Little Known Facts About History

A Short History of Conservatives and Liberals

"Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.

The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:

1. Liberals; and
2. Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That’s how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q’s and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement."

Related: New Study shows Liberals have a lower average IQ than Conservatives

What can I say? Makes sense to me.

Trogdolites

Oldest stone tools pre-date Homo genus

Have You Ever Wondered Why...

...there are two kinds of lice that infest the human body? Pubic and head lice.

This has been the subject of scientific investigation. I kid you not. Watch for it about the 23:45 minute mark:

Do You Suppose...

...that's what killed him?

Otzi the Iceman was at increased risk of heart disease: DNA reveals 5,300-year-old mummy was predisposed to blocked arteries

Climbing over the Alps when you have heart disease would not have been a great idea, even if his doctor did tell him to get some exercise.

Cool!

Three hours worth. It`s pouring rain outside and has been all month. Nothing else to do but watch cool stuff like this.

More Stuff About...

...human evolution and Neanderthals:


Method Confirms Humans, Neanderthals Interbred


New method confirms humans and Neandertals interbred

My beliefs have been confirmed. I know too many people who look Neanderthalish to believe otherwise.

Previously.

Also previously.

Oh Dear

It's getting harder and harder for "the creator put us here" crowd to stand their ground. Not only that, but they're related to the evil Whiteman:

Surprise’ DNA profile linking 24,000-year-old Siberian skeleton to modern Native Americans could rewrite First Nations’ story, experts say

"The surprise discovery of traces of European ancestry in the 24,000-year-old bones of a boy unearthed in the heart of Siberia has caught the attention of Canadian experts, who say the find could rewrite the story of the people who first populated ancient Canada and the rest of the Americas."

[---]

"The ancient boy’s DNA profile may help explain why a “European” strain of genetic material can be found among today’s New World indigenous communities, a mystery that many scientists had assumed was the result of contact in recent centuries with successive waves of colonizers from Europe."

Hum! Dust Lying Every Where...

...garbage strewn all over the place?

Ancient Neanderthals Organized Their Homes Like Modern Humans

The Real Story Of...

...of Adam:



And Eve.

My Favourite Subject In University...

...was paleoanthropology, so this naturally piqued my curiosity:

China human fossil discovery gets name

More about Homo erectus.

I know some people who look like and perhaps act like Homo erectus (ie. becoming extinct), but we won't go into that now.

Ooooooooo

The Industry isn't gonna like this:

Stoneage Europeans were first Native Americans

"Europeans may have been the first people to settle in America, possibly more than ten thousand years before anyone else set foot there.

­A series of European-style tools dating from twenty-six-thousand to nineteen-thousand years ago have been discovered in six separate locations along the east coast of the United States."

[---]

"Professors Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradford, the two archaeologists who made the discovery, suggest Europeans moved across the Atlantic during the peak of Ice Age.

At the time, a vast tranche of ice covered the Atlantic. The Stone Age migrants would have been able to survive the journey by killing seals, hunting the now-extinct great auks (a sort of giant penguin) and fishing. The archaeologists suggest they may have even used boats for large parts of their travel.

Further evidence of their thesis is a knife discovered in Virginia in 1971. Recent tests showed that it was made from French flint."

[---]"

The Siberian migrants came to America for longer and in greater numbers, and were either wiped out or absorbed by the European tribes.

But it does explain the long-standing mystery of the genetic code and language of some Native American tribes that appear European, not Asian in origin.

Further digs are planned deeper inland up to Texas this year, and will help historians and archaeologists understand just how far the original European colonization went."

I can hear them kicking and screaming already.

Take That!!!

...PETA.

Oetzi's Life After Death

Oetzi is still making news. I remember there was a feud between Italy and Austria about which country could claim him as their own, since his remains were found essentially on the border between the two countries. Seems maybe France can get a piece of him, too.

"New clues have emerged in what could be described as the world's oldest murder case: that of Oetzi the "Iceman", whose 5,300-year-old body was discovered frozen in the Italian Alps in 1991.

