Roman/ancient history: Checkmate, Atenists

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Roman/ancient history: Checkmate, Atenists

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Ancient religion question. This came up in another thread.

The idea that a god becomes more powerful the more people worship him is modern, D&D kind of idea, not an actual ancient one, right? In Roman/Greek/Egyptian etc. mythos, did believers actually think their belief sustained or gave power to their god?

What about sacrifice? Was that seen as actually giving something to the gods, that a god actually gained something when sacrifices were made in his name?

# ¿ Jun 13, 2013 14:06

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# ¿ Jun 3, 2024 16:30

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Tao Jones posted:

In the Greek context, at least, gods were worshiped because they were powerful and worthy of reverence, not the other way around. It wouldn't make much sense to argue that if nobody worshiped Poseidon, there wouldn't be any more shipwrecks.
is.)

Grand Fromage posted:

There are some traditions where sacrifices are very literal, but I don't think Greek or Roman religion was. It was more that you put forward the effort.

And yeah it was taken as a given the gods existed and you worshiped them so they wouldn't decide to kick you in the nuts, not because they needed it. Remember that these gods are mostly gigantic assholes who also have divine power.

Thanks. I wonder how the idea arrived, if it really did come from RPGs.

I have a question about the sponsorship of public buildings. Was this done? What I mean by this is, like, here in the US at the new MOMA or whatever you'll see the plaque with the people who donate it. I feel that I've heard about occasional things like that in Rome, but was it similar to how it is now, that the wealthy would endow public buildings as a part of their way of demonstrating power and influence? Or were the things they funded more temporal, feasts, bread, etc?

# ¿ Jun 13, 2013 16:12

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Grand Fromage posted:

It was absolutely done all the time. The front of the Pantheon is the best example:

The text says Marcus Agrippa built this (paraphrased; I never learned Latin )

They did it in the exact same ways modern people do. Even in arenas there were ads around the inside walls and there were frequently carvings in front of seats saying that Senator Gaius Scrotus paid for the construction of these seats and this is the Gaius Scrotus seating area or whatever.

It says Agrippa, who was consul three times, built it. I guess I'd assumed inscriptions like that meant they did so in their governmental function, the same way we have "Mayor Curley built this".

# ¿ Jun 13, 2013 17:33

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Here's a probably dumb question inspired by Rome: Total War. At some point in the game, a little 'event' pop-up appears that says that this is the time when Rome kicked all the philosophers out of the city. What is this referring to? An actual event?

# ¿ Jun 14, 2013 12:03

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

House Louse posted:

As far as I know it was invented by Harlan Ellison in the 60s.

Was Attila the Hun a Christian? I thought he was, but someone called me on it and now I don't have a clue. I know he was called "the Scourge of God" (but not if he called himself that) and retreated from Rome after the Pope persuaded him not to attack it, but neither of those are definitive.

I know this one, or rather, I know that it's unknown. There's very little written history from the Huns. We know almost nothing about their culture itself, much less their religion or attitude towards religion.

And Atilla backed down not because the pope persuaded him but for logistical reasons.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2013 14:06

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Koramei posted:

I'm pretty sure that's still up for debate.

Sure. How about : There exists almost no evidence for the contention that Leo persuaded him, other than people writing about the time who had reason to support Leo. There is abundant evidence that the logistical situation was dire and that marching on Rome would have been incredibly risky for not a hell of a lot of reward.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2013 15:28

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

It's being reported that the Roman formula for concrete has now been fully understood. This got me thinking: Are there any technical manuals from ancient Rome? Any "Here's how to build an aqueduct', 'here's how to construct a road' 'this is how to tan leather' type things?

# ¿ Jun 21, 2013 19:15

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

canuckanese posted:

It's tricky because the Scythians aren't really an actual group, it's just what the Greeks called them. What they called Scythia included groups like the Sarmatians near the Danube and north of the Black Sea, Iranian tribes like the Sogdians and Bactrians which were in modern day Uzbekistan/Afghanistan/other 'stans', Indo-Scythian tribes near India, and Turkic tribes which puts you closer to western China and Mongolia. They had similarities because they were steppe civilizations and horse-oriented, but they were their own distinct cultures. The same would be true of comparing a Scythian to a Mongol, although they certainly had much more in common with Mongols than Greeks or Chinese.

And "Mongol" often gets used for all the various small tribes that the Mongols swallowed up during Ghengis' expansion, too. There were culturally and in lifestyle extremely similar to the Mongols. And when the Mongols invaded Russia, they got a lot of the groups there to go along with them because they shared a lot more with the Mongols culturally.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2013 15:01

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Pimpmust posted:

How much of a show would be enough back in the day though? Like, were the generals expected to charge into the fray at some point during a battle (...cavalry charge? I remember Anthony doing that in the Rome series but that's about it) or was just "showing up" at the rear enough? "Sup', yeah your general is here. Go at it. Good lads."

