tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90022942567598807112024-03-17T23:03:20.027-04:00Deconstructing TimeDECONSTRUCTING TIME: This blog is about the human experience of time. In a sense time is all you have. What could you gain by standing a bit outside of time? Although the clock will continue to tick, your relation to time will be changed. All photos: commons.wikimedia.org unless noted. All blog posts are licensed under the Creative Commons copyright license Attribution CC BY -- you may use what you choose as long as you credit this blog and the author Rick Doble.Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.comBlogger143125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-14697281680895645472024-03-01T00:30:00.001-05:002024-03-10T18:47:47.195-04:00Manifesto Study of Time Department at a University<div style="text-align: left;"><h1 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrY9vwZMIuvkqmSrMTtBe-wd5YOag4RCXywryKEyhWja-nFBTvsH9qEaiXQVajOUB2NqwBZh5N7HHyWzYV2Xkuwy2lHUApIyQUv2nDCBFnqXpG8ij15k064WtOlQfT-Qm3Eh4aWGxSDTOO0MERPOK3taumGfAh-zm3LHw_WzlMw2KVFyURkxncKzf-xdg/s810/MANIFESTO_6B.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="810" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrY9vwZMIuvkqmSrMTtBe-wd5YOag4RCXywryKEyhWja-nFBTvsH9qEaiXQVajOUB2NqwBZh5N7HHyWzYV2Xkuwy2lHUApIyQUv2nDCBFnqXpG8ij15k064WtOlQfT-Qm3Eh4aWGxSDTOO0MERPOK3taumGfAh-zm3LHw_WzlMw2KVFyURkxncKzf-xdg/w640-h322/MANIFESTO_6B.jpg" width="640" /></a></h1><div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><span style="font-family: times;">A SCIENCE MANIFESTO:<br /></span></span>Why Is There No <br />University Department for<br />The Study of Time?<br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">By Rick Doble</span></span></h1></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE PURPOSE OF THIS MANIFESTO<br /><br /></b></span></h1><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>The point of this manifesto is very simple. We evolved from animals who lived in the moment, yet today we work with time, manage time, schedule time, and coordinate time in a linear fashion. Time for us is the past, the present, and the future plus duration. Our civilizations could not exist or function without this sense of time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Since this is so critical, why is there no department at a university that deals with the nature of time as it relates to humans and civilization?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Therefore the first question is how did we develop a totally different sense of time? My guess is that this took millions of years and happened in stages.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>"It must have required enormous effort</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>for man to overcome his natural tendency</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>to live like the animals in a continual present."</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Whitrow, Gerald James. <i>Time in History:</i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Views of Time from Prehistory to the Present Day.</i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press. 1988, page 22.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Why is this important? We could not have created civilizations and technologies without understanding linear time. We have become the dominant species on the planet because we can manage time, plan with time, build with time, and coordinate with time. Time is crucial to our power.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>If we are to understand how we developed and came to be who we are, we must study and investigate many different aspects of time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Then the next question is how should we deal with the future because our understanding of time will be a major factor?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>This is not an academic exercise. An understanding of time and how things will occur in the future will be crucial in our efforts to deal with climate change and global warming. To put it bluntly, our survival may depend on it.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>A Department for 'The Study of Time' or 'Time-Studoes' at a university could delve into these subjects and shed light on these important questions.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span><div style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><b>WHY IS THE STUDY OF TIME IMPORTANT?<br /><br /></b></span></h1><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Nothing in life exists or has existed or will exist that is independent of time. (We'll leave the black hole questions to physicists but anyway, we are talking about life.) We live our lives according to the passage of time. </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Our civilizations could not function without our synchronized clocks, time zones, and time stamps. The world we live in could not operate without a shared understanding of time.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"></div><blockquote style="font-weight: bold;"><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"Is 'time' the most commonly used noun in the English language?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"...an Oxford dictionary...announc[ed] that the word is the most often used noun in the English language." </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Study: <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/study-time-is-most-often-used-noun/#:~:text=For%20those%20who%20think%20the,noun%20in%20the%20English%20language." target="_blank">'Time' Is Most Often Used Noun</a> - CBS News. Jun 22, 2006.</span></div><div></div></blockquote><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">When you die, the date you were born and the date you died will be on your gravestone. </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Time is fundamental and vital to each of us individually, to our families, to our communities, our nations, and our planet. </span></div><div style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><b>WHAT HAS PREVENTED <br />THE STUDY OF TIME?<br /><br /></b></span></h1><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>The answer is simple: Most people believe that time is, well, just time and there is very little that can be said about it or done about it. Furthermore, they don't believe that cultures shape and mold our understanding of time. Time is so much a part of what we do every day, every year, every lifetime, that it is like asking a fish to describe water.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>"A deep-sea fish has probably no means of apprehending the existence of water; it is too uniformly immersed in it..."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Lodge, Sir Oliver. <i>Ether and Reality: A Series of Discourses on the Many Functions of the Ether of Space,</i> (1925), 28.</b></span></div></blockquote><p> </p><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>I believe the complexity of time is, in a sense, hiding in plain sight. Time is here all around us and always a part of us, but thinking about it is difficult.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div></div></span></div><div><span><h1 style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">EXAMPLES OF HIDDEN TIME<br /><br /></span></b></h1></span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>I searched the Internet for articles about what is unique about human beings, i.e., what separates us from animals. It is clear that our ability to conceive and work with linear time is one of our unique characteristics. We are the only animal that has a sophisticated concept of linear time and as a result, we can design and build and cooperate. <br /><br />However, I read numerous articles from prestigious universities about what is uniquely human, and not one mentioned our concept of time. Here is an example.<br /><br />The following statement from Harvard University involves time and does not make sense without an understanding of time, but time itself is never mentioned. Time is embedded but not obvious.<br /><br /><blockquote>"The unique brain mechanisms underlying human language also enhance human cognitive ability, allowing us to derive abstract concepts and to plan complex activities."<br /><a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674921832#:~:text=The%20unique%20brain%20mechanisms%20underlying,true%20altruism%20and%20moral%20behavior.">Uniquely Human</a> - Harvard University Press. <b>Jacket description of the book. </b><b>Lieberman, Philip. <i>Uniquely Human: The Evolution of Speech, Thought, and Selfless Behavior</i>. Harvard University Press. 1993.</b></blockquote></b><b><br />Planning requires an understanding of time. And planning complex activities requires an advanced and sophisticated understanding of time.<br /><br />Here is another example from Oxford University.<br /><blockquote>"We tend to think that being able to plan into the future, be flexible in our approach and learn from others are things that are particularly impressive about humans," says senior researcher Professor Matthew Rushworth of Oxford University's Department of Experimental Psychology.<br />---------------------------<br />"Brain area unique to humans linked to cognitive powers." Published: 28 Jan 2014.<br /><a href="https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-01-28-brain-area-unique-humans-linked-cognitive-powers">https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-01-28-brain-area-unique-humans-linked-cognitive-powers</a></blockquote><p><b>While this article mentions planning into the future, it does not deal with how time, itself, is understood. Yet planning and many other activities are based on an understanding of time which is fundamental.</b></p></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">TIME IS A FACT OF LIFE</span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: times;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>BUT CULTURES SHAPE</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>OUR UNDERSTANDING<br /></b></div></span></b></span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br />It is important to say from the outset that time is an objective fact of life.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>"Time and tide wait for no man."</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Geoffrey Chaucer (born 1343 - died 1400),</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Prologue to The Clerk's Tale, <i>Canterbury Tales</i>. 1395.</b></div><br />But the way we conceive of time and coordinate time is very human. Time is not only an objective reality but also a human concept. How we understand time today and how we may have understood it in the past are probably quite different. I believe that the ways it was understood by hunter-gatherers in the 3 Paleolithic eras and people in the Neolithic era, in the Ancient, Classical, and Medieval eras were all very different.<br /><br />I think a culture shapes and indoctrinates a shared concept of time. For example, a contemporary hunter-gatherer tribe, the Piraha tribe in the Amazon, thinks of time in immediate terms. Dr. Daniel Everett, the acknowledged expert on this culture, calls it the Immediacy of Experience Principle. Their window of time conception is about two days in the past and two days in the future. Beyond those points, they don't imagine, plan, or conceptualize. But don't think of them as being primitive. They have a complex language that identifies time and reality, such as who saw something and when did they see it. There are over 65,000 possible ways to express such things in this language. <br /><br />This is just one example of how a culture can shape an understanding of time. There are others. For example, some cultures today see the past as ahead of us instead of behind us. <br /><br />Now, you might disagree that cultures can shape our understanding of time. But this is a perfect example of why there needs to be a Department of Time-Studies. This hypothesis needs to be explored and researched and this should be done by knowledgeable academic professionals.</b></span></div></div><div><span><div style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></b></div></span><div><span><span><div style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div></span></span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>10 AREAS THAT NEED TO BE RESEARCHED</b></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b>AT A UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT FOR</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>'THE STUDY OF TIME'<br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div></b></span><span><span><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Time, like any subject, has a history, a history of time concepts by humans, a history of time-keeping methods and devices, a history of time coordination, and also a history of how time has been thought of. Plus there are many other areas that need to be studied such as how the brain processes time considerations. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>These different areas need to be studied from a time point of view. This means that researchers, scientists, and scholars must walk a fine line. They need to look at subjects from a time POV but not be biased and 'read in' facts and results that are not warranted.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>#1. THE BRAIN:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Our human brain is unique both in size and its cognitive abilities. I maintain that both our perception of time, our memories, and our ability to manage time are only possible because of the way our brains are put together. With cutting-edge brain research that is now possible all of these areas need to be explored. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>For example, how does the brain handle a simple sentence like this "When I complete this job that I am working on, I will be done for the day." It sounds simple but it involves imagining a future in which the present and the associated future activity, i.e., the job, is past.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>#2. CONSCIOUSNESS:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>I think it is clear that an understanding of time is a major part of consciousness. But furthermore (and this is just a guess) an understanding of time is/was integral to the development of consciousness. I believe that our sense of time developed in tandem with the development of consciousness. In my study of time during the last eleven years, this was one idea that jumped out at me. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>I found one example that pointed in this direction. When blind/deaf Helen Keller suddenly understood words for the first time, she went from an unconscious state to a conscious state and also became aware of time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>#3. PROCESSES AND TECHNOLOGIES:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>A sense of time and an understanding of time may have taken several million years to develop. During this time the size of the brain grew larger as memory and imagination abilities increased along with manual and cognitive skills. At the same time, basic technologies emerged and evolved such as stone tools. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>My research led me to believe that basket-making or woven-fiber technology was also one of the early technologies. Creating woven-fiber tools (a basket is a tool!) became increasingly complex which required greater cognitive skills. Making a basket (just one example of a woven-fiber tool) required imagining the basket, finding the materials for the design, processing those materials, and then making the basket. The design of a basket needed to be such that it worked for the purpose for which it was designed, Step by step processes were early examples of the use and understanding of linear time since a process is linear. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>"Man must have been conscious of memories and purposes long before he made any explicit distinction between past, present, and future."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Whitrow, Gerald. <i>Time in History: Views of Time from Prehistory to the Present Day. </i>Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press. 1988, pages 21-22.</b></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>The key to working with processes was to understand and plan the necessary steps in linear terms. This was, I believe, the beginning of thinking about time with a past, present, future, and duration. This does not mean that all time had to be thought of this way, but processes and planning needed to be thought of like this.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Processes invariably became more advanced as additional steps were added which required more complex cognitive skills and a more nuanced understanding of time. Archaeologists have found millions of stone tools from the earliest ones in the Paleolithic era to the most recent in the Neolithic era. Each stage indicated a more advanced and complex process to make the tools. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>#4. LANGUAGE:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Words are the main tools we humans use to imagine and manage time. Most languages have a full set of verb tenses although some do not. Yet all can covey a full and complex picture of time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>When language emerged and developed, it added another set of tools to the ability to communicate and teach about time plus it added tools for planning, managing, and working with time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>"For words are to thought what tools are to work; </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>the product depends largely on the growth of the tools."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Durant,</b></span><b style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> Will. </b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium; font-style: italic;"><b>The Story of Civilization</b></span><b style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>: Vol. 1, </i>p. 71, 1935.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>"Time reference is a universal property of language..."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Lecarme, Jacqueline, Ph.D. Linguistics. "<i>Nominal Tense and Tense Theory</i>." Academia.edu, 1998. </b></span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.academia.edu/2486019/Nominal_Tense_and_Tense_Theory">https://www.academia.edu/2486019/Nominal_Tense_and_Tense_Theory</a></b></span></div></div></blockquote><p> </p><div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>As I quoted earlier:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>"The unique brain mechanisms underlying human language also enhance human cognitive ability, allowing us to derive abstract concepts and to plan complex activities."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674921832#:~:text=The%20unique%20brain%20mechanisms%20underlying,true%20altruism%20and%20moral%20behavior">Uniquely Human </a>- Harvard University Press . </b></span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Jacket description of the book.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Lieberman, Philip. <i>Uniquely Human: The Evolution of Speech, Thought, and Selfless Behavior</i>. Harvard University Press. 1993.</b></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>A study of languages with the POV of how time is conceptualized, worked with, and shared along with how children learn language and time concepts (next) might yield important insights. This is a key area for research.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>#5. CULTURE:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>While time is real and relentless in its march forward, our cultures shape how we understand time, communicate about time, coordinate time, plan time, etc. Our understanding of time is, in many ways, learned. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>For example, time management is one of the main skills that is taught in schools, i.e., how to meet deadlines, show up to class on time, pace yourself to complete a complex job, plan how to manage a project, etc.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>#6. CHILDHOOD:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>How do children acquire a sense of linear time? How much is cultural? For example, most children speak in the present tense until they are about 8-10 years old. What happens when they begin to use the past tense? What are they taught about time, and what do they learn and when? </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Studying the way children learn time concepts, along with the way they work with time, might shed light on our modern sense of time along with ideas about how prehistoric cultures might have developed and used their sense of time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>"Unfortunately, we are not very well informed in the psychology of primitive man, but there are children all around us, and it is in studying children that we have the best chance of studying the development of logical knowledge, physical knowledge, and so forth."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>Piaget, Jean. "<i>Genetic Epistemology.</i>" Columbia Forum, (1969), 12, 4.</b></span> </div></blockquote></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>$7. THE DIMENSIONS OF TIME</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>We can think of time as having three dimensions. Immediate time is one-dimensional and without it, nothing would exist. Cyclical time is two dimensional with repeating cycles such as sunrise and sunset, spring and autumn, birth and death. And finally, there is linear time with the past, present, and future always moving forward. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>While the modern world has adopted linear time, we still have a deep need to experience time in the moment. We can do this and become excited in the moment with live sports events and live music. These have the immediacy that we crave. We also need to experience cyclical time. And we do this every year, for example, with annual repeating points in time such as Christmas and New Year's Day or Halloween.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>This could be another area of research for a time-studies curriculum at a university.</b></span></div><div style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></div></span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><span><div><br /></div></span>#8. TIME IN PREHISTORY AND ANCIENT TIMES:<br />-- Animal existence and the Lower & Middle Paleolithic:<br />Since we began as animals who lived in the present, how did we acquire a linear sense of time? How is the human brain different? How did our memory develop? How did planning develop? How long did this take?<br />Scientists have reenacted tool-making at their different stages and then measured brain activity. These experiments have given these researchers a general idea of early hominin cognitive abilities and how they developed over millions of years.<br />-- The Upper Paleolithic<br />By the Upper Paleolithic, when the human brain was fully developed and as advanced as our brains today, a conscious understanding of linear time may have evolved that was almost immediate. This was possibly a window of time that was only a day or two. This later may have developed into a sense of time that we have evidence for. The contemporary nomadic hunter-gatherer Piraha tribe in the Amazon has an immediate sense of time with a window of about five days: the present and two days before and two days in the future. Their way of thinking suggests that Upper Paleolithic nomadic hunter-gatherers may have functioned this way as well.<br />-- The Neolithic:<br />The change from a momentary sense of time, that probably occurred during the Paleolithic era, to a linear year-long sense of time in the Neolithic era, was as revolutionary as the change to a sedentary agricultural lifestyle that occurred in the Neolithic. What can we understand from the Neolithic evidence that has been left? There are, for example, many structures that were built to determine the time of the winter solstice such as Newgrange in Ireland and more than a hundred 'circular enclosures' in Germany and Central Europe. It appears that knowing a precise point in time during the year's cycle was important.<br />In the Neolithic era when yearly planting was essential, long-term linear time probably developed, i.e., it was time based on the seasons but probably within a cosmic view that was cyclical, since the seasons repeated every year. <br />-- Ancient and Classical Civilizations:<br />To govern a large civilization in Mesopotamia and Egypt, there had to be a way to gauge time, to track time, to standardize time, to schedule and coordinate time, to plan, and to keep a record of time. How did this start, develop, and work after thousands of years? Researchers can study many records that are available for this time period.<br />-- Medieval Clocks and the Industrial Age:<br />While not often appreciated, many large complex clocks were built in the Middle Ages using the gearing geometry of Ptolemy who had created the most accurate Geocentric (earth-centered) astronomy. While his astronomy was superseded by Heliocentric (sun-centered) Copernican astronomy, his gearing worked extremely well and was used to build these clocks. These clocks became the basis for industrial machinery and so led directly to the Industrial Revolution. <br /><br /><blockquote>"The clock, not the steam engine, is the key machine of the modern industrial age."<br />Mumford, Lewis. <i>Technics and Civilization</i>. Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934, Ch. 1, sct. 2. </blockquote></b></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><div style="font-size: large;"><div><b></b></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>#9. THE MODERN UNDERSTANDING OF TIME:</b></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Our modern sense of time is, in a sense, the reverse of the Neolithic cosmic view of time that was primarily cyclical. Now cyclical time (New Year's Day, Halloween) exists within linear time, i.e., year 2023, year 2024, year 2025. Round cyclical clocks that emphasize the repeating nature of time are being replaced by linear digital clocks whose numbers only go forward.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>In the mechanized consumer world of today, time is a commodity. Time is sliced into exact sections of seconds, minutes and hours. We think of time as a resource. We can save time, spend time, or waste time, for example. Time is money, as the saying goes.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Time today is a product of the Industrial Revolution and is machine-based. At the heart of all computers is a clock. Our lives are run by the clock: from the alarm ringing in the morning to that extra drink Friday night because the workweek has finally ended. The time we live with now is mechanical.</b></span></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>How can we learn to be comfortable with time instead of feeling trapped by time? Today there are many different time styles.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>#10. TIME, THE FUTURE, AND THE ENVIRONMENT: </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>To survive as a species, we need to develop a new understanding of time. While we have enjoyed the immediate benefits of our advanced technology, we have ignored the long-term consequences. Furthermore, this new way of thinking needs to be a shared global effort. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Our first job in developing this new understanding is to study how the environment will change based on what we have done so far. If our assessment is accurate, it would allow planning for things such as sea level rise or the possible change in worldwide ocean currents that could radically alter the climate in some countries. Understanding how quickly or slowly changes will occur will be critical. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Next, we need to design technologies that have no impact on the environment. We need to take the time to design, plan, and manufacture so that the consequences, by-products, and side effects do not affect the environment. And this needs to be done on a global scale.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Finally, we need to build for the future even though we may not see the benefits in our lifetime. Called cathedral thinking, we may need to design and start building for the long term future. We need to do this so that we can reverse some of the damage we have done and prevent further damage to the environment.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>For these ideas to be persuasive, research needs to determine the best ways to communicate this need, how to convince people of its importance, and then how to get people and industries to adopt a long-term point of view.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYqs23tninB5Gze_aW6IsdBwkPDHmGYnCDDONJiwHSAL0n5rezlLJ1nPVH2Z4G2eth5u1tkDaM_jf-Naja4Ape63RTfLeRhVG6Wly0fbqTO-fI8xJdP4EQ5SGTuKG9r15Qji5gIz4oIC3r4_w_UzC-kUtuQP6vjVnRhGJcuisRUfX3zo2RzIPckFMb93k/s1024/The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1023" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYqs23tninB5Gze_aW6IsdBwkPDHmGYnCDDONJiwHSAL0n5rezlLJ1nPVH2Z4G2eth5u1tkDaM_jf-Naja4Ape63RTfLeRhVG6Wly0fbqTO-fI8xJdP4EQ5SGTuKG9r15Qji5gIz4oIC3r4_w_UzC-kUtuQP6vjVnRhGJcuisRUfX3zo2RzIPckFMb93k/w640-h640/The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div><div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b>_____________________________________________</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>For In-Depth Articles <br />About These Topics </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Go To <br />The DeconstructingTime Blog</b></span></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;">The DeconstructingTime Blog Web Address</div><div style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/</a></div><div style="font-size: large;">Most articles are available as PDF files you can view or download.</div><div style="font-size: large;">You can download PDF's at:</div><div style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://unc.academia.edu/RickDoble/Drafts">https://unc.academia.edu/RickDoble/Drafts</a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>The following is a sample </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>of the over 125 in-depth articles </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>about the Human Understanding of Time (HUT)</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;">Key Ideas About the Evolution of the Human Understanding of Time (HUT)</div><div style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-big-picture-about-time-humanity.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-big-picture-about-time-humanity.html</a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;">Should "The Stone Age" Be Called "The Stone and Basket Age?"</div><div style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2023/05/rename-stone-age-as-stone-and-basket-age.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2023/05/rename-stone-age-as-stone-and-basket-age.html</a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;">Time & Consciousness and Helen Keller</div><div style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/12/time-consciousness.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/12/time-consciousness.html</a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;">Animal Senses Compared to the Human Sense of Time</div><div style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/08/animal-senses-compared-to-human-sense.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/08/animal-senses-compared-to-human-sense.html</a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;">How the Discredited Geocentric Cosmos Was a Critical Component of the Scientific Revolution</div><div style="font-size: large;">OR </div><div style="font-size: large;">How Ptolemy's Geocentric Astronomy Helped Build the Modern World</div><div style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-discredited-geocentric-cosmos-was.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-discredited-geocentric-cosmos-was.html</a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;">How Language Began And the Human Understanding of Time:</div><div style="font-size: large;">Daniel Everett's New Theories About the Evolution of Language </div><div style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2018/10/everett-how-language-began-and-human-time-keeping.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2018/10/everett-how-language-began-and-human-time-keeping.html</a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The Neolithic Cognitive Leap:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">More Than a Revolution the New Stone Age</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Involved a New Understanding of Time</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/05/neolithic-concepts-of-time.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/05/neolithic-concepts-of-time.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Evidence for a Basket Weaving</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and Woven-Fiber Technology</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">in the Paleolithic Era</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The Importance of Processes in the Paleolithic Era</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-importance-of-processes-in.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-importance-of-processes-in.html</a></span></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;"><div>Rick Doble's Theory About </div><div>The Human Understanding of Time (HUT)</div><div>AN OVERVIEW</div><div><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/10/hut-theory-human-understanding-of-time.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/10/hut-theory-human-understanding-of-time.html</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></span></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-27951347343321279282024-02-01T03:02:00.002-05:002024-02-03T05:20:32.370-05:00The Big Picture About Time & Humanity<div style="text-align: left;"><h1 align="CENTER" class="western"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;">KEY
IDEAS<br />ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF <br />THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING OF
TIME (HUT)</span></span></span></h1><h1><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">An overview of Rick Doble's theory</span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;">about the development of time concepts by humans</div> </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">with specific points highlighted.</div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmH0281NPuynbPqDzfErrtgaXkaNRASWvX0EXX48NCvSFGliFsy6mXGSbT1l0EJ4UY2cWsQtpyneEilsvsDJqGFotgOaYp-N83vNSz5GlMCo8XRLAZ5X_yTe1jD7B6rnkx2X2rh4r1UFGLrY9_k7wucKu0zv_eN1_XDkH5CCcXVReajZ-xuV4m6cFmdQg/s640/AN01403084_001_la.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="479" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmH0281NPuynbPqDzfErrtgaXkaNRASWvX0EXX48NCvSFGliFsy6mXGSbT1l0EJ4UY2cWsQtpyneEilsvsDJqGFotgOaYp-N83vNSz5GlMCo8XRLAZ5X_yTe1jD7B6rnkx2X2rh4r1UFGLrY9_k7wucKu0zv_eN1_XDkH5CCcXVReajZ-xuV4m6cFmdQg/w640-h480/AN01403084_001_la.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">"Father Time: Time personified especially as a bearded old man</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">holding a scythe and an hourglass" (and often with wings because 'time flies').</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This mythical character probably evolved from</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">the Greek god of time, Cronus, and the Roman god, Saturn.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">(Quotation from: Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary)</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></div></div></h1><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Le</b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">t's "cut to the chase" as they say in filmmaking. Here are some big ideas which taken together map out how our sense of time may have evolved according to my ideas and why it is important. I have written in-depth about most of these but I will go into much more detail in future blogs. For now, these will give you an overview. </b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Later you might want to read some of my many (over 100) articles about the Human Understanding of Time (HUT).</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Download PDF's at:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://unc.academia.edu/RickDoble/Drafts">https://unc.academia.edu/RickDoble/Drafts</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>Why is this important?</b></span></h2><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I believe that we became the dominant species on the planet because we learned to manage time and to work with time. We are the only animal that does this in a pervasive way. Our understanding of past, present, future, and duration allowed us to take control of our environment. Our shared cultural sense of time is critical when it comes to creating, planning, building, and being civilized. <br /><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But a different sense of time may be important in the future. Climate change requires that we consider the future consequences of our technology and also that we plan and respond to changes with both long-term and short-term technology and behavior.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv_qbbi2F4ysuJQtGsnToBS28ZIc_467biHbmNORzneJgflK8qgg8KKWf2Ny1Yc7ZkeEGU9CiAnqoQ9wbjaXOygQCbndpgel9oXO2EkY07XXaOdr1a62cYEoC4CQsDbC1Rcl-OSm3YwuDBLa3nEThCBGUvUkmukwiBXoNQA2Wy7bKl-vqy104QDKVfZcs/s1024/The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1023" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv_qbbi2F4ysuJQtGsnToBS28ZIc_467biHbmNORzneJgflK8qgg8KKWf2Ny1Yc7ZkeEGU9CiAnqoQ9wbjaXOygQCbndpgel9oXO2EkY07XXaOdr1a62cYEoC4CQsDbC1Rcl-OSm3YwuDBLa3nEThCBGUvUkmukwiBXoNQA2Wy7bKl-vqy104QDKVfZcs/w640-h640/The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>GENERAL OVERVIEW</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Studies agree that all animals, except us, live with an immediate sense of time. But our species slowly evolved a linear sense of time with a past, present, future, and duration. This may have taken a million or millions of years to evolve and probably went through several stages.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b>"It must have required enormous effort <br />for man to overcome his natural tendency <br />to live like the animals in a continual present. "</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Whitrow, Gerald James. <i>Time in History: Views of Time from Prehistory to the Present Day.</i> Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press. 1988, page 22.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>SPECIFIC POINTS </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#1. Our sense of time developed due to our increasingly larger brains and our early cognitive thinking that included an ability to consider different future moves (i.e., the part of our brain that allowed this is the pre-frontal cortex; our particular kind is unique to Homo sapiens).</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">My most popular article:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/08/animal-senses-compared-to-human-sense.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/08/animal-senses-compared-to-human-sense.html</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXcE999a4Mwjn-NeJSJdWePhDh-cyY0IvkpPuhcAXpvMiapGoRXwgD4iAqSQSFdofe-xs9MKaQI0QSn2GJVsvaPU6_en0KPGnYsyZNzctHc84zEwvIP1yu3F7gTVO1EO7fYx6Pxo9u9BrmvL6HidRbdBi9Ae8868fx4XbVDJJXwcUYTYx4V7E7LTfEpgw/s640/MRI_head_sidea.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXcE999a4Mwjn-NeJSJdWePhDh-cyY0IvkpPuhcAXpvMiapGoRXwgD4iAqSQSFdofe-xs9MKaQI0QSn2GJVsvaPU6_en0KPGnYsyZNzctHc84zEwvIP1yu3F7gTVO1EO7fYx6Pxo9u9BrmvL6HidRbdBi9Ae8868fx4XbVDJJXwcUYTYx4V7E7LTfEpgw/s320/MRI_head_sidea.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">MRI head side.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#2. Our large brains had the ability to remember past experiences in detail and recall those memories at will.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">"Man must have been conscious of memories and purposes long before he made any explicit distinction between past, present, and future."</div><div style="text-align: center;">Whitrow, Gerald. <i>Time in History: Views of Time from Prehistory to the Present Day.</i> Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press. 1988, pages 21-22.</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#3. Being able to remember in detail, recalling something that no longer exists, is also related to thinking about the future and imagination in which a time that does not yet exist is imagined.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgew01VcLxUvdqYjsvdD5B7icg7fuddlc65xnEVnHz4kyZ7uQ1I1xUxTw39fP2WdyO7uE07k8lkVOi7ECI-RtD1c1O-iZYBJvv_FS8iP8buglSsQvjG709PUyQ-ePfOqxMQFdIVZq35ZnTQOxHhB4loYz5-zXf2i-MODP6KL2VjQAO4QvMZxrGImyVxLuE/s800/Symbolical_head,_After_O_S_Fowler,_c.1845_Wellcome_V0009493AAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="742" data-original-width="800" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgew01VcLxUvdqYjsvdD5B7icg7fuddlc65xnEVnHz4kyZ7uQ1I1xUxTw39fP2WdyO7uE07k8lkVOi7ECI-RtD1c1O-iZYBJvv_FS8iP8buglSsQvjG709PUyQ-ePfOqxMQFdIVZq35ZnTQOxHhB4loYz5-zXf2i-MODP6KL2VjQAO4QvMZxrGImyVxLuE/w400-h371/Symbolical_head,_After_O_S_Fowler,_c.1845_Wellcome_V0009493AAA.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Our ability to remember and have memories is due to our large brain. <br />Our understanding of time past, present, and future is closely tied to this ability.</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#4. Our sense of time is related to language which always includes a time reference.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"Time reference is a universal property of language..."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Lecarme, Jacqueline, Ph.D. Linguistics. "Nominal Tense and Tense Theory." Academia.edu, 1998.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#5. Language and shared words, concepts, and images are the tools for working with and managing time. The concepts must be shared so that a group can plan, coordinate, and work together.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4I4lmj860OEFl-XdQ6wd3b5thk_quieA38yjRMwyQ-GaMCgGzEjmdNCY5fkk6tm9z57DAa6TtUnGyXtMn0qXTs1rA0knOwo62NO9y6knnJ5g516-T-4reawPqbDUvFuk_krrwnOiIaPBq7rY7LUZSlJxJTMczX9Ilh_wVpVezPemct19y5Uzg0M7_ADk/s800/Fear_in_the_Night_1a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="719" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4I4lmj860OEFl-XdQ6wd3b5thk_quieA38yjRMwyQ-GaMCgGzEjmdNCY5fkk6tm9z57DAa6TtUnGyXtMn0qXTs1rA0knOwo62NO9y6knnJ5g516-T-4reawPqbDUvFuk_krrwnOiIaPBq7rY7LUZSlJxJTMczX9Ilh_wVpVezPemct19y5Uzg0M7_ADk/w400-h360/Fear_in_the_Night_1a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#6. There could be quite different ways to conceive of time and to deal with and work with time in a culture even when the Homo sapiens brain had fully developed.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"><br /></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#7. Our sense of time, our concepts and our understanding of time are shaped by our cultures.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#8. I have suggested that at one stage a sense of time was almost immediate. Thinking about time is limited to about 3-5 days in a contemporary hunter-gatherer Amazon tribe, </b></span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the Piraha, </span></b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>for example. </b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">There may have been an even earlier stage when time was more immediate. </b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It is likely that this immediacy was the sense of time that early humans, who lived as hunter-gatherers, adhered to throughout the Paleolithic era. This idea is supported by studies of contemporary hunter-gatherers. It appears that their sense of time is primarily immediate. For example, they eat food when they find it and do not save food for later, even though they could. </b></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">One of my most popular articles:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2018/10/everett-how-language-began-and-human-time-keeping.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2018/10/everett-how-language-began-and-human-time-keeping.html</a></span></div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNgvU90uQ2Rq919E2nhKyVI4dN8ZH8a5gl2tip7yE5ujn9-T6DMuWRVnnrvVHuTY6a4As0-S8azbeGnFEBZvnDpXLWPUGGN1c8_N75a-v481eb2Mtr5hPTmFgUWg9pBtgjhGF_ZxxFQpkCuKK3_oBp-T_LJ_qq0KCXmoFWU76dD-6Po7sJ0uvp_2dHrqs/s674/COMPOSITE_NEWGRANGE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="674" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNgvU90uQ2Rq919E2nhKyVI4dN8ZH8a5gl2tip7yE5ujn9-T6DMuWRVnnrvVHuTY6a4As0-S8azbeGnFEBZvnDpXLWPUGGN1c8_N75a-v481eb2Mtr5hPTmFgUWg9pBtgjhGF_ZxxFQpkCuKK3_oBp-T_LJ_qq0KCXmoFWU76dD-6Po7sJ0uvp_2dHrqs/w608-h640/COMPOSITE_NEWGRANGE.jpg" width="608" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">TOP: The passageway (bottom) and roof-box (top) at Newgrange, the Neolithic passage tomb in Ireland. The roof-box was built to indicate when the winter solstice occurred by only allowing light through the roof-box during the period of the solstice.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">BOTTOM: A diagram showing how the winter solstice shaft of light illuminated the passageway and confirmed that the time period was that of the winter solstice.</span></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#9. When the switch to agriculture occurred in the Neolithic era, the sense of time became linear meaning that past, present, future and duration were the way they thought about time. Planting required long-term planning from season to season and year to year. Numerous Neolithic structures were built that could indicate the time of year with some precision. These structures provide clear evidence for the importance of linear time to these cultures.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">#10. For young children time is immediate. Then they go through various stages in their understanding of time as they grow but they are also constantly shaped and molded to understand time according to the concepts of their culture.</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"Unfortunately, we are not very well informed in the psychology of primitive man, but there are children all around us, and it is in studying children that we have the best chance of studying the development of logical knowledge, physical knowledge, and so forth."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Piaget, Jean. "Genetic Epistemology." Columbia Forum, (1969), 12, 4.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieX_wuZgFrnuKxR3XPrKsXlQi_1OguYpkPs_yQVg1X-d2S0NeiHnV4wAg8Oa1R2wEV1lGzQWhJNKwBKyqYIXtqT0oCkIhycElpXL0dfvdWaq7RkBA-KMitNqlW7TQWlGRMO_m755mpkT75Cc5Tp1BZFhN5eMzzV3JkeTBAtG1C-n0zNNFuCZF-Cl0jpks/s734/Weaver_NestAa.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="734" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieX_wuZgFrnuKxR3XPrKsXlQi_1OguYpkPs_yQVg1X-d2S0NeiHnV4wAg8Oa1R2wEV1lGzQWhJNKwBKyqYIXtqT0oCkIhycElpXL0dfvdWaq7RkBA-KMitNqlW7TQWlGRMO_m755mpkT75Cc5Tp1BZFhN5eMzzV3JkeTBAtG1C-n0zNNFuCZF-Cl0jpks/w400-h311/Weaver_NestAa.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;">An intricate carefully woven Weaverbird nest. Early hominins and Weaverbirds often lived in close proximity to each other in Baobab trees, so early humans would have been aware of their nests and how the nests were built.</div></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span><span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">#11. I have suggested that an important technology, woven-fiber technology (basket weaving), may have begun early in our evolution, as early as a million or so years ago. Weaverbird nests and other bird nests may have provided an early model. This is related to time because imagining a basket design, gathering materials and planning, then making the basket with strands and spokes may have been an important component to our developing sense of time.</b><br /><div style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Based on insights from ethnoarchaeology, it appears that everyone in a tribe, men, women, and children, knew how to weave baskets and many other items as well. And, as I have written, baskets are tools.</b></span></div><div style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>-------------------</b></span></div><div style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>"Relatively few tribes of American Indians understood pottery, except in the crudest form. As for basketry, it may be said that every Indian from the land of the Esquimaux down through Mexico was a basket weaver."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Huckel, John Frederick & Harvey, <i>Fred. American Indians : first families of the Southwest.</i> Fred Harvey publisher, 1920.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924028656738/page/n59/mode/1up?view=theater">https://archive.org/details/cu31924028656738/page/n59/mode/1up?view=theater</a></span></div></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#12. A finished basket could have been a model for time and time duration as it is clear from the strands and the spokes how it was made and how much time it took to make it. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZrggZsqJQNQsbx9EAfc4oEC6j91VFImEJbfuB1mtcOSSrkscEPMLU6EMeKCaIho37hYXkOHNToCEaA0MIts0njgu7e4ARX8p_P8D4YbgQIj9nsXYiCYF1IxDrw0dNhqeRs7RCV72cN0UNvtAFbU9nPwMulNlVnaO032RBacz_4WDeE3xyz_rx7_8ndrw/s972/1280px-Reed_Islands_of_Lake_Titicaca_-bA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="585" data-original-width="972" height="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZrggZsqJQNQsbx9EAfc4oEC6j91VFImEJbfuB1mtcOSSrkscEPMLU6EMeKCaIho37hYXkOHNToCEaA0MIts0njgu7e4ARX8p_P8D4YbgQIj9nsXYiCYF1IxDrw0dNhqeRs7RCV72cN0UNvtAFbU9nPwMulNlVnaO032RBacz_4WDeE3xyz_rx7_8ndrw/w640-h386/1280px-Reed_Islands_of_Lake_Titicaca_-bA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Reed construction (woven-fiber technology) of a wide variety of boats, houses, and industrial and everyday items reached a high point in Mesopotamia. This picture of a reed boat, that can carry 20 people, is from the contemporary culture of Uros in South America showing what was possible with reeds.</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#13. During the Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Ancient eras woven-fiber technology continued to be developed and became a sophisticated industry. In Mesopotamia most cities were served by fleets of reed boats, large and small, some even sea-going. Small houses and large community buildings were made entirely out of reeds. The Babylonian model of the night sky, as it rotated and was divided into minutes and seconds, may have been derived from a reed basket design, as baskets were a key product in that culture. Today we still use their concepts of minutes and seconds along with their mathematics.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#14. Familiar with Babylonian star charts and planet data, the </b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Greek astronomer Ptolemy devised a geocentric (Earth-centered) geometry of the universe. This system was so accurate its calendar was off by only one day every one hundred years.</b></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgldZBb1cVL8W2D6oaKmzH8EI8ufYf6Hxlaa2Kj2Nr4pOkuIulmvBUeG8GM8Cu2ZG1teqVPs8pMYCHfxCRMIlXXaVoa_rvi6HNg4ZkJsh6LSkFBvWbpXBCTFRucsz8MGP0jTHISNuyx-5Mg88ieqjlr3PYtxxNA1beFGBb0it7FgnPkDeCzYri476iF4u0/s1380/Ulm-Rathaus-AstronomischeUhr-061104.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1380" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgldZBb1cVL8W2D6oaKmzH8EI8ufYf6Hxlaa2Kj2Nr4pOkuIulmvBUeG8GM8Cu2ZG1teqVPs8pMYCHfxCRMIlXXaVoa_rvi6HNg4ZkJsh6LSkFBvWbpXBCTFRucsz8MGP0jTHISNuyx-5Mg88ieqjlr3PYtxxNA1beFGBb0it7FgnPkDeCzYri476iF4u0/w400-h371/Ulm-Rathaus-AstronomischeUhr-061104.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;">"Astronomical clock (dating from 1520)</div><div style="text-align: center;">at the town hall of Ulm/Germany" (Wikimedia)</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#15. Although Ptolemy's geocentric view of the universe was dismissed when Copernicus's heliocentric system (sun-centered) was eventually accepted, many complex Medieval clocks were built in Europe, based on the gearing of Ptolemy's system, hundreds of years before the heliocentric system was accepted.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /><b><br /></b></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEvJlXX3wlFXzC_w1zr84RWmCg5betWfxkkkczxd_AlRY4bR2ZVC3VPdu_iuw_1qCyu2IkFox5jiP3I2Dh-OHKlzBx1hPLvKV8gXcma2nS791MF9MvIvsS4_j5dj3fT3ErWwZPsLQm0LmrrFQVePE824lb6nyMVMGwNC0LlAMtv_JfT-md8OuIpUpMNxY/s800/COMPOSITE_PTOLEMY_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="800" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEvJlXX3wlFXzC_w1zr84RWmCg5betWfxkkkczxd_AlRY4bR2ZVC3VPdu_iuw_1qCyu2IkFox5jiP3I2Dh-OHKlzBx1hPLvKV8gXcma2nS791MF9MvIvsS4_j5dj3fT3ErWwZPsLQm0LmrrFQVePE824lb6nyMVMGwNC0LlAMtv_JfT-md8OuIpUpMNxY/w640-h288/COMPOSITE_PTOLEMY_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LEFT: A simplified drawing showing how Ptolemy used perfect circles within perfect circles (called epicycles) to achieve a high level of accuracy. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">RIGHT: A modern clock showing the circular gearing. Ptolemy's geometry of circles within circles became central to clocks and the Industrial Revolution, even though his astronomy was no longer accepted.</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#16. The sophisticated gearing of these clocks based on Ptolemy's geometry led directly to the invention of machines and the modern industrial age.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"The clock, not the steam engine, is the key machine of the modern industrial age."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Mumford, Lewis. <i>Technics and Civilization. </i>Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934, Ch. 1, sct. 2. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#17. Today, the immediate benefits of our technology are creating far-reaching problems in the future. This has caused the crisis with climate change. We need a new sense of time that includes the consequences of our actions and our technology if we want to avoid damaging the environment. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil-IgAQ_Isdn7a6oMZHAiMvjvfsvz00O_Oe8hF5KgWy7b4vyBldcDupISokldSR2BOST3pawJH2il4srtL3DJMqnOSCJ6o-r8a32uVmeRdFG-m5tYSps03x6kMYUtP6WN8qVlibPNxubxNGONfcVSxq6M80VfneGhY8AFyRlvalJSl2uN8bqYJa4mjUhM/s1000/Future_plate_blue.svg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="501" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil-IgAQ_Isdn7a6oMZHAiMvjvfsvz00O_Oe8hF5KgWy7b4vyBldcDupISokldSR2BOST3pawJH2il4srtL3DJMqnOSCJ6o-r8a32uVmeRdFG-m5tYSps03x6kMYUtP6WN8qVlibPNxubxNGONfcVSxq6M80VfneGhY8AFyRlvalJSl2uN8bqYJa4mjUhM/w640-h320/Future_plate_blue.svg.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><div><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">___________________________________</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">PICTURE CREDITS:</span></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>FATHER TIME:</b> <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/pw48ukcy/items?canvas=11">https://wellcomecollection.org/works/pw48ukcy/items?canvas=11</a></div><div>Quotation. Father Time: Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster,</div><div><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Father%20Time.">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Father%20Time.</a> Accessed 26 Jan. 2024.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>EARTH: </b>The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17.jpg</a></div><div><br /></div><div><b>MRI</b>: MRI_head_side.jpg</div><div><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MRI_head_side.jpg">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MRI_head_side.jpg</a></div><div><br /></div><div><b>SYMBOLICAL HEAD WITH MEMORIES:</b> Symbolical_head,_After_O_S_Fowler,_c.1845_Wellcome_V0009493</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Symbolical_head,_After_O_S_Fowler,_c.1845_Wellcome_V0009493.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Symbolical_head,_After_O_S_Fowler,_c.1845_Wellcome_V0009493.jpg</a></div><div><br /></div><div><b>LANGUAGE:</b> Fear_in_the_Night_1</div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fear_in_the_Night_1.jpg">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fear_in_the_Night_1.jpg</a></div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>NEWGRANGE PASSAGE TOMB:</b></div><div>TOP PHOTO: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bild_Newgrange-trippelspiral.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bild_Newgrange-trippelspiral.jpg</a></div><div>BOTTOM DIAGRAM: Diagram of Newgrange passage and solstice light from the side.</div><div>(Irish Art History Section, Professional Development Service for Teachers, P.D.S.T., Ireland)</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>WEAVERBIRD NEST:</b> Weaver_Nest.jpg</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weaver_Nest.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weaver_Nest.jpg</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b>LARGE REED BOAT:</b> Reed_Islands_of_Lake_Titicaca_-b</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reed_Islands_of_Lake_Titicaca_-b.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reed_Islands_of_Lake_Titicaca_-b.jpg</a></div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>MEDIEVAL CLOCK: </b>Ulm-Rathaus-AstronomischeUhr-061104.jpg</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ulm-Rathaus-AstronomischeUhr-061104.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ulm-Rathaus-AstronomischeUhr-061104.jpg</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b>PTOLEMAIC EPICYCLES:</b> Ptolemaic_epicycles</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ptolemaic_elements.svg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ptolemaic_elements.svg</a></div><div><br /></div><div><b>BACK OF A WATCH:</b> BwcOmega911a</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BwcOmega911a.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BwcOmega911a.jpg</a></div><div><br /></div><div><b>FUTURE: </b>Future_plate_blue.svg</div><div><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Future_plate_blue.svg">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Future_plate_blue.svg</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div><br /></span></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-6075685655155827132024-01-22T03:58:00.004-05:002024-01-27T18:26:19.927-05:00Scientific test: Newgrange solstice indicator<h1 style="text-align: left;"></h1><h1 style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">A PROPOSAL:</span></b></h1><span style="font-size: x-large; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;">HOW TO SCIENTIFICALLY TEST </div></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;">THE PRECISION AND ACCURACY</div></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;">OF THE NEOLITHIC WINTER SOLSTICE DETECTOR </div></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large; font-weight: normal;">AT NEWGRANGE, IRELAND<br />By Rick Doble<br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOf_CyCpu_YvNDjRqst81Njf2NWDr7kjt8iK8Nq1Pj0dTz-Yl3ZVF0X6LAlRw2kgZ0ZthKNhqirY1_jHlnxCeJRtdhZ_YbwGp9vyogRuQ15TXCpVb4iL3Tb5Esnyoy6lD-PhEzIgQ6j8MA99Z56AiF4MfGmJ6HxeoTOX-PdEGSrnQ8ZnnfsgtqSk0m3R0/s640/newgrange_diagram_2.jpg" style="font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="257" data-original-width="640" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOf_CyCpu_YvNDjRqst81Njf2NWDr7kjt8iK8Nq1Pj0dTz-Yl3ZVF0X6LAlRw2kgZ0ZthKNhqirY1_jHlnxCeJRtdhZ_YbwGp9vyogRuQ15TXCpVb4iL3Tb5Esnyoy6lD-PhEzIgQ6j8MA99Z56AiF4MfGmJ6HxeoTOX-PdEGSrnQ8ZnnfsgtqSk0m3R0/w640-h258/newgrange_diagram_2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></span><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial;">Diagram of Newgrange passage and solstice light from the side.<br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial;">(Irish Art History Section, Professional Development Service for Teachers, P.D.S.T., Ireland)</span></div><p></p><p><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">INTRODUCTION</b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It is my belief that the passageway and specially designed baffled 'roof-box' at Newgrange Ireland could determine the specific day of the Winter Solstice in real time. And if this is true, it means that this Neolithic science was thousands of years ahead of its time and more advanced, in this regard, than Greek or Roman astronomy. Today we now have the tools to test this hypothesis scientifically. Later in this article, I spell out ways that it could be tested.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When the Winter Solstice sunrise lit the passageway at Newgrange Ireland around the time of the solstice, it probably had religious and ritual significance. However, it is important to understand that the Newgrange structure was also a scientific instrument. It accurately 'captured' the Winter Solstice light using the well-crafted baffled roof-box that lit the carefully made passageway inside the structure and only did so when the sunrise was close to the day of the solstice. And when it did capture this sunlight, it magnified it. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It is not well understood today but determining the day of the Winter Solstice in real time was virtually impossible until recently. For almost a week there is only a slight difference in the sunrise position on the horizon, the length of the days only vary by seconds and atmospheric refraction can distort observation. So, at the time of the winter solstice, the sun barely moves (i.e., the sun's declination). In fact the word solstice comes from the Latin 'solstitium' meaning "point at which the sun seems to stand still" (dictionary.com). Please see the Afterword for more detail. </b></span></p><p><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The Greeks and Romans could and did determine the day of the solstice after the fact by observing the position of the sun many days before and after the time of the solstice and then interpolating the actual day. However, they could not determine the actual day in real time. </b></p><p><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Nevertheless, I believe the clever baffled roof-box and magnification of the light at Newgrange may have been enough to allow Neolithic experts to determine the exact day of the solstice in real time. </b></p><p><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">NOTE: Since the roof-box could capture sunrise light from about two days before the day of the solstice and two days after, some have interpreted this to mean that these Neolithic people were only interested in an approximate identification of the time of the solstice and not the exact day (see the following quote). I feel this is a mistake. It is my contention that each day before, during, and after the solstice could be identified individually. But cloudy days would have caused a problem. Yet with five days to work with, there was almost always at least one clear day that could be identified and used to calculate the actual day.</b></p><p><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">CURRENT OPINION DOES NOT AGREE<br /></b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">THAT THE DAY OF THE WINTER SOLSTICE <br /></b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">COULD BE DETERMINED IN REAL TIME</b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As I write this article there is agreement by experts that the time *around* the Winter Solstice could be indicated by Newgrange, but that's as much as they are willing to say.</b></span></p><p><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"></b></p><blockquote><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The current opinion about the accuracy of Newgrange is expressed by T. P. Ray in his article about Newgrange. "Megalithic man was interested in marking the southern limits in declination of the sun and moon, albeit approximately. Such low accuracies suggest that ancient man's interest in these bodies may have been ritualistic rather than for the purpose of calendar construction."<br /></b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Ray, T. P. <i>The winter solstice phenomenon at Newgrange, Ireland: accident or design? </i> School of Cosmic Physics, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.</b></blockquote><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"></b><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But, as I have said, I believe that careful testing will show that Newgrange was quite accurate and could determine the day of the Winter Solstice in real time. I think that my hypothesis can be scientifically tested. </b></span></p><p><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">ACKNOWLEDGEMENT FROM THE MEDIA ABOUT THE PRECISION OF NEWGRANGE</b></p><p><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"></b></p><blockquote><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Ireland, 3200 B.C.<br /></b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">On roughly four days every year, the Winter Solstice sun pokes through the top of this Stone Age monument and onto the floor of the interior chamber, filling the ancient temple with light for about 17 minutes. Built before Stonehenge, Newgrange was likely used to track the passing of the years with a precision ahead of its time. With an earthen mound and stone forming passageways and chambers inside Newgrange, the site likely also served as a passage tomb and ceremonial location as well as being a highly engineered clock.<br /></b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Newcombup, Tim. Popular Mechanics, September 30, 2022.<br /></b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a35867403/ancient-architecture/">https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a35867403/ancient-architecture/</a></b></blockquote><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixzGLeuQGWKeStWfG8rymWM4PiwRjupNOWLlPLh3_aJqgaB-bY56FLPNkBdk-RwTpxuPcN4tYNr8keyrK5W4ud_4cZdOnnUv_Sl5mxezYmfzMtYmEux5eFaGlIKmmTFk2raE7B-qgainpiNFFB-UNQPmFb4rP5u-eqcZlGmd-UFA5W_GkR0vl0n74291c/s1331/2013_Solstice_Newgrange%20(1)A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1331" data-original-width="1134" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixzGLeuQGWKeStWfG8rymWM4PiwRjupNOWLlPLh3_aJqgaB-bY56FLPNkBdk-RwTpxuPcN4tYNr8keyrK5W4ud_4cZdOnnUv_Sl5mxezYmfzMtYmEux5eFaGlIKmmTFk2raE7B-qgainpiNFFB-UNQPmFb4rP5u-eqcZlGmd-UFA5W_GkR0vl0n74291c/w341-h400/2013_Solstice_Newgrange%20(1)A.jpg" width="341" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Winter Solstice Light December 2013.<br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2013_Solstice_Newgrange.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2013_Solstice_Newgrange.jpg</a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"></b><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>GENERAL IDEAS AND CONCERNS<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>FOR A STUDY OF THE ACCURACY<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>OF THE SOLSTICE INDICATORS AT NEWGRANGE:</b></span></span></h1><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Nine years ago I wrote an article stating that it was possible that the passage tomb at Newgrange could determine the day of the Winter Solstice in real time. This article was reprinted in Newgrange.com. Now I believe new technology could, in fact, provide hard proof.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.newgrange.com/winter-solstice-newgrange.htm">https://www.newgrange.com/winter-solstice-newgrange.htm</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I think a university archaeological program or other such research group should write a proposal and get funding for a project that will prove or disprove the precision of the Newgrange passageway and roof-box. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>NEW TECHNOLOGY & ARCHEOLOGY 2.0: </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Today, using the tools of Archeology 2.0 such as photogrammetry and computer simulations, this could be studied with extreme precision. Photogrammetry is now capable of making a precise 3D computer representation, accurate to millimeters. Then simulations of the sunrise light on the day of the Winter Solstice plus simulations of the days before and after the time of the solstice could show how each particular sunrise was being displayed in the passageway.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It is my guess that for two days before the Winter Solstice and two days after the light was distinctly different from the exact day of the solstice light. Furthermore, thee days surrounding the day of the solstice were distinctly different from each other. I also believe there was a reason for knowing the characteristics of the light in the days before and after. If the sky was cloudy on the day of the solstice, the day itself could still be determined by knowing the characteristics of the other days around the time of the solstice, and knowing which day was which.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-_sm6U_8tEMCwMgdHDajTSFLfKoT1MJPpLcerGwmuDvsFhDOqB6RdGyXwDTMJ0vE07mPWJ2e3oJSLs6Pk8M7jAS5GkNAs1SvQ9lc88L_fL7Rp34w6C2plaED-RAuhIu6ApGEi6QTOOkWGyaBsgH-dZz1ueKgnFcsQnE0pgMX69e2JM1HIhLa2XxARPRo/s1024/newgrange%20plan.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="710" data-original-width="1024" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-_sm6U_8tEMCwMgdHDajTSFLfKoT1MJPpLcerGwmuDvsFhDOqB6RdGyXwDTMJ0vE07mPWJ2e3oJSLs6Pk8M7jAS5GkNAs1SvQ9lc88L_fL7Rp34w6C2plaED-RAuhIu6ApGEi6QTOOkWGyaBsgH-dZz1ueKgnFcsQnE0pgMX69e2JM1HIhLa2XxARPRo/w640-h444/newgrange%20plan.gif" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Detailed drawing of Newgrange passage showing the precise placement of stones and the shaft of solstice light. Used with permission:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><a href="http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/irelandnewgrange.htm" style="background-color: white; color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;">http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/irelandnewgrange.htm</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">As I point out in my article, the setup at Newgrange with the roof-box and passageway yielded a lot of information such as the width of the light, the intensity of the light, the speed of the light as it moved down the passageway and retreated, the furthest reach of the light, the way that the stone walls and spiral engravings were lit, etc. The design magnifies the light and its movement -- and magnifications yield much more information. I believe that this amount of information would be enough to distinguish one day from another.</b></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></b></div><div><span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Another important point is the time of each sunrise before, during, and after the solstice. The times would be different and could possibly be detected based on the position of the stars.</b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>While making a computer model of the passageway is, today, not all that difficult, simulating the solstice light could be quite difficult. Because, for this kind of simulation, the most important element will be the precision of the light coming through the roof-box and the way this simulated sunlight lights up the passageway. This must be as accurate as possible otherwise the project is pointless. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtOSm9Cvh_aURr6OZivMR9P_SW4jJcaW88AcW4rMDzBzvHXY7K933QMC-k_Sx6e3aIb5mySYNUvK92Nn_r-B8FMRNSR9EcJiCtEmob4SfRtmRCsJir3Of-5oTWi_NcY8cEvrjLD7BQeWeJRh6uWDTOMqWjTBjYmN607SI26l8aT06R2Dl1hTG15JbODCA/s800/COMPOSITE_PASSAGEWAY.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="529" data-original-width="800" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtOSm9Cvh_aURr6OZivMR9P_SW4jJcaW88AcW4rMDzBzvHXY7K933QMC-k_Sx6e3aIb5mySYNUvK92Nn_r-B8FMRNSR9EcJiCtEmob4SfRtmRCsJir3Of-5oTWi_NcY8cEvrjLD7BQeWeJRh6uWDTOMqWjTBjYmN607SI26l8aT06R2Dl1hTG15JbODCA/w640-h424/COMPOSITE_PASSAGEWAY.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Passage leading towards chamber of Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:County_Meath_-_Newgrange_-_20220216134014.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:County_Meath_-_Newgrange_-_20220216134014.jpg</a></div><div>Passage leading out from chamber of Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:County_Meath_-_Newgrange_-_20220213132707.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:County_Meath_-_Newgrange_-_20220213132707.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The angle of the light is especially important as there is a very slight change in that angle with each sunrise. When the light is magnified and enters the passageway at a low angle in relation to the stone walls that make up the passageway, there could be a marked difference from day to day. I am a professional photographer who has written three books on photography. I know that the angle of light in relation to the surface of an object can reveal subtle details that can be quite different with just a small change in the angle of light.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div><b>State-of-the-art composite videos, made from dozens of cameras placed along the passageway during the time of the solstice, could be used as a reference both in the timing and the accuracy of the shaft of light. This might be the best way to ensure that the simulated light matches the actual light around the time of the solstice.</b></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Also when building a model, it is also important to take into account the change in the sun's position about 5000 years ago. See NASA's assessment next:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Today the first light enters about four minutes after sunrise, but calculations based on the precession of the Earth show that 5,000 years ago, first light would have entered exactly at sunrise.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Document of the US space agency NASA. <br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/SED11/P8Newgrange.pdf">https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/SED11/P8Newgrange.pdf</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>All solar simulations should match the earlier times of sunrise, when Newgrange was functioning, based on NASA's calculations.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZMbm4oV6rwvKodt3i80GFZgbm1zKKt2FL3r_ek291FW9P8bObV_3Nyj_bcwN_8Uy4zjaiYuG89hfiy-xzxZp6F-VF3IPClyaxcnjCdRPwZUJhcwArk6hvYTmfxfig2r8kR2OeHTWuFrcZslpz9E4GNnWRT4_h7AjqMKBGCAbqtHVfDHFBjT3r7n_y1Q8/s800/Celtic_spiralA_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="800" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZMbm4oV6rwvKodt3i80GFZgbm1zKKt2FL3r_ek291FW9P8bObV_3Nyj_bcwN_8Uy4zjaiYuG89hfiy-xzxZp6F-VF3IPClyaxcnjCdRPwZUJhcwArk6hvYTmfxfig2r8kR2OeHTWuFrcZslpz9E4GNnWRT4_h7AjqMKBGCAbqtHVfDHFBjT3r7n_y1Q8/w640-h424/Celtic_spiralA_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Triple spiral carved in a stone in the chamber at the end of the passage. According to legend, the light from the sun illuminated these triple spirals on the day of the solstice. <br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Celtic_spiral.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Celtic_spiral.jpg</a></span></span></div><br /><div><h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>SPECIFIC WAYS TO TEST MY HYPOTHESES</b></span></h1><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW TO TEST:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Once the photogrammetric and computer simulation of the solstice light are created, it may be possible to objectively test the ability of the Newgrange passageway and roof-box to indicate the day of the Winter Solstice.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>While I am hardly an expert when it comes to designing experiments, here are suggestions about how this could be tested.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>PLAN A:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A number of professional people (I would suggest photographers or people who work with lighting) could view a simulated computer sequence of light coming into the passageway and then retreating with each day clearly labeled. I suggest using professionals because we can assume that the Neolithic viewers of these sequences were also professionals. After today's viewers have become familiar with these sequences, they could then be tested by viewing each sequence at random without a label and stating which sequence it was. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>PLAN B:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Another way to test this could be to make a large light that would accurately simulate the angle, the movement and the brightness of the Winter Solstice sunrise, along with the sunrise light from the two days before and after. This light would shine through the roof-box and down the actual passageway. As with Plan A, experts could, at first, view the light in a clearly labeled sequence. Then experts could be positioned in the passageway as the light was shown at random to see if they could tell the difference. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE FINAL RESULT:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Based on the correctness of the experts' ability to distinguish between these random showings, a scorecard could be created that would tell us whether they were able to identify the day of the solstice and if they were able to distinguish between the days before and after the solstice.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>PLAN C:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A stand-alone computer model could be created. Then a computer rating system could be devised that would rate each one of the lighting effects every 15 seconds such as the width of the light, the speed of the light's movement up the passageway, the length of the shadows, the depth or darkness of the shadows, the illumination on the walls, etc. Then the furthest reach of the light would be logged and followed by a rating of these same characteristics as the light retreated. The final task would be to put this data altogether to determine if there was a significant difference from day to day.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>PLAN D:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A combination of the above or another approach I have not thought of.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>MY ARTICLE:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As I said, in 2015 I wrote an article which has been reprinted in the Newgrange.com website, about the accuracy of the Newgrange passageway in determining the Winter Solstice.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Computing the Winter Solstice at Newgrange:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Was Neolithic Science Equal To or Better Than Ancient Greek or Roman Science?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.newgrange.com/winter-solstice-newgrange.htm">https://www.newgrange.com/winter-solstice-newgrange.htm</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE DISCOVERY PROGRAMME "3D MODEL OF SOLSTICE AT NEWGRANGE":</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Discovery Programme in Ireland has already made a "3d Model Of Solstice At Newgrange". </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://discoveryprogramme.ie/2016/11/26/3d-model-of-solstice-at-newgrange/">https://discoveryprogramme.ie/2016/11/26/3d-model-of-solstice-at-newgrange/</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg64Nr9rlKLLv9f9vqXPXADh0je7bUi5jwQwhTzICDc1E_jITtZruKeWxAxYwrz0v6BFRfigu9ooR-ymQ7d5mpYqu9DW0h5Y_K2p0WLJ8OCSAGcOJh3v3L1FtnagcoG-LXeVMtMXPv3wqRykb1KoIBa7Rhc1tOw2TX5uN_pi60Cd7HF_WfvL77koElHT_s/s640/newgrange_diagram_3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="503" data-original-width="640" height="504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg64Nr9rlKLLv9f9vqXPXADh0je7bUi5jwQwhTzICDc1E_jITtZruKeWxAxYwrz0v6BFRfigu9ooR-ymQ7d5mpYqu9DW0h5Y_K2p0WLJ8OCSAGcOJh3v3L1FtnagcoG-LXeVMtMXPv3wqRykb1KoIBa7Rhc1tOw2TX5uN_pi60Cd7HF_WfvL77koElHT_s/w640-h504/newgrange_diagram_3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Overhead diagram of Newgrange passage and solstice light. <br />(Irish Art History Section, Professional Development Service for Teachers, P.D.S.T., Ireland)</span></div><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></span></div><h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>PUTTING A PROPOSAL AND STUDY TOGETHER</b></span></h1><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HERE IS WHAT I SUGGEST: </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>An archaeological or research program should write a specific proposal and acquire funding. I have written a number of proposals in the past and would be glad to write a suggested draft of the proposal. Or I could work together with members of an academic team. I can also write the finished draft. After that I would be glad to work on the project if it is funded in any manner that would be helpful.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW I SHOULD BE CREDITED:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I would need to be credited for the idea if it is put together and also for writing the proposal if I do some or all of the writing. If the proposal is accepted, I would be glad to work with people in the project.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>MY INTEREST:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have a Master's Degree in Communication with a minor in Anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, plus a B.A. in English with Honors in Creative Writing, also from UNC-CH.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I am an independent researcher who is interested in this subject because I have been writing a blog for over eleven years about the human experience of time. I have always felt that ancient people were much smarter than they have been given credit for and also that a concept of time was very important to them. So, when I studied Newgrange, I felt that I had found an important example of these ideas.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/</a></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>PLEASE NOTE:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>While other people have suggested that the Newgrange design could determine the day of the Winter Solstice in real time, I do not believe they have gone into detail nearly as much as I have to make the case. For example, I have covered the difficulty of measuring the day of the solstice, the design and construction of the roof-box and passageway as a scientific instrument, its ability to magnify the sunlight's angle and movement and the wealth of information that resulted.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As I have said the Greeks and Romans could not determine the day of the Winter Solstice in real time. In my 2015 article, I believe I am the first person to make this point. They could determine it after the fact but not in real time. The Roman Saturnalia Festival, for example, occurred during the week of the solstice but it did not celebrate a particular solstice day. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So this means that in this particular case at least, in Ireland and during the Winter Solstice, Neolithic science and technology might have been more advanced that of the Greeks and Roman's 3000 years later. And if this is true, it signals a major change in our perception of Neolithic culture and its level of technology.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjfsUvzZTxEzh4lYCiNd7p_8iVKmP6cWQcjhIzZ_us2qR7zPvsjuM0lwFRTSga4EGPRkRTc8K8EIa79qLqMfSJj2pldAgyJvGEc9DM9pCjT1mzCTF07Yh7u1UHWOKt4qu-p9FfHnsroaoLzDgCyy4D7a3RYxmLYDCx4RE_HEFypXo_j1CJ_zpL6OfmnF5w" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="414" data-original-width="640" height="414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjfsUvzZTxEzh4lYCiNd7p_8iVKmP6cWQcjhIzZ_us2qR7zPvsjuM0lwFRTSga4EGPRkRTc8K8EIa79qLqMfSJj2pldAgyJvGEc9DM9pCjT1mzCTF07Yh7u1UHWOKt4qu-p9FfHnsroaoLzDgCyy4D7a3RYxmLYDCx4RE_HEFypXo_j1CJ_zpL6OfmnF5w=w640-h414" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><div>"Sketch of a cross section of the Newgrange passage grave <br />made by William Frederick Wakeman."<br />Quote from commons.wikimedia.org</div><div><i>Wakeman's Handbook of Irish Antiquities </i>(1903). p. 85.<br /><span face="verdana, sans-serif"> </span><a href="http://www.archive.org/details/wakemanshandbook00wake" style="color: #29aae1; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; text-decoration-line: none;">http://www.archive.org/details/wakemanshandbook00wake</a></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></div></div><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; text-align: left;"></span></div></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>_______________________________</b></div></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-large;">AFTERWORD</b></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>PLEASE SEE MY FULL DETAILED ARTICLE IN THIS BLOG</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/03/computing-winter-solstice-at-newgrange.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/03/computing-winter-solstice-at-newgrange.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT THE WINTER SOLSTICE IN GREECE AND ROME</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have made the point in many other articles that prehistoric people were smarter than previously thought and they did remarkable things when they were necessary. The very short winter days in Ireland meant that knowing the day of the Winter Solstice was important as it signaled the beginning of the new year and so allowed accurate yearly planning for agriculture. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In Greece and Rome the days were much longer in the winter and the weather less severe, so they did not feel the same urgency.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>SCIENCE IN THE NEOLITHIC ERA</b></span></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>“In the case of Neolithic astronomy, we are dealing <br />not with the prehistory of science, <br />but with science in prehistory.”<br /></b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">McClellan, James E. III, Dorn, Harold. </b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction, Edition 2. </i></b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">JHU Press, June 2006, page 23. </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I believe the specially designed baffled roof-box and passageway at Newgrange created a well developed scientific instrument. Furthermore, the alignment of the entire structure with the Winter Solstice sunrise was precise. Plus the well constructed structure provided a reliable environment that was stable and consistent year after year. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>“Measure what can be measured, and make measurable what cannot be.”</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>Galileo Galilei</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The creation of the solid passageway, walls, floor and ceiling meant that there were clear consistent points that allowed a comparison of the light from one day to the next and one year to the next. And comparison is one way to measure.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">One of the standard requirements of experimental science is to eliminate all variables other than the phenomena that is bing studied so that the outcome is due to the experiment and nothing more. The Newgrange baffled roof-box and passageway provided an unmovable stable environment so that the manipulation of the light by the Newgrange instrument on consecutive days could be reliably compared.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha4rirnmu_Ut-hCg-vLyvFzzRTYF-MjMnA1L2szbwkdUC9HjhzX2gbVD3a30fS6W7pcs-vKaYqiQc2pHnb-uaab07BHpiDLPMf-fSSS0Lc6dwLUgYkj66lHOYCeYMrGKkMLVoCkq7z6w4-5lhyphenhyphenHs2C2iiizqurO3i6FGPnIf1lq0ova6h6H8rmgzchtsY/s800/COMPOSITE_ROOF_BOX.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="800" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha4rirnmu_Ut-hCg-vLyvFzzRTYF-MjMnA1L2szbwkdUC9HjhzX2gbVD3a30fS6W7pcs-vKaYqiQc2pHnb-uaab07BHpiDLPMf-fSSS0Lc6dwLUgYkj66lHOYCeYMrGKkMLVoCkq7z6w4-5lhyphenhyphenHs2C2iiizqurO3i6FGPnIf1lq0ova6h6H8rmgzchtsY/w640-h252/COMPOSITE_ROOF_BOX.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;">[Left} The special roof-box is on top above the passageway. During the winter solstice, it is light through the roof-box that illuminates the passageway NOT light from the passageway entrance.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">[Right] Close-up of the roof-box. It is set back so that the walls act like a baffle and only allow light through the roof-box during the solstice.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bild_Newgrange-trippelspiral.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bild_Newgrange-trippelspiral.jpg</a></span></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></b></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">PERSONAL NOTE</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As I was studying pictures of Newgrange and the solstice light, it struck me that several very modern devices have used/use a beam of light in a similar was. A beam of light shown down a long pathway was used in Newgrange but also in the famous Michelson-Morley experiment that proved Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity plus the very modern Gravity Wave detectors that have just proved Einsteins ideas about gravity in his General Theory of Relativity.</b></span></div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq_Zcxlh7ndfxzAthbREVeLtIJLXGjUIvU5YiFTCmKTIaMQbUE18T-sj8udMUFThN007DpnoXie7NltqrZqZh7MqWUxM6KBNkMbNkJxhu8-KxUdPfmO3O9DIeSE894lfn95LPtJ3_lbnOQ00SVqVxsc11SwazKqvsbE0s1sSkj99s06tgBzPySkDJ6Keg/s873/COMPOSITE_MODERN_EXPERIMENTS.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="873" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq_Zcxlh7ndfxzAthbREVeLtIJLXGjUIvU5YiFTCmKTIaMQbUE18T-sj8udMUFThN007DpnoXie7NltqrZqZh7MqWUxM6KBNkMbNkJxhu8-KxUdPfmO3O9DIeSE894lfn95LPtJ3_lbnOQ00SVqVxsc11SwazKqvsbE0s1sSkj99s06tgBzPySkDJ6Keg/w586-h640/COMPOSITE_MODERN_EXPERIMENTS.jpg" width="586" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;">[Top] Michelson–Morley experimental device.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michelson1881c.png">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michelson1881c.png</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">[Bottom] A gravitational-wave detector.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LIGO_schematic_(multilang).svg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LIGO_schematic_(multilang).svg</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational-wave_observatory">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational-wave_observatory</a></span></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-75784908695237588782023-12-04T02:21:00.003-05:002023-12-13T01:53:32.355-05:0011 Years Old - DeconstructingTime Blog<div style="text-align: left;"><h1 style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-large;">This Blog<br /><i>DeconstructingTime</i></b></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Is 11 Years Old</b></div></span></h1><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>This post is an overview</i></span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><i><div style="text-align: center;">of what was accomplished</div><div style="text-align: center;">during those 11 years</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/"><b>https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/</b></a></div></i></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Eleven years ago, in December 2012, I began this blog to investigate and examine the human experience and understanding of time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigekQeMPcSCreWeiIXWbXMcEJnGuZ21NmuOQ4QhaCh6aPQIsCTtkfnC8qS_xiDzT3JVzjyLioZ3pp-2ThRZGoc0QsioJ5qAosalxPgcJINF1znEXOOUl9XXOCGUqfPytXw9xnQnQU-8OADxl8ryRMKFyNRCvfMcr94t2Srm_wze6RQ6W8ym-HtKdp9ul0/s640/802px-Head_of_a_human_statue_from_Ain_Ghazal_city_in_Amman,_Jordan_Museum.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="501" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigekQeMPcSCreWeiIXWbXMcEJnGuZ21NmuOQ4QhaCh6aPQIsCTtkfnC8qS_xiDzT3JVzjyLioZ3pp-2ThRZGoc0QsioJ5qAosalxPgcJINF1znEXOOUl9XXOCGUqfPytXw9xnQnQU-8OADxl8ryRMKFyNRCvfMcr94t2Srm_wze6RQ6W8ym-HtKdp9ul0/w502-h640/802px-Head_of_a_human_statue_from_Ain_Ghazal_city_in_Amman,_Jordan_Museum.jpg" width="502" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>9,000-Year-Old Neolithic Statue</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>It Utilized A "Woven Reed Core Wrapped Tightly With Twine" </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">"</span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Human statue from Ain Ghazal city, in the outskirts of Amman, Jordan. Pre-pottery Neolithic period B, 8th millennium BCE.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">"</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_a_human_statue_from_Ain_Ghazal_city_in_Amman,_Jordan_Museum.jpg" style="color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_a_human_statue_from_Ain_Ghazal_city_in_Amman,_Jordan_Museum.jpg</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The latest dating indicates that this figure was made 3000 years before the beginning of the Sumerian civilization, This means that basket weaving technology with reeds was quite advanced by the Neolithic Pre-Pottery B time period. (Ben-Nissan, Advances in Calcium Phosphate Biomaterials)</span></div><div><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE BASIC IDEA</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The basic idea for this blog is quite simple. It is now clear that our sense of time evolved from the immediacy of animal existence to our modern sense of linear time with a past, present, future, and duration. But it is my contention that this may have taken millions of years to evolve and that it went through a number of stages.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In addition, I think that early and late hominins, i.e., pre-Homo sapiens, were much smarter and cleverer than previously thought. And further, that early Homo sapiens were much smarter than previously thought. For example, I think that many Neolithic cultures were technologically advanced.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>One of the principal barriers to understanding earlier people has been our modern point of view. We need to imagine the past from the point of view of a past culture and free ourselves from modern assumptions.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Our sense of time is a key reason that we became the dominant species on the planet with our ability to plan and design. So we need to understand it. Furthermore, our understanding of time is critical as we deal with global warming. For example, if it happens quickly we are in deep trouble; if it happens slowly we can probably plan and adjust.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>SOME STATISTICS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have written over 120 fully illustrated blog-articles which are often 3000 - 7000 words long with footnotes, links to supporting documents, and notes about the research. I spent at least 40 hours writing each blog. In total all of these blogs are equivalent to more than 1000 pages.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Currently, this site averages 3700 views a month and on the three academic sites, where these articles are reprinted, another 1500 views and downloads per month are indicated. On the academic site, <a href="https://unc.academia.edu/RickDoble">Academia.edu</a>, my work is usually in the top 1% of papers viewed. On that same site, I have more than 1080 followers. Altogether articles from this blog and those that have been reprinted on the academic sites have been viewed and downloaded more than 300,000 times.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>WHAT WAS DISCUSSED AND DISCOVERED</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It has been a wild ride. Never did I imagine that I would end up writing articles about the Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic, the Neolithic, Mesopotamia and Egypt, the geocentric theory of the Earth, the brain, the evolution of language, basket weaving, and right angle construction. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBiL4RoDqNZMSctTNh6tv2f1hg7UCQTHU2OoiQFBgPocBbt0AxOM_2Xk-vYTp10n9pu9rU-jFBueYC0resjNEThp1pkZWkWb17WwgHzebOmlkzKJN5MCHBWxxH3ZD6UU9GgvBeZLJaEKP4KjGoWrMm0S-H0XQkKZdk-PRXl2fm5asDa2uyB6kl6YQ38Ok/s640/Cestillos_de_esparto_(29319999262)AAAAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="640" height="572" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBiL4RoDqNZMSctTNh6tv2f1hg7UCQTHU2OoiQFBgPocBbt0AxOM_2Xk-vYTp10n9pu9rU-jFBueYC0resjNEThp1pkZWkWb17WwgHzebOmlkzKJN5MCHBWxxH3ZD6UU9GgvBeZLJaEKP4KjGoWrMm0S-H0XQkKZdk-PRXl2fm5asDa2uyB6kl6YQ38Ok/w640-h572/Cestillos_de_esparto_(29319999262)AAAAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Baskets/containers made by pre-Neolithic nomadic hunter-gatherers<br />found in the dry 'Bat Cave' in Spain. <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2023/11/discovery-prehistoric-baskets-by.html">These baskets have been newly dated and found to be 2,000 years older than previously thought. </a>They were made by hunter-gatherers and not made by Neolithic people.<br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cestillos_de_esparto_(29319999262).jpg" style="color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cestillos_de_esparto_(29319999262).jpg</a></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>NEW DISCOVERIES</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>To my surprise and delight recent discoveries of artifacts, new dating, and microscopic direct evidence have supported many of my ideas in this blog. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>To summarize the new findings: <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/09/nature-article-validates.html">direct evidence of rope made by Neanderthals</a> was found using microscopic techniques, new dating showed that <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2023/11/discovery-prehistoric-baskets-by.html">sophisticated baskets were made by hunter-gatherers</a> which for a hundred years had been dismissed as impossible, and half a million years ago <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2023/10/oldest-wooden-structure-found-in-zambia.html">pre-Homo sapiens hominins made a sophisticated wooden structure </a>with a notched right angle part which again was thought to be impossible. All three of these discoveries were consistent with my ideas and predictions of early hominin technology. All three indicate significant cognitive abilities which required planning and a sense of time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipHT38BuzvuGYt4oAWWaJpzGMQCjbKEeW0-nuAqZKg3KH46ThVdCPBR9NVOburmw4hhXr3f63gjednny037kQvwX0Cq_QzJrB3Wm2xIdoiQTS1K7pOGoWCCcla1fUYfdRbNqRZGlWtvJ0URgrx7sZ2sWo3ghDI7D7gYW95oaj9bE5UYEFMTNwVHSrwZN8/s480/1_FMRI_Brain_Scan.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="480" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipHT38BuzvuGYt4oAWWaJpzGMQCjbKEeW0-nuAqZKg3KH46ThVdCPBR9NVOburmw4hhXr3f63gjednny037kQvwX0Cq_QzJrB3Wm2xIdoiQTS1K7pOGoWCCcla1fUYfdRbNqRZGlWtvJ0URgrx7sZ2sWo3ghDI7D7gYW95oaj9bE5UYEFMTNwVHSrwZN8/w400-h331/1_FMRI_Brain_Scan.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><div style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; text-align: center;">MRI of the human brain. (commons.wikimedia.org)</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FMRI_Brain_Scan.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FMRI_Brain_Scan.jpg</a></span></div></span><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE HUMAN BRAIN</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I was one of the first people to write about the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and how it may be a <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/08/animal-senses-compared-to-human-sense.html">key part of our brain that gives us a sense of time</a>, an actual sense like smell or taste. The PFC appears, for example, to allow basic thinking about time and the future such as considering several chess moves. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI_Hw6pq3Q-pIP0onh2Tq3KwSSOo2wcFm-ZQbL1bL5-yeqFMcF0aGPKeyaGvw3WXWLdT7PSKMYrvTelCvlRyfjoKxLnxl3Is-RYzCV-YdG-ATyGF7oPjZGFKrjWanQ0PJeqPN3z6eCbotu2ihDUYif1-p9N8AzSy_UZdRrOn0S_47in2jyzKYlVBcxb1w/s640/Black-headed_weaver_(Ploceus_cucullatus_bohndorffi)_male_nest_building.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI_Hw6pq3Q-pIP0onh2Tq3KwSSOo2wcFm-ZQbL1bL5-yeqFMcF0aGPKeyaGvw3WXWLdT7PSKMYrvTelCvlRyfjoKxLnxl3Is-RYzCV-YdG-ATyGF7oPjZGFKrjWanQ0PJeqPN3z6eCbotu2ihDUYif1-p9N8AzSy_UZdRrOn0S_47in2jyzKYlVBcxb1w/w640-h426/Black-headed_weaver_(Ploceus_cucullatus_bohndorffi)_male_nest_building.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">A male weaverbird building a nest.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black-headed_weaver_(Ploceus_cucullatus_bohndorffi)_male_nest_building.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black-headed_weaver_(Ploceus_cucullatus_bohndorffi)_male_nest_building.jpg</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>DID EARLY HUMANS LEARN COMPLEX WEAVING FROM WEAVERBIRDS?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I believe I was the first researcher to suggest the following. I was able to show that early hominins, more than a million years ago, <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/10/paleolithic-evidence-for-early-weaving_27.html">lived in close association with weaverbirds who made complex intricate tightly woven nests</a> that looked like containers. I can say this because fossil skeletons of weaverbirds were found in the same layer as Oldowan stone tools at Olduvai Gorge. Also in my research, I found that virtually all anthropologists believe <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/04/oldowan-weaverbirds-homo-habilis-basket-making.html">early hominins lived around baobab trees</a>, ate their fruit, and often found honey there. And weaverbirds also made their nests in baobab trees.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Early hominins would have been able to observe these birds making nests which often took more than a day and the birds used a variety of knots and weaving techniques. Abandoned nests fell to the ground where hominins could have examined them closely. So I believe it is possible that early hominins learned complex basket weaving from these birds. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC8ppr-eO-5yr1v8bpcXbZdikSfIDRWmJSfW4Ew-ZRRjPMuV4aNjPx64d1pNqEoK8wDNDVszRrIVsahaOK7bmX5MItgCW-9lorz-8sSREDjSIjt0SdM4rS-u-2X7spQl8DUThZqlGscsAOHNuObdjDWYIjlU-vcbaYfdfQHXjI0CPOLjIqh6sORoIm8GE/s638/41586_2023_6557_Fig3_HTML.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="638" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC8ppr-eO-5yr1v8bpcXbZdikSfIDRWmJSfW4Ew-ZRRjPMuV4aNjPx64d1pNqEoK8wDNDVszRrIVsahaOK7bmX5MItgCW-9lorz-8sSREDjSIjt0SdM4rS-u-2X7spQl8DUThZqlGscsAOHNuObdjDWYIjlU-vcbaYfdfQHXjI0CPOLjIqh6sORoIm8GE/w640-h274/41586_2023_6557_Fig3_HTML.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"Structural unit formed by two overlapping logs </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The underlying log passes through a central notch cut into the upper log ...and extends into the section. Plan view of the unit (left) and during excavation (right). The numbers refer to the distance in centimetres."</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">(Open access.) <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9" style="color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">RIGHT-ANGLE STRUCTURES</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I wrote two articles about<a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/08/invention-of-right-angle-in-paleolithic-era.html"> the importance of right-angle construction</a> and how it was a <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/12/terra-amata-and-modern-basket-weaving.html">key element in structural design</a> from small baskets to large structures. My hypothesis is that this structural idea was already part of early hominin thinking and engineering about 300,000 years ago. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As I said earlier, a structure made half a million years ago by pre-Homo sapiens was recently identified. It had clearly used a notched right-angle piece of wood as part of its design. This finding has added support to my hypothesis.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYalzQkoVPGUcq5OKcUinYsmKrOokIrUb7pzgJ-vg65bKnGdTzd62miF2zjCxJcLkm1hdhCrB3TU7Iv2ztMo_0V8x2lpoufJ4a7y1N5e-qA0u_2W17RLcsqhVIocWeUWTxUTIN8ikVbNI0U3NQVouOcD1UwJ9N7uj8kKtM3yLp1E_dpb2TW0ziWmSgGjw/s640/Basket,_Apache_people,_Arizona,_c._1900,_coiled_willow_and_devil's_claw_-_Chazen_Museum_of_Art_-_DSC01849%20(1)_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYalzQkoVPGUcq5OKcUinYsmKrOokIrUb7pzgJ-vg65bKnGdTzd62miF2zjCxJcLkm1hdhCrB3TU7Iv2ztMo_0V8x2lpoufJ4a7y1N5e-qA0u_2W17RLcsqhVIocWeUWTxUTIN8ikVbNI0U3NQVouOcD1UwJ9N7uj8kKtM3yLp1E_dpb2TW0ziWmSgGjw/w640-h640/Basket,_Apache_people,_Arizona,_c._1900,_coiled_willow_and_devil's_claw_-_Chazen_Museum_of_Art_-_DSC01849%20(1)_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"Basket, Apache people, Arizona, ca. 1900,<br />coiled willow and devil's claw - Chazen Museum of Art."</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">From the Apache nomadic hunter-gatherers tradition.</span></div></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial; text-align: center;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Basket,_Apache_people,_Arizona,_c._1900,_coiled_willow_and_devil%27s_claw_-_Chazen_Museum_of_Art_-_DSC01849.JPG" style="color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Basket,_Apache_people,_Arizona,_c._1900,_coiled_wilow_and_devil%27s_claw_-_Chazen_Museum_of_Art_-_DSC01849.JPG</a>></span><br /><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>BASKET WEAVING (WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY) DURING THE PALEOLITHIC ERA</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In September 2019, I wrote the following article: </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html">Evidence for a Basket Weaving</a></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html">and Woven-Fiber Technology</a></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html">in the Paleolithic Era</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I made the point that considerable indirect evidence suggests that basket weaving and related weaving existed in the Paleolithic era, especially the Upper Paleolithic, and this technology was capable of making a wide variety of items from small baskets to houses and boats. While indirect evidence of impressions in clay proved that basket weaving existed in the Upper Paleolithic era, there was no direct evidence. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But now in a report dated November 2023, <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2023/11/discovery-prehistoric-baskets-by.html">new radiocarbon dating of complete baskets </a>found in a cave in Spain has shown that hunter-gatherers had mastered this technology contrary to assumptions that had prevailed for over 100 years which maintained this was impossible. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And more, the implications of this discovery are large. If these societies could make these well-woven baskets, they probably could have made many other things with woven-fiber technology such as small boats, temporary houses, mats, and a variety of food-related items such as plates, bowls, water-carrying baskets both large and small and even baskets for cooking (really). What I just mentioned are items that hunter-gatherer Native American Indians were able to make with weaving technology.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This means the Upper Paleolithic cultures might have been much more advanced and developed than previously thought. And this is what my article suggested.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsNCVMwnle7m2U9fZf74n5eCIbsyAaWuOIYZIg_Jjh4MTkG2Cx4n5CSE4Tzg-l9NK9Jq-wRb1x7IalSsf7-3k2YFFsFj5iz22FLWQb-fGftNFw9QDWSd0ueZjAZKI6lgYlOv7SMI8ZQQicrQbALbnhL096xNHteMmKKHD9qocNilobw3qXc_BVKJ1MRqk/s640/newgrange_diagram_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="257" data-original-width="640" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsNCVMwnle7m2U9fZf74n5eCIbsyAaWuOIYZIg_Jjh4MTkG2Cx4n5CSE4Tzg-l9NK9Jq-wRb1x7IalSsf7-3k2YFFsFj5iz22FLWQb-fGftNFw9QDWSd0ueZjAZKI6lgYlOv7SMI8ZQQicrQbALbnhL096xNHteMmKKHD9qocNilobw3qXc_BVKJ1MRqk/w640-h258/newgrange_diagram_2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial; text-align: center;">Diagram of the Newgrange passage and solstice light from the side. (Irish Art History Section, Professional Development Service for Teachers, P.D.S.T., Ireland)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A PRECISE NEOLITHIC INSTRUMENT AT NEWGRANGE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I wrote a <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/03/computing-winter-solstice-at-newgrange.html">detailed study of the Newgrange passage tomb</a> in Ireland. It is now proven that, around the time of the winter solstice, light comes directly down the passageway and only around that time. But I have suggested it could be taken one step further. I believe the configuration could determine the actual day of the solstice in real-time, an idea that others have suggested but which I have covered in much more detail. Furthermore, if I am right, the Greeks and Romans, 2500 years later, could not determine the day of the solstice in real-time according to my research. So this would mean that the science of the Neolithic culture at Newgrange was more advanced than Greek and Roman science in some respects.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The very slight change in the sun's position at the time of the winter solstice combined with atmospheric conditions has made it virtually impossible to pinpoint the actual day of the solstice in real-time. However, I believe that the Neolithic scientists at Newgrange found a way to do just that. I have been a professional photographer for 30 years which often involved lighting. My art photographs, which are different from my commercial work, are often pictures of landscapes with low-angled lighting or abstracts with unusual lighting. This means I understand how light works and how a slight change in an angle from a light source can make a difference. For example, the shadows can be different. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So I am reasonably sure that a slight change in the sun's angle around the time of the winter solstice could be clear when viewed in the passageway at Newgrange. This is because in many ways the passageway at Newgrange behaves like a scientific instrument that magnifies the sun's rays. I believe this magnification reveals the difference between the day of the solstice and the days before and after. I feel this hypothesis could be and should be scientifically tested which I have advocated. With the new science of photogrammetry which can create a precise interactive digital model, this should not be hard to do. The difficult part for a simulation would be to make sure the sun's rays were entering the passageway at just the right angles.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCF2FKec4kCWW1UyQarTGqJ88j_hJbxekhD9dfRGiLFoNTWyeDMWL7f1ebduxjbOb6-gGYKnBkXSPUVaYhmGqbyLuT_0Oe_THkGri1e8KEII0xcjQV3NIUzNIJug7eYvtV3MAeabYGhR8BjNMPOS-LNmQurTEDy1bqf1_C3iYz2u6ZiaiLh8XqyTViDzU/s640/Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762)A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="640" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCF2FKec4kCWW1UyQarTGqJ88j_hJbxekhD9dfRGiLFoNTWyeDMWL7f1ebduxjbOb6-gGYKnBkXSPUVaYhmGqbyLuT_0Oe_THkGri1e8KEII0xcjQV3NIUzNIJug7eYvtV3MAeabYGhR8BjNMPOS-LNmQurTEDy1bqf1_C3iYz2u6ZiaiLh8XqyTViDzU/w640-h448/Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762)A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial; text-align: center;">This grass house (mudhif) was built entirely out of reeds, including the rope and mats. Many archaeologists believe this basic design was older than the first Mesopotamian cities and these types of buildings housed many people after the Sumerian civilizations had risen.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial; text-align: center;">"Iraq's Marsh Arabs use reeds to build vaulted reception halls called mudhifs, such as this one at Albu Hamrah near the ancient Sumerian archaeological site of Lagash."</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial; text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762).jpg" style="color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762).jpg</a></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>EARLY CIVILIZATIONS AND THE REED INDUSTRY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I offer substantial evidence (such as cuneiform receipts and about a hundred weaving-related words) that <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-importance-of-basket-weaving.html">Mesopotamia had a large critical reed industry</a> which has <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/06/mesopotamian-misconceptions.html">not been identified by other researchers</a>. Plentiful reeds were used extensively throughout these societies. Sophisticated reed construction was used to make a variety of large and small boats, large and small buildings, a wide variety of baskets for domestic or commercial use, and all-purpose mats.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I did the research to establish this because I think it is possible that the grid structure of reed baskets was a model for Mesopotamian astronomy which divided the night sky into vertical and horizontal sections. Babylonian scientists created our modern system of hours, minutes, and seconds which we still use today. We even use the same math of sixty minutes to an hour and 60 seconds to a minute as the Mesopotamians. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSDF4fTjSYFmT2zv43jG6zXa5ogCvalBdWDnLsOQA0zRdhM87DN1KskPrmktDokbCSg7VYUtQCCZgZlEBUmO0LqY1N5ROYhoRGf2METMhEJiCvJJ24HBrV1muzgCd1IMZCMFsXwZZTFj3FyyumYJcBs-aTyesZyiReYLC3ACXhs5UBloIAGyR6IkhJr5I/s320/1_Old_TimeMachine.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="320" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSDF4fTjSYFmT2zv43jG6zXa5ogCvalBdWDnLsOQA0zRdhM87DN1KskPrmktDokbCSg7VYUtQCCZgZlEBUmO0LqY1N5ROYhoRGf2METMhEJiCvJJ24HBrV1muzgCd1IMZCMFsXwZZTFj3FyyumYJcBs-aTyesZyiReYLC3ACXhs5UBloIAGyR6IkhJr5I/w400-h335/1_Old_TimeMachine.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><div style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: center;">Gears in a pocket watch that use Ptolemy's geometry.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Time_Machine.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Time_Machine.jpg</a></span></div></span><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE GEOCENTRIC SOLAR SYSTEM AND OUR MODERN MACHINE AGE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>My last possible "proof" brings my ideas in this blog up to today. It involves the<a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-discredited-geocentric-cosmos-was.html"> discredited Earth-centered astronomy, known as geocentric astronomy</a>, of the Greek astronomer Ptolemy. His system was used to create a yearly calendar, but over time it became clear that the calendar was off. This led to the more accurate sun-centered, heliocentric system, that we use today. Once this older system had been discarded, many knowledgeable people, such as my college history teacher, made fun of its epicycles or wheels within wheels, considering them absurd and cumbersome. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But they had missed a basic point. While the calendar was off, it was only off by one day every hundred years! This meant that the basic geometry and math were quite accurate. They were so accurate that starting around 1400 CE, many medieval clocks were made based on this system and its "absurd" gearing -- and they worked very well. Some are still working today after about 600 years.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Clocks based on the Ptolemaic geometry were constructed up to the time of the Industrial Revolution which used the same geocentric gearing for the invention of numerous machines. Today this engineering of gears and gearing is very much a part of the modern world. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But don't take my word for it. As one of the acknowledged experts on the subject of clocks said, Clocks were the "key machine of the modern industrial age."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Strandh, Sigvard (1979). <i>A History of the Machine.</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When the industrial age began expert clockmakers were in high demand. This is because many machines were like a clock that must operate in a specific order and then repeat.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>OTHER IMPORTANT IDEAS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/06/timeline-of-human-time-concepts.html">THE EVOLUTION OF TIME CONCEPTS</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I believe the immediacy of time that animals experience changed slowly during the Paleolithic era. It developed into an understanding that some things such as processes required a sense of linear time. A process must be planned and executed in a certain order, for example, and the end result must be imagined at the start of the process. Next,<a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/05/neolithic-concepts-of-time.html"> in the Neolithic era, I believe that time was seen as cyclical with repeating yearly seasons</a>. However, within the cyclical seasons, long-term yearly linear planning could be implemented. So preparing ground for planting, planting, harvesting, and storing grain would have required a linear way of thinking but within a world that was believed to be cyclical. Finally, linear time became the principal concept that we use today. Time is seen as a commodity that can be managed and planned. "Time is money," as the saying goes.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipsxVhfGT8awkvjivAT5F8JMfGmVBAr3W3NW6EBLKgnBxParFUOkNN_-cwG9wEu5b6EXzAsCfQrLbCJkiDsQTj2gj7Gv8xOkCUjKWKCnVDL7PXvABC1xHPE-VtE5p_98ZbfE4bPuXoIGsQQfGZRNJddvld50Ua8p_RKPbYi0jvm5G75MMOIfNMjkeWsdY/s640/1_Pirahas_of_Brazil.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="640" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipsxVhfGT8awkvjivAT5F8JMfGmVBAr3W3NW6EBLKgnBxParFUOkNN_-cwG9wEu5b6EXzAsCfQrLbCJkiDsQTj2gj7Gv8xOkCUjKWKCnVDL7PXvABC1xHPE-VtE5p_98ZbfE4bPuXoIGsQQfGZRNJddvld50Ua8p_RKPbYi0jvm5G75MMOIfNMjkeWsdY/w640-h464/1_Pirahas_of_Brazil.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">A Piraha group in the Amazon.</div></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pirahas_of_Brazil.jpg"><span style="font-family: arial;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pirahas_of_Brazil.jpg</span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>LANGUAGE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A hunter-gatherer tribe in the Amazon, the Piraha, uses a language that speaks of time in immediate terms.<a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2018/10/everett-how-language-began-and-human-time-keeping.html"> This could be an example of an earlier culture which works with time as being immediate.</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>BASKETRY AND WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I believe that basket weaving or woven-fiber technology was a plant material technology that existed along with stone tool-making for perhaps millions of years. Furthermore, I think that baskets and other woven-fiber items should be considered tools, although, for some odd reason, they have not been given the status of 'tools' in the past. I also think that weaving with its regular grid-like patterns may have become one of the models for time. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>MODERN ASSUMPTIONS, BIASES, AND MISCONCEPTIONS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In my research, it became clear that one of the biggest obstacles to discovering the truth about early technologies and early societies was our modern point of view. In particular, I found that the art of basket weaving had been subjected to a range of incorrect assumptions that prevented it from being given the status it deserved. Here are some of those mistakes.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibZq8zKZ8yw_ekh7_JECyHOGnyRxoArATwBZCXbpg9ceVWaLUOEEsunIA7WfFdAAmK6DCOa9kF19h3kGwm3PUW1FNKDaT4ua9Ugjtq_gqUPAhlet-y-dzMAaDtcWOlQRPbyyahczEcQftzAPnUSRnhGPGacJ6S2p-ihFUmVzlH7CcKulrACxDlzfewyfM/s640/American_Indians_-_first_families_of_the_Southwest_(1920)_(14775904322)%20(1)A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="640" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibZq8zKZ8yw_ekh7_JECyHOGnyRxoArATwBZCXbpg9ceVWaLUOEEsunIA7WfFdAAmK6DCOa9kF19h3kGwm3PUW1FNKDaT4ua9Ugjtq_gqUPAhlet-y-dzMAaDtcWOlQRPbyyahczEcQftzAPnUSRnhGPGacJ6S2p-ihFUmVzlH7CcKulrACxDlzfewyfM/w640-h428/American_Indians_-_first_families_of_the_Southwest_(1920)_(14775904322)%20(1)A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333;">"The [basket that this] grandmother is weaving about herself<br />is to be used as a store for grains and vegetables."<br />This storage basket is very similar to an early Neolithic basket that was just found.</div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333;">This is a colorized B&W photo from <br /><i>American Indians: first families of the Southwest</i> by Huckel.</div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Indians_-_first_families_of_the_Southwest_(1920)_(14775904322).jpg" style="color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Indians_-_first_families_of_the_Southwest_(1920)_(14775904322).jpg</a>></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333;">"Relatively few tribes of American Indians understood pottery, except in the crudest form. As for basketry, it may be said that every Indian from the land of the Esquimaux down through Mexico was a basket weaver." Quote from the above.</div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>6 MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF BASKETRY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#1. A basket is a tool! For some odd reason, basketry has not been valued for its functions and usefulness and has rarely been given the status of a tool. Yet even simple container baskets fit the definition of a tool and other more complex products made with a woven-fiber technology do as well.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#2. It was assumed for over 100 years that basket weaving must have begun in the Neolithic era because it was labor-intensive. It was assumed that Paleolithic people did not have the time or the skill to make baskets while Neolithic people did. However recent studies showed that hunter-gatherers have more free time and horticultural farmers less free time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#3. It was assumed that pottery was an advance over basket weaving and that cultures that used pottery were more advanced than those that made baskets. But <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/01/advanced-basket-weaving-technology-in.html">basketry was quite sophisticated when it became fully developed</a> and it was more appropriate for nomadic societies because it was light, strong, and could be made from local plants in just about any environment. In other words, it worked better for nomadic people and may have been a sophisticated technology.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#4. <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html">The huge variety of items that could be made with woven-fiber technology was not recognized.</a> I put together a list of things that could be made, from sandals to huge buildings and sea-going reed ships, to show the versatility of this technology. It included clothing, roofs for houses, fences, heavy-duty baskets for dredging canals, and even levy construction. </b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I believe this versatility made it a key technology for Neolithic societies and the later Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations as well. I believe these civilizations could not have functioned without it.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#5. In the 1800s and most of the 1900s, the work of women was not valued. So when anthropologists looked at the basketry of Native American Indians in North America <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/12/overcoming-gender-bias-in-paleolithic.html">it was often seen as "women's work."</a> Many of the best baskets and woven-fiber items WERE made by women but their skill was highly valued by Indian men who understood the complexity of the craft. These baskets were so well made that many of them lasted for generations and were passed down as family treasures.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#6. We all know the joke about the incredibly easy college course, "Underwater Basket Weaving." This joke reflects the lack of respect that basketry has received. As a result,<a href=" https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/03/replace-term-basket-weaving-with-term.html"> I have suggested that the technology be renamed "woven-fiber technology"</a> since basket weaving "can't get no respect!"</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF A MODERN BIAS -- NEWGRANGE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Archaeologists knew about the Newgrange passage tomb for over 250 years but assumed that it was just another crude stone Neolithic building. Because it looked crude to their eyes they were incapable of understanding that it was built with great precision not only in its construction but in its orientation as it was exactly placed to capture the sunrise around the time of the winter solstice -- a fact which today is no longer in dispute. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>CONCLUSION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I hope I have added to the conversation about the importance of time and added to an understanding of how we humans developed a sense of time and how we perceive and use time. I feel that this is the most important thing I could do: to contribute to the conversation and to ask good questions.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>At the same time, I did try to make a complete narrative from the earliest beginnings of human-like creatures right up to today. I have written at least one article about each important time period. So I have made an attempt to tell a full story which you may or may not agree with but at least it is an attempt at such a story.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And in the future, I will try to find evidence or ideas that will fill gaps in my narrative.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><div style="text-align: center;">Most of the full articles are available as PDFs <br />which you can download or read online.</div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://unc.academia.edu/RickDoble">https://unc.academia.edu/RickDoble</a></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">the most recent are here:</div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://unc.academia.edu/RickDoble/Drafts">https://unc.academia.edu/RickDoble/Drafts</a></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-34122477624906750632023-11-02T02:42:00.000-04:002023-11-02T02:42:42.663-04:00Discovery: Prehistoric Baskets By Nomadic Hunter-Gatherers<div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><h1><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>A MAJOR DISCOVERY OF DIRECT EVIDENCE:<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>Well-Preserved Baskets Are Found To Be <br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>2000 Years Older Than Previously Thought<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>& <br />The Ideas of Rick Doble who predicted this</b></span></h1></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>New radiocarbon dating has determined that prehistoric artifacts, based on a basket weaving technology, found in the 'Bat Cave' in Spain (Cueva de los Murciélagos, Albuñol, Granada) are 2,000 years older than previously believed. The oldest are about 8,500 BP and related to early nomadic Holocene hunter-gatherers in Europe. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi3055">https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi3055</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizvA4vZB_Ew9GlNgE5ktDPtxi_y35CWtdDq0lRugZopyS46Fona2jaV7-A20EtBijNlTMBtGKFxYjjeV_O1CXfrA-cA5lMYy38LEsY1tKazRmxXsUxO3O9GS2qmITbrxwofnQppKARNMhoLGodzfml6CRywEuyns-i82snfYTWWSbsXsaNZFSfrFIi7do/s800/Cestillos_de_esparto_(29319999262)AAAAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="715" data-original-width="800" height="572" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizvA4vZB_Ew9GlNgE5ktDPtxi_y35CWtdDq0lRugZopyS46Fona2jaV7-A20EtBijNlTMBtGKFxYjjeV_O1CXfrA-cA5lMYy38LEsY1tKazRmxXsUxO3O9GS2qmITbrxwofnQppKARNMhoLGodzfml6CRywEuyns-i82snfYTWWSbsXsaNZFSfrFIi7do/w640-h572/Cestillos_de_esparto_(29319999262)AAAAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Baskets/containers made by pre-Neolithic nomadic hunter-gatherers <br />found in the dry 'Bat Cave' in Spain.<br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cestillos_de_esparto_(29319999262).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cestillos_de_esparto_(29319999262).jpg</a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPloO9L6eAxUhCEsi1BdMFTGH_78ncuYX2QtMmjXbrDA3TPwLdzfUby0nJTVUbi-Xphy1IU8_YKmlnQNME6VIWtS-X31LD3_jeCC_TPixrlprjxvnLP89oTYMFLfNlDuvq1SWZYWjoKbIHpFDlVkdRrpkCjh8sNH5ym9YpSb7KzZStp2vou9PsUon2BsA/s674/Cestillos_de_esparto_(29319999262)AAAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="674" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPloO9L6eAxUhCEsi1BdMFTGH_78ncuYX2QtMmjXbrDA3TPwLdzfUby0nJTVUbi-Xphy1IU8_YKmlnQNME6VIWtS-X31LD3_jeCC_TPixrlprjxvnLP89oTYMFLfNlDuvq1SWZYWjoKbIHpFDlVkdRrpkCjh8sNH5ym9YpSb7KzZStp2vou9PsUon2BsA/w640-h410/Cestillos_de_esparto_(29319999262)AAAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Detail of above.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJb72vsBAlJke80kABD0rJGqiK8BmhgH_GWvIJsWJWdDoeboCMrEjeuS56hDR2SR3tod-hCeTKxLyScfobc7F36nlFobZ1m4D_dVwepLfqjrscwwEVMVsq6GURhI15LlI3p1KD13oIcKfyWBioDD-P8u2_pT6k93FdhyphenhyphenDRlpYCyK-iRhbUc3ZHN5q4F9c/s800/Cestillos_de_esparto_(29319999262)AAAAAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="800" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJb72vsBAlJke80kABD0rJGqiK8BmhgH_GWvIJsWJWdDoeboCMrEjeuS56hDR2SR3tod-hCeTKxLyScfobc7F36nlFobZ1m4D_dVwepLfqjrscwwEVMVsq6GURhI15LlI3p1KD13oIcKfyWBioDD-P8u2_pT6k93FdhyphenhyphenDRlpYCyK-iRhbUc3ZHN5q4F9c/w640-h452/Cestillos_de_esparto_(29319999262)AAAAAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Detail of above.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>SUMMARY OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS DISCOVERY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- This new dating means that a kind of threshold has been crossed; it means that the oldest artifacts were made by nomadic hunter-gatherers and not Neolithic people as had been previously thought.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Until recently it was assumed that basket weaving and woven-fiber technology began in the sedentary Neolithic time period and that this kind of advanced technology would not have been possible for nomadic hunter-gatherers.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- The sophistication of the oldest baskets also indicates that this technology had been developing in the Paleolithic era for a long time, as it would taken many years for this kind of craftsmanship to develop.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- It also means that at the beginning of the Neolithic era, the technology was already quite sophisticated. The Neolithic people inherited a woven-fiber technology that had been well developed by nomadic hunter-gatherers and which they could add to or improve upon and which was also crucial for the establishment of the Neolithic way of life.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- In both cases, it shows considerable skill and good designs.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Having direct evidence of complete well-preserved artifacts means that this technology can now be studied in great detail which will also reveal a good deal about the abilities of nomadic hunter-gatherers.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>“The quality and technological complexity of the basketry makes us question the simplistic assumptions we have about human communities prior to the arrival of agriculture in Southern Europe,” the study's leader, Francisco Martínez Sevilla, said and was quoted in the original <i>SCIENCE ADVANCE</i> article.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi3055">https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi3055</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A complex and skilled process:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"The ancient humans crushed the grass to make twine to braid baskets, bags and sandals. The grass had to be dried for 20 to 30 days before it was rehydrated for 24 hours to make it pliable — a complex and skilled process."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/worlds-oldest-shoes-sandals-found-bat-cave-spain-granada-rcna118012">https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/worlds-oldest-shoes-sandals-found-bat-cave-spain-granada-rcna118012</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE DISCOVERY IN DETAIL</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Anthropologists have known about these various woven-fiber items for decades but they were believed to be Neolithic. Now, however, this new dating shows that the oldest items were made by nomadic hunter-gatherers before the Neolithic era and are direct evidence of that fact. These items are well made and show a highly advanced technology.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi3055">https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi3055</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This is extremely important because it places the time of the production of sophisticated basket weaving and woven-fiber technology long before the Neolithic era. The discovery of an advanced technology means that it usually came from a technology that had been developing for many years prior. This indicates that an earlier version was probably available to nomadic hunter-gatherers and suggests that well-made items could have been designed and created tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This discovery changes our understanding of the time period before the Neolithic era, e.g., the Upper Paleolithic and also the Mesolithic period just before the Neolithic. Prior to this, only indirect evidence had been found in the form of basket weaving impressions in small bits of clay which were even much older. This current find provides direct evidence of well-preserved complete intact artifacts which greatly supports the earlier indirect evidence.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This discovery applies to the largest and most comprehensive group of baskets found so far that are intact and from the nomadic hunter-gatherer era. This means that the method of weaving and of processing the fibers, and the sturdiness of the design can all be studied in detail. Most of these baskets used fibers from the esparto plant which was highly valued for its many uses and properties. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This technology was probably valued by nomadic hunter-gatherers because woven fiber items were light, strong, and durable and could be made in a wide variety of shapes and sizes for a wide variety of purposes including large burden baskets, containers, cooking baskets, bowls, plates, and very large and small water carrying baskets. They could also be designed to store grain for long periods of time. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In this recent discovery complete well-made woven-fiber containers, baskets, bowls, plates, and shoes are some of the artifacts that were found in this dry cave along with fragments of cloth and mats. Normally fiber-based items decay quickly but in this case, the cave was quite dry and preserved these items. This find is rare and provides major evidence that usually is lost.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Furthermore, the discovery shows that at the very beginning of the Neolithic era this technology was already highly advanced. It is my belief that because it had been so well developed it provided Neolithic cultures with the early necessary tools for their sedentary way of life to take hold. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>While the Neolithic is famous for the invention of pottery and the domestication of animals, these only came during the last third of the Neolithic era. Basket weaving (woven-fiber) technology was needed for thousands of years before pottery was perfected and long before pack animals were domesticated. So woven-fiber technology was a crucial key industry. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Furthermore, pack animals still required baskets to carry loads and light strong durable baskets were still essential for other work. Woven-fiber technology continued to advance so, for example, when reed fibers were combined with naturally occurring bitumen, small boats, and large sea-faring ships were built in the Persian Gulf area as well as large and smaller 'grass' (reed) buildings. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>SUPPORT FOR DECONSTRUCTINGTIME'S IDEAS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have written several full-length articles that predicted and supported the idea that nomadic hunter-gatherers had a fully developed highly advanced woven-fiber technology that was both versatile and complex. This idea goes against the previously commonly held belief that hunter-gatherers were not capable of such a technology.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I am especially pleased about this find of direct evidence because it confirms many of my ideas and predictions that I have been suggesting for the last four years in this blog. Furthermore, it fits very nicely into my ideas for a revised much longer timeline of how woven-fiber technology developed. Until recently, researchers believed that basketry had begun in the Neolithic era. Now with this and other evidence, it appears that the development could have happened over tens of thousands of years or more. And this, again, is what I have suggested and predicted. Another recent discovery, that I reported in the last blog-article, confirms that early hominins had sophisticated plant material skills and even engineering skills half a million years ago. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>OTHER ANTHROPOLOGISTS AND ARCHAEOLOGISTS HAVE OFFERED SIMILAR IDEAS BEFORE I DID </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I need to point out that several other anthropologists and archaeologists, years ago, offered the same idea of basketry being made in the Upper Paleolithic and before the Neolithic Most of them have many more credentials than I do. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Nevertheless, I feel that I have added something significant to this discussion. I believe that woven-fiber technology was a key technology beginning perhaps at the same time as Oldowan or Acheulean stone tools. I also believe that baskets and woven-fiber items are tools and need to be thought of as such. My theory about basket weaving technology goes back hundreds of thousands of years so it is important to me to place each step at the right point in time, as much as possible. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The sophistication of these recently dated nomadic hunter-gatherer artifacts suggests that the technology was very old and that basket technology worked well with nomadic people who needed tools that were strong, light, and portable and that could be made from local plants. Furthermore, I believe that Neolithic societies inherited a fully developed technology from the Paleolithic era and did not invent it as was previously thought. Then the Neolithic cultures passed their even more developed technology down to the great emerging civilizations such as those in Mesopotamia that I believe had a large reed and fiber industry that was critical for the rise of their civilizations.</b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>DOBLE'S ARTICLES ABOUT THIS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>September 2019</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Evidence for a Basket Weaving</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>and Woven-Fiber Technology</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>in the Paleolithic Era</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><div>VIEW OR DOWNLOAD A PDF</div><div><a href="https://www.academia.edu/40430521/Evidence_for_a_Basket_Weaving_and_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era">https://www.academia.edu/40430521/Evidence_for_a_Basket_Weaving_and_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era</a></div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>January 2022</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Development Of Advanced</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Woven-Fiber Technology</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In The Paleolithic Era</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Insights from Paleo-Indian artifacts and </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Ethnoarchaeology</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/01/advanced-basket-weaving-technology-in.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/01/advanced-basket-weaving-technology-in.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><div>VIEW OR DOWNLOAD A PDF</div><div><a href="https://www.academia.edu/70377004/The_Development_of_Advanced_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era_Insights_from_Paleo_Indian_Artifacts_and_Ethnoarchaeology_By_Rick_Doble">https://www.academia.edu/70377004/The_Development_of_Advanced_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era_Insights_from_Paleo_Indian_Artifacts_and_Ethnoarchaeology_By_Rick_Doble</a></div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>AND</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>While this article is about gender bias, it discusses basket weaving technology by women who were members of nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>December 2020</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>OVERCOMING GENDER BIAS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>IN PALEOLITHIC RESEARCH:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Gender Bias May Have Prevented </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Paleolithic Basket-Weaving Technology </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>from Being Recognized and Accepted</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/12/overcoming-gender-bias-in-paleolithic.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/12/overcoming-gender-bias-in-paleolithic.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><div>VIEW OR DOWNLOAD A PDF</div><div><a href="https://www.academia.edu/44714134/Overcoming_Gender_Bias_in_Paleolithic_Research_Gender_Bias_May_Have_Prevented_Paleolithic_Basket_Weaving_Technology_from_Being_Recognized_and_Accepted">https://www.academia.edu/44714134/Overcoming_Gender_Bias_in_Paleolithic_Research_Gender_Bias_May_Have_Prevented_Paleolithic_Basket_Weaving_Technology_from_Being_Recognized_and_Accepted</a></div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>April 2021</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Crucial Importance </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>of Basket Weaving Technology</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>for the World's First Civilizations</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-importance-of-basket-weaving.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-importance-of-basket-weaving.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><div>VIEW OR DOWNLOAD A PDF</div><div><a href="https://www.academia.edu/49359896/Mesopotamian_Ancient_Basket_Weaving_Technology_and_the_Sumerian_Reed_Industry">https://www.academia.edu/49359896/Mesopotamian_Ancient_Basket_Weaving_Technology_and_the_Sumerian_Reed_Industry</a></div></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>DID THE EMERGING NEOLITHIC WAY OF LIFE DEPEND ON BASKET WEAVING TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPED EARLIER BY HUNTER-GATHERERS?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I BELIEVE IT DID.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Neolithic way of life may have depended on the sophisticated advanced development of basket weaving technology (what I have renamed woven-fiber technology) because it could create a wide variety of well-made light-weight rugged items that were necessary for the Neolithic lifestyle of planting, harvesting, and storing. I believe all of these essential technologies were initially accomplished with basket weaving skills. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>See my article where I explain the skills of nomadic hunter-gatherers and how these skills were probably passed on to Neolithic cultures.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>----</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>February 2022</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Pre-Pottery Neolithic Basket Weaving</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/02/pre-pottery-neolithic-basket-weaving.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/02/pre-pottery-neolithic-basket-weaving.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><div>VIEW OR DOWNLOAD A PDF</div><div><a href="https://www.academia.edu/72287747/Basket_Weaving_and_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Pre_Pottery_Neolithic_PPN_">https://www.academia.edu/72287747/Basket_Weaving_and_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Pre_Pottery_Neolithic_PPN_</a></div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I argue that for the first two-thirds of the Neolithic era, basketry was the key technology that allowed the Neolithic system to take hold. It was only in the last third of the Neolithic era (approx.) that domestication of animals and the use of pack animals replaced people carrying harvested crops in large 'burden' baskets on their backs, that pottery was developed, and that fabric for clothing and other uses, such as sacks, was perfected. And while these new technologies gave the Neolithic societies a major boost, they did not replace the use of woven-fiber technology which continued to be widely used for many different purposes such as the manufacture of small and large boats made of reeds and fibers.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpDknpv_n1gslXgxu5fDlYkYBxbiXPBSC0avALL2K4BImIKlejGxfKi_kAWZYlykYil3JStUnn_rKF38g5geH_KGYWctFtcbf7lkKevJZZ9Lb2enWoKa6LCw0DsAxLsU3iNWbeUg-ojqTtdfYCcvyrDBkjPgZ_u9kWEsutDFu8cS4zsorY1HU-S_l7vy0/s800/1_COMPOSITE_BURDEN_BASKET_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="800" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpDknpv_n1gslXgxu5fDlYkYBxbiXPBSC0avALL2K4BImIKlejGxfKi_kAWZYlykYil3JStUnn_rKF38g5geH_KGYWctFtcbf7lkKevJZZ9Lb2enWoKa6LCw0DsAxLsU3iNWbeUg-ojqTtdfYCcvyrDBkjPgZ_u9kWEsutDFu8cS4zsorY1HU-S_l7vy0/w640-h376/1_COMPOSITE_BURDEN_BASKET_2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Large 'burden baskets' that may have been used <br />in the Neolithic era to bring in the harvest.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-size: 13px;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ka%C5%A1perjev_Janez_z_listnim_ko%C5%A1em_%22kranjska_svetloba%22,_Podlani%C5%A1%C4%8De_1954.jpg" style="color: #29aae1;"><b>https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ka%C5%A1perjev_Janez_z_listnim_ko%C5%A1em_%22kranjska_svetloba%22,_Podlani%C5%A1%C4%8De_1954.jpg</b></a></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-size: 13px;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:V_ko%C5%A1u_nosi_seno_s_travnika,_Spodnje_Zre%C4%8De_1963_(2).jpg" style="color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:V_ko%C5%A1u_nosi_seno_s_travnika,_Spodnje_Zre%C4%8De_1963_(2).jpg</b></a></div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje128-4UdEekGCgUPlq2YmRHv8U4Cx4OX37dnQuBkMozSNpZcbgTx17onb0T3wcpH5WN4f69Rogfa0rRoQntlDMuaJHNYyNvDlTYua-eod1sbUWNqH_fjSRD9UJww9i4fizKkf-4_OpgOW3u8r9HTK-0yCD7oq7rqR5Ux2zUUojnuB4WThdjewUx8KIMo/s400/1_Donkey_panniers.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="400" height="612" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje128-4UdEekGCgUPlq2YmRHv8U4Cx4OX37dnQuBkMozSNpZcbgTx17onb0T3wcpH5WN4f69Rogfa0rRoQntlDMuaJHNYyNvDlTYua-eod1sbUWNqH_fjSRD9UJww9i4fizKkf-4_OpgOW3u8r9HTK-0yCD7oq7rqR5Ux2zUUojnuB4WThdjewUx8KIMo/w640-h612/1_Donkey_panniers.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">A domesticated donkey that was used to transport produce</div><div style="text-align: center;">but still required woven-fiber baskets to carry the load.<br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey_panniers.jpg" style="background-color: white; color: #29aae1; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey_panniers.jpg</b></a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div><b>THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE ABOUT THIS NEW DISCOVERY</b></div><div><b>The earliest basketry in southern Europe: Hunter-gatherer and farmer plant-based technology in Cueva de los Murciélagos (Albuñol). Francisco Martínez-Sevilla, Maria Herrero-Otal, Raquel Piqué Huerta.<i> SCIENCE ADVANCE</i>S, 27 Sep 2023, Vol 9, Issue 39. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adi3055</b></div><div><b><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi3055">https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi3055</a></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>A GOOD EXPLANATION</b></div><div><b><i>Earliest Baskets in Europe, From Almost 10,000 Years Ago, Found in Spanish Cave. </i>Ruth Schuster, Sep 27, 2023.</b></div><div><b><a href="https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2023-09-27/ty-article/earliest-baskets-in-europe-from-almost-10-000-years-ago-found-in-spanish-cave/0000018a-d71f-d476-abcf-f7ff5b860000">https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2023-09-27/ty-article/earliest-baskets-in-europe-from-almost-10-000-years-ago-found-in-spanish-cave/0000018a-d71f-d476-abcf-f7ff5b860000</a></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>CONCLUSION</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>While we can be delighted that this recent direct evidence has been found, unfortunately, the central problem still remains, which is that while natural fibers and wood probably were the largest materials used by early humans as all researchers agree, almost all evidence has decayed and thus is very hard to find. But now, at least, we are beginning to know what to look for</b></div></span></div></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">_________________________________</span></b></h1><h1 style="text-align: center;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">AFTERWORD</span></b></h1><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial;"><b style="font-size: large;">ESPARTO WOVEN-FIBER ARTIFACTS</b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial;">From an earlier DeconstructingTime blog-article <br />before the discovery that these artifacts were 2000 years older.</span></p><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px;"><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Just how versatile was this technology? What kind of products could it provide? Woven-fiber technology was dependent on the plants that grew wild locally. So reeds were plentiful and versatile around Mesopotamia, papyrus was widely used in Lower Egypt, and in Spain and in North Africa the esparto plant was valued for its many uses.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br />Fortunately, in the case of esparto, we have direct evidence since many baskets, shoes, and mats have survived intact. The existence of these items also shows that basketry and weaving technologies were being widely used in the Neolithic and earlier. </b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6QFTGNOc74KrMLxMCVHeLfjQn0AsGknsazeey7nKee7mMLCDWSLD5b5yWVZfLYxgx9fTyLAusClqf7YvBFbiHZJn1sz9CYQVtWMbft1D2CbEWbgnYD_nqfugzIn2LSLtkUloCT_eKUNMPALeaFKJx_4coQwt1lJVLLqNRdMQit6vxQdBaFGou7jML=s575" style="color: #29aae1; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="575" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6QFTGNOc74KrMLxMCVHeLfjQn0AsGknsazeey7nKee7mMLCDWSLD5b5yWVZfLYxgx9fTyLAusClqf7YvBFbiHZJn1sz9CYQVtWMbft1D2CbEWbgnYD_nqfugzIn2LSLtkUloCT_eKUNMPALeaFKJx_4coQwt1lJVLLqNRdMQit6vxQdBaFGou7jML=s320" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></div>Esparto distribution.<br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Esparto_distribution.jpg" style="color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Esparto_distribution.jpg</a>></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The following is quoted from:</b></span></div><div style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>Traditional Craft Techniques of Esparto Grass (Stipa tenacissima L.) in Spain</i></b></span></div><div style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/19717708/Traditional_Craft_Techniques_of_Esparto_Grass_Stipa_tenacissima_L_in_Spain?auto=download" style="color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.academia.edu/19717708/Traditional_Craft_Techniques_of_Esparto_Grass_Stipa_tenacissima_L_in_Spain?auto=download</a></span></div><div style="font-size: 13px;"><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Numerous archaeological artifacts and remains of esparto basketry have been discovered that date from the Neolithic period in southeast Spain. THESE PIECES DEMONSTRATE HIGH STANDARDS OF QUALITY COMPARED WITH MORE MODERN PIECES. [ED. My emphasis]... These pieces represented clothes, hats, tunics, sandals, baskets, and ropes—ALL MADE WITH THE FINEST TECHNIQUES. </b></span><b style="font-size: large;">[ED. My emphasis] </b><b style="font-size: large;"> In some cases, the artifacts included colored espartos." (Fajardo et al. "Traditional Craft Techniques of Esparto Grass...")</b></blockquote></div><div style="font-size: 13px;"></div><blockquote><div><b></b></div></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><div><b>The authors list all the things that can be made with esparto:</b></div><div>Baskets (wide variety), Beehive, Belt for mules and donkeys, Bottle and container covers, Bowls, Canteen, Chair, Cheese mold, Clothing, Covered basket, Donkey pannier, Dough basket, Espadrilles Esparteñas, Fan, Ferret basket, Fishing net, Fish trap, Fodder basket to feed animals, specially mules and horses, Hat Sombrero, Long rug, Net for fishing or to carry straw in the cart, Oil mill basket for pressing olive pulp, Pitcher, Rope, Round rug, Saddle, Saffron basket to collect saffron flowers, Sandals, Shepherd spoon, Provisional spoon to eat curd, Shutters to keep the home fresh, Shepherd’s slings, Snail basket to catch snails, Sowing basket, Stool, Swarm catcher to catch bee swarms, Table mat, Toys and ornaments, Tunics.</div></blockquote><p style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"></p></blockquote><p style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Baskets, Shoes, And Mats From The 'Bat Cave' </b></span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Found In Los Murcielagos Cave, Albunol, Province Of Granada, Andalusia, Spain.</span></p><div style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhT6PodkzycpPFosFwL_RqXR_WzQKtqwq3m1bbeXJlSajbGWzS0QfhIU23asOLmGKK4e4mjXOzFKhC_yX7d5m5iKYnW-3flmpnFgM2DVdOkm5J6_kgSN7lNkv18uvaC3Uzdm9XFkxdw_fz45FaFNfmf-VEfb04CBnGVFYzeay4QnILrT1Omj1a5ecVI=s800" style="color: #29aae1; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="344" data-original-width="800" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhT6PodkzycpPFosFwL_RqXR_WzQKtqwq3m1bbeXJlSajbGWzS0QfhIU23asOLmGKK4e4mjXOzFKhC_yX7d5m5iKYnW-3flmpnFgM2DVdOkm5J6_kgSN7lNkv18uvaC3Uzdm9XFkxdw_fz45FaFNfmf-VEfb04CBnGVFYzeay4QnILrT1Omj1a5ecVI=w640-h276" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Bowl RIGHT: Detail of bowl</div><div><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cester%C3%ADa_Murci%C3%A9lagos_03.JPG" style="color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cester%C3%ADa_Murci%C3%A9lagos_03.JPG</a>></div></div><p style="font-size: 13px;"></p><p style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgE34mLiwKt6aLY1a-gupPTMppXG1UnSFY4L4NTkyX-Hpt9OgQZm9VGOXnN8zDtQwrxHlptz_mhotLIcwp8O7Yo8kX4cjH7Uarlgx7LEeV0PmxpdGBifR7RhCnyhwbnoCBSuA9_OgV1mTz-04TaagYAzkphGFTruQrfiFYFQ88Tauyx28iaCtjyFAUA=s800" style="color: #29aae1; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="800" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgE34mLiwKt6aLY1a-gupPTMppXG1UnSFY4L4NTkyX-Hpt9OgQZm9VGOXnN8zDtQwrxHlptz_mhotLIcwp8O7Yo8kX4cjH7Uarlgx7LEeV0PmxpdGBifR7RhCnyhwbnoCBSuA9_OgV1mTz-04TaagYAzkphGFTruQrfiFYFQ88Tauyx28iaCtjyFAUA=w640-h376" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Basket RIGHT: Detail of basket</div><div><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cester%C3%ADa_Murci%C3%A9lagos_02.JPG" style="color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cester%C3%ADa_Murci%C3%A9lagos_02.JPG</a>></div></div><p style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgeYW7kR1zXZJ6AdPLZhtjTjcDonryhheGaFjBdMO4fgtgiycKzOphyvupQUfSoGAfrz1t6mf3NsyCQtfKS63moc0PfNFFwZ1kDQLWhfCILCX0a0jxhhYD_sS7uYJ2SPHy4YPDfF167WmwY9AiJFjuzVGj2RRzB1yP4vVX-O2KABtpqKa7HtulC5Uid=s800" style="color: #29aae1; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="368" data-original-width="800" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgeYW7kR1zXZJ6AdPLZhtjTjcDonryhheGaFjBdMO4fgtgiycKzOphyvupQUfSoGAfrz1t6mf3NsyCQtfKS63moc0PfNFFwZ1kDQLWhfCILCX0a0jxhhYD_sS7uYJ2SPHy4YPDfF167WmwY9AiJFjuzVGj2RRzB1yP4vVX-O2KABtpqKa7HtulC5Uid=w640-h294" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a>LEFT: Mat fragment. RIGHT: Detail of mat fragment.<br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fragmento_de_estera._Neol%C3%ADtico._Museo_Arqueol%C3%B3gico_Nacional_de_Espa%C3%B1a.jpg" style="color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fragmento_de_estera._Neol%C3%ADtico._Museo_Arqueol%C3%B3gico_Nacional_de_Espa%C3%B1a.jpg</a>><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2HwNvgKphLNgJyypoUsxJxzYRNJOfjUgPiv-WWSYyRFINEtdP2hHeL7vkfV6lHI0e9J9IZV1knq_ez6oMNq_h8mdPVatxdQ32b9SkPbNsNCmXmSIf54lB2d8-5S1ob6Tp2uAGsK3xB1MeQWV3VlhLMkjFA5K___WS_JVnjkluvy7oNcujf4sqQPkX=s800" style="color: #29aae1; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="800" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2HwNvgKphLNgJyypoUsxJxzYRNJOfjUgPiv-WWSYyRFINEtdP2hHeL7vkfV6lHI0e9J9IZV1knq_ez6oMNq_h8mdPVatxdQ32b9SkPbNsNCmXmSIf54lB2d8-5S1ob6Tp2uAGsK3xB1MeQWV3VlhLMkjFA5K___WS_JVnjkluvy7oNcujf4sqQPkX=w640-h340" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><div>Neolithic Sandals </div><div><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandalias_del_Neol%C3%ADtico_de_Albu%C3%B1ol_(M.A.N._Inv._595_y_596)_01.jpg" style="color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandalias_del_Neol%C3%ADtico_de_Albu%C3%B1ol_(M.A.N._Inv._595_y_596)_01.jpg</a>><br /><br /></div></div><p style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjf9YllTky7htqr0DnqniL8qjxzb4WP_5Cs-Rjrhojw_MckJExgWhdQQKGBJV14dxbBjJ87x-graqgUV3DOlT5IfQt1QPE1rCVQZELjF5O4gxDoKLtp47veZO2U98WhRNaiTdZmv9rVoZGZB6vDb0Uu8VB2l7CAhogW7zCPPtK1lYIJ5J3YZZyOPG4o=s800" style="color: #29aae1; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="800" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjf9YllTky7htqr0DnqniL8qjxzb4WP_5Cs-Rjrhojw_MckJExgWhdQQKGBJV14dxbBjJ87x-graqgUV3DOlT5IfQt1QPE1rCVQZELjF5O4gxDoKLtp47veZO2U98WhRNaiTdZmv9rVoZGZB6vDb0Uu8VB2l7CAhogW7zCPPtK1lYIJ5J3YZZyOPG4o=w640-h238" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></p><div style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Recreation of a Neolithic snail basket,<br />a traditional basket for collecting and gathering snails <br />RIGHT: Detail snail basket</div><div><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Snail_basket.jpg" style="color: #29aae1; text-decoration-line: none;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Snail_basket.jpg</a>></div></div><p style="font-size: 13px;"></p><p style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>There are also many ways of processing the esparto plant and many ways of weaving the plant for various purposes which show the depth of knowledge people had.</b></span></p><p style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-60369062398602846132023-10-17T03:00:00.003-04:002023-10-29T05:21:36.115-04:00Oldest wooden structure found in Zambia<div style="text-align: left;"><h1 style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The Oldest Man-Made</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Wooden Structure</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Found in Zambia</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">& </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The Ideas of Rick Doble <br />who predicted the use of right-angle structures <br />in the Lower Paleolithic</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large; font-weight: normal;">by Rick Doble<br /><br /></span></div></div></h1><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>NEW DIRECT EVIDENCE MAY CHANGE THE STORY OF PALEOLITHIC TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN EVOLUTION </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This discovery supports the ideas, theories, and predictions of author, Rick Doble, in this eleven-year-old blog <i>DeconstructingTime.</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">This discovery is</span><span style="font-size: large;">:</span></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- a half-million-year-old wooden structure of carefully made interlocking logs built by early humans before our species, Homo sapiens. Archaeologists think it may have been a platform that was used to keep material dry above the wet ground. It was reported on September 20, 2023 in the journal <i>Nature.</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfDF9yTGqcCSlENzG5Tfp3NC1o7BTZJI4zBOubc1mNdy2r5llF9ShXlyXPDBs1K2cQJon-kRUTo6DUSsBF908k_9POuWZ4vDtGIz3CP_mP9f4Jzq0HGUg-D6zApjkJmeUff9W26_itQXVOQQbF6PzEivb2_OIZ4GiGpwNo__p9n-nxOY9YjAYD65W13OU/s685/41586_2023_6557_Fig3_HTML.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="294" data-original-width="685" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfDF9yTGqcCSlENzG5Tfp3NC1o7BTZJI4zBOubc1mNdy2r5llF9ShXlyXPDBs1K2cQJon-kRUTo6DUSsBF908k_9POuWZ4vDtGIz3CP_mP9f4Jzq0HGUg-D6zApjkJmeUff9W26_itQXVOQQbF6PzEivb2_OIZ4GiGpwNo__p9n-nxOY9YjAYD65W13OU/w640-h274/41586_2023_6557_Fig3_HTML.webp" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"Structural unit formed by two overlapping logs </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The underlying log passes through a central notch cut into the upper log ...and extends into the section. Plan view of the unit (left) and during excavation (right). The numbers refer to the distance in centimetres."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">(Open access.) <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS DISCOVERY</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It would be hard to overestimate the importance of this find. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It is actual wood from the oldest wooden man-made structure that has ever been found.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#1. It is direct evidence of woodwork which has been almost impossible to find due to the fact that wood decays and leaves no trace.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#2. This artifact can be studied for the tools that were used to make it and the way the wood was cut from a specific kind of tree, and then scraped, shaped, and notched.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#3. Much can be inferred about the cognitive abilities of these pre-Homo sapiens because they imagined a design and then engineered a structure.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#4. Using state-of-the-art technology, it was carefully dated by a highly respected team of archaeologists to be at least 476,000 years old meaning that it was made by hominins who preceded our species, Homo sapiens. This means that hominins who came before Homo sapiens were much more intelligent than previously thought and had developed cognitive skills along with woodworking skills.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEireB30_AnlbBKmqjbv_gpRf0v2ldLPum9KBZlntr_vH-Al3Spj4Af5taxEMk4mxKiV0PEKdsfF710H-liNck5IhyaWBR1WeF44fi1DycTCB-bOzAgLsGohSorexTgIxtIy1UOEMA3QI4_DgI3CkBWvGFwj1Ldd5gooTps8v7TGRTuWd1ak2wefqS6MbMw/s685/41586_2023_6557_Fig4_HTML.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="685" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEireB30_AnlbBKmqjbv_gpRf0v2ldLPum9KBZlntr_vH-Al3Spj4Af5taxEMk4mxKiV0PEKdsfF710H-liNck5IhyaWBR1WeF44fi1DycTCB-bOzAgLsGohSorexTgIxtIy1UOEMA3QI4_DgI3CkBWvGFwj1Ldd5gooTps8v7TGRTuWd1ak2wefqS6MbMw/w640-h450/41586_2023_6557_Fig4_HTML.webp" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">"Annotated images of the...upper log...showing areas of intentional modification.</div><div style="text-align: center;">From left to right, the location of the central notch in profile, shaping marks in and on the margins of the notch (a–k), the notch in profile from the opposite side. The image on the right shows the upper surface of the log, and the three parts of the log (1–3) separated by cracks. White arrows indicate locations of shaping facets on the sides and upper surface of the log. "</div><div style="text-align: center;">(Open access.) <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9</a></div><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">A SUMMARY OF HOW THIS DISCOVERY</b></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>SUPPORTS DOBLE'S IDEAS</b></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b>ABOUT THE PALEOLITHIC ERA</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Starting in 2014 I have written articles stating that:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Early hominins such as Homo erectus were much smarter than previously thought.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- A well-developed plant material and fiber technology was probable with these early hominins.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- They had some early stages of cognitive development.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- An early sense of linear time was also developing as that allowed them to work with processes that required linear thinking. Processes require a step-by-step way of working from imagination to the final product. A process is itself linear.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- The importance of right-angle construction by early hominins has been made evident by this discovery of two logs notched together at a right angle. I have written several articles asserting the critical importance of the right angle in early designs and structures.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>DOBLE'S IDEAS AND THIS NEW DISCOVERY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This discovery supports and is consistent with my ideas throughout this blog but especially in my article "<i>Terra Amata:...</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>the Oldest Paleolithic Building Site</i>." that was published in this blog in 2021. </b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">See my article:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Terra Amata: the Oldest Paleolithic Building Site</i> (December 2021)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/12/terra-amata-and-modern-basket-weaving.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/12/terra-amata-and-modern-basket-weaving.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><div>View or download a PDF on the academic site Academia.edu</div><div><a href="https://www.academia.edu/63952553/Terra_Amata_Does_the_Oldest_Paleolithic_Building_Site_Indicate_the_Use_of_Advanced_Basket_Weaving_Technology">https://www.academia.edu/63952553/Terra_Amata_Does_the_Oldest_Paleolithic_Building_Site_Indicate_the_Use_of_Advanced_Basket_Weaving_Technology</a></div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Terra Amata building site was indicated by post holes and is considered to be about 300kya. In my article, I make observations about Terra Amata that would also apply to this new half-million-year-old direct evidence discovery. I said that building a structure would have required advanced cognitive skills to design and plan along with cooperation and coordination among tribal members. The Terra Amata building site showed that pre-Homo sapiens, probably Homo erectus, were much more intelligent than previously thought and probably had also developed an advanced plant material or woven-fiber technology.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Both structures show an understanding of opposing forces. In the case of Terra Amata leaning poles were set against opposite opposing poles to make a hut. In Zambia, the structure showed a log that was carefully made with a notch that was placed at a right angle to another log. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In my Terra Amata article and others in this blog, I have stressed the importance of the right angle and how it may have been a major discovery among early prehistoric people, an abstract structural principle that early hominins understood. This principle could have been used in basket making and other woven-fiber constructions as well as large structures.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNaSw6z7v9iHByIQ7HW63sYokPOYiEcTl4gOvG9TxwsVgZ4JaHvV5TEFZ83Kor9l51VHs3fDS1QHXF4HTj45-yS-ycTI6FyRcB8FEkavKiMdB4FWuBLW8t5pmvMGhyphenhyphenuafKe-LxfqpUTUh46Gh7xpJLjUfekaY-NCHNiiPiktDmxUOt1vPa0O4jGvUm8gs/s640/1536px-Cabane_de_Terra_Amata_1AA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="640" height="606" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNaSw6z7v9iHByIQ7HW63sYokPOYiEcTl4gOvG9TxwsVgZ4JaHvV5TEFZ83Kor9l51VHs3fDS1QHXF4HTj45-yS-ycTI6FyRcB8FEkavKiMdB4FWuBLW8t5pmvMGhyphenhyphenuafKe-LxfqpUTUh46Gh7xpJLjUfekaY-NCHNiiPiktDmxUOt1vPa0O4jGvUm8gs/w640-h606/1536px-Cabane_de_Terra_Amata_1AA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is a reconstruction of one of the 300,000-year-old Terra Amata huts in the Prehistoric Village of the Gorges du Verdon Museum in Quinson, France. The museum states, "The habitats [in their prehistoric village] have all been reconstructed based on research and observations by archaeologists. They are maintained by the museum's scientific team."</span></div><div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.museeprehistoire.com/en/mille-millenaires/le-prehistosite-pour-vivre-la-prehistoire/cinq-habitats-et-un-dolmen-pour-explorez-la-prehistoire">https://www.museeprehistoire.com/en/mille-millenaires/le-prehistosite-pour-vivre-la-prehistoire/cinq-habitats-et-un-dolmen-pour-explorez-la-prehistoire</a></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In both cases, the sophisticated use of wood where trees were cut down, trimmed, and shaped suggests that other plant materials such as fibers were probably used as well. I have proposed a theory that a woven-fiber technology or a technology based on basket weaving probably began among early hominins.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT RIGHT-ANGLE STRUCTURES</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I consider the understanding of right-angle construction to be a major breakthrough for designing and creating a host of items. Since the logs were notched and deliberately placed at a right angle this discovery appears to support my idea.