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A German museum dressed a recreation of a Neantherdal guy in business casual and honestly, if you saw this dude in the metro here you wouldn't bat an eye:
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Aug 5, 2023 23:17
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I’d bat an eye! winking, trying to get him back to my place to gently caress and sing ‘one two three’ together.
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Aug 5, 2023 23:28
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We actually do know the origins of East Asian dragons, we have a continuous chain of artifacts portraying them throughout their artistic development. They straight up do come from portrayals of crocodiles, as it turns out.
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Aug 5, 2023 23:40
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barbecue at the folks posted:A German museum dressed a recreation of a Neantherdal guy in business casual and honestly, if you saw this dude in the metro here you wouldn't bat an eye: unfrozen caveman lawyer reboot looking pretty good right now
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Aug 6, 2023 23:05
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I think there's just something so insanely compelling about things like Neanderthals or the other human species. We've only existed within the memory of history as a single species, and even much of recent prehistory, but there was such a long time where our ancestors interacted and competed with other failed branches, some of which mixed with us. None of these ancestors could have even known what a species was, and they just interbred with weird alternative humans that we would never again see in a pure state, as they were tens of thousands of years ago. When I look at that reconstructed guy in a business suit, it blows my mind that he looks almost like us, but with something definitely off. He has features that you might find in our branch of humanity, but not all in that same combination and not to that same level of exaggeration. What did he think on a daily basis? How self aware was he? There was that same core of human cognition in him that we inherited from earlier iterations of our kind. What could we have learned from the Neanderthals?
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Aug 7, 2023 05:18
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two fish posted:I think there's just something so insanely compelling about things like Neanderthals or the other human species. We've only existed within the memory of history as a single species, and even much of recent prehistory, but there was such a long time where our ancestors interacted and competed with other failed branches, some of which mixed with us. None of these ancestors could have even known what a species was, and they just interbred with weird alternative humans that we would never again see in a pure state, as they were tens of thousands of years ago. math
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Aug 7, 2023 06:41
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Crab Dad posted:A 20ft Nile crocodile is a dragon. To be fair, the cuneiform for hippo, 𒈗𒋚 comes from the glyphs for "corpse" and "pig". (We're even fairly sure of that word's meaning because of a proverb about it flinging poop everywhere and getting it in its own mouth.)
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Aug 7, 2023 07:23
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Because it's a giant pig that makes corpses or because it looks like a dead pig
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Aug 7, 2023 14:19
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Dude looks like a respected 1970s character actor that you'd see in every other New Hollywood film but then started acting in films like Biodome 2 and Jaws 5: The Jawsening in the later part of his career.
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Aug 7, 2023 14:28
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ilmucche posted:Chimps go to war? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7XuXi3mqYM if this is not war i don't know what is
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Aug 7, 2023 15:43
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Lead out in cuffs posted:To be fair, the cuneiform for hippo, 𒈗𒋚 comes from the glyphs for "corpse" and "pig". This makes total sense if you’ve ever seen a pig or human all bloated up from drowning in a water source.
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Aug 7, 2023 16:28
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WoodrowSkillson posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7XuXi3mqYM Goddamn 
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Aug 7, 2023 18:01
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Lead out in cuffs posted:To be fair, the cuneiform for hippo, 𒈗𒋚 comes from the glyphs for "corpse" and "pig". While this is true, you have the wrong sign for the first part of the Sumerian word. 𒈗 means "king," not "corpse". The correct spelling of the Sumerian word is 𒈕𒂄, which is transliterated dim₃-šaḫ₂. This also probably does not actually reflect a semantic connection between corpses, pigs, and hippos, since the word is very clearly a Semitic loan word, probably originally from Egyptian (tmsh means "crocodile" in Egyptian, this turned into meaning "hippo" in the process of the word moving across languages). Most likely, this is a phonetic spelling of a loan word. In Sumerian writing, no distinction is made about whether they are using a sign phonetically or logographically, and the phonetic value (or values) is the same as the pronunciation of the word (or words) the sign stands for. This is also reflected in the fact that the word is sometimes spelled 𒁮𒂄 (especially in later texts, but also in one list of words and their meanings from the early 2nd millennium BC), which is transliterated dam-šaḫ₂. "Dam" means "spouse," which doesn't have much in common with "corpse."