One of the reasons of the success of the Mongols was their complete de-emphasis on 'honor', personal bravery from their generals, etc. Their generals were expected to sit back well out of the fray and direct the battle, and killing a dude through a trick was just as honorable as killing people in one-on-one combat. In fact, the Mongols had a blood taboo-- they believed your spirit was in your blood, so if you got an enemy's blood on you his spirit could curse you or infest you. That's one of the prime reasons they were a missile-based military.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2013 16:07

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Slim Jim Pickens posted:

Stuff like taboos arise out of cultural reality rather than the other way around. Any steppe culture that focused on ground-melee combat would have been obliterated.

That doesn't explain why they focused on archery vs lancing. It's entirely possibly that the blood-taboo is a meme that happens to be successful in the environment in an evolved way, sure, but that's not that the blood taboo isn't important; it's how the successful strategy is propagated.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2013 19:32

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Alekanderu posted:

The Mongols had plenty of lancers. Also, many (all?) other steppe cultures were primarily archers. Did they all have the same blood taboo?

Er, sorry since this is my derail, but this probably/definitely belongs over in the Medieval thread. I'm sorry for starting it, I'm also happy to respond via PM.

Again, apologies.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2013 20:01

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

meatbag posted:

Ahem.

The Cappadocians

I looked around for a bit and I couldn't find info on Cappadocians and plubming; what's up with Cappadocians and plumbing?

# ¿ Jul 3, 2013 11:39

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

fspades posted:

He makes it clear it has very little to do with genetics or natural selection, but rather changing societal conditions made bicameral mind obsolete and thanks to the plasticity of brain, new generations who grew in a radically different environment had ended up with physiologically different brains that we know today. Even then people with bicameral minds didn't immediately disappear bu they faced severe repression and vestiges of bicameral mind still exist today among people we know as schizophrenics. I even believe he first came to this idea while he was working extensively with schizophrenics.

How does he deal with the many places where societal conditions never changed to that point? Like, say, Australian aborigines?

# ¿ Jul 4, 2013 11:47

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

fspades posted:

As far as I can tell he doesn't. The only time he mentions when a subjective conscious civilization met with a bicameral civilization was during to Spanish invasion of the Americas and he touches a lot upon pre-Colombian civilization's beliefs and culture and the Spanish conquistador's reaction to it.

Well, that's a pretty significant weakness.

Dante posted:

That is the dumbest thing. From what we know of linguistics and neurology it's pretty clear that all humans have an i-language, basically an innate biological capacity for language which is our system of thought. All external languages (what's normally called language like english) are essentially different forms of this i-language with different parameters switched (like the placement of adjectives in respects to what they describe). We have some inkling of when this evolutionary change happened because of the the explosion of self-expression, creativity etc in the archeological record. What Jared Diamond once called the Great Leap Forward

The latter is simply a theory, though, it's not a demonstrated fact that this evolutionary change happened. It's a very contentious area.

If you looked back on human history from a more distant perspective, you'd be tempted to come up with some evolutionary explanation for the huge outpouring of creativity in the past three centuries, too.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2013 12:39

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Dante posted:

The evolutionary change obviously happened, because we're the only species on the planet with this feature.

Yeah, I'm taking issue with the idea that the evolutionary change happened at that particular point.

quote:

Yeah you can debate if the great leap forward constitutes a good date for this change instead of continuos cultural change, but it obviously happened at some point.

Yes, that's what I was saying was just a theory, that the great leap theory (if it was, in fact, a great leap) coincided with an actual bit of evolution.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2013 13:39

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Ras Het posted:

Why are y'all so mad? Jaynes' theory is absolutely beautiful and wonderful, the fact that it runs against common sense yet is so elegant should be a reason to appreciate it, if anything.

There are infinite elegant and untrue theories.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2013 13:40

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Namarrgon posted:

In that case; did you know it was actually aliens who uplifted us and gave us the gift of reason?

Hey, he's got a point. Thor Heyerdahl, though totally wrong about his big thesis, still did a lot for cultural diffusion theory just by getting out and doing stuff. You can be interestingly wrong.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2013 22:10

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Comstar posted:

I have heard recently that bronze weapons and armour aren't too bad or even equal. The difference is you can find iron everywhere, while bronze requires a lot more digging and an international trade network to get the materials together. Is this correct?

