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Day Brown · Guest

GoldLions wrote:
[quote](BTW, To Day Brown; Will respond to your insightful replies later
OK? Hope your day is a good one as well.)
One of the links you supply had the locations of HNS finds. Which[/quote]
include what is now the southern coast of Norway and Sweden. And lets
not forget that during the ice age, the sea level was lower and the
coast lines extended out 100km or more.

More to the point also was how rapidly conditions changed. Nobody had
'ancestral hunting grounds'. The herds on the Serengeti have been using
the same trails for millions of years. The megafauna had to keep
shifting as the ice came and went, and rather than going to a certain
place every year, the Neanderthal had to think of what kinds of places
were in the ecosystem that year that>d be rewarding.

Put a two year old boy down with a pile of rocks, and he will
immediately begin banging them together. He likes the noise. Why does he
like the noise? Moreover, the sedimentary rocks make what we think of as
a dull thud. its the igneous rocks that have a pleasing ring. Why do we
like the ring?

Some of us have "good hands" and there are shapes in the hand that
please us. If you dont have good hands, you dont get it. And, I dont
think you wanna consider my explanation of why either.

Day Brown · Guest

Rich Travsky wrote:
[quote]http://www.newser.com/story/19767.html

BTW I also saw this mentioned before on another lengthly science
article but was unable to locate it.

" Stop Temper Tantrums Like a Caveman" ???

What does that have to do with making a stone point?
Well first, that assumes cavemen had temper tantrums. Which sounds like[/quote]
it>d harm survival in a crowded cave trying to wait for Old Man Winter
to go away. If cabin fever produces a tantrum, there>s nobody there to
stop the violence, the dude kills the wife and kids, and he>s out of the
gene pool.

But having something, any thing, to do in the cave during all that time
is just distracting enuf to prevent cabin fever. Rich, a stone point is
not rocket science. Give a little boy rocks, and he>ll bang them
together, and over time, notice how flakes come off. He dont actually
have to think about it. That>s the nature of having "good hands".

The sculptor cant explain to you how he makes statues either. You either
get that certain shapes are innately pleasing, or you dont, and if not,
I dont think there>s much point in pursuing the issue.

Day Brown · Guest

Rich Travsky wrote:
[quote]GoldLions wrote:
On Jul 23, 12:29ï¿½pm, Rich Travsky <traRvE...@hotmMOVEail.com> wrote:
Much of the HNS behavior was instinctive; they didnt havta think
about how to make a stone point. Which is why it didnt change.
RICH TRAVSKYwrites;> Making a stone point is instinctive????
Rubbish.
====================================================
Hello Rich,

I>ve only mentioned that much of Neanderthal>s BEHAVOR was
instinctive.

Um, no, you said

Much of the HNS behavior was instinctive; they didnt havta think
about how to make a stone point.

which clearly implies you consider making a stone point to be instinctive...

What do you find fasinating about Neanderthals BTW?
I was the one who said making a point was instinctive because the form[/quote]
did not change for a hundred thousand years. Instinctive behavior
patterns are more durable than those which are learned, which rapidly
adapt to changing conditions.

They had brains bigger than yours. Or, I should say, skulls, cause we
really dont know the ratio of gray to white matter inside the case. I
didnt notice, in the link Goldlions provided, that many of the HNS
skulls had their front teeth bashed in or skulls with the characteristic
fractures on the left side from a blow in battle.

Which suggests a lower need for the white matter to cushion the gray.
So, if they werent using the bigger brain so much for RAM, then they>re
using it for ROM.

caldervangogh@gmail.com · Guest

On Jul 24, 3:54 pm, Day Brown <daybr...@daybrown.org> wrote:
[quote]Rich Travsky wrote:
http://www.newser.com/story/19767.html

BTW I also saw this mentioned before on another lengthly science
article but was unable to locate it.

" Stop Temper Tantrums Like a Caveman" ???

