Hob
|
Re: Forget Atkins
Apr 20, 2004, 17:55
|
Here's some menus:
http://www.paleofood.com/
|
GordonP
|
Re: Fields Recordings From The Sea
Apr 20, 2004, 18:02
|
The bari bit was a little "tonge in cheek" though not totally. I don't believe human nature as changed a great deal in the last 150,000 years. We are a little less barbaric, cannibalism is frowned upon, slavery outlawed but evolutionaryly (can't be bothered to look up the spelling) we will have changed little. It is part of human nature to put ones own family first, extended family second, tribal loyalties third, we may pretend otherwise but this has always been so. The Arabs have a saying, "If my cousin hits my brother, I will hit my cousin. If a stranger hits my cousin I will hit the stranger."
I have a theory that physical violence was the driving force behind our evolution. The main reason our aboreal ancestors developed an upright stance and led directly to the development of the human brain. To me it is all perfectly logical although unlike "stone-rowing" I will never be able to prove it.
|
TomBo
|
Re: Fields Recordings From The Sea
Apr 20, 2004, 18:15
|
I don't agree, but then we're both adults and that's fine!
What you say is very Darwinian, the survival of the fittest. Its worth remembering that Darwin was the first to admit that there were things in nature that appeared to contradict his theory, though. Like the Flattid Bug, for example.
Barbarism is an incredibly loaded word. It comes from a Greek root meaning "foreigner", and the "bar-bar" sound is thought to have originated as a way of mocking the "unintelligible" speech of foreigners. It's xenephobic in the extreme, is the bottom line of it, and the slurs of violence, ignorance etc. that are heaped upon the "barbarian's" head are simply racist slanders. But then I don't believe in "civilization", a word which is the "us" to barbarism's "them".
I'd argue that the "eye-for-an-eye" mentality is rooted in city-living - the city of Ur, some would say, where the Sun-god Shamash is believed to have given this ultra-vengeful law to Hammurabi.
I agree with you that in many ways human beings are the same now as they were in the distant past, but I also think some things have changed. City living changed something in the human psyche, as did the coming of agriculture, and metal.
|
TomBo
|
"slavery outlawed"
Apr 20, 2004, 18:19
|
|
There are thought to be more slaves in the world today than there have ever been at any other time.
|
TomBo
|
Re: spare time
Apr 20, 2004, 18:23
|
|
but this just pushes the question further back... why raise wooden structures? the fact remains that people have not always made monuments, and then at some point they began to. in my view, there had to be a reason for this happening. that reason is probably the same thing that makes us different from animals, IMHO.
|
TomBo
|
Re: Fields Recordings From The Sea
Apr 20, 2004, 18:26
|
"It is part of human nature to put ones own family first, extended family second, tribal loyalties third, we may pretend otherwise but this has always been so."
Yes, I think you're probably quite right here. It doesn't necessarily follow that the stones were raised solely to mark territory, though. And even if they were, it still leaves the unanswered question of why then?
|
TomBo
|
Re: Fields Recordings From The Sea
Apr 20, 2004, 18:29
|
apologies for the multiple posts, I should have thought it all through properly and stuck it in one!
"evolutionaryly (can't be bothered to look up the spelling - <i>me neither!</i>) we will have changed little"
This may well be true, I'm not scientifically minded enough to be able to say. It seems a little irrelevant, though? Please enlighten me if I'm being ignorant, but the psychology of a people can change radically without any need to invoke Darwin, surely?
|
Annexus Quamm
|
Opaque
Apr 20, 2004, 18:44
|
"Doesn't this rather undermine one of Mr. Cope's central arguments, in the Modern Antiquarian? Namely, that as monuments celebrating agriculture megaliths symbolise the beginning of the error that is currently destroying the world. "
He is more aware of the pushing back of the dates than I am. I'm sure Driver is a constant forward thinking machine.
"The other question that this begs, for me, is just what it was that inspired the building of megalithic structures. What changed people, giving them monumentality, if it wasn't agriculture?"
As I said, settling. Settling IS nearly always agriculture, but NOT always. Besides, I still support the view that 99% of megalithic sites were created by farmers.
|
Annexus Quamm
|
Blood Red And True
Apr 20, 2004, 18:49
|
Quite, a great book. You should also get Living Goddesses, a beautiful posthumous work that updates that book and makes it easier to digest, adding the research on the various Ur-European proto-faiths.
It is sad that Gimbutas is so discarded. Some people are just happy to dump her theories only after some New Age tosser decided to adopt her as the Goddess creator. It is NOT the simplistic view that she believed in and her work consists of so much more than just that.
|
Annexus Quamm
|
King Of Province Glacial
Apr 20, 2004, 18:51
|
|
Prehistory Of The Mind is the book for you, a great (and slightly long) account that shows what really moved the mind of the ancients.
|
