The Neolithic Revolution...(What kick started it)

Originally posted by Sahabi
reply to post by Hanslune

 

Your link isn't working for me, so I dug up this article:

Neanderthals were ancient mariners


Thank you very much Hanslune, for bringing this to my attention. This is an incredible proposition!

Thanks, yes that's the one, one would suspect that if the Neanderthals could see an island they could get to it by log or boat, whether they developed any technology beyound padding is unknown

Originally posted by punkinworks10

Originally posted by Damrod
Der


It is known it was being used ('___' I mean)...they have found random pockets of Acacia wood in the ruins of Gobekli-Tepe and this is where the question first became obvious....do I have a source?...no...do I need to or am i going to do a slacker disagreeing homework...F no....find it yourself...and stfu...I don't believe stupid was invited to this conversation

I will look. Hell it was the secondary curiosity to me. I had never considered the hallucinogenic path as a reason before so I didn't really mark down where the idea came from. Granted...Acacia is a pretty common wood and it's use for anything intellectual is a reach....I just found the notion interesting and allowed me a moment to think mankind was a clever and resourceful monkey....and then you posted this and made me realize that no one is going to appreciate the idea of a free monkey. "Get back to work Monkey...and stop talking so much". Yes, most of us know from which hilltop you bark...but it won't matter anyway.

yes... I believe this is the world you want to have propagated and preserved...sorry for allowing free thought to slip into your fantasy.....some of us will disagaree...some will do more than that....expect it.

edit on 4/17/2012 by Damrod because: (no reason given)

No need to be a jackwad,
Hans was asking a valid question because he is VERY INTERESTED Gobelki Tepe, being a archeologist and all.
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Hans thread on gobelki tepe.
I can appreciate your interest in this idea, I have read some on the subject of how psycho active have influenced human development, including one paper about how several compounds used by indiginous peoples, when used in just right dosage, dramatically increase visual,auditory and olfactory accuity. The best documented is the use of dmt.containing compounds by amazonian monkey hunters.
But I will disagree with you vehemently,,since humans have been ingesting some of these compounds for a lot longer than we have been building things.
Climate and environment and population density increase is the real reason for the big leap we made at the end of the last ice ages.

Well sorry for the outburst...I have a tendency to get defensive at times...my apologies.

I have been reading back through Schmidt's writings and website. I cannot find it ...yet. I am going purely on memory, but I am "pretty sure" that some of the "organics" used to date the site were Acacia wood and charcoal. Still searching, but I am also positive that I did not invent that. I read it somewhere.

reply to post by Damrod


Apology accepted, on Hans' behalf,
Hans has posted a very good series of threads on neolithic sites in and around anatolia, the first being GT, fascinating stuff indeed.
But back to you original idea, it is a interesting line of thought.
I think your idea has more to do with forming a cohesive spirituality than kick starting civilization.
And I also believe that to much emphasis is placed on a grand spiritual scheme for the use of hallucinagens in some primative societies. I think that the monopoly exerted by the shaman is a later deelopment and is really a tools of control, because once the common person realizes that anyone can have a conduit to the " other world" it diminishes the overall standing of the shaman, within the society.
I cant remember what amazonian tribe uses the "monkey hunter" dmt eyedrops, but as I recall they don't have an institutionalized spiritual dogma where only the shaman has access to the spirit world. They cook up big batches of their brew and everyone of a certain age participates in the "parties " and they get wasted. Nothing spiritual about it they just get hammered.
The one article I read some tike ago, by a researcher studying the development of humans in northern Europe ,posited that psycho active mushrooms played a large part in the advancement of early humans in northern Europe. The increase in visual accuity after ingesting small amounts of psilicin and psilocibin containing mushrooms helped early foragers find food in the perennially dark forests of northern central Europe.
He also noted that one particulate species of amanita mushroom's " standard hallucination is that of a red colored fat man, and this mushroom fruits at the end of fall/ beggining of winter.
A red colored fat man around the time of the winter solstice, sounds a little like Santa Claus.
But I do believe that it was a confluence of several different factors that kick started civilization.

