Posted on 02/28/2011 12:03:45 AM PST by decimon
““It is not necessary to cut and peel flesh from bones to remove feathers”
I was wondering as well why peeling ans scraping of bone would indicate removal of feathers. That type of finding would seem to show that flesh was cut apart. Maybe the Neanderthal took the feathers to wear, but I would like to know why this discovery automatically led scientist types to think that a prehistoric person chopped up an animal just to pluck a feather.”
Artistic license. Seems to me, far too many in this particular field behave as if they’re authors of fantasy novels.
“Artistic license. Seems to me, far too many in this particular field behave as if they’re authors of fantasy novels.”
You bring up an interesting point. My daughter is an Anthropology major in college and it is my opinion that many in this field walk into a situation with pre conceived hypotheses that they want to prove. Perhaps some anthropologist wanted to prove that Neanderthal wore the kind of feathers that we would later associate with aboriginal Americans, and they proposed this theory. It seems presumptuous though.
I suspect that anthropologists have been underestimating the technical and cultural prowess of our ancestors and ancient peoples, for a very long time.
I think if we could really go back and see them in their daily lives we’d be amazed by some of the things we’d see.
Probably in a way similar to that used by farmer's kids in Illinois to catch crows to use as pets.
Take a pole and put a hole in it, insert a stick to act as a "perch" and rig it with a looped line. Set it upright in the open. When a bird comes to alight on the "perch" its weight makes the perch slip out of the shallow hole and fall away, but the bird is snared by the loop. Crows and birds of prey are fond of tall dead snags with a clear view so this sort of thing works well with them.
Another method is to trap a rabbit or duck and use it as bait on the ground to draw down a hawk to netting range or trapping range.
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