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>MY ARTICLE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>The Invention of Right-Angle Construction in the Paleolithic Era: Including a picture essay that illustrates the capabilities of right-angle woven-fiber technology and basketry</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(August 2020)</b></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/08/invention-of-right-angle-in-paleolithic-era.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/08/invention-of-right-angle-in-paleolithic-era.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>View or download a PDF on the academic site Academia.edu</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.academia.edu/43855673/The_Invention_of_Right_Angle_Construction_in_the_Paleolithic_Era_Including_a_picture_essay_that_illustrates_the_capabilities_of_right_angle_woven_fiber_technology_and_basketry">https://www.academia.edu/43855673/The_Invention_of_Right_Angle_Construction_in_the_Paleolithic_Era_Including_a_picture_essay_that_illustrates_the_capabilities_of_right_angle_woven_fiber_technology_and_basketry</a></b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW THIS AFFECTS MY NEW THEORY OF BASKET WEAVING OR WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY IN THE PALEOLITHIC</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have hypothesized that there was a plant-based technology developed by early hominins starting as early as several million years ago. Specifically, I proposed that a rudimentary basket weaving and woven fiber technology would have been possible among early hominins. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This new discovery makes this idea much more probable. If hominins were making sophisticated wood structures a half million years ago, it is likely that plant technology had its beginnings hundreds of thousands of years before that. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Virtually all anthropologists believe that early hominins used plant and fiber materials but disagree about the specific way they were used. I have proposed a basket weaving technology based on weaving fibers that could have started among the earliest hominins. And, of course, other uses were possible as well.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>MORE ABOUT THIS NEW DISCOVERY</b></span></h1><div><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Buried in wet ground, archaeologists found the oldest known wooden structure that is about half a million years old (at least 476,000 years old). It was found near a river on the border of Zambia and Tanzania. Wood normally decays quickly and leaves no trace, but in this case, the logs were waterlogged which preserved them. Two logs were cut, scraped, and shaped and then joined at a right angle with a notched fitting. Because this structure is so old, older than the first evidence of our species, Homo sapiens, it must have been made by an earlier hominin such as Homo erectus. The researchers speculated that it was part of a platform that was used to keep materials dry above the wet environment. The highly respected team of archaeologists used state-of-the-art technology to date this 'platform'. This discovery is direct evidence of intelligence and cognitive skills by early humans. Until now it was assumed that early hominins were not very smart.</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"></b></div><blockquote><div><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“It’s completely changed my view of what people were capable of that time,” said Duller, coauthor of the study, in the article in the journal <i>Nature</i>. </span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"They used their intelligence, imagination, and skills to create something they'd never seen before, something that had never previously existed," Larry Barham, the lead researcher and a professor at the University of Liverpool who was quoted in this BBC report.</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66956483">https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66956483</a></b></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66956483"></a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>UNDERSTANDING EARLY HOMININ COGNITIVE THINKING</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>While it seems simple to us, the steps involved are mind-boggling when considering the invention of this construction by early hominins with smaller brains.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The 'platform' (if it was a platform) was designed to serve a purpose. No one knows the exact purpose but archaeologists guess that it could have been used to keep material dry above the damp ground. While we do not know the exact purpose, it does not matter when thinking about their cognitive skills. Whatever the specific purpose, there was a purpose and this purpose only makes sense if they had a sense of time. They needed to remember the past and how the environment operated over time with a periodically wet floodplain -- so the platform would function within that environment. Next, they needed to imagine a design which would satisfy that purpose. Such imaginative thinking required a sense of future time. Then they needed to plan and make tools for this work. After that, they cut down trees to obtain wood that had the right properties. Finally, they shaped the logs and notched them (like Lincoln Logs as one researcher said) so they would fit at a right angle. Right angle structures are quite strong but they do not exist in nature, so their cognitive skills had grasped a basic structural principle.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>“I never would have thought that pre-homo sapiens would have had the capacity to plan something like this,” remarked Professor Barham who was a co-author of the study and who was quoted in this <i>Smithsonian Magazine</i> article.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-uncover-notched-logs-that-may-be-the-oldest-known-wooden-structure-180982942/">https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-uncover-notched-logs-that-may-be-the-oldest-known-wooden-structure-180982942/</a></b></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW DOES THIS SUPPORT DOBLE'S IDEAS <br />ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF TIME COMPREHENSION?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As you know this blog is about the 'Human Understanding Of Time' (HUT). It is my contention that the concept of time as we think of it today developed over millions of years from the immediacy of animal existence to our current concept of linear time today which has a past, present, and future plus duration. In this case, half a million years ago, these early humans appear to have had a sense of linear time when planning a task, otherwise, they could not have designed and built this 'platform'. They understood a need based on past experience, then imagined a design to meet that purpose, gathered the material, and then shaped and constructed it. This was a linear process that required a basic understanding of linear time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>However, having a basic sense of linear time does not mean that they understood time as we think of it today. It means, I think, they understood that a task or a process would require linear thinking.</b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"Man must have been conscious of memories and purposes long before he made any explicit distinction between past, present, and future."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Whitrow, Gerald. <i>Time in History: Views of Time from Prehistory to the Present Day.</i> Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press. 1988, pages 21-22.</b></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>MY ARTICLE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>The Importance of Processes in the Paleolithic Era</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(November 2019)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-importance-of-processes-in.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-importance-of-processes-in.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><div>View or download a PDF on the academic site Academia.edu</div><div><a href="https://www.academia.edu/41028208/The_Importance_of_Processes_in_the_Paleolithic_Era">https://www.academia.edu/41028208/The_Importance_of_Processes_in_the_Paleolithic_Era</a></div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>AND MORE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>One of my main themes has been, that early humans, i.e., hominins, were much smarter than previously thought. I believe they used the technology they had to the nth degree and that they were creative and inventive. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>SEE THE AFTERWORD: MODERN-CENTRIC THINKING</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"I would say we need to consider these humans as having the ability to abstract forms from the environment and make them happen, and to pass [that knowledge] on through generations," said Professor Larry Barham. "And that's opened my mind to these pre-sapiens hominins being capable of what we would think of as quite complex behavior."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Quoted in the NPR article.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/09/22/1200975292/worlds-oldest-wooden-structure-defies-stone-age-stereotypes">https://npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/09/22/1200975292/worlds-oldest-wooden-structure-defies-stone-age-stereotypes</a></b></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/09/22/1200975292/worlds-oldest-wooden-structure-defies-stone-age-stereotypes"></a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE ORIGINAL <i>NATURE </i>ARTICLE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Evidence for the earliest structural use of wood at least 476,000 years ago.</i> L. Barham, G. A. T. Duller, I. Candy, C. Scott, C. R. Cart wright, J. R. Peterson, C. Kabukcu, M. S. Chapot, F. Melia, V. Rots, N. George, N. Taipale, P. Gethin & P. Nkombwe. Nature, 20 September 2023. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ONLINE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>PDF</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9.pdf">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9.pdf</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A GOOD BRIEF EXPLANATION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>World's oldest wooden structure defies Stone Age stereotypes.</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Gabriel Spitzer, September 22, 2023.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/09/22/1200975292/worlds-oldest-wooden-structure-defies-stone-age-stereotypes">https://npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/09/22/1200975292/worlds-oldest-wooden-structure-defies-stone-age-stereotypes</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">OVERVIEWS OF RICK DOBLE'S IDEAS</div><div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><i>Should "The Stone Age" Be Called "The Stone and Basket Age?"</i></b></div><div><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2023/05/rename-stone-age-as-stone-and-basket-age.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2023/05/rename-stone-age-as-stone-and-basket-age.html</a></b></div><div><b>View or download a PDF on the academic site Academia.edu</b></div><div><b><a href="https://www.academia.edu/101909837/Should_The_Stone_Age_Be_Called_The_Stone_and_Basket_Age_">https://www.academia.edu/101909837/Should_The_Stone_Age_Be_Called_The_Stone_and_Basket_Age_</a></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><i>Rick Doble's Theory About The Human Understanding of Time (HUT)</i></b></div><div><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/10/hut-theory-human-understanding-of-time.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/10/hut-theory-human-understanding-of-time.html</a></b></div><div><b>View or download a PDF on the academic site Academia.edu</b></div><div><b><a href="https://www.academia.edu/88160122/Rick_Dobles_Theory_About_The_Human_Understanding_of_Time_HUT_">https://www.academia.edu/88160122/Rick_Dobles_Theory_About_The_Human_Understanding_of_Time_HUT_</a></b></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">_________________________________________________________</div></div></span></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>AFTERWORD </b></span></h1><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>EARLY HOMININS DEVELOPED ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES CONTRARY TO MODERN-CENTRIC THINKING</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This next article of mine makes the argument that Paleolithic people developed a sophisticated woven-fiber technology, an idea that, until now, has not been accepted by anthropologists.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>The Development of Advanced Woven-Fiber Technology in the Paleolithic Era: Insights from Paleo-Indian Artifacts and Ethnoarchaeology By Rick Doble </i></b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">(January 2022)</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/01/advanced-basket-weaving-technology-in.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/01/advanced-basket-weaving-technology-in.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div>View or download a PDF on the academic site Academia.edu</div><div><a href="https://www.academia.edu/70377004/The_Development_of_Advanced_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era_Insights_from_Paleo_Indian_Artifacts_and_Ethnoarchaeology_By_Rick_Doble">https://www.academia.edu/70377004/The_Development_of_Advanced_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era_Insights_from_Paleo_Indian_Artifacts_and_Ethnoarchaeology_By_Rick_Doble</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>FROM THE ABOVE ARTICLE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It is my contention that by the Upper Paleolithic, many technologies were quite advanced. In particular, basket weaving or woven-fiber technology had reached a high point of development. There is clay impression evidence of a variety of basket weaving techniques that had been mastered along with other evidence about the manufacture of cordage and the beginnings of textiles. This knowledge and these skills were then passed on to Neolithic cultures who were able to make full use of these technologies in their sedentary and agricultural societies. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>STONE AGE PEOPLE WERE INTELLIGENT AND KNOWLEDGEABLE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Almost ten years ago in 2014, I wrote two detailed blogs about the modern attitude toward ancient people, especially Stone Age people. Here is an excerpt. I listed many more biases so click on the links and read both articles.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>The Moderncentric Bias Against Prehistoric Cultures: Part 1</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(March 2014)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-moderncentric-bias-against.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-moderncentric-bias-against.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>The Moderncentric Bias Against Old Stone Age Societies: Part 2 </i>(April 2014)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-moderncentric-bias-against.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-moderncentric-bias-against.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>BIAS #1:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>OLD STONE AGE PEOPLE WERE BARBARIC SAVAGES</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I believe the loaded words 'savage,' 'barbaric,' and 'caveman' are a kind of name-calling with little substance. Stone Age people had a sophisticated knowledge of their world. They studied and understood in-depth a number of things that we modern people are ignorant about.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>“Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours.”</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Benjamin Franklin</b></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj-T0SfYUDPlUY_CawDF2Z9R-xvNaEZoJxOxCzRlN9l7kRvQKcKU5fVyIHfvIYhrrDetMprk0WgH5p_NDAhTWlLlDngmTAZG9AAWktICG6gt3nNnD23pV7S3HkInMNSIF_1Ja2T8TBB8QVBFrlLWLCj6Hn9Prm8Vo85K-uhKhF0z2ExZxWquRtZP7bOR8/s640/1A_NEOLITHIC_BOWL.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="640" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj-T0SfYUDPlUY_CawDF2Z9R-xvNaEZoJxOxCzRlN9l7kRvQKcKU5fVyIHfvIYhrrDetMprk0WgH5p_NDAhTWlLlDngmTAZG9AAWktICG6gt3nNnD23pV7S3HkInMNSIF_1Ja2T8TBB8QVBFrlLWLCj6Hn9Prm8Vo85K-uhKhF0z2ExZxWquRtZP7bOR8/w640-h276/1A_NEOLITHIC_BOWL.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;">An example of skilled hunter-gatherer and early Neolithic basketry (detail on the right) found in the Cueva de los Murciélagos in southeast Spain (Andalucía, Albuñol). Recently these many baskets and woven items were found to be 2000 years older than previously believed indicating that some were made by European hunter-gatherers. These artifacts showed that hunter-gatherers were capable of well-made basketry accomplished with highly sophisticated woven-fiber technology.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi3055">https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi3055</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-45994599349678563902023-09-02T07:47:00.002-04:002023-09-03T02:46:02.230-04:00Climate Change Denial<h1 style="text-align: left;"></h1><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">A Major Reason </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">Why We Don't Deal<br /></span>With Climate Change</span></h1><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">by Rick Doble</span></h1><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPSfbczy9irMbhwvRmiDmrc0ptkDxItPUlmYYn6Kz15nofmAcYvtfeHYtk-OZIvQ9mp99S6QiwS6A_F1t_-dZQ7LOrQP20LMn-gNEwV_2ZbCudVMSM4MMNJzo_cDGFf3hL6inMazwbm8xR5Nr73ZV-D9rwlpkPRNhOZN0k2MnbKMcws2tXMi6xrdwfT-w/s800/Peaceable_Kingdom_MET_DT4930%20(1)A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="530" data-original-width="800" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPSfbczy9irMbhwvRmiDmrc0ptkDxItPUlmYYn6Kz15nofmAcYvtfeHYtk-OZIvQ9mp99S6QiwS6A_F1t_-dZQ7LOrQP20LMn-gNEwV_2ZbCudVMSM4MMNJzo_cDGFf3hL6inMazwbm8xR5Nr73ZV-D9rwlpkPRNhOZN0k2MnbKMcws2tXMi6xrdwfT-w/w640-h424/Peaceable_Kingdom_MET_DT4930%20(1)A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>The Peaceable Kingdom</i> by Edward Hicks</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">While people believed they were superior to the animals, <br />they also wanted to live in harmony with the animal kingdom.</span></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peaceable_Kingdom_MET_DT4930.jpg"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peaceable_Kingdom_MET_DT4930.jpg</span></a></div></div></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It's hard to change something that has worked well for thousands of years but today we find ourselves in just that situation.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The origins of our current climate crisis go back as far as 12,000 years ago (see next section). This is when the human relationship to nature changed. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>12,000 years ago humans began to think that they were separate from the natural world and that they were superior to nature and the animal kingdom. Up until that time, for millions of years, they thought of themselves as part of nature. But then, instead, they began to think of themselves as a species who could rule and engineer nature to their advantage. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Unfortunately, in the effort to make a human environment that was comfortable for us homo sapiens, we did not grasp the larger picture, i.e., that we were still part of nature and if we got too big we could affect the forces of nature herself.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Yet this was not a major problem until about 100 years ago when the Industrial Revolution took over and gave this way of thinking a power it never had before. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY7iPOscu0SWSOsmVPRdoe4bqvTTPl34KTGpo9H0-rBP2Hw-iEgYvaiOOonc1LksPKVvk0x6BvsdfdW3MXGoFtwh5cB3uuUu5tknW4NQoBqObqrU9EwcGtt-myje8TJwdignj7CFp7FgY52p6MAvbtzkYvjeSGlNQDGAZS_PHds9_kainbtMjaKzXuxc0/s800/COMPOSITE_EGYPT_ATOM_BOMB_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="800" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY7iPOscu0SWSOsmVPRdoe4bqvTTPl34KTGpo9H0-rBP2Hw-iEgYvaiOOonc1LksPKVvk0x6BvsdfdW3MXGoFtwh5cB3uuUu5tknW4NQoBqObqrU9EwcGtt-myje8TJwdignj7CFp7FgY52p6MAvbtzkYvjeSGlNQDGAZS_PHds9_kainbtMjaKzXuxc0/w640-h270/COMPOSITE_EGYPT_ATOM_BOMB_2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><b>LEFT: Ancient Egyptian agriculture</b></div><div><b>RIGHT: The Atomic Bomb, 1945</b></div><div>Who could have imagined that the technology of agriculture, such as in ancient Egypt, would lead to the splitting of the atom thousands of years later?</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_second_series_of_the_Manners_and_customs_of_the_ancient_Egyptians_(Page_87)_BHL21584712.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_second_series_of_the_Manners_and_customs_of_the_ancient_Egyptians_(Page_87)_BHL21584712.jpg</a></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NagasakibombEdit.jpeg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NagasakibombEdit.jpeg</a></div><div><br /></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Industrial Revolution leveraged this attitude toward nature (so to speak) so that the force of human culture and technology became at times more powerful than nature herself. For example, it is estimated that humans now move more soil and dirt than natural forces. Plastic waste has begun to have an effect on the huge oceans. Coral reefs, where many fish spawn and whose structure protects coastlines, are dying. Large numbers of species are going extinct. And the list goes on and on.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But -- and here is the problem -- we have been reshaping our own man-made environment to suit our needs for a long time (see next) without there appearing to be any consequences. So it is hard to change our attitude and our relationship to the larger global environment. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Part of the problem is that it was hard to identify cause and effect. Scientists who claimed that greenhouse gases would lead to global warming found it difficult to make a clear case, for example, because it happened over years and weather often changed at random. At the same time, businesses and governments rejected the scientific findings because it would be too expensive to make the necessary changes such as eliminating pollution from automobiles. And some industries, such as the coal industry, could be ruined.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It is difficult to alter something that has worked well and that we have been doing for this many years. Yet this problem is like no other. Things we do today may affect us for hundreds if not thousands of years or forever, such as the likely melting of much of Antarctica which will not only lead to a sea level rise but also change the ocean currents. In this summer of 2023, people experienced a month of record temperatures over 110 (F) degrees, for example, in the American West that almost doubled the previous record. Huge wildfires in Canada, Europe, and Australia were rampant. And all this could become the norm.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So now we are locked into the age-old battle of our emotions and old habits vs. reason and science. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Yet there is a bit of good news also. We now have the technology to deal with some of these problems and our ability to predict the consequences of our actions is quite remarkable with new computer models.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkno16J1LWMbD-PGBVG-xBalFp3ygsQNtayemmrzDn347VgELNH1SaCmi0gqYcKD-rrHBwE1GXWB2ghJHF4mKQ78OIXHeZQTzReC7JtGz9zIJZozfm8kPpTWi-oox-QuKniVKtEYjzyEqy617vGElmpeo2NEktyaSUADf2m3O0vsdCKUxj8mNjePWTgG0/s1023/793px-Hurricane_Katrina_August_28_2005_NASAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1023" data-original-width="793" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkno16J1LWMbD-PGBVG-xBalFp3ygsQNtayemmrzDn347VgELNH1SaCmi0gqYcKD-rrHBwE1GXWB2ghJHF4mKQ78OIXHeZQTzReC7JtGz9zIJZozfm8kPpTWi-oox-QuKniVKtEYjzyEqy617vGElmpeo2NEktyaSUADf2m3O0vsdCKUxj8mNjePWTgG0/w496-h640/793px-Hurricane_Katrina_August_28_2005_NASAA.jpg" width="496" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Hurricane Katrina August 28 2005 (NASA)</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">Both the frequency and power of hurricanes have increased due to climate change. However, our ability to predict their direction and impact before they make landfall has greatly improved. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hurricane_Katrina_August_28_2005_NASA.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hurricane_Katrina_August_28_2005_NASA.jpg</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>DEEP HISTORY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>There is a new movement in history called 'deep history' that looks back and considers the past over a much longer time span. This is one of those situations.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>After three or so million years, humans went from being nomadic hunter-gatherers who lived in small tribes to sedentary farmers who lived in solid permanent houses in villages with large numbers of people. This is known as the Neolithic period which began about 12,000 years ago.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Farming allowed people to have a more predictable way of life. At the same time, Neolithic societies developed a number of new technologies such as pottery, weaving, and the domestication of animals -- all of which gave humans more control over their lives.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But this also signaled a basic change in the human relationship with nature. We no longer accepted the environment as we found it. We changed the environment, for example, by growing crops rather than foraging for food. We would continue to change and 'upgrade' our man-made environment for the next 12,000 years right up to today.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So now we live in a friendly man-made environment with comfortable homes, central heat and air conditioning, all-weather roads, automobiles that let us travel quickly and safely, and closets full of clothes along with freezers full of food, plus antibiotics that kill bacteria that used to kill us. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But don't take my word for it. Here is a summary from a comprehensive study of the Neolithic.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>From the abstract:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"The Neolithic Revolution was ultimately necessary to the rise of modern civilization by creating the foundation for the later process of industrialization and sustained economic growth." </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Weisdorf, Jacob L. (September 2005). "From Foraging To Farming: Explaining The Neolithic Revolution" (PDF).<br />Journal of Economic Surveys. 19 (4): 561–586. doi:10.1111/j.0950-0804.2005.00259.x. S2CID 42777045. Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 July 2018. Retrieved 12 June 2023.</b></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">While many commentators have correctly linked the emergence of successful Neolithic farming to the eventual rise of civilization due to surplus food that allowed civilizations to take hold, few have gone into much detail.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Neolithic farming was not simple, it was sophisticated and used new ways to engineer nature. It was a well-developed and thought-out technology. From choosing which wild crops to grow and when to plant plus finding strains that were easier to harvest, to the domestication of these crops that resulted in far greater yields, to preparing the soil, to harvesting, to storing grain in hermetically sealed containers that could keep grain for years, the Neolithic Revolution was a lot more than just putting seeds in the ground. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But even this detailed list of technical accomplishments does not tell the whole story. This list shows they had taken the full leap to shape and engineer nature to suit their needs and to believe they had the skills and the intelligence to do so.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>At the center, at the heart, of the Neolithic Revolution was a radically new view about our relation to nature and the animal kingdom. We now believed we had both the ability and the right to rule the natural world with the help of the gods. We could build a man-made world using the resources found in nature.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I believe this new mindset was essential to the Neolithic Revolution and it came first. And it is this mindset that has continued to this day. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>While many commentators have made the connection between the Neolithic and the rise of civilization and even the link between the Neolithic and the Industrial Revolution, the connection has been about technology and not the Neolithic mindset.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I believe I am the first person who has suggested that we go this far back in time and focus on the Neolithic mindset as a principal reason why we are reluctant today to deal with climate change. I believe it is the origin of our contemporary attitude. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This mindset, that ignored the environmental consequences of our technology, has continued to this day and made it hard to deal with the many things that must be done to combat climate change. This attitude has been with us for a very long time, and like trying to teach an old dog new tricks, changing this will be difficult.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>WAS THIS NEOLITHIC MINDSET A MISTAKE?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>No, this mindset was not wrong. We are highly intelligent beings who can invent and create technologies. We would not have developed our civilizations without this sense. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But 12,000 years ago no one ever imagined we would develop such a sophisticated technology that we could put men on the moon or split the atom. Or that there would be 8 billion people on the Earth, or that we could manufacture an almost complete man-made environment.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And it was not wrong to think of ourselves as separate from the animal kingdom. We are the only animal that walks upright, has language and writing, and invents technologies. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>BUT (you knew a but was coming) today we are at a crossroads. We must make a radical change just as the Neolithic cultures made a radical change. We must develop technologies and energy sources that do not affect the global environment.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE SPECIFIC PROBLEM</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The primary problem is that we have been successful at creating our man-made environment but the bi-products and side-effects have not been considered. Also, our increasing population has started to encroach on natural areas such as the Amazon jungle that need to remain natural as it is important for the world's ecology.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>People need to believe that there is a real and immediate danger to the Earth's ecosystem, our way of life, and our civilizations. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2LwmkSfHAG-SKgs2Jg7XM6e2MUnq4jkoEvERdgnoo41PqqbJEdrJCZ5RYuav3Oh22O71zLShbK3aY9udam1jRUc-rSRqX0SrKYanonG17baYDjOCF3ZRWCte7WSd_4rdk-eMibh7U0sYQ7I3suE3jhz1LMWufZxI9rtRi4nW2cgYTnH1qfd0XOlDvrYM/s800/842px-Albert_Edelfelt_-_Louis_Pasteur_-_1885A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="602" data-original-width="800" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2LwmkSfHAG-SKgs2Jg7XM6e2MUnq4jkoEvERdgnoo41PqqbJEdrJCZ5RYuav3Oh22O71zLShbK3aY9udam1jRUc-rSRqX0SrKYanonG17baYDjOCF3ZRWCte7WSd_4rdk-eMibh7U0sYQ7I3suE3jhz1LMWufZxI9rtRi4nW2cgYTnH1qfd0XOlDvrYM/w640-h482/842px-Albert_Edelfelt_-_Louis_Pasteur_-_1885A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><b>Louis Pasteur in his laboratory</b></div><div>File:Albert Edelfelt - Louis Pasteur - 1885.jpg</div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Albert_Edelfelt_-_Louis_Pasteur_-_1885.jpg">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Albert_Edelfelt_-_Louis_Pasteur_-_1885.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>There are examples of major mindset changes in the past that could be helpful. Perhaps one of the best examples is the 'germ theory of disease'. In the early 1800s, most doctors and health professionals thought the idea of microscopic germs causing illness and death was ridiculous. Then Louis Pasteur was able to positively prove that bacteria could be responsible. Today, of course, we all accept this idea and just about everything manufactured is germ-free.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Now with climate change, we must accept there is a serious problem and do something. Already we can be reasonably sure that we have done irreparable damage to the world's overall environment. Yet today we must prevent any more damage from occurring.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>DEALING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Like any difficult problem, this will need to be dealt with in stages. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The first stage is to recognize that we have a number of attitudes that make up our old mindset which have prevented us from understanding the seriousness of the problem.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><div>Here is a definition of the word 'mindset'</div><div>mindset:</div><div>the established set of attitudes held by someone.</div><div>Oxford Languages</div><div><br /></div><div>In other words, a mindset is made up of attitudes and it is those attitudes that need to be identified.</div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The second stage is to consider how to deal with our attitudes, and how to make us aware of these long-held beliefs and their drawbacks.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The third stage is to begin work based on what is possible and to convince people that this work is necessary. This effort may need to be a grass-roots effort as our political systems have been reluctant to take the lead.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The fourth stage is to begin in-depth studies of what to do in the long term. At this stage, we would design things that would benefit future generations but whose benefits we might never see. This has been called cathedral thinking -- as most people who worked on building cathedrals never lived long enough to see the completed structure.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>AFTERWORD</b></span></h1><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">DIRECT EVIDENCE </b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>OF THE NEOLITHIC MINDSET</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THAT WE INHERITED</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Neolithic Revolution occurred across the globe starting around 12,000 BP (before present) to about 4,000 BP. It happened in the Levant in Africa, in China, in India, in Mexico, in South America, and eventually in Europe. So this mindset, this break from nature, happened in many cultures and belief systems.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As best as we can tell, from the technology and the behavior of Neolithic people, this radical change in thinking described in this blog-article happened from the beginning. But it was not until myths and religious texts were written down years later that we have actual statements that directly express this sentiment. Here are two examples.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In this example from the Judeo-Christian tradition, humans rule (dominion means to rule).</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i></i></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Gen.1 Verse 26 - Bible, King James Version</b></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This same idea was expressed in other cultures and other faiths. Here is an example from Mesopotamia from the famous Warka Vase. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtMVoxe4vZX7ba1qwddHB_xjSNcqv5IIzhMTy2agLe1L1fGktf5fFL6t7Sh9qrEaaLLg5hON0OaF-uoQxXZzJyqLtkqj_1Pa-PW7L3so1n7txV_0LDoo6v6RiFjZvL6IlpArpUQ1JA-XezVkpUWeHPk9p1WRQOT4Nh_DB_HUiig4MMmwjXAhgofeXIAec/s800/Uruk_Vase_COMPOSITE._1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="800" height="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtMVoxe4vZX7ba1qwddHB_xjSNcqv5IIzhMTy2agLe1L1fGktf5fFL6t7Sh9qrEaaLLg5hON0OaF-uoQxXZzJyqLtkqj_1Pa-PW7L3so1n7txV_0LDoo6v6RiFjZvL6IlpArpUQ1JA-XezVkpUWeHPk9p1WRQOT4Nh_DB_HUiig4MMmwjXAhgofeXIAec/w640-h588/Uruk_Vase_COMPOSITE._1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Warka Vase</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">LEFT: Full photo of the vase</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">RIGHT: Detailed photo of each level.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The vase offers a complete view of the Sumerian view of the world. On the bottom are water and plants, next up are animals, then people, and finally the gods that the people can relate to by giving offerings. It is the first time a culture placed humans in a position in the divine order. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"Warka vase, a slim alabaster vessel carved [with these images]...from bottom to top with: water, date palms, barley, and wheat, alternating rams and ewes, and men carrying baskets of foodstuffs to the goddess Inanna accepting the offerings."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The votive Vase of Warka, from Warka (ancient Uruk), Iraq. Jemdet Nasr period, 3000-2900 BCE. The Iraq Museum, Baghdad. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Warka_vase_(background_retouched).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Warka_vase_(background_retouched).jpg</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>NOTE: There was another important reason that Neolithic societies were separate from hunter-gatherer societies. They had a new concept of linear time rather than the immediate time of hunter-gatherers. I have written about this in detail. See the following article.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>Neolithic Concepts of Time</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/05/neolithic-concepts-of-time.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/05/neolithic-concepts-of-time.html</a></b></span></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-3039807245241921712023-07-24T01:00:00.001-04:002023-07-24T01:00:00.140-04:00My Annual Blog on My Birthday<p style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">THE HANDS OF TIME</span></b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b> </b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD2v8zU-6Nu5aWxA_Rrlu-h5vGE2VpTFxsicluazI6IOiCbFVBrr6ye4bR8GXg681wT0V8-ZqbGLPNr-gFnRhpy7batBpNojDCT_5In7mA8u02GYwTkrvEs2q3A7of-yfBCJrb4t92D2_wGgHbf4fd4oiI5QjvxTh3pQgZmiLsAxZJ7fclJAVVNLSj-UM/s632/Analog_clock_at_11_55AAA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="620" data-original-width="632" height="393" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD2v8zU-6Nu5aWxA_Rrlu-h5vGE2VpTFxsicluazI6IOiCbFVBrr6ye4bR8GXg681wT0V8-ZqbGLPNr-gFnRhpy7batBpNojDCT_5In7mA8u02GYwTkrvEs2q3A7of-yfBCJrb4t92D2_wGgHbf4fd4oiI5QjvxTh3pQgZmiLsAxZJ7fclJAVVNLSj-UM/w400-h393/Analog_clock_at_11_55AAA.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br />Today I turn 79. Every year on my birthday, I write a different kind of blog. This blog is about the human experience of time, and a birthday is a personal sense of time. The following is a memory that came back to me -- about a time when I was 12 years old.</b></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When I </b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">was in seventh grade, we were often confined to a kind of limbo, an empty time that was called 'study hall' and still is called that today. A teacher sat in a solid oak chair at a big oak desk at the front and often leaned back in his chair so that it rested against the wall behind him. In our school, the button to ring the bells for the end of a class was located in the wall next to and behind the study hall teacher.</b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Just above his head was a huge round clock with a second hand that endlessly and relentlessly traveled around the circle while the minute hand barely moved. </b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>To a 12 year old all this was mysterious.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">THE HANDS OF TIME</span></b></p><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It was a moment out of time</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>even as the second hand</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>swept around the huge clock </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>on the wall --</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>until its final march</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>to 12 on the hour -- </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>the dividing line</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>between the end of classes </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>and the beginning of the next ones</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>At the age of twelve</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I was locked in a 'study hall'</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>a blank hour</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>when no class was scheduled</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>About two minutes</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>before the bells</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>most kids were starting to put </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>their books together in a pile</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>getting them ready </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>to carry to their next class</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I used that time instead </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>to play a kind of game</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I held out my open hand</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>and thought</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"I will make my hand into a fist."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But then I would not --</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I stared at my fingers</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>that had not moved</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>and wondered...</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Then again, I would look at my open hand</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>and say "I will make a fist,"</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>but this time I WOULD make a fist</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It was odd</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>thought vs. action</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>what was the difference?</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>All this transpired</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>as the second hand of the gigantic clock</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>that hung over the master's head</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>was now up to the last minute</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>and moving </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>inevitably </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>toward twelve</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But I had time </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>to play my game again</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>only now I would </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>NEVER make a fist</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I looked at my hand </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>and thought, "Make a fist"</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>but left my hand open</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Suddenly </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>someone's books</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>fell on the floor </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>and we all jumped a bit</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>already on edge </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>because the second hand </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>was about to hit </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>the top</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>At that moment</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>the teacher leaned</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>way back in his chair</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>and pressed the button on the wall</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>that rang the clanging bells</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>throughout the school</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And without thinking</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I looked down </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>to check my open hand</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>but found</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I had made a fist</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-24085765039374855122023-05-17T05:03:00.003-04:002023-06-10T11:48:49.496-04:00Rename the Stone Age as the Stone and Basket Age<h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"> Should <br />"The Stone Age" <br />Be Called <br />"The Stone and Basket Age?"</span></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> A complete theory about the million(s?) year evolution <br />of basket weaving and woven-fiber technology <br />that was crucial for the development of civilization.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Download a free PDF copy of this article. </b></div><div>The article is covered by the Creative Commons copyright license <br />so you can quote any part of the article <br />as long as Rick Doble, the author, is credited.</div><div><a href="https://www.academia.edu/101909837/Should_The_Stone_Age_Be_Called_The_Stone_and_Basket_Age_" target="_blank">Should "The Stone Age" Be Called "The Stone and Basket Age?"</a></div></span></div><div><br /></div></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr2sDuYwf5Fq_NeCOEabgJv8cw4NhW21bmyHoelq4Jz8QpIXJRFbwsvmpFENWs5BQDX9tdzhhOnRXHBp5j7Yxp7NUZw2E1hoi8s4UhsS_X0HXKTaRIRJg5OzFGwavxEvciKhTsqoz4RBNUoIKT_o2xz5g6t2RLiBgoiSyShrLxyHNQacPMP4KSzC2g/s1168/COMPOSITE_BASKET_SHIPA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1168" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr2sDuYwf5Fq_NeCOEabgJv8cw4NhW21bmyHoelq4Jz8QpIXJRFbwsvmpFENWs5BQDX9tdzhhOnRXHBp5j7Yxp7NUZw2E1hoi8s4UhsS_X0HXKTaRIRJg5OzFGwavxEvciKhTsqoz4RBNUoIKT_o2xz5g6t2RLiBgoiSyShrLxyHNQacPMP4KSzC2g/w438-h640/COMPOSITE_BASKET_SHIPA.jpg" width="438" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>FROM BASKETS TO SHIPS: <br />IT MAY HAVE TAKEN 100s OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>[TOP] A carry basket. using a simple design, made by the Xerente (Sherenté),<br />an indigenous people in Brazil.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It may have taken more than half a million years for the skills needed to make this basic basket [TOP] to evolve into the skills needed to make this seagoing ship [BOTTOM] made of reeds that could carry 50 tons of cargo and sail the Persian Gulf</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:National_Museum_of_Ethnology,_Osaka_-_Twined_carrying_basket_-_Sherente_people_in_Brazil_-_Collected_in_1977.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:National_Museum_of_Ethnology,_Osaka_-_Twined_carrying_basket_-_Sherente_people_in_Brazil_-_Collected_in_1977.jpg</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: large;"><b>[BOTTOM] "Model of the reed boat Tigris, boat of Thor Heyerdahl." </b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">This recreation of a Mesopotamian reed ship could carry 50 tons of cargo. Thor Heyerdahl built the full-scale ship to prove the seaworthiness of reed ships. He sailed the Tigris with no problems for 5 months in the Persian Gulf. </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tigris_Model_Pyramids_of_Guimar.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tigris_Model_Pyramids_of_Guimar.jpg</a></span></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><div><b>DOCUMENTATION AND CITATIONS IN THIS ARTICLE.</b></div><div>At the end of this article, you will find a List of Evidence section. Full citations about evidence or statements are listed in chronological order as they relate to the basket-making timeline. </div></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>INTRODUCTION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Is it possible that basket-weaving plant fiber technology was as important as stone age technology? And that this possibility was dismissed because of a lack of evidence even though all agreed that both direct and indirect evidence for Paleolithic plant technology would have decayed and be hard to find?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The answer is yes, it may have been as important as stone age tools. But the possibility was never considered, in fact, it was strongly rejected, for almost 90 years.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b><i>Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.</i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Carl Sagan</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This is especially true with plant fibers <br />that have decomposed but which everyone agrees <br />must have been widely used by Paleolithic people.</span></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"We know from observations of our own surroundings, ethnographic and ethnohistoric accounts that most of the material culture of humans (and Neanderthals) is comprised of perishable materials. Hurcombe has called this problem “the missing majority." </span><br /></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"We typically only find faunal remains or stone tools at Paleolithic sites. Perishable materials, comprising the vast majority of material culture items, are typically missing." (See the Evidence List for a full citation.)<br /></span><i style="font-family: arial;">Direct Evidence Of Neanderthal Fibre Technology And Its Cognitive And Behavioral Implications</i><br /><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7145842/" style="font-family: arial;">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7145842/</a></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7145842/" style="font-family: arial;"></a></span><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div></blockquote></blockquote><div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE DISCOVERY OF EVIDENCE </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THAT PROVED BASKETRY WAS VERY OLD</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The breakthrough finds that proved weaving was much older and present in the Paleolithic era at 27,000 years old are described next in an article from <i>Discover Magazine.</i> Drs. Adovasio and Soffer made this discovery. </b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Dr. James Adovasio is regarded as one of the world's leading experts on the subject of ancient basketry.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>The Basket Age </i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>An article in <i>Discover Magazine</i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-basket-age">https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-basket-age</a></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(See the Evidence List for a full citation.)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Dr. Jim Adovasio said, "We don’t think of baskets or textiles when we think of the Stone Age...stones and bones, being far more durable, are far more common at archeological sites than artifacts made of fiber. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Research about basketry was held back because "The conventional wisdom has been that a time-consuming task like weaving would only be practiced by sedentary, agrarian cultures." But all this changed with a remarkable find.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A "University of Illinois archeologist [Dr. Soffer] was looking for more ceramics when she happened upon a few pieces of fired clay with regular impressions.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"When Soffer asked Adovasio to take a look, he instantly recognized the distinct interlaced pattern of woven fibers. High-resolution photographs revealed at least two types of weave.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"The people of Pavlov [where these were found] were hunter-gatherers, but technologically sophisticated ones."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So the assumption that hunter-gatherers could not make baskets was incorrect.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"In any case, says Adovasio, the regularity and narrow gauge of the weaving demonstrate that the technology wasn’t new even 27,000 years ago."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>NOTE: Dr. Adovasio makes the point that regularity indicates an advanced form of weaving and narrow gauge fibers (thin fibers) also indicate an advanced technology. This suggests that an earlier technology would be less regular and the fibers would be wider which is consistent with my theory explained in this article. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In another article:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"Dr. Soffer also noted that the clay fragments revealed a surprising variety of weaving techniques such as open and closed twines, nets, and plain weave. The intriguing thing about the plain weave impression was that it required a loom. This fact alone meant that 'old stone age' nomadic people were making fiber constructions with a basic loom -- something that was thought impossible." </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Soffer, O., Adovasio, J., et. al. "Perishable Industries from Dolní Vestonice I." (See the Evidence List for a full citation.)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW IMPORTANT ARE BASKET WEAVING AND FIBER TECHNOLOGY? </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It's huge. And it's a game changer. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>After reading an almost forgotten book by noted French archeologist Gustave Chauvet </b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>in which he suggested that basketry had not begun in the Neolithic but instead in the Upper Paleolithic era</b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">, Dr. Paul Bahn wrote in 2001, “It is a long overdue development that, 90 years after Chauvet’s publication, prehistory seems ready to, at last, accept the probably HUGE IMPORTANCE OF BASKETRY </b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">[ED: my emphasis]</span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> and simple weaving in the Upper Palaeolithic.”</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Bahn, Dr. Paul. "Palaeolithic weaving – a contribution from Chauvet." (See the Evidence List for a full citation.)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>While it is satisfying to read Dr. Bahn's assessment, things have changed quite a bit since he wrote this more than 20 years ago. It is now known that fiber technology was quite advanced even in the Middle Paleolithic.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Direct microscopic evidence of complex, sophisticated cordage (rope/twine) has been found that is 50 kya and so from the Middle Paleolithic. (See the Evidence List at the end of this article.) </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Not only that it was made by Neanderthals who preceded Homo sapiens. This find was reported in the highly respected journal, Nature. And this cordage is so sophisticated it suggests that the technology's origins were much earlier.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">THE STUDY OF PALEO-BASKETRY TODAY</div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">Today both direct evidence and especially indirect evidence have been found and more is being uncovered every year now that scientists have a better idea of how and what to look for. These finds are changing scientific views about how Paleolithic technology developed along with its impact on survival, culture, and hominin evolution.</div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">A TENTATIVE THEORY ABOUT</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">THE DEVELOPMENT OF WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">(BASKET WEAVING) OVER MILLIONS OF YEARS</span></div></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">I struggled over what to call my ideas about the technology that developed using woven fibers, especially plant fibers, by early humans (hominini). I finally settled on the above description.</div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">My theory is more than a hypothesis but not as developed as a full-blown theory. So 'tentative' is the adjective that I settled on.</div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">A scientific hypothesis is about something that needs to be tested to be considered true and its truth is based on its ability to correctly predict results.</div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">A theory is an idea that is rooted in solid evidence and where scientists have connected the dots (so to speak) to make an overall proposition. I do have evidence but it is spread out over more than several million years. </div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">In the case of my theory, I am talking about prehistory. Predicting is not really relevant because I am trying to forge ideas that explain the past. Nevertheless predicting, in a sense, does come into play because new discoveries may or may not fit with my theory. If new evidence is consistent with my ideas, then my theory is more probable. And, of course, if the evidence goes against my ideas, the theory is less probable.</div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">Recently new discoveries have supported my theory such as this discovery of Neanderthal cordage and another discovery of a complete Neolithic basket more than 10 kya. (See the Evidence List at the end of this article.) </div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>UNDERWATER BASKET WEAVING, HA, HA, HA!</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>I deliberately stayed away from the term 'basket weaving', even though that is a common term that everyone understands. I did this for two reasons. The first is that woven-fiber technology may have started as basket weaving but then developed into much much more such as the building of large seagoing reed ships or the use of heavy-duty baskets to dredge canals in Mesopotamia. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>The second reason is that most people do not think of basket weaving as being complex or sophisticated or essential, all of which is wrong. Hence the perennial college joke about the easy course known as underwater basket weaving. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhohEP5YohBYp1tZJGpomOJXO6EhpmixJ7Su4zI92vT8N8fUlBidXEf70lF3UuUJNoGibCuMtwh_7jfynKUdRaBOZFi5CPwPAa2yodi2cq4oC0go4HH4YPA0kjWp4KBW5Ao3I7W1-q-8oSgdTupDcqfW6J0FPlbktF2nsK3d1xlFCZw_3pb_WI1uJoS/s1150/Basket_1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1150" data-original-width="692" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhohEP5YohBYp1tZJGpomOJXO6EhpmixJ7Su4zI92vT8N8fUlBidXEf70lF3UuUJNoGibCuMtwh_7jfynKUdRaBOZFi5CPwPAa2yodi2cq4oC0go4HH4YPA0kjWp4KBW5Ao3I7W1-q-8oSgdTupDcqfW6J0FPlbktF2nsK3d1xlFCZw_3pb_WI1uJoS/w386-h640/Basket_1.png" width="386" /></a></div></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b>"Illustration from 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, article BASKET."</b></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Basket_1.png">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Basket_1.png</a></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Making a basket required planning from the start. The right materials with the right properties (stiff, flexible, wide, thin, etc.) had to be gathered at the right time for a particular type of basket or article. These materials then had to be processed. Often several different materials were used. Then a combination of math, geometry, and design skills was employed to imagine a finished product. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO8KiDbZB09Vh4hwYK320khIr_xj-DNyyS86TkRilYAz_8-meVIzyx_eH4UjZ3kebfiAZDotMOriuS8c8LGZWv1prnD-m_xyIH4NqtBY4Sy08Xym78PYxhG0ySGVywkbdDQzAvQcjsvxunQZx3ftvFzg-dGJzw773QOIE3iLIQS-c9-h6G5sW4jRDL/s800/COMPOSITE_BASKET_START.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="800" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO8KiDbZB09Vh4hwYK320khIr_xj-DNyyS86TkRilYAz_8-meVIzyx_eH4UjZ3kebfiAZDotMOriuS8c8LGZWv1prnD-m_xyIH4NqtBY4Sy08Xym78PYxhG0ySGVywkbdDQzAvQcjsvxunQZx3ftvFzg-dGJzw773QOIE3iLIQS-c9-h6G5sW4jRDL/w640-h304/COMPOSITE_BASKET_START.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">(LEFT) <b>Starting a basket -- once started it becomes <br />exactly what the basket maker imagined.</b></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">Page 30, Turner, Luther Weston. <i>The Basket Maker</i>. <a href="https://archive.org/details/basketmaker00turniala">https://archive.org/details/basketmaker00turniala</a></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">(RIGHT) "Wicker basket starting."</div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cistell_vimet.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cistell_vimet.jpg</a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Once started the basket or boat or hat etc. would become exactly what the person imagined. Accomplished basket makers say that they know precisely what the basket will look like from the moment they start weaving it. All of this required considerable cognitive abilities. So it is my belief that by the Upper Paleolithic, some groups could make quite advanced constructions. A well-made basket can last for generations.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRNJOLl_-5IMYbUONxl9wLse6tYltqi7uMP4R-B8bepOH2AkKaWLz2xBQVyQ36gtNbcqxQwdze3v9wIABg5qjvYeb7m3xOrYiGDOj8otBIvzE-71-IbrvxhamFs-EhBBE-YXEs8VONOZTGL6wfFmSAwO0GZRh7RR2sc8YsmedZK8ZTv64ad4VzOu91/s1084/COMPOSITE_NAVAJO_BASKET.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1084" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRNJOLl_-5IMYbUONxl9wLse6tYltqi7uMP4R-B8bepOH2AkKaWLz2xBQVyQ36gtNbcqxQwdze3v9wIABg5qjvYeb7m3xOrYiGDOj8otBIvzE-71-IbrvxhamFs-EhBBE-YXEs8VONOZTGL6wfFmSAwO0GZRh7RR2sc8YsmedZK8ZTv64ad4VzOu91/w378-h640/COMPOSITE_NAVAJO_BASKET.jpg" width="378" /></a></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><div><b>Apaches were hunter-gatherers <br />who made some of the best baskets ever made. This is one example.</b></div><div><b>[TOP] Full view.<br />[BOTTOM] Detail.</b></div><div>"Basket, Apache people, Arizona, ca. 1900,</div><div>coiled willow and devil's claw - Chazen Museum of Art."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Basket,_Apache_people,_Arizona,_c._1900,_coiled_willow_and_devil%27s_claw_-_Chazen_Museum_of_Art_-_DSC01849.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Basket,_Apache_people,_Arizona,_c._1900,_coiled_willow_and_devil%27s_claw_-_Chazen_Museum_of_Art_-_DSC01849.JPG</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Nevertheless, basketry has not been seen as a difficult or helpful technology. This is the major reason why basketry has not been given the same status as stone tools; it has not been considered important.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Need to Change the Term 'Basket Weaving' <br />to the Term 'Woven-Fiber Technology'</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/45437517/The_Need_to_Change_the_Term_Basket_Weaving_to_the_Term_Woven_Fiber_Technology">https://www.academia.edu/45437517/The_Need_to_Change_the_Term_Basket_Weaving_to_the_Term_Woven_Fiber_Technology</a></span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>BASKETS AND WOVEN-FIBER ITEMS ARE TOOLS</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Central to my argument is the idea that baskets and woven-fiber items were tools that were just as important and useful as stone tools during the Paleolithic era.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>But for some odd reason, baskets have not been considered tools. Studies about early tool use refer to stone, bone, and possibly wooden tools, but do not include basketry. In my view, this is a mistake and a big mistake. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>If we include baskets as part of discussions about tools, the narrative of human development and evolution expands and becomes a fuller story. Tools, such as those made of stone or bone, and basketry complement each other. For example, the use of baskets or containers would have allowed more weapons or tools to be carried and baskets could have been used for collecting small game that had been killed with tools. Baskets may have been needed to gather special stones, used in tool making, from distant locations, as I have suggested. (See Evidence List.) Stone and bone tools, on the other hand, have been used in the making of baskets and other weaving projects.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Oxford Languages definitions</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>A tool is:</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>a device or implement, especially one held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>If we dig further we find that </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>A device is:</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>a thing made or adapted for a particular purpose.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>An implement is:</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>a tool, utensil, or other piece of equipment, especially as used for a particular purpose.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>A utensil is:</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>an implement, <i>container</i>, or other article, especially for household use.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>such as: "kitchen utensils"</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Notice that at this point in our definition 'paper trail' (so to speak) a container, which many baskets are, is considered a tool.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvihxQSV2xx1f6P3a-cL-LsFGfa1Uf5NWGSNS0Wc772KXQ5vvRfUgUBZA0WVHtxi_-ILeDG5_lP8v98RqVGIPM8ODt5_tFBiL5JQhWV-0GAe1jjfeb4LaTkj__OuVt9QiqGgyVHt7pR_znQoEse_COiUb2mTk-R9i6UI8r13eWuhtfBhh5-nFHaXxs/s800/Canastas_de_Santa_Apolonia_Teacalco_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="596" data-original-width="800" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvihxQSV2xx1f6P3a-cL-LsFGfa1Uf5NWGSNS0Wc772KXQ5vvRfUgUBZA0WVHtxi_-ILeDG5_lP8v98RqVGIPM8ODt5_tFBiL5JQhWV-0GAe1jjfeb4LaTkj__OuVt9QiqGgyVHt7pR_znQoEse_COiUb2mTk-R9i6UI8r13eWuhtfBhh5-nFHaXxs/w640-h476/Canastas_de_Santa_Apolonia_Teacalco_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b>2 carry baskets made in Santa Apolonia Teacalco, Mexico,<br /> and one small serving basket.<br /> Notice the different construction in the two large baskets.</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canastas_de_Santa_Apolonia_Teacalco.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canastas_de_Santa_Apolonia_Teacalco.jpg</a></b></span></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>So there is no reason that baskets and items made with woven-fiber technology have not been given the 'status' of tools. The humble carry basket, for example, meets all the criteria for a tool as defined in the above definition. It is a device, held in the hands, for a specific function, i.e., holding and collecting things that can be carried in the basket. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>If some people are not convinced and think that baskets should not be considered tools, then what are they? And why do they not meet the 'tool' standard?</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAJJDsCN7tYwNvrwf5A3mi6JIrVosAUPjh3NRiZ5jnL4HxaSevAv5DxkXcBLxfmhPpeWfSJfkKVO2HzXGXV2xHjAjfL7WPKQourZpJaoCXlGu3hLP52T5Pi05hRnJBBuX9MCBMaZ6U7rWCWlV9LA5ZgTrxOT8NI7NFF1pR2tlBMuzV12iO3L3UT7F6/s646/Edward_S._Curtis_Collection_%E2%80%94_Gathering_Seeds--Coast_PomoAAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="646" data-original-width="610" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAJJDsCN7tYwNvrwf5A3mi6JIrVosAUPjh3NRiZ5jnL4HxaSevAv5DxkXcBLxfmhPpeWfSJfkKVO2HzXGXV2xHjAjfL7WPKQourZpJaoCXlGu3hLP52T5Pi05hRnJBBuX9MCBMaZ6U7rWCWlV9LA5ZgTrxOT8NI7NFF1pR2tlBMuzV12iO3L3UT7F6/w378-h400/Edward_S._Curtis_Collection_%E2%80%94_Gathering_Seeds--Coast_PomoAAA.jpg" width="378" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq3CBdMhdhRfN0Ai8JO0C1mqwo4brw_XNlryXnMFB1RwbY31_f0j34IZ1lkyZ3E1nGOiYosqdM7MLbRVQBf_usYEbmI7JRlkDAmEXcFpaPxYhvAW43M8lMYmpOXcqZMsBrNproK3_Pdv1vOCz1OwBVfkSBmxr__KQ9PFnoIicSuUIzp3Urp1NVREfh/s1024/Edward_S._Curtis_Collection_%E2%80%94_Gathering_Seeds--Coast_Pomo%20(1)AA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="717" data-original-width="1024" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq3CBdMhdhRfN0Ai8JO0C1mqwo4brw_XNlryXnMFB1RwbY31_f0j34IZ1lkyZ3E1nGOiYosqdM7MLbRVQBf_usYEbmI7JRlkDAmEXcFpaPxYhvAW43M8lMYmpOXcqZMsBrNproK3_Pdv1vOCz1OwBVfkSBmxr__KQ9PFnoIicSuUIzp3Urp1NVREfh/w640-h448/Edward_S._Curtis_Collection_%E2%80%94_Gathering_Seeds--Coast_Pomo%20(1)AA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>This Native American Indian Coastal-Pomo woman is gathering seeds <br />using a paddle made with woven-fiber technology.</b> <br />This paddle is a tool designed to hit and free the seeds <br />on the plant so that they fall into the large basket.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_S._Curtis_Collection_%E2%80%94_Gathering_Seeds--Coast_Pomo.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_S._Curtis_Collection_%E2%80%94_Gathering_Seeds--Coast_Pomo.jpg</a></span></div></div><br /><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVmQqkSVFkaGY7ndGZnSszA-AxGskN5t0G0KD_noNDKJ8KaclBvGJ_yauyJE9TgFsEVDKGJPSElMJaGWP6rOpiCdqF41Jp2WXe6fljrm1Ou4kzcFfxpwpxOFNRwIb0VaiIGUkF-Cn4uqASuVSZi-EtekEAt7EBifD141XMlZJmtZW0tLTXYyniMxNP/s800/COMPOSITE_FISH_TRAPS_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="638" data-original-width="800" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVmQqkSVFkaGY7ndGZnSszA-AxGskN5t0G0KD_noNDKJ8KaclBvGJ_yauyJE9TgFsEVDKGJPSElMJaGWP6rOpiCdqF41Jp2WXe6fljrm1Ou4kzcFfxpwpxOFNRwIb0VaiIGUkF-Cn4uqASuVSZi-EtekEAt7EBifD141XMlZJmtZW0tLTXYyniMxNP/w640-h510/COMPOSITE_FISH_TRAPS_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><div><b>Examples Of Different Fish Traps (Tools) From Around The World Made With Basket Weaving Technology.</b></div><div>(TOP LEFT) A traditional basket for gathering snails in Southern Spain.</div><div>(TOP RIGHT) Fish Trap, Aitutaki (Cook Islands).</div><div>(BOTTOM LEFT) Braided fish trap, Indonesia.</div><div>(BOTTOM RIGHT) "Bamboo fish pot or trap in general use in Porto Rico."</div></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Snail_basket.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Snail_basket.jpg</a></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FMIB_33815_Fish_Trap,_Aitutaki.jpeg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FMIB_33815_Fish_Trap,_Aitutaki.jpeg</a></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:COLLECTIE_TROPENMUSEUM_Gevlochten_visfuik_TMnr_15-454.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:COLLECTIE_TROPENMUSEUM_Gevlochten_visfuik_TMnr_15-454.jpg</a></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FMIB_33300_Bamboo_Fish_Pot_or_Trap_in_General_Use_in_Porto_Rico.jpeg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FMIB_33300_Bamboo_Fish_Pot_or_Trap_in_General_Use_in_Porto_Rico.jpeg</a></div><blockquote><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div></blockquote><blockquote><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCHlfE5hWPE4RyxeW-zODWm5mlDUFrG9YJHpp0qxXEwFP2XiFRBBi7Hz2VZvDTuwsb0FL4PDCJLKVWWBp_axjWVWouLi91o34323PJwk1UjoEP5kVQcPP-HiE22d4wzOZmkiQAwkY0QWVh8X-A45tQZrfjWYsqPajMfXIWWB5MN5mWG117PspLscgF/s800/aboriginalbasket00masorich_0233AA_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="800" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCHlfE5hWPE4RyxeW-zODWm5mlDUFrG9YJHpp0qxXEwFP2XiFRBBi7Hz2VZvDTuwsb0FL4PDCJLKVWWBp_axjWVWouLi91o34323PJwk1UjoEP5kVQcPP-HiE22d4wzOZmkiQAwkY0QWVh8X-A45tQZrfjWYsqPajMfXIWWB5MN5mWG117PspLscgF/w640-h420/aboriginalbasket00masorich_0233AA_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: large;"><b>A Native American Indian Twined Fish Trap Around 1588.</b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Called a twined fish trap designed by Native American Virginia Indians, this drawing was made after Thomas Hariot who made the original drawing around 1588. <a href="https://jenikirbyhistory.getarchive.net/amp/topics/a+b+alexander">https://jenikirbyhistory.getarchive.net/amp/topics/a+b+alexander</a></span></div></div></blockquote><p> </p><div style="font-size: large;"><b>AN OVERVIEW OF MY TENTATIVE THEORY</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>My theory is simple. I believe that very early hominini began to understand how to weave complex items from natural fibers and this technology developed over a million years right up to today, so that it became a key reason why humans survived and became the powerful species we are today.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Woven-fiber technology is worldwide on all continents (except Antarctica) and is a part of virtually every culture. Two different anthropologists who did a study of 'cultural universals', i.e., technologies, practices, etc. that were common to all societies, found that containers, cordage, and weaving were present in virtually all cultures.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>This means that fiber products can be made from a wide range of plants. Early cultures made them from whatever happened to grow in a local area. But in addition, people learned to work with this technology using various plant parts such as bark, roots, leaves, needles, and a variety of vines and tree limbs. And cultures often had their own distinct way of weaving and constructing an item. It was my guess that a technology that was so pervasive and capable of making so many things from local plants had to be very old. So I began to investigate.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>I found photographs of a full range of woven items. I discovered that just about anything could be created: from shoes to hats, to bowls and plates, to furniture, baby carriers, nets, fish traps, thatched roofs, saddles, a variety of boat designs from small to large, a variety of building designs from small to large and even suspension bridges. Moreover, knowledge of woven-fiber skills was often shared by everyone and custom items could be made as needed. In addition, a huge variety of baskets from rugged work baskets used for dredging marshes and hauling clay, to large backpack baskets used for transporting harvested crops, to large and small waterproof baskets for carrying water and other baskets used for cooking were probably common items of early societies. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><b style="font-size: large;">Read the following article for much more detail </b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>and a 'slide show' of these products.</b></span></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Evidence for a Basket Weaving <br />and Woven-Fiber Technology <br />in the Paleolithic Era</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.academia.edu/40430521/Evidence_for_a_Basket_Weaving_and_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era">https://www.academia.edu/40430521/Evidence_for_a_Basket_Weaving_and_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era</a></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Here are the main points:</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>* Basket weaving or woven-fiber technology is a technology for making fiber tools.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>* This technology took a very long time to develop as it was invented from scratch by hominins with much smaller brains than ours and shorter life spans.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>* This technology may have begun more than a million years ago and may have gone through several stages to reach a high point of development.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>* This technology, once developed, required planning and considerable manual and cognitive skills</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>* This technology is worldwide and exists in virtually all societies from underdeveloped to modern.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>* Once mastered this technology could create perhaps hundreds of different types of items from small to large with thousands of variations using fibers from local materials. In addition, there were/are endless variations in weaving styles and structural designs.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>* This technology may be one of the key technologies that helped hominins survive and allowed them/us to become the dominant species on the planet.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;">BUT HOW DID THIS START?</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">PRE-PALEOLITHIC</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Basketry and woven-fiber technology have very deep roots, going back perhaps ten million years or more since apes 'weave' a nest each night to sleep.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHV4CtlpQlgz6Cg07ypvk7B8kzQV6bgWnP14ldwnWw6T20Djcuu6o8qZ6_8ttd4-pkMLNBCdpYr4hSY8DvyH8me_uoQsNu8W9tJwcma7PDQw49_Zmza74Uop0hkTUYPvTPKKZ5Evca7HqtZXemKEgqyUmJyMc2aRSizwmsfyTPd27O9f8b6jeHhxHu/s800/Bornean_Orangutan_in_nest_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="489" data-original-width="800" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHV4CtlpQlgz6Cg07ypvk7B8kzQV6bgWnP14ldwnWw6T20Djcuu6o8qZ6_8ttd4-pkMLNBCdpYr4hSY8DvyH8me_uoQsNu8W9tJwcma7PDQw49_Zmza74Uop0hkTUYPvTPKKZ5Evca7HqtZXemKEgqyUmJyMc2aRSizwmsfyTPd27O9f8b6jeHhxHu/w640-h392/Bornean_Orangutan_in_nest_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Bornean Orangutan in her nest in Borneo in 2018.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bornean_Orangutan_in_nest.jpg">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bornean_Orangutan_in_nest.jpg</a></span></div></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>It is now believed that our distant ape ancestors lived in grassy and leafy environments much of the time for more than ten million years. And these distant ancestors (such as chimpanzees) knew how to weave bedding nests every night as contemporary apes do. These nests showed a level of basic weaving skills and an ability to work with local plants even as the environment changed. Juvenile apes learned how to do this by watching and imitating adults, indicating some basic cognitive skills. (See the Evidence List.)</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHfk-1HXSRuB0V_laG0i7tcxtcry2N5Osufvv_EgL9aQryEZ7g19jNLDE0Iy5fN9HY7JDnbft9JRdBKFC_1qnipLDYNS0-H9TdP2oWnyhO87JjKYIX0mNYJuFBah7IVUvuj5IXFVeYB0EvdglfCi1jeQxsbstGnBpWTBzF1fs7jb7k_XPl27pAd71S/s1358/Lucy_blackbgA_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1358" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHfk-1HXSRuB0V_laG0i7tcxtcry2N5Osufvv_EgL9aQryEZ7g19jNLDE0Iy5fN9HY7JDnbft9JRdBKFC_1qnipLDYNS0-H9TdP2oWnyhO87JjKYIX0mNYJuFBah7IVUvuj5IXFVeYB0EvdglfCi1jeQxsbstGnBpWTBzF1fs7jb7k_XPl27pAd71S/w378-h640/Lucy_blackbgA_A.jpg" width="378" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: large;">Lucy: one of the most complete skeletons of an Australopithecus<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;">who is related to us but may or may not be a direct ancestor. A new study of her bone fractures determined that she died because she fell out of a tree where she was probably nesting.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lucy_blackbg.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lucy_blackbg.jpg</a></span></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>It is now also believed that this bed-making behavior continued as hominini evolved. The famous Australopithecus named 'Lucy' (a possible ancestor of ours) may have fallen out of a tree from her nest, showing that these later hominins continued to nest in trees. New research has confirmed the tree-living aspect of their existence. A recent article in the journal <i>Nature</i> stated, "Australopithecus species were habitual bipeds but also practiced arboreality [living in the trees];... they occasionally used stone tools..." (See the Evidence List for citation.) </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6c0jwHk8UhGJ5osDV7TzfGuEPqfbJ3gkq7L4nGUKQF5Ffd6lzuYv_3ElI9nJOEAP9WsBSJG4MwvNhxsw8JGP2ZTSIiryLeBl0vL5BxXRlp2pKczn3EhnJG5uvZsIVEsYXMSYk_YdQsWvmYV1Pu536YnM0__uf2CofHj4btth0xCIT0-FjDiwQ1iWQ/s800/1280px-Adansonia_digitata_Baobab_A_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="454" data-original-width="800" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6c0jwHk8UhGJ5osDV7TzfGuEPqfbJ3gkq7L4nGUKQF5Ffd6lzuYv_3ElI9nJOEAP9WsBSJG4MwvNhxsw8JGP2ZTSIiryLeBl0vL5BxXRlp2pKczn3EhnJG5uvZsIVEsYXMSYk_YdQsWvmYV1Pu536YnM0__uf2CofHj4btth0xCIT0-FjDiwQ1iWQ/w640-h364/1280px-Adansonia_digitata_Baobab_A_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: large;">African baobab trees (Adansonia digitata). <br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;">These are native trees that are widespread throughout Africa. The fruit of the Baobab tree was an important part of the hominin diet along with honey as bees often made nests in these trees. This was a favorite tree for hominini during much of their evolution and was also a favorite place for weaverbirds to live and build their nests. </span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adansonia_digitata_Baobab.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adansonia_digitata_Baobab.JPG</a></span></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><div><b></b></div><blockquote><div><b>WAS NEST-BUILDING THE BEGINNING OF TOOL CREATION AND USE?</b></div><div><b>As you will read in the Evidence List in this article, the making of nests by primates is considered by some to be the beginning of tool making.</b></div><div><b>"This study illustrates a degree of technical know-how in nest-building orangutans, which may aid in the reconstruction of the evolution of **tool use** </b>[ED: my emphasis]<b> and technology in human ancestors."</b></div><div><b><i>Nest-building orangutans demonstrate engineering know-how to produce safe, comfortable beds</i></b></div><div><b><a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1200902109">https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1200902109</a></b></div></blockquote><div><b></b></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>When hominins started to walk upright on two legs, their arms and hands were free. This meant that they could carry items in their free hands. But using baskets meant they could carry much more. With the help of large baskets on their backs, for example, they could gather food, materials, firewood, and even small game that they caught. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">LOWER PALEOLITHIC</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Early hominini were nomadic hunter-gatherers. This way of life continued for millions of years until about 10,000 years ago. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcfvQjU2cNsNXg7Jla9avfpRnXDlDxC6ALKyG2pYRszUtZ-V7TyaH1CbzJRSqYR4ya7pcEVE8qXpAvbvGnSc4tc3k60V0Puql24xM4pPMgvQpQTDByseIVE6qvj-yM1k3pw64WKzRXpbOFTO4hb1KCOxGfORKXU5AxkL8BPGiQuSVQJ4KBIeoQC4Mi/s800/ClipboardAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcfvQjU2cNsNXg7Jla9avfpRnXDlDxC6ALKyG2pYRszUtZ-V7TyaH1CbzJRSqYR4ya7pcEVE8qXpAvbvGnSc4tc3k60V0Puql24xM4pPMgvQpQTDByseIVE6qvj-yM1k3pw64WKzRXpbOFTO4hb1KCOxGfORKXU5AxkL8BPGiQuSVQJ4KBIeoQC4Mi/w640-h360/ClipboardAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b>Weaverbird nests. Two different types.</b></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black-headed_weaver_(Ploceus_cucullatus_bohndorffi)_male_nest_building.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black-headed_weaver_(Ploceus_cucullatus_bohndorffi)_male_nest_building.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BAYA_WEAVERS_MATING.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BAYA_WEAVERS_MATING.jpg</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>At this point in our story, hominini knew how to do basic weaving, had a basic understanding of materials plus they knew how to observe and learn from another's behavior. (See the Evidence List.)</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>The next possible step, I believe, was that early hominini learned 'advanced' weaving techniques from weaverbirds and probably other birds as well during the Lower Paleolithic. I was able to show from fossil evidence that early hominins probably lived in close association with weaverbirds in Africa.