I have come up with a an idea about why people started building megalithic structures at the end of the last ice age, the weather, and in some cases the waves.
What got me to this idea is , what would cause people to abandon the light weight simple structures they had been building for millenia in favor of huge massive stone structures?, the weather.
Let's say you are a neolithic person living in a neolithic village. For thousands of years you have green building huts from animal skins and or other light weight materials, that you developed over many centuries of a foraging lifestyle.
Then you find a good place to live and settle down and stop wandering. But this place is on a meteorological boundry area, much like the modern American Midwest, where you have colder air mixing with warm air.
Presently there are only a few places in the world were the conditions are ripe for the massive thunderstorms and the tornadoes they spawn, that you find in the American Midwest.
As I think about it, during the end of the last iceage the condiitions would have existed in areas of the med basin as cold air blew off of the ice caps and met the warm moist air coming off of the the med.
So let's say that you have settled in an area prone to such weather phenomena, how long would would it take for you to realize that one a year that the " finger of the gods" a tornado , came along once a season and wiped out tout hut or viliage, but left the alone the alter to the fertility goddess.
And you built the next round of domeciles from giant rocks that the wind wouldn't move.

Originally posted by Hanslune
Good theory but new evidence suggests the Neanderthals were also traveling by boat

Neanderthal's at sea

I'll comment more once I go thru all your links -done

So if this warm weather wheat was the secret why did the Americas develop civilizations prior to having it and why did the Chinese start up civilization before they had it too?

I tried to view the link, like the other guy, but it doesn't work. Says the "format is not a recognizable type". There's a small error, hanslune. It says " ttp " in the URL instead of "http" that's why it's not viewable.

The only thing I've read about Neanderthal sea farers was a bit far-fetched. Someone was taking modern DNA of people living on Pantelleria island, and claiming it was an ancient boat group from Spain or Neanderthals. But it turned out that the info from Wikipedia had no source. And none of the Pantelleria sites would validate it. Mainly because the M26 gene they were referring to didn't come from Spain but encompassed a large range of peoples from the British Isles into Greece, including people living in Sicily who also had the M26 gene.

After fixing the "h" and adding it to the link, I read the article on "Neanderthals in Crete". But there's no human remains in that date. Nothing carbon-dated. It's based off the assumption that the stone tools found resemble ones that are older. The stone tools themselves can't be dated. Just because a stone tool "looks" older doesn't mean that it went back to Neanderthals. And there's no Neanderthal skeletons or bones found on Crete. Without the skeletons, it's highly unlikely they were sailing around and allegedly landed on Crete.

Originally posted by MapMistress

Originally posted by Hanslune
Good theory but new evidence suggests the Neanderthals were also traveling by boat

Neanderthal's at sea

I'll comment more once I go thru all your links -done

So if this warm weather wheat was the secret why did the Americas develop civilizations prior to having it and why did the Chinese start up civilization before they had it too?

I tried to view the link, like the other guy, but it doesn't work. Says the "format is not a recognizable type". There's a small error, hanslune. It says " ttp " in the URL instead of "http" that's why it's not viewable.

The only thing I've read about Neanderthal sea farers was a bit far-fetched. Someone was taking modern DNA of people living on Pantelleria island, and claiming it was an ancient boat group from Spain or Neanderthals. But it turned out that the info from Wikipedia had no source. And none of the Pantelleria sites would validate it. Mainly because the M26 gene they were referring to didn't come from Spain but encompassed a large range of peoples from the British Isles into Greece, including people living in Sicily who also had the M26 gene.

After fixing the "h" and adding it to the link, I read the article on "Neanderthals in Crete". But there's no human remains in that date. Nothing carbon-dated. It's based off the assumption that the stone tools found resemble ones that are older. The stone tools themselves can't be dated. Just because a stone tool "looks" older doesn't mean that it went back to Neanderthals. And there's no Neanderthal skeletons or bones found on Crete. Without the skeletons, it's highly unlikely they were sailing around and allegedly landed on Crete.

Sorry about the bad link

Neanderthals

There is an 'intense' debate going on now in regards to this theory in the orthodox world - should have some resolution in 2-3 years. Hopefully someone will take a re-look at skeletal material found in the 19th century

Edited to add: Neanderthal teeth have been found in Malta which would require a boat to get to of course, not Crete but certainly shows an ability and capability to move by sea

Teeth

These teeth are now part of the debate at other websites that we shall not mention! If your interested I'll send you a link by PM