Yep, basically. And bronze is still useful as an industrial metal, especially for ships. It resists corrosion (one the exterior corrodes it basically stops) so if you only have a limited amount of bronze but tons of iron, use the bronze for ships (or anything else where corrosion is a big factor) and arm your army with iron and tell them to keep it dry and clean.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2013 14:32

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

benem posted:

Sorry to dig this back up from a few pages ago, but how do archaeologists figure out the Sumerian word for "fart?" I get how you can puzzle out the words for "king" and "grain" and whatnot, but where do you even work from to figure out the more colloquial stuff?

There's only so many things a young wife can do on her husband's lap.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2013 00:37

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Captain Postal posted:

smaller cultures like Egypt? England? France? HRE principalities? Spain? Portugal? Russia? And the rest of Europe... Most of the Asian monarchies too?

The next King is the eldest son of the Queen, not the Eldest son of the King. The Queens child almost always is higher in the succession order than kings illegitimate children are, even when the illegitimate one is older.

Matrilineal patriarchies have been the standard for most of recorded history.

To be accurate here you'd have to compare the queen's illegitimate children to the king's.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2013 11:41

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Captain Postal posted:

In a patriarchal society, regardless of if it is matrilineal or patrilineal, it's usually treason for the Queen to have illegitimate children.

Also, if you knock-up the kings missus, it won't end well for you.

Yeah, that was pretty much my point. I think you're confusing 'matrilineal' with 'only women can give birth'.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2013 13:08

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Deteriorata posted:

Technological advancement generally develops as solutions to problems. The Romans never encountered the sort of problems that led them to developing any kind of steel processing industry. They could build everything they needed out of stone or wood, powered by slaves or water. It never dawned on them that iron could be useful as a construction material.

They were good enough at ironworking for armaments. That's about all they cared about.

They used iron to reinforce concrete, as a construction material.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2013 23:14

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Xguard86 posted:

that stuff will also be around long after you and even anyone identifiable as your relation is dead. Pretty good investment.

A lot of the stuff is gone, either from burning down, falling down, or being quarried.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2013 22:53

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

sullat posted:

This is kind of inaccurate, the Romans had a similar polytheist pantheon as the Greeks, (Father God, God of war, Goddess of boning, etc.) but those were the archetypal Indo-European polytheist gods across the Mediterranean. There were plenty of gods unique to the Greeks and the Romans as they had their own ritual quirks. Roman religious customs (allegedly established by the second Roman king, Numa Pompillius), were derived from Rome's neighbors, the Etruscans and the other Latins.

Later on, in the time of the Empire, you get Greek and Egyptian mystery cults popping up all over the place, even in Rome itself, in addition to the development of the Roman Imperial cult, and probably a little bit of merging between similar-seeming gods, but even still, you'll notice a lot of differences between Jupiter and Zeus.

Wasn't the worship or devotion or whatever to the lares and penantes just as important as devotion to the bigger gods? Even though they were smaller in scale, obviously.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2013 17:44

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

To reiterate a question I posed in passing:

It's been my impression that Lares and penates were just as important, if not more important, to the religious lives of Romans as the big Olympian gods. Is this true? Was there any class distinction in religious worship? I mean, obviously they didn't think all people were equal before the gods, but I'm wondering about other ways class may have impacted religious worship.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2013 14:54

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Grand Fromage posted:

If you think about it, tempting the urban poor with the promise of a solid career with steady pay and lifetime benefits isn't really different than how we raise armies today, at least in the US.

Most of the soldiers in the US army come from more suburban and rural middle-class backgrounds, not the urban poor.

http://www.defense.gov/news/Dec2005/d20051213mythfact.pdf
http://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=soc

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 11:32

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Kaal posted:

It's a nice thought, but this analysis relies heavily on rather arbitrary definitions of poverty and urbanity. In short, the concepts of the suburb and the lower-middle class serve to mask the demographic realities. The vast majority of Americans live in urban areas (83% live in metropolitan or micropolitan counties), and a plurality of Americans are relatively poor (40% of households have an income of less than $45,000, i.e. "what it takes to get by" according to the American population). When these definitions are realigned, we see that while military recruiters aren't dragging the bottom of the barrel (educational requirements serve to bar access to the most impoverished) and do slightly prefer rural recruits, they are still pulling from a population that is fundamentally urban (80% of recruits) and poor (38% of recruits).