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Building a large open nest to sleep in is one thing, making a basket that is a small light strong well designed portable container that could be easily carried and hold weighty items is another thing. Yet based on the evidence of ape nest building, which probably continued with early hominini, it would not have been difficult for early hominini to observe and learn from weaverbird nest building. These bird constructions often took a day or more to make. By watching these birds, hominini could understand how weaverbirds built their small, sturdy, light nests. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCqz2dO8keGKCnpvY_2yMAaKDAOzs48RnNEvRAG5TJAy8mKGAd6dWO6XUjKHvWXa6Lg5zslSNAUyBmPsCHEz9y-wM30h4mdNcZoDTjrYBUQAyowqmZx6qwOkhcTufyUrZO4o4jVqpW4kvgdHLGrIxP2uC1Uo5mBdVuRXDiPD4bZlGguoJtlu2Aoezf/s800/COMPOSITE_BIRD_KNOTS.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="800" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCqz2dO8keGKCnpvY_2yMAaKDAOzs48RnNEvRAG5TJAy8mKGAd6dWO6XUjKHvWXa6Lg5zslSNAUyBmPsCHEz9y-wM30h4mdNcZoDTjrYBUQAyowqmZx6qwOkhcTufyUrZO4o4jVqpW4kvgdHLGrIxP2uC1Uo5mBdVuRXDiPD4bZlGguoJtlu2Aoezf/w640-h402/COMPOSITE_BIRD_KNOTS.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: large;"><b>LEFT: Different knots weaverbirds can make.</b></div><div><b style="font-size: large;">RIGHT: A weaverbird starting a nest by making the interior skeleton structure.</b><br /><div>LEFT: Friedmann, Herbert. "The Weaving of the Red-Billed Weaver Bird in Captivity." Zoologica:. Scientific Contribution of the New York Zoological Society,</div><div>Volume II, Number 16, page 363. The Society, The Zoological Park,, New York, 1922.</div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">RIGHT:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ploceus_cucullatus_spilonotus_building_a_nest_050728_03w.jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ploceus_cucullatus_spilonotus_building_a_nest_050728_03w.jpg</span></a></span></div></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Weaverbird nests are made with a variety of clever knots, hard thick strands to make a skeleton, plus thinner and more flexible stands that weave over and under around the skeleton in an opposing strand construction. And these construction techniques are all fundamental elements of the craft of basketry.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Because hominini were hunter-gatherers, </b><b>baskets would have helped them both hunt and gather. Baskets would help these hominini gather more food and materials and also help them carry weapons and tools for the hunt. So basket-making would have had a direct benefit that was consistent with their lifestyle.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieYkWDTbS_o-MoSeTRF7DUCr3mTWKHd_CE_2zmCS2ob6TADNT9gSF9fH6_dQrBLP22OzuEZObA7Ei85pdt4I1voxGjlCbpSS-8EFp0OfWmLHiP_YE2g9u7L8drizYBKWH9wCkDOYbBoFIFhn_GVdBAiF59XBvSl2pgxZfXpji81pKX3BKEJ8RZvl47/s800/COMPOSITE_RANDOM_BASKET.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="800" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieYkWDTbS_o-MoSeTRF7DUCr3mTWKHd_CE_2zmCS2ob6TADNT9gSF9fH6_dQrBLP22OzuEZObA7Ei85pdt4I1voxGjlCbpSS-8EFp0OfWmLHiP_YE2g9u7L8drizYBKWH9wCkDOYbBoFIFhn_GVdBAiF59XBvSl2pgxZfXpji81pKX3BKEJ8RZvl47/w640-h322/COMPOSITE_RANDOM_BASKET.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">LEFT:<b> Weaverbird nests</b> are well-designed and strong. Abandoned ones fell down from Baobab tree limbs (trees where hominini often camped) which early hominini could have collected. "Weaverbird (Southern Masked Weaver) nest of dry grass, near Pretoria, South Africa"</div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weaver_Bird_Nest.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weaver_Bird_Nest.jpg</a></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">RIGHT: <b>A random weave basket </b>made from vines by Nan Bowles. It was constructed with flexible green vines that later dried to make a light, stiff, strong basket. (Basket/Photo by Nan Bowles)</div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>However, these first basket-like containers would have been constructed with a random weave. Baskets like this can be quite strong and useful but they do not use a regular evenly spaced horizontal-vertical or regular opposing structure which came later according to my theory.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>While weaverbird's nests were probably not the only animal structures (such as spider webs) that inspired early hominini, these birds are known for their remarkable nests, hence the name, weaverbird. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Unlike an ape nest that was anchored in a tree, early hominini were learning to design a portable space. i.e., a basket, and it was a tool that was created with a specific purpose in mind. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>And just as important as the birds' techniques of building, was the model the birds provided. Their nests were not open like most bird and ape nests; they were instead compact containers.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSOJ6XFIJSHBEoXg92nqXfx5gwZtCsmbFZBdSKBphrQgQkgXYRa2BTdf11QykAEOVcknMAlSWRBrbEskigd_YVJJZsXq7IR0Vh6o3eNQ0B9k-gPN_sGVm-aHaJtX272EaFGqjd_ZfN4QCYiSOvz2Ut4j5Ji82sluXfx_K4SAJ_jPO1W2szc8Ops66L/s511/Pume_1b.tifA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="396" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSOJ6XFIJSHBEoXg92nqXfx5gwZtCsmbFZBdSKBphrQgQkgXYRa2BTdf11QykAEOVcknMAlSWRBrbEskigd_YVJJZsXq7IR0Vh6o3eNQ0B9k-gPN_sGVm-aHaJtX272EaFGqjd_ZfN4QCYiSOvz2Ut4j5Ji82sluXfx_K4SAJ_jPO1W2szc8Ops66L/w496-h640/Pume_1b.tifA.jpg" width="496" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>A type of basket often carried by indigenous hunter-gatherer women around the world.</b> <br />The photo is of a nomadic hunter-gatherer Savanna Pumé woman in the Venezuelan savanna on a hunting and gathering trip.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pume_1b.tif">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pume_1b.tif</a></span></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqECNNY4F-9Lj2ad_PEXxKWF6WJhtHbmABIt7NpmUpcxmgFxuGj2cNVzeuyyvYo2pQkfqKCyxgU8cfILZl68vpQX2E_Q9K0tTn_aHgOXH2SlBbMmbRcJlnwMWiJIGtGABJkPjebOri7HWlfCFOP0iJEmQw3_rXk3eFutTcyy1_LWACgN8Luo1FYl3Q/s800/1536px-Cabane_de_Terra_Amata_1A_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="757" data-original-width="800" height="606" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqECNNY4F-9Lj2ad_PEXxKWF6WJhtHbmABIt7NpmUpcxmgFxuGj2cNVzeuyyvYo2pQkfqKCyxgU8cfILZl68vpQX2E_Q9K0tTn_aHgOXH2SlBbMmbRcJlnwMWiJIGtGABJkPjebOri7HWlfCFOP0iJEmQw3_rXk3eFutTcyy1_LWACgN8Luo1FYl3Q/w640-h606/1536px-Cabane_de_Terra_Amata_1A_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Terra Amata is the world's oldest building made by hominini.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This photo shows a recreation of this possible Homo erectus building using the evidence of post holes. The site has been dated to about 300,000 years old. The level of skill and the regularity of the design indicates that these hominini may have begun to also make baskets with the same kind of advanced structure.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cabane_de_Terra_Amata_1.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cabane_de_Terra_Amata_1.jpg</a></span></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>After perhaps more than a million years this initial weaving developed into a highly sophisticated regular evenly spaced construction that was made with opposing stands (or strands at right angles) in the Middle Paleolithic. At this more developed stage, horizontal strands alternated in a regular pattern. They went over and under opposing vertical strands and the next horizontal strand went the opposite way, i.e., under and over when the previous strand had been over and under. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE6t9KqJiUb0Z-q1oA2l7YS8ymIArpiqORSEtQATA87WmoaIAx6-LyBCBgUNdSOkdl8KFni58UeU4Hjpd1B3BMOAdYZuIyrCJ2KtyVnOS_yQGDghREQL5uCxFRbZN-uHkCKK-OedrXSQsXB_X-VFS17-zPNjuItwchPlH2VeTBkwPOinD3_1mnhZBN/s800/1280px-A_bamboo_basket_making_1AA_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="800" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE6t9KqJiUb0Z-q1oA2l7YS8ymIArpiqORSEtQATA87WmoaIAx6-LyBCBgUNdSOkdl8KFni58UeU4Hjpd1B3BMOAdYZuIyrCJ2KtyVnOS_yQGDghREQL5uCxFRbZN-uHkCKK-OedrXSQsXB_X-VFS17-zPNjuItwchPlH2VeTBkwPOinD3_1mnhZBN/w640-h374/1280px-A_bamboo_basket_making_1AA_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Making a basket out of bamboo. </b><br />The photo clearly shows the wide stiff vertical spokes around which the weaver strands are interlaced at right angles to the spokes.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_bamboo_basket_making_1.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_bamboo_basket_making_1.JPG</a></span></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3OjXcavJ2L4tQPzqDHz7p1Yg8plzvd8sK0cWWjlVfLyloH-Kk2t0qO_COw2MF-w7csrqG2toWwJLmTm44EpjSsocVKkDSdzbD9LBjrL4iy8fuF7z9Sow2i8wmPjtMmkz-77r6IFU_43dBpU6SWbncp8XG8sYVChcct4ZBK-ATAgsmMz0Fh_5o9aIQ/s800/Yurok_and_Karok_basketsA_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="800" height="528" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3OjXcavJ2L4tQPzqDHz7p1Yg8plzvd8sK0cWWjlVfLyloH-Kk2t0qO_COw2MF-w7csrqG2toWwJLmTm44EpjSsocVKkDSdzbD9LBjrL4iy8fuF7z9Sow2i8wmPjtMmkz-77r6IFU_43dBpU6SWbncp8XG8sYVChcct4ZBK-ATAgsmMz0Fh_5o9aIQ/w640-h528/Yurok_and_Karok_basketsA_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><b>Open and closed weaving using the same basic shape.</b></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;">"Yurok and Karok baskets."</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yurok_and_Karok_baskets.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yurok_and_Karok_baskets.jpg</a></div></span><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>This technology was a breakthrough. It was versatile and scalable. The weaving could be open or closed, soft or hard, used in conjunction with wood, and much more. Both small and quite large items could be made. Coiled basketry was probably developed later with twine that was sewn vertically against the coil. Cordage was probably invented during this later stage as well. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaN2quk2_43RvSnGfRn0x9mqkJsmuPpU7Pzkp6jses-KSQwigy5opqs0kd9DcfOcdLzfNLzGUgyNrOk5Fz3Auk8WQsjzSP0WrQxT8NQae7_m_DA9TAWH9Bi7vR7N1IT_3ntoK9xWXsVAJcDAF1U71OhJa92vD1Qf4dClr8OhFQsqF5irpyv4h0H-ry/s800/Karagumoy_bayong_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="800" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaN2quk2_43RvSnGfRn0x9mqkJsmuPpU7Pzkp6jses-KSQwigy5opqs0kd9DcfOcdLzfNLzGUgyNrOk5Fz3Auk8WQsjzSP0WrQxT8NQae7_m_DA9TAWH9Bi7vR7N1IT_3ntoK9xWXsVAJcDAF1U71OhJa92vD1Qf4dClr8OhFQsqF5irpyv4h0H-ry/w640-h512/Karagumoy_bayong_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Opposing structure. </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A basket made from the common karagumoy plant that grows wild in the Bicol region of the Philippines. Karagumoy strips are used to make hats, mats, and a variety of baskets</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Karagumoy_bayong.jpg">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Karagumoy_bayong.jpg</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCQtxEOd5ew0BWIMCEIUPzpYmstIB0JmtNCLuoX0VfVyrlVZ8nuKY1lFcf3GnmTTMWl9ExdeT8FAfV1A7cDc6PLtEicOxSawcpU8JTPKWeSWSWLB0ZDRKOaxVXxS48ESw3I8lG7JaYFMyVrpkF3BvgX67m830slVTTSwRyoUCUfJUxyFg9CMHUz9KX/s800/BaAka_woman_during_huntingA_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="477" data-original-width="800" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCQtxEOd5ew0BWIMCEIUPzpYmstIB0JmtNCLuoX0VfVyrlVZ8nuKY1lFcf3GnmTTMWl9ExdeT8FAfV1A7cDc6PLtEicOxSawcpU8JTPKWeSWSWLB0ZDRKOaxVXxS48ESw3I8lG7JaYFMyVrpkF3BvgX67m830slVTTSwRyoUCUfJUxyFg9CMHUz9KX/w640-h382/BaAka_woman_during_huntingA_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>This shows a contemporary African 'burden basket' worn on the back by hunter-gatherer women, </b><br />It is used to collect and gather fruit, seeds, vegetables, firewood, materials, small game, etc.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BaAka_woman_during_hunting.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BaAka_woman_during_hunting.jpg</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-EFhbJXWPVBNfndSlrGcYW7VrkFa99txFNCY-FKwYu7rY0wAtZkKv3zY-foRrAmonaeonwksAMbpM_3EkHstwUOjbOWp0Q2M1_4woBqDfKsbv14_I8UqyyNw79_1RgGwCLQc-VmJzNKSNaT54cfjaeSUkBdtNdGsa-72_Xn871WFzYb55PvAvAGfz/s800/COMPOSITE_BURDEN1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="800" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-EFhbJXWPVBNfndSlrGcYW7VrkFa99txFNCY-FKwYu7rY0wAtZkKv3zY-foRrAmonaeonwksAMbpM_3EkHstwUOjbOWp0Q2M1_4woBqDfKsbv14_I8UqyyNw79_1RgGwCLQc-VmJzNKSNaT54cfjaeSUkBdtNdGsa-72_Xn871WFzYb55PvAvAGfz/w640-h316/COMPOSITE_BURDEN1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: <b>Carrying Basket, Paiute Indians, Utah.</b></div><div>(Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, Fig. 185, p. 494)</div><div>RIGHT: <b>"Apache Indian woman carrying a "Kathak" on her back, Arizona, ca.1880."</b></div><div>(University of Southern California, ca.1880, Apache Indian woman carrying a "Kathak")</div></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>NOTE: If this type of right-angle structure had been invented, this suggests that a cognitive leap had occurred. These baskets and other fiber items were constructed with a kind of horizontal-vertical (X, Y) grid. Once mastered it would allow the sculpting of space; in the case of a basket it was a portable space, that could be designed for a specific need. And also once mastered, it would allow scaling a design to be large or small. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">UPPER PALEOLITHIC</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5kYGx-T2EphbpE6F1lM3T9H9SJLNAH5F1N-OsJ12Ml1Rz2TGITu2m3KHdKKmN39-OGvK0TjoZzyY9nKLELjpTKacwb25-7KYasG__tbeUKUE7rHLuP5M1Bd2Bd730eEgXNbRV4lxxDQgZNrOSpfQ9Diwnie3K1lI04R7Wmu-G7gX3TCgE7ACb-jJW/s640/bison_comparison_altamira_cave_modern_species.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="432" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5kYGx-T2EphbpE6F1lM3T9H9SJLNAH5F1N-OsJ12Ml1Rz2TGITu2m3KHdKKmN39-OGvK0TjoZzyY9nKLELjpTKacwb25-7KYasG__tbeUKUE7rHLuP5M1Bd2Bd730eEgXNbRV4lxxDQgZNrOSpfQ9Diwnie3K1lI04R7Wmu-G7gX3TCgE7ACb-jJW/w432-h640/bison_comparison_altamira_cave_modern_species.jpg" width="432" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">TOP: <b>This realistic painting of a bison is about 14,000 years old and was painted by a Paleolithic 'caveman' in the Cave of Altamira in Spain. </b></div><div style="text-align: center;">This work was done from memory with a multi-colored spray-paint technique in the darkness of the cave. This demonstrates the remarkable skills, powers of observation, and memory humans had in Paleolithic times. (NOTE: This photo was taken of an accurate reproduction of this bison painted on the ceiling at Altamira as visitors are no longer allowed in the cave.)</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Altamira_bisons.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Altamira_bisons.jpg</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">BOTTOM: <b>A photograph of a European bison today </b>(a somewhat different bison species), shows the accuracy of the cave painting on the top.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bison_bonasus_(Linnaeus_1758).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bison_bonasus_(Linnaeus_1758).jpg</a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRzNMdzIuXjMxgW76qKN-E1BlJ4hwXTtEkMAFbgvz7Q9irV3ApemWJRMVWcxWCsz5yxzI7JuD7mrtpqMeVtmRdy8uEHyOIgqV2vG-0fxTEiL_RL5KNc3Lq7WF2HLmpDdqVSa0GPb8_dP6XUbEnrxtbcsCtUNsh6RTm7NOCloRYfS9z1JmeZj2FW-AE/s1149/COMPOSITE_PALEO_LAMP_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1149" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRzNMdzIuXjMxgW76qKN-E1BlJ4hwXTtEkMAFbgvz7Q9irV3ApemWJRMVWcxWCsz5yxzI7JuD7mrtpqMeVtmRdy8uEHyOIgqV2vG-0fxTEiL_RL5KNc3Lq7WF2HLmpDdqVSa0GPb8_dP6XUbEnrxtbcsCtUNsh6RTm7NOCloRYfS9z1JmeZj2FW-AE/w446-h640/COMPOSITE_PALEO_LAMP_A.jpg" width="446" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">[TOP] <b>Precisely made stone lamp, found in the Upper Paleolithic Cave known as Lascaux, dated to about 17,000 years old.</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lampe_a_graisse_-_Lascaux.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lampe_a_graisse_-_Lascaux.jpg</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">[BOTTOM] Diagram showing the precision with which it was made.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Glory, A., 1961: Le brûloir de Lascaux Gallia préhistoire, Tome 4, 1961. pp. 174-183.</div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>By the Upper Paleolithic, the sophistication of the art and artifacts suggests an advanced technology. It has now been proven (as mentioned earlier) that basketry and also basic weaving were present in the Upper Paleolithic. But based on ethnoarchaeology (the branch of archaeology that studies contemporary 'primitive' cultures) it is my educated guess, that a considerable number of woven-fiber products were made as shown by Native American Indians who lived a nomadic hunter-gatherer existence. (See the Evidence List.)</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><div>TECHNOLOGY THAT MAY HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE </div><div>IN THE UPPER PALEOLITHIC </div></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi043H_tPCt88PiviqOnlufgQZkSUOcBydW2vnxI3OSsQhCUFxPut4jlM7wcrLmAKS4dFcMRug_bpl1Ms4dBujGFUUJLxPoZtDBmDubhtk0jEH7wTOr1K-lEdW_P5jVBLPUmHJlAtKJitinFM29-3XT4EuQYQQO4a6h2kvIgU178unpn8xdoWGNPdHx/s640/BASKETS_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="246" data-original-width="640" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi043H_tPCt88PiviqOnlufgQZkSUOcBydW2vnxI3OSsQhCUFxPut4jlM7wcrLmAKS4dFcMRug_bpl1Ms4dBujGFUUJLxPoZtDBmDubhtk0jEH7wTOr1K-lEdW_P5jVBLPUmHJlAtKJitinFM29-3XT4EuQYQQO4a6h2kvIgU178unpn8xdoWGNPdHx/w640-h246/BASKETS_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>An example of scaling.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The invention of right-angle or opposing design meant that basket designs could be scaled to just about any size, large or small.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="font-size: medium;">LEFT: "The [basket that this] grandmother is weaving about herself is to be used as a store for grains and vegetables."</span><br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Indians_-_first_families_of_the_Southwest_(1920)_(14775904322).jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Indians_-_first_families_of_the_Southwest_(1920)_(14775904322).jpg</span></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">RIGHT: From small to very large, baskets can be scaled.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution </i>(1902) </span><br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annual_report_of_the_Board_of_Regents_of_the_Smithsonian_Institution_(1902)_(17814870494).jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annual_report_of_the_Board_of_Regents_of_the_Smithsonian_Institution_(1902)_(17814870494).jpg</span></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div><b style="font-size: large;"> </b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH-Q6fr8qBdfsFn_g7P6-oCZluAbSfbQKT6yyR0EH1jKmb_XyQogLo63-5-PYp0vQbFUhaJZF8PGV0uSt_jzKNYP3LyyCMKSfZ38zSxTYAEA7cQF9LglbIvvFvJBmxScbY77bjnbJLO2TBZWy4GLxyDQOeGurOlo3fIm3hAN5Hbb4__nIywD4JXF5F/s800/COMPOSITE_APACHE_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="429" data-original-width="800" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH-Q6fr8qBdfsFn_g7P6-oCZluAbSfbQKT6yyR0EH1jKmb_XyQogLo63-5-PYp0vQbFUhaJZF8PGV0uSt_jzKNYP3LyyCMKSfZ38zSxTYAEA7cQF9LglbIvvFvJBmxScbY77bjnbJLO2TBZWy4GLxyDQOeGurOlo3fIm3hAN5Hbb4__nIywD4JXF5F/w640-h344/COMPOSITE_APACHE_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold;">Large Apache woven basket water jug. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">LEFT: Apache Coiled Basket</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">(Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, Plate 52, explanation p. 297)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">RIGHT: "Apache Indian maiden with an olla on her head, ca.1900"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">(University of Southern California, ca. 1900, Apache Indian maiden)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM0Z_APvUzr_bK79BsKBcGCfe45wbTXsIQsmsGZzr5REBa9kNU3aFN0Y0WDGo9RTRdXvzBtX8vLi9Hht2T9cfd4LIc8qGpqcD5jtr-DTFYn0BlLBSEf5-yUXzJRybuD5_9CUN_rOf9iKYGHFrGf05b_jO3JcRXOhO00fXYsp5Hdsh7RPpO7ukb3Ig6/s800/Guatemalan_woman_hand_loom_1970sA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="634" data-original-width="800" height="509" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM0Z_APvUzr_bK79BsKBcGCfe45wbTXsIQsmsGZzr5REBa9kNU3aFN0Y0WDGo9RTRdXvzBtX8vLi9Hht2T9cfd4LIc8qGpqcD5jtr-DTFYn0BlLBSEf5-yUXzJRybuD5_9CUN_rOf9iKYGHFrGf05b_jO3JcRXOhO00fXYsp5Hdsh7RPpO7ukb3Ig6/w640-h509/Guatemalan_woman_hand_loom_1970sA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">How weaving with a loom might have been done in the Upper Paleolithic.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We know from the clay impressions found by Drs. Adovasio and Soffer that fabric made with a basic plain weave that required a loom existed in the Upper Paleolithic. This photo shows a woman using a small handloom which may have been possible in the Upper Paleolithic.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Guatemalan woman handloom 1970s."</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guatemalan_woman_hand_loom_1970s.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guatemalan_woman_hand_loom_1970s.jpg</a></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2SW9NJnwhgjrB00I_IRpoP6Qb9HwU37ZKwDLigccp4KH4YL05SOerY_WwYpL3VatZPFSdeqHlR38kHfGW4BEl9xPkkj1liKID_MiQYx66-pCDI7maDWqIW1ygmOoRCmz0PRq-mf-N4xMmmtnRBL52QbJkeJ4enjp0Rj4gBG9xskh5pDr-zvxz0KFs/s640/COMPOSITE_REED_BOATSA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="487" data-original-width="640" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2SW9NJnwhgjrB00I_IRpoP6Qb9HwU37ZKwDLigccp4KH4YL05SOerY_WwYpL3VatZPFSdeqHlR38kHfGW4BEl9xPkkj1liKID_MiQYx66-pCDI7maDWqIW1ygmOoRCmz0PRq-mf-N4xMmmtnRBL52QbJkeJ4enjp0Rj4gBG9xskh5pDr-zvxz0KFs/w640-h488/COMPOSITE_REED_BOATSA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">Traditional reed/fiber boats from around the world.</div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">TOP LEFT: "Tankwa or tangwa: Traditional Ethiopian embarcation from Lac Tana, made of papyrus by Nagades people."</div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">TOP RIGHT: "Reed boat at Ekehagen Prehistoric village outside Åsarp, Falköping Municipality, Västergötland, Västra Götaland County, Sweden." </div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">BOTTOM LEFT: "Reed boat; exhibition in the Doria Castle of Castelsardo, Sardinia, Italy"</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BOTTOM RIGHT: "Traditional reed boat on Lake Titicaca, Bolivia." </span><br /><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EthiopieLacTanaTankwa.JPG"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EthiopieLacTanaTankwa.JPG</span></a></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ekehagens_forntidsby_vassbåt_6790.jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ekehagens_forntidsby_vassbåt_6790.jpg</span></a></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Castelsardo-016.jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Castelsardo-016.jpg</span></a></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bolivia-130_-_Reed_Boat_(2218109064).jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bolivia-130_-_Reed_Boat_(2218109064).jpg</span></a></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDzgilxKRbHaseIntqwz6febPQ8eEf1Aqs6b11PmMQDTpY08L4Zkw6lqgM1P5tEoWNumc1t6ncfLw6wE9m2jiGv-gE39_Iq3oiRrCAgddlZICmfiChG5TYHQlbI_VwmS9Eq9X9Rh4GwT1o_luokJyB3sqekJ2skNLxMN5K7e2hGVAwe71XJwpdxB86/s800/IRB-6-BringingDeckMat-KC603-8A_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="526" data-original-width="800" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDzgilxKRbHaseIntqwz6febPQ8eEf1Aqs6b11PmMQDTpY08L4Zkw6lqgM1P5tEoWNumc1t6ncfLw6wE9m2jiGv-gE39_Iq3oiRrCAgddlZICmfiChG5TYHQlbI_VwmS9Eq9X9Rh4GwT1o_luokJyB3sqekJ2skNLxMN5K7e2hGVAwe71XJwpdxB86/w640-h420/IRB-6-BringingDeckMat-KC603-8A_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>A traditional rope suspension bridge in South America.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IRB-6-BringingDeckMat-KC603-8.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IRB-6-BringingDeckMat-KC603-8.jpg</a></span></div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">MESOLITHIC</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The Mesolithic was a time period of transition between the Upper Paleolithic nomadic hunter-gatherer way of life and the sedentary agricultural Neolithic way of life. During the Mesolithic period, tribes might build houses and remain in one place for a season or two before returning to a nomadic lifestyle.</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDMtr8RR20yqaUoydDT4daKLNIe0oanvc3QnqLi67hdoeuVMgAk9v27pdDEdmzPpKFItg0DhpvXCPB4j5XvYKzs8LAgxPnVb6b-O17i97Kn2U1Kf8LadlfXbKsAhs9wEzKWj6mulfuC5rAtizlEeMsp7aVHdIeUmmQ8VlrSv82zJSnzL3md3yJ8Y0B/s1282/COMPOSITE_TRADITIONAL_HUT.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1282" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDMtr8RR20yqaUoydDT4daKLNIe0oanvc3QnqLi67hdoeuVMgAk9v27pdDEdmzPpKFItg0DhpvXCPB4j5XvYKzs8LAgxPnVb6b-O17i97Kn2U1Kf8LadlfXbKsAhs9wEzKWj6mulfuC5rAtizlEeMsp7aVHdIeUmmQ8VlrSv82zJSnzL3md3yJ8Y0B/s16000/COMPOSITE_TRADITIONAL_HUT.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large;"><b>"Wichita Indian group building a lodge."</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Built on an upside-down basket design, these buildings were strong, comfortable, and made with great skill. The interior ribs [TOP) were covered with a thatched roof covering [BOTTOM], a technology still in wide use today in Europe. It is probable that smaller versions of this design were used for individual families. Mesolithic seasonal villages may have had settlements with similar buildings.</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wichita_Indian_group_building_a_lodge_in_the_Department_of_Anthropology_at_the_1904_World%27s_Fair.jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wichita_Indian_group_building_a_lodge_in_the_Department_of_Anthropology_at_the_1904_World%27s_Fair.jpg</span></a></div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wichita_Indian_group_building_their_lodge_for_the_Department_of_Anthropology_exhibit_at_the_1904_World%27s_Fair.jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wichita_Indian_group_building_their_lodge_for_the_Department_of_Anthropology_exhibit_at_the_1904_World%27s_Fair.jpg</span></a></div></span></div><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">"Relatively few tribes of American Indians understood pottery, except in the crudest form. As for basketry, it may be said that every Indian from the land of the Esquimaux down through Mexico was a basket weaver." <br /><i>American Indians: first families of the Southwest.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Indians_-_first_families_of_the_Southwest_(1920)_(14775904322).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Indians_-_first_families_of_the_Southwest_(1920)_(14775904322).jpg</a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">NEOLITHIC</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: 400; text-align: left;"><b>I believe this technology reached a near peak in the Neolithic era. It has been proven that during this time large seagoing reed ships were able to travel the Persian Gulf, flax was cultivated and linen clothing from the flax was woven on looms, and large majestic buildings, made entirely out of reeds, were constructed. Also, as I state in the Evidence List, basketry was widely used in the Neolithic era, especially in agriculture, although this aspect has been largely ignored.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: left;"><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTb657zqujtxZg7pcma6_hFVQxahdBgOdcygabj-XyxP9OIkfgGXjWjdQ-0tMCI-p1je_NzEoHTFvvMlJwL87aKWzhPznON8CYbwW0eDL1XESQ9goGLTrNwXoV2gWWdSa3mhlOVgPBR1FR2Y3CuZaH1NJGBAHDBIhPpbvHjcms_mtyvnVI0iBrh3W3/s800/1A_NEOLITHIC_BOWLv.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="344" data-original-width="800" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTb657zqujtxZg7pcma6_hFVQxahdBgOdcygabj-XyxP9OIkfgGXjWjdQ-0tMCI-p1je_NzEoHTFvvMlJwL87aKWzhPznON8CYbwW0eDL1XESQ9goGLTrNwXoV2gWWdSa3mhlOVgPBR1FR2Y3CuZaH1NJGBAHDBIhPpbvHjcms_mtyvnVI0iBrh3W3/w640-h276/1A_NEOLITHIC_BOWLv.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b style="font-size: large;">Direct Evidence: Neolithic woven bowls</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">These bowls, found in the cave of Cueva de los Murciélagos in Spain are approx. 6,000 years old and show a high level of weaving skill.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">LEFT: Bowl <br />RIGHT: Detail of bowl</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cester%C3%ADa_Murci%C3%A9lagos_03.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cester%C3%ADa_Murci%C3%A9lagos_03.JPG</a></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: left;"><br /></b></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiypdfAhdzOErK-nhG8fHovyr7fQSfBKrq_HptHz-YvhnnR_2Ztw2VOtjd7zbpGw88xFoyS9L2iTgiVBxD3jOny4QUVHumrlJO0lIEaEfwgEV2LYByFGmvQUja112cvwLVO0GgaQhSRHvJ_gCmE-PjAdtjgkUa5vJmJZWRRZAHd9jD8B5CVY8R1YxJF/s800/1280px-Sandalias_del_Neol%C3%ADtico_de_Albu%C3%B1ol_(M.A.N._Inv._595_y_596)_01_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="800" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiypdfAhdzOErK-nhG8fHovyr7fQSfBKrq_HptHz-YvhnnR_2Ztw2VOtjd7zbpGw88xFoyS9L2iTgiVBxD3jOny4QUVHumrlJO0lIEaEfwgEV2LYByFGmvQUja112cvwLVO0GgaQhSRHvJ_gCmE-PjAdtjgkUa5vJmJZWRRZAHd9jD8B5CVY8R1YxJF/w640-h340/1280px-Sandalias_del_Neol%C3%ADtico_de_Albu%C3%B1ol_(M.A.N._Inv._595_y_596)_01_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><b>Direct Evidence: Neolithic Sandals</b></div><div>These sandals, found in the cave of Cueva de los Murciélagos in Spain, are approx. 6,000 years old and show a high level of skill. This neo-flip-flop design also shows a design ability as flip-flops are still widely used today. (I bet you even have a pair.)</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandalias_del_Neol%C3%ADtico_de_Albu%C3%B1ol_(M.A.N._Inv._595_y_596)_01.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandalias_del_Neol%C3%ADtico_de_Albu%C3%B1ol_(M.A.N._Inv._595_y_596)_01.jpg</a></div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb2hvKoLFvy3q8EBcn7pJA7biNO1whazUQopwzlTZ6cBh5k9cFzbaJL7ek7K30Ph8VWdza-yR9aXlwhuboBxm6th5oXfjnV4dzbFKDci8dXH4cYC6GDtZWdqBZTwKckDjio4d2YM53OHIUP_yqTGW9A_HSXiZuvHl0Ez09G1BkIdKAzQVy4HlZYphe/s800/1_COMPOSITE_BURDEN_BASKET_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="800" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb2hvKoLFvy3q8EBcn7pJA7biNO1whazUQopwzlTZ6cBh5k9cFzbaJL7ek7K30Ph8VWdza-yR9aXlwhuboBxm6th5oXfjnV4dzbFKDci8dXH4cYC6GDtZWdqBZTwKckDjio4d2YM53OHIUP_yqTGW9A_HSXiZuvHl0Ez09G1BkIdKAzQVy4HlZYphe/w640-h376/1_COMPOSITE_BURDEN_BASKET_2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Large back baskets for agriculture in Slovenia ca. 1963.</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">I believe that large back-baskets such as these were widely used in the Neolithic era before the invention of pottery. In some areas of the world, they continue to be used today. <br /><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ka%C5%A1perjev_Janez_z_listnim_ko%C5%A1em_%22kranjska_svetloba%22,_Podlani%C5%A1%C4%8De_1954.jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ka%C5%A1perjev_Janez_z_listnim_ko%C5%A1em_%22kranjska_svetloba%22,_Podlani%C5%A1%C4%8De_1954.jpg</span></a></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:V_ko%C5%A1u_nosi_seno_s_travnika,_Spodnje_Zre%C4%8De_1963_(2).jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:V_ko%C5%A1u_nosi_seno_s_travnika,_Spodnje_Zre%C4%8De_1963_(2).jpg</span></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYYnZEexjH0lp6bpIoOfctJOnFvGAnMYWLjShrpn74MWMQAT4OzNtQQkGY7_jXjHWnU-fUUEjaV_rHtmSwrFNL-S2pVVOtwdrgju2l613_sWlnRb2Qf8nk7-ebFwR_TJTFtPHF1g-CZ80ULYuQzxvQuZm14_DuG4yrSWNoY03jYu1OeQRYsdZhQPR9/s800/1_Donkey_panniers_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="766" data-original-width="800" height="612" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYYnZEexjH0lp6bpIoOfctJOnFvGAnMYWLjShrpn74MWMQAT4OzNtQQkGY7_jXjHWnU-fUUEjaV_rHtmSwrFNL-S2pVVOtwdrgju2l613_sWlnRb2Qf8nk7-ebFwR_TJTFtPHF1g-CZ80ULYuQzxvQuZm14_DuG4yrSWNoY03jYu1OeQRYsdZhQPR9/w640-h612/1_Donkey_panniers_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><b>A donkey with traditional panniers (side-saddle-type baskets).</b></div><div>Even after the domestication of pack animals, baskets were essential. Heavy-duty reed baskets were used to transport agricultural goods, dredge the channels, carry clay to make bricks, and carry bricks to build buildings.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey_panniers.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey_panniers.jpg</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGj14eIzJb2VIYF1QEtKosqI-lKvec6zgyjd--QZlf-Vljn5QxrVLf5a-Oqjm35ANXY39hSYobyqpZfLxxjOH-rSpLc1GZCDvoEDcUHVk6msHzQCab2zw3NkVScz8-qoGWpA7o6byfIQUtlN9_p6VlzlMFT1Ice5ANWkNU1lhXicd3noKwPxLMykhz/s800/1280px-Hogenakkal_CoracleA_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="800" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGj14eIzJb2VIYF1QEtKosqI-lKvec6zgyjd--QZlf-Vljn5QxrVLf5a-Oqjm35ANXY39hSYobyqpZfLxxjOH-rSpLc1GZCDvoEDcUHVk6msHzQCab2zw3NkVScz8-qoGWpA7o6byfIQUtlN9_p6VlzlMFT1Ice5ANWkNU1lhXicd3noKwPxLMykhz/w640-h448/1280px-Hogenakkal_CoracleA_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><div><b>Coracles or round basket boats.</b></div><div>This is a coracle which is also called a basket boat because its structure was/is created with reeds like a basket. In this picture, one can see the basket-like ribbing inside the boat. These boats have been used for thousands of years and still are today.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hogenakkal_Coracle.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hogenakkal_Coracle.jpg</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMj2KDNdBfIaF_z-bfDZ08twyvW2VECysGFeLe7gll6Lk1Jajv-RFdd9-igJlxTxkrrzj1L7dvDElXXMdlBsQL_V3WKjyX5r9CxUou_OcNhHEA-oNyBkbyw2Yh8iWaHyquOyGbB3IRLySTXjcX0wdQn3za0hE0tCsXCxl-KuN-OOYM0IxGW3_gvkEa/s640/COMPOSITE_NEOLITHIC_LOOM.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="343" data-original-width="640" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMj2KDNdBfIaF_z-bfDZ08twyvW2VECysGFeLe7gll6Lk1Jajv-RFdd9-igJlxTxkrrzj1L7dvDElXXMdlBsQL_V3WKjyX5r9CxUou_OcNhHEA-oNyBkbyw2Yh8iWaHyquOyGbB3IRLySTXjcX0wdQn3za0hE0tCsXCxl-KuN-OOYM0IxGW3_gvkEa/w640-h344/COMPOSITE_NEOLITHIC_LOOM.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><b>This is a recreation of a Neolithic warp-weighted loom about 5300 years ago.</b> The recreation is by The ArcheoParc Schnals Museum of South Tyrol, Italy. The clothing pictured here is also a recreation by the museum and part of their loom display.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Archeoparc_Schnals_-_Museum#/media/File:Archeoparc_-_%C3%96tzi_Webstuhl.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Archeoparc_Schnals_-_Museum#/media/File:Archeoparc_-_%C3%96tzi_Webstuhl.jpg</a></div></div><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">FIRST CIVILIZATIONS</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>These pictures indicate the mass production of critical items such as sacks to carry grain and sandals. They were produced in the thousands. Basketry was also essential and used throughout Egyptian and Mesopotamian agriculture.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_h4ubxuTpcColAVfXUwRxEDQSXsKEynJM93P-O5o2HZK91i8dNOZZQ5iXLCM3nu2uy-NOv0dLTETqIJWaSBtYq0droUWcflc0kKAUW8tgE68hT0kzVNse4aiilnF8a-Ui85bxzK5IR71VHvqcmNaB8nSuByoSTfnb40gImtGc4HqECz5_crYwK--Z/s800/COMPOSITE_SACKS_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="614" data-original-width="800" height="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_h4ubxuTpcColAVfXUwRxEDQSXsKEynJM93P-O5o2HZK91i8dNOZZQ5iXLCM3nu2uy-NOv0dLTETqIJWaSBtYq0droUWcflc0kKAUW8tgE68hT0kzVNse4aiilnF8a-Ui85bxzK5IR71VHvqcmNaB8nSuByoSTfnb40gImtGc4HqECz5_crYwK--Z/w640-h492/COMPOSITE_SACKS_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Civilization mass-produced what the Neolithic had developed.</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">While often overlooked, both the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians depended on huge numbers of woven-fiber sacks for holding and transporting grain along with baskets carried by pack animals. </div><div style="text-align: center;">LEFT: Picture from the Sumerian Standard of Ur.</div><div style="text-align: center;">of a person carrying a sack, circa 2600 BCE.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_of_Ur_-_Peace_Panel_-_Sumer.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_of_Ur_-_Peace_Panel_-_Sumer.jpg</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">RIGHT: Picture of an Egyptian carrying a sack</div><div style="text-align: center;">from Tombe d'Oumsou, circa 1450 BCE.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey_panniers.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey_panniers.jpg</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvynxQUYOUwkwoqDQt2NNsL7WFKcxWFonIUFAdt50sWprv3s4FHT_-7mKQeM5-v0uaxgjWN6Ks9pzXl1iWrfNzNXGv8zaiGDZjwWW3gQVPFxnUqRm8fKD98vyfK7JX8S-eNhGDRRk2pOjlyIb5IaObCyjqDcegF9xWzdwbY2YZcv9iBVuiJIoF119H/s1208/COMPOSITE_SANDALS_1_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1208" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvynxQUYOUwkwoqDQt2NNsL7WFKcxWFonIUFAdt50sWprv3s4FHT_-7mKQeM5-v0uaxgjWN6Ks9pzXl1iWrfNzNXGv8zaiGDZjwWW3gQVPFxnUqRm8fKD98vyfK7JX8S-eNhGDRRk2pOjlyIb5IaObCyjqDcegF9xWzdwbY2YZcv9iBVuiJIoF119H/w424-h640/COMPOSITE_SANDALS_1_A.jpg" width="424" /></a></div></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large;"><b>Items could now be produced in large quantities.</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large;">(TOP) Sandal Maker, Tomb of Rekhmire, Egypt, about 3500 years ago, This is a facsimile from a wall painting.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large;">(BOTTOM) A pair of ancient sandals made from the papyrus reed and from about the same time period as the painting above. These were made in quantity. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandal_Maker,_Tomb_of_Rekhmire_MET_DP346330.jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandal_Maker,_Tomb_of_Rekhmire_MET_DP346330.jpg</span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pair_of_Sandals_MET_eg28.jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pair_of_Sandals_MET_eg28.jpg</span></a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4WA2ujErcd9Fsowyc-dQA2U5PW-qHIvWvzovG6BAPDDx_lF3TiMNlZLqkaIMIqSushNKSGFG3LcBDxigjYxAk6_-CSO2lcVqlGazbv8Z-LbC0fW8WEzN0lFr0JjFtX_Pqx9__vkt5zHEaNPMiAek8I_1bU-T1It4ToHQzgS09brW9YbAJd0hmpS9u/s639/1_EGYPTIAN_BASKETRY.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4WA2ujErcd9Fsowyc-dQA2U5PW-qHIvWvzovG6BAPDDx_lF3TiMNlZLqkaIMIqSushNKSGFG3LcBDxigjYxAk6_-CSO2lcVqlGazbv8Z-LbC0fW8WEzN0lFr0JjFtX_Pqx9__vkt5zHEaNPMiAek8I_1bU-T1It4ToHQzgS09brW9YbAJd0hmpS9u/s16000/1_EGYPTIAN_BASKETRY.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><b style="font-size: large;">Baskets were essential tools for Egyptian agriculture. </b><br /><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_second_series_of_the_Manners_and_customs_of_the_ancient_Egyptians_(Page_87)_BHL21584712.jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_second_series_of_the_Manners_and_customs_of_the_ancient_Egyptians_(Page_87)_BHL21584712.jpg</span></a></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mietitura_delle_spighe-_ricolta_e_battitura_delle_medesime_(NYPL_b14291206-425523).jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mietitura_delle_spighe-_ricolta_e_battitura_delle_medesime_(NYPL_b14291206-425523).jpg</span></a></div></span></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>This highly developed Neolithic technology was crucial for the emergence of the first civilizations in Mesopotamia who could mass produce these products. I was able to show that Mesopotamia had a critical reed industry and baskets, homes, and fleets of boats all made of reeds were widely used throughout the economy. In addition, heavy-duty baskets were essential for dredging canals and irrigating the fields as well as hauling clay to make bricks. (See the Evidence List.)</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1RwYFuHwyTciVBvRFr7FIrSxTwzPE7HumwjiZjCy-rcNStVoZmusX8TYVS-gI1F9Xa94R-pDXpz-Umsj2b-oYQpspxfc-W_DnjWvFNH3ojtsXioTHML88NPi7NWtEASRVN61D7v1-fpqUVW5MwbjElAmlH5CcKeU62OKcMlNowqKHGR9seZpxiWrv/s1113/COMPOSITE_SHIP_MUDHIF.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1113" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1RwYFuHwyTciVBvRFr7FIrSxTwzPE7HumwjiZjCy-rcNStVoZmusX8TYVS-gI1F9Xa94R-pDXpz-Umsj2b-oYQpspxfc-W_DnjWvFNH3ojtsXioTHML88NPi7NWtEASRVN61D7v1-fpqUVW5MwbjElAmlH5CcKeU62OKcMlNowqKHGR9seZpxiWrv/s16000/COMPOSITE_SHIP_MUDHIF.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Reed and woven-fiber technology at its height.</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">[TOP] This large reed boat is an artist's conception of a boat docking at a Mesopotamian city around 5000 years ago. While a fanciful painting, it is probably not an inaccurate representation of the highly developed reed technology at that time.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">While still in the public domain, the link to this picture is no longer available.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;">[BOTTOM] Like reed cathedrals, large vaulted mudhifs, as they are called, were made entirely from reeds, including the rope. The largest and best-made ones were used for ceremonial purposes and community gatherings. The interiors often displayed dazzling patterns of light as the light came through the intricate weaving work. <br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762).jpg</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">TODAY</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Many believe that the weaving of fabric and clothes had its origins in basket weaving. If true the clothes you wear today are derived from ancient woven-fiber technology.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheqCg8KxRhju47-FHDz7VzgRHSUpKCqU89TPGPzT5UfVlprt5ZNn1PltPK7it2K_m5jOh_l1NSBCdkusYF74T3NjQolgLKeTNvIzvzultJJAV0mrVU-D6rJsCSR-1J6SKKKonlxN1cdAn0Ann9GvGiXunlF7F8NCn9fBn_CC8cBmHteRw90SWTbBCz/s800/Phuket,_Thailand_December_2021_-_Blue_DressesA_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="800" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheqCg8KxRhju47-FHDz7VzgRHSUpKCqU89TPGPzT5UfVlprt5ZNn1PltPK7it2K_m5jOh_l1NSBCdkusYF74T3NjQolgLKeTNvIzvzultJJAV0mrVU-D6rJsCSR-1J6SKKKonlxN1cdAn0Ann9GvGiXunlF7F8NCn9fBn_CC8cBmHteRw90SWTbBCz/w640-h422/Phuket,_Thailand_December_2021_-_Blue_DressesA_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: large;">A clothing store today. </b><br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phuket,_Thailand_December_2021_-_Blue_Dresses.jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phuket,_Thailand_December_2021_-_Blue_Dresses.jpg</span></a></div></span></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b></b></div><blockquote style="font-size: large;"><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>ABOUT MY TENTATIVE THEORY</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>I believe that the ideas and evidence for this theory that I have presented indicate that it could be possible. But I would love to see more evidence that moves it into the realm of the probable.</b></div><div><b>I offer this theory in the hope that others may think it has merit and add to it or modify it or expand it or rework it. For example, they might find new evidence or new ideas or new computer models that support it. </b></div><div><b>I am 78 years old, so I doubt this will happen in my life time. Yet I am very pleased that I have been able to do this work as an independent researcher with the critical help of the Internet both as a resource for documents and research but also for photographs which are often primary evidence. </b></div><div><b>In addition the Internet has given me the ability to publish my ideas and reach a following. My blogs and reprints of these blogs on academic sites have been viewed by more than a quarter of a million people. And on the academic site, Academia.edu, I have over 1000 followers and am ranked at the top 1% of document views.</b></div></blockquote><div style="font-size: large;"><b></b></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNHH2X_nWaB_jSe_rzkmERWnujhaUqh3GdgaHTc2ob9JCKwuWbEOnlT3AfhkhBHzY8gjP_FE8fW9Pql1MQMBVIjWEBvqoqb2hNuY43ZN6Y0dhxLFm3mQ1w0R4M-MHdpe36fppha5dmVBHoSv83mXkOM_2ceBr8Z69eDLiPj-_5z9N3f2yNJr839hb4/s800/Ukrainian_straw_hat_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNHH2X_nWaB_jSe_rzkmERWnujhaUqh3GdgaHTc2ob9JCKwuWbEOnlT3AfhkhBHzY8gjP_FE8fW9Pql1MQMBVIjWEBvqoqb2hNuY43ZN6Y0dhxLFm3mQ1w0R4M-MHdpe36fppha5dmVBHoSv83mXkOM_2ceBr8Z69eDLiPj-_5z9N3f2yNJr839hb4/w400-h300/Ukrainian_straw_hat_A.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Traditional Ukrainian straw hat with 'wide gauge' strands.</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%A3%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%97%D0%BD%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C.JPG"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%A3%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%97%D0%BD%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C.JPG</span></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><h1 style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>**************************<br /></b></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>**************************<br /></b></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>EVIDENCE LIST:<br /></b></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>A Timeline Of Evidence<br /></b></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>**************************</b></span></h1><div style="text-align: left;"><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>=</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>PRE-PALEOLITHIC</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>=</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>THE CHANGING ENVIRONMENT</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Our early ancestors lived in changing grassy and leafy areas in addition to forested areas for more than ten million years. This may mean that our ape ancestors lived in a wide range of environments and therefore would have learned to work with many different plant fibers such as grass, leaves, and forest growth.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"The findings outline paleoecological reconstructions of early ape fossil sites in eastern Africa dated to the early Miocene Epoch — between 23 and 16 million years ago — showing early apes lived in a wide variety of habitats, including open habitats like scrublands and wooded grasslands that existed 10 million years earlier than previously known.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Some of these habitats included substantial c4 plant biomass, grasses that today characterize tropical savannas."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>----------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Rewriting the story of human evolution: Apes lived in open habitats 10 million years earlier than expect</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://scitechdaily.com/rewriting-the-story-of-human-evolution-apes-lived-in-open-habitats-10-million-years-earlier-than-expected/">https://scitechdaily.com/rewriting-the-story-of-human-evolution-apes-lived-in-open-habitats-10-million-years-earlier-than-expected/</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>THE PRE-PALEOLITHIC LIFE FOR HOMINIDS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh78udXPPr92xFav_32P6-eA1DbAULOkZ-HcTzkb2fe1drt7sJHsBoNkuBt7tYujVKOC7OlH-Ez8G0H6-P7wwPrFABVXaRCbI8O8qyNh0kZpjpekpWTHUG7EX3-rRtFkWXoePOGjs_9Z0ZWwRwy9BNDx5Syi1ipDHEqv_SHwAB1xQIqXWo2PHryq4S5/s800/Bornean_Orangutan_in_nest_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="489" data-original-width="800" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh78udXPPr92xFav_32P6-eA1DbAULOkZ-HcTzkb2fe1drt7sJHsBoNkuBt7tYujVKOC7OlH-Ez8G0H6-P7wwPrFABVXaRCbI8O8qyNh0kZpjpekpWTHUG7EX3-rRtFkWXoePOGjs_9Z0ZWwRwy9BNDx5Syi1ipDHEqv_SHwAB1xQIqXWo2PHryq4S5/w640-h392/Bornean_Orangutan_in_nest_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div><b style="font-size: large;">Apes (our early relatives) made sturdy bedding nests every night using a kind of weaving technology.</b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"The [orangutan] nests we studied...were strong, safe, and defined structures.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"We demonstrated that the center of the nest is more compliant than the edges. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"These results suggest that orangutans exhibit a degree of technical knowledge and choice in the construction of nests.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>It appeared that "the orangutans had selected stronger, more rigid branches for the structural parts of the nest and weaker, flexible ones for the lining..."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Our findings about the sophistication of the choices that orangutans make in their nest construction also cast light on the likely technological abilities of our early hominin ancestors, although there can never be certainty with regard to their material culture. It has been speculated that nest building may have provided an evolutionary foundation for higher levels of tool use in hominoids by promoting exploratory branch and twig use and nurturing increased cognition and technological skills. In demonstrating patterning in construction and material selection, THIS STUDY ILLUSTRATES A DEGREE OF TECHNICAL KNOW-HOW IN NEST-BUILDING ORANGUTANS, WHICH MAY AID IN THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE EVOLUTION OF TOOL USE AND TECHNOLOGY IN HUMAN ANCESTORS. </b>[MY EMPHASIS.]</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>----------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Nest-building orangutans demonstrate engineering know-how to produce safe, comfortable beds</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1200902109">https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1200902109</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Study researcher A. Roland Ennos of the University of Manchester, in the United Kingdom, told LiveScience. "It's very similar to weaving a basket, they have to break the branches, weave them together and form a nice, strong, rigid structure.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"They are almost as complex as a man-made shelter you might make...</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"They know how the wood is going to break, and they have a feel for how strong they have to make it [the nest]. That shows the apes have intelligence and have a feel for the physics of their environment."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>----------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Apes' simple nests are feats of engineering</i> b</span><span style="font-size: large;">y Jennifer Welsh</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.livescience.com/19708-primates-build-sleeping-nests.html">https://www.livescience.com/19708-primates-build-sleeping-nests.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>COGNITIVE IMPLICATIONS OF NEST BUILDING</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Although there is an innate component to nest building in great apes, it is not an entirely instinctive behavior. It has been shown that immature individuals build nests more efficiently and of a higher quality when exposed to nest-building adults. This indicates a role for learning and innovation in the building of nests."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>----------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Nest-building orangutans demonstrate engineering know-how to produce safe, comfortable beds</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1200902109">https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1200902109</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"It has been proffered that a major leap forward in the cognitive evolution of hominoids may first have occurred in the building of nests.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"The study of great apes aids in the understanding of early hominid evolution."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>----------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Coolidge, Frank L.; Wyn, Thomas (2006). "The effects of the tree-to-ground sleep transition in the evolution of cognition in early Homo" (PDF). Before Farming. 2006 (4): Article 11, pp. 11–18. doi:10.3828/bfarm.2006.4.11. Retrieved 6 July 2011.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>There is "mounting evidence for social learning and culture in many species of primate. As in humans, the evidence suggests that the juvenile phases of non-human primates’ lives represent a period of particular intensity in adaptive learning from others..."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>---------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The pervasive role of social learning in primate lifetime development</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5934467/">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5934467/</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>AUSTRALOPITHECUS, LUCY, FALLS OUT OF A TREE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>It is now theorized that the death of the famous Australopithecus, Lucy, was caused by her falling out of a tree after nesting for the night. Detailed CT scans (X-rays) showed that her fractures were consistent with a fall.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>----------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Kappelman and his colleagues speculated that small hominini like Lucy, who stood a mere one meter (three and a half feet) tall and weighed around 27 kilograms (60 pounds), likely nested in the trees at night to protect themselves from potential predators."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/lucy-tree-fall-human-ancestor">https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/lucy-tree-fall-human-ancestor</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><b>A recent study confirmed that:</b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="font-weight: bold;">"Australopithecus species were habitual bipeds but also practiced arboreality (living in trees)..."</div><div><i>Reappraising the palaeobiology of Australopithecus</i></div><div><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05957-1">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05957-1</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>WALKING UPRIGHT</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>From at least 6 to 3 million years ago, early humans combined apelike and humanlike ways of moving around. Fossil bones...record a gradual transition from climbing trees to walking upright on a regular basis.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Smithsonian's Human Origins</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/human-characteristics/walking-upright">http://humanorigins.si.edu/human-characteristics/walking-upright</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">ALSO</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Becoming Human: The Evolution of Walking Upright</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Smithsonian Magazine</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/becoming-human-the-evolution-of-walking-upright-13837658/">https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/becoming-human-the-evolution-of-walking-upright-13837658/</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>=</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>START OF THE PALEOLITHIC</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>=</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Oxford Languages </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Hunter-Gatherer:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>A member of a nomadic people who live chiefly by hunting and fishing, and harvesting wild food.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Hunter-Gatherer, </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>also called [a] forager, [is] any person who depends primarily on wild foods for subsistence. Until about 12,000 to 11,000 years ago...all peoples were hunter-gatherers. Their strategies have been very diverse, depending greatly upon the local environment; foraging strategies have included hunting or trapping big game, hunting or trapping smaller animals, fishing, gathering shellfish or insects, and gathering wild plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, tubers, seeds, and nuts. Most hunter-gatherers combine a variety of these strategies in order to ensure a balanced diet."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/hunter-gatherer">https://www.britannica.com/topic/hunter-gatherer</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>HUNTER-GATHERERS AND BASKETS (my theory)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The ability to make and design baskets, large and small, for a specific purpose and for an individual greatly enhanced a tribe's abilities to hunt and to gather. Strong light baskets became a major contribution to their ability to survive and to give them more power and control. Baskets greatly increased their ability to carry things such as tools or weapons for hunting and to gather things such as fruit or tubers or small game they killed or firewood or materials such as particular stones or fibers to make baskets.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>LOWER PALEOLITHIC</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHmz48MXumja0lQWUK-LZrNczMKGyLPxQSHqpwzcOLmHGUFJ_sx6Cp41noPTK5AVagR-Wj5TFNUjzbcM1eQFqF9bRIRZyGZH2Ey-bkHDbdsf_-TEPEMaW6odpyp4J2O8lXtSbrcZiKu4ySWgNiLlXgaZ2dAV2MJjdc5Yt5_AzQMeglzLRjPijl4wb6/s800/ClipboardAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHmz48MXumja0lQWUK-LZrNczMKGyLPxQSHqpwzcOLmHGUFJ_sx6Cp41noPTK5AVagR-Wj5TFNUjzbcM1eQFqF9bRIRZyGZH2Ey-bkHDbdsf_-TEPEMaW6odpyp4J2O8lXtSbrcZiKu4ySWgNiLlXgaZ2dAV2MJjdc5Yt5_AzQMeglzLRjPijl4wb6/w640-h360/ClipboardAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Weaverbirds and hominini often lived in close association</b> <br />They both spent time in and around Baobab trees. Weaverbirds made complex bird nests and their construction exhibited most of the basic elements of basket weaving and making containers. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><div>LEFT: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black-headed_weaver_(Ploceus_cucullatus_bohndorffi)_male_nest_building.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black-headed_weaver_(Ploceus_cucullatus_bohndorffi)_male_nest_building.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BAYA_WEAVERS_MATING.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BAYA_WEAVERS_MATING.jpg</a></div></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>I suggest that early hominini lived in close association with weaverbirds and therefore might have learned basket-making skills by watching and learning from these birds. And there is some evidence to support this view.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>There is weaverbird fossil evidence at Olduvai Gorge from about 2 million years ago at the same time that early hominini lived there.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjlDeBm6ja0DyyooepzplE3LMgldWUKLhChsSrpbeeI5srZreEN19uB5di9RYeFZXSxgNG_4MOUmwA8e4PP0E9llCNjt3U46DA4U0TMSC-_nR_uojyRU5zkMG7aX7c_cly2w3CJRz50a17tNssqVY0HQgBYhSQM1OMOWJChzB-T8rL3wOc9uI5MniV/s800/1280px-Adansonia_digitata_Baobab_A_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="454" data-original-width="800" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjlDeBm6ja0DyyooepzplE3LMgldWUKLhChsSrpbeeI5srZreEN19uB5di9RYeFZXSxgNG_4MOUmwA8e4PP0E9llCNjt3U46DA4U0TMSC-_nR_uojyRU5zkMG7aX7c_cly2w3CJRz50a17tNssqVY0HQgBYhSQM1OMOWJChzB-T8rL3wOc9uI5MniV/w640-h364/1280px-Adansonia_digitata_Baobab_A_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><b style="font-size: large;">Baobab trees were/are native to the African continent. </b><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Their fruit was an important part of the hominin diet along with honey. Bee's nests were often located in Baobab trees. This was also a favorite place for weaverbirds who often built their nests in Baobab trees.</span><br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adansonia_digitata_Baobab.JPG"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adansonia_digitata_Baobab.JPG</span></a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-size: large;">Anthropologists agree that early hominini camped and spent time around Baobab trees in Africa, which was also a favorite tree for weaverbirds. The fruit of the Baobab tree was part of the hominin diet along with honey. </b><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b>Bee's nests were often located in Baobab trees</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Please read these two articles for much more detail and a list of the evidence that was found.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Paleolithic Evidence for an Early Weaving Technology</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/40818725/Paleolithic_Evidence_for_an_Early_Weaving_Technology">https://www.academia.edu/40818725/Paleolithic_Evidence_for_an_Early_Weaving_Technology</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Evidence That Paleolithic Hominini Lived in Close Association With Weaverbirds and Their Basket-Making Skills</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/42651751/Evidence_That_Paleolithic_Hominins_Lived_in_Close_Association_With_Weaverbirds_and_Their_Basket_Making_Skills">https://www.academia.edu/42651751/Evidence_That_Paleolithic_Hominins_Lived_in_Close_Association_With_Weaverbirds_and_Their_Basket_Making_Skills</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>I think it is safe to say, from the above evidence, that early hominini often lived in close association with weaverbirds. And, from that fact, we can infer that they may have picked up some weaving skills from these birds, especially because weaving was not foreign to early hominini since they wove nests to sleep in every night. In addition, the weaverbirds provided a clear model for a completed basket container which hominini could keep in mind as they made their own baskets. </b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="font-weight: bold;">This article of mine suggests that baskets may have been used to gather highly valued stones from a distant location in the Lower Paleolithic.</div><div><i>New Evidence Suggests That Basket Making May Have Begun 2 Million Years Ago</i></div><div><a href="https://www.academia.edu/45010127/New_Evidence_Suggests_That_Basket_Making_May_Have_Begun_2_Million_Years_Ago">https://www.academia.edu/45010127/New_Evidence_Suggests_That_Basket_Making_May_Have_Begun_2_Million_Years_Ago</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>EARLY MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC</b></span></div><div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqECNNY4F-9Lj2ad_PEXxKWF6WJhtHbmABIt7NpmUpcxmgFxuGj2cNVzeuyyvYo2pQkfqKCyxgU8cfILZl68vpQX2E_Q9K0tTn_aHgOXH2SlBbMmbRcJlnwMWiJIGtGABJkPjebOri7HWlfCFOP0iJEmQw3_rXk3eFutTcyy1_LWACgN8Luo1FYl3Q/s800/1536px-Cabane_de_Terra_Amata_1A_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="757" data-original-width="800" height="606" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqECNNY4F-9Lj2ad_PEXxKWF6WJhtHbmABIt7NpmUpcxmgFxuGj2cNVzeuyyvYo2pQkfqKCyxgU8cfILZl68vpQX2E_Q9K0tTn_aHgOXH2SlBbMmbRcJlnwMWiJIGtGABJkPjebOri7HWlfCFOP0iJEmQw3_rXk3eFutTcyy1_LWACgN8Luo1FYl3Q/w640-h606/1536px-Cabane_de_Terra_Amata_1A_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Terra Amata is the world's oldest building made by hominini.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This photo shows a recreation of this possible Homo erectus building using the evidence of post holes. The site has been dated to about 300,000 years old. The level of skill and the regularity of the design indicates that these hominini may have begun to also make baskets with the same kind of advanced structure.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cabane_de_Terra_Amata_1.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cabane_de_Terra_Amata_1.jpg</a></span></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Terra Amata is the oldest evidence of a building built by hominini, who were probably Homo erectus. The regularity and structure suggest that they would have also had the know-how to make advanced baskets. It is my educated guess that they had the skills to make baskets with a regular repeating opposing strand structure that would have been a technological breakthrough. It would have allowed the creation of many types of well-made sturdy baskets in many sizes. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>My article goes into detail about the similarities between advanced basket making and how the oldest building may have been designed and constructed.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Terra Amata: Does the Oldest Paleolithic Building Site Indicate the Use of Advanced Basket Weaving Technology?</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/63952553/Terra_Amata_Does_the_Oldest_Paleolithic_Building_Site_Indicate_the_Use_of_Advaaced_Basket_Weaving_Technology">https://www.academia.edu/63952553/Terra_Amata_Does_the_Oldest_Paleolithic_Building_Site_Indicate_the_Use_of_Advaaced_Basket_Weaving_Technology</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Invention of Right-Angle Construction in the Paleolithic Era</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/43855673/The_Invention_of_Right_Angle_Construction_in_the_Paleolithic_Era_Including_a_pcure_essay_that_illustrates_the_capabilities_of_right_anale_woven_fiber_technology_and_basketry">https://www.academia.edu/43855673/The_Invention_of_Right_Angle_Construction_in_the_Paleolithic_Era_Including_a_pcure_essay_that_illustrates_the_capabilities_of_right_anale_woven_fiber_technology_and_basketry</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>LATE MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Direct evidence of rope made 50 kya</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Direct evidence, from microscopic photographs of fiber, proved that early hominini, in this case, Neanderthals, were able to make sophisticated rope out of plant fibers about 50,000 years ago. This not only pushes back the time period for direct evidence of woven-fiber technology it also opens the possibility that woven-fiber technology had been developed before Homo sapiens and this technology began much earlier in the Paleolithic era.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Direct evidence of Neanderthal fibre technology and its cognitive and behavioral implications</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7145842/">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7145842/</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>A Nature Journal Article Validates Rick Doble's Hypothesis About Paleo Woven-Fiber Technology</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/55382895/A_Nature_Journal_Article_Validates_Rick_Dobles_Hypothesis_About_Paleo_Woven_Fiber_Technology">https://www.academia.edu/55382895/A_Nature_Journal_Article_Validates_Rick_Dobles_Hypothesis_About_Paleo_Woven_Fiber_Technology</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT CORDAGE (ROPE/TWINE)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaw3O_cRe6Hvx8pB7FjRYhChca-2sBodHpuizywd1zAqJX4W0XRAwriSs0Lpl0xLOaYBCizXTOGG5XYhVEqW7mJ2wsUNPCOnFEc_VuMfhzjad_9Z5lwk40MDBalORlq7PEl-Q-wI6emH2RPkF-_GoK1SrsA-FR62E5Q0KVwF5dOtozcn6zMI0NoMA-/s639/COMPOSITE_ROPE.jpg" style="font-size: large; font-weight: 700; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="639" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaw3O_cRe6Hvx8pB7FjRYhChca-2sBodHpuizywd1zAqJX4W0XRAwriSs0Lpl0xLOaYBCizXTOGG5XYhVEqW7mJ2wsUNPCOnFEc_VuMfhzjad_9Z5lwk40MDBalORlq7PEl-Q-wI6emH2RPkF-_GoK1SrsA-FR62E5Q0KVwF5dOtozcn6zMI0NoMA-/w640-h312/COMPOSITE_ROPE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div></div><div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b>Most modern people do not realize the complexity of rope. </b><br />Small strands are twisted together and then twisted in the opposite direction when wrapped around other similar twine, which in turn is twisted over and again making many layers that are twisted in opposing directions.</div><div style="text-align: center;">LEFT: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chambers_1908_Rope.png">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chambers_1908_Rope.png</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">RIGHT: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seil_22.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seil_22.jpg</a></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>No one knows when cordage was invented. Or whether it came before or after basketry. It is my guess, and this is only an educated guess, that basic basketry with a random structure and large guage strands began first. And this continued for quite a while, as the strands gradually got smaller, the structure more regular, and the spacing more even. This allowed for more basket designs. And it was then that cordage started. It is also my guess that coiled basketry did not happen until later when the stands being used were small. In any case, the invention of cordage was a major breakthrough; it has been called the "String Revolution."</b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcqnOUTwrKLl-ouID43qF08pF9Y6_eqtxDG1EckYQKEARIf-dkKxJZEvfBneXWqv1tOYEyQtGhM5bRQZhmcVbV8p-9dejBmMq1gzo6wGEt673qqcwDa8RzVFrArg9Rr52lqCCPEsy4kfehsW2etbxTVjnIABNCEDikMRcKbnDX16GV1_ArLCHyndyi/s800/Knots_Larousse%20(1)_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="800" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcqnOUTwrKLl-ouID43qF08pF9Y6_eqtxDG1EckYQKEARIf-dkKxJZEvfBneXWqv1tOYEyQtGhM5bRQZhmcVbV8p-9dejBmMq1gzo6wGEt673qqcwDa8RzVFrArg9Rr52lqCCPEsy4kfehsW2etbxTVjnIABNCEDikMRcKbnDX16GV1_ArLCHyndyi/w640-h390/Knots_Larousse%20(1)_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>It is estimated that there are thousands of ways rope can be knotted. </b><br />Rope can tie down, attach, haul, capture, and make nets. The invention of rope was a revolution. This picture is from a<i> Larousse </i>page of some of the knots.<br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Knots_Larousse.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Knots_Larousse.jpg</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><b>"Ropes and baskets are central to a large number of human activities. They facilitate the transport and storage of foodstuffs, aid in the design of complex tools (hafts, fishing, navigation)...The technological ...applications of twisted fibre technologies are vast. <br />"Once adopted, fibre technology would have been indispensable and would have been a part of everyday life. "</b></div><div><b>----------------</b></div><div>Hardy, B. L., Moncel, H., Kerfant, C., Lebon, M., Bellot-Gurlet, L., & Mélard, N. (2019). <i>Direct evidence of Neanderthal fibre technology and its cognitive and behavioral implications</i>. <i>Scientific Reports</i>, <i>10</i>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61839-w">https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61839-w</a></div><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT THE COGNITIVE IMPLICATIONS OF THIS FIND</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>This article in Scientific American comments on the above discovery of Neanderthal rope.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Harvesting the fibers would have required intimate knowledge of the growth and seasonality of the trees. And producing string after one has the raw material is itself mentally demanding, requiring the maker to keep track of multiple, sequential operations at the same time."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>----------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Stone Age String Strengthens Case for Neanderthal Smarts.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Kate Wong, 2020.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stone-age-string-strengthens-case-for-neandertal-smarts/">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stone-age-string-strengthens-case-for-neandertal-smarts/</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">ABOUT COGNITION</span></b></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Please read my article about how the increasing cognitive demands of sophisticated basketry could be studied using insights from educational basket weaving programs that are being offered today to grades K-12.</span></b></div><div><b><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Basket-Weaving Education & Its Cognitive Aspects by Rick Doble</span></i></b></div><div><a href="https://www.academia.edu/45116852/Basket_Weaving_Education_and_Its_Cognitive_Aspects_by_Rick_Doble"><span style="font-size: medium;">https://www.academia.edu/45116852/Basket_Weaving_Education_and_Its_Cognitive_Aspects_by_Rick_Doble</span></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>COGNITIVE ARCHAEOLOGY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>A relatively new perspective in paleoanthropology</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The article above about "Direct evidence of Neanderthal fibre technology and its cognitive and behavioral implications" and the next article "Hafted spears and the archaeology of mind" refers to inferences made from the evidence that was found. In both cases, the authors make a case for the cognitive abilities of the hominini who made the rope (above) or (below) the hominini who attached stone arrowheads to spears (hafting). Researchers believe they can suggest this because what these people accomplished signaled a complex way of thinking. The hafting took place at about 200 kya and the rope making at about 50 kya. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Wynn, T. (2009).<i> Hafted spears and the archaeology of mind.</i> Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(24), 9544-9545. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0904369106">https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0904369106</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The sophistication of these earlier people also suggests that by a few years later, approx. 40 kya, some early Homo sapiens in the Upper Paleolithic could have had advanced knowledge and skills to work with fibers and materials. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>While we do not have actual Upper Paleolithic baskets, we do know for certain that weaving had occurred because of the discovery of clay impressions of weaving that were dated to 27,000 years ago.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5kYGx-T2EphbpE6F1lM3T9H9SJLNAH5F1N-OsJ12Ml1Rz2TGITu2m3KHdKKmN39-OGvK0TjoZzyY9nKLELjpTKacwb25-7KYasG__tbeUKUE7rHLuP5M1Bd2Bd730eEgXNbRV4lxxDQgZNrOSpfQ9Diwnie3K1lI04R7Wmu-G7gX3TCgE7ACb-jJW/s640/bison_comparison_altamira_cave_modern_species.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="432" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5kYGx-T2EphbpE6F1lM3T9H9SJLNAH5F1N-OsJ12Ml1Rz2TGITu2m3KHdKKmN39-OGvK0TjoZzyY9nKLELjpTKacwb25-7KYasG__tbeUKUE7rHLuP5M1Bd2Bd730eEgXNbRV4lxxDQgZNrOSpfQ9Diwnie3K1lI04R7Wmu-G7gX3TCgE7ACb-jJW/w432-h640/bison_comparison_altamira_cave_modern_species.jpg" width="432" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">TOP: <b>This realistic painting of a bison is about 14,000 years old and was painted by a Paleolithic 'caveman' in the Cave of Altamira in Spain. </b></div><div style="text-align: center;">This work was done from memory with a multi-colored spray-paint technique in the darkness of the cave. This demonstrates the remarkable skills, powers of observation, and memory humans had in Paleolithic times.(NOTE: This photo was taken of an accurate reproduction of this bison painted on the ceiling at Altamira as visitors are no longer allowed in the cave.)</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Altamira_bisons.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Altamira_bisons.jpg</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">BOTTOM: <b>A photograph of a European bison today </b>(a somewhat different bison species), shows the accuracy of the cave painting on the top.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bison_bonasus_(Linnaeus_1758).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bison_bonasus_(Linnaeus_1758).jpg</a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRzNMdzIuXjMxgW76qKN-E1BlJ4hwXTtEkMAFbgvz7Q9irV3ApemWJRMVWcxWCsz5yxzI7JuD7mrtpqMeVtmRdy8uEHyOIgqV2vG-0fxTEiL_RL5KNc3Lq7WF2HLmpDdqVSa0GPb8_dP6XUbEnrxtbcsCtUNsh6RTm7NOCloRYfS9z1JmeZj2FW-AE/s1149/COMPOSITE_PALEO_LAMP_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1149" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRzNMdzIuXjMxgW76qKN-E1BlJ4hwXTtEkMAFbgvz7Q9irV3ApemWJRMVWcxWCsz5yxzI7JuD7mrtpqMeVtmRdy8uEHyOIgqV2vG-0fxTEiL_RL5KNc3Lq7WF2HLmpDdqVSa0GPb8_dP6XUbEnrxtbcsCtUNsh6RTm7NOCloRYfS9z1JmeZj2FW-AE/w446-h640/COMPOSITE_PALEO_LAMP_A.jpg" width="446" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">[TOP] <b>Precisely made stone lamp, found in the Upper Paleolithic Cave known as Lascaux, dated to about 17,000 years old.</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lampe_a_graisse_-_Lascaux.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lampe_a_graisse_-_Lascaux.jpg</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">[BOTTOM] Diagram showing the precision with which it was made.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Glory, A., 1961: Le brûloir de Lascaux Gallia préhistoire, Tome 4, 1961. pp. 174-183.</div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>But we do have evidence that implies a high level of knowledge and skill. A remarkably precise stone lamp was found in the Lascaux Cave in France. And an accurate cave painting of a bison was painted in color with a type of spray paint technology in the Cave of Altamira in Spain. This painting was made deep inside a dark cave so the painting relied on the artist's memory. These two pieces of evidence were so advanced, it is likely that, by the late Upper Paleolithic era, these people would have also mastered advanced basket weaving or woven-fiber technology skills.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>So while we cannot point to a specific Upper Paleolithic basket, we can say that these people probably had the skills and cognitive abilities to make a range of woven-fiber products.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>UPPER PALEOLITHIC</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Drs. Jim Adovasio and Olga Soffer proved that clay impressions of basketry and weaving found in a Paleolithic cave were 27,000 years old thus placing advanced woven-fiber technology in the Upper Paleolithic.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Find Suggests Weaving Preceded Settled Life</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/09/science/find-suggests-weaving-preceded-settled-life.html">https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/09/science/find-suggests-weaving-preceded-settled-life.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Soffer, O., AdovasioJ, M., Hyland, D. C., Klíma, B., Svoboda, J. "Perishable Industries from Dolní Vestonice I: New Insights into the Nature and Origin of the Gravettian." Paper Prepared for the 63rd Annual Meeting</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">of the Society for American Archaeology</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Seattle, Washington, 25–29 March 1998. DolniVestonice.pdf. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>EVIDENCE ABOUT THE UPPER PALEOLITHIC BASED ON </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Ethnoarchaeology:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The branch of archaeology that studies contemporary primitive cultures and technologies as a way of providing analogies and thereby patterns for prehistoric cultures.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Ethnoarchaeology suggests that nomadic hunter-gatherer Native American Indians who made a wide variety of baskets, some even for carrying water and others for cooking, lived like European nomadic hunter-gatherers of the Upper Paleolithic. And we have many actual baskets and woven-fiber items that show both diversity and skill. Furthermore, these Indians preferred basketry over pottery as it was lighter, did not break, and could be made with plants that were available at almost any location. Anthropologists generally agree these American Indians lived a life that was similar to people who lived during the Upper Paleolithic in Europe.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Relatively few tribes of American Indians understood pottery, except in the crudest form. As for basketry, it may be said that every Indian from the land of the Esquimaux down through Mexico was a basket weaver."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>----------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>American Indians: first families of the Southwest.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Indians_-_first_families_of_the_Southwest_(1920)_(14775904322).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Indians_-_first_families_of_the_Southwest_(1920)_(14775904322).jpg</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Please read my in-depth articles about this era.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Development of Advanced Woven-Fiber Technology in the Paleolithic Era: Insights from Paleo-Indian Artifacts and Ethnoarchaeology By Rick Doble</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/70377004/The_Development_of_Advanced_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era_Insights_from_Paleo_Indian_Artifacts_and_Ethnoarchaeology_By_Rick_Doble">https://www.academia.edu/70377004/The_Development_of_Advanced_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era_Insights_from_Paleo_Indian_Artifacts_and_Ethnoarchaeology_By_Rick_Doble</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The History and Final Acceptance of a Rejected Idea: Basket-Weaving in the Paleolithic Era</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/44206454/The_History_and_Final_Acceptance_of_a_Rejected_Idea_Basket_Weaving_in_the_Paleolithic_Era">https://www.academia.edu/44206454/The_History_and_Final_Acceptance_of_a_Rejected_Idea_Basket_Weaving_in_the_Paleolithic_Era</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>NEOLITHIC</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWXsKQo1o4xJk0rQ52rf_F-tOneVnQAbTw5pMuSfK2TT8E_ENBWTdix1Y5TjInywYcOH_qv527qjwB4zd6G2qSaMhVhIUa3Ol3_lZiobuRt-rp19t9y_ZVq4ypXRGuy2q2Sbm89Shxq3UJ8P0GBnR3tNHrhpp86SqApKCaY2mqOxYp7dVs9IHwN3f8/s640/1A_NEOLITHIC_BOWL.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="640" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWXsKQo1o4xJk0rQ52rf_F-tOneVnQAbTw5pMuSfK2TT8E_ENBWTdix1Y5TjInywYcOH_qv527qjwB4zd6G2qSaMhVhIUa3Ol3_lZiobuRt-rp19t9y_ZVq4ypXRGuy2q2Sbm89Shxq3UJ8P0GBnR3tNHrhpp86SqApKCaY2mqOxYp7dVs9IHwN3f8/w640-h276/1A_NEOLITHIC_BOWL.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><b style="font-size: large;">Neolithic woven artifacts from the Cueva de los Murciélagos in Spain are well preserved and are direct evidence of highly skilled, complex, precise, well-designed weaving. These artifacts are dated between 5200 and 4800 BC, or about 7000 BP.</b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Photographs of some of the artifacts.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Category: Artefacts from the Cueva de los Murciélagos in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional de España</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Artefacts_from_the_Cueva_de_los_Murci%C3%A9lagos_in_the_Museo_Arqueol%C3%B3gico_Nacional_de_Espa%C3%B1a">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Artefacts_from_the_Cueva_de_los_Murci%C3%A9lagos_in_the_Museo_Arqueol%C3%B3gico_Nacional_de_Espa%C3%B1a</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>See more about this (esparto grass was a major resource for Spanish woven materials):</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The prehistoric exploitation of esparto grass (Stipa tenacissima L.) on the Iberian Peninsula: characteristics and use</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280728227_The_prehistoric_exploitation_of_esparto_grass_Stipa_tenacissima_L_on_the_Iberian_Peninsula_characteristics_and_use/figures?lo=1">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280728227_The_prehistoric_exploitation_of_esparto_grass_Stipa_tenacissima_L_on_the_Iberian_Peninsula_characteristics_and_use/figures?lo=1</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>In Israel's Judean Desert archaeologists found a very large complete complex basket made 10,000 years ago during the early Neolithic period. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>----------------</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Oldest woven basket in the world found in Israel, dates back 10,000 years.</i> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/oldest-woven-basket-in-the-world-found-in-israel-dates-back-10000-years-662183">https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/oldest-woven-basket-in-the-world-found-in-israel-dates-back-10000-years-662183</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYaiKNuR9vNZRKQgKU1RgGb0m-BP-cThucdBIwkONgaMRjhvrA03M9tkRnQXsS02J_42rn-K7F_gVKZxYR_wQq4VTA0XMZaI5omI4mo2pp_DdwRoRXlIobs7nUirt8GvxFsg_v68bsQpoBi9-Dg3vw9EDChOWD-NL-WG6qgh3Ktzc0Ho0EBAsNR6Ob/s800/Upper_lake_Pomo_In_the_tule_swampA_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="800" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYaiKNuR9vNZRKQgKU1RgGb0m-BP-cThucdBIwkONgaMRjhvrA03M9tkRnQXsS02J_42rn-K7F_gVKZxYR_wQq4VTA0XMZaI5omI4mo2pp_DdwRoRXlIobs7nUirt8GvxFsg_v68bsQpoBi9-Dg3vw9EDChOWD-NL-WG6qgh3Ktzc0Ho0EBAsNR6Ob/w640-h428/Upper_lake_Pomo_In_the_tule_swampA_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold;">"Indian in canoe made of rushes, Calif., 1924."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Notice the basket in the bow of her 'tule'.