What does that have to do with making a stone point?

Well first, that assumes cavemen had temper tantrums. Which sounds like
it>d harm survival in a crowded cave trying to wait for Old Man Winter
to go away. If cabin fever produces a tantrum, there>s nobody there to
stop the violence, the dude kills the wife and kids, and he>s out of the
gene pool.

But having something, any thing, to do in the cave during all that time
is just distracting enuf to prevent cabin fever. Rich, a stone point is
not rocket science. Give a little boy rocks, and he>ll bang them
together, and over time, notice how flakes come off. He dont actually
have to think about it. That>s the nature of having "good hands".

The sculptor cant explain to you how he makes statues either. You either
get that certain shapes are innately pleasing, or you dont, and if not,
I dont think there>s much point in pursuing the issue.
[/quote]
That is rather interesting to read... since I just this moment
returned from sculpting a beautiful female model. and yes, that is
how it is done... with a model. The eye has to see it, the brain
comprehend it and the hands translate the sight. It is possible to
sculpt without the model, but not nearly as much fun, or precise. It
is almost like the hands freeze while the model is on break. So, is
this relevant to the discussion? perhaps. it is known that
"traditions" lasted for a number of generations. That is probably
because the technique was passed down from parent to child, and
tempered by available materials and game. And all of us reading this
newsgroup know that we date points by their tradition. The child
probably learned to make the points by watching the parent do it and
by experiementing. I doubt that any mature point was made by any sort
of accident, and it is unreasonable to think that a child would make
one from a pile of rocks.
regards
calder

Tom McDonald · Guest

Day Brown wrote:
[quote]GoldLions wrote:
(BTW, To Day Brown; Will respond to your insightful replies later
OK? Hope your day is a good one as well.)
One of the links you supply had the locations of HNS finds. Which
include what is now the southern coast of Norway and Sweden. And lets
not forget that during the ice age, the sea level was lower and the
coast lines extended out 100km or more.

More to the point also was how rapidly conditions changed. Nobody had
'ancestral hunting grounds'.
[/quote]
Nope. Conditions did not shift this rapidly. With 15-20 year
generations, folks could spend many generations in the same
territory before environment would have changed enough to change
animal forage and migration patterns and plant distribution.

[quote]The herds on the Serengeti have been using
the same trails for millions of years. The megafauna had to keep
shifting as the ice came and went, and rather than going to a certain
place every year, the Neanderthal had to think of what kinds of places
were in the ecosystem that year that>d be rewarding.
[/quote]
See above.

But this view of Neandertal does not mesh with your claim that
they made stone tools instinctively rather than having learned
the techniques from others.

BTW, that claim is very, very silly.

[quote]
Put a two year old boy down with a pile of rocks, and he will
immediately begin banging them together. He likes the noise. Why does he
like the noise? Moreover, the sedimentary rocks make what we think of as
a dull thud. its the igneous rocks that have a pleasing ring. Why do we
like the ring?

Some of us have "good hands" and there are shapes in the hand that
please us. If you dont have good hands, you dont get it. And, I dont
think you wanna consider my explanation of why either.
[/quote]
You>re probably right. Your other explanations are queer enough.

Tom McDonald · Guest

Day Brown wrote:
[quote]Rich Travsky wrote:
http://www.newser.com/story/19767.html

BTW I also saw this mentioned before on another lengthly science
article but was unable to locate it.

" Stop Temper Tantrums Like a Caveman" ???

What does that have to do with making a stone point?
Well first, that assumes cavemen had temper tantrums. Which sounds like
it>d harm survival in a crowded cave trying to wait for Old Man Winter
to go away. If cabin fever produces a tantrum, there>s nobody there to
stop the violence, the dude kills the wife and kids, and he>s out of the
gene pool.

But having something, any thing, to do in the cave during all that time
is just distracting enuf to prevent cabin fever. Rich, a stone point is
not rocket science. Give a little boy rocks, and he>ll bang them
together, and over time, notice how flakes come off. He dont actually
have to think about it. That>s the nature of having "good hands".