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/08/17/139699631/white-house-overstates-rural-role-in-military
http://nationalpriorities.org/analysis/2011/military-recruitment-2010/
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs...century-america
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Household_income

I agree with that, but comparative to what the Romans were recruiting, I don't think the populations are similar.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 16:32

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Grand Fromage posted:

The Roman state did have a unique ability to raise/maintain/train troops that no other empire in the area was really able to match. But there absolutely were other ones who tried to copy the legionary model. Seleucia, notably, had fake legions. Polybius says the Argyraspides were outfitted like legions by the end of the Seleucid empire, rather than/in addition to the phalanxes. They seem to have been busy trying to convert their army into something resembling the legions around when Rome rolled them. I believe the Pontic armies also tried to copy the legions, and a couple other states did it too.

You can stretch your timeline and go to much later, too. Once the medieval countries start really centralizing and transitioning into more modern types of states, a lot of them start their national armies by copying Roman legions and using the surviving Roman military manuals and stuff.

There's also some convergent evolution. I suspect the manipular system and the Macedonian phalanx style of organizing into smaller square units that can maneuver independently come from solving the same tactical issue.

We also kind of interestingly see a similar redoing of this when Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus and others break down the size of infantry units later on. I think that basically you need a strong, competent, reliable noncom-equivalent corps in order to do this. I think the point about convergent evolution is appropriate not just at that time, but contingently during other periods; military reformers often realize that they can achieve more by division of units into smaller numbers, but in order to do so they have to have the command corps to back it up.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2013 16:12

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Koramei posted:

The Romans could feed their enormous cities 'cause of their unbelievable amount of land and incredibly well developed infrastructure, not because they were good farmers.

And because of Egypt. Who were really good farmers.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2013 22:22

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Alchenar posted:

This isn't really true at all.

Yeah. Galileo, among other things, pissed off the other top researchers of the time-- who all worked for the Catholic Church. He used data gathered by other churchmen in order to do his calculations. I've got as big of a hate on for the Catholic Church as anyone, but they promoted a ton of scientific research and while the dogma did interfere, Galileo's biggest problem was being an enormous, Italy-sized prick to the contemporary scientists.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2013 01:58

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Ras Het posted:

It was, if not trivial, then at least doable for nomadic groups to traverse such distance across the steppe. For footmen the idea is absurd. The distances covered by Cyrus', Darius' and Alexander's armies were clearly at the edge of the states' logistical (if you can even speak in such terms) capabilities.

And in a lot of areas, the Mongols ran into people they could ally with, other steppe tribes they could enfold into the Mongol empire. But yeah, it's mostly a cavalry-army thing, and also, during the first expansion Mongol generals weren't fighting for political power, generalship wasn't an inroad into other political positions, you just stayed generaling until you were ancient. There was more unified political support for the campaigns the Mongols pursued, pretty much up until the second succession crisis.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2014 03:27

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

MrNemo posted:

Like, Patron-client relationship I can pretty much grasp. It's a relatively straightforward money/support relationship with some more complex sociological baggage. But I cannot really grasp how 'You're family is from an area I control and we both claim descent from a water fairy so I guess I have to overlook your incompetence, flimsy claim to the throne and the utter disaster you've helped bring about' works.

It's just very different from modern thinking because your origin mattered a lot more. Although we've got those cases of people rising from the depths and going from low rank to high, in the established systems, like the French one, their entire claim, their right to rule, was that they were hereditary leaders. Not good leaders, or wise, but hereditary. These time periods saw plenty of awful leaders, and plenty of ordinary people knew that they were smart and capable, but the system of leadership was tied in closely with religion and custom and tradition, when those things carried more weight than they do today. I mean, we are living in a nation that is capable of selecting Rick Perry as the leader of a large and important province despite being an utter disaster. Repeat this for Brownback and the rest. With the benefit of history and objectivity we can see incompetence and failure, but it's a lot harder for the actual person on the ground. So to the extent the opinion of ordinary people mattered, they were probably incredibly ill-informed, probably carrying a firm religious belief that good or bad leaders were part of the whole punishment/reward system of god or 'providence', and possibly completely fine with supporting an incompetent because of their own sense of familial alliance.

This is feudal, though, and very different from Rome or Greece, but we should still remember that our observations and judgements on the leaders there are with benefit of history. And a lot of people are competent right up until their incompetent, or simply beaten by someone much better--like Marc Antony going down to the twin hammers of Augustus and Agrippa. Add in that 'competent' leaders tend to be ambitious, a lot of those competent dudes lead to civil war or massive societal changes as they take over the system. Continuing the family dynasty is the devil you know.

# ¿ May 25, 2015 13:53

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Nintendo Kid posted:

Various species of parrots and parakeets have been successfully taught to use and think in English and other human languages at the level of young children, so clearly they stand the possibility of developing language on their own in the proper environment (and may have already done so).