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Aug 7, 2023 19:08
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CrypticFox posted:"Dam" means "spouse," which doesn't have much in common with "corpse." Oh this guy's never met my wife, I tell ya 
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Aug 7, 2023 19:11
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zoux posted:Oh this guy's never met my wife, I tell ya Everyone plugs her up?
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Aug 7, 2023 19:15
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Similarly Narwhals are corpse-whales because they sorta look like bloated waterlogged corpses. There's also the folktales about them sinking ships and eating the drowned sailors but I think that's a latter addition.
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Aug 7, 2023 19:24
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FreudianSlippers posted:Dude looks like a respected 1970s character actor that you'd see in every other New Hollywood film but then started acting in films like Biodome 2 and Jaws 5: The Jawsening in the later part of his career. He had much more star power on Europe where his films were always advertised with his role. "Starring: Hugh Mann!", no matter how small the part was.
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Aug 7, 2023 20:27
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Speaking of hominin hybrids! https://twitter.com/ScienceAlert/status/1688483186253156352?s=20
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Aug 7, 2023 20:31
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Can you post the article
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Aug 7, 2023 21:05
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euphronius posted:Can you post the article Sure thing! https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-skull-found-in-china-is-unlike-any-human-seen-before
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Aug 7, 2023 21:34
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What were Denisovans like? A lot of attention goes to Neanderthals but very little to them.
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Aug 7, 2023 21:38
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I don't think me have enough denisova fossils to make a full skeleton, and I believe most of the denisova we mind are actually of mixed ancestry with homo sapiens and/or neanderthals.
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Aug 7, 2023 21:42
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two fish posted:What were Denisovans like? A lot of attention goes to Neanderthals but very little to them. We don't know, like 90% of the solid evidence they existed is genetic, and what little remains we have are extremely fragmentary There's a small assemblage of lithic materials, but that's not really too informative. We do know they interbred with Neanderthals, humans, and some other hominids. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Aug 7, 2023 |
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Aug 7, 2023 21:43
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E: Really weird accidental double post
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Aug 7, 2023 21:58
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I was actually listening to a recent episode of "The Dirt" on this very subject! The only actual fossils we have of Denisovans are some teeth and jawbones, but we have some interesting genetic evidence. For instance, one of the specific genes that a lot of people in Tibet and other parts of the Himalayan plateau have that helps them survive at altitude in a low oxygen environment is originally from the Denisovans. From what little fossil evidence we have, I think there's some thoughts that they may have had larger molars and been a little more reliant on plants in their diet, but that's pretty speculative.
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Aug 7, 2023 22:25
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two fish posted:What were Denisovans like? A lot of attention goes to Neanderthals but very little to them. We don't really know anything about them other than that they existed. The fossil record is like, a couple teeth. There's just a lot more Neanderthal stuff around.
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Aug 7, 2023 23:30
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Eldoop posted:Sure thing! Ty That is interesting becuase I think I read while reading about all of this that genetic evidence points to archaic humans that we have not identified yet Edit The article mentions this yeah
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Aug 7, 2023 23:33
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FishFood posted:, one of the specific genes that a lot of people in Tibet and other parts of the Himalayan plateau have that helps them survive at altitude in a low oxygen environment is originally from the Denisovans. From what little fossil evidence we have, I think there's some thoughts that they may have
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Aug 7, 2023 23:34
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FishFood posted:I was actually listening to a recent episode of "The Dirt" on this very subject! The only actual fossils we have of Denisovans are some teeth and jawbones, but we have some interesting genetic evidence. For instance, one of the specific genes that a lot of people in Tibet and other parts of the Himalayan plateau have that helps them survive at altitude in a low oxygen environment is originally from the Denisovans. From what little fossil evidence we have, I think there's some thoughts that they may have had larger molars and been a little more reliant on plants in their diet, but that's pretty speculative. That loving rules, and I hope this stays out of spaces where racists will find it and take the entirely wrong angle on it.
