A Modern Human and A Neandethal
Posted on 03/17/2006 11:57:05 AM PST by blam
Anthropologists: Early Humans Probably Pretty Peaceful
Friday, March 17, 2006
By Heather Whipps
Depending on which journals you've picked up in recent months, early humans were either peace-loving softies or war-mongering buffoons.
Which theory is to be believed?
A little bit of both, says one archaeologist, who warns against making generalizations when it comes to our long and varied prehistory.
The newest claim concerns Australopithecus afarensis, who lived approximately five million years ago and is one of the first hominids that can be linked directly to our lineage with some certainty.
Scientists say the small and furry creature was hardly an expert at tearing other animals limb from limb, and likely spent most of its time avoiding becoming the lunch of those saber-toothed mammals you see in natural-history museums today.
That's a far cry from the spear-wielding image most of the public has of our earliest ancestors, Robert Sussman of Washington University told an audience at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science last month.
"I think that the 'Man the Hunter' model is so popular because it fits into Western thought so easily," Sussman told LiveScience. "Western humans, especially men, like to think of themselves as completely in charge of their surroundings."
Other research appearing in current scientific journals, however, paints a different picture of early man.
Groups of humans likely engaged in occasional violent encounters in order to increase their territory, argues Raymond C. Kelly of the University of Michigan in a recent edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
According to Kelly, this may have continued up until about a million years ago, when distance weapons like the spear were invented and the risks associated with attacking other groups increased.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
And chewy!
Spot the bias!
A Modern Human and A Neandethal
"We know that there is at least one case of Homo erectus with extensive cuts on the cranium, indicating that the person was essentially scalped and the eyes gouged out," he said.
Musims were present even then.
Peaceful until something got in between them and a potential dinner.
And to think that this was millions of years before the Wellstone funeral !
That's because George Bush hadn't evolved yet.
He ruined everything.
Look !.....It's Ollie North and Robin Williams
he didn't speak a word about sex .
There has always been disruption in the ether as a result of sex and the many manifestations it can take. One of the major reasons for civilization is to harness sex and prevent the loss of life sexual drive can produce.
Before the thought process was a human trait.
They would have worked for Fedex if it had been invented then.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8181801990250175607
So Hobbes was wrong?
:^)
Mostly peaceful, anyway. Until you crossed them.
They were ground dwelling, competing with animals like this for the same territory and foods.
No way they were peaceful.
dam*, beat me to it. I would have guessed Pete Coors and Robin Williams.
I read one anthropological analysis once that the earliest families and small villages were pretty much self regulating, but that once communities grew to size where it wasn't easy to know everybody else, there was more undeterred violence until some form of stronger government emerged. I don't know if it's true, but it sounds sort of logical to me.
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