The sculptor cant explain to you how he makes statues either. You either
get that certain shapes are innately pleasing, or you dont, and if not,
I dont think there>s much point in pursuing the issue.
[/quote]
Try making a Levallois point by banging rocks together.

Then give your kid some rocks to bang together, without teaching
him/her any flint-knapping techniques.

Then come back and tell us how many Levallois points the two of
you made vs. the number of hand-axes.

I>ll wait here.

Day Brown · Guest

Tom McDonald wrote:
[quote]More to the point also was how rapidly conditions changed. Nobody had
'ancestral hunting grounds'.

Nope. Conditions did not shift this rapidly. With 15-20 year
generations, folks could spend many generations in the same territory
before environment would have changed enough to change animal forage and
migration patterns and plant distribution.
The Greenland Ice core data I saw showed that it was never stable more[/quote]
than a few hundred years, and often shifted dramatically in less than
50, once in a single decade.

So, sure there were a few times when ancestral hunting grounds emerged,
but then everyone hadda split, destroying traditions. The other thing is
that the data we have so far shows such low populations that there would
not have been competition for territory. Nor is there any evidence in
the skeletons I know of showing signs of battle injuries.

There are some that look like hybrids, but they could also have been
freaks because of all the inbreeding. Which is another way to keep the
population from rising.

There has always been an antipathy twards the whole idea of instinct in
hominids because that challenges the Christian notions of all actions
being the result of conscious choice, and therefore worthy of heaven or
hell. In like manner, there was an immediate rejection of the notion
that Neanderthal could have been ancestral because that would have
disturbed Christian sensibilities.

IIRC it was Roman Sen. Seneca:"If a moron told you the same thing every
day for a year, you>d come to believe him." And from Group think we see
how innovative even scientists can be in explaining to themselves why
they think they way they do rather than considering where the ideas came
from in the first place. This is an instinctive response arising out of
the need tribes had for consensus.

Motherhood is an instinctive response. Why is that any different from
flaking a point?

Day Brown · Guest

Tom McDonald wrote:
[quote]Day Brown wrote:
Rich Travsky wrote:
http://www.newser.com/story/19767.html

BTW I also saw this mentioned before on another lengthly science
article but was unable to locate it.

" Stop Temper Tantrums Like a Caveman" ???

What does that have to do with making a stone point?
Well first, that assumes cavemen had temper tantrums. Which sounds
like it>d harm survival in a crowded cave trying to wait for Old Man
Winter to go away. If cabin fever produces a tantrum, there>s nobody
there to stop the violence, the dude kills the wife and kids, and he>s
out of the gene pool.

But having something, any thing, to do in the cave during all that
time is just distracting enuf to prevent cabin fever. Rich, a stone
point is not rocket science. Give a little boy rocks, and he>ll bang
them together, and over time, notice how flakes come off. He dont
actually have to think about it. That>s the nature of having "good
hands".

The sculptor cant explain to you how he makes statues either. You
either get that certain shapes are innately pleasing, or you dont, and
if not, I dont think there>s much point in pursuing the issue.

Try making a Levallois point by banging rocks together.

Then give your kid some rocks to bang together, without teaching him/her
any flint-knapping techniques.

Then come back and tell us how many Levallois points the two of you made
vs. the number of hand-axes.

I>ll wait here.
You got 100,000 years to wait? They start using rocks to smash bones to[/quote]
get the marrow. but then sometimes miss the bone and the rock splits off
a shard. The shard is nice for skinning. Bower birds make elaborate
constructions without blueprints.

Day Brown · Guest

caldervangogh@gmail.com wrote:
[quote]The sculptor cant explain to you how he makes statues either. You either
get that certain shapes are innately pleasing, or you dont, and if not,
I dont think there>s much point in pursuing the issue.

