CPTBILs mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

[Oroblanco]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

HOLA amigos,

Joe <Cactusjumper> wrote

The concept of exploration for the sake of adventure or just to see what's over the hill seems a bit far-fetched for that time period. People were obsessed with surviving the elements and finding food. They, after all, could not smell the availability of such things across the waters.......Well, maybe they could.

Actually you may have hit upon the reason or logic behind humans venturing to Australia and for that matter all new lands - the main driving force being to find food. Hunting pressure on any particular area over time can reduce the prey animals to the point where it will not support the predators (humans in this case) thus driving the predators to seek out new hunting grounds. I have zero evidence to support this contention, other than modern (and conjecture) examples of hunter/gatherer societies which are forced to follow the animal herds, salmon runs, seal rookeries etc. Anthropologists hold that many ancient types of humans did indeed have a sense of smell nearly equal to that of modern dogs, so with Hobbits apparently being of an early type of human (rather than a modern pygmy which is totally homo sapiens sapiens) it is conceivable that they had an excellent sense of smell.

Cactusjumper also wrote

The more I look into the Hobbit subject, the greater my doubts become. I still can't get past the fact that they are finding more bones, but not another complete skull. Why not?? Where did those skulls go?

Hmm another thorny issue - with several possibililties, none too attractive. The easy answer is they have simply been lost over the centuries so we can never find them; another possibility is that the heads were kept by the surviving family members as a "memorial" rather after the fashion of some cultures; (Scythians kept the skulls of their dead enemies as trophies, making ghoulish drinking mugs out of them but this is an extreme example) however that would be to attribute still more cultural practices onto the Hobbits when we have zero evidence to support the idea. One more ugly possibility relates to fairly modern {around 1500 AD?} folk tales of the Hobbits, that they had a habit of stealing children of modern humans and eating them, which would mean they were cannibalistic. (I could ask our resident expert on cannibals as to how human brains tasted, Don Jose, if you would care to enlighten us? ) This folk tale also is given as the reason for the extermination of the last Hobbits, they had stolen children to eat and the villagers were angered enough to burn the Hobbits in their caves. A good question, where are the other skulls? Even a few examples would greatly help to settle the issues of the Hobbits.
Roy ~ Oroblanco

 

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[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Good morning Oro, Joe: Regarding brains and long Mary Kai kai, , I will have you know, that being a chaste, delicate Saint, I have never 'knowingly' partaken - THANKS TO A WITCH DOCTORS CURSE.

As for lack of skulls, it is conceivable that for religious purposes, they were removed and destroyed or cast into the sea to free their former owners to return to their point of origin, or to their version of Valhalla. Aztecs to Aztlan / Atlantis for example??

This habit of freeing souls by breaking or destroying skulls, extended also to pottery, which in turn had a religious overtone..

I am at your service Oro, with Beth's permission of course. How do you wish it to be disposed of?? I am sure that Joe will gladly assist .

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[cactusjumper]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Roy and Don Jose,

Along the lines of finding another skull, an interesting thing happened back in 2006:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,248185,00.HTML

http://scienceblogs.com/afarensis/2007/01/homo_floresiensis_the_chamber.php

Two full years, and I haven't read anything about the results of what they found in that chamber. I believe they had test results from LB1 rather quickly. Michael Morwood also returned to the cave in 2007....I believe.

Take care,

Joe

 

[cactusjumper]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Don Jose,

"Good morning Oro, Joe: Regarding brains and long Mary Kai kai, , I will have you know, that being a chaste, delicate Saint, I have never 'knowingly' partaken - THANKS TO A WITCH DOCTORS CURSE."

One should never let fear of a "Witch Doctor's curse" or the preaching of a priest be the focus of their lives. In this case, the witch doctor's curse should be considered a blessing. Someone named Mary should never be considered.......food, unless she is beef or sheep, in which case she might just be lamb Kai-bob. Left out so as not to offend anyone.

Have you been reading Jack London?

Take care,

Joe

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Evening Joe: Jack London and the Iliad were some of my favorites while growing up. I also inherited a large bundle of old Argosy magazines, naturally I eventually became a worthless bum traveling around to unexplored places.