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Upper_lake_Pomo_In_the_tule_swamp.jp">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Upper_lake_Pomo_In_the_tule_swamp.jp</a>g</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div><b style="font-size: large;">"Large seagoing Neolithic boats and boat traffic has been established in the Persian Gulf area. While evidence of 7 ka puts these boats in the Neolithic era, it also suggests that the first small simple reed and fiber boats were made many thousands of years earlier. Boats such as this were certainly possible in the Upper Paleolithic, especially when constructed with bitumen."</b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>----------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Carter, "Boat remains and maritime trade in the Persian Gulf during sixth and fifth millennia BC," pp. 52-63. </i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>ALSO:</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Carter, "Neolithic origins of seafaring in the Arabian Gulf," pp.44-47.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>While the Neolithic era is known for its invention of pottery and the domestication of animals, these innovations were not accomplished until about the last third of the Neolithic era. Before pottery, it is my opinion, baskets were widely used. For example, I believe they were used to bring in the harvest from the field. After the invention of pottery woven-fiber technology continued to be widely used where it was appropriate. Advanced woven-fiber technology was used to make boats and houses and many other items. Once donkeys were domesticated baskets were used to haul goods and materials on these pack animals. So woven-fiber technology continued to be a critical part of Neolithic life and continued to be developed, including the invention of large textile looms and linen clothing.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>----------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Basket Weaving and Woven-Fiber Technology in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN)</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/72287747/Basket_Weaving_and_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Pre_Pottery_Neolithic_PPN_">https://www.academia.edu/72287747/Basket_Weaving_and_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Pre_Pottery_Neolithic_PPN_</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>FIRST CIVILIZATIONS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYNKKb_-7DYLcXWO5oW2S3cYTzD_AlLtVHyeoBpAyURp2oc98yd2KJNDLijrunCL8tcaIyDQA4HWsLDTgOGpzLQBfTWivqiAaBRhKI1EOfHjhwbY3j81Dmn3OV92xTD-bU9CBSJ4lEVKhcCA38Nb3aMQXDz64SslAXpvzJqTHUlMymfEuQmMak-CZM/s640/COMPOSITE_REED_SMALL_BOATS.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="473" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYNKKb_-7DYLcXWO5oW2S3cYTzD_AlLtVHyeoBpAyURp2oc98yd2KJNDLijrunCL8tcaIyDQA4HWsLDTgOGpzLQBfTWivqiAaBRhKI1EOfHjhwbY3j81Dmn3OV92xTD-bU9CBSJ4lEVKhcCA38Nb3aMQXDz64SslAXpvzJqTHUlMymfEuQmMak-CZM/w474-h640/COMPOSITE_REED_SMALL_BOATS.jpg" width="474" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>This drawing proves that these reed boats were important and being used as late as 700 BCE.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">(TOP) Mesopotamian small reed boats in a battle circa 700 BCE.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">A drawing made from the relief of the battle (bottom).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Picture from <i>A History of Babylon</i>.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">(King, Leonard. <i>A History of Babylon</i>. London, Chatto and Windus, 1915, p. 201.)</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>BOTTOM </span><span>The original of the above drawing.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">A relief depicting a military campaign circa. 700 BCE, showed that smaller reed boats were widely used and had been used up to that time.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">From the South-West Palace at Ninevah, Iraq. British Museum.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Detail,_Assyrian_military_campaign_in_the_marches_of_southern_Iraq._640-620_BCE._British_Museum.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Detail,_Assyrian_military_campaign_in_the_marches_of_southern_Iraq._640-620_BCE._British_Museum.jpg</a></span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>With written history and direct evidence in Mesopotamia, I was able to possibly prove that Mesopotamia had a large reed industry that was used throughout the culture and the economy. I was able to prove this by showing that reed bundles were one of the largest categories, if not the largest category, of materials being delivered to ports. This was shown by cuneiform receipts. And I was able to find a relief of reed boats in battle dating to </b><span style="text-align: center;">circa <b>700 BCE</b></span><b>. Plus I was able to find more than one hundred words relating to basketry and reed work in Mesopotamian languages. Furthermore, there was clear evidence of houses and large buildings being made of reeds. And just as important, baskets were revered and held a religious significance that harkened back to their earliest myths.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkg-XtT8RFf5hZ4kS3Bv87JUhwZbJG4m0qSR5fIPXniRoHq_4SpenrDk49XzhImakPsIDnRUqkur-eO6_zhPEaUlFBf5Z0a6atvscHdkkx00zbHvBjWPhQTtyERyH0wkVeso6JYdjHjnGMvLMgNozwmv9d2-CPberYYzD8uPtyCpV_Nr7pqAcTB6_R/s624/Assurbanipal_als_hogepriester.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="624" data-original-width="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkg-XtT8RFf5hZ4kS3Bv87JUhwZbJG4m0qSR5fIPXniRoHq_4SpenrDk49XzhImakPsIDnRUqkur-eO6_zhPEaUlFBf5Z0a6atvscHdkkx00zbHvBjWPhQTtyERyH0wkVeso6JYdjHjnGMvLMgNozwmv9d2-CPberYYzD8uPtyCpV_Nr7pqAcTB6_R/s16000/Assurbanipal_als_hogepriester.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Sacred Basket-Bearing Consecration Ritual By The King.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Before construction began on a Mesopotamian temple, a huge ziggurat, the king of that city performed a basket-bearing ceremony -- indicating that baskets had a sacred meaning. Some myths considered basketry to be one of the first, if not the first, human craft and important to survival.<br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Assurbanipal_als_hogepriester.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Assurbanipal_als_hogepriester.jpg</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>So the use of reeds and woven-fiber technology was pervasive in Mesopotamia. It is my opinion that this first civilization could not have emerged without this technology. High-quality reeds grew wild and there was an endless supply. The products made from reeds included (but were not limited to) rope, heavy-duty baskets used to dredge the canals (critical for their agriculture), baskets used to haul clay for making bricks, baskets sealed with bitumen used to irrigate the fields, large and small houses made entirely of reeds, and fleets of different types of large and small boats made from reeds.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>----------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Crucial Importance of Basket Weaving Technology for the World's First Civilizations</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/46899722/The_Crucial_Importance_of_Basket_Weaving_Technology_for_the_Worlds_First_Civilizations">https://www.academia.edu/46899722/The_Crucial_Importance_of_Basket_Weaving_Technology_for_the_Worlds_First_Civilizations</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Mesopotamian Ancient Basket Weaving Technology and the Sumerian Reed Industry</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/49359896/Mesopotamian_Ancient_Basket_Weaving_Technology_and_the_Sumerian_Reed_Industry">https://www.academia.edu/49359896/Mesopotamian_Ancient_Basket_Weaving_Technology_and_the_Sumerian_Reed_Industry</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4WA2ujErcd9Fsowyc-dQA2U5PW-qHIvWvzovG6BAPDDx_lF3TiMNlZLqkaIMIqSushNKSGFG3LcBDxigjYxAk6_-CSO2lcVqlGazbv8Z-LbC0fW8WEzN0lFr0JjFtX_Pqx9__vkt5zHEaNPMiAek8I_1bU-T1It4ToHQzgS09brW9YbAJd0hmpS9u/s639/1_EGYPTIAN_BASKETRY.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4WA2ujErcd9Fsowyc-dQA2U5PW-qHIvWvzovG6BAPDDx_lF3TiMNlZLqkaIMIqSushNKSGFG3LcBDxigjYxAk6_-CSO2lcVqlGazbv8Z-LbC0fW8WEzN0lFr0JjFtX_Pqx9__vkt5zHEaNPMiAek8I_1bU-T1It4ToHQzgS09brW9YbAJd0hmpS9u/s16000/1_EGYPTIAN_BASKETRY.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Baskets were also essential tools for Egyptian agriculture and culture including sandals, boats, and sacks for hauling grain. </span><br /><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_second_series_of_the_Manners_and_customs_of_the_ancient_Egyptians_(Page_87)_BHL21584712.jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_second_series_of_the_Manners_and_customs_of_the_ancient_Egyptians_(Page_87)_BHL21584712.jpg</span></a></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mietitura_delle_spighe-_ricolta_e_battitura_delle_medesime_(NYPL_b14291206-425523).jpg"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mietitura_delle_spighe-_ricolta_e_battitura_delle_medesime_(NYPL_b14291206-425523).jpg</span></a></div></b></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>MODERN TIMES</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpTAjlKSgOMe2xbRiXBGP3wdl4lQ9L8cG-YyYlFUyivoXBCqBPtEz35qkq5R67ooVgBEYB8856rBNAdE3zWeTWTPDGN9RwI67_65gwpdhw1cXR_YO6A5QsyNCR4HjBBYxuOSFOMerdvKaKpNbhOefdx-XWYsC__cpulQBloX0aOLvCErvJktwAq-4y/s800/Phuket,_Thailand_December_2021_-_Blue_DressesA_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="800" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpTAjlKSgOMe2xbRiXBGP3wdl4lQ9L8cG-YyYlFUyivoXBCqBPtEz35qkq5R67ooVgBEYB8856rBNAdE3zWeTWTPDGN9RwI67_65gwpdhw1cXR_YO6A5QsyNCR4HjBBYxuOSFOMerdvKaKpNbhOefdx-XWYsC__cpulQBloX0aOLvCErvJktwAq-4y/w640-h422/Phuket,_Thailand_December_2021_-_Blue_DressesA_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A Modern Clothing Outlet.<br /></span></b><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phuket,_Thailand_December_2021_-_Blue_Dresses.jpg" style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phuket,_Thailand_December_2021_-_Blue_Dresses.jpg</span></a></div></b><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>AND WHAT ABOUT TODAY?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>All the woven clothes you wear, the sheets and blankets on your bed, the upholstery covers, and fabric used for a variety of purposes probably had their origins with woven-fiber technology.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>PALEOLITHIC ARTICLES TOGETHER</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>The Illustrated Theory of Paleo Basket-Weaving Technology by Rick Doble</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.academia.edu/44237715/The_Illustrated_Theory_of_Paleo_Basket_Weaving_Technology_by_Rick_Doble">https://www.academia.edu/44237715/The_Illustrated_Theory_of_Paleo_Basket_Weaving_Technology_by_Rick_Doble</a></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><br /></b></span></div></div><br /></span></div></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-79030402332867395312023-04-17T03:00:00.019-04:002023-04-18T00:57:59.851-04:00Students Prevented From Doing Research<div style="text-align: left;"><h1 style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-large;">What Happens</b></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial;">When Students Are Prevented</b></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>From Doing Novel Research?</b></div></span></span></h1><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYKkZUGc_lgD9rDxVoA6B09tDewC6Xqy_TF1ejkLPClG4vC219_auav0aubZ2f7-LR5VkPXi9X9iwgNOumZ6LxgcphGfGAs4fb0TIHA557bojTgkdfyab4eYhD7JlaQ545xd73jxNigKWJOPR4mCOgQuyOS43kZL42sfWeL8oiudgL2asDqJ8NW2dn/s673/Marshall_McLuhan_with_and_on_televisionAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="673" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYKkZUGc_lgD9rDxVoA6B09tDewC6Xqy_TF1ejkLPClG4vC219_auav0aubZ2f7-LR5VkPXi9X9iwgNOumZ6LxgcphGfGAs4fb0TIHA557bojTgkdfyab4eYhD7JlaQ545xd73jxNigKWJOPR4mCOgQuyOS43kZL42sfWeL8oiudgL2asDqJ8NW2dn/w608-h640/Marshall_McLuhan_with_and_on_televisionAA.jpg" width="608" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>"Marshall McLuhan, half-length portrait, standing, leaning <br />on television set on which his image appears."</div><div>There are 3 realities of Marshall McLuhan in this picture. <br />1) A photograph on a film strip (see the sprocket holes left and right), <br />2) The man himself learning on the TV, and <br />3) An electronic image of him on the TV screen.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marshall_McLuhan_with_and_on_television.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marshall_McLuhan_with_and_on_television.jpg</a></div></div><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A huge obstacle to research about the prehistoric era has been entrenched opinions and inaccurate preconceptions. Many incorrect assumptions have been made by respected authorities that prevented discussions and research, for example.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>If an idea or school of thought is off the table, it has a chilling effect. If a student wants to explore a controversial idea, he or she is often marginalized. Even good papers that discuss unpopular ideas are given lower grades. Then other students may not want to be associated with that person, original research will be discouraged, and funding will be out of the question. In brief, a student's entire career may be at stake, and who is willing to risk that for an idea that may or may not be useful or true?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When I started to write this particular article about this subject, I realized I had a personal example from my years in college.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In 1970 I started graduate school in media. I was getting my Master's Degree in Communication at the Department of Radio, TV, and Motion Pictures known as RTVMP at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And almost from the moment I arrived, my classmates and I were told that we would not read, discuss, or be allowed to write papers on the ideas of Marshall McLuhan, the popular writer who had original and challenging ideas about modern media. We were told that he was not a serious thinker [their exact phrase]</b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">. Admittedly he was controversial, but he was also supported by many in his field.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I had been in school long enough to know, that "you can't fight city hall" so it would have been pointless to argue. But I had read several of McLuhan's books by that time and believed that his predictions about the future had merit.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So the department prevented any discussion of McLuhan's ideas about the future of human culture being electronic, that computers and digital technology would be available to just about everyone, and that people would be interconnected worldwide in a global village (his phrase). </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>There was an earth-shaking change in media and we were not allowed to even discuss it. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And this was a department in media! </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Now today, of course, McCluhan is seen as a visionary thinker who not only understood the coming electronic world but helped to shape it.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Back then I knew what my teachers said was nonsense but I held my tongue. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Yet now I wonder what we missed as graduate students at that time. We should have had spirited discussions and taken part in the media revolution which was just around the corner. We were there at the right moment in history but prevented from following through. Our entire culture and the world's cultures would be affected and we should have been at the forefront of this change. Instead, we were shut out and on the sidelines.</b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><blockquote>BTW: When I was teaching English Composition at a local college, I made the point that my opinion about a subject would never affect a student's grade if they disagreed with me. What was important was the evidence they had found and the strength of their argument. For example, I am totally opposed to the death penalty as innocent people are at times executed. But I made sure the students understood that if they were in support of the death penalty I would grade their papers on its merits and not on whether they agreed with me.</blockquote></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>About ten years later, I bought my first inexpensive personal computer, a Radio Shack Color Computer known as the CoCo. So I was able to use a simple word processing program that FINALLY did what I wanted when it came to editing and revising my work. I could cut and paste, for example, I could move sentences around, I could spell check. I could spend hours tweaking my text until it sounded right instead of having to type and retype draft after draft as I had done with a typewriter. As a person who spent a lot of time revising, I now had the right tool to polish my work -- and it took a computer to let me do that. And this was part of what Marshall McLuhan had predicted. He believed that new electronic devices would have flexibility and power never seen before. He also predicted that they would be widely available, affordable, and not difficult to use.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Now, to be fair, there are plenty of unusual ideas that probably are not worth pursuing. But if a student or researcher can make a good case, backed by evidence and supported by some respected thinkers, they should be allowed to follow these ideas. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In the case of McLuhan, we students had plenty of evidence that technology was evolving toward an electronic future as McLuhan predicted. When I started graduate school it had been eight years since the Telstar Communication Satellite had been launched in 1962, followed by 4 others (up to 1970). Video was already electronic. Electronic sound recordings, i.e., tape recordings, had been around for over 20 years. And newspaper writers had begun to use basic word processing software in the mid-sixties. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVn5J8aaxMp1wBWZGsNPb25v9iCHc_Few2FWfgB1tPOXvfORppEiO4o3S8wZPsTo1IDkdNVEqztB65Vnqn_oxcZ9vyyNuGJ87h-H0cKg_dVoVbWJjRqmNuKcfXQ7qipA3fNW__Wj4vCbpjnCen9sFhrbq6Vik177RxXblndkyOMYFz_aKLNKTCRb4q/s800/TELSTAR_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="800" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVn5J8aaxMp1wBWZGsNPb25v9iCHc_Few2FWfgB1tPOXvfORppEiO4o3S8wZPsTo1IDkdNVEqztB65Vnqn_oxcZ9vyyNuGJ87h-H0cKg_dVoVbWJjRqmNuKcfXQ7qipA3fNW__Wj4vCbpjnCen9sFhrbq6Vik177RxXblndkyOMYFz_aKLNKTCRb4q/w640-h292/TELSTAR_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Telstar 2 satellite. First launched in 1962 this class of satellites relayed electronic television pictures, telephone calls, and telegraph images, plus live transatlantic television feeds.</div><div>RIGHT: World coverage of a later Telstar satellite.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Telstar_2.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Telstar_2.jpg</a></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Telstar_12.png">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Telstar_12.png</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But our teachers were definitely old school, although they were helpful and skilled. They were locked into an outdated point of view and they did not see the writing on the wall.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I say all of this in this blog because my articles about prehistory often involve an explanation about why an early idea had been rejected. And why, now, that early idea has been accepted. More often than not, an incorrect assumption has been one of the barriers.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>While I will do a full article about this, here are examples of two major assumptions that have affected the study and research of prehistory.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>----- A GENERAL FALSE ASSUMPTION ----- </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE EVOLUTION OF HUMANITY WENT FROM SAVAGERY TO BARBARISM TO CIVILIZATION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Lewis H. Morgan wrote, more than a hundred years ago, that he believed the evolution of humanity went from savagery to barbarism to civilization, meaning that the Neolithic cultures were barbaric and Paleolithic people were savages. And for many people, this attitude has remained.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This is clearly a modern-centric point of view that sees civilization as superior and the pinnacle of human development. This point of view ignores the constant warring between nations, warring that started at the same time that civilization took hold, (Mesopotamia had regular wars), and ignores massive turmoil such as the two World Wars in which perhaps a hundred million people were killed or dislocated. It also ignores problems with overpopulation and the worldwide damage to the environment. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><blockquote>It is interesting to note many of civilization's greatest achievements had a dark side. Isaac Newton's insights that led to the Industrial Revolution were also used to make artillery and other weapons more accurate, powerful, and lethal. And Einstein's famous e=mc2 equation led directly to the atomic bomb.</blockquote></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But old ideas and attitudes are hard to shed. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The first task is to rid ourselves of outdated ideas about 'stone age', 'primitive', 'savage', and 'uncivilized' people. This needs to be done before we can tackle more specific biases. Many ideas about primitive technologies, for example, have prevented our understanding of stone age skills and their precision, such as the exact alignment of the Neolithic passageway at Newgrange Ireland with the sun's position at the time of the winter solstice.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnRjKJWY7UC1dQcWSObN03usTuhLynRV4wO1FuzS_fkyzXCGrM8s3e6mJQUJasVhZbIF6LDt4wEs0WEEkIm3zfeuKxff10VTdzS-zuqmaUaS0FZotIpFR6kwSwDU4ShZIUXY3cD083jOncpk2LUhnmdKl4Sf1vMXKyovndjogFy5jlfcxng6Ji_uQ4/s939/Bushmen_hunters_(cropped)A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="939" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnRjKJWY7UC1dQcWSObN03usTuhLynRV4wO1FuzS_fkyzXCGrM8s3e6mJQUJasVhZbIF6LDt4wEs0WEEkIm3zfeuKxff10VTdzS-zuqmaUaS0FZotIpFR6kwSwDU4ShZIUXY3cD083jOncpk2LUhnmdKl4Sf1vMXKyovndjogFy5jlfcxng6Ji_uQ4/w546-h640/Bushmen_hunters_(cropped)A.jpg" width="546" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Bushmen hunter in Africa.</div><div>While this may look primitive from our modern point of view, imagine the skill needed for this kind of life. The Bushman made the bow which had to be flexible and not break while holding the extreme tension of the bowstring. Then he needed to find straight shafts for the arrows, make arrowheads, attach the arrowheads to the shafts, make the twine for the bowstring, and then bend the bow to attach the string, along with a container for the arrows -- followed by a day of hunting, butchering and then cooking while not being attacked by wild animals.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bushmen_hunters_(cropped).png">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bushmen_hunters_(cropped).png</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>According to anthologists, Homo sapiens 50,000 years ago were just as smart and skilled as people today. They made the most out of the technology they had while living in rugged dangerous conditions and coping with diseases and very short life spans. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>----- A SPECIFIC FALSE ASSUMPTION ----- </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>BASKETRY AND WEAVING COULD ONLY HAVE BEGUN IN THE NEOLITHIC ERA BECAUSE IT REQUIRED A SEDENTARY LIFESTYLE WITH TIME FOR A LABOR-INTENSIVE SKILL</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This one assumption set the study of basketry and woven-fiber technology back about 100 years. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"The conventional wisdom has been that a time-consuming task like weaving would only be practiced by sedentary, agrarian cultures. [ED: i.e., Neolithic societies]" said Dr. Adovasio in an interview with <i>Discover Magazine</i>.[1] However, this was only an assumption that the evidence did not justify. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>After reading an almost forgotten book by noted French archeologist Gustave Chauvet, Dr. Paul Bahn wrote in 2001 that, “It is a long overdue development that, 90 years after Chauvet’s publication, prehistory seems ready to, at last, accept the probably HUGE IMPORTANCE OF BASKETRY [ED: my emphasis] and simple weaving in the Upper Palaeolithic.” [2]</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOHbysc0yPZrl4QCTcHeYc9GuHmt-PuHSKCApdWTGzeMfqS80sqQ51yOkkaqQNav42cCTtzWQYnZ2pnawkObMR114dYCpWADZQdYoSL3_iIuN_iqj_r_ArhIQwv0LCpd3xYVO9Q3YRs5aR6pICUAH3quI17Uuv5XBh1NviUni9cA7w9SM9vl_Fq8xW/s800/Venus_of_BrassempouyA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOHbysc0yPZrl4QCTcHeYc9GuHmt-PuHSKCApdWTGzeMfqS80sqQ51yOkkaqQNav42cCTtzWQYnZ2pnawkObMR114dYCpWADZQdYoSL3_iIuN_iqj_r_ArhIQwv0LCpd3xYVO9Q3YRs5aR6pICUAH3quI17Uuv5XBh1NviUni9cA7w9SM9vl_Fq8xW/w640-h480/Venus_of_BrassempouyA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><div>Known as the Venus of Brassempouy, she was found in France in 1894 and is about 25,000 years old. She is carved out of ivory and has what appears to be a woven headdress or braided hair. </div><div>Other 'Venus' figurines with much more detailed head braiding that clearly showed weaving were also found from the same time period at other Upper Paleolithic locations. This weaving, however, was not recognized by male anthropologists. It took many years before women anthropologists, who came later, pointed this out. So this example shows that a form of weaving did exist in the Upper Paleolithic era and that the evidence was available around 1900. In addition, the ability to do this kind of weaving suggested that weaving with fibers also existed at the same time.</div></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Venus_of_Brassempouy.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Venus_of_Brassempouy.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It is now understood that basketry and woven-fiber technology may have been a key early technology in addition to stone tools. But because of this incorrect assumption, research, archaeology, and theorizing were prevented. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The study of basketry languished for about a hundred years because evidence of Paleolithic baskets had never been found. People in authority insisted that there had to be clear physical evidence even though all agreed that evidence, which was older than the Neolithic, would have decayed. But at the same time, everyone also agreed that there must have been a plant-based technology in addition to stone-tool-making since Paleolithic people were surrounded by plants.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In other words, the 'possibility' of basketry should have been allowed which might have led to an earlier discovery of evidence.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Finally, at last, with the discovery of impressions of basket weaving on clay, it was definitively established that sophisticated weaving was present 27,000 years ago. Moreover the skill and advanced level of the weaving surprised everyone.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And there was more. New studies showed that the original assumptions were wrong to begin with. A study of contemporary hunter-gatherers and horticulture societies (similar to the Neolithic) showed that hunter-gatherers had more free time than sedentary farmers. [3]</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Moreover, basketry was well suited for nomadic hunter-gatherers because it could be made from a wide variety of local plants, well-made baskets lasted generations, and baskets were light, strong, easy to carry, and the technology was extremely versatile. It even included baskets for cooking and carrying water. [4]</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Also, indirect evidence had been found in the 1800s but it was not recognized. Many awls were discovered in caves and awls were often used to make baskets. This was clearly stated in Smithsonian publications about Native American Indian basketry that were published around 1900. Many of the Indian tribes were nomadic hunter-gatherers who lived a lifestyle quite similar to European Upper Paleolithic people. [4]</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>All of this suggested that basketry or woven-fiber technology had begun much earlier than previously thought, reaching as far back as the Lower Paleolithic era or millions of years ago. But since research had been prevented, the study of basketry is today far behind what it might have been if anthropologists had been allowed to consider it as a Paleolithic technology.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhahtw_LJmQ-3vPR83KbngNq59429wbEOjq4SnB-Z8WYPvYtNpvmIIzALsRHK4Uu0NGVoQXdohPILtHet5DcMkFwMMHi1N0Gb3X9-mw7YUETXjVbS5mDuCwrlOa713G-PdV5L4NjF-mcMFnS--ZNQjC3UqYPFDFAPRIyB5ZYuA56kNQRqLevzXFG9Mg/s1282/Wichita_Indian_group_building_a_lodge_in_the_Department_of_Anthropology_at_the_1904_World's_Fair_COMPOSITE_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1282" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhahtw_LJmQ-3vPR83KbngNq59429wbEOjq4SnB-Z8WYPvYtNpvmIIzALsRHK4Uu0NGVoQXdohPILtHet5DcMkFwMMHi1N0Gb3X9-mw7YUETXjVbS5mDuCwrlOa713G-PdV5L4NjF-mcMFnS--ZNQjC3UqYPFDFAPRIyB5ZYuA56kNQRqLevzXFG9Mg/s16000/Wichita_Indian_group_building_a_lodge_in_the_Department_of_Anthropology_at_the_1904_World's_Fair_COMPOSITE_1.jpg" /></a></div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;">"Wichita Indian group building a lodge."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This construction may look primitive from our modern point of view but these buildings were strong, comfortable, and made with great skill from natural materials. Using a basket-like internal structure, the sides were then thatched, a technology still in wide use today in Europe.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wichita_Indian_group_building_a_lodge_in_the_Department_of_Anthropology_at_the_1904_World%27s_Fair.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wichita_Indian_group_building_a_lodge_in_the_Department_of_Anthropology_at_the_1904_World%27s_Fair.jpg</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wichita_Indian_group_building_their_lodge_for_the_Department_of_Anthropology_exhibit_at_the_1904_World%27s_Fair.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wichita_Indian_group_building_their_lodge_for_the_Department_of_Anthropology_exhibit_at_the_1904_World%27s_Fair.jpg</a></span></div><div><br /></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>[1] Menon, Shanti. "The Basket Age." <i>Discover Magazine</i>, January 1996 Issue. </b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-basket-age">https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-basket-age</a></b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> The author of this article in Discover Magazine wondered if the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) should be renamed the Basket Age -- since baskets may have been more important.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>[2] Bahn, Dr. Paul. (2001). "Palaeolithic weaving – a contribution from Chauvet." Antiquity, 75:271-272.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>[3] The University of Cambridge. "Farmers have less leisure time than hunter-gatherers." ScienceDaily, 21 May 2019. <<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190520115646.htm">www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190520115646.htm</a>>. Accessed 09/23/2020.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>[4] Aboriginal American Basketry: studies in a textile art without machinery. Contributors: Mason, Otis Tufton; Coville, Frederick Vernon. Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution; Report of the U.S. National Museum. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://archive.org/details/aboriginalbasket00masorich">https://archive.org/details/aboriginalbasket00masorich</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-61498946123652662022023-03-12T03:42:00.007-04:002023-03-16T18:10:29.903-04:00Time-Travel to 5000 Years Ago<h1><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-large;">TIME-TRAVEL</b></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>TO A MESOPOTAMIAN CITY</b></div></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: xx-large; text-align: center;"><b>5,000 YEARS AGO</b></div></span><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">This blog-article is Part #2 of my previous blog</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>Thought Experiments & Imagination</i></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2023/02/thought-experiments-imagination.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2023/02/thought-experiments-imagination.html</a></div></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><div style="text-align: center;">This blog-article is an example of how to use your imagination to explore the ancient and prehistoric past. In this article, you imagine what it would be like to walk around a Mesopotamian city 5000 years ago.</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: xx-large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpP28qzJTCWBVbI1RI4wb_u1yk9W5cMIqd1KZx8jGD4Ibyfd184_ZtygmygBXUUXssQO5Rgdrnocn_4SyiLQ9fE5fdvuQVj3oPWkmzY5DrL8FA5s9tjbqoUI7O1TPxgmCTCtED19o7SQFIqS_0ynAhL9AdOXigF0CVy3GP3hSgeqtcrSMD11F1gKGL/s749/Halle_in_einem_assyrischen_PalastA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="749" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpP28qzJTCWBVbI1RI4wb_u1yk9W5cMIqd1KZx8jGD4Ibyfd184_ZtygmygBXUUXssQO5Rgdrnocn_4SyiLQ9fE5fdvuQVj3oPWkmzY5DrL8FA5s9tjbqoUI7O1TPxgmCTCtED19o7SQFIqS_0ynAhL9AdOXigF0CVy3GP3hSgeqtcrSMD11F1gKGL/w640-h456/Halle_in_einem_assyrischen_PalastA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></span><div style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: normal;">Hall in an Assyrian Palace. -- from a later time than our following story.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: normal;">Artist's conception "By James Fergusson in the "Nineveh Court" of the Crystal Palace - Reconstruction 1854."</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Halle_in_einem_assyrischen_Palast.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Halle_in_einem_assyrischen_Palast.jpg</a></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div><span style="font-size: large;">PREFACE</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;">This is the second half of my article about thought experiments and using your imagination in the study of prehistory. But this idea could be applied to any number of tasks. Please read the first article by clicking on this link </div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2023/02/thought-experiments-imagination.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2023/02/thought-experiments-imagination.html</a></div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;">or scroll down to see it below this one. </div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;">In the first article, I detailed thought experiments by Galileo and Einstein along with my own imaginings plus a current example. But the main point of the article is to encourage others to use their own imaginings in their work.</div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;">So the following is an example of how you could use your imagination. But, of course, there are many ways to do this.</div></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: xx-large; text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: left;"><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: xx-large; text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: left;">INTRODUCTION</b></div></span></div></h1><div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Take A Trip To Ancient Mesopotamia </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>An imaginary walkthrough a Sumerian City thousands of years ago</b></span></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This time period and culture of Mesopotamia is perhaps easier to imagine than an earlier time since it is a civilization much like ours. It is the first civilization that, in many ways, created or invented or designed a way to organize a society in a manner that continues to this day. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have used a variety of images to create a feeling of "you are there." There are many contemporary or recent images, for example, that are appropriate for Mesopotamia 5000 years ago, such as the various round coracle boats. Every element I describe was present in Mesopotamia, but this city I describe is a conglomeration of different early Sumerian cities. My idea was to kickstart your imagination, to give you a description where you could see an ancient city with your own eyes as a functioning metropolis. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I took considerable liberties with the pictures I used. I was often not able to find ones that fit the exact time period but could find ones that fit the general time period. So I figured it was better to have something to illustrate what I was trying to show rather than nothing. Since this is fiction, I felt I could do this.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>If you want to go on your own journey (which I hope you might), study the time period or the aspects you are interested in before you put yourself back in time. Try to be specific with your details and have enough details to paint a full picture.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b style="background-color: #fcff01;"><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b style="background-color: #fcff01;">***PLEASE NOTE, This is a fictional composite of a typical Mesopotamian city at this time but based on my ideas and research -- another person might paint a different picture. In any case, you will be taken away from your modern point of view and be looking at the world very differently, a world from 5000 years ago. You will be unlearning the present and looking at the past from its POV.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE STORY BEGINS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="background-color: #ffa400; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">***CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO</b></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="background-color: #ffa400;">START A SLIDE SHOW</b></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="background-color: #ffa400;">OF THE IMAGERY IN THIS BLOG***</b></div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>TIME-TRAVEL TO A MESOPOTAMIAN CITY 5,000 YEARS AGO</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Imagine for a moment that you are studying ancient civilizations. For the last several nights you have been reading about Mesopotamian myths and kings and how the first civilization came to be. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBzAnInwkrqA1mEqLJzI8aaxk0ve1wh_lGOChi0DxB3luq1xfu3Z0ayN5D5WsBtJpJ1Zk29GPWJRAJsPzYVRVYx3qqLOU6iQzKB3F_BlkyU_pVg5472T5Yid_4OGcOHQeRQcCY8BXLSZ19L5qhJL2rmk7MQgzUcurwMgmNsF2DgJI9_svBF3gCDnyB/s800/Adda_Seal_Akkadian_Empire_2300_BCA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="354" data-original-width="800" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBzAnInwkrqA1mEqLJzI8aaxk0ve1wh_lGOChi0DxB3luq1xfu3Z0ayN5D5WsBtJpJ1Zk29GPWJRAJsPzYVRVYx3qqLOU6iQzKB3F_BlkyU_pVg5472T5Yid_4OGcOHQeRQcCY8BXLSZ19L5qhJL2rmk7MQgzUcurwMgmNsF2DgJI9_svBF3gCDnyB/w640-h284/Adda_Seal_Akkadian_Empire_2300_BCA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Cylinder Seal Clay Impression: </div><div>Adda Seal Akkadian Empire 2300 BCE.</div><div>The images in this impression from a cylinder seal are of Mesopotamian gods and goddesses.</div><div>Each seal was unique and similar to the embossed stamp of a notary today. The stamp was used to mark personal property and to make documents legally binding. The seals were made with a "negative" cylinder (below) which when rolled on soft clay produced a positive as can be seen here.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adda_Seal_Akkadian_Empire_2300_BC.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adda_Seal_Akkadian_Empire_2300_BC.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKhLMuXR3jYJOYPzB8NWZv0ZeIBZoqTaTIkwx_1cGYGLdV0fT_fjboKV1wTYbn2qsutrGnJqNHDg027ftirehIW9RXeY7FqrELGU3ojLXSuOSq8kzYoPkUdQSAcrZi_LN_8g7ZGG9odkjIGK-i6-NITEwBAGv4at21gyiuwtCqOVJ5PjU4_GFvsGr1/s522/Adda_Seal_Akkadian_Empire_2300_BC%20(1)_1A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="336" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKhLMuXR3jYJOYPzB8NWZv0ZeIBZoqTaTIkwx_1cGYGLdV0fT_fjboKV1wTYbn2qsutrGnJqNHDg027ftirehIW9RXeY7FqrELGU3ojLXSuOSq8kzYoPkUdQSAcrZi_LN_8g7ZGG9odkjIGK-i6-NITEwBAGv4at21gyiuwtCqOVJ5PjU4_GFvsGr1/w258-h400/Adda_Seal_Akkadian_Empire_2300_BC%20(1)_1A.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Like many histories, what you found focuses on kings and empires, and palaces. While these are fascinating and quite unusual, you wonder what life was like for an average city dweller who lived in the world's first cities.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Late one night you sit in bed and continue reading about Sumer also known as Mesopotamia. You become increasingly interested until, quite suddenly, you are transported in space and time to a Sumerian city thousands of years ago, long before Rome and Egypt. It's like taking a plane to another world.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdmnFR_GAeiu8BJ6k06A6KUlUEpA4XcLyQdKZOmxcRkqhOFsWMPYg4gP6YM6DhesNTieeRd0mD7zfgztANrE7bA0NUR3NNqxBP_yodkcvQxCo2NrJAAf0WFMcchkG4oXZj5HNxlOh962cAzm8FAYBNJx_VKPZRVgTxBTUdH36e8siAiat89jlej3ZJ/s800/BROWN_U_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdmnFR_GAeiu8BJ6k06A6KUlUEpA4XcLyQdKZOmxcRkqhOFsWMPYg4gP6YM6DhesNTieeRd0mD7zfgztANrE7bA0NUR3NNqxBP_yodkcvQxCo2NrJAAf0WFMcchkG4oXZj5HNxlOh962cAzm8FAYBNJx_VKPZRVgTxBTUdH36e8siAiat89jlej3ZJ/s16000/BROWN_U_2.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">A bird's eye view of a Mesopotamian city. [1]</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When the movement stops you find yourself next to the city's wall on a flat roof of a tall building overlooking the city. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLFqyotzxxyb8MXxblI-fSbTn8SPv9iS9RLrnmx9xaQoD3Ws-yPDX2Nv8hlNbruqc95I9KdhgIhyAUMl7cjs3GXWdQj1DXwBIMp--ZWoHsz9DjeAwtp_52QdQki9XO9_AWEIppVkz6DcgG6T7p4oX42GHrLDMSVg2NHoeEjVdHPHDneok2Wt_3TXfN/s2158/Ancient_History_-_Plate_1._Babylon_and_its_Three_TowersA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1174" data-original-width="2158" height="348" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLFqyotzxxyb8MXxblI-fSbTn8SPv9iS9RLrnmx9xaQoD3Ws-yPDX2Nv8hlNbruqc95I9KdhgIhyAUMl7cjs3GXWdQj1DXwBIMp--ZWoHsz9DjeAwtp_52QdQki9XO9_AWEIppVkz6DcgG6T7p4oX42GHrLDMSVg2NHoeEjVdHPHDneok2Wt_3TXfN/w640-h348/Ancient_History_-_Plate_1._Babylon_and_its_Three_TowersA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>The ziggurat of this city with a view of two other ziggurat towers across the plains. In the flat land of Mesopotamia, the high ziggurats could be seen for kilometers. A ziggurat could be as tall as 30 meters or about 100 feet high.</div><div><i>Babylon and its Three Towers</i> (original picture by William Simpson, 1904).</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_History_-_Plate_1._Babylon_and_its_Three_Towers.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_History_-_Plate_1._Babylon_and_its_Three_Towers.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In front of you is the city's ziggurat temple that rises high above you. In the distance, many kilometers away over the plains, you can see two other cities with the peaks of their ziggurats reaching to the sky. They are magnificent and they take your breath away. Between these cities are thousands of acres of fields that supply the food for the urban dwellers.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYHMSo5Pk00i3DGs9NF-KZLU7-zgG-q5ULxqTegd0Vd98ok_XfvXMakvq0D2yMjZCEziLatTci6kR6HOcc9PUrsTjX6x81QSpKYw5kQQYv9uJZ264kslHaWp5ipLE-RAlTHPvN_jPdeyCKpobl0sGaUQ3Wl9oqzuCYuIuF6p-JyZmEo6jVly4OL5BT/s1248/Reconstructed_Model_of_Palace_of_Sargon_at_Khosrabad_1905.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="783" data-original-width="1248" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYHMSo5Pk00i3DGs9NF-KZLU7-zgG-q5ULxqTegd0Vd98ok_XfvXMakvq0D2yMjZCEziLatTci6kR6HOcc9PUrsTjX6x81QSpKYw5kQQYv9uJZ264kslHaWp5ipLE-RAlTHPvN_jPdeyCKpobl0sGaUQ3Wl9oqzuCYuIuF6p-JyZmEo6jVly4OL5BT/w640-h402/Reconstructed_Model_of_Palace_of_Sargon_at_Khosrabad_1905.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A drawing of the ziggurat and palace complex. The palace was always close to the ziggurat. </div><div>"Reconstructed Model of Palace of Sargon."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reconstructed_Model_of_Palace_of_Sargon_at_Khosrabad_1905.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reconstructed_Model_of_Palace_of_Sargon_at_Khosrabad_1905.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>From your reading, you know that the ziggurats are always close to the center of a Mesopotamia city and built high to bring them nearer to the gods who live in the heavens. And the royal palace is close by. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT3RUSVD1LD-gk3SAQYiMJaU40DOsMJ1msKLAFgAzW5jNgU74N4cv45uh3p03B4UXJ0xxpOf6lM37Abt0WR-mYZONMLyF4aaf4RYH2plWTpQxkx-0O-RNvGKJUROF7O0lIBZFvOl0sCWgQuveO2R_K8MWdMnd_-8tjDoQ7vbNnZZZVhOtaNQ6gPRHJ/s689/SumerianZiggurat.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="689" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT3RUSVD1LD-gk3SAQYiMJaU40DOsMJ1msKLAFgAzW5jNgU74N4cv45uh3p03B4UXJ0xxpOf6lM37Abt0WR-mYZONMLyF4aaf4RYH2plWTpQxkx-0O-RNvGKJUROF7O0lIBZFvOl0sCWgQuveO2R_K8MWdMnd_-8tjDoQ7vbNnZZZVhOtaNQ6gPRHJ/w640-h510/SumerianZiggurat.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A clear picture of a ziggurat's design.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SumerianZiggurat.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SumerianZiggurat.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-VQkT9qAfuYdiUXZTbVh5xYg0lZqfv7LaQlUsuTRKFY8PYjm1Iw1udUTuYk5WN_eK6SrV67DBMTcpEr1A3S-65TVNXKwaOyerBlFB9BtaHh2UWjS1Sb9Yi_zAjD0kbC7hGF6Ax-oD5hTpaacWqVFtwZmGsBlvzF8ENcgRc3cVyMI1y0F9sDuYXkhi/s800/COMPOSITE_GOD_KING.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="373" data-original-width="800" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-VQkT9qAfuYdiUXZTbVh5xYg0lZqfv7LaQlUsuTRKFY8PYjm1Iw1udUTuYk5WN_eK6SrV67DBMTcpEr1A3S-65TVNXKwaOyerBlFB9BtaHh2UWjS1Sb9Yi_zAjD0kbC7hGF6Ax-oD5hTpaacWqVFtwZmGsBlvzF8ENcgRc3cVyMI1y0F9sDuYXkhi/w640-h298/COMPOSITE_GOD_KING.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: A sculpture of the God Ea.</div><div>MIDDLE: The priest-king whose power came from the city's patron god who passed his authority down to the king.</div><div>RIGHT: A priest. The priests were the administrators and bureaucrats who ran the city.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:God_Ea,_seated,_holding_a_cup._From_Nasiriyah,_southern_Iraq,_2004-1595_BCE._Iraq_Museum.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:God_Ea,_seated,_holding_a_cup._From_Nasiriyah,_southern_Iraq,_2004-1595_BCE._Iraq_Museum.jpg</a></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Priest-king_from_Uruk,_Mesopotamia,_Iraq,_c._3000_BCE._The_Iraq_Museum_(transparent).png">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Priest-king_from_Uruk,_Mesopotamia,_Iraq,_c._3000_BCE._The_Iraq_Museum_(transparent).png</a></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_a_priest_from_the_Great_Temple_at_Hatra,_Iraq._2nd-3rd_century_CE._Iraq_Museum,_Baghdad.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_a_priest_from_the_Great_Temple_at_Hatra,_Iraq._2nd-3rd_century_CE._Iraq_Museum,_Baghdad.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The temple is also where the patron god of the city dwells. But while the building dominates the cityscape and the people below, ordinary people are never permitted in them, only priests and royalty are allowed.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Now, catching your breath, you realize you are dressed in modern clothes and you will stand out and be noticed. You climb down a steep set of stairs only to find a large pile of trash on the street. Someone has thrown away a perfectly good linen tunic and some sandals which happen to fit you just fine. After changing quickly into these clothes, you now feel it's okay to wander and see how this city is put together. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAgSJB1rj4LxAHxFsZYx5U1bcWypil6OCLmeWVhcYwuxKO4Nk-A3Zl7b1O4p7DL7UAJNAH8pVZXKsj6DOzxOpbUjfcmfFKD5lmktodYLdDRQ14jRR_29mzHj8mBsAS4VpmmM7qBnmVb0FBe6TiTmmXDO7fdbl2JyaWQbWDRFDx3enofRrU1cs-xTki/s800/Ja_w_MoroccoAAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="526" data-original-width="800" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAgSJB1rj4LxAHxFsZYx5U1bcWypil6OCLmeWVhcYwuxKO4Nk-A3Zl7b1O4p7DL7UAJNAH8pVZXKsj6DOzxOpbUjfcmfFKD5lmktodYLdDRQ14jRR_29mzHj8mBsAS4VpmmM7qBnmVb0FBe6TiTmmXDO7fdbl2JyaWQbWDRFDx3enofRrU1cs-xTki/w640-h420/Ja_w_MoroccoAAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A street in Morocco probably similar to streets in Mesopotamia.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ja_w_Morocco.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ja_w_Morocco.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The city is composed of narrow winding streets which are confusing at first, yet you find you can always orient yourself by looking at the ziggurat. But the heat is oppressive.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilf3jyWvUh2YHh7rQvX_-g7A9vSpH7riZEbnq2xmEgceLkpaIYMZbcSi6L4WXi5wuC-asAwH3vYOnzRCYh9S0Vln75d46TJYrcSiOAIaBlShkE_eetQNDlH5HEtXUWdCL1f5FsQcX-xOJ3adskGEu4RKN2uZZSd-Obn4vg-y5E4FFBXV-oyShDc-sm/s640/capture_X007A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="640" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilf3jyWvUh2YHh7rQvX_-g7A9vSpH7riZEbnq2xmEgceLkpaIYMZbcSi6L4WXi5wuC-asAwH3vYOnzRCYh9S0Vln75d46TJYrcSiOAIaBlShkE_eetQNDlH5HEtXUWdCL1f5FsQcX-xOJ3adskGEu4RKN2uZZSd-Obn4vg-y5E4FFBXV-oyShDc-sm/w640-h432/capture_X007A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">A large reed ship -- an artist's conception but probably a fairly accurate depiction.<br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%A0%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%86%D1%8F_%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D1%83_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B0_%D0%B2_%D0%AD%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B4%D1%83_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%8B%D1%85_%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8_%D0%B2_%D0%A3%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BA.jpg">Click to see the source of this picture.</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>You walk toward the river and from a high vantage point you see several large ships made of reeds unloading their cargo. One ship is delivering hundreds of reed bundles and leather goods. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwqRFtslh3Biv1GXNk7KtSF8lpp5qbfv1R3FRc8PMiKz-hB5-phvbI1jAjDtE-riASmtiIDm3WUKYuNX4_6B9oP1VM6_SHOBCljoDbLn6YlCiCm1jEZIwm-yZbKJuC54J_rMTZqg088jG_IVyyx8s74uID4O1_zds6loPW5UMbp7Yc-aGpQ9LUkIFY/s800/925px-Tigris_Model_Pyramids_of_GuimarAAAAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="800" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwqRFtslh3Biv1GXNk7KtSF8lpp5qbfv1R3FRc8PMiKz-hB5-phvbI1jAjDtE-riASmtiIDm3WUKYuNX4_6B9oP1VM6_SHOBCljoDbLn6YlCiCm1jEZIwm-yZbKJuC54J_rMTZqg088jG_IVyyx8s74uID4O1_zds6loPW5UMbp7Yc-aGpQ9LUkIFY/w640-h330/925px-Tigris_Model_Pyramids_of_GuimarAAAAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A model of another large reed ship, the Tigris. This could carry 50 tons of cargo. Thor Heyerdahl built the full scale ship to prove the sea worthiness of reed ships. He sailed the Tigris with no problems for 5 months in the Persian Gulf.</div><div>"Model of the reed boat Tigris, boat of Thor Heyerdahl." <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tigris_Model_Pyramids_of_Guimar.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tigris_Model_Pyramids_of_Guimar.jpg</a></div></div><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Another ship has come from the Persian Gulf, more than a thousand kilometers away, bringing wood and copper ore and tin ore for smelting bronze. Although these cities invented bronze, the ore had to be imported. </b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7aUFQnoPlDuGv2aFQT-B8KewMA2FOujQzQyEoWbyZ2OTMzbRbSJfsC6zx2R7nF4WYcqC4w5iYI29e-0wyVhWiwlWnNz2VbpMLUeWuxWiyGIsJdEbcPlmd74wmMR8BoohKeSTuDO4tO2V2PQ4-tw1md8FPWtroNIvc0nj1OkNdlkLmMbN5RHFG1Rl6/s800/COMPOSITE_CORACLE_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="800" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7aUFQnoPlDuGv2aFQT-B8KewMA2FOujQzQyEoWbyZ2OTMzbRbSJfsC6zx2R7nF4WYcqC4w5iYI29e-0wyVhWiwlWnNz2VbpMLUeWuxWiyGIsJdEbcPlmd74wmMR8BoohKeSTuDO4tO2V2PQ4-tw1md8FPWtroNIvc0nj1OkNdlkLmMbN5RHFG1Rl6/w640-h218/COMPOSITE_CORACLE_2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Coracles or round basket boats.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: This is a coracle which is also called a basket boat because its structure was/is created with reeds like a basket. In this picture, one can see the basket-like structure inside the boat. These boats have been used for thousands of years.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hogenakkal_Coracle.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hogenakkal_Coracle.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: Quffa (coracle) in Baghdad in 1914.</div><div>"A kuphar (also transliterated kufa, kuffah, quffa, quffah) is a type of coracle or round boat traditionally used on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in ancient and modern Mesopotamia." </div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kuphar.jpg">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kuphar.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Next to the large ships are small round coracles known as basket boats because they are built with reeds like a basket. They are used locally to deliver goods on the river. They can be quite small or quite large.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeCFSWB_4SOgdA0sYuOb-8dLgY9_gMgjgvwpoufBEH8_6KNWLOPkZaMABDqoxxfnYK4V2fezfPU0bth-P4KfG3osqrxmWPu5w2vkMU55wad0uHaUZFoUhpvirGcNHjgxp7B4l8b1707zZbpLKkGpDoJ-XmK-fa5OJqfmPoCqTUFDzsiMKdpPjIc5IB/s1082/COMPOSITE_REED_SMALL_BOATS.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1082" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeCFSWB_4SOgdA0sYuOb-8dLgY9_gMgjgvwpoufBEH8_6KNWLOPkZaMABDqoxxfnYK4V2fezfPU0bth-P4KfG3osqrxmWPu5w2vkMU55wad0uHaUZFoUhpvirGcNHjgxp7B4l8b1707zZbpLKkGpDoJ-XmK-fa5OJqfmPoCqTUFDzsiMKdpPjIc5IB/w474-h640/COMPOSITE_REED_SMALL_BOATS.jpg" width="474" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A variety of smaller reed boats made up the Mesopotamian fleet.</div><div>(TOP) Mesopotamian small reed boats in a battle circa 700 BCE. <br />A drawing made from the relief of the battle (bottom).</div><div>Picture from <i>A History of Babylon.</i></div><div>(King, Leonard. <i>A History of Babylon.</i> London, Chatto and Windus, 1915, p. 201.)</div><div>BOTTOM</div><div>The original of the above drawing.</div><div>A relief depicting a military campaign circa 700 BCE, showed that smaller reed boats were widely used and had been used for thousands of years up to that time.</div><div>From the South-West Palace at Ninevah, Iraq. British Museum.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Detail,_Assyrian_military_campaign_in_the_marches_of_southern_Iraq._640-620_BCE._British_Museum.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Detail,_Assyrian_military_campaign_in_the_marches_of_southern_Iraq._640-620_BCE._British_Museum.jpg</a></div></div><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">And various small reed boats are also available.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>You start to feel a bit more comfortable because since it is a port town, you realize that locals might assume you are a sailor from another city and not be bothered by your different look.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjyXjzC28Hmri0Cik9WeQN2oAoORuGSSUO-h4A4iI2UyJ4lGv5w7JFsqCY4V7arJgtRIG7b_5aa93XR7ob4lVkKCs-3YO00KogA9PrOjkoOyRktEm15cwneMUw8X_UHjGAm2EcibYSJkBuZUVtYvGZNSuJ1Y9x61f2zfXoYEH9W_CHcg5v-SKQLMVw/s640/Economic_text_from_Shuruppak,_Iraq._Barely,_flour,_bread,_and_beer._C._2500_BCE._Ancient_Orient_Museum,_IstanbulA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="640" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjyXjzC28Hmri0Cik9WeQN2oAoORuGSSUO-h4A4iI2UyJ4lGv5w7JFsqCY4V7arJgtRIG7b_5aa93XR7ob4lVkKCs-3YO00KogA9PrOjkoOyRktEm15cwneMUw8X_UHjGAm2EcibYSJkBuZUVtYvGZNSuJ1Y9x61f2zfXoYEH9W_CHcg5v-SKQLMVw/w400-h384/Economic_text_from_Shuruppak,_Iraq._Barely,_flour,_bread,_and_beer._C._2500_BCE._Ancient_Orient_Museum,_IstanbulA.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Cuneiform Accounting. -- writing was invented to keep track of supplies and transactions.</div><div>Cuneiform tablets were made with a sharply cut reed stylus that made marks on soft clay -- the world's first writing. The well-educated scribes who knew how to write were held in high regard.</div><div>"Economic text from Shuruppak (Tell Fara), Iraq. Six columns of a cuneiform text mentioning various quantities of barely, flour, bread, and beer." </div><div>Early Dynastic period, c. 2500 BCE. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul, Turkey..</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Economic_text_from_Shuruppak,_Iraq._Barely,_flour,_bread,_and_beer._C._2500_BCE._Ancient_Orient_Museum,_Istanbul.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Economic_text_from_Shuruppak,_Iraq._Barely,_flour,_bread,_and_beer._C._2500_BCE._Ancient_Orient_Museum,_Istanbul.jpg</a></div></div><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">You notice that down at the docks, a man dressed in special clothes appears to be recording the cargo as it comes off a large boat. He takes a short reed stem that has been cut to a sharp angle and inscribes symbols onto a small piece of soft clay. Writing has only just been invented and is still being developed. </b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPPxRdbkcA7ly-sxsazeoXPZ1XLwbpIM1O7y4fVlv1LPzQI6HoC9dATEzC1py8Er5saRmL6gaG3ea7Xw6eDXJS8EIWRE6fJiDB5YZj4To5dYrriJVZSrrIWq9vOiDJU2JHjCOGgq-MrfT4qlLfrlknTxi3g4qQML1SdBNHlCz2FUfUc_rhNWSwA1Ls/s757/Babylon_Babil_IraqaAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="757" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPPxRdbkcA7ly-sxsazeoXPZ1XLwbpIM1O7y4fVlv1LPzQI6HoC9dATEzC1py8Er5saRmL6gaG3ea7Xw6eDXJS8EIWRE6fJiDB5YZj4To5dYrriJVZSrrIWq9vOiDJU2JHjCOGgq-MrfT4qlLfrlknTxi3g4qQML1SdBNHlCz2FUfUc_rhNWSwA1Ls/w542-h640/Babylon_Babil_IraqaAA.jpg" width="542" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Main street view of the city.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Babylon_Babil_Iraq.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Babylon_Babil_Iraq.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>You then walk the main street wondering what you will find next. The streets are made of fired mudbricks that are set in place with bitumen, a material similar to asphalt. The wheel has just been invented and it is still being developed. So you see materials being hauled on sleds pulled by donkeys along with the occasional cart with early wheels also pulled by a donkey.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXBl8P-N6P43KOQDCtDpH-AAgG17W_diWYs5VjMZJJIuf1sSSYQJFyfp8PBKsfcdDizZYLb2mBTxTNqpWNdlm2Vl0E6u-FdrT0TSEHXxglZN1sdN_W-wOv4LUMHD3bza2KP35lNaC6b_SIt9AoUqqtKNGNmW-FKp5OxoUsKmYPQUZYN-ZHuIse-cwY/s800/S%C3%A5vaedje_distcheyaedje_Ayin_TekkiA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="469" data-original-width="800" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXBl8P-N6P43KOQDCtDpH-AAgG17W_diWYs5VjMZJJIuf1sSSYQJFyfp8PBKsfcdDizZYLb2mBTxTNqpWNdlm2Vl0E6u-FdrT0TSEHXxglZN1sdN_W-wOv4LUMHD3bza2KP35lNaC6b_SIt9AoUqqtKNGNmW-FKp5OxoUsKmYPQUZYN-ZHuIse-cwY/w640-h376/S%C3%A5vaedje_distcheyaedje_Ayin_TekkiA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>City Trash.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S%C3%A5vaedje_distcheyaedje_Ayin_Tekki.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S%C3%A5vaedje_distcheyaedje_Ayin_Tekki.JPG</a></div></div><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">You notice large piles of trash on just about every street corner. Some have a pungent odor. Apparently, trash is allowed to accumulate for months before the citizens and city take it all out to a dump site far away.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Just about everywhere you go you notice small shrines. You remember from your reading that there are over 3,000 gods although there are a much smaller number of principal gods worshiped in the ziggurat. And there is only one important patron god or goddess for each city.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbqw9Q5J9Up9Yy69hH59JaLNaOLEENDuVI1Bfal3Xru1QYcSMhgk8K8wbAbZMWNHa_jA-tlWLV6MKrWGViQ2kcSmD2z2wpmRUTRpRN7gdBK2nmQZo5F98yvHe0WNjQUQsCj_jLX3UZVsflyVlVnmefTT1UjwdeFANb7FQAZLM4m4inqdlXpkXtsOTl/s800/Pergamon_Museum_Parts_of_Inanna_temple_facade_in_Uruk_1597AA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="800" height="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbqw9Q5J9Up9Yy69hH59JaLNaOLEENDuVI1Bfal3Xru1QYcSMhgk8K8wbAbZMWNHa_jA-tlWLV6MKrWGViQ2kcSmD2z2wpmRUTRpRN7gdBK2nmQZo5F98yvHe0WNjQUQsCj_jLX3UZVsflyVlVnmefTT1UjwdeFANb7FQAZLM4m4inqdlXpkXtsOTl/w640-h496/Pergamon_Museum_Parts_of_Inanna_temple_facade_in_Uruk_1597AA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Parts of Inanna temple facade -- a recreation.</div><div>"In a temple precinct dedicated to a goddess Inanna, a new temple was erected in the late 15th century BCE in Uruk."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pergamon_Museum_Parts_of_Inanna_temple_facade_in_Uruk_1597.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pergamon_Museum_Parts_of_Inanna_temple_facade_in_Uruk_1597.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Suddenly you find yourself next to the temple complex, the area where most of the temples are located. And you come upon the impressive façade of the Inanna Temple. Inanna translates as the "Lady of Heaven" and she was greatly revered. She is the goddess of love making and procreation. In addition, male and female deities are part of the facade. They are holding jugs of water, a symbol of fertility.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5GhjIuSZ6R4dKM-sTPcz2af8tc53EAab0mihylI7JpFIn97VpuSXGETI1zPZu-CXDlguaH-_4xfJIDJrFGbFs9uZPr8ld8y-A2MijSun5BkbCkIBsKLCwwyE2AlhnFN0AhudoW1WTsupJRExDm0DiFE-AIVX1mIockHBUJZK-eKYq0S9aLo8XRioR/s800/Uruk_Vase_COMPOSITE._1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="800" height="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5GhjIuSZ6R4dKM-sTPcz2af8tc53EAab0mihylI7JpFIn97VpuSXGETI1zPZu-CXDlguaH-_4xfJIDJrFGbFs9uZPr8ld8y-A2MijSun5BkbCkIBsKLCwwyE2AlhnFN0AhudoW1WTsupJRExDm0DiFE-AIVX1mIockHBUJZK-eKYq0S9aLo8XRioR/w640-h588/Uruk_Vase_COMPOSITE._1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>The Warka Vase</div><div>LEFT: Full photo of the vase</div><div>RIGHT: Detailed photo of each level.</div><div>"Warka vase, a slim alabaster vessel carved [with these images]...from bottom to top with: water, date palms, barley, and wheat, alternating rams and ewes, and men carrying baskets of foodstuffs to the goddess Inanna accepting the offerings."</div><div>The votive Vase of Warka, from Warka (ancient Uruk), Iraq. Jemdet Nasr period, 3000-2900 BCE. The Iraq Museum, Baghdad. </div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Warka_vase_(background_retouched).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Warka_vase_(background_retouched).jpg</a></div></div><b><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">And perhaps by accident, a tall ritual vase is standing next to the facade -- maybe they were cleaning inside and knew that no one would dare tempt the anger of the gods by touching the vase. The vase offers a complete view of the Sumerian view of the world. On the bottom are water and plants, next up are animals, then people, and finally the gods that the people can relate to by giving offerings. From your studies you know it is the first time a culture has placed humans in a position in the divine order. It is almost too much to absorb.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis1u2SXlWPOP35YM4qphqfLI-yTiOlu05XmKuSyzwNsF-G3Xqv9wGaOXrr3vXloWj0LT227_hFULKp5j_mpHnMOHHzinmdFNdgSR1GBTg6NQfyrcMkNjvpTWeWBqqJVqIyweoJu3x304SOBzQ_dCIJusaBCf7_DvsB_aUt_TqaqYgp17u78nA_8kBb/s800/Elamite_Royal_Orchestra_(detail,_British_Museum_Asset_270640001)aA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="800" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis1u2SXlWPOP35YM4qphqfLI-yTiOlu05XmKuSyzwNsF-G3Xqv9wGaOXrr3vXloWj0LT227_hFULKp5j_mpHnMOHHzinmdFNdgSR1GBTg6NQfyrcMkNjvpTWeWBqqJVqIyweoJu3x304SOBzQ_dCIJusaBCf7_DvsB_aUt_TqaqYgp17u78nA_8kBb/w640-h484/Elamite_Royal_Orchestra_(detail,_British_Museum_Asset_270640001)aA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A royal orchestra.</div><div>"Elamite Royal Orchestra (detail,British_Museum)" Relief.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elamite_Royal_Orchestra_(detail,_British_Museum_Asset_270640001).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elamite_Royal_Orchestra_(detail,_British_Museum_Asset_270640001).jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And you also hear a complex sound coming from the palace. It sounds like an orchestra but you find it hard to believe that the Sumerians had such a thing, yet they did.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpFOpL_txIT0Lua166eg7YZFE6NPsRizP1sKIj5lgyTxJlll_R1zj6MiKKekmRKZHPO2ukiMVN7ipM7VLH0PR_HAdy1TgbgHXbAd9EZU4mzraaLydhaBMNSsCpibJvFjFeMK0FR3-mXs-5e7bSIp6RH7EjBFZwbZ7jwfKUv0YaPpPnPqp0B9nOIHtb/s800/Coppersmith_at_Suq_Al-Safafir,_Baghdad,_1962A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="478" data-original-width="800" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpFOpL_txIT0Lua166eg7YZFE6NPsRizP1sKIj5lgyTxJlll_R1zj6MiKKekmRKZHPO2ukiMVN7ipM7VLH0PR_HAdy1TgbgHXbAd9EZU4mzraaLydhaBMNSsCpibJvFjFeMK0FR3-mXs-5e7bSIp6RH7EjBFZwbZ7jwfKUv0YaPpPnPqp0B9nOIHtb/w640-h382/Coppersmith_at_Suq_Al-Safafir,_Baghdad,_1962A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A coppersmith selling and making new items from copper. </div><div>Copper was available from the beginning, but bronze did not develop until much later and was difficult to make, expensive and used mainly for weapons and cart hardware.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coppersmith_at_Suq_Al-Safafir,_Baghdad,_1962.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coppersmith_at_Suq_Al-Safafir,_Baghdad,_1962.jpg</a></div></div><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Next, you find yourself in a commercial and work district. You can see into the open doors of shops and workplaces. There are basket shops where baskets are made and sold, along with leather working businesses, jewelry-making, gold smithing, breweries, bakeries, cart makers, and metallurgy. </b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlyUu6c4vlVAevv3edSyT1vQD2qnfkStz18pHarmTJ-6HSP-M9RfaLmtxa4RiriYAk6DLOC0HbgiCDqWdeaXbJRhL1taKS-zjXD0mEUrP46kjL_ha72F3DzWvXxOzx2uhTUnilPjlf_jvjpD8z8StggTrCS4g3TMLeaPKp74BveMCOfBr3lIG8BtWy/s887/Weaver_shopAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="887" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlyUu6c4vlVAevv3edSyT1vQD2qnfkStz18pHarmTJ-6HSP-M9RfaLmtxa4RiriYAk6DLOC0HbgiCDqWdeaXbJRhL1taKS-zjXD0mEUrP46kjL_ha72F3DzWvXxOzx2uhTUnilPjlf_jvjpD8z8StggTrCS4g3TMLeaPKp74BveMCOfBr3lIG8BtWy/w578-h640/Weaver_shopAA.jpg" width="578" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A shop displaying baskets and "products weaved from plant fibers, Marrakesh."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weaver_shop.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weaver_shop.jpg</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ7P_ZrfnuSjtsO2vwlqDN9E6oTHem_xaPinBZ1mBZSjYnqCMF1BTJ1Qw4rUItiFAuAPhlciUYa_OgAtYKu_EBQOhX-9iOlpXTzxL-ziWLmxJEtF47Yp3QAYQhbdQsYSWG7JfWfHAMwoB9_Ay6uzndvogqjP6Tqbz0djkI5IGFL_pywenK6-qIilOV/s800/Donkey_panniersAAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="765" data-original-width="800" height="612" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ7P_ZrfnuSjtsO2vwlqDN9E6oTHem_xaPinBZ1mBZSjYnqCMF1BTJ1Qw4rUItiFAuAPhlciUYa_OgAtYKu_EBQOhX-9iOlpXTzxL-ziWLmxJEtF47Yp3QAYQhbdQsYSWG7JfWfHAMwoB9_Ay6uzndvogqjP6Tqbz0djkI5IGFL_pywenK6-qIilOV/w640-h612/Donkey_panniersAAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">A donkey with traditional panniers (side-saddle-type baskets). Heavy-duty reed baskets were used to dredge the channels, carry clay to make bricks, and carry bricks to build buildings.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey_panniers.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey_panniers.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></b></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">In the markets and on donkeys, baskets made of reeds seem to be everywhere. Women carry baskets, stores display their goods in baskets, and donkeys carry bricks and other items in heavy-duty work baskets. While you had learned in your studies during the 21st century that this was the beginning of the bronze age, there is very little bronze to be seen. Plows in the outlying fields are still made of stone attached to wood.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOUc1GwhvZSyzZ_4pEI8gjbeTBrlExeY_07R_5scl7pbK8B_nWRFCKXGdyfo3rtCATwEj13EW8yKI3F1sSMZwMr1cyGN61j_HTL9K-QWMlSc8bOhibSid4Y0fQ2XiZ-rbkMY_Fz0Hvqg1cxiyBqIxq_uJEl6a1Gdmzv1-hYUbbxOBgGwOqSZ6qg7Jf/s800/COMPOSITE_POTTERY.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="800" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOUc1GwhvZSyzZ_4pEI8gjbeTBrlExeY_07R_5scl7pbK8B_nWRFCKXGdyfo3rtCATwEj13EW8yKI3F1sSMZwMr1cyGN61j_HTL9K-QWMlSc8bOhibSid4Y0fQ2XiZ-rbkMY_Fz0Hvqg1cxiyBqIxq_uJEl6a1Gdmzv1-hYUbbxOBgGwOqSZ6qg7Jf/w640-h238/COMPOSITE_POTTERY.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: A potter at work on a potter's wheel.</div><div>The potter's wheel was an invention by Sumerians, invented before the wheel was used on carts.</div><div>The wheel led to the mass production of pottery. But it also allowed the potter to easily and quickly make a smooth even symmetrical shape.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Potter_at_wheel.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Potter_at_wheel.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: "Pottery from the Late Uruk period: wheel-made pottery,"</div><div>Vorderasiatisches Museum (Near East Museum), Berlin.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vorderasiatisches_Museum_Berlin_045.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vorderasiatisches_Museum_Berlin_045.jpg</a></div><div><br /></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>At another shop, you are fascinated. You see pottery being mass-produced on a potter's wheel, a device that the Sumerians invented even before the wheel for carts. You see a lump of clay come alive in just a few minutes, as the wheel turns and hands shape the material to make a bowl or a cup or a vase, or a pitcher. These Sumerians, you now realize, are masters of clay since they have so much of it.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>From your reading, you know that Mesopotamia lacked many recourses such as stone and quality wood. So they did the best with what they had such as clay.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPvzNDmcREx4zGzlt9wYnsd1bA2vi9zZ1cEyPDgKTDvd8geg2CuLRKOueNQLEMGaCHTpQng0uGKH5iOfUVUJQMwVeruuGP4Uf6MHSbVE0LbDMh3Hin8Gm-od4OMkzyMQImA1T-GS6N62KFS-Th3r-bbUtsPqfvpYyOmyFxm9qD3QE6QmO9U9OtRwgz/s800/Morocco_Africa_Flickr_Rosino_December_2005_83614547A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="800" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPvzNDmcREx4zGzlt9wYnsd1bA2vi9zZ1cEyPDgKTDvd8geg2CuLRKOueNQLEMGaCHTpQng0uGKH5iOfUVUJQMwVeruuGP4Uf6MHSbVE0LbDMh3Hin8Gm-od4OMkzyMQImA1T-GS6N62KFS-Th3r-bbUtsPqfvpYyOmyFxm9qD3QE6QmO9U9OtRwgz/w640-h456/Morocco_Africa_Flickr_Rosino_December_2005_83614547A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A market.</div><div>Market in Boumalne du Dades, Morocco, Africa.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Morocco_Africa_Flickr_Rosino_December_2005_83614547.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Morocco_Africa_Flickr_Rosino_December_2005_83614547.jpg</a></div></div><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7AoJWCu2MxsIkWCJ31c7jgl5PNIQpE7KH4nA6k3YvVOYHfWq43qlCpGsYAozvxd2kxgg-m3YNlvqtjjuLRyeu1cgLYyXXej6WSNUS4mx2jLVm6iSTcIivN4tEUbRsSGzquJ8qdQFNDgKC3GWfUKsgPzdlN7-UCibweeL1NRVdopgf0kpQjFYRA397/s800/Tissot_Building_the_Tower_of_BabelAAAa.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7AoJWCu2MxsIkWCJ31c7jgl5PNIQpE7KH4nA6k3YvVOYHfWq43qlCpGsYAozvxd2kxgg-m3YNlvqtjjuLRyeu1cgLYyXXej6WSNUS4mx2jLVm6iSTcIivN4tEUbRsSGzquJ8qdQFNDgKC3GWfUKsgPzdlN7-UCibweeL1NRVdopgf0kpQjFYRA397/s16000/Tissot_Building_the_Tower_of_BabelAAAa.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Building a temple with the best quality fired bricks.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tissot_Building_the_Tower_of_Babel.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tissot_Building_the_Tower_of_Babel.jpg</a></div></div><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Everything seems to orbit the ziggurat at the center of the city. And there the buildings are magnificent. They are all made of the finest high-quality fired-brick, such as the temples and palaces for the royalty, the priests, and the rich. But as you walk further away from the center the buildings become less and less opulent. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglObyIhpZwXFSBr6Ncc5MoVgWufWmINqCKlH2t-ZsphXOdx5Wdy4mQdF1Oz_SZyajvK7J_C2MjRZkNL9gK-gLHsx74PcNVwYkI41DXn86OgT3ijnA27gviC1WBaUlcwXasVsqWb5yjXZYSoCQNnpWdu_A2vD9DcR8-S07ymmo0958gPb1V031aJPdi/s800/Mesopotamian_spirit_house_1_REMA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="765" data-original-width="800" height="612" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglObyIhpZwXFSBr6Ncc5MoVgWufWmINqCKlH2t-ZsphXOdx5Wdy4mQdF1Oz_SZyajvK7J_C2MjRZkNL9gK-gLHsx74PcNVwYkI41DXn86OgT3ijnA27gviC1WBaUlcwXasVsqWb5yjXZYSoCQNnpWdu_A2vD9DcR8-S07ymmo0958gPb1V031aJPdi/w640-h612/Mesopotamian_spirit_house_1_REMA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A model of family home made with bricks.</div><div>"Terracotta model of a house from Babylon, 2600 BCE, Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, San Jose, California."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mesopotamian_spirit_house_1_REM.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mesopotamian_spirit_house_1_REM.JPG</a></div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Mesopotamia">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Mesopotamia</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Away from the center, people who are well off but not rich live in homes made of sun-baked mudbrick. This brick is not nearly as strong as the fired brick and some homes are in disrepair and some have even collapsed. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmV-JCKwxeoK9tLFjiVQldSm-aX4o-UijFpzsUiizNlvimN6Z5zyOpkRLRlJkrbF1CxbcWzKq3LnEWimjidt-25XD2gNRPQgn19yYXiGgyvb_U60Lchd4MHrAW3mQtJMNXRHzadJXjZwpZasHsRMvpI4zAAe2nSknqwSVTjDBMF4FFRuklJvj-1FNz/s800/Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762)A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="800" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmV-JCKwxeoK9tLFjiVQldSm-aX4o-UijFpzsUiizNlvimN6Z5zyOpkRLRlJkrbF1CxbcWzKq3LnEWimjidt-25XD2gNRPQgn19yYXiGgyvb_U60Lchd4MHrAW3mQtJMNXRHzadJXjZwpZasHsRMvpI4zAAe2nSknqwSVTjDBMF4FFRuklJvj-1FNz/w640-h448/Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762)A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Iraq's Marsh Arabs used reeds to build vaulted reception halls called mudhifs. Mudhifs were large ceremonial buildings and meeting places. Families lived in similar but much smaller reed hones, called rabas. All indications are that these buildings were made in the Neolithic period and continued to be built in the poorer areas of the cities and in rural areas for thousands of years up to today.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762).jpg</a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>At another high point, you can see beyond the city walls where there are traditional grass huts, made from the abundant reeds that grow wild in the huge marshes. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheoDyjrn3HyBhd-5vNaEfa4YSvw_PBhfpTOG1sjvwM_iF10_u-8pDQglwkKiWKIEhjx2YAAmnO8yrmWLrs3MjxppJK7Qv8JYUp9Q8WhkUVVxGHPjEJeFQeMeu9BemNk5w1GYUzP9Bc2PO-2tZviv9pHHpYSiy1Ty-G8dE0_NisztbHmlrsQJ6i9B50/s800/COMPOSITE_CORACLE_RIVVER.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="800" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheoDyjrn3HyBhd-5vNaEfa4YSvw_PBhfpTOG1sjvwM_iF10_u-8pDQglwkKiWKIEhjx2YAAmnO8yrmWLrs3MjxppJK7Qv8JYUp9Q8WhkUVVxGHPjEJeFQeMeu9BemNk5w1GYUzP9Bc2PO-2tZviv9pHHpYSiy1Ty-G8dE0_NisztbHmlrsQJ6i9B50/w640-h238/COMPOSITE_CORACLE_RIVVER.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Rivers, channels, and marshes were key elements for a Mesopotamian city. They were the highways before roads were built.</div><div>LEFT: A view of the river next to the city.</div><div><a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/matpc.16028/">https://www.loc.gov/resource/matpc.16028/</a></div><div>RIGHT: The river bank with coracles. River traffic and transportation were crucial to these cities.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scenes_from_every_land,_second_series;_a_collection_of_250_illustrations_picturing_the_people,_natural_phenomena,_and_animal_life_in_all_parts_of_the_world._With_one_map_and_a_bibliography_of_(14580632207).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scenes_from_every_land,_second_series;_a_collection_of_250_illustrations_picturing_the_people,_natural_phenomena,_and_animal_life_in_all_parts_of_the_world._With_one_map_and_a_bibliography_of_(14580632207).jpg</a></div></div><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">And you can see that on the river and channels are hundreds of reed and coracle boats of different sizes and shapes. They are like taxis and the river and channels are more important than roads in the early days of Mesopotamia.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As said in the Sumerian epic <i>Gilgamesh</i>, the oldest story and myth written down, the Sumerians are quite pleased with their first cities that they made out of almost nothing, such as clay and reeds. They are proud of their walls, streets, markets, temples, and gardens.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVTSe03tZITeLYLXf5OQI-H0ot3NfT__eHygrEBvI1HK7jyqzxat0e_vjFucFw6FXSG2bUpn4-8NKmmF6x7f7s1oq9Ne5XcfS5CvQOtaKYDRwvwQkf1KcSckP28pTO_SVpJoQVS1bjOOzQ0-jBP4orPw0LrjuJiwN1qo1ITk-npl_v5mV75KZtnJIL/s702/service-pnp-stereo-1s20000-1s27000-1s27100-1s27152vAaa.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="702" data-original-width="483" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVTSe03tZITeLYLXf5OQI-H0ot3NfT__eHygrEBvI1HK7jyqzxat0e_vjFucFw6FXSG2bUpn4-8NKmmF6x7f7s1oq9Ne5XcfS5CvQOtaKYDRwvwQkf1KcSckP28pTO_SVpJoQVS1bjOOzQ0-jBP4orPw0LrjuJiwN1qo1ITk-npl_v5mV75KZtnJIL/w440-h640/service-pnp-stereo-1s20000-1s27000-1s27100-1s27152vAaa.jpg" width="440" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A garden on the Euphrates river.</div><div><a href="https://emuseum.mfah.org/objects/76076/where-tradition-locates-garden-of-edenvalley-of-euphrates">https://emuseum.mfah.org/objects/76076/where-tradition-locates-garden-of-edenvalley-of-euphrates</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>You find that you cannot go more than several blocks before you come upon another garden. The gardens are full of a variety of plants and are well-kept.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiMG0vUyHBlRcxJ0r66Jw9ND6iAvhNrSjJ0YY1rZdJI7UeO9dkr-L0baVFzVMJhQeE0vWjTdslHh6kcXvE54EycvQQWRDa86PngvnxCDk4SCquaKKeZrvjjPKbWForxG3yygwFVhYN3Sxk-xCO4avJ1T2osAt1Y4juUsxyQOoKmd68k1Pbhrg2u7tL/s722/Sundial_from_Madain_SalehA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="722" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiMG0vUyHBlRcxJ0r66Jw9ND6iAvhNrSjJ0YY1rZdJI7UeO9dkr-L0baVFzVMJhQeE0vWjTdslHh6kcXvE54EycvQQWRDa86PngvnxCDk4SCquaKKeZrvjjPKbWForxG3yygwFVhYN3Sxk-xCO4avJ1T2osAt1Y4juUsxyQOoKmd68k1Pbhrg2u7tL/w400-h400/Sundial_from_Madain_SalehA.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Traditional Middle East sundial.</div><div>"Sundial with Aramean Inscription, Sandstone...found in Madain Saleh."</div><div>Istanbul Archaeological Museums - Museum of the Ancient Orient, Inv. No. 7664.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sundial_from_Madain_Saleh.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sundial_from_Madain_Saleh.JPG</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Every garden seems to have a sundial. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9qMs8CWU5CA3WdOhEZ9xy_ZO7jfTh-57HFu4bBAGZkXlTVz3kbVEx7_SA7XTTVPk7pAc55oQkhGCPNjirwwV99kssYXJ6Jne56z6C-zmVQVirfQDfAOtFsDvTHX0aikf14_znGDleQk2k_4k_oUqes3I_q-pldc1oAg9Drx8DZ8qrX5kZ_oCfUQrv/s800/2560px-Assyrian_soldiers_with_horses_marching_through_a_forest,_probably_a_hunting_scene._From_Khorsabad,_Iraq._The_Iraq_MuseumAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="656" data-original-width="800" height="524" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9qMs8CWU5CA3WdOhEZ9xy_ZO7jfTh-57HFu4bBAGZkXlTVz3kbVEx7_SA7XTTVPk7pAc55oQkhGCPNjirwwV99kssYXJ6Jne56z6C-zmVQVirfQDfAOtFsDvTHX0aikf14_znGDleQk2k_4k_oUqes3I_q-pldc1oAg9Drx8DZ8qrX5kZ_oCfUQrv/w640-h524/2560px-Assyrian_soldiers_with_horses_marching_through_a_forest,_probably_a_hunting_scene._From_Khorsabad,_Iraq._The_Iraq_MuseumAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">A relief depicting plants and nature.<br /><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Assyrian_soldiers_with_horses_marching_through_a_forest,_probably_a_hunting_scene._From_Khorsabad,_Iraq._The_Iraq_Museum.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Assyrian_soldiers_with_horses_marching_through_a_forest,_probably_a_hunting_scene._From_Khorsabad,_Iraq._The_Iraq_Museum.jpg</a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>There is something very soothing about them in the middle of the noise of a bustling city where you can hear the donkeys braying, the clank of metal at the metal smiths, carts and sleds going down the roads, and always a song or two or the chords of a musical instrument that drifts out from a doorway. And musicians are often playing in the gardens as well.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXKSHNZd8Flc1AJRalZplYjq2ZyG3XKomgweNiJEbJLM1B9HjULaouK3_zItGWqhZO4oI_5C8my0lsvmW86LAdy9FomTbZVV0maJzAf_8Hoq89eoU-GW0gI4wqQv6e5qgMPq84Y583BtPkzCfwxucz0S2Q64IBoJwfRHQreoXUcUZIyRh7HqZMnr9_/s800/Ur_lyreAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="463" data-original-width="800" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXKSHNZd8Flc1AJRalZplYjq2ZyG3XKomgweNiJEbJLM1B9HjULaouK3_zItGWqhZO4oI_5C8my0lsvmW86LAdy9FomTbZVV0maJzAf_8Hoq89eoU-GW0gI4wqQv6e5qgMPq84Y583BtPkzCfwxucz0S2Q64IBoJwfRHQreoXUcUZIyRh7HqZMnr9_/w640-h370/Ur_lyreAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">A detail from the Standard of Ur. On the left is a man drinking beer, in the middle a man playing the lyre, on the right, a woman singing.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ur_lyre.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ur_lyre.jpg</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Now tired from your sudden change and the new culture, you go to one of many beer parlors. Your luck seems to be holding because in your wanderings someone had dropped a couple of coins, known as shekels, that you found. You hand one to the tavern owner, and she gives you a huge beer in a pottery cup. The beer is so rich it is almost like a meal. It is made from the main crop, barley. The goddess, Ninkasi, is the Mesopotamian goddess of beer and brewing and Sumerians praise her in a hymn that also details a recipe for making beer. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI8pLDSLxw2_uYWsq1axuk1tnrn4HejejtBQ4Ntqc2YyzZ3cIeb31dHG4ZSUplLBFvLCLFCSXx-c_3cC16zlLPkpX_1YqzMSfTen6hiAapizDhUsMpk3pH-ZCdHIvUoKMQlfmImbERHo0rPyCIvC-Fwz74fNkBBKQhSP6LDwzEMbwtMMn6QQ4hUD8T/s800/Plaque_with_musician_playing_a_lute,_Ischali,_Isin-Larsa_period,_2000-1600_BC,_baked_clay_-_Oriental_Institute_Museum,_University_of_Chicago_-_DSC07344A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="800" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI8pLDSLxw2_uYWsq1axuk1tnrn4HejejtBQ4Ntqc2YyzZ3cIeb31dHG4ZSUplLBFvLCLFCSXx-c_3cC16zlLPkpX_1YqzMSfTen6hiAapizDhUsMpk3pH-ZCdHIvUoKMQlfmImbERHo0rPyCIvC-Fwz74fNkBBKQhSP6LDwzEMbwtMMn6QQ4hUD8T/w640-h388/Plaque_with_musician_playing_a_lute,_Ischali,_Isin-Larsa_period,_2000-1600_BC,_baked_clay_-_Oriental_Institute_Museum,_University_of_Chicago_-_DSC07344A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>"Plaque with musician playing a lute, Ischali, Isin-Larsa period, 2000-1600 BC, baked clay."</div><div>Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plaque_with_musician_playing_a_lute,_Ischali,_Isin-Larsa_period,_2000-1600_BC,_baked_clay_-_Oriental_Institute_Museum,_University_of_Chicago_-_DSC07344.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plaque_with_musician_playing_a_lute,_Ischali,_Isin-Larsa_period,_2000-1600_BC,_baked_clay_-_Oriental_Institute_Museum,_University_of_Chicago_-_DSC07344.JPG</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When you sit down, the musicians, who were taking a break, come back and begin to play. It is a duo. A man plays the lyre while the woman sings and the tuning is very strange. You think, "It's almost like the 21st Century." Because of the loud response by the crowd in this beer joint, who sing along and know all the words, you think it must be the hymn to Ninkasi that you read in translation just before your journey. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Ninkasi</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>It is you who soak the malt in a jar; the waves rise, the waves fall. </i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>It is you who spread the cooked mash on large reed mats; coolness overcomes</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>It is you who hold with both hands the great sweetwort, brewing it with honey and wine</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section4/tr4231.htm">https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section4/tr4231.htm</a></b></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Tired but not knowing how long you will be able to explore your new world, you finish your beer, which has gone a bit to your head, and move on. Now that the sun is starting to set, the crisp angles of the brick buildings create sharp shadows that lengthen down the streets. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZFHxWkj2GeTVwH8BIogIaSD0ATS2UdxDS3fF282neNtzAE-5FcqruTOmt08Rs3KAphlsttMpy480zoaDKmOMCWYi7pcrc6oM4bEvRIXbAoiN8VLNfQBTjtiIwO-09ueSkr4lUWOGAm0AeQDWQTYfRjWrnORjkPDQzCTDWSfjaFR6eOHk97fcfugTR/s800/BROWN_U_2aaaa.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="800" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZFHxWkj2GeTVwH8BIogIaSD0ATS2UdxDS3fF282neNtzAE-5FcqruTOmt08Rs3KAphlsttMpy480zoaDKmOMCWYi7pcrc6oM4bEvRIXbAoiN8VLNfQBTjtiIwO-09ueSkr4lUWOGAm0AeQDWQTYfRjWrnORjkPDQzCTDWSfjaFR6eOHk97fcfugTR/w640-h310/BROWN_U_2aaaa.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">Twilight in the city. [1]</div></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>You find yourself at the bottom of the steps where you first arrived and you walk up the steps to gain an overview as the sun fades. You see families across the wealthy residential areas sitting on their flat roofs to have an evening meal and sing songs and tell stories. Dim lamps on these roofs are scattered throughout the growing darkness.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Xih5dwFOl5rrC_ZWG6P22dG1i0fKih0htVXHMfSmEO9Hbpo61CnpP-vTJg37dZ9JMUgBxuSjfzR7_9B5AeQnvbOSs-XNgmEnxm2rxBs4vmAw3ZTVLeTB8BSk_l1kWH8x1MENepK_tg1jquQIC6rRhtfozc6EmbYf4dSbhmOcs-Zyx4WYeO0b1BHw/s800/BROWN_U_2AAAAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="363" data-original-width="800" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Xih5dwFOl5rrC_ZWG6P22dG1i0fKih0htVXHMfSmEO9Hbpo61CnpP-vTJg37dZ9JMUgBxuSjfzR7_9B5AeQnvbOSs-XNgmEnxm2rxBs4vmAw3ZTVLeTB8BSk_l1kWH8x1MENepK_tg1jquQIC6rRhtfozc6EmbYf4dSbhmOcs-Zyx4WYeO0b1BHw/w640-h290/BROWN_U_2AAAAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Twilight in the city. [1]</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And when the sun does fully set you are surprised at how dark a city of this size becomes. Now down at street level, the light of a few sesame oil lamps appears from doorways. But although there is no moonlight, the sky is clear and your sight adjusts to the darkness. You are surprised that you can see your way with just the light of the stars. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyHmBBeVp_yD9jVckBqP6If9Nc5ob5bwFasKnmD-7cDHW_ydgT-lYth3u6km9qfjb5TzT__oaOzxVAaMTBnQgbKZZIgumVzYGoR049Iz4FNbDeAqQ3Vc_L6Pn8PYAaPV9M5icXvETGAMGLY17X3yq1WoEqn5DB_w-kSgZKZFICIfZTq6d8iJbkNnpp/s800/Zig_closeaA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="800" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyHmBBeVp_yD9jVckBqP6If9Nc5ob5bwFasKnmD-7cDHW_ydgT-lYth3u6km9qfjb5TzT__oaOzxVAaMTBnQgbKZZIgumVzYGoR049Iz4FNbDeAqQ3Vc_L6Pn8PYAaPV9M5icXvETGAMGLY17X3yq1WoEqn5DB_w-kSgZKZFICIfZTq6d8iJbkNnpp/w640-h380/Zig_closeaA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">The stairway to the Ziggurat of Ur.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zig_close.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zig_close.JPG</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And you know from your reading, that the priests in the ziggurat are probably making astronomical observations on a clear night like this. The nighttime is a time for this magnificent building to be a "highway to heaven."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZY9OItVK48A8IXUreZ_Ga1Hv6kDA26pSLw8HREKycl6HKluLwwCDbO6NjTk9y-j81Jpsr_4VBHTy_uNHPT_F046j0Jfo0Vct5dKqVz28bx6bJY26Jg8bE27WqOKwcS0-64s5YV5NW88EGSOII4-dhT9ydlLwwDkECy4qY2N6jqc79dn2l83g2H4wG/s800/Walls_of_Babylon_2_RBAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="800" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZY9OItVK48A8IXUreZ_Ga1Hv6kDA26pSLw8HREKycl6HKluLwwCDbO6NjTk9y-j81Jpsr_4VBHTy_uNHPT_F046j0Jfo0Vct5dKqVz28bx6bJY26Jg8bE27WqOKwcS0-64s5YV5NW88EGSOII4-dhT9ydlLwwDkECy4qY2N6jqc79dn2l83g2H4wG/w640-h342/Walls_of_Babylon_2_RBAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">The reconstructed city walls of Babylon.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walls_of_Babylon_2_RB.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walls_of_Babylon_2_RB.JPG</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZHzzpQdjY5ZtfpCa9VaACcfrjBvbc2PaRtcjJKW30Pa4jVYEUMUzf-88_dw_qNfxvvO3dLR7Fflk7zNZ8DwUSXQ3UgLi4c0WJQuwlkUzPjKeJ52O4ZuYn60Dg-GLY8X7p4S9QLTex4AghREtKCYpbxpSuubshcNXM2t1YtxYBqEDrgWuKJ3KGOJVg/s1001/Walls_of_Babylon_3_RBAAA.jpg" style="font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1001" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZHzzpQdjY5ZtfpCa9VaACcfrjBvbc2PaRtcjJKW30Pa4jVYEUMUzf-88_dw_qNfxvvO3dLR7Fflk7zNZ8DwUSXQ3UgLi4c0WJQuwlkUzPjKeJ52O4ZuYn60Dg-GLY8X7p4S9QLTex4AghREtKCYpbxpSuubshcNXM2t1YtxYBqEDrgWuKJ3KGOJVg/w320-h400/Walls_of_Babylon_3_RBAAA.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;">The entrance to the outside of the walls.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walls_of_Babylon_3_RB.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walls_of_Babylon_3_RB.JPG</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>You walk toward the edge of town, go through an archway and realize that you are now outside the walls and also in an area that is almost like another city unto itself. Thousands of small homes made out of reeds and reed mats stretch to the river. This is where most farmers and many other commoners live. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheDij0CxTszxXoO2_z90RhUmChJLD-JTINYjDC5wRR8y2em6x52xgdFCYvdSY6LF-7meVk93NTstC-DZCSp4vkKbCyvfrD2gywn4OqNLd63flZ8meUnmRtHCU487zutQEaPfDzSzuIvawz-bjd1Bfd5oJHkFZv9MO7nfwyDukkLDT_BwGvJnDcGrpn/s640/An_Arab_Village_of_Reed_Mats_and_Round_Fort_on_Lower_Euphrates,_Mesoptamia._(29621784911)AA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheDij0CxTszxXoO2_z90RhUmChJLD-JTINYjDC5wRR8y2em6x52xgdFCYvdSY6LF-7meVk93NTstC-DZCSp4vkKbCyvfrD2gywn4OqNLd63flZ8meUnmRtHCU487zutQEaPfDzSzuIvawz-bjd1Bfd5oJHkFZv9MO7nfwyDukkLDT_BwGvJnDcGrpn/s16000/An_Arab_Village_of_Reed_Mats_and_Round_Fort_on_Lower_Euphrates,_Mesoptamia._(29621784911)AA.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"An Arab Village of Reed Mats...on Lower Euphrates, Mesopotamia."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:An_Arab_Village_of_Reed_Mats_and_Round_Fort_on_Lower_Euphrates,_Mesoptamia._(29621784911).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:An_Arab_Village_of_Reed_Mats_and_Round_Fort_on_Lower_Euphrates,_Mesoptamia._(29621784911).jpg</a></span></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">While the city inside the walls has clear, if narrow winding streets, this part of the city is more of a hodge-podge. Houses clump together in odd configurations and strange angles and the path through them is not obvious. There is often an unpleasant smell of human waste.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4GjFsW8iRwRqWZHsUaYzynhsavIVjqtJGdHladlHlzHixLoAjoZYLAtLTFxQxOt0-yHsySzc-h6OghMcWjgNri1PrLYIzByB3JQ_UU9EBXsG0uaqbnidep1LwycZ7kQ2-JwNo7WUOiAgWIpeSabmu8XwFkCflPinIw_rkDkqYaE6onOk2Pe-xyUGF/s800/capture_Q007a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="587" data-original-width="800" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4GjFsW8iRwRqWZHsUaYzynhsavIVjqtJGdHladlHlzHixLoAjoZYLAtLTFxQxOt0-yHsySzc-h6OghMcWjgNri1PrLYIzByB3JQ_UU9EBXsG0uaqbnidep1LwycZ7kQ2-JwNo7WUOiAgWIpeSabmu8XwFkCflPinIw_rkDkqYaE6onOk2Pe-xyUGF/w640-h470/capture_Q007a.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">A pile of mats. Mats were an all-purpose item, <br />They could be used on floors, as walls, and as a roof. [2]</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Suddenly you become aware that you are hungry and have nowhere to sleep. But as you go through these homes of common people, a couple notices you are a stranger and probably lost and invites you into their raba or "grass hut" as they are called, A raba is a small version of the very large well made ceremonial reed buildings called mudhifs, buildings which have been constructed for thousands of years before the cities appeared. Rabas can be large enough for a family and quite comfortable. They are made entirely from reeds, even the rope. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFGBSuunZUTOGzX_nB5ewawAWrwq_3hjXfOr59KlxGfEWswpXyw66kuRXuEZo7S9q2Ea_IwLYaIIc1Gkdch1p-nGC0NvOrKQA_b_GxzOGUZR9hrmCcM4zEGlTHqI1sj7wNfOmQWtgXy-iKWBplzWC2PgMl8l1V3U6y8KJDcw8wRKTynx8wpbhbBhQL/s1037/MUDHIF_TWILIGHTA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="1037" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFGBSuunZUTOGzX_nB5ewawAWrwq_3hjXfOr59KlxGfEWswpXyw66kuRXuEZo7S9q2Ea_IwLYaIIc1Gkdch1p-nGC0NvOrKQA_b_GxzOGUZR9hrmCcM4zEGlTHqI1sj7wNfOmQWtgXy-iKWBplzWC2PgMl8l1V3U6y8KJDcw8wRKTynx8wpbhbBhQL/w640-h342/MUDHIF_TWILIGHTA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Mudhif under construction with light coming through the reed lattices.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/%D8%A7%D9%87%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%82_%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%84%D8%A7.jpg/2560px-%D8%A7%D9%87%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%82_%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%84%D8%A7.jpg">Click to see the source for this photo.</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As you look around you see that the whole neighborhood, as far as you can see, is composed of these huts. You have left the world of brick. As you follow your new friends to their home, you can see light from fires that spills out of doorways and the lattice work at the front.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Inside the hut, it's almost like being in a large tent. The dirt floor is covered with reed mats, and on the edges are chests and hampers made of reeds. There is a fire in a dirt pit lined with hardened clay.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>You sit at a table with the family and their eight children to enjoy a stew of beans, beets, and cabbage flavored with unusual spices and onions along with fish from the river and barley bread, and, of course, beer. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje70VxYqr9dMstwHxXdl_50PyQVNiXx-OveUWeSqY2WMq-Aclerjzyeqsr08DTJ8-A0gU17aI-ChgltR-jt82trZJ3fC7GwB0bddHJK8buxiLs5vERaQt5vDOnovar-JmB3EHKseghYFAMxojYI0FpH6LmhvHpXcxyuHubOlUDh8Gc0Ea4V9oXvE3g/s800/composite_faithful.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="800" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje70VxYqr9dMstwHxXdl_50PyQVNiXx-OveUWeSqY2WMq-Aclerjzyeqsr08DTJ8-A0gU17aI-ChgltR-jt82trZJ3fC7GwB0bddHJK8buxiLs5vERaQt5vDOnovar-JmB3EHKseghYFAMxojYI0FpH6LmhvHpXcxyuHubOlUDh8Gc0Ea4V9oXvE3g/w640-h444/composite_faithful.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">The faithful.</div><div style="text-align: center;">LET: "Standing male worshiper ca. 2900–2600 BCE. Sumerian"</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standing_Male_Worshiper.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standing_Male_Worshiper.jpg</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">RIGHT: "Statuette of a standing Sumerian female worshiper. Early Dynastic Period, 2600-2370 BCE."</div><div style="text-align: center;">From Diyala Region/Valley, Mesopotamia, Iraq. On display at the Iraq Museum in Baghdad.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Female_worshiper_from_Diyala_Region,_Iraq.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Female_worshiper_from_Diyala_Region,_Iraq.jpg</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Before eating you clasp your hands together as your guests do and the evening prayer is said. In the corner of the house is a small shrine that is private and used only by the family.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Because you are a guest, they serve you a special cake sweetened with honey. As you eat your dessert one of the children tells a story and everyone laughs. Then another child tells her story and then a parent tells a story. After that music begins. Everyone either plays an instrument or sings. The boy bangs a drum and a girl plays a string instrument that looks like a lute or mandolin. You now realize music is an important part of Sumerian life almost as much as the daily religious rituals.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Sitting on the comfortable reed mats, you lean back a bit and enjoy the moment.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMTn2jRJy_z3lR3BM5U6nLFF14k93AIz0WG8SUl0lGSAoiTVxw7DldSn8oDw9IukSbi0kX_twGXzO3BzGRTeqZ3N-pRiFw0WbmUeEah8fHX95GbF7lK8n_OCQIblx7xe4zY0PcCpELZfAZJVEcpToBi115p0_3M82nREDlJJshnQuI6fdNhZQAssXB/s800/UrukHead.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="601" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMTn2jRJy_z3lR3BM5U6nLFF14k93AIz0WG8SUl0lGSAoiTVxw7DldSn8oDw9IukSbi0kX_twGXzO3BzGRTeqZ3N-pRiFw0WbmUeEah8fHX95GbF7lK8n_OCQIblx7xe4zY0PcCpELZfAZJVEcpToBi115p0_3M82nREDlJJshnQuI6fdNhZQAssXB/w480-h640/UrukHead.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">"The head of a Goddess of Uruk on white marble circa 3000 BCE."</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UrukHead.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UrukHead.jpg</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But suddenly you wake up and realize you are in your own bed and the sun is rising. It's the 21st Century. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Was it a dream? No matter, it felt real. And what could you learn from your visit? What could the first civilization tell you that might benefit the modern world or help us have a better understanding of the past?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>You are left with the lingering image of a woman -- that must have been in a garden although you don't remember where. Her picture stays with you all the next day as she seems to sum up your feelings about your journey.</b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">[1] </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; text-align: center;">brown_u_landscape.pdf</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">[2] </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; text-align: center;">brown_u_landscape.pdf</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-1149479679052377152023-02-28T05:52:00.003-05:002023-03-15T02:21:51.048-04:00Thought Experiments & Imagination<div style="text-align: left;"><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b><i>Thought Experiments </i></b></span></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>How To Use Your Imagination </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>to Understand the Ancient Past</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS72gbiQaBR62T-aoTA4iSl6-Dtqa87bnJN0oaev9vukrNYaZa6dgubxsj_hlldJB_tIDsKLOpVrsL48L5ZLQbDkTUfFJ6zEWny4CKFJ6osCX-KJVDAkbAEUbGPwzbuGRQurZaCiZ9QPXKMk2SJ9-qUL7KxYmHJXAIo54Pfv1CqDDvOroWrOdrgl3p/s800/1_einstein_lightbeam_clockaA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="800" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS72gbiQaBR62T-aoTA4iSl6-Dtqa87bnJN0oaev9vukrNYaZa6dgubxsj_hlldJB_tIDsKLOpVrsL48L5ZLQbDkTUfFJ6zEWny4CKFJ6osCX-KJVDAkbAEUbGPwzbuGRQurZaCiZ9QPXKMk2SJ9-qUL7KxYmHJXAIo54Pfv1CqDDvOroWrOdrgl3p/w640-h428/1_einstein_lightbeam_clockaA.jpg" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;">Einstein and a light beam.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;">Around the age of 16, Einstein began to imagine what he would see if he were riding a beam of light. Ten years later, due to his thought experiment, he made a breakthrough in his understanding which led to his Theory of Special Relativity.</span><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"> <br />Your cell phone and many other things could not operate without his discovery.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einstein_1921_by_F_Schmutzer.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einstein_1921_by_F_Schmutzer.jpg</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luxor_Light_Beam_by_inSapphoWeTrust.jpeg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luxor_Light_Beam_by_inSapphoWeTrust.jpeg</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><blockquote><i>This article is for people who are studying prehistory. But it also applies to anyone who is working with a problem in science and wants to experiment with a new approach.</i></blockquote></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">To investigate the past, we must rid ourselves of our modern point of view and try to look at the past from its own point of view. Unless we can do this we will not be able to grasp how the past transpired and also how it connects to the modern day. </b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;">One way to free ourselves</span></b></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>is to use our imaginations. </b></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>However, your imagination is only one of many tools in your toolbox. Logic is another tool, as is finding direct and indirect evidence, following hunches and intuitions, and locating opinions from respected authorities. In an effort to prove something, you will probably use a combination of tools.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In this article, I will start with examples of important "thought experiments," experiments by Galileo and Einstein, in which they imagined a set of circumstances. What they revealed and discovered via their imaginings changed science and our modern world. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I believe that people who investigate prehistory can also benefit from this approach. They can use their imagination to go back in time and then place themselves in that time period. If you suddenly time-traveled to a Mesopotamian city 5000 years ago standing on a street corner, what would you see, what would you hear, what would you smell, what would you touch?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(Be sure to read the next blog which will be a detailed fictional time-travel journey to Mesopotamia.)</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Thought experiments, as they are called, have a surprisingly long recorded history. To prove a point or to work out a problem, the experimenter imagines a situation that reveals information. One of the first recorded such experiments came from Galileo and it was very important.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>GALILEO'S SHIP</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Galileo's 1632 book, <i>Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems,</i> considered all the common arguments against the new idea that the Earth rotates at a rapid speed around its axis and also orbits the Sun. This was the book that got him into trouble with the church.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"One of the contrary arguments was that if the Earth were spinning on its axis, then we would all be moving to the East at thousands of kilometers per hour so a ball dropped straight down from a tower would land West of the tower which would have moved some distance East in the interim."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_ship">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_ship</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKutOE8wYifHRM1eOQp5c9F7Lk-TEwsgYIpKg_ULJ9Na09zYw3mrLutr9a7nhrRvozW5N2yyiSG_cxtVo9jvsRoDfMXXQQzf098Ae_S8de2NdYcz-z7eXnzFcP_9tJIaCDTEo5vYY7bY3ykkLGWg3Xo6F_h95Vp__KxdrjmE1xpViS5e-hq7baE1yn/s800/Lybska_SvanAaaA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="607" data-original-width="800" height="486" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKutOE8wYifHRM1eOQp5c9F7Lk-TEwsgYIpKg_ULJ9Na09zYw3mrLutr9a7nhrRvozW5N2yyiSG_cxtVo9jvsRoDfMXXQQzf098Ae_S8de2NdYcz-z7eXnzFcP_9tJIaCDTEo5vYY7bY3ykkLGWg3Xo6F_h95Vp__KxdrjmE1xpViS5e-hq7baE1yn/w640-h486/Lybska_SvanAaaA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For Galileo's thought experiment to work, he had to find a vehicle that moved smoothly without bumps or jerking. It had to be a motion that would not be felt. In the modern world, we are used to this such as riding in cars or trains or planes. But in Galileo's time, boats were the best vehicles for illustrating his ideas. <br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lybska_Svan.jpeg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lybska_Svan.jpeg</a></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Galileo created a character in his book, whom he named Salviati, to make his argument. He explained why we do not feel this motion, using a thought experiment. Salviati says:</b></span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Shut yourself up with some friend in the main cabin below decks on some large ship, and have with you there some flies, butterflies, and other small flying animals. Have a large bowl of water with some fish in it; hang up a bottle that empties drop by drop into a wide vessel beneath it. With the ship standing still, observe carefully how the little animals fly with equal speed to all sides of the cabin. The fish swim indifferently in all directions; the drops fall into the vessel beneath; and, in throwing something to your friend, you need to throw it no more strongly in one direction than another, the distances being equal; jumping with your feet together, you pass equal spaces in every direction. When you have observed all these things carefully (though doubtless when the ship is standing still everything must happen in this way), have the ship proceed with any speed you like, so long as the motion is uniform and not fluctuating this way and that. You will discover not the least change in all the effects named, nor could you tell from any of them whether the ship was moving or standing still. In jumping, you will pass on the floor the same spaces as before, nor will you make larger jumps toward the stern than toward the prow even though the ship is moving quite rapidly, despite the fact that during the time that you are in the air the floor under you will be going in a direction opposite to your jump.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Galileo Galilei, <i>Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems</i> (1632), translated by Stillman Drake, University of California Press, 1953, pp. 186 - 187 (Second Day).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_ship">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_ship</a></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_ship"></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>With this experiment, he showed how the Earth could constantly rotate 1,000 miles an hour and also move over 60,000 miles an hour in its orbit around the sun. But we on Earth would not feel it.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"What did Galileo's thought experiment prove?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"Galileo concluded that all objects on Earth and within its atmosphere share in its motion. As a result, they are unaffected by its motion, just as if they were stationary."</b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>Galileo's Thought Experiment</i></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.pbslearningmedia.org">https://www.pbslearningmedia.org</a></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>EINSTEIN'S THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Einstein's thought experiment (next) was equally important and was, in many ways, similar to what Galileo had imagined. In both cases, the experimenter is inside a moving vehicle but the environment inside that vehicle is normal and the same as if the vehicle were still. So the environment of the interior is not influenced by the motion of the vehicle.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>However, there was a significant difference between them. In Galileo's case, he was explaining something he had already decided. He believed the Earth went around the Sun and was looking for a clear way to explain it. In Einstein's case, he had made a discovery, because his thought experiment led directly to new ideas in the Theory of</b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> Special </b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> Relativity. </b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In this theory, Einstein proved that time was relative. But even though he had this revelation, he still had to do the hard work of figuring out the math, which he did immediately after this event.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH2vt6GgBgi1O2mCU7P3uICwGFLo96T7sJtKWVsezKk347b3epFqrOPcYL_OpXCSCAOQZsUsfj7364cLwh1c_J0gyZRjN-3kPTCt6CQcOWLJeUi7GiF82Zh4rZLAg1ZU24eGoamdqmcQfT_b7dVZfXvAKNWs5lZSjfL2eJenYqwoDf7lbVvmONKCTG/s640/BTG03wiki_1AA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH2vt6GgBgi1O2mCU7P3uICwGFLo96T7sJtKWVsezKk347b3epFqrOPcYL_OpXCSCAOQZsUsfj7364cLwh1c_J0gyZRjN-3kPTCt6CQcOWLJeUi7GiF82Zh4rZLAg1ZU24eGoamdqmcQfT_b7dVZfXvAKNWs5lZSjfL2eJenYqwoDf7lbVvmONKCTG/w480-h640/BTG03wiki_1AA.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The street car in Bern Switzerland <br />and the Zytglogge (bell ringing) clock above it. <br />The clock was made around 1400 CE.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BTG03wiki.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BTG03wiki.jpg</a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>“[Einstein's] first thought experiment has to do with time and stems from a thought Einstein had while riding home in a streetcar in Bern. He saw the clock tower passing behind him and wondered how the clock would appear as the streetcar moved faster and faster,” writes Chris Impey of Teach Astronomy.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.feelguide.com/2016/09/08/the-swiss-clocktower-that-inspired-einsteins-revolutionary-experiment-changed-history-forever/">https://www.feelguide.com/2016/09/08/the-swiss-clocktower-that-inspired-einsteins-revolutionary-experiment-changed-history-forever/</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"Einstein heard the toll one evening in May 1905. He had been confounded by a scientific paradox for a decade, and when he gazed up at the tower he suddenly imagined an unimaginable scene. What, he wondered, would happen if a streetcar raced away from the tower at the speed of light?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"If he was sitting in the streetcar, he realized, his watch would still be ticking. But looking back at the tower, the clock – and time – would seem to have stopped. It was a breakthrough moment."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20160901-the-clock-that-changed-the-meaning-of-time">https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20160901-the-clock-that-changed-the-meaning-of-time</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Einstein's discovery was, in some ways, a combination of a thought experiment and idea-incubation. Idea-incubation means that you have been working on an idea, give up, and then suddenly the answer comes to you. Einstein had been thinking about light from the age of 16. He had wondered then what it would be like to ride a beam of light. So this idea had been rolling around in his head for some time. And on that fateful night, it came together.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I also find it fascinating that Einstein's imagination was kicked into high gear because of the sound of the clock's bell. It was a medieval clock in Bern Switzerland called Zytglogge and it had an ancient connection that reached back to the beginning of timekeeping and time itself. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpgPffgRmdj1Wi8WfyPqlMPOqWuTpS9bGYVuLDsCG2Peo58MmQ-G7T8HCWu97apxiliXX80H1RiGcKQ0mZ3XRySPKihTH8_HnBUVd_cGaJ0C3X5T-Fp1oghHd89BsHCbeA1GeJQ8himhye9FOdk2tq4XcsQ5646GBhBvVWZCHBp37A3uSF0LKLAMLc/s800/!CHRONOS.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="800" height="414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpgPffgRmdj1Wi8WfyPqlMPOqWuTpS9bGYVuLDsCG2Peo58MmQ-G7T8HCWu97apxiliXX80H1RiGcKQ0mZ3XRySPKihTH8_HnBUVd_cGaJ0C3X5T-Fp1oghHd89BsHCbeA1GeJQ8himhye9FOdk2tq4XcsQ5646GBhBvVWZCHBp37A3uSF0LKLAMLc/w640-h414/!CHRONOS.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>At the top of the clock tower in Bern, the Greek god of time, Chronos,<br />rings the specially made bell (installed in 1405) each hour. <br />He is a primeval god who created time itself.</div><div><a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Zytglogge_03.jpg">https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Zytglogge_03.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The clock was built with Ptolemy's approx. 2000-year-old ancient geocentric system. The clock's gearing was based on Ptolemy's Earth-centered astronomical geometry. But just as important, the bell that rang was rung by a mechanical model of the ancient Greek god of time, Chronos (where we get the word chronology). And Chronos was not just any old Greek god. He was a primeval god who, at the very beginning of creation, brought the world into being, and then time itself. [1]</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>While Einstein was well aware of Greek philosophy and drama, he may not have had a detailed knowledge of Greek mythology. This mythology contained many tellings of the same story which often conflicted, and it would have taken a good deal of research to understand the powers and importance of each god. It is my belief that imagination, intuition, and things like thought experiments can often connect to unconscious ideas and long-forgotten cultural narratives. In this case, Einstein's new ideas about time were connected with the Western history of time concepts back to the very beginning, the birth of time. </b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO THE STUDY OF PREHISTORY?</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>On the subject of studying prehistory author, Chris Gordon, had this to say.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"This is where the study of prehistory comes in — a method of UNLEARNING THE PRESENT <i>[</i></b><i>my emphasis]</i><b> and developing an understanding of the past."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Gosden, Chris, 'The problems of prehistory', <i>Prehistory: A Very Short Introduction</i>, 1st edn, Very Short Introductions (Oxford, 2003; online edn, Oxford Academic, 24 Sept. 2013), <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780192803436.003.0002">https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780192803436.003.0002</a>, accessed 29 Jan. 2023.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Part of the problem is that we are modern people and it is almost impossible to rid ourselves of our modern attitudes. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>To paraphrase what my friend Barbara Blake, a Ph.D., in Anthropology, said to me: our culture is so much a part of each of us that it is virtually impossible to rid ourselves of its influence. And many of our biases are so built-in, we may not be aware of them.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So with our imagination, we need to do two things. The first is to "unlearn the present" by mentally undressing and shedding our modern point of view.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Then next, with our imagination, try to go back into the ancient past and see it more clearly from the perspective of each time period and each culture. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But to do this we need some ground rules.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The first task is to rid ourselves of outdated ideas about 'stone age', 'primitive', 'savage', and 'uncivilized' people. This needs to be done first before we can tackle more specific biases such as assumptions about various technologies, for example. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But old ideas and attitudes are hard to shed. Lewis H. Morgan wrote, more than a hundred years ago, that the evolution of humanity went from savagery to barbarism to civilization, meaning that the Neolithic cultures were barbaric and Paleolithic people were savages. And for many people, this attitude has remained. </b></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The second task is to forget air conditioning and refrigerators and cars and highways and soft mattresses and cell phones. When considering prehistory in particular, you will have to forgo most modern comforts. So you will need to forget even basic things such as running water and toilets. And you may need to keep a fire going constantly along with finding and storing wood. Also, imagine that instead of going to a store you have to make every tool and container you use. You will probably need to know how to make a variety of baskets. You grow all the food you eat and you make all your clothes. Every day you spend hours getting water and grinding grain and making bread.</b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The third task is to be open to the unexpected, to consider that in these harsh environments, ancient people might have created remarkable things or very different things that we would not expect. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But the problem with understanding prehistory only gets worse and more difficult as you go back in time, into the Paleolithic, for example. Finding evidence and dating it is hard for the Upper Paleolithic, very hard for the Middle Paleolithic, and almost impossible for the Lower Paleolithic. Not only does evidence decay or is degraded or buried but the hominins involved are increasingly different.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So the study of prehistory might make use of imaginative tools because so much is hidden from us. By rethinking or reimagining the past, it is possible that we could see things that have been overlooked or connections that have not been made.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><blockquote>See an example of imaginative rethinking later in this article. This example describes a new insight into how the famous Australopithecus, Lucy, died.</blockquote></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE OF USING YOUR IMAGINATION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">How I Developed The Idea</b></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>That A Neolithic Culture Could Be More Advanced</b></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Than The Romans 3000 Years Later </b></div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The winter solstice is not just a day on the calendar. Our local and much-loved weatherman, Skip Waters, made the point that the time period of the winter solstice occurs for about a week, not just a day. And that it was virtually impossible to know the specific day of the solstice through direct observation as there was only a few seconds' difference in the length of the day and a tiny degree difference in the position of the sun during that week. Measuring the sun's position was further complicated by atmospheric refraction. It was not until the 18th Century that the winter solstice could be determined optically by direct observation.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>However, to everyone's surprise, archaeologists discovered that the Neolithic culture at Newgrange Ireland had somehow overcome these difficulties by building a huge passageway with a special roof-box that was aligned with the solstice sun. And this got me wondering if other cultures, even 3000 years later such as Rome, could do this.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy34XxbXspykC2fQW5e0R2Qxw6huHNUqEV8NNITLa00vNFlIXSdO-uXMARgeifVtwlGPy723Mnwx8n9e1GOyKmLVUmrwuB0yzkdiY05Z0mJ_PfnchGn6j16RMcMt6T8PXPyyNhJ9IS4FxDdy2FmJdRv0nfXCqtyYrl4W3dKqz17Bc1GFg3zUvWwEiW/s800/COMPOSITE_NEWGRANGE)_DRAWING.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="800" height="604" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy34XxbXspykC2fQW5e0R2Qxw6huHNUqEV8NNITLa00vNFlIXSdO-uXMARgeifVtwlGPy723Mnwx8n9e1GOyKmLVUmrwuB0yzkdiY05Z0mJ_PfnchGn6j16RMcMt6T8PXPyyNhJ9IS4FxDdy2FmJdRv0nfXCqtyYrl4W3dKqz17Bc1GFg3zUvWwEiW/w640-h604/COMPOSITE_NEWGRANGE)_DRAWING.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Outside (top) and overview (bottom) of the passage tomb at Newgrange from 1897. It took another 70 years before Newgrange was fully understood, partly due to modern misconceptions about the capabilities of prehistoric people.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Coffey, George. Drawings of Newgrange from the late 1800s. Published in: <i>The Dolmens of Ireland,</i>, by William Copeland Borlase. Published by the University of Michigan Library (January 1, 1897).</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial;">NOTE: I have used Newgrange as an example many times in these articles because it illustrates so many things when dealing with prehistory: a Neolithic structure that was misunderstood for hundreds of years and then positive proof that it was a well-made and accurate device. </span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>To begin I read translations of Roman accounts about the week-long Saturnalia festival. The name comes from the Roman god Saturn. a god who was Roman and not an adoption of a Greek god. He was associated with time, the harvest, periodic renewal, and liberation. His festival comes at the end of the year and is a time for wild celebration. Today, the weekday, Saturday, is named for him because it is a time when we can relax, kick back and enjoy that the week has come to an end. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgJuKI0m0XaFd7dgSZBoIy3dcv4uvA9PjQJ4DRqXsjeQuu02QHpdD1eh5uQcofU4oW0L6atHl3VdCSXrpYGeYKAqRu5eoIo8mHjtofnugxr1QE-4IVrdyEvXITxW8s7L6ZRmvGrkgoRCy8QNvytYoudOKd253k8G3ewUSe5ID5ttfsWcZ43T_CmV16U" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="427" data-original-width="640" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgJuKI0m0XaFd7dgSZBoIy3dcv4uvA9PjQJ4DRqXsjeQuu02QHpdD1eh5uQcofU4oW0L6atHl3VdCSXrpYGeYKAqRu5eoIo8mHjtofnugxr1QE-4IVrdyEvXITxW8s7L6ZRmvGrkgoRCy8QNvytYoudOKd253k8G3ewUSe5ID5ttfsWcZ43T_CmV16U=w640-h428" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Roman depictions of the god Saturn, an old man with a full beard, who was, among other things, the god of time. He held a sickle which was a symbol of harvest and bounty and also death and destruction. Bas-relief, 2nd century CE.<br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:0_Autel_d%C3%A9di%C3%A9_au_dieu_Malakb%C3%AAl_et_aux_dieux_de_Palmyra_-_Musei_Capitolini_%281b%29.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:0_Autel_d%C3%A9di%C3%A9_au_dieu_Malakb%C3%AAl_et_aux_dieux_de_Palmyra_-_Musei_Capitolini_%281b%29.JPG</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Saturnalia festival was a time when the darkness was celebrated as a joyous time. So, using my imagination, I put myself back into that time. What I saw as I walked through Rome was continuing darkness with no real change for about a week. It was the week that was celebrated and not the day. There were parties when special lamps were lit to light the darkness. Special foods were made, special songs were sung, and presents were exchanged. Then on December 25, when it was clear that the sun had stopped its winter decline and was now returning and getting brighter, that this later day was celebrated as the day of the sun's return.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But it seemed to me that the actual day of the solstice was not something that was determined nor was it that important to the Romans. What was important was the week-long festival, a time period of "solar standstill" (the Latin meaning of the word solstice).</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But this relationship to the solstice was quite different in Ireland where the day was an hour and a half shorter than the solstice day in Rome. I did not have written accounts but I did have the carefully made building at Newgrange, which in a sense, could talk to me.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I imagined the cold climate of Northern Ireland and an agricultural way of life. How would you feel as the sun sank lower and it got dark earlier each day, when the plants had stopped growing and lost their leaves, and they appeared to be dead? Imagine what it would have felt like as the days got shorter and the temperature colder and colder. So when I imagined myself in Ireland during the time of the solstice, I felt fear and dread. What I needed was a way to be reassured that the Sun would return and crops would grow again.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So, I believe, the Irish built a huge, sophisticated, complex monument to determine the exact time of the solstice. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZciFAi21ArSthauNnVc1iPiU26g11zxdh0jnb_KofRD7qhLdsAPz_9jYpVR5UZgFkSqAW5Qgvz4c22PCSs4O2le7VMo1ozoJVhjoabMqpzZN5RMPJnn3t2soBel-8Y6K0hOG_8rWpxmF0s6LTGI05fEn5Jab90iY3YaEGaDptrxi3CZskpcfZUsH_/s800/PASSAGEWAYA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="800" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZciFAi21ArSthauNnVc1iPiU26g11zxdh0jnb_KofRD7qhLdsAPz_9jYpVR5UZgFkSqAW5Qgvz4c22PCSs4O2le7VMo1ozoJVhjoabMqpzZN5RMPJnn3t2soBel-8Y6K0hOG_8rWpxmF0s6LTGI05fEn5Jab90iY3YaEGaDptrxi3CZskpcfZUsH_/w640-h426/PASSAGEWAYA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>The passageway at the Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland.</div><div>While this looks crude to our modern eyes, the alignment and placement of the stones were exact and by magnifying the sun's angle and movement could determine the day of the solstice in real-time.</div><div>LEFT: "A section of the passage leading towards the chamber of the Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Passage_leading_towards_chamber_of_Newgrange_passage_tomb_in_Ireland.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Passage_leading_towards_chamber_of_Newgrange_passage_tomb_in_Ireland.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: The light of the solstice in the passageway in 2013.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2013_Solstice_Newgrange.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2013_Solstice_Newgrange.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>After reading a description by the archaeologist Michael J. O'Kelly who discovered the solstice alignment of the Newgrange monument, I again put myself back in time. I stood in the Newgrange passageway, at the far end, as sunlight entered on the day of the winter solstice. I watched the sunlight quickly move toward me for about eight minutes until I was bathed in its light at the furthest reach of the hallway. And then I watched it retreat. This annual event would have been reassuring to these Neolithic people and it also signaled a profound bond between the Sun and the Earth. Clearly, this was a very different relationship than that of the Romans.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This led me to wonder if the Newgrange "instrument" as I have called it because it was like a scientific instrument, was more precise than what the Romans had. And my research seemed to bear this out. But if that were true, it completely changes the generally accepted timeline of Classical cultures vs. Neolithic cultures. It was always assumed that the Romans were far superior and more advanced in every way than the primitive, barbarian Neolithic people. And in many cases, the Romans were superior but perhaps not in this case. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>To put it simply, the Neolithic people felt a compelling need to create a precise accurate device that could indicate the exact day of the winter solstice. So they made such a device. The Romans did not feel such a need.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So my "imagination experiment" led me to research how the Romans did determine the day of the solstice. An expert on Roman astronomy said they could calculate the day of the solstice after the fact by interpolating measurements made before and after the solstice, but not in real-time as the people at Newgrange could. So if true, the Newgrange technology was superior 3000 years before the Romans.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Dr. Dennis Duke, "Four Lost Episodes in Ancient Solar Theory, Journal for the History of Astronomy," (2008)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~dduke/episodes3.pdf">http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~dduke/episodes3.pdf</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLE </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When I was writing this article, I wondered if there were any recent examples I could point to. So I thought about various scientific articles I had read. One study seemed like a good candidate. When I read it in depth I found that a key part of the study came about due to a man's imagination. A professor who had been working with the bones of the famous Australopithecus, Lucy, suddenly could see how she died, and knowing that also told him a lot about the way she and her people lived.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This is a perfect example of how to rethink a time period. Lucy, he decided, died because she fell from a high point in a tree. Nine orthopedic surgeons also looked at the bones and agreed that her fractures would have occurred due to a fall. So if what Dr. Kappelman says is true, and not all authorities agree, it changes many commonly held ideas about whether early hominins lived and slept in trees.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>“I have taught this fossil since I was a grad student in the 1980s,” says John Kappelman, a professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin and lead author of the study, which was published in the journal, <i>Nature</i>. “I knew these fractures were there, I just never thought to ask what had caused them. No one, as far as I know, has ever put out a theory of how she died.”</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTDUpOmFkF07ysZPBAYv4ji8L_DU3PtUgAuUveQ7SQJExsIRLh1nJxSk4GhUoUpqV_Yy7G5jAhfV6xecuiTaOoCqIt67ie7APouCzVWV6CKMOMhFecmWk4eukkvPoXWSI9TVhZgwQJsWGVF1RsaB5s84FBpWQI50D9WX7EVc_o4r8gpODgQzUC8mJp/s1086/Lucy_blackbgA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1086" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTDUpOmFkF07ysZPBAYv4ji8L_DU3PtUgAuUveQ7SQJExsIRLh1nJxSk4GhUoUpqV_Yy7G5jAhfV6xecuiTaOoCqIt67ie7APouCzVWV6CKMOMhFecmWk4eukkvPoXWSI9TVhZgwQJsWGVF1RsaB5s84FBpWQI50D9WX7EVc_o4r8gpODgQzUC8mJp/w236-h400/Lucy_blackbgA.jpg" width="236" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Lucy's bones, one of the most complete skeletons of early hominins.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lucy_blackbg.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lucy_blackbg.jpg</a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>“At one point, I had all these bones out and this idea just finally crystalized—I could see the fall, the position of her body when she hit, the impact,” says Kappelman. “For the very first time, I saw her as an individual and this wave of empathy hit me. For the first time, she was not just an isolated box of broken bones. I could actually picture how she died.”</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/lucy-tree-fall-human-ancestor">https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/lucy-tree-fall-human-ancestor</a></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>PUTTING YOUR IMAGINATION TO USE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As I have suggested, the best way to free yourself from a modern bias might be to use your imagination. I suggest, for example, that you go back in time to a prehistoric place and take off all your clothes. Then put on clothes that were probably common then. Do some research to find out what kind of clothes they wore. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>How does it feel to move and sit and work in those clothes, for example? How does the fabric or animal skin feel? Do you have shoes or a hat? What about a belt or pockets? What are they made of? How are they all put together?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HERE ARE SOME OTHER TIMES TO IMAGINE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Imagine a city in the world's first civilization, Mesopotamia</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Next month read my next blog-article about time-traveling to Mesopotamia and walking around a city.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Imagine the Neolithic</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Imagine you land in a small Neolithic village about 10,000 years ago.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Imagine the Mesolithic</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Imagine you are part of a tribe of people who are hunter-gatherers for part of the year and settled in huts for other parts of the year.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Imagine the Upper Paleolithic</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Imagine belonging to a tribe that lives in caves some of the time but is nomadic all year long.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Imagine the Lower Paleolithic</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Imagine you are with hominins who are nomadic hunter-gatherers and often camp near or in Baobab trees on the African plains.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYRhH_rXWXAmI1P1PbF_gzDapN8A9DRcbSzGHrP1pSIPqJ_naLmjltYU-fJvSmaY9vs41CjrIgOyzWAaS76ligqLMUEELCbv5l9ztJh3fryUEBP9OXfqm0qGD4De3GiMlvhxe5JgBdV0Mxbnp11FA0VncTEyre1VsD1pwC1DikYoyNl6TQYzGFQ1CC/s800/BROWN_U_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="800" height="597" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYRhH_rXWXAmI1P1PbF_gzDapN8A9DRcbSzGHrP1pSIPqJ_naLmjltYU-fJvSmaY9vs41CjrIgOyzWAaS76ligqLMUEELCbv5l9ztJh3fryUEBP9OXfqm0qGD4De3GiMlvhxe5JgBdV0Mxbnp11FA0VncTEyre1VsD1pwC1DikYoyNl6TQYzGFQ1CC/w640-h597/BROWN_U_2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">Time-travel to a time 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia <br />-- next article, next month.</div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">This picture is a bird's eye view of a Mesopotamian city. <br />My next blog-article will be an imaginative walkthrough<br /> in such a city to see what we can see. <b>:) </b>[2]</div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] CHRONOS (also KHRONOS) was the primordial god of time. In the Orphic cosmogony, he emerged self-formed at the dawn of creation.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">He and his consort, the serpentine goddess Ananke (Inevitability), enveloped the primordial world-egg in their coils and split it apart to form the ordered universe of earth, sea, and sky. After this act of creation, the couple circled the cosmos driving the rotation of heaven and the eternal passage of time. </span></div><div><a href="https://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Khronos.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Khronos.html</span></a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">[2] <span style="font-family: arial; text-align: center;">brown_u_landscape.pdf</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-81164892468133485702023-01-23T05:24:00.001-05:002023-01-25T03:14:58.965-05:00Follow Your Hunches in Scientific Research on the Internet<h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">How to Follow Your Hunches <br />When Doing Scientific Research <br />on the Internet</span></h2><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg57ddkdLAHcVQMRoTgWUntQL1MDDDYbVujRXwuECuSL1NcD9EzExRhGu2dh2bZ_GveBPN_wubqaqmX_ys-6Mdmv4oCBVtWOeiKmW9aRIAI9YEixZy2fIjN3ZzQ1WkS6GnLRyXrjj61vy52LQ74OOlmaYmdv7occtM-A81qUL6TpgR9i1C0sIAs6jHB/s1062/Photo_Floating_Islands_(Puno,_Peru)_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="718" data-original-width="1062" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg57ddkdLAHcVQMRoTgWUntQL1MDDDYbVujRXwuECuSL1NcD9EzExRhGu2dh2bZ_GveBPN_wubqaqmX_ys-6Mdmv4oCBVtWOeiKmW9aRIAI9YEixZy2fIjN3ZzQ1WkS6GnLRyXrjj61vy52LQ74OOlmaYmdv7occtM-A81qUL6TpgR9i1C0sIAs6jHB/w640-h432/Photo_Floating_Islands_(Puno,_Peru)_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div>"Picture of a Peruvian boat at the Floating Islands, on Lake Titicaca, Puno, Peru."</div><div>The boats, the houses, and even the floating island itself are made from local fiber, showing both the versatility and sophistication of woven-fiber technology (also called basketry). I was not aware of these communities when I started my research into this subject. So this is a good example of following a hunch to discover things that you did not know when you started.</div><div>Photo_Floating_Islands_(Puno,_Peru).jpg</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo_-_Floating_Islands_(Puno,_Peru).JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photo_-_Floating_Islands_(Puno,_Peru).JPG</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>TAKING A LEAP</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">There comes a point where the mind takes a leap — call it intuition or what you will — and comes out upon a higher plane of knowledge, but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a leap.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">~ Albert Einstein ~</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Intuition is the supra-logic that cuts out all the routine processes of thought and leaps straight from the problem to the answer.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">~ Robert Graves ~</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div>The man who arrives at the doors of artistic [or scientific] creation with none of the madness of the Muses would be convinced that technical ability alone was enough to make an artist... what that man creates by means of reason will pale before the art of inspired beings.</div><div>~ Plato ~</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">An intuitive educated guess is one that has taken into account current knowledge and then sees that it points in a direction that has not yet been explored.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">~ Rick Doble ~</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">INTUITION<br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">-- the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">-- a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">---- GOOGLE DEFINITION ----</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">-- the power or faculty of attaining to direct </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">-- quick and ready insight</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">-- immediate apprehension or cognition without reasoning or inferring</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">---- MERRIAM-WEBSTER ----</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">ETYMOLOGY</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Middle English "intuycyon," from Late Latin "intuitio" (the act of contemplating) from Latin "in-" + "tueri" or "intuEri" (to look at)</span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><i>You can observe a lot by just watching. </i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Yogi Berra </span></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: xx-large;">_________________________________</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">INTRODUCTION</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Internet has now made it possible to follow an idea, a hunch, an intuitive thought, an educated guess -- call it what you will -- so that you can often prove its correctness or not.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Intuition can be both a clear thought and a strong feeling at the same time -- it is a thought that can literally *hit* you with its importance and comes unexpectedly, out of the blue. It is often emotional or appears like a bright light of clarity. But it can come to you in a variety of ways, there is no 'normal' flash of insight.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>For creative minds, the Internet can open a door that had not and could not be opened before. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In the days before the Internet, I spent hours going through dozens of books at the large Wilson Library at UNC-Chapel Hill, to research one of my original ideas, often coming up with nothing to show for my efforts.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Now things are quite different. In a couple of hours, I can nail down a proof and possible evidence or be sure that there is no evidence or support for my idea.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXy6zKYOE5ZIVvydaXtkigPAkp53UzxsOQ2wa_JFF33D828Iu6qTiGyEUPD0phFcd-8o-317TE9GsBSVOek1VdLunKxD0RsJxeEkIvBmuMlPghGCa1DCORWpvnI37FmS5lG_Y2vzseosR1uhyshwNgoUkXsRaad9tytMUCnQOn8rNxnFdRSq9kmnH/s1053/Verhaeren_-_Rembrandt,_Laurens_p125AA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1053" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXy6zKYOE5ZIVvydaXtkigPAkp53UzxsOQ2wa_JFF33D828Iu6qTiGyEUPD0phFcd-8o-317TE9GsBSVOek1VdLunKxD0RsJxeEkIvBmuMlPghGCa1DCORWpvnI37FmS5lG_Y2vzseosR1uhyshwNgoUkXsRaad9tytMUCnQOn8rNxnFdRSq9kmnH/w486-h640/Verhaeren_-_Rembrandt,_Laurens_p125AA.jpg" width="486" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Some have interpreted this etching by Rembrandt <br />to be a moment of revelation, a moment of sudden knowledge.</div><div>Verhaeren - Rembrandt, Laurens p125.jpg</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Verhaeren_-_Rembrandt,_Laurens_p125.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Verhaeren_-_Rembrandt,_Laurens_p125.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And to be clear, hunches are often wrong. But the more you follow your hunches, the better you will get at it. And testing your hunches is a good way to learn.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And one more thing. Never be afraid to apply logic or reasoning when following your hunch. A mixture of intuition and solid reasoning is often the best approach.</b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div style="font-weight: bold;">Some personal skills:</div><div>As a life long professional photographer, I knew how to quickly skim through hundreds of images to find what I was looking for. I also knew that photographs could often be thought of as direct evidence.</div><div>And, since I had done research for a professor when I was in graduate school, I learned how to quickly skim an article, so that I focused on finding the information I was looking for and did not get bogged down with reading the rest of the article which was not relevant to my search.</div></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Here are some examples of hunches that I followed recently in my series of blogs about woven-fiber technology, a technology that I have come to believe was crucial for human survival, human evolution, and the development of technology. And I believe it is much older than previously thought. I also included two sections about hunches relating to ancient science.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><blockquote>For this kind of research, I found that my hunches often had certain characteristics. The most common was to connect things that had not been connected before. Also to believe that something was more important or less important than previously thought. Or to believe that things originated earlier or later or continued longer than previously thought. Or to believe that skills or technology existed earlier or later than previously thought.</blockquote></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>If you are familiar with my blog, you may have read some of the following stories before. But in this blog, I want to tell these stories from the point of view of investigation. It is one thing to have an idea, it is quite another to find indirect and direct evidence plus other researchers who provide supporting ideas and opinions. So, in a sense, I am telling a detective story. In this post, I want to describe a hunch or educated guess and then detail and explain the steps involved to finding evidence that added support or proof.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Each of these hunches suggested ideas that were quite different from previously accepted ideas and in many ways if accepted, change the understanding of human development.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have provided a link to each blog-article that is associated with each section. Please read the full article to see the complete level of research and evidence that I found.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>_________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">EXAMPLES OF HUNCHES I FOLLOWED</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><i><div>PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINKS </div><div>TO THE ASSOCIATED ARTICLES </div><div>FOR MORE DETAIL AND DOCUMENTATION </div></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>BASKETRY OR WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have learned quite a lot about the qualities of basketry by observing.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In 1950 my Dad drove from Mexico City to Cape Cod Massachusetts with Mexican straw furniture that he had lashed to the top of his car. The furniture had a basic wood frame but the seat and back of the chairs were woven with straw. And tables were done the same way. It has now been seventy years and I still have this furniture, it is still in good condition, and we still use it.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>My wife has bought a number of baskets over the years, from large to small. One basket could hold or carry a hundred pounds or more. Each basket was woven in a different way and they were often made of different materials. We have had these baskets for years.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Then, on our way to Charleston, South Carolina, she and I stopped at a traditional shop that sold baskets made by the local Indians. And although I already knew this, it reinforced the idea that basketry was a traditional craft. When I looked it up, baskets were made by virtually every culture out of local plant material.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And, as I kept up with science news, I was aware that the explorer Thor Heyerdahl had made a very large reed boat that he had successfully sailed for six months.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And one more thing, when I thought about it I was quite sure that almost every household in the world had several baskets, although today they would be made of plastic.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So when I was working on this blog it came to me that basketry was a worldwide traditional craft, that there were many ways to weave and construct a basket, that baskets were light and strong, and that the weaving could be scaled to just about any size. So when I put all of these ideas together, it was my hunch that basketry or woven-fiber technology was a very old technology that might have taken hundreds of thousands of years to develop.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Until about thirty years ago, it was an accepted fact that basketry and weaving were no older than approx. 8,000 years old. This was based on the oldest baskets that had been found. But, since baskets decay, evidence of their earlier existence was hard to find.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Fortunately, about thirty years ago, it was proven, by impressions in clay, that weaving and basketry were at least 27,000 years old. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Through my research, I confirmed that basketry and woven-fiber items were found in virtually all cultures and that these were made from local plants. Moreover, all anthropologists agreed that early hominins must have used plant and natural material but the anthropologists had not come to any conclusion about how they used it. And an anthropologist, who had compiled a list of cultural universals (technologies that appear in all cultures worldwide) listed weaving as one of four basic technologies, and another researcher listed containers as a universal. So all of these things suggested that this technology had been part of human existence for a very long time. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><div>This led to two possible hunches:</div><div>#1. That basketry or woven-fiber technology was much more versatile, sophisticated, worldwide, and advanced than previously believed.</div><div>#2. Because it was so advanced, it was likely that it had developed over many thousands of years and was much older than previously thought.</div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I decided that my first task was to find photographs and diagrams that showed the full range of items that were possible with this technology.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So I compiled a list that became much longer than I had first imagined. Then I was able to find publicly available photographs of most things and these photographs provided direct evidence. So in addition to hundreds of basket designs (from very small to very large), I found evidence of sandals, hats, various traps and cages, nets, rain gear, clothing, furniture, fences, roofs, small and large boats, small and large houses, and several types of bridges. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihY1XbfQEJwjZDRIvOiE4f6gfWIEtNfatJjPbIBsahRJchIQiusJ70oDxVNVJOZ9unGNhXiT831LHFuN8drOqK-tVUsaCbK2zr7A-x62ffmT9f57krp3YR_po6P03oD0l305nAc3cD4NhWwuYucC6WhLVD9r30nfUodnT0T40BiApl-GQfI_ma6JoB/s983/BRIDGE_ROPE_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="983" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihY1XbfQEJwjZDRIvOiE4f6gfWIEtNfatJjPbIBsahRJchIQiusJ70oDxVNVJOZ9unGNhXiT831LHFuN8drOqK-tVUsaCbK2zr7A-x62ffmT9f57krp3YR_po6P03oD0l305nAc3cD4NhWwuYucC6WhLVD9r30nfUodnT0T40BiApl-GQfI_ma6JoB/w520-h640/BRIDGE_ROPE_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="520" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A traditional rope suspension bridge in South America.</div><div>TOP: "Weaving' a new bridge.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IRB-5-LashingSides-KC603-4.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IRB-5-LashingSides-KC603-4.jpg</a></div><div>BOTTOM: The finished bridge.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IRB-6-BringingDeckMat-KC603-8.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IRB-6-BringingDeckMat-KC603-8.jpg</a></div></div><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I even found a full range of waterproof baskets used for carrying water and baskets used for cooking. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Evidence for a Basket Weaving Technology in the Paleolithic Era</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html</a></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div><b>NOTE: </b>I wrote the above blog-article 3 1/2 years ago. Since then I have found many more products that have been made with woven-fiber (basket weaving) technology, such as soft bags, backpacks, saddles for horses, belts, canteens, rugs, and fans. I would also add mats as a major product because mats were used for many different purposes. And although I was concentrating on basket weaving technology in my first article, I would now add a wide variety of rope, twine, and thread (cordage) as these would have had many different uses in Paleolithic times. Direct evidence of cordage has now been dated to the Middle Paleolithic, cordage that was made by Neanderthals. </div><div><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/09/nature-article-validates.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/09/nature-article-validates.html</a></div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggtHI6NXTI0nq5Em3cUssryDf9WTam7vkgmrsFUi352XPvo7GsItYy6mado7mMH3yOEWR-5IwD8MKtv6ZexB5e2f15R3JwLthVix80AUOKEavhNxNpS3ZRhEUufDaNLrVVDk3AU0kZkLhT3dR9I8f5_nNzx9FI0r4oGUywGIxY_C_njKaM3bA75ceX/s800/BASKETS_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="800" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggtHI6NXTI0nq5Em3cUssryDf9WTam7vkgmrsFUi352XPvo7GsItYy6mado7mMH3yOEWR-5IwD8MKtv6ZexB5e2f15R3JwLthVix80AUOKEavhNxNpS3ZRhEUufDaNLrVVDk3AU0kZkLhT3dR9I8f5_nNzx9FI0r4oGUywGIxY_C_njKaM3bA75ceX/w640-h246/BASKETS_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">LEFT: "The [basket that this] grandmother is weaving about herself<br /> is to be used as a store for grains and vegetables."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This storage basket is very similar to an early Neolithic basket that was just found.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">"Relatively few tribes of American Indians understood pottery, except in the crudest form. As for basketry, it may be said that every Indian from the land of the Esquimaux down through Mexico was a basket weaver." </span><span style="font-family: arial;">This is a quote and a colorized b&w photo from <i>American Indians: first families of the Southwest</i> by Huckel.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Indians_-_first_families_of_the_Southwest_(1920)_(14775904322).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Indians_-_first_families_of_the_Southwest_(1920)_(14775904322).jpg</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RIGHT: From small to very large, baskets can be scaled. <br />Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution (1902)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annual_report_of_the_Board_of_Regents_of_the_Smithsonian_Institution_(1902)_(17814870494).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annual_report_of_the_Board_of_Regents_of_the_Smithsonian_Institution_(1902)_(17814870494).jpg</a></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The level of sophistication indicated that this technology must have begun long ago. </b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">This got me thinking that maybe I could find a way to show that this technology could have begun hundreds of thousands of years ago. But, how I would do that, I did not know.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But when I was researching this blog post, there was a hint about the possible origins of basketry and weaving.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"The idea of interlacing materials together to create a weave was probably inspired by nature; by observing birds’ nests, spider webs and various animal constructions..."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>The History of Weaving</i>. Wild Tussah, September 2014. <a href="https://wildtussah.com/history-weaving-2/.">https://wildtussah.com/history-weaving-2/.</a></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Based on this idea, I began to look at birds' nests to see if I could discover a possible link. I went on the Internet and came across a weaverbird nest which was my next 'Aha' moment. These nests were well-made and intricate and contained the basic techniques required for basket weaving. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7VsvzjkMALTMBbq82cRRD0dvstqfth0L1wL37LXmUftcgaZgQsPv1MyBthNzGTPzP9gsnvX9CvDxwSSBu1NEjnzITN5l_GxeNPdoApUE5tNsi1aKygpq8pw-1efuddRCPDlDURZcejJL4LeOHJ7oN8Krxwx1NVExoHgdjZGUTRdE58ajG_ip5yw8b/s800/WEAVERBIRD_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="800" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7VsvzjkMALTMBbq82cRRD0dvstqfth0L1wL37LXmUftcgaZgQsPv1MyBthNzGTPzP9gsnvX9CvDxwSSBu1NEjnzITN5l_GxeNPdoApUE5tNsi1aKygpq8pw-1efuddRCPDlDURZcejJL4LeOHJ7oN8Krxwx1NVExoHgdjZGUTRdE58ajG_ip5yw8b/w640-h336/WEAVERBIRD_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;">LEFT: Example of weaverbird knots. <br />I was surprised to learn that birds could make a variety of complicated knots.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Friedmann, Herbert. "The Weaving of the Red-Billed Weaver Bird in Captivity." Zoologica:. Scientific Contribution of the New York Zoological Society, <br />Volume II, Number 16, page 363. The Society, The Zoological Park,, New York, 1922.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RIGHT: A weaverbird in a partially completed nest.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cape_Weaver,_Ploceus_capensis_at_Walter_Sisulu_National_Botanical_Garden_(7862515086).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cape_Weaver,_Ploceus_capensis_at_Walter_Sisulu_National_Botanical_Garden_(7862515086).jpg</a></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Discovering this felt like a bolt of lightning; I had the strong feeling I was onto something.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I can remember the night that I discovered this. I immediately looked up where weaverbirds lived and found it was in Africa. And when I looked further I found that it was in the same area, Oldowan Gorge, where the Leakeys had found early human bones and stone tools. But there was a problem: just because weaverbirds were in that area today did not mean they were in that area hundreds of thousands of years ago.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And then came the major hunch. I decided to search for documents that might tell me if weaverbird remains were in Oldowan Gorge in the same layers where evidence for early hominins was found.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So I searched for "Oldowan Gorge Ploceidae" (using the scientific name for weaverbirds) and voila in a matter of seconds a PDF file came up which I downloaded and searched and there it was. Fossils of weaverbirds were found in the same layers as evidence of hominin activity, specifically Lower Paleolithic stone tools. And this layer was more than a million years old, much older than my hunch. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Paleolithic Evidence Shows</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>That Homo Habilis </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Could Have Learned Weaving</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>From Weaverbirds (Ploceidae)</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/10/paleolithic-evidence-for-early-weaving_27.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/10/paleolithic-evidence-for-early-weaving_27.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So I had shown that hominins had lived in the same area as weaverbirds and as a result, it was likely that hominins were aware of their nests. </b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This, of course, was not proof that hominins copied or learned to make baskets from these birds, but it made it possible and worth researching. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And so this led to my further research. I found that weaverbirds often abandoned their nests which would fall to the ground. So hominins could have gathered and studied them. The weaverbird nests contained many of the fundamentals needed for basketry: a basic sturdy skeleton structure that was then filled in with opposing strands made of more flexible material that was woven over and under to create strength. The birds also made elaborate knots in these nests. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Next, I discovered most anthropologists agreed that early hominins in this part of Africa lived close to Baobab trees where they could gather fruit from the trees and also where honey was often found. And Baobab trees were also a favorite environment for weaverbirds. So if hominins and weaverbirds lived in close association, this added to the idea that hominins learned basketry and weaving from weaverbirds. In addition, hominins could have observed how the birds made their nests which could take two days to two weeks.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Xsnfa8IZDRKEFV8Og8Elca7Stkl6h0D0B2QMZZXaxH68rafB2kYoVtyOFDkQhQ2bivUXszSdS6-yjvk7tK6-OXXUzx4Nm92oJntluHLKJEcypyBP5WDYCof3MVNVzCj1oxoOHSETE0Sl-Z_1zV36FOxvOflN1nTPLrPT4xLO-RYEZb94pMaxIBVt/s800/COMPOSITE_3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="286" data-original-width="800" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Xsnfa8IZDRKEFV8Og8Elca7Stkl6h0D0B2QMZZXaxH68rafB2kYoVtyOFDkQhQ2bivUXszSdS6-yjvk7tK6-OXXUzx4Nm92oJntluHLKJEcypyBP5WDYCof3MVNVzCj1oxoOHSETE0Sl-Z_1zV36FOxvOflN1nTPLrPT4xLO-RYEZb94pMaxIBVt/w640-h228/COMPOSITE_3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">A weaverbird starting to build a nest. He starts with a basic skeleton and then adds strands of different thicknesses, widths, and strengths to complete the nest.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ploceus_capensis_nests">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ploceus_capensis_nests</a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Homo Habilis Learned Basket Making from Weaverbirds</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/04/oldowan-weaverbirds-homo-habilis-basket-making.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/04/oldowan-weaverbirds-homo-habilis-basket-making.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>What I had uncovered altogether showed that there was an extensive woven-fiber technology and that some of its skills were practiced at least by 27kya in the Paleolithic era but its sophistication suggested it was much older. And its origins could have begun more than a million years ago when early hominins could have learned to weave from weaverbirds.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>None of this was conclusive proof, but it did make it a theory that was worth exploring.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>WERE SOME NEOLITHIC CULTURES <br />MORE ADVANCED THAN <br />GREEK OR ROMAN CULTURES?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>My second hunch that I will describe in this post was a little different. I needed to prove a negative. I needed to prove that something had not happened. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This hunch was about the Neolithic era. I have always thought that Neolithic cultures had never been given the respect they deserved. Because they did not have writing and used stone tools, they were seen as vastly inferior to later civilizations such as Rome and Greece. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As Lewis H. Morgan wrote about 1870, he believed the evolution of humanity went from savagery to barbarism to civilization, meaning that the Neolithic cultures were barbaric. And even though the Neolithic period has now been seen as revolutionary (the Neolithic Revolution) this attitude has remained. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>My point of view was quite different. Neolithic cultures were able to create sophisticated structures, for example, because they had a compelling need. These societies did not have writing because they were not large and so did not need it. And while they used stone tools, the tools were well made, well designed, and did the job. Metal tools, often seen as a dividing line between Neolithic and early civilizations, were rare and expensive, although many researchers have missed this point. While not well known, early civilizations continued to use stone tools for thousands of years.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>My study of the passage tomb at Newgrange brought all of these ideas to a head. The passageway at Newgrange has lasted about 5200 years and when it was built, according to NASA it was perfectly aligned with the sunrise of the winter solstice sun. Constructing a building that could indicate the exact time of the winter solstice in real time was a monumental achievement, almost equivalent to building a space telescope today. The reason that it is so difficult is due to the fact that the sun barely moves for almost a week. The word solstice comes from Latin and means solar standstill. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSRXFv9jR36blORrT1VFvnI8JO_Fg96PgU6c7d2H-GI6wFYGk-_G7AZ17A5PSfC707u99YNqeK1ZjyeoPE3KlBd84sYcNld4j_U5a7VPUbVb8QFfsVz2hZ46vVWiWXhy0JXG-GNdhJQjrq0m0W1TaOchnUMby-jce2I9uGpQ555VzL3qYnyIr6eVAe/s876/NEWGRANGE_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="876" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSRXFv9jR36blORrT1VFvnI8JO_Fg96PgU6c7d2H-GI6wFYGk-_G7AZ17A5PSfC707u99YNqeK1ZjyeoPE3KlBd84sYcNld4j_U5a7VPUbVb8QFfsVz2hZ46vVWiWXhy0JXG-GNdhJQjrq0m0W1TaOchnUMby-jce2I9uGpQ555VzL3qYnyIr6eVAe/w584-h640/NEWGRANGE_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="584" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;">While this looks crude to our modern eyes, the alignment and placement of the stones were exact and could determine the day of the solstice in real-time, which was very hard to measure through direct observation.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">TOP LEFT: "A section of the passage leading towards the chamber</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">of the Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Passage_leading_towards_chamber_of_Newgrange_passage_tomb_in_Ireland.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Passage_leading_towards_chamber_of_Newgrange_passage_tomb_in_Ireland.jpg</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">TOP RIGHT: The light of the solstice in the passageway in 2013.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2013_Solstice_Newgrange.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2013_Solstice_Newgrange.jpg</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BOTTOM: Overview of the stone passageway at Newgrange.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Coffey, George. Drawings of Newgrange from the late 1800s. Published in: The Dolmens of Ireland,, by William Copeland Borlase. Published by the University of Michigan Library (January 1, 1897).</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But, and this is the key point, my hunch was that Greek and Roman technology could not determine the time of the solstice in real-time. So my task was to find a way to prove this. After much digging around on the Internet, I found the following:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It is most likely, then, that equinoxes and solstices were determined by observing noon solar altitudes for a series of days before and after the events.</b> [ED: my emphasis] When the Sun is crossing the meridian at noon, it is relatively easy to measure its altitude, and then knowing the geographical latitude, to compute the declination. From the declination, it is easy to compute the Sun’s position on the ecliptic (the longitude), and we know that Hipparchus knew how to do it. But it is only at noon that such an easy determination is possible. It is then fairly straightforward to estimate the time that the Sun’s declination reaches some specific targeted value: 0° for an equinox, and maximum or minimum for a solstice.<b>That series of daily altitude measurements were used to determine the time of cardinal events can hardly be doubted,</b> even though no surviving ancient source has documented such an episode. <b>Especially for the solstices, it is essentially the only viable option... </b>[ED: my emphasis]</span> </div></blockquote><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Dr. Dennis Duke, <i>Four Lost Episodes in Ancient Solar Theory</i>, Journal for the History of Astronomy, (2008)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~dduke/episodes3.pdf">http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~dduke/episodes3.pdf</a></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In other words, the Greeks and Romans could calculate the day of the solstice by interpolating various astronomical measurements around the time of the solstice, but they could not do it in real-time. If true, this meant that Neolithic Newgrange was more advanced in this regard. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This idea turns many widely held views of cultural evolution, upside down. How could stone age cultures be more advanced than civilizations? </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This means we need to rethink our ideas of human development and not assume that development always happens in an orderly fashion. The people at Newgrange did the observations, the science, the math, the engineering, and the architecture because these agrarian societies needed to know exactly when the sun had reached its lowest point. When they knew this, they could make an accurate calendar that would guide them in their agriculture. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The people at Newgrange felt the need to build such an "instrument," as I have called it, because the winter day was very short at that northern latitude. It was about seven and a half hours on the day of the solstice while the shortest day in Rome was about nine hours. </b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Newgrange is much farther north than Rome or Greece, so knowing the time of the solstice was critical for this largely agricultural society. As I said earlier they had a compelling need and so they used their intelligence to meet that need.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But Newgrange was not the only Neolithic society that had a compelling need. Northern Neolithic societies in Germany, whose shortest day was about seven hours and fifty minutes, also built wooden circular structures that indicated the time of the solstice. The most famous of these is the Goseck Circle but it is estimated that there were over a hundred. They have only just been discovered from post-hole impressions that showed up in aerial survey photographs.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Computing the Winter Solstice at Newgrange: <br />Was Neolithic Science Equal To or Better <br />Than Ancient Greek or Roman Science?</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/03/computing-winter-solstice-at-newgrange.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/03/computing-winter-solstice-at-newgrange.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE REED INDUSTRY IN MESOPOTAMIA</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>There is considerable evidence that shows there was a large reed industry in the first civilizations in Mesopotamia, an industry and technology that had started thousands of years before in the Neolithic era. However, scholarly writing barely mentions its overall importance and instead focuses on brick-making, bronze and copper smelting, wooden ships, and mass-produced pottery. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgdobvvHHGjQRk0jLMdrJbLCFr4LAhaSLUYuGYFYjrZOJw9OHxhvy0Q3-gRhPL48L2p-D_vWp2Dh2fxWnuGOurnGjq_8JjOFcDroSeRDHLjdJKEJvWAc1K-Qri_s1Z7jlZJZt_kq-c00Qx1RL2JqStXb34jWvHTRf-_irwqUhRW5hjM0_uRVMYZwI7/s929/SUMER_COMPOSITE_CITY_CENTER.