That is rather interesting to read... since I just this moment
returned from sculpting a beautiful female model. and yes, that is
how it is done... with a model. The eye has to see it, the brain
comprehend it and the hands translate the sight. It is possible to
sculpt without the model, but not nearly as much fun, or precise. It
is almost like the hands freeze while the model is on break. So, is
this relevant to the discussion? perhaps. it is known that
"traditions" lasted for a number of generations. That is probably
because the technique was passed down from parent to child, and
tempered by available materials and game. And all of us reading this
newsgroup know that we date points by their tradition. The child
probably learned to make the points by watching the parent do it and
by experiementing. I doubt that any mature point was made by any sort
of accident, and it is unreasonable to think that a child would make
one from a pile of rocks.
No, but given 100,000 years of banging rocks, schitt happens. There is a[/quote]
certain mass that is more useful. When thrown, to be the most accurate
at the range where a lion would be a threat, it hasta fill the hand, but
no more. Too little, and it dont break the skin on impact. After the
lion leaves, he goes back to get that rock. He likes what it did.

The shape did not evolve faster than the instinct to make it. The kid
only copies the adults because that is instinctive also. There would
have been times when the hunters were all killed by a stampede or
whatever. In that case, only those boys who instinctively knew how to
make the tools survived to stay in the gene pool.

Day Brown · Guest

Lee Olsen wrote:
[quote]On Jul 24, 1:02 pm, Day Brown <daybr...@daybrown.org> wrote:

I was the one who said making a point was instinctive because the form
did not change for a hundred thousand years.

That is flat wrong and you can>t find a cite to back up your claim.

Do you need a cite to say the form did not change for 100,000 years, or[/quote]
do you need a brain to realize that over that length of time changes in
the design would have naturally occurred as we see in all other crafts?

Lee Olsen · Guest

On Jul 24, 11:14 pm, Day Brown <daybr...@daybrown.org> wrote:
[quote]Lee Olsen wrote:
On Jul 24, 1:02 pm, Day Brown <daybr...@daybrown.org> wrote:

I was the one who said making a point was instinctive because the form
did not change for a hundred thousand years.

That is flat wrong and you can>t find a cite to back up your claim.

Do you need a cite to say the form did not change for 100,000 years,
[/quote]
Yes, because that statement is totally false. You made the claim, now
support it, put up or shut up.
You also can>t support the claim that making points "was
instinctive." Go ahead, cite any peer-reviewed work
that makes that claim.

[quote]or
do you need a brain
[/quote]
You can>t cite what isn>t true, but you can make a personal attack.

[quote]to realize that over that length of time changes in
the design would have naturally occurred as we see in all other crafts?
[/quote]
You have started off with a totally false statement, ie, 100 kyr
without change, then leaped to the conclusion that length of time
equals instinctive behavior. That is circular reasoning.

Lee Olsen · Guest

On Jul 24, 11:04 pm, Day Brown <daybr...@daybrown.org> wrote:
[quote]Tom McDonald wrote:
Day Brown wrote:
Rich Travsky wrote:
http://www.newser.com/story/19767.html

BTW I also saw this mentioned before on another lengthly science
article but was unable to locate it.

" Stop Temper Tantrums Like a Caveman" ???

What does that have to do with making a stone point?
Well first, that assumes cavemen had temper tantrums. Which sounds
like it>d harm survival in a crowded cave trying to wait for Old Man
Winter to go away. If cabin fever produces a tantrum, there>s nobody
there to stop the violence, the dude kills the wife and kids, and he>s
out of the gene pool.

But having something, any thing, to do in the cave during all that
time is just distracting enuf to prevent cabin fever. Rich, a stone
point is not rocket science. Give a little boy rocks, and he>ll bang
them together, and over time, notice how flakes come off. He dont
actually have to think about it. That>s the nature of having "good
hands".