If I hadn't had a certain sense of elevated moral turpitude, I prob would have ended up as a Lost Dutchman mine hunter or a sheep luvin cowboy.

Incidentally that is why I felt at home when the war took me to the Solomons and the actual setting for Jack's stories. I returned later

While I was there during the war I was assigned to an inner patrol. I promptly became separated, and eventually found myself overlooking a beautiful, crystal clear, small stream. It was perhaps 75 ft. wide, with the most beautiful, white, sandy shore imaginable. Since I was out of water, I just took a loong leap and landed in knee deep water about 7 ft below.

I remember that I drank until I was saturated, then started to fill my canteen. I noticed something out of the corner of my eye, upstream about 10 ft away. Something told me to not to look until I had finished filling my canteen. Finally I couldn't stand it anylonger , so went to investigate.

Sheehs, it was a Jap almost buried in the white, sandy bottom of the slow moving stream. His head and one arm were exposed with long greenish streamers stretching down to me. Yech, the pore guy was disintegrating before my eyes. I managed to keep the water down, but sigh.

As I left, up on the bank just beyond where I had exited from the jungle was a small thatched temporary shack. Naturally I investigated only to find that the locals had partially eaten another Jap there, Most of his bones were still there , but his meat wasn't. I later found that once butchered, it was basically indistinguishable from the local piggies and could be moved around with little chance of discovery by the authorities.

Of course during the war it was declared open smorgasbord on any Japanese the Islanders could find and kill.


Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[cactusjumper]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Don Jose,

Sounds like we had the same tastes (no pun intended) in literature. Did you read "The Jokers of New Gibbon"?

"Sheehs, it was a Jap almost buried in the white, sandy bottom of the slow moving stream. His head and one arm were exposed with long greenish streamers stretching down to me. Yech, the pore guy was disintegrating before my eyes. I managed to keep the water down, but sigh."

Actually, that was a favorite method of tenderizing folks. They say the meat just falls off the bone.

It's interesting to wonder how long it would take, without food, for that Jap to start looking like Sushi?

Bon Appetit!

Joe

 

[cactusjumper]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

You got that right Beep. As they say a mind is like a parachute. It only works when opened.

And yes, saw something about the cocaine in the Egyptian embalming process.

Or what about the petroglyphs in the SW of a Mamoth, although the sceintists claim it is impossible as they all died out prior to man. Heck, what percentage of ancient artifacts have been found? Abesnce of evidence works both ways.

Mr. Adventure,

I fear you have short-changed your research into this Mammoth thingie. Man and Mammoth both inhabited the Southwest at the same time. There are, at least, seven Clovis/Mammoth sites that come readily to mind which would be considered firmly in the Southwest. They are:

Fenn, Drake, Dent, Clovis itself, Murray Springs, Lehner and Naco.

Those are just some of the sites I have read about, and I assume their may be more.

Joe Ribaudo

 

[cactusjumper]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Roy,

You said:

"Remember there are not supposed to be ANY horses in the Americas prior to Columbus...."

It has been said that horses may have originated in the Americas and migrated to Asia over the Land Bridge. They became extinct here around 7,000 B.C.

You also said:

"I respectfully disagree amigo - for starters we need only look at the Clovis culture artifacts. Compare them with the artifacts found in eastern Siberia from the same time period and earlier, totally different. The Siberian culture used not stone tools but bone and antler, with tiny chips of stone set into grooves in the tools, Clovis you know well. Clovis seems to have originated from the Cactus Hill culture, which is nearly identical with Solutrean - and you know where they lived. DNA studies have shown a clear relationship of many (but not all) Amerindians to East Asian peoples, but the route they used to get to America is (in my opinion) far more likely to have been by sea than overland."