Oetzi's full genome has now been reported in Nature Communications.

It reveals that he had brown eyes, "O" blood type, was lactose intolerant, and was predisposed to heart disease.

They also show him to be the first documented case of infection by a Lyme disease bacterium.

Analysis of series of anomalies in the Iceman's DNA also revealed him to be more closely related to modern inhabitants of Corsica and Sardinia than to populations in the Alps, where he was unearthed."

Too bad, Austria.

I must say, though, I've seen some Saskatchewan farmers that bear a striking resemblance to him.

Seems he died of a wound sustained in a fight.

Poor old goat:

"Oetzi was about 159cm tall (5ft 2.5in), 46 years old, arthritic, and infested with whipworm."

That'd be enough to get him run outta town, I would think.

Seems it was the Italians who did him in, too.

His last supper was quite sumptuous. No pizza, though, or lasagne.

And it's amazing what they can figure out using modern science.

Just An Interesting Reminder

We were all "Aboriginals" at one time before we built empires:

Aboriginal Britain

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



Part 4



Part 5



Part 6

This Explains A Lot Of Things About ...

... a lot of people I know:

Humans, Neanderthals got it on, study says

"A new study adds more evidence to the theory that humans and Neanderthals interbred thousands of years ago. The study found that many humans outside of Africa share DNA with the long-extinct species."

'Kudos to Science' Morning

Seriously. These are some mighty interesting stories from the last two or three days.

First: Rare dinosaur found in Canada's oilsands

"The Canadian oil sands, a vast expanse of tar and sand being mined for crude oil, yielded treasure of another kind this week when an oil company worker unearthed a 110-million-year-old dinosaur fossil that wasn't supposed to be there.

The fossil is an ankylosaur, a plant-eating dinosaur with powerful limbs, armor plating and a club-like tail. Finding it in this region of northern Alberta was a surprise because millions of years ago the area was covered by water.

"We've never found a dinosaur in this location," Donald Henderson, a curator at Alberta's Royal Tyrrell Museum, which is devoted to dinosaurs, said on Friday. "Because the area was once a sea, most finds are invertebrates such as clams and ammonites."

Hmmmm. A dinosaur out of place. Puts me in mind of a certain political party and it's leader, or, should that be two political parties and their leaders.

Jurassic Jewel is a good name, though, especially for Mr. Laytoon, because I do like the guy. I just disagree with almost everything he and his party say and believe and can confidently say I will never vote for him/it. The Liberals, maybe, but they'll have to completely remake themselves, and that will take some doing and an appropriate amount of time spent wandering in the wilderness. Forty years should do it, which most likely means I won't be voting for them ever again 'cause I expect to be gone by then.

This dino wasn't the only one in the news this week. How 'bout this babe from Brazil! I'm kinda glad they died out before humans arrived, aren't you?  And speaking of humans arriving......

Second: Arrowheads Found in Texas Dial Back Arrival of Humans in America

"The new findings establish that the last major human migration, into the Americas, began earlier than once thought. And the discovery could change thinking about how people got here (by coastal migrations along shores and in boats) and how they adapted to the new environment in part by making improvements in toolmaking that led eventually to the technology associated with the Clovis culture.

Archaeologists and other scientists report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science that excavations show hunter-gatherers were living at the Buttermilk Creek site and making projectile points, blades, choppers and other tools from local chert for a long time, possibly as early as 15,500 years ago. More than 50 well-formed artifacts as well as hundreds of flakes and fragments of chipping debris were embedded in thick clay sediments immediately beneath typical Clovis material.

“This is the oldest credible archaeological site in North America,” Michael R. Waters, leader of the discovery team, said at a news teleconference."

[---]

"If the migrations began at earlier, pre-Clovis times, moreover, extensive glaciers probably closed off ice-free interior corridors for travel to the warmer south. Archaeologists said this lent credence to a fairly new idea in the speculative mix: perhaps the people came to the then really new New World by a coastal route, trooping along the shore and sometimes hugging land in small boats. This might account for the relatively swift movement of the migrants all the way to Peru and Chile."