The sculptor cant explain to you how he makes statues either. You
either get that certain shapes are innately pleasing, or you dont, and
if not, I dont think there>s much point in pursuing the issue.

Try making a Levallois point by banging rocks together.

Then give your kid some rocks to bang together, without teaching him/her
any flint-knapping techniques.

Then come back and tell us how many Levallois points the two of you made
vs. the number of hand-axes.

I>ll wait here.

You got 100,000 years to wait?
[/quote]
Your direct ancestors did, long after the first signs of modern
behavior showed up. Does that make you
a creature of instinct like a collie dog?

[quote]They start using rocks to smash bones to
get the marrow. but then sometimes miss the bone and the rock splits off
a shard. The shard is nice for skinning.
[/quote]
Shards are not 3-dimensional in concept, such as a handaxe.

[quote]Bower birds make elaborate
constructions without blueprints.
[/quote]
A very common fallacy. A Bower bird can only make a Bower bird nest by
instinct, not a crows nest. Neandertals and Hss, however, could and
did, switch within the generalized (and complex) pattern of the
Mousterian back and forth between
Quina, MTA-A, and a hundred other different variants at will. These
are learned group behavior patterns and are not instinctual, proven by
the fact these differences were going on within the same species
during the same time periods.

Tom McDonald · Guest

On Jul 25, 8:02 am, Day Brown <daybr...@daybrown.org> wrote:
[quote]Tom McDonald wrote:
I suspect this is correct for Neandertal. H.s.s. in Europe had larger
populations, even in the depths of the last major ice advance.

I>ve not seen any evidence for larger populations. I didnt say they
lived next to the ice, only that the ice affected the climate, and did
so very fast, going or coming. The question is not where the hominids
were relative to the ice, but where the ice was relative to the tundra
grasses the megafauna lived on.

If it warms too much, then the grasses are replaced by low protein woody
brush, and if not enuf, then only the low protein lichens make it. As we
see with the younger and elder Dryas, the weather patterns can vary
widely in the tundra transition zone between the ice and Tiaga. Its just
not as simple as what percentage of Europe was covered with ice. There
were other factors determining the prevailing winds that created even
less predictability in the weather at any given location.

In order for large populations to emerge, the ecosystem needs to be
stable. I dont see that it was.

Nor have I seen any evidence for the kind of evolution of form in the
stone work HNS was using for the last 100,000 years of their work. In
every case I know of, where you have a learned response, errors will
result in new designs. Instinct is the only process I can see that>s
slow enuf to produce such consistent results over such a long period.
[/quote]
Look up "Levallois technique". Then tell me more about instinct and
Neandertal stone work.

Lee Olsen · Guest

On Jul 25, 6:13 am, Day Brown <daybr...@daybrown.org> wrote:
[quote]Lee Olsen wrote:
You have started off with a totally false statement, ie, 100 kyr
without change, then leaped to the conclusion that length of time
equals instinctive behavior. That is circular reasoning.

I thot you quibbled with the notion of it being instinctive, and I
thot it was settled science about how consistent the form of the HNS
stone work was.
[/quote]
If you just say Mousterian and lump all the variations together in one
generalization, then
it was consistent. Broad generalizations are seldom helpful, science
wants details. There were variations within the Mousterian and it
also varied off and on with bifacial industries. So to say there were
no changes
for 100 k is not correct. As near as anyone can tell with the poor
dating issues, it seems the Neandethals were the first to
use soft hammer tech, a huge leap in improving bifaces. They also got
the jump on the best bitumen for hafting.
The first known spears are from the ancestors of Neandertals. On and
on it goes. These are some of the first examples of
modern thinking, it is not related to instinctive behavior unless you
want to call Hss tool making behavior instinctive also. As far as I
can see, they were behind in some things and ahead in others, just as
any other of groups out there at the time.

[quote]It never occurred to me to look for a cite, I>d seen the
observation too many times,
[/quote]
But not in journals.

