Here is an older version of Jonathan Adams' website that
has lots and

lots of info, including paleovegetation maps (some lof its
inks are outdated, but I can't find the 2002 version anymore):

http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nerc.html

Is any of that useful to you, or did you want something
less abstruse?

-=20 Daryl Krupa

Thanx for the links! Since I am a bastard, this DNA test is on
my wish list. This is also the best price I've seen, making me
wonder if waiting will save me even more money. And of course,
as more tests get taken more accuracy is possible.
https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html

The earliest shroom iconography I had seen before this link
was 7kbp, in Gimbutas found in Slavic Europe.
http://www.shroomery.org/index.php/par/25043 Other sources
suggest that the artists were Semitic herders who moved down
to North Africa, based on DNA and pottery styles. And looking
at the images, they look familiar- Pscilocybes, which grow in
*cow* shit. And when you get stoned enough, that kind of art
makes a lotta sense.

http://anzi.biz/artifax.htm ... scroll down 5 images to
'maskman.gif. This little fellow is also from 7kbp, same
region as the Amanita Muscaria shroom art. We've all seen
shamen wearing masks of important animals. I looked at this
one for quite a while before I realized what was going on.
This shaman is wearing a mask too, but what animal? If you are
familiar with Cucuteni and Vinca pottery, you've seen this
before. The man is wearing the mask of the most dangerous
animal there
is: a man.

Its a shamantic lesson seen all over during altered states of
consciousness, that the human body is not the soul, but just a
mask for the soul. Its a common idea expressed in the Vedas,
and what you'd expect of someone who used Soma, which we see
dates back at least 7000 years.