Nah. It may still be a Chinese Room.

# ¿ May 26, 2015 04:30

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Nintendo Kid posted:

Yeah and so is every human on earth, just as likely.

No, not at all, because I know I'm not a Chinese room, but I have absolutely no desire to get into this argument with you, I can't imagine anything more tedious.

To drag this back into relevancy, does anyone know if Latin had heavy dialects--if the Latin spoken in Spain was significantly different than that of Rome?

# ¿ May 26, 2015 11:02

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:

Yeah, it really does. The biggest one I can think of is that multiple groups of humans in multiple places evolved the exactly same mutation or whatever he calls it at the same time.

Also the people who hold to it these days seem more like a cult than a research institute.

I thought it was just a Neil Stephenson plot device.

# ¿ May 26, 2015 22:51

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

HEY GAL posted:

Not even--all you can judge is their aesthetic choices, their preferred literary style. To turn around from literature to making arguments about brain structure isn't even wrong, it's so out there.

Edit: What's the explanation in this theory for people who hear the voice of the divine after we developed modern brains? Are they just crazy?

Edit 2: Isn't there introspection in Gilgamesh, after Enkidu dies and Gilgamesh thinks about his own death?

I bet the 'theory' pounces on anyone from that time period who does show introspection as just an early-evolver.

# ¿ May 27, 2015 10:44

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Ras Het posted:

One of the major themes of the book is the interpretation of schizophrenia as a "remnant" or "artifact" of bicameralism.

Jaynes handwaves that bit in Gilgamesh away as a later addition.

Again, and it feels somewhat stupid to write all these caveats, but seemingly everyone who's actually read the book thinks of it as brilliant and illuminating nonsense. It's like, you know, we don't get mad at Don Quixote for believing in knight-errantry, we applaud him for his stubborn heroism. Why be an artless cynic?

It seems like a well-written book about absurd bullshit. It seems like it examines the background of the problem of thinking about consciousness well. And we, as the reader, are left to cheer or scorn Don Quixote as we want, but most importantly, we do not rely on him or his perspective in any way.

He seems a bit like Thor Heyerdahl, but without the actual physical experimentation that led to a real discovery.

I don't get why you don't understand that some people think that the important word in 'brilliant nonsense' is 'nonsense' and not 'brilliant'. I think it may be worse, and more damaging, to write brilliant, convincing nonsense than stodgy and unreadable nonsense, because Jaynes crackpot ideas manage to convince more people because they're well-presented.

# ¿ May 27, 2015 11:09

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Ras Het posted:

I'd like to think science can withstand someone writing a book.

Nobody is claiming it can't withstand it, dude. If the book has a virtue, it's raising issues that people talk about. That's what people are doing here: They happen to be saying what you apparently also believe, that the book's main theory is totally wrong. So what is your actual problem?

# ¿ May 27, 2015 11:16

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Ras Het posted:

That it's extremely unproductive intellectually to argue so strongly against a book one hasn't read (I assume?).

They're arguing against the central premise, though. They're not criticizing the book for presenting the idea badly, they're criticizing the idea. The idea itself is absurd nonsense. You don't appear to be arguing that anyone is really misunderstanding the idea at the heart of the book, right?

# ¿ May 27, 2015 12:10

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# ¿ Jun 3, 2024 16:30

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

homullus posted:

The idea itself isn't absurd nonsense. It's unlikely, given our understanding of the brain and consciousness 30+ years later, but the multidisciplinary look at consciousness is still relevant today. Like, Democritus and Erich von D�niken are both Dudes Who Were Wrong About Things, but Democritus' atom isn't absurd nonsense, just pretty wrong according to what we know now.

This is going to provoke me into reading the book and I am 99% sure that I'm going to conclude it's absurd nonsense afterwards. "Unlikely' would be a soft way of putting it. Astronomically and insanely unlikely and requiring a ton of coincidences to occur in exactly the right way, whereas the alternate explanation requires no special pleading, arguments, or hand-waving at all.

I don't get the comparison to Democritus; this seems like a hell of a lot more of Daniken territory. Democritus came up with atomic theory to explain the nature of matter, which clearly needed an explanation and had an existence that descended below human observability. It's an elaborate claim to explain an elaborate, mysterious, observable thing. What Jaynes is doing is attempting to make an extremely elaborate claim to explain something which may not actually have happened at all--there is probably not significant transition in human consciousness dating to that time period, of which there is almost no evidence, and what evidence there is appears to have been collected solely to support the hypothesis, with counter-evidence handwaved away.

# ¿ May 27, 2015 15:41

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