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I have a large, coffee table book called "The Atlas of World History" and in it, the entire history of humanity is displayed via maps. From the migration out of Africa across the world, to the founding of the first city-states, to the endless wars and conquests which have shaped our very beings, it's all here. A fantastic book and I highly recommend if you like history and maps. I've been reading it daily for years, and it's given me a much deeper understanding of human history, to wit: We're literally babes in the wood. Official history - i.e. written records - starts approximately 3,500BCE - so about 5,500 years ago. While that might seem like a long time, from any other perspective though, it's a blink of the eye. Agriculture started in the Turkey/Syria region about 10,000BCE. And before that, it's 200,000 years of hunting and gathering. And that 200,000 years is the entire history of humanity, because according to current study, there were no Homo Sapiens prior to that, but rather, different people. Some of these people continued alongside the newly minted humans for awhile - fun fact to know and share: Nearderthals are believed to have finally died out only 35,000 years ago in Spain. So, for a long, long time - much longer than our current period of "history", mankind lived with other "people". How did this affect our formation? Our myth? Our beliefs? Fire was first controlled by people before humans - the awesomely named Homo Erectus. Homo Erectus took his fire all over the world as well. But he's gone, as is the Neanderthals and all the other pre-humans, leaving only us. And we just got here! Art began about 20,000 years ago. Here's a classic example found across Europe and into Russia:  These people 20,000 years ago were technically no different than you or I. Same biology, same minds. And yet, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the current Information Age, we are changing, I think. This mode of communication we're using right now is changing us. Makes me think. How about you?
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Aug 7, 2014 18:53
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 09:42 |
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Lawman 0 posted:I have the same book op. It's great, right? I just bought 2 copies as gifts. It's been out of print for awhile, alas.
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Aug 7, 2014 19:00
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John Liver posted:200,000 years of history have all been leading to this moment, as I type glyphs into words into sentences which are carried by machine-tongue across a network of cell towers and satellite feeds that millions upon millions of people and hours were used to make, and now at the climax of all those millennia of life, death, war, peace, discovery, development and struggle, I finally have the power to call the OP a tremendous loving human being. lol exactly. Also, the whole "BC" and "AD" (and subsequently "BCE" and "CE") thing is super lame and I wish we could transition past it to a more rational scheme.
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Aug 7, 2014 19:10
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The BLT posted:Sounds cool. OP, who is the author there are several books of the same title on amazon. TIA Jeremy Black is the editor. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-World-H...ry+jeremy+black
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Aug 7, 2014 20:59
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Frostwerks posted:floresiensis you chode Why? Erectus controlled fire and is clearly number 1.
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Aug 7, 2014 20:59
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Cesar Cedeno posted:Did anyone ever thank the Nazi's properly from saving mankind from those weird grey aliens who nuked us? The NAZI's had some small effect on the DNA evolution of humanity, but it's easily overcome if people got into excessive loving.
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Aug 7, 2014 21:51
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Calvin Johnson Jr. posted:that sounds like the perfect coffee table book so thank you op? You're welcome! I hope you get it, I love it. For example, they have a page of maps of the growth of early Egypt, and they're amazing. The maps are laid out so East is at the top, and as such you see the influence of the Nile and the eventual interaction of Egypt with the Hittites/Mittani/Greeks.
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Aug 8, 2014 03:06
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FYI the poll option "goons" was added by a mod - I assume Spanish Manlove - and as such should not be considered in my poll.
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Aug 8, 2014 03:26
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SpicyMeatSandwich posted:You forgot the part about ancient astronaut aliens and out of place artifacts 
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Aug 8, 2014 03:27
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Aug 8, 2014 04:04
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Cream_Filling posted:i really feel the op missed the mark when he didnt title the poll "whats your favorite Homo?" You're probably right. Watch this forum in a couple of days.
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Aug 8, 2014 04:36
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James Woods posted:Out of the void comes complexity. Protons, neutrons, and electrons become atoms. Atoms become molecules. Molecules become life. Life becomes more complex and efficient in competition for limited resources. The ancestors of man come on the scene and for the first time in the history of life on earth a species is able to use their intelligence to overcome the balance and use things like tools and communication to defeat the monsters that had previously culled their heard. Once the monsters are dead the different breeds of men, Erectus, Clovis, Neanderthal, are all murdered or raped into oblivion by Homo Sapiens. Homo Sapiens harness agriculture to exert their dominance over the earth and in the generations that follow technology and "progress" skyrocket out of control. Man finally has dominion over the planet and fulfills his destiny as apex predator and kills all life on earth including himself. 
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Aug 8, 2014 05:51
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tentative8e8op posted:I super hope our generation will be able to effectively live forever, like, upload my mind into a machine please. Same.
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Aug 8, 2014 06:03
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The Dennis System posted:It bothers me that people use that carving of the obese woman in the OP as evidence that dudes used to find obese women attractive. We don't know what that carving is supposed to represent. Who says it's supposed to represent a hot chick? True, but the prevalence of these figurines across a wide area indicates that they were popular. Why were they popular? Given the fatness of the chick in an age of hunting and gathering when one assumes very, very few people were fat, it seems obvious to conclude they are fertility symbols, also a symbol of abundance. I doubt they were simply statues of "hot chicks".