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Aug 8, 2023 14:24
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Do we have any records of war in prehistory, or was that something that only happened in earnest when the first states arose? What was prehistoric combat like, anyway?
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Aug 8, 2023 15:59
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prehistory is defined as the time we dont have records for, so saying "do we have records for this prehistoric thing" is like asking "i need the recording of that unrecorded conversation" now, we have archaeology of systematic group violence from 13 millennia ago https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1266108/
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Aug 8, 2023 16:07
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two fish posted:Do we have any records of war in prehistory, or was that something that only happened in earnest when the first states arose? If by records you mean something written down, then not really. The earliest battle that we have an account of is the Battle of Megiddo, in the 15th century BCE, where Egypt pushed its territory pretty far into modern day Israel. That said, we have plenty of archeological evidence of conflict in pre-history. The big caveat here is that how you define "war" is always up in the air. At what point does a couple of neighboring families feuding over farmer stuff and killing the odd people move from being that to being warfare? We've got a pair of mass graves in Central Europe, for example, that date from about the period when Neolithic farmers were first pushing into the area (~8000-5000 BCE). The bodies show a lot of signs of basically being executed. A lot of them also feature a bunch of women and children, so these might be secondary sites: massacring the village after already killing the men wherever they squared off to try and defend everyone. There's a similar mass grave that was recently found in Kenya, and it dates from even earlier (~10,000 BCE). Again, people are going to hem and haw over how you define warfare. Me, personally, I'd argue that this kind of organized communal violence where one side is systemically wiped out (see: the executions) argues pretty strongly in favor of it being "warfare" even if the absolute size of the groups involved is relatively small compared to what larger societies would field in the future.
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Aug 8, 2023 16:13
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I mean, chimps go to war with neighboring factions. They use group attack tactics and have a complex strategy to their assault. I see no reason to think that early hominids were any different. The attacks that chimps execute against their neighbors result in basically the same kind of outcome we would expect when ancient humans invaded another area. They kill anyone they cannot claim for their own and take over the new territory. It really does come down to how much scale you require for something to be "war." There's no reason to think that early hominids behaved much differently than chimps or people do today. Large enough groups are going to come in contact with one another, and sometimes that will end up with one group savagely destroyed by the others.
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Aug 8, 2023 16:20
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two fish posted:Do we have any records of war in prehistory, or was that something that only happened in earnest when the first states arose? Short answer - there are some cave paintings and such that could be showing men fighting that go back like 15000 years. its groups of people with bows either encircling others, or chasing down other bow armed people. Most of the fighting was done with bows since melee combat is very very risky in a world where your tribe or band may not be very big and every life is precious. So imagine 2 groups that get into small scale archery combat, with melees being unwanted events for either side and only occurring by circumstance. From modern study of hunter gatherer societies we can get a picture of prehistoric warfare in that period. Pitched battles would be extremely rare to nonexistent, but skirmishes and individual combats could be relatively common. In some societies murder is the leading cause of death due to frequent conflict with neighboring groups over resources, blood feuds, etc. Keep in mind any modern study though is showing societies in the context of a world with modern societies encroaching on and pressuring those groups. Ambushing rival hunting parties, raids into enemy territory to steal resources, people, or to kill rivals, etc all go back likely as far as any human society goes back, but were insanely risky endeavors and there is no consensus as to how often they occurred. At some times if 2 groups were pressured enough, they might have had had a pitched battle if one side truly wants to scatter or enslave the other. I think one of the earliest examples of that is mass grave in Africa that shows a bunch of people all being killed at once. With children and women being less prevalent, potentially meaning they were taken. As far as warfare in a more grand scale, some of the earliest evidence is from a city state in Mesopotamia called Hamoukar where we have uncovered the evidence of a siege and battle. between 4000-3500 BC the city was destroyed by invaders and there is evidence of the walls being pockmarked by heavy sling stones and the buildings being burned down with new ones built on top of them by the invaders. So given that sophistication the methods and doctrine of warfare obviously go back much further then that, likely to the the first sedentary societies. Jericho was a walled city like 8000 years ago and that implies defense for a reason. More speculatively, we now know from Gobekli Tepe the as much as 12000 years ago people were organized enough to construct large communal worship sites, pre-agriculture. That alone is evidence of organized effort between multiple groups, so the idea of tribal alliances potentially leading to conflict is not implausible. If rival groups moved in on the Gobekli Tepe builders territory, maybe they banded together to oust them, maybe the outsiders banded together to get a piece of the action, same way the "barbarians" did 10000 years later during the fall of the western roman empire. WoodrowSkillson fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Aug 8, 2023 |