[quote]and never, as in later crafts, seen an
exposition of the evolution of the form.
[/quote]

[quote]
It was just an off hand observation; I dont know of anyone bothering to
actually put up a website on the issue, much less produce a
dissertation. If the Neanderthal stone axe did evolve, I>d expect some
collectors to show us the evolution, as they do in so many other crafts.
[/quote]
As a flintknapper of 18 years or so, I can>t see anything our
ancestors were doing, in Africa,
that the Neandertals weren>t doing better at *certain* times. After
all, the Mayans, who probably knew more about
flintknapping than anyone, also used the Levallois method
consistently. It lasted a long time because it was a good
method. If it ain>t broke, don>t fix it. I think most non-
flintknappers think because a Clovis point or a Danish dagger looks
pretty it must be better, but that really isn>t the case.

[quote]
Its kinda funny, I>ve seen so many links posted on these forums, but
dont recall such a collection ever mentioned. I>m not gonna get my
panties in a wad over it. You dont believe me, I dont have a problem
with it. I>m sure someone will send me a link to show the evolution of
the Neanderthal stonework just to prove me wrong. If they care.
[/quote]
I belive you, but it still gets back to the peer-reviewed literature.
Links on forums are not
the best places to get info.

Tom McDonald · Guest

Day Brown wrote:
[quote]Tom McDonald wrote:
More to the point also was how rapidly conditions changed. Nobody had
'ancestral hunting grounds'.

Nope. Conditions did not shift this rapidly. With 15-20 year
generations, folks could spend many generations in the same territory
before environment would have changed enough to change animal forage
and migration patterns and plant distribution.
The Greenland Ice core data I saw showed that it was never stable more
than a few hundred years, and often shifted dramatically in less than
50, once in a single decade.
[/quote]
This is not particularly relevant. Folks didn>t live near the
edge of the ice then. They lived significantly further south. The
distance between the edge of the ice sheet and the northern edge
of inhabited Europe acted as a buffer that moderated climate shifts.

People just were not overrun by the ice sheet in a generation.
They weren>t living that close to it.

[quote]So, sure there were a few times when ancestral hunting grounds emerged,
but then everyone hadda split, destroying traditions.
[/quote]
Nope. See above.

[quote]The other thing is
that the data we have so far shows such low populations that there would
not have been competition for territory.
[/quote]
I suspect this is correct for Neandertal. H.s.s. in Europe had
larger populations, even in the depths of the last major ice advance.

But the key point here is that neither H.s.n. or H.s.s. lived
near enough to the ice sheet to see it, even on long hunts. Do
you understand the importance of the locations of archaeological
finds from the Wurm time?

[quote]Nor is there any evidence in
the skeletons I know of showing signs of battle injuries.

There are some that look like hybrids, but they could also have been
freaks because of all the inbreeding. Which is another way to keep the
population from rising.

There has always been an antipathy twards the whole idea of instinct in
hominids because that challenges the Christian notions of all actions
being the result of conscious choice, and therefore worthy of heaven or
hell.
[/quote]
Extremely irrelevant in the current discussion.

[quote]In like manner, there was an immediate rejection of the notion
that Neanderthal could have been ancestral because that would have
disturbed Christian sensibilities.

IIRC it was Roman Sen. Seneca:"If a moron told you the same thing every
day for a year, you>d come to believe him." And from Group think we see
how innovative even scientists can be in explaining to themselves why
they think they way they do rather than considering where the ideas came
from in the first place. This is an instinctive response arising out of
the need tribes had for consensus.

Motherhood is an instinctive response. Why is that any different from
flaking a point?
[/quote]
That would be the difference between biology and engineering. The
first comes as a result of those who have the capacity for
mothering (in the few species that practice it, relative to the
many species which do not find it a good use of their energy);
the second comes as a result of finding it useful to develop
extra-biological adaptations to the challenges of living in their
environment.

When you find stone tools associated with Maiasaurs, then we can
talk.


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