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Aug 8, 2014 15:47
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Negative Entropy posted:How so? The internet is a new form of communication invented by humans. It will change the nature of society and human interaction. It already is, I think. Look at us losers. What happens to humanity when we're able to quite literally access a hive mind?
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Aug 8, 2014 17:32
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nomadologique posted:Wtf no denisovans in poll A and B you need a new book op cuz this Yeah, I was wrong with that number. I didn't think the Venus statues went that far back though. Also, the first cave art is in Australia of all places, circa 45,000 years ago. I'm sure there's jewelry that's far older, and I guess you could count body paint as art. But I think art itself is the creation of humans. One of our defining traits.
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Aug 8, 2014 17:52
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Question: In this book I've referenced, they have a map showing the locations of discoveries of pre-humans. You have the neaderthals concentrated in Europe for the most part. Homo Erectus bones are all discovered in China and East Asia, and nowhere else. Is it logical to conclude that the differences in appearance among humans AND the differences in culture originally stem from different populations of pre-humans? Given the new discoveries of neaderthal and denisovian DNA in modern people, are we all, in fact, the "same"?
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Aug 8, 2014 18:13
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nomadologique posted:http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Hohle_Fels "35000 to 40000" so I overshot a tad We have evidence of Neaderthal art - things they put in burials. But I recall a theory stating they adopted this behavior from humans. I don't think it's controversial to consider art uniquely human.
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Aug 8, 2014 18:15
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Claven666 posted:me too! my girlfirend picked it up in a thrift store for five bucks. we like to get really baked and open it to random pages. cue like 30 minites of silence except for page turning It's great. One of my favorite maps is the one showing the colonization of the South Pacific by the Lapita culture from New Guinea. Those folks were bad rear end - how the gently caress did they find Hawaii, for example? Boggles the mind.
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Aug 8, 2014 18:18
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nomadologique posted:I don't care about whether or not it's controversial lots of uncontroversial things have turned out to be bullshit and I strongly suspect this is one of those. Humans still, despite advance in science and philosophy, are struggling desperately to differentiate themselves from "lower" animals, and it's always painful to give up an age old marker of that difference. No animal is creating art in the wild. That some captured elephants make art is more a product of their human captors than the animals themselves. Did Erectus have art? There's no evidence. He had fire, and I'd argue fire is necessary for culture. So, maybe?
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Aug 8, 2014 18:26
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nomadologique posted:I think it's an open question whether animals are making art in the wild. Whether or not elephants learn art from humans doesn't change their artistic capacity. I don't think it's demonstrably false at all. Your example of elephants making art is certainly not proof otherwise. Same with that famous gorilla that made art too. These examples of animal art are clearly created due to the promptings of their human handlers. I've never heard of an example of an elephant or gorilla making art in the wild, completely unrelated to humans.
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Aug 8, 2014 19:36
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Lawman 0 posted:I unironnically hope that one day we bring dolphins, whales, elephants, and the great apes with us when we go colonize other star systems. As if we'll see off-world colonization in our lifetimes, friend. No, those dreams are for future, as yet unborn humans.
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Aug 8, 2014 21:48
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SirEvelynTremble posted:Nature is art Tangentally, is the lady in your AV getting it from behind in that picture? If not, what is going on there?
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Aug 8, 2014 21:49
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Lawman 0 posted:yeah Blame Reagan.
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Aug 8, 2014 21:59
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Frostwerks posted:redshirt you should kill yourself, an action that is truly uniquely human I've been thinking about it, thanks for the reminder.  It's true though, does any other animal commit suicide if completely healthy?
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Aug 8, 2014 22:19
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OMFG FURRY posted:whales Isn't beaching usually a consequence of some sickness with the whale? Or just stupidity?
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Aug 8, 2014 22:22
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bigzak posted:Neat thread. I might get that book you're chiming on about If you like maps and history you'll love it.
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Aug 9, 2014 00:55
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Now we get down to the nitty gritty: I'm super impressed by Iranian culture surviving and thriving for 6000 years. Conquerors came and went, empires rose and fell, and through it all the Iranians persisted. They even kinda kept a version of Zoroaster going.
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Aug 9, 2014 00:58
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Negative Entropy posted:In my gay opinion, we can think of animal brains in general as machines which categorize differences, or information, and that coordinate sensory information with preprogrammed physical responses (eg. fight-or-flight, Imprinting, sex). But non-human animals do not have the ability to think of objects in anything other than concrete terms, where information is bound to physical objects. A hawk is a hawk, a mate a mate, and nothing else. There is no room for metaphor or insight. Humans have the ability to separate the information contained in a physical object from the object itself and communicate information with symbols alone, which we would call abstraction. Language, math, music, and art are some of these abstractions. Notice how many early languages used pictographs. drawing a picture of a horse to represent a horse, gradually moving to further and further levels of abstraction until I can write "horse" and instantly convey a picture of a particular four-legged animal that neighs despite "horse" having no real connection to horses whatsoever. By being able to divorce meaning from physical objects, we can then make generalizations and make novel associations between objects which otherwise might seem completely unrelated, leading to technology, logic, and civilization.
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Aug 9, 2014 03:52
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 09:42 |
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Seriously though, you're all gay.
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Aug 9, 2014 08:50
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