Also respectfully:

There is considerable archaeological evidence which shows the portion I highlighted to be, possibly, in error. There have been Paleolithic discoveries in Siberia showing the people's use of knapped/manufactured stone tools, including blades, points, scrapers and choppers, among other stone tools. There were many similarities between Siberian lithics and Clovis. That is not to say they were the same, only similar. I would suggest, "The Paleolithic of Siberia" by, Anatoliy P. Derev'anko.
____________________________________________

The following is unqualified opinion mixed in with archaeological......"facts":

During the Ice Ages, the land masses of both continents were much larger. The continental shelves extended for many miles east and west and created vast plains. Since there were no people on them, at first, and eventually they became huge plains of grass, sedges and other plants that were attractive to Mammoths and other herbivores, it would have been natural for animal migrations onto those plains and away from the human pressure.

It may be that the materials needed, and suitable, for blades and tools became extremely scarce as the Asians moved farther from the mainland, following the Mammoth and other, smaller, game, As that happened, they re-worked the blades and larger tools they had into a microblade technology. Eventually they arrived in North America and followed that same pattern south along the coastline.

Most archaeological evidence of that culture, would have been covered as the ice pack melted and the plains were covered by the ocean. As a result of that, the animals as well as the people moved farther onto the mainland, where Clovis first appeared. Clovis lasted, as a culture, for a very short period......relatively speaking. In truth, they simply blended into other, overlapping, cultures of the period.

It seems likely that the Asians used the land as well as the water to make their crossing, but the impirical evidence does not include boats.

A good deal of the latter part of this post is simply my opinion/theory, gleaned from reading the works of people like: Hopkins, Derev'anko, Dixon, O'neill, Dillehay and a fellow by the name of E.W. Pfizenmayer, who wrote a really good book called "Siberian Man And Mammoth". Should you be able to find a copy, I would squirrel it away for next winter to be read while sitting by the fire with the wind howling outside.

Take care my friend,

Joe

 

[Oroblanco]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

HOLA amigos,
I appreciate the links and book suggestion (starting a new list for the upcoming season) and the interesting replies. Joe I got your EM, will get a reply out tomorrow night and try to post a relevant reply to this very interesting discussion. Sorry for my absence, the boss finally went on vacation so had to stay at the ranch. I should have more time SOON for more important pursuits including our re-writing (or at least curmudgeonly editing) of the history books here! Got to 'hit the hay' so will close here, signed 'the sheep-luvin "cowboy"',
Oroblanco

 

[Oroblanco]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Hello Joe <and HOLA amigos>,
The first link did not work, may be my computer acting up - however in the second article, this passage sure alerted me

quote
This island was the most likely source of the hobbits' ancestors. "My guess is that hominids arrived on Sulawesi a long time before a small group were somehow washed out to sea, to be deposited on Flores," he said. "It is now the place with real potential to surprise."
unquote

I had not considered the possibility that the ancestors of the Hobbits may have simply been carried there quite by chance, a result of some ancient tsunami in which they were fortunate enough to grab onto something that floats. While this seems an extreme long shot (there would have had to be both sexes, for example, they could not have survived long at sea holding onto a floating log, etc) stranger things have happened. Pure accident has been proposed for other seemingly inexplicable cross-oceanic colonizations (bottle gourds for example) and though it is unlikely, it cannot be entirely ruled out.

Perhaps, in consideration of the pure accident idea, the "first" Americans reached these shores also purely by accident? A group of hunters following the herd gets lost and ends up trekking south into America or being driven by storms at sea while "skipping" along the coast in leather boats/kayaks ends up landing in British Columbia (or Chesapeake bay for that matter) - accidental crossings of both oceans continue to occur even today.
your friend,
Roy ~ Oroblanco



PS
Cactusjumper wrote

Lots of animals can learn to do tricks and can advance their "technology"........to a point. As soon as you can find a monkey who will assemble a bicycle on Christmas morning, I am with you on this line of thought.

I have to ask you, along this line of reasoning - do you believe that a Neanderthal man could assemble a bicycle on a Christmas morning? Thank you in advance,

 

[cactusjumper]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Hi Roy,

"I have to ask you, along this line of reasoning - do you believe that a Neanderthal man could assemble a bicycle on a Christmas morning? Thank you in advance,"

Your reply brought the images of the "Geico" commercials immediately to mind. That made me smile. However, I believe you have made my point for me. Neanderthal man has advanced to building a rocket and walking on the moon. Primates, on the other hand, are still
just.......primates.