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Aug 8, 2023 16:36
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two fish posted:Do we have any records of war in prehistory, or was that something that only happened in earnest when the first states arose? Adding to the prehistoric war stuff, the Tollense Valley site is fascinating as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tollense_valley_battlefield We do not know (and because these people did not leave records, will never know) why these people were fighting, or what the fighting was like, but we do have this site that shows that a few thousand combatants (we must rely on estimates but the current figures are on the order of 4000-5000) fought a battle over a river crossing - probably a bridge or a causeway - somewhere around 1200 BCE. That number of people has a lot of implications about how they got there too; that large a figure is not groups that could have just bumped into each other, that's at least one force that was organized, provisioned and supplied in some way, and led to that spot, and likely campaigning against another group similarly organized. Typically that organization would suggest the existence of some sort of state, but we have no other evidence for states in this period in this region, and it was thus previously assumed that they did not exist yet. So were there state level organizations fighting over territory or trade routes? Who organized the labor that built the bridge?  Lots of fun stuff to speculate about, but sadly very difficult to find concrete answers for.
PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Aug 8, 2023 |
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Aug 8, 2023 17:07
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Raiding seems to have been endemic in most premodern societies. It's sort of hard to comprehend how violent they were--there's good evidence for a third or more male deaths in these groups being the result of violence. Night City: Prehistory Edition. (this is of course disputed like everything, but the "violence didn't exist until agriculture" crowd that was prominent for a while has run into the unfortunate problem of lots of evidence to the contrary)
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Aug 8, 2023 17:11
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Grand Fromage posted:Raiding seems to have been endemic in most premodern societies. It's sort of hard to comprehend how violent they were--there's good evidence for a third or more male deaths in these groups being the result of violence. Night City: Prehistory Edition. A thing that I tend to find kind of fascinating is that the way you get really high violent death rates isn't via big formal industrial wars, its via having a general acceptance of low-level violence. Italy's rapid decline in life expectancy during the renaissance was driven by a lot of things, but I'd say that the rise in a culture of gang violence and dueling is hard to ignore (if somebody knows the demography better I'd love to hear it, my assumption has been that the driving factors were, in order, 1) disease 2) low level violence 3) megawars).
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Aug 8, 2023 17:22
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approaching the question from a different angle, there are some societies that fractured to the point that large-scale conflict was impossible, while remaining literate. Post-Roman Britain, for instance, has a number of wars recorded where the total number of combatants on both sides was under 100.
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Aug 8, 2023 19:47
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A lot of these violent societies would have probably looked pretty peaceful, just because the violence would have been ambushes or raids and you'd have to kind of take a long view or ask around about how many people had relatives who died by violence, and how many. Modern warfare also means that when the violence comes it lands very intensely in a particular area. (I use "modern" to mean, like, "after there is recorded history" here.)
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Aug 8, 2023 19:58
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I liked it best when the brunt of the fighting was done by the elite and the peasants following along were mainly there to like carry everything, dig trenches, and cook the food and stuff. Abolish every military and make all the highest bracket tax payers take up their rightful mantle as the Bellatores and be responsible for personally fighting the wars along with their entourage supplying all their equipment personally. There is no way this could go wrong.
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Aug 8, 2023 20:03
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