[---]

"No one knows exactly who these migrating people were, scientists said. Genetic studies of ancient bones and later American Indians indicate their ancestors came from northeast Asia, possibly across the Bering land bridge at a time of low sea levels during the last ice age. But it has puzzled scientists that nothing like the Clovis technology has ever been found in Siberia."

[---]

"The new findings, the Waters group reported, “suggest that although the ultimate ancestors of Clovis originated from northeast Asia, important technological developments, including the invention of the Clovis fluted points, took place south of the North American continental ice sheets before 13,100 years ago from an ancestral pre-Clovis tool assemblage.”

Among other implications of the discoveries, the Texas archaeologists said, a pre-Clovis occupation of North America provided more time for people to settle in North America, colonize South America by more than 14,000 years ago, “develop the Clovis tool kit and create a base population through which Clovis technology could spread.”

The Texas archaeologists said the new dig site has produced the largest number of artifacts dating to the pre-Clovis period. The dates for the sediments bearing the stone tools were determined to range from 13,200 to 15,500 years ago."

There's more here about the death of the "Clovis first" theory and this new discovery.

Nobody is claiming, of course, that this in any way supports the notion that migration from the old world, as the source of human occupation of the Americas, is now defunct. It's simply that the "ice free corridor" theory is just about done for. Migration from Asia likely took place a bit earlier than the previous consensus would have it, but by only 2,500 years or so, and more likely via the coast line, which would now be inundated with water, since oceans have risen while the ice sheets, through which the "ice free corridor" supposedly ran, have melted and receded.

This will not be good news for the Indian Industry, especially those who like to claim that oral history is as good as evidence as archaeology is, or as the written record is, for that matter.  After all, 2,500 years adds another 100 generations through which origin stories will have had to have been passed along, all the while with each succeeding generation contributing new stories, new events, etc., that must be fitted into the narrative, somehow.   

Gee, you think origins stories can survive intact and accurate for 620 generations? That's 28 "great-great-greats" to add to the front of the word grandfather or grandmother. Can you imagine what a task it would be to keep that many generations of stories in your head with precision and accuracy? But I digress.

Oh, This Story Conjurs Up...

...some raaaaaacist thoughts. But it's just jokes. Sheesh, you people!

"A cache of stone tools found on the east coast of the Arabian peninsula has reopened the critical question of when and how modern humans escaped from their ancestral homeland in eastern Africa."

Let me see now. Mecca is on the east coast, isn't it.

Human Genome Project (Older Post Previously Unpublished)

A collection of links to my favourite subject:

Atlas of the Human Journey

Global Gene Project to Trace Humanity's Migration

Early Humans May Have Crossed Sea to Leave Africa

Early Australians to Blame for Mass Extinctions, Study Finds

British Have Changed Little Since Ice Age, Gene Study Says

Humans Settled Globe Gradually

Massive Genetic Study Supports "Out of Africa" Theory

51 Headless Vikings Found in English Execution Pit?

Hmmm. I Wonder How Long..

...this will stand?

Human's early arrival in Britain

"Researchers have discovered stone tools in Norfolk, UK, that suggest that early humans arrived in Britain nearly a million years ago - or even earlier.

The find, published in the journal Nature, pushes back the arrival of the first humans in what is now the UK by several hundred thousand years.

Environmental data suggests that temperatures were relatively cool.

This raises the possibility that these early Britons may have been among the first humans to use fire to keep warm.

They may also have been some of the earliest humans to wear fur clothing."

I wonder if any of these early tool users genes are kicking about in my system? Britain was populated with humans for a while and then when the last ice age enveloped the northern hemisphere, it was depopulated. So maybe. Maybe not.

In fact, the article points out they were probably a species known as Homo Antecessor. I always thought my siblings looked a little cave-manish. ;-)

"...the evidence suggests that they were living at the edge of the inhabited world in a really challenging environment and indeed they were real pioneers living here in Britain, nearly a million years ago,..."

We're a hardy lot, too.