Take care,

Joe

 

[Old Dog]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

"I have to ask you, along this line of reasoning - do you believe that a Neanderthal man could assemble a bicycle on a Christmas morning? Thank you in advance,"

Bad question My Friend,
Whether we build rockets and walk on the moon,
Most of us would have hands made of thumbs attempting that feat.

LOL,
Thom

 

[cactusjumper]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Thom,

Good to hear from you. Having said that.......Roy has never asked a "bad question". What he does, is ask his question and force you to consider the possibilities. For the most part, this has been a conversation between the two of us, and I believe we are both learning a great deal from those possibilities.

You would make a very nice addition to the process.

Take care,

Joe

 

[Old Dog]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

I have been heartily enjoying the exchange.
I must say though that the pressure of Christmas and assembling a whole useable bike...
creates in all men a problem.
Memories of Christmas 1982.

LOL
Thom

 

[Oroblanco]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

HOLA amigos,

Joe (Cactusjumper) wrote

I believe you have made my point for me. Neanderthal man has advanced to building a rocket and walking on the moon. Primates, on the other hand, are still
just.......primates

I respectfully disagree on this point amigo - here is a Wiki extract

On November 16, 2006, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory issued a press release suggesting that Neanderthals and ancient humans probably did not interbreed.[39] Edward M. Rubin, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), sequenced a fraction (0.00002) of genomic nuclear DNA (nDNA) from a 38,000-year-old Vindia Neanderthal femur bone. They calculated the common ancestor to be about 353,000 years ago, and a complete separation of the ancestors of the species about 188,000 years ago. Their results show the genomes of modern humans and Neanderthals are at least 99.5% identical, but despite this genetic similarity, and despite the two species having coexisted in the same geographic region for thousands of years, Rubin and his team did not find any evidence of any significant crossbreeding between the two. Rubin said, "While unable to definitively conclude that interbreeding between the two species of humans did not occur, analysis of the nuclear DNA from the Neanderthal suggests the low likelihood of it having occurred at any appreciable level."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

Most historians state that Neanderthals went extinct, so none could have worked on any of our Moon rockets. Comparing their technology with that of coexistant Homo Sapiens Sapiens shows a marked inferiority, at least in refinements. Considering that Neanderthals were (believed to be) twice as strong as us, with a sense of smell equal to that of dogs, and somewhat larger brains, their extinction is not entirely logical. I have strong doubts that any Neanderthal (even a few of my old schoolmates) would be able to assemble a bicycle from parts. I don't think we can make safe conclusions about the (relative) intelligence of any race (or species) based purely on brain size.

I would love to hear what Thom, Jose', Pippin and anyone else who would care to venture an opinion to say on this - what do you think? Thank you in advance,
Roy ~ Oroblanco

 

[Old Dog]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Looking at the quality of workmanship that was exhibited in their tool making,
I tend to believe that they did in their own way "build a bike from scrounged parts".
Using only the resources at hand,
were able to create reuseable and refreshable cutting edges that made their lives much more comfortable.

In the course of this they discovered and used fire as a resource as well as many other things.
We don't look at these things as rocket science now days.... but I believe they must have.

I think these ancestors of ours didn't fall to another higher developed group of humanoids,
but instead, depleted their own gene pool. And literally bred themselves out of existence.

 

[cactusjumper]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Gentlemen,

Good points.

As a personal opinion, based on my reading of the history of mankind, I don't believe the Neanderthal lived in a social vacuum. It would seem quite natural that they would have interbred with other branches of human evolution while living in close proximity and era. To a certain extent, that would have excluded the Neanderthal man and mainly consisted of their women. This would probably have strengthened, in the long run, our own gene pool. The reasons for this unequal breeding seem logical.

"While unable to definitively conclude that interbreeding between the two species of humans did not occur, analysis of the nuclear DNA from the Neanderthal suggests the low likelihood of it having occurred at any appreciable level."

As usual, this statement seems to leave a lot of wriggle-room. It may be that the Neanderthal genes have been left so far behind that it is impossible to drag them out of testable DNA. Someone with more knowledge of this subject may very well have a far different opinion.

I have to agree with Thom, in their day, many were the equivalent of the rocket scientist of today. Ten thousand years from today, I believe monkeys will still be very close to the same level they are able to reach right now........with the help of modern man.

Roy,

In the final analyses I believe we have no way of knowing, for sure, that none of today's rocket scientists are distantly related, in some way, to a Neanderthal.

Take care,

Joe

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Joe, if you wish a DNA sample of the still existing Neanderthal line, get the sheep lover to give you a sample of his blood.

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[Oroblanco]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Don Jose', Dueno de Real y Minas de Tayopa wrote

Joe, if you wish a DNA sample of the still existing Neanderthal line, get the sheep lover to give you a sample of his blood.

I am deeply flattered, that you believe me to have double the strength of an average (modern) man, with a sense of smell equal to that of dogs, and a brain somewhat larger than the average (modern) man! Unfortunately, I do not have such strength, no particular olfactory acumen, nor the larger skull packing. Thick skull yes, large brain well....not exactly.

Cactusjumper wrote

As usual, this statement seems to leave a lot of wriggle-room. It may be that the Neanderthal genes have been left so far behind that it is impossible to drag them out of testable DNA. Someone with more knowledge of this subject may very well have a far different opinion.

I presume you are aware of the DNA tests, which have shown that we modern humans are not descended from Neanderthals? We have a common ancestor, so are "cousins" to Neanderthals, but their gene pool dried up with their bones. At least one historian theorized that if Neanderthals had only been 1% more offspring, they would not have gone extinct. Neanderthal DNA was successfully extracted in 1997, and the full genome has been drafted (2009) - here is a blurb to point up,

According to John Hawks, a University of Wisconsin-Madison biologist not involved in the study, the work further dispels the idea that modern humans are closely related to Neanderthals. “Comparing the complete mitochondrial DNA genomes of a Neandertal and many recent humans presents a very different picture,” Hawks says. “Humans are all more similar to each other, than any human is to a Neandertal. And in fact the Neandertal sequence is three or more times as different, on average, from us as we are from each other” [Science News].

more online http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/8...rely-interbred-with-us-very-different-humans/

It is likely that most interactions between Neanderthals and modern humans were in the form of violent confrontations. We were competitor species, with different cultures and almost certainly different languages.

Perhaps this problem of brain size versus mental capacity has more to do with the actual percentage of the brain which is used, rather than the sheer size of it? It has been estimated that we modern humans use only 8 to 10 percent of our brain capacity (less for some of us obviously) so - how much of a Hobbit's brain was being used? How much of a Neanderthal's brain? We cannot know, but it is possible that other species have used more or less of their brain capacity than we do.

Oroblanco


PS forgot to add this, was about to hit the hay and had it open in another window. I thought it would be of interest

An early inference that can be drawn from the new findings, which were announced Thursday in Leipzig, Germany, is that there is no significant trace of Neanderthal genes in modern humans. This confounds the speculation that modern humans could have interbred with Neanderthals, thus benefiting from the genes that adapted the Neanderthals to the cold climate that prevailed in Europe in last ice age, which ended 10,000 years ago. Researchers have not ascertained if human genes entered the Neanderthal population.
from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/science/13neanderthal.html

 

[cactusjumper]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Roy,

I don't really see where any of your sources say that modern man and Neanderthal were not related. To the contrary, they all agree that at some point in time they split on the evolutionary tree, with both lines having a common source. I may not be able to see the BIG picture here, but if they were "cousins", so to speak, we must share some common genes. Is it possible that the DNA pool for Neanderthal is too small for precise/accurate conclusions?

http://archaeology.about.com/do/hominidancestors/a/neander_2.htm

Try as they might, it does not appear that scientists can draw a definitive line or conclusion on our relationship with Neanderthal Man. Evolutionists have spent many years trying to convince the world that man descended from ape/monkeys. Now they would like to make a distinction between modern man's lineage and the protruding brow Neanderthal. There have been many times in my life when I have doubted there was much distance between ourselves and these ancient ancestors.

Take care,

Joe