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="929" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgdobvvHHGjQRk0jLMdrJbLCFr4LAhaSLUYuGYFYjrZOJw9OHxhvy0Q3-gRhPL48L2p-D_vWp2Dh2fxWnuGOurnGjq_8JjOFcDroSeRDHLjdJKEJvWAc1K-Qri_s1Z7jlZJZt_kq-c00Qx1RL2JqStXb34jWvHTRf-_irwqUhRW5hjM0_uRVMYZwI7/w552-h640/SUMER_COMPOSITE_CITY_CENTER.jpg" width="552" /></a></div><div>While the inner city in Mesopotamia (see two artists' conceptions above) was composed of buildings made of sun-fired bricks and looked like a modern city, it is likely that the buildings in the outlying areas were 'grass huts' made of reeds. It may be due to our modern conception of cities that it was assumed that rectangular brick-type buildings were dominant. However, these were expensive and so only the wealthy and the government could afford to build them.</div><div><br />TOP: A fanciful depiction of early civilized life in the Assyrian city of Nimrud ca. 1350 BCE.</div><div>From <i>Myths and Legends of Babylonia & Assyria</i> by Lewis Spence, 1910.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Palaces_at_Nimrud_Restored.jpeg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Palaces_at_Nimrud_Restored.jpeg</a></div><div>BOTTOM: A central ziggurat in Babylon.</div><div>In the distance can be seen two other ziggurats as well.</div><div>Entitled "Babylon and its three towers."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_History_-_Plate_1._Babylon_and_its_Three_Towers.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_History_-_Plate_1._Babylon_and_its_Three_Towers.jpg</a></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Nevertheless, I found extensive research that detailed a wide variety of important products that were part of the Mesopotamian cultures. One researcher found that comfortable grass huts (as they were called), that were made entirely out of reeds, were more common than homes made out of bricks. Another scholar stated that there was a large fleet of small and large reed boats which was crucial to the navigation of the marshes and croplands. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Even today traditional grass huts and large buildings are still being made entirely out of reeds including rope made from reeds. Many experts believe this technology began in the Neolithic. Furthermore traditional round coracle boats, known as basket boats made of reeds, are still being made in Iraq today.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1mrpBAdl978E46BL2m1Ynasq_IGMfKfU6ZflU6A5kNQgMSf3fQ9kFDhdsF0bsys1XXqVa46T5bBcns-yCTe8tgJg1I7-iuL4x6xevYtlhqTgG6PbVY19ZnMNEwm-MnjXDwflhvonl4F7fvsbDc_z4znzCaoTHCISVYQks4mCT24JwUO7ZIpK1tkV/s1073/MUDHIF_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1mrpBAdl978E46BL2m1Ynasq_IGMfKfU6ZflU6A5kNQgMSf3fQ9kFDhdsF0bsys1XXqVa46T5bBcns-yCTe8tgJg1I7-iuL4x6xevYtlhqTgG6PbVY19ZnMNEwm-MnjXDwflhvonl4F7fvsbDc_z4znzCaoTHCISVYQks4mCT24JwUO7ZIpK1tkV/w477-h640/MUDHIF_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="477" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;">TOP: Technical description and edifications for making a mudhif.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273480113_Building_Materials_in_Eco-Energy_houses_from_Iraq_and_Iran">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273480113_Building_Materials_in_Eco-Energy_houses_from_Iraq_and_Iran</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Sophisticated reed housing began in the Neolithic.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">"A mudhif, a traditional Marsh Arab guesthouse made entirely out of reeds. The Marsh Arabs live a lifestyle that dates back 5,000 years." Quoted from: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iraqi_mudhif_interior.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iraqi_mudhif_interior.jpg</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BOTTOM: Mudhif Reception Hall</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762).jpg</a></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Evidence of large Neolithic sea-going reed ships has been found along with evidence of commerce in the Persian Gulf. Ubaid Neolithic pottery made in one location was found throughout the Persian Gulf indicating that it was probably brought by boat. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Reeds were a primary resource because high-quality reeds grew wild in the mashes and the supply was unlimited. In addition, high-quality bitumen bubbled naturally from the ground. Boats, houses, irrigation buckets, and parts of levees used reeds coated or soaked in bitumen for waterproofing. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So to prove my point I needed direct evidence from Mesopotamia itself. And there was plenty of that such as a copper relief of soldiers in reed boats, and a picture of a house made of reeds. There were, in addition, multiple references in Mesopotamian myths and writings about sturdy reed baskets that were used to dredge the marshes and carry clay to make bricks. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The problem was to overcome the accepted perception that reeds and baskets were minor and not important to these cultures, while I believed the reed industry was crucial.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So my third major hunch was that I could find solid evidence that supported my ideas.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Again, with the Internet, I was able to do this. To begin I found a lexicon of Mesopotamian words that listed over 100 words relating to the craft of working with reeds. As anthropologists know, words and phrases, especially ones that repeat, are an indication of their importance.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But next came the proof I had been looking for. Two different websites had translations of cuneiform tablet receipts of "economic content" deliveries. In one case bundled reeds was the largest product that was delivered. On the other website, cuneiform tablets showed that a large number of reed bundles were delivered but did not list the numbers. Both listed these deliveries 500 years after the beginning of bronze smelting and also when large amounts of wood were being imported, showing that the reed industry continued to be essential.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>To be strictly scientific, it is important to say that the total number of cuneiform receipt tablets was not large, about 1600 altogether. For definitive proof we may have to wait for the translation of more commerce receipts. Yet this is a good start and suggests that this line of inquiry would be worth exploring.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The Crucial Importance </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>of Basket Weaving Technology</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>for the World's First Civilizations</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-importance-of-basket-weaving.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-importance-of-basket-weaving.html</a></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>MESOPOTAMIAN MISCONCEPTIONS:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Incorrect Assumptions and</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Misinterpretations of Sumerian Technology <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/06/mesopotamian-misconceptions.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/06/mesopotamian-misconceptions.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW A REJECTED ANCIENT IDEA <br />HELPED CREATE OUR MODERN MACHINES</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>My fourth major hunch was played out over decades. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As a freshman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I was taking the required Modern Civilization course. When we got to the part about the Copernican revolution and the new idea that the Earth went around the Sun (heliocentric) rather than the Sun went around the Earth (geocentric), the teacher projected a slide of astronomer Ptolemy's geocentric conception of the solar system, a specific geometry that had been accepted for over a thousand years. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Ptolemy had mapped out a series of epicycles, or circles within circles. So the planets did not just circle the Earth, they rotated around a point as they moved. The teacher began to make fun of this concept and told us how ridiculous it was compared to the simple orbits of the Copernican universe. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>For some reason, this made me very angry. Ptolemy had made a system that worked well and that later science would be built upon. To ridicule this meant that the teacher did not understand how science developed and progressed. But something else jumped out. When I looked at the diagram, it reminded me of gears I had seen. I think it was the open back side of a pocket watch.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In any case, I did not think about this until I began to write this blog when it suddenly hit me. I had a hunch that Ptolemy's system was the basis for gearing and gearing was a key component of the industrial revolution.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And this turned out to be fairly easy to prove. First of all, Ptolemy's system was quite accurate. When I researched it, I found it was only off by one day every one hundred years. So his system worked. Then, when I began to investigate, I found that dozens of large clocks were made during the 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries whose gearing was based on Ptolemy's model. I can say that for certain because the Copernican model did not exist or had been accepted during those time periods. </b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The first documented astrarium clock was completed in 1364 by Giovanni de' Dondi (1318–1388)... The original clock, consisting of 107 wheels and pinions, was lost..., but de' Dondi left detailed descriptions which have survived, enabling the reconstruction of the clock. It displays the mean time, sidereal, or star, time and the motions of the Sun, moon and the five then known planets Venus, Mars, Saturn, Mercury, and Jupiter.<b> It was conceived according to a Ptolemaic conception of the solar system</b>.[ED: my emphasis] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrarium">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrarium</a></span></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA9HUzTliU7cZxbEmQDZzG2km_eMGl_dLFQbDYxRQebIbsQ2JEXlvvBFIzMyxhyCsp6Iex4zE1aOXVOYRj6-HXsXUcb3T0jMR0Bjc7IGcq4JEroNsOk6di7uh1tgYrFky225Adiiatt8Qz_Ou43aelksBa0wgv7FYEmd7NJXPpfZ0Ni4Qe6ev6FHxF/s800/CLOCK_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="339" data-original-width="800" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA9HUzTliU7cZxbEmQDZzG2km_eMGl_dLFQbDYxRQebIbsQ2JEXlvvBFIzMyxhyCsp6Iex4zE1aOXVOYRj6-HXsXUcb3T0jMR0Bjc7IGcq4JEroNsOk6di7uh1tgYrFky225Adiiatt8Qz_Ou43aelksBa0wgv7FYEmd7NJXPpfZ0Ni4Qe6ev6FHxF/w640-h272/CLOCK_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Two clocks built on the Ptolemy model, the geocentric model, of the solar system, about 300 years before the Copernican model was accepted. Both clocks are still working today.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">RUGHT: "The Prague Astronomical Clock is the world's oldest working one of its kind. Installed in 1410..." Quoted from:</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.headout.com/blog/prague-astronomical-clock/">https://www.headout.com/blog/prague-astronomical-clock/</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Czech-2013-Prague-Astronomical_clock_face.jpg</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Czech-2013-Prague-Astronomical_clock_face.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Czech-2013-Prague-Astronomical_clock_face.jpg</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">RIGHT: Early 15th century (i.e. around 1400) clock in Bern </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Zytglogge_Bern_Astronomical_Clock_1.jpg</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zytglogge_Bern_Astronomical_Clock.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zytglogge_Bern_Astronomical_Clock.jpg</a></span></div></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large; text-align: left;">What Ptolemy achieved with his circles within circles was an advanced design of gears and gearing -- gearing that worked well and was quite reliable -- as had been shown in the creation of clocks. The ability to create such gears was not only critical to the construction of clocks but later to the design of engines and machines such as the early Watt steam engine -- the mechanical device that kick-started the industrial age and the Industrial Revolution.</b></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipmQNvez8nlrLFhm7LU2w78iL1TdX9vWmnwDhxKmUqdxd1Rni1zuhlPU4q9WwPyI2Y6Axx9qlj87dUd3CBJB8UgtGTQ8x6g_vjTbwM1A3AUzF2Er5QTPZUZkxhJ6iOzNejWxhtGTzrveEvllRiovjN5CVkVSAccP2oii5r24oUZ_lWvIzldxzCYXWG/s320/1_Ptolemaic_epicycles.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="320" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipmQNvez8nlrLFhm7LU2w78iL1TdX9vWmnwDhxKmUqdxd1Rni1zuhlPU4q9WwPyI2Y6Axx9qlj87dUd3CBJB8UgtGTQ8x6g_vjTbwM1A3AUzF2Er5QTPZUZkxhJ6iOzNejWxhtGTzrveEvllRiovjN5CVkVSAccP2oii5r24oUZ_lWvIzldxzCYXWG/s1600/1_Ptolemaic_epicycles.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;">"A simple illustration showing the basic elements of Ptolemaic astronomy. It shows a planet rotating on an epicycle which is itself rotating around a deferent inside a crystalline sphere." <br />Picture and quote from:</span></div><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ptolemaic_elements.svg"><span style="font-family: arial;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ptolemaic_elements.svg</span></a></div></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="text-align: left;"></span></b></span></p><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Then I came across this quote from one of the acknowledged experts on the history of the machine.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;">Clocks were the <br />"key machine of the modern industrial age."</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Strandh, Sigvard (1979). <i>A History of the Machine</i>.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPU91qUBKfDk95lTg_5gwOe2LLJe9wch98lm1oJ2UGkqH8pkkVDaEmEitZsVsx3VnvYbslStGh4v1Uvgm8gCsUMG6IWg763v_EOCpKZGXHr3x_u3WXj-nizhp5_cY1aXOMhFoIVo0sq3vIyoa5tCk3TH4qNthOnJPllmA2ljl3vKwTahrKwmNj_7sA/s763/Bern_Zytglogge_UhrwerkAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="763" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPU91qUBKfDk95lTg_5gwOe2LLJe9wch98lm1oJ2UGkqH8pkkVDaEmEitZsVsx3VnvYbslStGh4v1Uvgm8gCsUMG6IWg763v_EOCpKZGXHr3x_u3WXj-nizhp5_cY1aXOMhFoIVo0sq3vIyoa5tCk3TH4qNthOnJPllmA2ljl3vKwTahrKwmNj_7sA/w640-h360/Bern_Zytglogge_UhrwerkAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Clockwork in the "Zytglogge", Bern's clock tower</div><div>which shows how Ptolemy's geometry was translated into gear movement.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bern_Zytglogge_Uhrwerk.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bern_Zytglogge_Uhrwerk.jpg</a></div></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Sigvard pointed out that clockmakers were in high demand because they understood the necessary gearing in machines as they became part of the industrial age.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So my hunch had been correct. This discredited system was a key component of our modern age. The car you drive probably has gearing based on Ptolemy's system.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>How the Discredited Geocentric Cosmos <br />Was a Critical Component of the Scientific Revolution</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>OR </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>How Ptolemy's Geocentric Astronomy</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Helped Build the Modern World</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-discredited-geocentric-cosmos-was.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-discredited-geocentric-cosmos-was.html</a></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>_____________________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>HUNCHES I'M WORKING ON</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE PRECISION OF THE NEWGRANGE SOLSTICE INSTRUMENT</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>While it is now generally agreed that Newgrange was a major achievement, there is still a discussion about how accurate it was. I believe the Newgrange "instrument" as I have called it, could determine the actual day of the solstice in real-time and if the sky was cloudy it could indicate the day of the solstice by calculating from an earlier or later day when light came down the passageway. In other words, it was remarkably precise. But this level of precision has yet to be proven. I think a computer simulation could show this, but it has not yet been done.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>There is a key point about the Newgrange "instrument" (as I have called it since it is like a scientific instrument) that has been missed. This instrument *magnified* the movement of the sun and amplified the effect of the sun's angle when light came into the passageway. As modern science knows, magnification can reveal detail that can make major distinctions between two different states. In this case, the magnified light would be different on different days before and after the winter solstice. And there would be enough of a difference to distinguish one day from another. I am the only researcher that I know of, who has mentioned the term 'magnification' in connection with Newgrange and its importance.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THAT THE BABYLONIAN GRID MAP OF THE SKY WAS BASED ON BASKETRY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>My hunch is that the Babylonian grid map of the night sky (which is still used today) was derived in part from basketry since a basket can be made with horizontal and vertical strands just like the declination and right-ascension coordinates in the Babylonian map. There is plenty of evidence that Babylonians gave weaving and baskets a high value -- such as in their creation story. But I think there could be direct evidence, such as a Babylonian statement about astronomy, that stated the "sky is like a basket."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But we may have to wait for the hundreds of thousands of cuneiform tablets to be translated if such a statement exists.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Babylonian grid was mapped out in hours, minutes, and seconds which became the basis for today's time-keeping. This basic grid was accepted by Ptolemy in the West around 150 CE. Then his ideas and geometry lead directly to our modern system of time-keeping (as I showed earlier in this blog post). So if Babylonian astronomy was based in part on basketry, it suggests that the long history of making baskets and basketry had a lot to do with time concepts and the development of time as I have suggested in my years of writing this blog.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg50ZbNrqaLNNhDqxtnZrEpQY7VXs5d8b9OH7H3XVCBqd0jyaJXMd7FKHlWJB0-o0cSpnQTNyIRbFeO0gy09g8fWbjG8l7x8t8dEs1oxOOXenB25UMcSojGvzyKlxkEYFP3AdE9rrtBYoOzhMyQA0p4o7PO1ve27v0r0AmUN9YMO5g1JzXwHUdZrpnM/s800/SKY_MAP_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="800" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg50ZbNrqaLNNhDqxtnZrEpQY7VXs5d8b9OH7H3XVCBqd0jyaJXMd7FKHlWJB0-o0cSpnQTNyIRbFeO0gy09g8fWbjG8l7x8t8dEs1oxOOXenB25UMcSojGvzyKlxkEYFP3AdE9rrtBYoOzhMyQA0p4o7PO1ve27v0r0AmUN9YMO5g1JzXwHUdZrpnM/w640-h324/SKY_MAP_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>LEFT: A Neolithic basket from the Cueva de los Murciélagos in Spain.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cester%C3%ADa_Murci%C3%A9lagos_03.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cester%C3%ADa_Murci%C3%A9lagos_03.JPG</a></div><div>RIGHT: "Map of the night sky: star positions</div><div>from the Bright Stars Catalog, 5th Edition. Rasterized." 2006.</div><div>This modern map of the stars visible in the Northern Hemisphere</div><div>is based on the Babylonian model. The white curved line is the zodiac. Notice the faint horizontal and vertical grid lines which are very similar to the way a basket can be constructed as shown on the left. </div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sky.png">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sky.png</a></div></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>_____________________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT HUNCHES</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>From my research a number of possible conclusions have emerged:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#1. Prehistoric people, going back millions of years, were much smarter (within the limits of their brain size) than we have believed. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#2. Developing a technology from scratch, a technology that had never existed, with a limited brain size, a struggle for survival, and a short life span took a very long time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#3. Remarkable breakthroughs by early cultures were achieved when there was a compelling need -- such as the passageway at Newgrange.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#4. Technology and cultures do not necessarily progress in an orderly fashion -- inventions, processes, and skills could have happened earlier or at different times even though these things have been associated with a specific time period.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>#5. It is important to question commonly held assumptions. Please note I said 'question' not reject. The problem with assumptions is that they prevent investigating ideas that disagree. And in many cases, this has choked off a full line of inquiry that could have been fruitful. Assumptions are particularly difficult to deal with as they are taken for granted and people usually accept their truth without question.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I made a list of such assumptions in this blog:</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HUT ARTICLE</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Rick Doble's Theory About </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Human Understanding of Time (HUT)</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/10/hut-theory-human-understanding-of-time.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/10/hut-theory-human-understanding-of-time.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A good example is that it was assumed Upper Paleolithic people could not have made baskets because it was too time-consuming. Yet my research into hunter-gatherers who lived a stone age lifestyle in North America, i.e., North American Indians, (it is agreed this was similar to a Paleolithic lifestyle) revealed that they made a wide variety of woven-fiber items, from small baskets to huge burden baskets worn on the back, snow shoes, fish traps, bowls, plates, and even baskets for cooking and carrying water plus strong twine and rope. They developed sophisticated basketry because of a compelling need. Nomadic hunter-gatherers needed a technology that could create a variety of designs and was strong and light and could be made of local plants. But, because of assumptions, research in this vein was discouraged.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>_____________________________________ </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>CONCLUSION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>WHAT DID I PROVE OR DID I PROVE ANYTHING?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>There are many levels of proof</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Not proven</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Evidence cited indicates that this idea may be possible</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Evidence cited = idea is probable</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Evidence cited = idea is likely true</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Evidence cited = definitive proof, the idea appears to be true </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The various proofs I found range from possible to definitive. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- I feel I proved that woven-fiber technology was able to create a wide variety of items. I found photographs of each item so these were direct evidence: from small to large, from sandals to boats, from hats to houses, from fences to bridges. So I think this was a definitive proof.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- I feel that I showed early hominins lived in close association with weaverbirds. So their nests could have been a model for early baskets and containers but this is speculation. I feel this proof falls under the possible category, the lowest level of proof.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- It is hard to prove a negative. But I did show that the Romans probably did not have a way to indicate the day of the winter solstice in real-time. So I put this in the probable level of proof.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- I was able to show that there were a variety of important products that were necessary for the functioning of Mesopotamian societies, products that relied on woven-fiber technology, specifically reed technology. Next, I was able to find over 100 words that referred to reed items or skills. And then I was able to find receipts from commerce deliveries that indicated that bundled reeds were a major commodity. So I believe I gave credence to the idea that the reed industry and technology were crucial. So I put this in the highly probable level of proof category.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Finally, it was fairly simple to show that Ptolemy's geometry of the stars was used to make clocks long before the Copernican revolution was accepted. And then clocks became the key machine for the Industrial Age. So I consider this to be definitive proof that Ptolemy's discredited astronomy was a key to the Industrial Revolution.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>___________________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>AFTERWORD</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>IDEA-INCUBATION </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Another related idea is called: idea-incubation </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This is a term coined by the poet T.S. Eliot. This is similar to the Aha moment (see below). In this scenario, you work hard and probably logically to find an answer but finally give up and do something else. Then out of nowhere, when you least expect it, the answer appears to you.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The best example is Mendeleev's discovery of the periodic table, the table of elements. He ordered them in a way that scientifically expressed their relation to each other. Mendeleev put together the first working chart of the elements that make up all matter. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>To begin he had put each element and what he knew about it, such as its atomic weight, on a card and then laid out these cards as though he was playing a kind of solitaire. He did this for a number of years until one night, exhausted he fell asleep and then had a dream where he saw all the elements almost perfectly arranged. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvGsd7a_IMk7RanjZvYSsV8qL1qjovYUofLK1Mmqo-fFixsJOitPshn3gZoBdW8FE-TYpI86CTBdKX_sDKzri4xR6WCv3vYCPElV2fNe07tDbrWZjvOpqsLubGa27BXkiXW3ufNMRCzxUHZKmZmumarNBYNBWJ2zpWV-X5UZ7bpB6H-_NDrlABwj0h/s547/DIMendeleevCabA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="537" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvGsd7a_IMk7RanjZvYSsV8qL1qjovYUofLK1Mmqo-fFixsJOitPshn3gZoBdW8FE-TYpI86CTBdKX_sDKzri4xR6WCv3vYCPElV2fNe07tDbrWZjvOpqsLubGa27BXkiXW3ufNMRCzxUHZKmZmumarNBYNBWJ2zpWV-X5UZ7bpB6H-_NDrlABwj0h/s320/DIMendeleevCabA.jpg" width="314" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Dmitri Mendeleev</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DIMendeleevCab.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DIMendeleevCab.jpg</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"I saw in a dream a table where all elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper, only in one place did a correction later seem necessary."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Dmitri Mendeleev</b></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When Mendeleev completed his chart, he made it public but with little response. Scientists started paying attention when they realized that his chart had blank spots in his arrangement which predicted elements that had not been found and then were found. It was only then that scientists realized he had found the long-sought key to an understanding of matter. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This is considered one of the greatest discoveries in scientific thought, as he had now made a grand overview of all matter.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>BE AWARE OF OTHER SOURCES</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When I decided it was likely that early humans had made baskets based on bird nests, I then wondered what kind of baskets they could have made. The idea of a random weave came to me and it turned out that there were baskets made with a random structure. The only problem was that I could not find any pictures, which was very important to making a case for this idea. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Then, out of the blue, a friend of mine, Nan Bowles, told me that she had been inspired to make some baskets out of vines that happened to be lying around after doing some cutting at her house in the country. The vines when green were quite flexible and wove well together in an opposing over and under construction. And when they dried the basket was both light and sturdy. Moreover, it was strong as a small basket could carry several kilos.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxX2g1qC79z4dc4e3Hc1Eairb0xUjArHA98e0Uh0oD5sogYHCrbFZqr25XXY7SYl9gTWApzA0XtsCFeiRKhDpBy2914rP1lqTKVJFxHFVzyjbIOC-NpGPeiFrWUQyDF8ltH5IUuYgLEjaUdVARd27Oy38QX5RgAlGsbGIjwjuYM_EEys03bQv4W1HZ/s800/COMPOSITE_RANDOM_BASKET.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="800" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxX2g1qC79z4dc4e3Hc1Eairb0xUjArHA98e0Uh0oD5sogYHCrbFZqr25XXY7SYl9gTWApzA0XtsCFeiRKhDpBy2914rP1lqTKVJFxHFVzyjbIOC-NpGPeiFrWUQyDF8ltH5IUuYgLEjaUdVARd27Oy38QX5RgAlGsbGIjwjuYM_EEys03bQv4W1HZ/w640-h322/COMPOSITE_RANDOM_BASKET.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Weaverbird nests are well-designed and strong. Abandoned ones fell down from Baobab tree limbs (trees where hominins often camped) which early hominins could have collected. "Weaverbird (Southern Masked Weaver) nest of dry grass, near Pretoria, South Africa"</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weaver_Bird_Nest.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weaver_Bird_Nest.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: A random weave basket made from vines by Nan Bowles. It was constructed with green flexible vines that later dried to make a light, stiff, strong basket. (Basket/Photo by Nan Bowles)</div></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So in this case, I kept my eyes open for confirmation from other sources and as luck would have it, there it was. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>______________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>POSTSCRIPT</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;">YOUR IMAGINATION</div><div><br /></div><div>One of your greatest assets when following your hunches will be your imagination. <br />Einstein engaged in 'thought experiments' as did Galileo hundreds of years before. </div><div><br /></div><div>Einstein imagined riding or chasing a beam of light when he was a teenager. He thought about this for years. Then, one night in Bern, Switzerland, he heard the ancient clock chime the hour and it triggered a thought experiment with light and time that led to <br />the Special Theory of Relativity.</div><div><a href="https://haiku--like.blogspot.com/2017/12/einsteins-clocks-and-thought-experiments.html">https://haiku--like.blogspot.com/2017/12/einsteins-clocks-and-thought-experiments.html</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Einstein's Clocks </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b> OR </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b> A Flight Of Imagination </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b> That Revealed The Real World</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b> In 1905 </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> About Einstein's thought experiment</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> and his ability to imagine in the moment </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcjxChPsLGdtc8lE3l-wQAYhcmNQc1AZwgV2vtC84x6ryMXfKY5A5BAf5glB2Z8c28Y-wFpYN3ieeExY2Ga6YiipAPRY19VnkVC0UkxXjL3KlbsXHMpnKknhax6WCdqgmcDpUJ6UjciAYYPvHRn0UTpilv7O0osPTFs1npb8HhpFtINR6YyQFfCthQ/s640/composite_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="640" height="414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcjxChPsLGdtc8lE3l-wQAYhcmNQc1AZwgV2vtC84x6ryMXfKY5A5BAf5glB2Z8c28Y-wFpYN3ieeExY2Ga6YiipAPRY19VnkVC0UkxXjL3KlbsXHMpnKknhax6WCdqgmcDpUJ6UjciAYYPvHRn0UTpilv7O0osPTFs1npb8HhpFtINR6YyQFfCthQ/w640-h414/composite_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><b><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Zytglogge_01.jpg">https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Zytglogge_01.jpg</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> Late one night </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> after struggling with the physics of light, </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> Albert heard the distinctive ring </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> of Bern's Zytglogge clock tower, (left)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> with its 500-year-old bell </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> struck by a figure </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> representing Chronos, the Greek god of time. (right)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> In a flash </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> he was riding a streetcar </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> at the speed of light </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> and looking back at the time </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> on the Bern clock </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> which froze </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> because the light from its later time </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> could never catch him. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> Yet he could see the minutes </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> on his pocket watch were </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> continuing. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> And then he knew </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> time was relative.</b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>MORE BLOGS BY RICK DOBLE ABOUT INTUITION </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>How To Be Intuitive: Intuition, Imagination, and Discovery <br /></b></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2016/11/how-to-be-intuitive-intuition.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2016/11/how-to-be-intuitive-intuition.html</a></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The AHA Moment: My Personal Story</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-aha-moment-my-personal-story.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-aha-moment-my-personal-story.html</a></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-73938593365518495012022-12-30T02:12:00.005-05:002022-12-31T06:18:14.047-05:00This blog, DeconstructingTime, is 10 years old<div style="text-align: left;"><div><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>My blog <br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>DeconstructingTime</i><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>is 10 years old this month<br /></b></span></span></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Altogether these blog articles have received <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">over a quarter of a million views and downloads <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">on the Internet (see STATS below).</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><h1><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/</a></b></h1></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUFhNSt6yepZZgX460tVxYHoj4N4pKETaq7iR3-Odfm536g-PnQtpJcP4liGPxKrsNXnM8N1PyUdxee88k01VTbkXekOh8fSSBEoOzRU1TzHLx9vlNvIqHx04PhEcJS67HKieG_g09Pw0iitRjNVCmgoJXvG7WpLkn72Vg1rLgOE7dIRc3FofQ5SHx/s567/Schofield_Signalman_limited_edition_wrist_watch_NOW_cropped.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="567" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUFhNSt6yepZZgX460tVxYHoj4N4pKETaq7iR3-Odfm536g-PnQtpJcP4liGPxKrsNXnM8N1PyUdxee88k01VTbkXekOh8fSSBEoOzRU1TzHLx9vlNvIqHx04PhEcJS67HKieG_g09Pw0iitRjNVCmgoJXvG7WpLkn72Vg1rLgOE7dIRc3FofQ5SHx/w400-h351/Schofield_Signalman_limited_edition_wrist_watch_NOW_cropped.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Ten years ago, in December 2012, I began this blog to explore how we, as human beings, understand and relate to time. I never imagined that ten years later I would have outlined a scenario of the evolution of human time-keeping that began millions of years ago and continued up to the present day. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>THE BEGINNING</b></span></h2><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Here is what I wrote on December 24, 2012</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Explorations Into The Human Experience Of Time</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>December 24, 2012</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>While time exists independently of human beings, our perception and experience of time are uniquely human. I believe it is the modern human -- i.e. Homo sapiens sapiens -- sense of time that is the key difference between humans and other animals. And further, I believe that time, as we experience it, is created by our uniquely human brains and is critical to our sense of consciousness.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2012/12/de-constructing-time-explorations-into.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2012/12/de-constructing-time-explorations-into.html</a></b></span></div><div></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>A LITTLE BACKGROUND</b></span></h2><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I am an independent researcher and thinker. I have a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Communication with a minor in Anthropology, both from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But I work and think outside the normal academic channels. While I greatly respect the academic world, I find that my restless and curious mind goes in directions that work better independently rather than within an educational setting. I also have had a lifelong interest in human history starting around the age of ten when I began a museum of fossils and Indian arrowheads.</b></span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>WHAT I FOUND</b></span></h2><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Over these last ten years, I have explored what I had hoped I could do based on this early introduction. In my ten years of research I have hypothesized:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- How an early hominin brain contained a unique capability that could begin to work with time in a linear fashion, i,e., time with a past, present, future, and duration -- which no other animal could do. This is my most popular article with over 10,000 page views.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/08/animal-senses-compared-to-human-sense.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/08/animal-senses-compared-to-human-sense.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- How this sense of time evolved through the Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- How primary tools for both conceptualizing time and working with time were part of all languages.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2017/02/concept-of-time-embedded-in-language.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2017/02/concept-of-time-embedded-in-language.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- How an expanded sense of linear time would lead to the Neolithic Revolution and then to the first great civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/05/neolithic-concepts-of-time.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/05/neolithic-concepts-of-time.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- How the modern sense of time was changed with photography and the scientific revolution.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-photography-changed-time-part-1.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-photography-changed-time-part-1.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>To my delight, one or more of these blog posts that dealt with each of these very different periods has been popular so people were/are reading the full spectrum of my thoughts. To read about the complete theory click on the following link.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Rick Doble's Theory About </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Human Understanding of Time (HUT)</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b>AN OVERVIEW</b></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b>A complete theory</b></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">From about 3 million years ago to the present day</div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">From 10 years of this blog about the human experience of time</div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/10/hut-theory-human-understanding-of-time.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/10/hut-theory-human-understanding-of-time.html</a></div></span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>________________________________________<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>STATISTICS</b></span></span></h2><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>BLOGGER.COM</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- I have published over 130 posts, many of them 5000 words or more with pictures and footnotes.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- This has led to over 128,800 views.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THESE BLOGS ON ACADEMIC SITES</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I also converted most of my blogs to PDF documents which I put on three academic sites. Academia.edu has provided me with the most detailed statistics so I only list total page views in the other two academic sites.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ACADEMIA.EDU</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://unc.academia.edu/RickDoble">https://unc.academia.edu/RickDoble</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have recorded over 28,000 views plus 5000+ downloads.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have over 840 followers.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>1,678 people are heavily involved with my work, i.e., read or downloaded multiple documents. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have 1 co-author and 40 mentions by other scholars.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A total of 5,612 have viewed my work on Academia.edu.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>My work is in the top 1% of documents viewed on this site.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>RESEARCHGATE.COM</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Doble-Rick/stats">https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Doble-Rick/stats</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Total reads 72,523</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>FIGSHARE.COM</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://figshare.com/authors/Rick_Doble/629522">https://figshare.com/authors/Rick_Doble/629522</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>USAGE METRICS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>38563 item views</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>13539 item downloads</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Altogether readers from over 180 countries (more than 90% of the countries in the world) have viewed my blogs and articles.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Added together all the academic sites received over 150,000 views and downloads. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When the academic site page views and downloads are added to the blog views, the total is more than a quarter of a million or more than 280,000 views and downloads.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">________________________________________</span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><br /></b></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">THIS RESEARCH AND THE INTERNET</b></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I realize now that I began this blog at almost the perfect time for this kind of research. I don't think I could have done what I did twenty years earlier, for example. I needed to be able to search millions of documents and have access to millions of photographs that would provide evidence or illustrate my ideas. By 2010 things were in place. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Google, of course, was a key component, because it was one thing to have access to millions of documents and it was quite another thing to find just the right document. I had worked as a research assistant when I was in graduate school, so I was already ahead of the game, in a sense. I knew how to track down different documents that would support my theories.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>FINDING PROOF</b></span></h2><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In addition to my general ideas, I was able to prove or come close to proving a number of my specific theories. As far as I know, I was the first person to assert many of these ideas. For example: </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- I was able to show that the reed industry in Mesopotamia was a major industry because clay cuneiform port receipts showed that reed bundles were a major product that was being delivered. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/06/mesopotamian-misconceptions.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/06/mesopotamian-misconceptions.html</a></b></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5L0a3zVzSAPPGmc4owynypetrxqjcYehdYuIuiLKS_uXYGv7c94ZK1aGacOHB-j-LFc8cnoXjpv28wENUJqj3WZOu5NkRCrMp1OY77LsSlGnb7zMXHZF0YXJgXqWWh2_Ihye5ERwOY9wCKLaHGrpFw4yqIGMWRUPtN5HkBdJYAIZxw-y3-QpddH70/s640/capture_X007A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="640" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5L0a3zVzSAPPGmc4owynypetrxqjcYehdYuIuiLKS_uXYGv7c94ZK1aGacOHB-j-LFc8cnoXjpv28wENUJqj3WZOu5NkRCrMp1OY77LsSlGnb7zMXHZF0YXJgXqWWh2_Ihye5ERwOY9wCKLaHGrpFw4yqIGMWRUPtN5HkBdJYAIZxw-y3-QpddH70/w640-h432/capture_X007A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LARGE MESOPOTAMIAN REED SHIP: While this is an artist's conception, it is not unrealistic. Large ships such as this and a fleet of small boats in Mesopotamia were made with reeds. Large and small homes were constructed with reeds along with sturdy baskets used for dredging the channels and transporting clay for making bricks. Also, reeds in combination with bitumen were used in the construction of levees and the making of irrigation buckets. I found that the crucial importance of reeds to the early civilizations in Mesopotamia has not been adequately understood.</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- As a lifelong photographer I was able to show that the passageway at the Neolithic tomb in Newgrange Ireland provided a wealth of information (by the way light entered the passageway) during the time of the winter solstice. This meant that these Neolithic people could determine the day of the solstice in real time which the Romans and Greeks could not. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/03/computing-winter-solstice-at-newgrange.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/03/computing-winter-solstice-at-newgrange.html</a></b></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBPiRkm39F623_QQoDrfJwjmwGtNKQ70eeKY7th_hZc2KYfEWUD46iD3hScQfCRg_cKlAtK-ftJDPjpJ__8bTKtnGfLJnOyqWBfXTHFmgIeASf7iW0nZ0uO-vkwMd0AepYsaEXdf-n3PFFEkTWQmbaVtYw35wAX_73241T9aDJvmgFNu0P04MbOOik/s800/NEWGRANGE_PASSAGEWAYA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="800" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBPiRkm39F623_QQoDrfJwjmwGtNKQ70eeKY7th_hZc2KYfEWUD46iD3hScQfCRg_cKlAtK-ftJDPjpJ__8bTKtnGfLJnOyqWBfXTHFmgIeASf7iW0nZ0uO-vkwMd0AepYsaEXdf-n3PFFEkTWQmbaVtYw35wAX_73241T9aDJvmgFNu0P04MbOOik/w640-h260/NEWGRANGE_PASSAGEWAYA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIeJwocf7HLazV6VAvxyRcuBtrlk8iGS2iZbHiyTwDAgbEKqao06d3w-LqGpf0UgMywwVVnfwKAODotQnY5Nk1vDnjo_gbUMUCJZCg0zOa-f5ZrUXcwlOLXKqKXmSRHlgZVRLkylUgOfaPYasuGR3Ezogd1alD1cimgJpYemtKvLY-B5ZHWBowr6iB/s800/ROOF-BOX_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIeJwocf7HLazV6VAvxyRcuBtrlk8iGS2iZbHiyTwDAgbEKqao06d3w-LqGpf0UgMywwVVnfwKAODotQnY5Nk1vDnjo_gbUMUCJZCg0zOa-f5ZrUXcwlOLXKqKXmSRHlgZVRLkylUgOfaPYasuGR3Ezogd1alD1cimgJpYemtKvLY-B5ZHWBowr6iB/w640-h266/ROOF-BOX_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;">TOP: A bird's eye overview of the passageway at Newgrange. Light entered the passageway through the specially designed roof-box and not the entrance to the passageway. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BOTTOM: Left: the entrance to the passageway with the roof-box up above. The passageway was illuminated only around the time of the winter solstice because these Neolithic engineers had made a special roof-box (right) with a slit that controlled how the light was captured. This design also magnified the light and accentuated both the angle of the light and its movement down the passageway. On the day of the solstice, the light entered, went the full distance of the passageway, and then withdrew for a total of 17 minutes.</span></div></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- And I was able to show from fossil evidence that early hominins lived close to weaverbirds and their complex woven nests, so these nests could have been a model for early baskets and containers millions of years ago. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/10/paleolithic-evidence-for-early-weaving_27.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/10/paleolithic-evidence-for-early-weaving_27.html</a></b></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD1pziPt08WFQxpgPOPiB6Gy8JoawQ4m2dDlPq9yED-NkjBBdJJUKUUDXBLH31JCkPbAaUi6uaFd4DnPnxe89ijBc66EyOpZd8PB4juG7ePw8ibPxy7Me0hc2fhJVXQ-B-o8_0B5TQH-IS8iJvNWIP3niQUNE-Htx6vvGSXE6zmEI8lhT6amRMYXkS/s800/COMPOSITE_RANDOM_BASKET.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="800" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD1pziPt08WFQxpgPOPiB6Gy8JoawQ4m2dDlPq9yED-NkjBBdJJUKUUDXBLH31JCkPbAaUi6uaFd4DnPnxe89ijBc66EyOpZd8PB4juG7ePw8ibPxy7Me0hc2fhJVXQ-B-o8_0B5TQH-IS8iJvNWIP3niQUNE-Htx6vvGSXE6zmEI8lhT6amRMYXkS/w640-h322/COMPOSITE_RANDOM_BASKET.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;">LEFT: A weaverbird nest. Notice its intricate weaving with opposing strands and under and over strand construction.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RIGHT: A random basket made with flexible green vines. When the basket was completed and the vines dried, a basket such as this was strong and could carry four or more kilograms.</span></div><div><br /></div></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Without the Internet, it would have been virtually impossible to find these kinds of evidence.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Also, and just as important, millions of photographs were made available to researchers. These photographs often provided direct evidence in themselves. So I was able to show, for example, that the Paleolithic paintings of bison in the Cave of Altamira in Spain were accurate drawings of live bison and which had to have been done from memory and keen observation as the paintings were painted deep in a dark cave. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-genius-of-cavemen.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-genius-of-cavemen.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPKW9EYzyfesKZT2W5REj9AiFVfAMaRinx83oa8CSemGik3kLupl9q_SKxsRBOenDdILoCn_u-F6JRSXYZtt8XBR8LuPpF5iEYpmHVn5YqhCt1a5cbr5V3_7lv3pJs_E_0r_5tL2NMEtq1_4bF-kUXEiKAtde9cLyyFD5ylooO0gRRyDfSI7Y3dRNk/s634/bison_composite.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="229" data-original-width="634" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPKW9EYzyfesKZT2W5REj9AiFVfAMaRinx83oa8CSemGik3kLupl9q_SKxsRBOenDdILoCn_u-F6JRSXYZtt8XBR8LuPpF5iEYpmHVn5YqhCt1a5cbr5V3_7lv3pJs_E_0r_5tL2NMEtq1_4bF-kUXEiKAtde9cLyyFD5ylooO0gRRyDfSI7Y3dRNk/w640-h232/bison_composite.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: A bison painting from the ceiling at the Cave of Altamira in Spain. Made with a kind of spray paint technique, this painting shows that this Paleolithic artist had a good memory and keen observation to capture a realistic image of a standing bison that was painted deep in a dark cave.</div><div>RIGHT: A modern-day bison that is not the same species at the time of the paintings at Altamira, but, nevertheless, shows how accurately the cave painter captured the stance.</div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And I was able to propose an idea about time concepts that pertained to the development of language, based on an unusual language spoken by hunter-gatherers in the Amazon. The idea is that early concepts of time by humans would be short-term and immediate having just emerged from the immediacy of animal existence. This article has recorded well over 1000 page views and downloads by linguists and was more popular on my academic sites than on the blog itself. At one point it was the most popular academic article on Academia.edu. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>How Language Began </i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>And The Human Understanding Of Time</i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Daniel Everett's New Theories About The Evolution Of Language </i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2018/10/everett-how-language-began-and-human-time-keeping.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2018/10/everett-how-language-began-and-human-time-keeping.html</a></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Cs_LjCkRP-dnVA_KLiqqtvQKo1TmlL0cbwewK65KJH4zFNsIpiASg-cAI6j3qQD8jB9el4V2JBswnGG3s5qiP7kfT36ygl3afSOoNzIQjuISxYkmh3taGh3ot9BuZ4PUu2O5xyZzr7do_cfyUvneuQyQKMTlxU-PBXipMX0cqSB5DN9ZWiTWIygW/s800/1_Helen_Keller5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="800" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Cs_LjCkRP-dnVA_KLiqqtvQKo1TmlL0cbwewK65KJH4zFNsIpiASg-cAI6j3qQD8jB9el4V2JBswnGG3s5qiP7kfT36ygl3afSOoNzIQjuISxYkmh3taGh3ot9BuZ4PUu2O5xyZzr7do_cfyUvneuQyQKMTlxU-PBXipMX0cqSB5DN9ZWiTWIygW/w640-h478/1_Helen_Keller5.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">CONSCIOUSNESS AND TIME</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Photograph of Helen Keller 'feeling' the words from the mouth of Mrs. Calvin Coolidge, wife of the president.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Helen Keller was deafblind and could not communicate with words until the age of seven. When she did learn words, she not only understood the words for the world around her and gained a "misty consciousness" but she also gained a sense of time that had not existed before.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/12/time-consciousness.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/12/time-consciousness.html</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><div><span style="font-family: arial;">At the still point of the turning world.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Neither flesh nor fleshless;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Neither from nor towards;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">At the still point, there the dance is,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But neither arrest nor movement.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">And do not call it fixity,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Where past and future are gathered.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Neither movement from nor towards,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Neither ascent nor decline.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Except for the point, the still point,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">There would be no dance,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">And there is only the dance.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">T.S. Eliot, <i>Burnt Norton</i>, 1936, <i>Four Quartets</i></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">All pictures/images are from commons.wikimedia.org, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">You will find the link for these pictures in the related blog article.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-53691158401731322382022-11-30T04:05:00.001-05:002022-11-30T04:14:36.436-05:00Childhood Adventure<div style="text-align: left;"><h1 style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">A SILENT CHILDHOOD ADVENTURE </span></b></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sandwich, MA, Shawme Pond, 1956, age 12</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">My childhood friend Peter just died at the age of 76.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">He and his sister Shawnee, who survives him, have been my oldest friends. <br />When I was 12 and Peter was 10, we had many adventures. This was one of them.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghW__zMtVruZqyOrd5biswj2cMDgHY80bm66IPtPia6f7Nbjqq1ILFB_ljEnmhnbdkB89yJXVaabczzmrR2L8-Czxupv1wXcBHl32AyXzzsfbiHEIvDJQFknP2sLVddYZjuKZTlrvs_lskw5VmTCBm-OUia1JUX-r5UliwZkuqjsfr_BkpjpXhifFN/s640/640px-Florida_Box_Turtle_Digon3_re-edited.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghW__zMtVruZqyOrd5biswj2cMDgHY80bm66IPtPia6f7Nbjqq1ILFB_ljEnmhnbdkB89yJXVaabczzmrR2L8-Czxupv1wXcBHl32AyXzzsfbiHEIvDJQFknP2sLVddYZjuKZTlrvs_lskw5VmTCBm-OUia1JUX-r5UliwZkuqjsfr_BkpjpXhifFN/w400-h300/640px-Florida_Box_Turtle_Digon3_re-edited.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Most stories about child adventures</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">are about running away</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">or being scared or making noise</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But this story is different</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">it is about stillness</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">When the surface of Shawme Pond</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">was glassy</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Peter and I would set off</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">in my small wooden row boat</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">to drift,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">but drift with a plan</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Rowing slowly </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">we approached our prey --</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">turtles who were sunning themselves</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">on half sunken logs</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">fallen trees that had been </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">in the water for years</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">at the forest edge</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">When we got close</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">we gave the boat one last</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">strong but silent</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">pull of the oars </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">and let it float</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">like a piece of driftwood</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">moved by a gentle breeze</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Like quiet Indian hunters</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Peter was at the bow</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">his arm half outstretched </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">but frozen</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">while I steered with the oars</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">And the dozens of unsuspecting turtles</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">continued to bask</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">in the warm sun</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">unaware of their possible capture</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">When we got within arm's length</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Peter shot out his hand</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">like the long tongue of a frog</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">and grabbed a turtle's hard shell </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">from the top and middle</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">to avoid getting bitten</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">And with that, in an instant,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">the rest of the sleepy turtles</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">plopped into the water</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">and swam away</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">abandoning the one we had taken</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But we had our prize</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Hoping to entice him</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">from his shell</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">we placed him at the bottom of the boat</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">next to a leaf of lettuce </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">-- a delicacy for turtles --</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">hoping that after some time</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">he might poke his head out</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Then we might just drift</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">for another hour or so</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">until the shrill whistle</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">of my father,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">that could be heard for miles</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">along the pond,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">called us back to shore</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But before we ended our adventure</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">we rapidly rowed to the forest edge</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">and placed our turtle back on his log</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">He did not linger</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">dropping quickly into the water</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We watched him swim down to the bottom</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">then lost sight of him</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">as he mingled with the eel grass</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-75095887340241377842022-10-09T04:26:00.000-04:002022-10-09T04:26:20.103-04:00HUT THEORY: Human Understanding of Time<div style="text-align: left;"><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Rick Doble's Theory About <br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>The Human Understanding of Time (HUT)</b></span></span></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>AN OVERVIEW</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">A complete theory</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">From about 3 million years ago to the present day</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">From 10 years of this blog about the human experience of time</span></div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii8KwyCnBZNlvnPARh_EwFTm1JPzxIAzdbExcPpEEqsk6c6odB8_ZAb_AdbWGUAnX7snA4x9FmT9MnutnvJS5Oefw-wkqijKGgAIDVhlRy8E8V2JaToDOXrH0dizrd9WbDS13PlZGq8vf2RP3AkmUyCzgXzKHpBnpU2xjGF-1QvTKx8g35NpXds_Qn/s1532/Australopithecus_sediba_and_LucyA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1532" data-original-width="671" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii8KwyCnBZNlvnPARh_EwFTm1JPzxIAzdbExcPpEEqsk6c6odB8_ZAb_AdbWGUAnX7snA4x9FmT9MnutnvJS5Oefw-wkqijKGgAIDVhlRy8E8V2JaToDOXrH0dizrd9WbDS13PlZGq8vf2RP3AkmUyCzgXzKHpBnpU2xjGF-1QvTKx8g35NpXds_Qn/w280-h640/Australopithecus_sediba_and_LucyA.jpg" width="280" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Lucy (Australopithecus) 3.2 mya, related to and possibly one of our early ancestors. Image compiled by Peter Schmid courtesy of Lee R. Berger, University of the Witwatersrand.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Australopithecus_sediba_and_Lucy.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Australopithecus_sediba_and_Lucy.jpg</a></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Human Understanding of Time (HUT)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HUT is a comprehensive theory about how the human understanding of time came about and how it developed.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The reason we are the dominant species on this planet is due, in large part, to our ability to plan, organize, manage, and predict -- which all require a sophisticated understanding of time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Homo sapiens is the only animal on the planet that conceives and works with time in a linear fashion, time with a past, present, and future plus duration. This did not happen quickly but, I believe, took millions of years, beginning with early hominins.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In past articles over the last ten years, I have gone into detail about different aspects ranging from millions of years ago, to the emerging civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, and the consumer culture and photography of today. In this article I want to put the pieces together, to look at a grand view, to look at the forest, and not concentrate on the trees. In brief, I want to paint a BIG PICTURE.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The HUT theory involves many aspects: </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>* the addition of the pre-frontal cortex to the hominin brain, a part of the brain that allowed hominins to consider possible future actions and eventually to conceive of linear time with a past, present, and future </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>* the development of the brain with the increased ability to remember and to imagine</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>* the early and continuing development of plant and fiber technology, a technology that all agree must have existed but until now has been ignored due to a lack of direct evidence; new indirect and some direct evidence points to woven-fiber technology (basket making) as an important early technology</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>* the survival benefits of woven-fiber technology (basket making) which allowed hominins to gather and carry much more food and materials </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>* the possible influence of woven-fiber technology on evolution itself due to increased food supplies and better access to important materials </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>* concepts of time related to basket making which took planning and then time-consuming work to make</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>* the development of culture based on concepts of time</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>* the development of languages all of which include time references</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>* the development of time concepts such as: coordination, management, planning, design, imagination, memory, prediction, and the use and development of processes</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT DOCUMENTATION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Since this article is an overview I will not provide a list of sources for my statements, but if you look at my timeline article (next link) and the specific articles referenced, you will find extensive documentation.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Please see my previous article,</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b> A Historic Timeline About Human Concepts of Time,</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"> for documentation about statements made in this article.</div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/06/timeline-of-human-time-concepts.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/06/timeline-of-human-time-concepts.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>EARLIER INCORRECT ASSUMPTIONS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A major reason that this type of theory did not exist until now is because many assumptions were incorrect. In particular, the old assumed timeline of human development that existed for about 150 years had many flaws, flaws in part due to an inability to properly date archaeological finds. Now, however, this has been largely solved due to advanced dating techniques. So, for example, modern dating was able to confirm that the ceiling cave paintings at the Cave of Altamira in Spain were about 14,000 years old and not fraudulent as originally claimed by experts.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But the timeline was also incorrect because of many unfounded assumptions.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>To perhaps over-generalize, in the past, it was assumed that early hominins were not very intelligent or sophisticated. It was only with the much later rise of civilization that humans finally emerged from primitive and brutish conditions. The entire prehistoric past (meaning before written records) and stone age technology, including advanced Neolithic technology, was seen as crude and unrefined at best.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The thinking now is almost the opposite. It is my opinion, and that of many others, that even the earliest hominins with small brains such as Homo habilis or Homo erectus accomplished remarkable things and that they were very smart with the brain power they did have. For example, they invented technologies that had never existed before, such as the making of stone tools, which they continued to develop and refine.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But even when considering more recent time periods such as the Neolithic era, the bias of modern thinking is evident. For example, using written history as a key dividing point in human history is and was a mistake. Before written history, i.e., in prehistoric times, extremely sophisticated cultures and societies were established. They were so sophisticated that some of the Neolithic processes, for example, are still used today or until recently.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Neolithic time period is a good example of how modern thinking stood as a barrier to a clear understanding of Neolithic accomplishments. It was assumed that since it used stone age technology, it was primitive. Not so. In fact, well-designed stone age tools, which were extremely efficient, were used for thousands of years even after the rise of the great civilizations and the invention of bronze, because bronze was rare and expensive. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiesZz305TAv7TtLM4d5HG4NXjdEwAKa-N8nsMZXTMktfwfqLz625dZ1e9lfJfwi5pXP9pUnNC2HGhzkvNuRopr0duCsgd_VDG8kTFou2Ne_5ZHyTw1cYTlQ4lBDJW5gH6rQ8C3SnFG_6MXB6zUjbPbwF9M6H5roHXwkc9y3exPEbgwIkBuCLnmuUud/s640/1_Neolithic_stone_axe_with_handle_ehenside_tarn_british_museumA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="640" height="345" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiesZz305TAv7TtLM4d5HG4NXjdEwAKa-N8nsMZXTMktfwfqLz625dZ1e9lfJfwi5pXP9pUnNC2HGhzkvNuRopr0duCsgd_VDG8kTFou2Ne_5ZHyTw1cYTlQ4lBDJW5gH6rQ8C3SnFG_6MXB6zUjbPbwF9M6H5roHXwkc9y3exPEbgwIkBuCLnmuUud/w400-h345/1_Neolithic_stone_axe_with_handle_ehenside_tarn_british_museumA.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This axe looks crude but it was state of the art for thousands of years. It not only could quickly clear a forested site, it and similar stone tools could cut and shape wood better than any tools before it. It led to a new 'wood' technology that had not been possible before in Europe.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"A Neolithic stone axe with a wooden handle. Found at Ehenside Tarn, now in the British Museum."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Neolithic_stone_axe_with_handle_ehenside_tarn_british_museum.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Neolithic_stone_axe_with_handle_ehenside_tarn_british_museum.JPG</a></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Incorrect assumptions are a barrier to new discoveries. They prevent research into ideas that disagree with these assumptions, prevent students from exploring new areas, and choke off funding.</span></b></div><div><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I say all of this because many incorrect assumptions need to be put to rest so that the new insights of a comprehensive theory such as HUT can be considered.</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I will summarize past incorrect assumptions as follows:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ASSUMPTION: It was assumed that basketry was developed during the Neolithic era and not before. It was also assumed that the hunter-gatherers of the Upper Paleolithic did not have the time to make baskets or woven-fiber items nor the sophisticated intelligence and skills to make them.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>FACT: Recent studies showed that hunter-gatherers had more time than horticultural farmers. And Native American Indian mobile hunter-gathers (a lifestyle viewed as similar to those in the European Upper Paleolithic) were expert basket makers who preferred light durable fiber containers over heavy and breakable pottery.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ASSUMPTION: If a culture does not use an advanced technology that is available to it, it is primitive.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>FACT: Humans use a technology because they need it. For example, the assumption that Native American Indians who did not use pottery but preferred basketry were less sophisticated was incorrect. Mobile hunter-gatherers needed light strong items as they moved. While not well known, they had developed large and small baskets for carrying water and baskets for cooking with hot rocks. Plus they could make just about any additional woven-fiber item from local vegetation as they moved around.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ASSUMPTION: Technological advances happen in a fairly predictable progression.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>FACT: Many things that were assumed to be part of the Neolithic have been found in the Paleolithic such as a highly sophisticated ceramic figurine. It can no longer be assumed that technology progressed in an orderly fashion.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizQHNGE3d6c6s5EnzYLW4w4mtY8bq0X7IWgtCoObC0bBi-za6ZIonnBjg7d1ak2j2IbY1s1mOdNCIZq5lANCzm_WgETjSDD5InCBjx0FQ8o4hph28EX_YIhnMIGSdFzkGKduAg4CcMmqQO6FCG71Pv9iQcAxuLKr-YcMO0oHqgJgL2wrAh8wXvPvlv/s800/Vestonicka_venuse_edit_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="410" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizQHNGE3d6c6s5EnzYLW4w4mtY8bq0X7IWgtCoObC0bBi-za6ZIonnBjg7d1ak2j2IbY1s1mOdNCIZq5lANCzm_WgETjSDD5InCBjx0FQ8o4hph28EX_YIhnMIGSdFzkGKduAg4CcMmqQO6FCG71Pv9iQcAxuLKr-YcMO0oHqgJgL2wrAh8wXvPvlv/w205-h400/Vestonicka_venuse_edit_A.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It was always assumed that ceramics began in the Neolithic era along with pottery as it required a hot and controlled fire. But this figurine was made about 20,000 years earlier in the Upper Paleolithic era.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Venus of Dolní Vestonice</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"Venus figurine, a ceramic statuette of a nude female figure dated to 29,000–25,000 BCE [or early Upper Paleolithic]. This figurine...is among the oldest known ceramic articles in the world."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vestonicka_venuse_edit.jpg">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vestonicka_venuse_edit.jpg</a></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ASSUMPTION: Basket making was women's work and therefore not important.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>FACT: Yes, in many cases baskets were made by women, which should have nothing to do with the value of their work. The Native American Indians revered the highly sophisticated processes and creations of their women.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ASSUMPTION: It was assumed that basketry was, in any case, not important and certainly not as important as stone tools.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>FACT: Basket making and woven-fiber technology (which includes rope) were critical. The tools made with these technologies could be made anywhere in the world with local materials and used for a wide variety of items from boats to large burden baskets for gathering food or firewood. This technology was also used to make hats, shoes, and even suspension rope bridges. These were versatile tools even though they have not been thought of as tools by researchers until recently.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ASSUMPTION: The birth of civilization, meaning Mesopotamia and Egypt, marks the start of man's highest achievements.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>FACT: Most of the processes and technologies that made the great civilizations possible had been highly developed in the Neolithic time period. For example, The Bronze Age, seen as a clear break from the 'primitive' stone age, depended on Neolithic inventions. Neolithic pottery kilns were able to achieve high temperatures which had not been possible before. And this ability led directly to the even higher temperatures necessary for metallurgy. They also built a variety of small and large reed boats which became important for trade. Furthermore, the Neolithic radical change in lifestyle from the previous hunter-gatherer existence depended on agriculture, a selection of basic crops (founder crops), a method for storing and preserving the crops over months or years, sedentary villages, textiles, and pottery. All of the above formed the foundation for the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ASSUMPTION: Writing is the dividing technology that separates advanced societies from earlier crude cultures.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>FACT: Neolithic societies did not require writing as the Neolithic cities were not big enough to need it. However, the much larger later civilizations did need it.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ASSUMPTION: The scientific achievements of civilizations show a clear superiority over Neolithic and earlier cultures.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>FACT: Some Neolithic science was as advanced or even more advanced than those of later civilizations. For example, the passageway at Newgrange, which was aligned with the winter solstice sun and used to determine the day of the solstice, was more precise than methods used by the Romans or the Greeks.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTkDXEBkICb26ctgsDad2FrWslJsf14kRAp604h6PhCzp_hbVxHAK7GS6Vn6D5Fdpkzlzcd4kaT0J6s1fch0qrFnxwiaw-HYyH63OiPUQEFObLLixUFYPDvWOZime3G0GPDvjGgm4S00jR2pgSb9OKo1JVIM8gOYF6qY66jHw1mLXbdSCyt8-oTg3K/s800/ROOF-BOX_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTkDXEBkICb26ctgsDad2FrWslJsf14kRAp604h6PhCzp_hbVxHAK7GS6Vn6D5Fdpkzlzcd4kaT0J6s1fch0qrFnxwiaw-HYyH63OiPUQEFObLLixUFYPDvWOZime3G0GPDvjGgm4S00jR2pgSb9OKo1JVIM8gOYF6qY66jHw1mLXbdSCyt8-oTg3K/w640-h266/ROOF-BOX_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Newgrange</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LEFT: Close-up of the gate to the passageway (bottom) and the roof-box (top).</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newgrange_County_Meath_-_76399266.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newgrange_County_Meath_-_76399266.jpg</a></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">RIGHT: Close-up of the roof-box and the funnel stones. The solstice light comes through this specially designed roof-box and then into the passageway. The light does not come through the passageway doorway.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newgrange_(S%C3%AD_an_Bhr%C3%BA)_Monument,_Donore,_%C3%89ire_-_31630728177.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newgrange_(S%C3%AD_an_Bhr%C3%BA)_Monument,_Donore,_%C3%89ire_-_31630728177.jpg</a></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"For 17 minutes, therefore, at sunrise on the shortest day of the year, direct sunlight can enter Newgrange, not through the doorway, but through the specially contrived slit that lies under the roof-box at the outer end of the passage roof."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">(O'Kelly et al., Newgrange: Archaeology, Art and Legend.)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2JGrmboG6fRtsKMaxTk5WOjCDLKrNmKtsHaUvZThgfPC01SDI-PHQqeIAGUWfGBzv6E8pAeRqV3_v7IwNqn6t-moDV7d9SjQ9HK36UJ_NbI5ZJxUJQGrbF_RC5Ubul5kAjJqYaU0MTTjNquDok-T7y3lyUo8tMDSObzla_lIlT8J2o3Sb3l90hSj/s800/NEWGRANGE_PASSAGEWAYA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="800" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2JGrmboG6fRtsKMaxTk5WOjCDLKrNmKtsHaUvZThgfPC01SDI-PHQqeIAGUWfGBzv6E8pAeRqV3_v7IwNqn6t-moDV7d9SjQ9HK36UJ_NbI5ZJxUJQGrbF_RC5Ubul5kAjJqYaU0MTTjNquDok-T7y3lyUo8tMDSObzla_lIlT8J2o3Sb3l90hSj/w640-h260/NEWGRANGE_PASSAGEWAYA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">While this looks crude to our modern eyes, the alignment and placement of the stones were exact and could determine the day of the solstice in real time, which was (and still is) very hard to determine through direct observation.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Coffey, George. Drawings of Newgrange from the late 1800s. Published in: <i>The Dolmens of Ireland,</i>, by William Copeland Borlase. Published by the University of Michigan Library (January 1, 1897).</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>While we have no written records, the many Neolithic monuments that are astronomically aligned indicate the ability of Neolithic science to mark and measure time and also the importance of time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Writing about Neolithic monuments and megaliths, Michael Gantley of <i>National Geographic</i> wrote,</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"The incorporation of astronomical alignments suggests that Neolithic ceremonies were closely bound with the changing seasons. These cycles were critical to agrarian communities..."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(Gantley, Europe’s Mighty Megaliths "Rock" the Winter Solstice)</b></span></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">_______________________________</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>A NEW STORY OF </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>HUMAN, CULTURAL, & TECHNOLOGICAL EVOLUTION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Once these incorrect assumptions are pushed aside, a new story of human, technological, and cultural evolution becomes possible.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In particular, the human understanding of time is critical. It took a long time to develop and once developed it went through many versions. Yet this idea has not taken center stage until now. Without an understanding of time, none of the great achievements of humankind would have been possible. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Why a study of the human understanding of time has not been explored is a mystery. I believe it was again due to another incorrect assumption: many believe that time is what it is and our perception of it has always been the same. Before I started writing my blog, I could only find a few discussions of different possible conceptions of time as humankind developed.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE PREFRONTAL CORTEX (PFC)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Millions of years ago (no one is sure when) some primates acquired a unique part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex which, among many other things, allowed some creatures to consider different future outcomes and then choose which action to take. It is very likely that over time, and with increased memory and imagination due to a much larger brain, hominins were able to conceive of time in a linear fashion, with a past, present, and future, but this did not happen quickly. It took millions of years. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Early developing technologies such as basket making and the demands of woven-fiber technology may have affected how this part of the brain evolved. While other primate brains have the prefrontal cortex, the one that Homo sapiens have is much larger and unique to our species. Studies of the PFC are ongoing as modern science is still learning about this part of the brain.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SENSE OF TIME </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>IN THE PALEOLITHIC ERA</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"It must have required enormous effort for man to overcome his natural tendency to live like the animals in a continual present."</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"Man must have been conscious of memories and purposes long before he made any explicit distinction between past, present, and future."</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Whitrow, Gerald. <i>Time in History: Views of Time from Prehistory to the Present Day</i>. Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press. 1988, pages 21-22.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As members of the animal kingdom, I believe hominins emerged from a sense of time that was immediate to a very different sense of time that could be imagined and worked with.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>To begin my search for evidence, I focused on basketry because I felt that basket making and woven-fiber items were closely related to concepts of time and would have been familiar to everyone in a tribe. I also knew that containers and weaving were found in all cultures around the world, so there was a good chance that basketry was an ancient technology.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A basket must be imagined first and then created in a grid pattern which takes time and also represents time. So a basket becomes, in a way, a symbol for time itself.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In my work, I pushed back the beginning of woven-fiber technology and basket making to about 2 million years ago when it can be proved with fossil evidence that early hominins lived in close association with weaverbirds who made sophisticated basket-like nests. Oldowan tools from early hominins were found in the same layers as skeletons of weaverbirds at Olduvai Gorge in Africa. So it is likely that early humans learned a type of basket making from these birds. For example, random weave baskets made from flexible green vines are easy to make and can be quite strong once the vines have dried out. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGZqCXufV5USaC_YorPdZ-y_6-ti9ph_Fq8A5oZMikLYEkNKErtu9PX76QfmFxZdEUD2bPcCsBtZAGtpiCaC0vvmSxMEEnVugeK4c7EjV9oFf7XGgbJqKPWYdM73qbi9FNPh5uO5JOf8O2hFRDF4eNUnKFGiVOaXK3CBbqF8MUcfibeeTW04-Q3R8X/s800/COMPOSITE_RANDOM_BASKET.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="800" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGZqCXufV5USaC_YorPdZ-y_6-ti9ph_Fq8A5oZMikLYEkNKErtu9PX76QfmFxZdEUD2bPcCsBtZAGtpiCaC0vvmSxMEEnVugeK4c7EjV9oFf7XGgbJqKPWYdM73qbi9FNPh5uO5JOf8O2hFRDF4eNUnKFGiVOaXK3CBbqF8MUcfibeeTW04-Q3R8X/w640-h322/COMPOSITE_RANDOM_BASKET.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LEFT: Weaverbird nests are well-designed and strong. Abandoned ones fell down from Baobab tree limbs (trees where hominins often camped) which early hominins could have collected. "Weaverbird (Southern Masked Weaver) nest of dry grass, near Pretoria, South Africa"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weaver_Bird_Nest.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weaver_Bird_Nest.jpg</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">RIGHT: A random weave basket made from vines by Nan Bowles. It was constructed with green flexible vines that later dried to make a light, stiff, strong basket. (Basket/Photo by Nan Bowles)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I was then able to show indirectly that baskets and woven-fiber items probably continued to be developed by Homo erectus about 300,000 years ago with a much more advanced right-angle design. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I believe that after more than a million years, random weave technology began to develop into a technology that used a regular design and right angle or opposing strand construction. This was a crucial breakthrough. This technology allowed the creation of an endless number of woven-fiber items plus it was scalable, meaning that large products were possible such as reed boats. It was with this basic model that shoes, hats, containers, huts, and boats in a wide variety of configurations could be constructed.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>At some point, probably hundreds of thousands of years ago, a system of vertical spokes and horizontal weaver strands (or a system of opposing strands) developed. Eventually, this system was capable of creating a wide variety of durable items from sandals to large houses using local materials. Some such baskets lasted generations and were passed down in a family.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKQDqhBD8RvAWiQgXWOEhOa8_V5yjqscLFIpaZ9IKJwj4PG22379J6MnmDYCHb9hIo3EzwRvGg5X5jOUsggfqK42KFr5jpBDX7EjOcApDYoeMPAf3Lebo0Bj-xR8her76b2zWd5guvVOnE8LNKY6JyDtz3c1bIwukIBGg58owwjrVK0KOnE-eLTaXo/s640/COMPOSITE_BASKET_MAKING.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="224" data-original-width="640" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKQDqhBD8RvAWiQgXWOEhOa8_V5yjqscLFIpaZ9IKJwj4PG22379J6MnmDYCHb9hIo3EzwRvGg5X5jOUsggfqK42KFr5jpBDX7EjOcApDYoeMPAf3Lebo0Bj-xR8her76b2zWd5guvVOnE8LNKY6JyDtz3c1bIwukIBGg58owwjrVK0KOnE-eLTaXo/w640-h224/COMPOSITE_BASKET_MAKING.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: The vertical spokes can be plainly seen as this young girl begins to make a basket. <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Country_School-_Everyday_Life_at_Baldock_County_Council_School,_Baldock,_Hertfordshire,_England,_UK,_1944_D20551.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Country_School-_Everyday_Life_at_Baldock_County_Council_School,_Baldock,_Hertfordshire,_England,_UK,_1944_D20551.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: The stiff vertical spokes and the right-angled horizontal flexible weaver strands are clearly visible in this basket that has almost been completed. </div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_bamboo_basket_making_1.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_bamboo_basket_making_1.JPG</a></div></div><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This idea was based on the discovery of an A-frame-like building at Terra Amata in France constructed by Homo erectus, which included many of the elements required for right-angle basketry and woven-fiber technology, such as the use of even regular opposing poles. </span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSs07ot_5r-wwRXYXLv7pIy_xpeIbK6chEgPCJGgZSABmBkEz5MbTGuh7qLXzwyaffjv0slcZkYYUili_Y_Pc6G0lhjF0U7CFxuoHumDi-GOcCkbOSd8qXVT-LrsbTv2hDShWc77RJiqzI4iDM3Jsqs073nNx114UrShlj3HpQKzfFB-haP-m9Kt1F/s800/1536px-Cabane_de_Terra_Amata_1AA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="757" data-original-width="800" height="606" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSs07ot_5r-wwRXYXLv7pIy_xpeIbK6chEgPCJGgZSABmBkEz5MbTGuh7qLXzwyaffjv0slcZkYYUili_Y_Pc6G0lhjF0U7CFxuoHumDi-GOcCkbOSd8qXVT-LrsbTv2hDShWc77RJiqzI4iDM3Jsqs073nNx114UrShlj3HpQKzfFB-haP-m9Kt1F/w640-h606/1536px-Cabane_de_Terra_Amata_1AA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A museum recreation of a building (Terra Amata, Nice, France) probably made by Homo erectus and is considered the oldest known human building.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.museeprehistoire.com/en/one-thousand-millennia/the-village-to-live-prehistory/4-prehistoric-habitats-from-4-different-periods.html">http://www.museeprehistoire.com/en/one-thousand-millennia/the-village-to-live-prehistory/4-prehistoric-habitats-from-4-different-periods.html</a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Then I was able to find new direct evidence. Microscopic evidence of basic cordage (rope) made by Neanderthals was discovered dating to the Middle Paleolithic. And impressions in clay of sophisticated basket and textile weaving were dated to the Upper Paleolithic. Plus Native American Indian hunter-gathers (a lifestyle viewed as similar to those in the European Upper Paleolithic) were shown to be expert basket makers.</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>These last discoveries of direct evidence revealed technologies that were already highly developed. Therefore experts believe that the early stages of these must have begun much sooner. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLXXFE438oIwaEHeY1bHdQPXzt678oWJBhtboKiQ-Lel98xpg4gQw-FG2JUEMxU4oR46ls25C6heBZI3UmlJisUtyIFZiaa9mvwUuULBuU0sIn7eU_CJQydLrXqdYMo-Fd-gFlJQFjjNu-ZnJwJNM9FFIyqSNe79oFX_7fZvgyKqQPBLYXeedgIVFP/s1184/bison_comparison_altamira_cave_modern_species.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1184" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLXXFE438oIwaEHeY1bHdQPXzt678oWJBhtboKiQ-Lel98xpg4gQw-FG2JUEMxU4oR46ls25C6heBZI3UmlJisUtyIFZiaa9mvwUuULBuU0sIn7eU_CJQydLrXqdYMo-Fd-gFlJQFjjNu-ZnJwJNM9FFIyqSNe79oFX_7fZvgyKqQPBLYXeedgIVFP/w432-h640/bison_comparison_altamira_cave_modern_species.jpg" width="432" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">TOP: This realistic painting of a bison is about 14,000 years old and was painted by a Paleolithic 'caveman' in the Cave of Altamira in Spain. This work was done from memory with a multi-colored spray-paint technique in the darkness of the cave. This demonstrates the remarkable skills, powers of observation, and memory humans had in Paleolithic times.(NOTE: This photo was taken of an accurate reproduction of this bison painted on the ceiling at Altamira as visitors are no longer allowed in the cave.)</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Altamira_bisons.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Altamira_bisons.jpg</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">BOTTOM: A photograph of a European bison today (a somewhat different bison species), shows the accuracy of the cave painting on the top.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bison_bonasus_(Linnaeus_1758).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bison_bonasus_(Linnaeus_1758).jpg</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>PROCESSES</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It seems clear that early on a sense of time began to develop since it can be shown that processes were invented to make stone tools and that these processes continued to be developed and refined over millions of years.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Definition: Process (Oxford Language):</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Technology involves processes that require steps that must be done in a certain chronological order and require a duration of time to achieve a specific future result. Processes involve the past, present, and future plus duration -- the essential elements of linear time. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Moreover, processes almost inevitably become more complicated. For example, with "the major [stone tool] industries [that] include (in chronological order) the Oldowan, Acheulean, Mousterian, Aurignacian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian industries" (Britannica) each stone age industry was more complex than the one before it. For example, 18 different types of stone implements have been discovered from the Acheulean industry (starting with Homo erectus 1.75 mya) such as chisels, awls and anvils but by the late Upper Paleolithic (ending about 10 kya) the tool kit was up to 80 different implements. </b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">(Britannica)</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As the complexity increased, so did an understanding of time because more planning and preparation were involved, more stone shaping was required, teaching the young these skills took time, and imagining the final result from the initial raw stone required a linear sense of progression. In addition processes such as making baskets required a sense of math, geometry, and a concept of the basket to be made. Teaching this did not initially require language as it could be learned by imitation. In one study I referenced, a woman was shown how to make baskets by imitation without a word being spoken. A native girl in a contemporary tribe sat next to her and led her through the steps involved.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz06SF_q3M5Pc79f3Sa_H_7L2R2inVbakpvbCrqIu_prgzkiXUxhRokiVxIZ0DW6YwwAJPFOJ-G-k57BHVh1HdvbpGF8OM0Ez27EuHywZgoGDZlNTUybINZB5WK19kyjYz_O1dUMZKpxpkNlmsq69nJRpBoV8ghGxCL6HZ6F9ickJJsbKIjdMXx7EH/s621/COMPOSITE_PALEO_NEO_TOOLSA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="621" data-original-width="547" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz06SF_q3M5Pc79f3Sa_H_7L2R2inVbakpvbCrqIu_prgzkiXUxhRokiVxIZ0DW6YwwAJPFOJ-G-k57BHVh1HdvbpGF8OM0Ez27EuHywZgoGDZlNTUybINZB5WK19kyjYz_O1dUMZKpxpkNlmsq69nJRpBoV8ghGxCL6HZ6F9ickJJsbKIjdMXx7EH/w564-h640/COMPOSITE_PALEO_NEO_TOOLSA.jpg" width="564" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LEFT: Paleolithic 'flake tools'.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">RICHT: Neolithic polished tools.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Page 280, Volume 15 of the German illustrated encyclopedia <i>Meyers Konversationslexikon,</i> 4th edition (1885-1890).</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meyers_b15_s0280a.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meyers_b15_s0280a.jpg</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So I believe a complex unspoken sense of time did develop before language began.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>SURVIVAL AND EVOLUTION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Basketry and other woven-fiber items would have allowed hominins to gather more food and materials. For example, big "backpack" type baskets known as "burden baskets" would have allowed hominins to gather large quantities of goods from distant locations. This would have increased their chances of survival. And this ability to provide more food would have affected their evolution. </b></span></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqEXfwBJGHQhZPIKtAL19V07g0oC0NxaX-IMHcG0CN3VypFGyD4t9cYw7-OWYXciTN4jW-oIDvgz_EFABa5_peGUXHLk_m0OFPqR58G_4HfeyhI5NIvF163OHgN50EFS0CvCLzrN8pXsK1aH8azVvRhCk9Q6T-pwHB4aEogwCy6k4acZmIf03LFGJl/s800/COMPOSITE_BURDEN1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="800" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqEXfwBJGHQhZPIKtAL19V07g0oC0NxaX-IMHcG0CN3VypFGyD4t9cYw7-OWYXciTN4jW-oIDvgz_EFABa5_peGUXHLk_m0OFPqR58G_4HfeyhI5NIvF163OHgN50EFS0CvCLzrN8pXsK1aH8azVvRhCk9Q6T-pwHB4aEogwCy6k4acZmIf03LFGJl/w640-h316/COMPOSITE_BURDEN1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Known as burden baskets, these baskets were used worldwide in just about every society even today, and were widely used by hunter-gatherer Native American Indians on a daily basis, and probably during the Neolithic time period for harvesting crops.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LEFT: Carrying Basket, Paiute Indians, Utah.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">(<i>Aboriginal American Basketr</i>y, 1904, Fig. 185, p. 494)</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">RIGHT: "Apache Indian woman carrying a "Kathak" on her back, Arizona, ca.1880."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">(University of Southern California, ca.1880, Apache Indian woman carrying a "Kathak")</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">LANGUAGE</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>For words are to thought <br />what tools are to work; <br />the product depends largely on the growth of the tools.</b> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Will Durant, <i>History of Civilization: Volume 1</i>, Chapter 5, The Mental Elements of Civilization.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Time reference is a universal property of language...</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jacqueline Lecarme, Ph.D., Linguistics</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>No one knows exactly when, but possibly at some point in the Middle Paleolithic or early Upper Paleolithic era, an initial full language began to emerge although there may have been a rudimentary proto-language long before that. I believe that language then became the main tool for working with time. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>With early languages, it is my contention that the sense of time was immediate. Time was understood in terms of a couple of days, no more. There is evidence for this with the hunter-gatherer Piraha tribe in the Amazon who think this way but also have an extremely complex language that expresses their time concepts. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh47bUbYnTOzTieS-oc5fF80EG4E1-I5g_V1ICLt71DedVzEt7WhSt9ZclQhCsjymcZ_AVIDxYD7er6s9ql2HuLy6_JSSKNWbSrsDCLEKN1BhaPOgXCXN6NadgvRrFmKhAVkFMekOeu3djDJO2ZPpuIQmKUd65l6GltmZWn09Jn6W8NnntARHH3RGpo/s800/1_Pirahas_of_Brazil.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="800" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh47bUbYnTOzTieS-oc5fF80EG4E1-I5g_V1ICLt71DedVzEt7WhSt9ZclQhCsjymcZ_AVIDxYD7er6s9ql2HuLy6_JSSKNWbSrsDCLEKN1BhaPOgXCXN6NadgvRrFmKhAVkFMekOeu3djDJO2ZPpuIQmKUd65l6GltmZWn09Jn6W8NnntARHH3RGpo/w640-h464/1_Pirahas_of_Brazil.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A Piraha community. The Pirahas are hunter-gatherers who live in the Amazon.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pirahas_of_Brazil.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pirahas_of_Brazil.jpg</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>NEOLITHIC LINEAR TIME WITHIN CYCLICAL TIME</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Eventually in the Neolithic era there began to be an understanding of long-term linear time. This sense of time made it possible to plan, harvest and store crops over a year's time. But again it is my contention, that the Neolithic people conceived of time as primarily cyclical year to year, season to season, and day to day but within that cycle linear time could exist. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When the great civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt emerged they used a range of woven-fiber items that employed technology passed down from Neolithic societies who had continued to develop and expand the woven-fiber technology. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPWD6vofGEr13YQOG9MHYh4pDwjjbk8YPDbuKCBEQPeM0R-iPQ6HfIeqAz6kEVteWM3PBLKijMhaR_xeS9O09ox4G4NJvTTtnJZTv2RYxWwP5Fg12tyHlKL_lmUaMyLFsD5xTEp6TyGKNeVBM-HL4Y2SLvvHtOCPGk1h1bt3WNcU1Nemxw5nmwz2ey/s640/1A_NEOLITHIC_BOWL.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="640" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPWD6vofGEr13YQOG9MHYh4pDwjjbk8YPDbuKCBEQPeM0R-iPQ6HfIeqAz6kEVteWM3PBLKijMhaR_xeS9O09ox4G4NJvTTtnJZTv2RYxWwP5Fg12tyHlKL_lmUaMyLFsD5xTEp6TyGKNeVBM-HL4Y2SLvvHtOCPGk1h1bt3WNcU1Nemxw5nmwz2ey/w640-h276/1A_NEOLITHIC_BOWL.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>This woven bowl is an example of the fine workmanship <br />that had been achieved in the Neolithic era.</div><div>LEFT: Bowl </div><div>RIGHT: Detail of bowl</div><div>Baskets, basket bowls, sandals, textiles, and mats from <br />the Neolithic Era (5200-4600 BCE or 7200-6600 BP) <br />were found in Los Murcielagos Cave, Albunol, Province Of Granada, Andalusia, Spain.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cester%C3%ADa_Murci%C3%A9lagos_03.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cester%C3%ADa_Murci%C3%A9lagos_03.JPG</a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1oKhhf1m3CekQtgdK88kMSCUNo7JYOESTVEsRIJrEVIvVhDGYouIqd7S0nshYH9TtKicMAJEZaT0YK4FNRv3HRVhPbz19co-5KeksIlu0Qxtlvza60YZ6zXyjy1y_yOCe7YnQVWHsb9uak2lNRwrJsczWZE6n2zVtCf2Wbx5s1flDH-fMV_gEi5fe/s800/Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762)A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="800" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1oKhhf1m3CekQtgdK88kMSCUNo7JYOESTVEsRIJrEVIvVhDGYouIqd7S0nshYH9TtKicMAJEZaT0YK4FNRv3HRVhPbz19co-5KeksIlu0Qxtlvza60YZ6zXyjy1y_yOCe7YnQVWHsb9uak2lNRwrJsczWZE6n2zVtCf2Wbx5s1flDH-fMV_gEi5fe/w640-h448/Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762)A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><div>Sophisticated reed housing began in the Neolithic as well.</div><div>"A mudhif, a traditional Marsh Arab guesthouse made entirely out of reeds. The Marsh Arabs live a lifestyle that dates back 5,000 years." Quoted from: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iraqi_mudhif_interior.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iraqi_mudhif_interior.jpg</a></div><div>Mudhif Reception Hall</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762).jpg</a></div></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Known as mudhifs, these buildings were (and still are) made entirely from reeds. Buildings can be quite large and are used for ceremonial purposes. Small ones, called rabas, are used as family homes. Weaving technology once mastered can be scaled up to make quite large structures such as these traditional mudhif reed buildings that have been made for thousands of years by the Mudan people in the marshes of southern Iraq.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzL5B6OrpsUCFZGUK_SH4C0Onij7XBGQdjlWfY3g5SkTB4RYiWWFy-ov2FsuHdqSOJYdXrgRWG7k5a5IwdI5YpgCqqfURnP0mxfoZGj3A-t6lNxAsAgSGHsazOkwIdG8o_tX-tYB3n6JzJUY2G84umyjcNuE4qFW8nnQlcw0U5J6AH8nZNX2pirHHP/s1024/COMPOSITE_Mudhif_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="1024" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzL5B6OrpsUCFZGUK_SH4C0Onij7XBGQdjlWfY3g5SkTB4RYiWWFy-ov2FsuHdqSOJYdXrgRWG7k5a5IwdI5YpgCqqfURnP0mxfoZGj3A-t6lNxAsAgSGHsazOkwIdG8o_tX-tYB3n6JzJUY2G84umyjcNuE4qFW8nnQlcw0U5J6AH8nZNX2pirHHP/w640-h158/COMPOSITE_Mudhif_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div>LEFT: Local contractors begin the job of building a mudhif. "The reeds are gathered from marshlands near the Euphrates River." </div><div>MIDDLE: "Local contractors construct the main reed arches of a marsh Arab mudhif."</div><div>RIGHT: Almost completed, the mudhif exterior.</div><div><a href="https://www.dvidshub.net/news/48053/mudhif-houses-capture-spirit-iraqi-culture">https://www.dvidshub.net/news/48053/mudhif-houses-capture-spirit-iraqi-culture</a></div><div><a href="https://www.dvidshub.net/news/42276/marsh-arab-mudhif-rises-cob-adder">https://www.dvidshub.net/news/42276/marsh-arab-mudhif-rises-cob-adder</a></div><div><br /></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><div>It is very likely that many if not most houses in Mesopotamian cities, at least in the beginning, were these mudhif/raba-type grass huts since high-quality reeds grew wild in the marshes. These were quite nice comfortable homes. Homes made out of bricks came later and were expensive, so their use may have been limited.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>ANCIENT CULTURES</div><div><br /></div><div>Basketry was a key element of Mesopotamian societies and a central part of their mythology, so much so that in one myth an important god declared, "The pickax and the basket build cities." Baskets sealed with bitumen were used to hold water to irrigate the fields and other baskets were used to manage and dredge the canals. There were over 100 words altogether in Mesopotamia that dealt with basket weaving, baskets, woven mats, reed craftsmanship, reed constructions, and weaving with palm leaves.</div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Cuneiform shipping receipts in Mesopotamia show that there was a key reed industry since high-quality reeds grew naturally in the marshes. Writing had also begun. Scribes wrote with reed styluses to record sales on clay tablets which were then filed in reed baskets. Reeds were used to build large and small boats and a variety of containers. So woven-fiber technology which had been developing for perhaps several million years was a critical part of early civilizations.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-c7aGrD13JHdytf_DU8sasHzRq3ip0PrMZ6W7cpaK0-tcu5BXOUHdFjl8HojXZtLeUF1whxY2U_F7Ncp67A_n5C8iXzsf1FlNhspFMTiqH2ZjMeupQ9D29GscpDcLAY0upH1mz1e5s4THeQkfXk-EFSNZL2eBaacv3j0k-vgsegTh3lL5UVrXe_h4/s640/capture_X007A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="640" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-c7aGrD13JHdytf_DU8sasHzRq3ip0PrMZ6W7cpaK0-tcu5BXOUHdFjl8HojXZtLeUF1whxY2U_F7Ncp67A_n5C8iXzsf1FlNhspFMTiqH2ZjMeupQ9D29GscpDcLAY0upH1mz1e5s4THeQkfXk-EFSNZL2eBaacv3j0k-vgsegTh3lL5UVrXe_h4/w640-h432/capture_X007A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This reed ship in Mesopotamia illustrates the sophistication of the reed industry. This painting depicts a large ship made of reeds in early Mesopotamia. The existence of similar large reed boats has been well documented. <<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/%D0%A0%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%86%D1%8F_%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D1%83_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B0_%D0%B2_%D0%AD%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B4%D1%83_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%8B%D1%85_%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8_%D0%B2_%D0%A3%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BA.jpg">LINK</a>></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Both Egypt and the Mesopotamian cities adopted the Neolithic sense of linear time within cyclical time. And it was this sense of time, which was so different from hunter-gathers just ten or twenty thousand years earlier, that gave them the power to manage their societies based on extensive agriculture. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnUPK89q6S7pzAb_A6bg3lk3tUv01o2yaR_DZ05mAf3OVYuctdHSKpeMnTvgYJKIXbQFs15zd6NnVxOGZorkUfF3uqtqHbmYobAWrhPaJtXThfZsnFHHFmSCaLoelYNrWaM8i8B3VOO2nlieAy3lmPe2FxhWoApqtTFxEgqwxrcpPHrM_wy1PFHMYW/s594/COMPOSITE_SACKS.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="456" data-original-width="594" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnUPK89q6S7pzAb_A6bg3lk3tUv01o2yaR_DZ05mAf3OVYuctdHSKpeMnTvgYJKIXbQFs15zd6NnVxOGZorkUfF3uqtqHbmYobAWrhPaJtXThfZsnFHHFmSCaLoelYNrWaM8i8B3VOO2nlieAy3lmPe2FxhWoApqtTFxEgqwxrcpPHrM_wy1PFHMYW/w400-h308/COMPOSITE_SACKS.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">While often overlooked, both the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians depended on huge numbers of woven-fiber sacks for holding and transporting grain <br />along with baskets carried by pack animals. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LEFT: Picture from the Sumerian Standard of Ur.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">of a person carrying a sack, circa 2600 BCE.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_of_Ur_-_Peace_Panel_-_Sumer.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_of_Ur_-_Peace_Panel_-_Sumer.jpg</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">RIGHT: Picture of an Egyptian carrying a sack</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">from Tombe d'Oumsou, circa 1450 BCE.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey_panniers.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey_panniers.jpg</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuwDPzFiFcA9JvESojB1gk8Ps3qTa4RtQaJJStJH8TJmOpJ6mKSp_OENG96oQd3oevpRp2K53uInhkSrXSmyOqCF9bmCUggG2Zq7z8RNcxW3HbjGw1toHdDaj4ZL7l1pC2KtcXp63F5svIY8__7xdfgvh1oZ3r0Yo7KIvPmEh1Q_muqBJDWupQsh1-/s640/Moskou-papyrusA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="640" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuwDPzFiFcA9JvESojB1gk8Ps3qTa4RtQaJJStJH8TJmOpJ6mKSp_OENG96oQd3oevpRp2K53uInhkSrXSmyOqCF9bmCUggG2Zq7z8RNcxW3HbjGw1toHdDaj4ZL7l1pC2KtcXp63F5svIY8__7xdfgvh1oZ3r0Yo7KIvPmEh1Q_muqBJDWupQsh1-/s320/Moskou-papyrusA.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The oldest Egyptian mathematical document, known as "The Moscow Mathematical Papyrus" which is dated to the 13th dynasty (approx. 1800 BCE), contains a geometry problem (Problem 10) relating to basketry, which shows the importance of basket making to this early civilization. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This picture is of Problem 14 in the Moscow Papyrus</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moskou-papyrus.jpg">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moskou-papyrus.jpg</a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large; text-align: left;">Egyptian paintings show a wide range of baskets that were used in agriculture along with sacks to carry and store grain. In addition, woven papyrus boats and sandals were common.</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCl7T2_D-onLKn3-9Hl_XeR5yOQQN1vi6laFfXrbZP_rTDNMF7jtTf4j35pIRlQMlOvWVNf3cu1IN0Yxv3w67NqlSAJc-RAuGuHYpc4VkR8x-TcbDMT_eu3xPZqlNdrKuwjmvkLKgfN5a4yjOauZ05FtBKgeonNxQ21qbvjBOiI_lz2gB4-daUAj0s/s639/1_EGYPTIAN_BASKETRY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="510" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCl7T2_D-onLKn3-9Hl_XeR5yOQQN1vi6laFfXrbZP_rTDNMF7jtTf4j35pIRlQMlOvWVNf3cu1IN0Yxv3w67NqlSAJc-RAuGuHYpc4VkR8x-TcbDMT_eu3xPZqlNdrKuwjmvkLKgfN5a4yjOauZ05FtBKgeonNxQ21qbvjBOiI_lz2gB4-daUAj0s/w510-h640/1_EGYPTIAN_BASKETRY.jpg" width="510" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Baskets were critical tools for Egyptian agriculture.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">TOP: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_second_series_of_the_Manners_and_customs_of_the_ancient_Egyptians_(Page_87)_BHL21584712.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_second_series_of_the_Manners_and_customs_of_the_ancient_Egyptians_(Page_87)_BHL21584712.jpg</a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">BOTTOM:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mietitura_delle_spighe-_ricolta_e_battitura_delle_medesime_(NYPL_b14291206-425523).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mietitura_delle_spighe-_ricolta_e_battitura_delle_medesime_(NYPL_b14291206-425523).jpg</a></span></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">While astronomy is the study of the sun, moon, stars, and planets, it is also a study of time. At night, for example, the sky moves every second and starts at a different point from night to night. Over a year the star patterns repeat and indicate a precise way of determining the time of year.</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWhd6mX9XGBVFfj-a0cM2kDNZaVwWyyWkWe5yr0h-t-EhPlBIDZ_CMxqW5yVyw6ZEM4dKCHNxOvONnhZ5xAllZIhdX3oF8oRMkywpWiFix6xayapHBcsTFFNuJhzNcsQCSXOI_4etO1FaUF_rTwA3vmJnWoUO5o2X4ux5_h2e0tJ2Rc3VIpCwcLY_6/s640/1280px-Sky_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="635" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWhd6mX9XGBVFfj-a0cM2kDNZaVwWyyWkWe5yr0h-t-EhPlBIDZ_CMxqW5yVyw6ZEM4dKCHNxOvONnhZ5xAllZIhdX3oF8oRMkywpWiFix6xayapHBcsTFFNuJhzNcsQCSXOI_4etO1FaUF_rTwA3vmJnWoUO5o2X4ux5_h2e0tJ2Rc3VIpCwcLY_6/w398-h400/1280px-Sky_1.jpg" width="398" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"Map of the night sky: star positions</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">from the <i>Bright Stars Catalog, 5th Edition</i>. Rasterized." 2006.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This modern map of the stars visible in the Northern Hemisphere</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">is based on the Babylonian model. The white curved line is the zodiac. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Notice the faint horizontal and vertical grid lines and the 360-degree indicators.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sky.png">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sky.png</a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The later Babylonian culture (Neo-Babylonian) conceived of the sky as a circle and then divided the sky into 12 sections, 30 degrees apart making a yearly total of 360 degrees (still used today for degrees in a circle) that repeated yearly. Each 30-degree section was a constellation in the Zodiac which was a concept they invented. They also mapped out the ecliptic, the path that the sun, moon, and planets all followed. Each degree was subdivided into 60 arcminutes and each minute into 60 arcseconds (the same numbers we use today). Finally, the sky in a circle was divided into a grid pattern of declination and right-ascension which can be thought of today as latitude and longitude on Earth projected into the sky. And with these two coordinates, any star or planet could be pinpointed. The Babylonian map of the sky with this grid right-angle pattern looked very much like an upside-down basket. While I cannot yet confirm that this grid pattern was derived from basketry, it is an intriguing idea that should be researched.</b></span></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>CLASSICAL, </b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>MEDIEVAL,</b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> & MODERN TIME</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It was assumed until about 400 years ago that the sun went around the Earth. Around 150 CE, Claudius Ptolemy devised an accurate system that was only off by one day every hundred years based on this assumption. His system required epicycles or circles within circles. For about 1500 years his science was the accepted astronomy. His system also included a grid and coordinates for star and planet positions, which he adopted from the Babylonians.</span></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPw4TyMDGGC-zcrNuuUbUED1nPAxcg0LTNwq0xaIOBSjLfLYErvhIKvbmHb5tD6RPxCtgycGnN-JmakvFxPnokQ2mgLJCd2L_Mr2lWXbK68n5wRAK_YTpaV_QhQflj6A3aUpfZfVmf9PzFsvUzd_Gb1ru1HJxOF0TFatjfEuN1IpmCL4NcjBcHTKq_/s320/1_Ptolemaic_epicycles.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="320" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPw4TyMDGGC-zcrNuuUbUED1nPAxcg0LTNwq0xaIOBSjLfLYErvhIKvbmHb5tD6RPxCtgycGnN-JmakvFxPnokQ2mgLJCd2L_Mr2lWXbK68n5wRAK_YTpaV_QhQflj6A3aUpfZfVmf9PzFsvUzd_Gb1ru1HJxOF0TFatjfEuN1IpmCL4NcjBcHTKq_/w400-h400/1_Ptolemaic_epicycles.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">"A simple illustration showing the basic elements of Ptolemaic astronomy.</div><div style="text-align: center;">It shows a planet rotating on an epicycle which is itself rotating around</div><div style="text-align: center;">a deferent inside a crystalline sphere." Quoted from:</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ptolemaic_elements.svg">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ptolemaic_elements.svg</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">While the geocentric system of Ptolemy is no longer believed and has been replaced with the heliocentric system (the Earth revolves around the sun), his accurate system of wheels within wheels (epicycles) created a sophisticated way of gearing which led directly to the Industrial Revolution and machines.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeb7CEm3p9PZYmAqgiZygDpHdV4nY3O5TWRuUdd50Hf6M4M-3_VXmnjjY0EHLw11g0yHOoU5KNDyWr8LYdnhsgCKd5eRgfP9qwWrsWp3KiDkCr3ZcOG-36IMmV9uIEKWv7NsOlg00AHvfTMSGlOyPxj8EN1CZTD_K0cNSv6VXWdftSLtlUioYfvcNB/s640/1_Old_TimeMachineA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="640" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeb7CEm3p9PZYmAqgiZygDpHdV4nY3O5TWRuUdd50Hf6M4M-3_VXmnjjY0EHLw11g0yHOoU5KNDyWr8LYdnhsgCKd5eRgfP9qwWrsWp3KiDkCr3ZcOG-36IMmV9uIEKWv7NsOlg00AHvfTMSGlOyPxj8EN1CZTD_K0cNSv6VXWdftSLtlUioYfvcNB/w400-h335/1_Old_TimeMachineA.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Gears based on Ptolemy's epicycles in a pocket watch.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Time_Machine.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Time_Machine.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJVA4VT7WmavZ51we8nCUtsox0gWUDIJP2xtW1AXuP26LcY7Ty0BUWaTn_3HYY0BrtzUG0tVA3DimhPJsaWE0kuRrpZX-ipqpa34fYXB-MvbjvCZAI1Spb1TNvgM5HsA6if6rL2vFluOvZ2Lf3GtQ1soQyPYzrJg7F_48trAMwZMiIJfa2Yog1z7ED/s640/1_-Czech-2013-Prague-Astronomical_clock_face.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="640" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJVA4VT7WmavZ51we8nCUtsox0gWUDIJP2xtW1AXuP26LcY7Ty0BUWaTn_3HYY0BrtzUG0tVA3DimhPJsaWE0kuRrpZX-ipqpa34fYXB-MvbjvCZAI1Spb1TNvgM5HsA6if6rL2vFluOvZ2Lf3GtQ1soQyPYzrJg7F_48trAMwZMiIJfa2Yog1z7ED/w640-h482/1_-Czech-2013-Prague-Astronomical_clock_face.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"The Prague astronomical clock [above] was installed in 1410...and is the oldest functioning Astronomical clock in the world." Photo and quote from:</div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Czech-2013-Prague-Astronomical_clock_face.jpg">http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Czech-2013-Prague-Astronomical_clock_face.jpg</a> </span></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Medieval clocks were built using the epicycle gearing of Ptolemy's geocentric astronomy. Ptolemy's astronomy and geography also used a vertical and horizontal 'grid' system probably inherited from the Babylonians. Ptolemy's gearing geometry would lead directly to the construction of machines and the Industrial Revolution. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>CONTEMPORARY TIME</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div style="font-weight: bold;">Clocks were the "key machine of the modern industrial age."</div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Strandh, Sigvard, <i>A History of the Machine</i>.</div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><b>In a sense, all machines are clocks. A geared clock is simply a machine whose product is the movement of clock hands on a clock face. A car motor is a machine that produces speed. Both have to proceed in a specific orderly manner to function properly. A misfiring car engine is a good example of a timing problem because the engine is firing when the pistons are not in the right position.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Today virtually all computers have a clock at their center that handles data according to its clock speed. For example, a CPU with 3700 megahertz clock speed (MHz) handles three billion seven hundred million cycles per second. So the clock continues to be at the heart of our technology.</b></div></div></span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For thousands of years time continued to be thought of as cyclical but eventually with the Scientific Revolution around 1700 and the work of Isaac Newton, cosmological time was seen as linear.</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In the modern world, we think of time as primarily linear although our days and weeks, and seasons are cyclical. Time is seen as a commodity so we spend and save time. We are constantly aware of time because clocks and schedules are ever-present. We are to some extent imprisoned by time as we can rarely step outside the grid. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It is clear from my research that much of what we think of as time has been molded by the culture. Time is not something that can be seen or felt in the physical world. Much of it exists in our collective imagination that we have been conditioned to accept. This is as true today as it was for Homo sapiens in the Paleolithic. Today, for example, Aboriginal Australians have a very different concept of time and have expressed great difficulty when dealing with Western linear time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">See my article about time being the most important subject <br />in schools in industrialized societies.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>School's Most Important Subject: Time</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/11/schools-most-important-subject-time.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/11/schools-most-important-subject-time.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>FUTURE TIME</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But thinking about time does not stop with a study of history. Understanding time today is just as important. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Global warming will require a response that takes into account the speed of sea level rise, for example, and how quickly to respond to it. But the effects of the Industrial Revolution (which came about partly due to the Scientific Revolution) are not just limited to global warming. These effects will require an understanding of their possible damage and also may require a timely response. For example, 380 million tons of plastic are entering the oceans every year.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><div>CATHEDRAL THINKING</div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps the most important contribution of the Middle Ages to our current age is the concept of Cathedral Thinking. This concept has now become relevant as we face the consequences of industrial development which may lead to climate change and yet may not be felt for a hundred years. </div><div><br /></div><div>Cathedral thinking is about the work and the time required to build a great cathedral. In the past, many of the workers never saw their work completed and did not expect to. Nevertheless, they were committed to the grand vision of building a magnificent cathedral which became a source of pride to the local community and provided an experience of reverence for the faithful. The work of the builders was seen as an expression of devotion to their spiritual beliefs. </div><div><br /></div><div>An example is the York Minster Cathedral in England which was built from 1220 to 1472 or over more than 250 years. While other cathedrals did not take this long to build, a hundred years or so for their construction was not unusual. </div><div><br /></div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>CONCLUSION </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So my Theory About The Human Understanding of Time (HUT) attempts to explain how humans developed a sense and concept of linear time from its earliest beginnings right up to today. Since time is so important, a deeper understanding should help us as a species.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2IaYrsX9DfxyCOb9Nsr3leuszKNLwEuKZTnt5pFjR7hCGE32G-roOV55zeOQ5BReh9wCL6M9Hkt5bqeghoaNbvQaz00OH-D_skTrTtBrfWtW18oNqkFx-WIgOO_GGuRdtR5sUs338oCHSQcYsnKo_FpXXjTBBpZM8ipLzYGzbK-cPqduX1BbzlgEe/s728/A158W.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="728" data-original-width="589" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2IaYrsX9DfxyCOb9Nsr3leuszKNLwEuKZTnt5pFjR7hCGE32G-roOV55zeOQ5BReh9wCL6M9Hkt5bqeghoaNbvQaz00OH-D_skTrTtBrfWtW18oNqkFx-WIgOO_GGuRdtR5sUs338oCHSQcYsnKo_FpXXjTBBpZM8ipLzYGzbK-cPqduX1BbzlgEe/w518-h640/A158W.jpg" width="518" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;">Today, in our digital age, even clocks depict time as linear, </div><div style="text-align: center;">with numbers always going forward rather than the implied repeating cycle </div><div style="text-align: center;">of earlier round circular clocks. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/A158W.jpg">https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/A158W.jpg</a></div></span><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTgij83tx76gWtTE3RFyz496Z8jWeZpSQFqYQE0vSNALIjAX15U-Mr_1VQEomx2mMXmOye1Ex6GQ3cOhUGwauItkRlN1R2wvffjb_GY2IKEEL_teNKNTzZLMCINw5ArnUr6YV-uuWYHxtOLkYWcTS-EoYOSAF8cjK9M0opgeg3vXOPYn8Ms-S0mtiQ/s800/BadSalzdetfurthBadenburgerStr060529A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="727" data-original-width="800" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTgij83tx76gWtTE3RFyz496Z8jWeZpSQFqYQE0vSNALIjAX15U-Mr_1VQEomx2mMXmOye1Ex6GQ3cOhUGwauItkRlN1R2wvffjb_GY2IKEEL_teNKNTzZLMCINw5ArnUr6YV-uuWYHxtOLkYWcTS-EoYOSAF8cjK9M0opgeg3vXOPYn8Ms-S0mtiQ/w400-h364/BadSalzdetfurthBadenburgerStr060529A.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-83553791269776961622022-08-31T00:35:00.006-04:002022-10-09T04:33:08.435-04:00Living With A Bully<h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"> Oedipus </span></h1><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Or Living With A Bullying Brother</span></h1><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial;">“Some of the most poisonous people <br />come disguised as friends and family.”</b></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>~ Gerald Sinclair ~</b></div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial;">“The only way I’ve been able to survive the betrayal <br />of lovers, family members, and society <br />is to be able to create as an artist.”</b></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>~ Madonna Ciccone ~</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><div>"The past is never dead. It's not even past."</div><div>~ William Faulkner, <i>Requiem for a Nun</i> ~</div></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The Greek story about Oedipus</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">was about a curse --</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">that Oedipus was fated to kill his father</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and marry his mother</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">However, the drama was really about two curses</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">the second curse </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">was that Oedipus would be driven to discover the truth</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and when he did</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">it would destroy him</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">We often feel we must find the truth</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">no matter what the cost</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">we might believe </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">that "the truth will set you free"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">but truth has a life of its own</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">it can free you</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">or imprison you</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXM1RRBtQvL2FdZKj5edf7bDP2fJhe8AJ3dDMeeBWSJ5XhsonxG2s1efAtOuvsdxF828Xbu8SQQnkx3xifShm-GO1zvRistsUF_q_JYPHZiPzBONei569y2S5aGRWR_TVhfIWm4RXN7VwPJ-QcOwSpeCfUXaISn1RM7GBBEiAGI0ULktprX1aa-1qC/s800/B%C3%A9nigne_Gagneraux,_The_Blind_Oedipus_Commending_his_Children_to_the_Godsa.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="800" height="343" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXM1RRBtQvL2FdZKj5edf7bDP2fJhe8AJ3dDMeeBWSJ5XhsonxG2s1efAtOuvsdxF828Xbu8SQQnkx3xifShm-GO1zvRistsUF_q_JYPHZiPzBONei569y2S5aGRWR_TVhfIWm4RXN7VwPJ-QcOwSpeCfUXaISn1RM7GBBEiAGI0ULktprX1aa-1qC/w400-h343/B%C3%A9nigne_Gagneraux,_The_Blind_Oedipus_Commending_his_Children_to_the_Godsa.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">The blind Oedipus with his children at the end of this life.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">* * * * *</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I was born four years</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">after my brother</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">who was tall and strong for his age</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I was, however, small and not athletic</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">As a child I naturally </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">looked up to my older brother</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">my only sibling</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">we were often left alone together</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">since my parents were divorced</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and he was put in charge of me</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">We shared many good times </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">like flying kites on the beach</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">but there was something wrong</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">with him and we all knew it --</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">he had violent mood swings</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">that came with no warning</span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFnb_HWxMzqBTeqdq-kUKE89-xC5fuJcSZw1pdraJxbEA0RG8NEppDsY_Kq6kn7khnRGZn9i9Htn3CnTQQlRoXX5ZOMZcD_rs6jzhlTsPPlrqGeooxIB2xmGJS0k4ux2Z-zCoLPOXfGMbzTpjsfTmrSnCexT4QP3yewu9MMKLkzH2w7_ZSz7so9nzd/s800/PikiWiki_Israel_39011_Geography_of_IsraelAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="524" data-original-width="800" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFnb_HWxMzqBTeqdq-kUKE89-xC5fuJcSZw1pdraJxbEA0RG8NEppDsY_Kq6kn7khnRGZn9i9Htn3CnTQQlRoXX5ZOMZcD_rs6jzhlTsPPlrqGeooxIB2xmGJS0k4ux2Z-zCoLPOXfGMbzTpjsfTmrSnCexT4QP3yewu9MMKLkzH2w7_ZSz7so9nzd/w400-h263/PikiWiki_Israel_39011_Geography_of_IsraelAA.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">My parents both told me</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">to just live with it</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">he was a bit difficult</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">but making a fuss </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">would only make things worse</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">"Don't rock the boat"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">they said</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and since my father lived next to a pond </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and I spent many hours rowing our boat</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I knew I didn't want to tip</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">the boat over </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and drown</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Yet as I grew older</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I began to distance myself --</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I cared for him as my brother,</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">but I wanted to be free of his moods</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">So when we were over 60 years old</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I was talking to him on the phone </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">because of matters </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">concerning my father's estate</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">-- after years of not communicating --</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and for some reason I blurted out</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">"You know I could have been your best friend."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">There was a slight silence </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and then he said four words</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">that he had never said before</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">that explained everything</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and that neither my father or mother </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">would let themselves believe</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">"I never liked you," he said</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Suddenly</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">it was like a lightning bolt</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">that ignited memories of times </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">when he had put me in danger</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Once I almost drowned </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">when he goaded me to swim too far</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">to a raft in the middle of a pond </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">where he was sitting</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">even though I was only eight years old </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and I had to be rescued by a lifeguard</span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTFGsheRw2HoHx7tXRgJKI6bG2JvPXxvwUcUUftHSYtUWTEEFnSYkHHRmgpiHnEshT8NR6qIr532QoM9enYg4VoaUSFvt3nlxyPRzUKV7i_mVyVfh8XDetnIZIZgp4y4aVZ4BxcAVyaUXjoQ_hcWaWuGIyGrhnGQoonBMKdHK42ka66ti0RRJbRBJH/s768/Eastmountain_snakepond.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTFGsheRw2HoHx7tXRgJKI6bG2JvPXxvwUcUUftHSYtUWTEEFnSYkHHRmgpiHnEshT8NR6qIr532QoM9enYg4VoaUSFvt3nlxyPRzUKV7i_mVyVfh8XDetnIZIZgp4y4aVZ4BxcAVyaUXjoQ_hcWaWuGIyGrhnGQoonBMKdHK42ka66ti0RRJbRBJH/w400-h266/Eastmountain_snakepond.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLT88e8atiJ3zPzZEhQHd-TShDTKJvO2WSUlm_nT5FLrP5YcujMBJwQA1T3B46MbaILgeEhmjnBy9SCKi3wMgRHK1TOBKEut6Z4eidleKbeyDAgjqa2NBdxuOZRECTg3QwvzkSQAr0CdANnq3-iQLUUJOCPgAnzWisT_eibUaFW_CBN_puDRqc4md3/s800/2560px-The_dance_of_death;_death_by_drowning._Coloured_aquatint_by_Wellcome_V0042004A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="800" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLT88e8atiJ3zPzZEhQHd-TShDTKJvO2WSUlm_nT5FLrP5YcujMBJwQA1T3B46MbaILgeEhmjnBy9SCKi3wMgRHK1TOBKEut6Z4eidleKbeyDAgjqa2NBdxuOZRECTg3QwvzkSQAr0CdANnq3-iQLUUJOCPgAnzWisT_eibUaFW_CBN_puDRqc4md3/w400-h256/2560px-The_dance_of_death;_death_by_drowning._Coloured_aquatint_by_Wellcome_V0042004A.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">He often chose holidays </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">when the family came together</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">to vent his anger</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">At Christmas when I was 25 and married </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">he told me to hurry up</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">as he had done when we were young</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I said, "I'll be there in a minute"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">next thing I knew he had packed his bags</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">screamed at my wife, my mother and me</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and left</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">ruining Christmas for all of us</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">My tolerance of his moods</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">finally ended </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">when I was in the passenger seat of his car</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and he suddenly became angry</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">at a remark </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">my wife said to him </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">from the back seat</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">he floored the idling engine </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">capturing us</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">as he barreled </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">down a quiet neighborhood</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">where kids were playing in the street</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">at 50 miles an hour</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">he ran stop signs and stop lights</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">without looking or pausing</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">After that I settled</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">on a catchphrase</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">to describe him and his behavior:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">he was 'mentally ill'</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">While this was not wrong</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">it let him off the hook:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">he was not responsible</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">it was the fault of the illness</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">in any case it allowed me </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">to distance myself</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">but now </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">what he said on the phone</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">opened a wound </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">into a chasm,</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">finally admitting</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">what he'd been thinking</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">all the time I'd been alive</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">from the moment I was born</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">he wanted me gone</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and he was responsible</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">for what he'd done</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">So like Oedipus </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I had found the truth</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">but the warm family times </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I remembered with him</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">were shattered --</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I now saw them as</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">part of his strategy</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">to get me to trust him</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">before he made his next move</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">to rid me from his life</span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjsNPO0NumciZChr4XOxhKhh7BChY60aPN8f3izsNaU3guUh-5TH6RSzCyOEcLyODFZ9uI1Ymg1hvzBhSBcK6BhKXYqX9UuG3pG0WQ0U8drt4Fcq4cJj73Z9Ap6wr4NWrJQwqNfCobrE54-3cc9NvXCy8zBUHpRKRIfiJDGWO9on0sUKlX58dW2e7N/s800/Leave_Her_to_Heaven_(1945)_one-sheetA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="698" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjsNPO0NumciZChr4XOxhKhh7BChY60aPN8f3izsNaU3guUh-5TH6RSzCyOEcLyODFZ9uI1Ymg1hvzBhSBcK6BhKXYqX9UuG3pG0WQ0U8drt4Fcq4cJj73Z9Ap6wr4NWrJQwqNfCobrE54-3cc9NvXCy8zBUHpRKRIfiJDGWO9on0sUKlX58dW2e7N/w349-h400/Leave_Her_to_Heaven_(1945)_one-sheetA.jpg" width="349" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">The story of "Leave Her To Heaven" is quite similar to what my brother had in mind for me. A trusted loving wife goes out in a row boat on a lake with the beloved brother of her husband who has been crippled by polio. When he swims away from the boat and then starts to founder, she does nothing and lets him drown. She is consumed by an overwhelming jealousy of anyone or anything that takes her husband's attention away from her. But at the same time, she manages to avoid responsibility claiming it was an accident. </div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">But there was even more --</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">in that same moment</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">anger toward my parents </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">bubbled over</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and I felt a deep sense </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">of betrayal</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">They could not admit </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">my brother was unstable and abusive</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">And so they had put me in danger</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">to avoid another </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">of my brother's tantrums --</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and when I did start to complain</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">they said it was childish</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I would grow out of it</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">"boys will be boys"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">For some reason during that same phone call</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">he did not soften what he just said</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">"I wish you had never been born.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I was very happy with my parents all to myself,"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">this 60-year-old man moaned</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">* * * * *</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">In the classic movie, Casablanca,</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Humphrey Bogart tells Ingrid Bergman</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">"We'll always have Paris." </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">meaning that they will always</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">have the memory of being together in Paris</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and nothing could change that</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">but now my brother had </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">changed the past</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and my good memories of him</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">were poisoned</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">* * * * *</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">When I was 10 years old</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I read about the Wright Brothers</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and how they designed kites</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">before they flew a plane</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">At that time, when I loved my brother,</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I imaged the two of us designing </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">a spaceship or a large telescope</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">working together as the </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Wright Brothers</span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQuyoY60OkdzgwX5Va8XuvWPxiogRozFE4pzBz75pFYPRK0xryIudBoNx0JPuej5nMgtF0W6mn_uYN_Lfhf11PmzLbrxcB54a_M20WG-5h5GsTnuqi5GdmNM73xpyjCqoohQIVHgZ6tOLgQOJfuUyr0xlV4lHCkexJxX_OUet_uIsqo3OvsmpNL4mr/s556/Wright_Glider_1901A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="556" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQuyoY60OkdzgwX5Va8XuvWPxiogRozFE4pzBz75pFYPRK0xryIudBoNx0JPuej5nMgtF0W6mn_uYN_Lfhf11PmzLbrxcB54a_M20WG-5h5GsTnuqi5GdmNM73xpyjCqoohQIVHgZ6tOLgQOJfuUyr0xlV4lHCkexJxX_OUet_uIsqo3OvsmpNL4mr/s320/Wright_Glider_1901A.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">One of the Wright Brothers' kites they used to test their ideas about flight.</div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">But now I had to revise my memories</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and what I came up with</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">was a kind of solution</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">for living with the truth</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I would think of him </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">as two different people</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I remembered the times</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">when we went out </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">to the beach at Cape Cop </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">to fly kites --</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">in a cold stiff wind</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">him holding the line</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">me holding the kite</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">he held up his hand </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">to find the wind</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">while I walked the kite out </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">until the line was taut</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">then when a gust came along</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">he flashed me the signal</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and I let go</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">it shot straight up</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">high into the sky</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">with its tail flapping</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">like a rocket taking flight</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">and together we laughed </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">a big full laugh</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">then he was the big brother </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I looked up to</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">And so I decided </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I would allow myself </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">to remember those times</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">fondly</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">without the shadow </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">of his other self</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">but never again</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">have anything more </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">to do with him </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">for the rest of my life</span></div></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNey5-Zt_l0dzNasFwVirdQ5a0jloZN20a2tfQlgRkAGoyd24iXoAWkTsAH5Sgk0-I4HvVfU37Nm3FP_HCaTROf11ZOSTjdrxdrrwCAJqWaeQVAK0JJGgpwEIL6MpfM0so6pwP38qUng2dPzzkJ2lNtBeXgLcT33uQV7WUrU9EFRYcOKGsP9GPqgIk/s800/US_Navy_081122-N-4005H-034_Machinist's_Mate_2nd_Class_Kathryn_Cook_helps_a_tiger_fly_a_kite_during_a_steel_beach_picnic_held_on_the_flight_deck_aboard_the_Nimitz-class_aircrafAAAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="800" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNey5-Zt_l0dzNasFwVirdQ5a0jloZN20a2tfQlgRkAGoyd24iXoAWkTsAH5Sgk0-I4HvVfU37Nm3FP_HCaTROf11ZOSTjdrxdrrwCAJqWaeQVAK0JJGgpwEIL6MpfM0so6pwP38qUng2dPzzkJ2lNtBeXgLcT33uQV7WUrU9EFRYcOKGsP9GPqgIk/w640-h372/US_Navy_081122-N-4005H-034_Machinist's_Mate_2nd_Class_Kathryn_Cook_helps_a_tiger_fly_a_kite_during_a_steel_beach_picnic_held_on_the_flight_deck_aboard_the_Nimitz-class_aircrafAAAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><br /><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></span></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-36108916262683607412022-07-24T00:30:00.041-04:002022-07-24T00:50:36.871-04:00Be A Man! (What Does That Mean?)<div style="text-align: left;"><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><i>The Big Country</i><br />OR<br />Are You Man Enough?</span></h1><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>This is the blog I write every year on my birthday</i></b></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b>when I think about aging and time.<br /></b><br /><b>I was born around 11 PM on July 24, 1944. <br />About four hours later during WW II, Operation Cobra began in Normandy, France. This breakout from the Normandy foothold by the Allies was a key moment that led to the defeat of the Nazis.</b></i></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The other night, I was surfing the TV channels and came across a western movie, <i>The Big Country</i>. With nothing else worth looking at I decided to watch it, and, when I did, a flood of memories came back to me -- I had forgotten about this movie and the effect it had on me.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPf536mSRUu1tAdQXtNVs8mfyO1T7MDk_k0iTEkzfrX1rr9g0dIMJh1RPxcxrwvZ7t2PLeWfI-mxyLxbxGavlrlLBqW39AluxIcxps8Xa1iszo9XTlgbeIblh8jCEnPwhUzTiy7H2buypeV6Vy5rihfkqaITE0ygJd3lSZe2JPkR-NXVZvQZlVA7KW/s982/Big_country833A.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="982" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPf536mSRUu1tAdQXtNVs8mfyO1T7MDk_k0iTEkzfrX1rr9g0dIMJh1RPxcxrwvZ7t2PLeWfI-mxyLxbxGavlrlLBqW39AluxIcxps8Xa1iszo9XTlgbeIblh8jCEnPwhUzTiy7H2buypeV6Vy5rihfkqaITE0ygJd3lSZe2JPkR-NXVZvQZlVA7KW/w418-h640/Big_country833A.jpg" width="418" /></a></div></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">In 1958, when I was fourteen years old, I saw this film when it came out. This was a western like no other because the macho gun-toting way of life was being questioned, but more than that it was the first movie I can remember that dealt with what it meant to be a "man." </b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As a boy at the age of 14, I was wrestling with just that question. Gregory Peck consistently refused to be bullied into a display of male strength. He was not going to prove his masculinity in front of a crowd. But he was going to prove it to himself. So time and again he turned down challenges and was seen as weak. He refused to retaliate against a group of drunken young men who harassed him and his fiancee on their way to her home. And he refused to ride a wild horse, they called "Old Thunder" that no one could ride, but trying to ride him was seen as a kind of masculine test.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Yet in private Peck did ride the horse and got thrown. Nevertheless, he finally tamed him and was the only person who could. But he made the man who managed the stables promise to tell no one. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Opposite Peck was Charlton Heston who represented the western tough no-nonsense male who never backed down from a challenge. Later in the movie when Peck refused to fight Heston, he was seen as a coward, and as a result, his fiancee broke off their engagement. But again, in private, he and Heston had it out in a slugfest, yet promised to keep it to themselves.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>And while rejecting being bullied into a fight, Peck had been quite open about showing his emotions for his fiancee. In one scene he kissed her passionately, so much so his future father-in-law, a retired major, felt the need to turn away so that he would not see their shows of affection. In this subtle way, the movie showed that the father was more comfortable with violence and killing than with expressions of love.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyU9b1z9qBGoD2dYQDPZ0rC7np3qzYiwxoflJNjYrvKmjDbufLYSfHML3XqZ5X7V5d6fGNwocsWXW60leSm2pETGFiBJtoUyX3RovkfqM22dkLA-lrHY7KujrMaQKaqj9dVNMztpD5SEG7nKNhBslcqcsvbU_9NOkSJ76GZh_fDA0sCVxZwI26nHHf/s800/Carroll_Peck_Big_Country_PromoA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="646" data-original-width="800" height="516" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyU9b1z9qBGoD2dYQDPZ0rC7np3qzYiwxoflJNjYrvKmjDbufLYSfHML3XqZ5X7V5d6fGNwocsWXW60leSm2pETGFiBJtoUyX3RovkfqM22dkLA-lrHY7KujrMaQKaqj9dVNMztpD5SEG7nKNhBslcqcsvbU_9NOkSJ76GZh_fDA0sCVxZwI26nHHf/w640-h516/Carroll_Peck_Big_Country_PromoA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Carroll Baker tries to get Peck back after rejecting him for being a coward. <br />But Peck refuses her.</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But the movie went one step further. When Peck's fiancee changed her mind and wanted him back, Peck refused. She had made the one unforgivable mistake; she had not trusted him and instead had sided with Heston who said Peck was a coward</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This was not just another western role for Peck. He co-produced this film. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"Throughout his career, he often portrayed protagonists with 'fiber' within a moral setting."</span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Grimes, William. "Gregory Peck Is Dead at 87; Film Roles Had Moral Fiber" <i>The New York Times</i>, June 13, 2003.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/13/movies/gregory-peck-is-dead-at-87-film-roles-had-moral-fiber.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/13/movies/gregory-peck-is-dead-at-87-film-roles-had-moral-fiber.html</a></span></div></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The message of the film was simple, at least for a 14-year-old boy. You need to prove to yourself what you can and cannot do, but not feel pressured into proving it to others. Your worth does not depend on what others think of you, it depends on your own sense of self. Furthermore, you get to choose what is important instead of being told by others what you should value. So Peck consistently rejected violence even though his fiancee's father and ranch hands assumed violence was necessary.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Recently I was reading reviews of this movie when it came out and none of them understood Peck's character. It was critiqued as merely one of hundreds of westerns, but without an awareness that Peck represented a different kind of man. One review even said that while it was a well-made movie, fighting and killing were much more interesting than a man refusing to fight. Oddly, the movie seems to be better understood today than in 1958. As one recent reviewer wrote, "<i>The Big Country</i> is a thoughtful film that explores anger, resentment and power in a western setting." </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I am not suggesting that this movie was a watershed moment for me, but it opened the door to questioning what a man should do and how he should think about himself. And, just as important, how much value should he attach to the opinions of others. So for various reasons, this movie struck a chord. Later in school, I would read the works of Nietzsche who mapped out in detail how to be your own man.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I went to an all-male boarding school where my father had gone and where the pressure to be a 'regular guy' was intense. A regular guy never showed his emotions, but he was tough and strong. Anything less was seen as weakness which meant that you were often shunned if you did not fall into line. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>After two years of trying to fit in, I realized that courage and bravery had various shades, that it took courage to be different, and that many boys who appeared to be regular guys were afraid to be different. I also noticed that a number of regular guys were awkward when they were around girls.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>For some reason, by my senior year, I had reached a point when I no longer cared if I was accepted or not. As a result, I gained this wonderful sense of freedom. Then an odd thing happened. When I no longer worried about acceptance, I suddenly had lots of friends and a girlfriend as well. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As an aspiring writer (who later in college got a B.A. in English with an Honors in Creative Writing), I was studying American literature and movies and theater on my own. It became apparent that the male role was in flux, and it was a consistent theme. Yet no authors seemed to know where it was going. Many stories were about the loss of a time when "men were men." But few stories were about what happens next.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The role of men was changing, in part, because the role of women had changed. After two World Wars in which the women were left alone while the men were off fighting, women had become independent and self-reliant. In addition, they had taken on difficult jobs such as welding and building tanks which were crucial for the war effort. At the same time, men had been asked to fight and die for their country. But when the wars were over, the women were different. They had tasted independence and difficult work and did not want to go back to previous notions of what a woman should be or was supposed to be. Nevertheless, many marriage vows still contained the pledge that a woman would obey her husband. Clearly, this was confusing for both men and women. But there it was and there was no turning back. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Even as a teenager in an all-male boarding school, I was surprised that there was virtually no emphasis on relationships. We learned math and English and history but nothing about the most important thing in our lives, i.e., relationships and especially the relationships between men and women. I did manage to find my own solution which was to go out with a girl from a boarding school thirty miles away, even though it required lots of permission slips and many hours of train rides to get to her school where we were not allowed to hold hands or be close and were under the watchful eyes of her teachers. Phone calls were too expensive then, so we sent each other letters almost every day.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Now, today, I see male and female roles continuing to change. I have done my best to feel and express love and affection with a full range of emotions while at the same time having a Gregory Peck independent sense of myself. And just as important, I wanted to have a clear understanding of my own feelings and to be honest about how I felt. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>My wife and I have been together for 43 years and we are as close today as we were when our relationship began.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I don't pretend to have the answer or answers, but I have made a stab :) at it. The following is a poem I wrote about my time at boarding school.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>A POEM</b></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>BE A MAN! (WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?)</b></span></span></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Age 14-17, Phillips Exeter Academy </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Exeter, New Hampshire, 1958-1962</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>since feeling is first</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>who pays any attention</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>to the syntax of things</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>will never wholly kiss you;</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>wholly to be a fool</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>while Spring is in the world</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>~ e.e. cummings ~</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Manliness is not all swagger and mountain climbing. It's also tenderness.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Robert Anderson, <i>Tea and Sympathy</i>, [about Phillips Exeter Academy]</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Hazers are themselves victims, wounded souls</b></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>who are acting out their own unfinished business.</b></div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Jayson Gaddis,<i> Men and Hazing</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Standing up to pain</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>became a badge</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>boys don't cry</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>take it like a man</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>be tough</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>is that all you got?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>give me more</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>as a male it was your fate</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>to suck it up</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>never let it get to you</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>as said in <i>Tea and Sympathy</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>to be a "regular guy"</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>and not just physical pain</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>but also emotional</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>such as humiliation by a teacher</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>only there was more to it</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>we thought we were just hiding our feelings</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>instead we were learning not to feel</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>like all boys, I paid lip service</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>to this show of manliness</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>later I realized it was like playing</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>5 notes in a 12-note octave</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>we were denied the full range,</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>confined to the sounds those few notes could play</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>as the depth of emotional chords and complexity</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>were not available</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>we were allowed to yell at sports</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>or to be angry </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- perhaps the easiest emotions --</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>but sorrow or joy, hurt and affection</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>were off limits</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>and then I saw the results:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>teachers whose dead-end lives</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>meant they took their anger out</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>on boys they were mentoring,</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>their cruelty masked as a rite of passage</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>a Latin teacher was noted</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>for taking a chalkboard eraser</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>and slamming it against the back of a student</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>when he did not give a correct answer</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>or took too long;</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>often the instructor picked on the same boys</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>who emerged from class</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>with their coats covered in white</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- like a mark of shame --</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>and the boys had to pretend </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>to not care</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>by my senior year I had found the truth:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>what they wanted</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>was a kind of spiritual death,</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>it meant that my life would be one of shadows</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>where emotions became so disguised</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I could never reach them</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>so I let some of my classmates think less of me</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>because as an aspiring artist I knew that</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>what I felt was at the heart of who I was</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader,"</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Robert Frost told us</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>when I had heard him speak at Exeter;</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>revered like a saint,</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>that was all the permission I needed</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-52139378785905939722022-06-21T02:56:00.000-04:002022-06-21T02:56:16.863-04:00Timeline of Human Time Concepts<div style="text-align: center;"><h1><span style="font-family: arial;">A Historic Timeline <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">About Human Concepts of Time <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">That Includes Basket Weaving Technology<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">And the Development of Language<br /></span><span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: large;">Based on the ideas of Rick Doble</span><br /></span></span><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">--- Links to 40+ articles listed in chronological order ---</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">-- About 700 illustrated pages written during the last ten years --</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibBWz2MdsHFeUfOCopaFyDG0brcmj0dz4hRL5PZM68P0iAxVbR6xAVdt3LTnXehMnYOu9VYNxePuJH0AnC7MEBHr1BSVXo85QtpAha8A2fcb3Bp4JwtyaMAekdDQ0rEJZXh_FNQzcLIzIGj3KQ4182KbAW8cHl-EiEAxyOlX0eUSedlvs5tVjI5GEq/s800/BadSalzdetfurthBadenburgerStr060529A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="727" data-original-width="800" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibBWz2MdsHFeUfOCopaFyDG0brcmj0dz4hRL5PZM68P0iAxVbR6xAVdt3LTnXehMnYOu9VYNxePuJH0AnC7MEBHr1BSVXo85QtpAha8A2fcb3Bp4JwtyaMAekdDQ0rEJZXh_FNQzcLIzIGj3KQ4182KbAW8cHl-EiEAxyOlX0eUSedlvs5tVjI5GEq/s320/BadSalzdetfurthBadenburgerStr060529A.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BadSalzdetfurthBadenburgerStr060529.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BadSalzdetfurthBadenburgerStr060529.jpg</a></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">Copyright 2022 Rick Doble<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">All articles that are linked to this document and written by Rick Doble<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">are licensed under the Creative Commons license: </span><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.txt" style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">CC BY 4.0</a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFtVIivjftkZurZJTCx8gkK9iFfzXzfynT-Ypt8q7BZZh8_HVTpP7vTo12H87Vx_oA58ZwTAlCT6njFihuppHp2gQL5-TIZX5pbXdpL7jwb1mlRu5gjQEJvdvxjmg45eVkIiwK-1rSNlGrhozvQUgUf3nmhlzsEFt7gJgL8QwNPGZ4ZlTP3GYV5FVZ/s176/CC_BY_icon.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="62" data-original-width="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFtVIivjftkZurZJTCx8gkK9iFfzXzfynT-Ypt8q7BZZh8_HVTpP7vTo12H87Vx_oA58ZwTAlCT6njFihuppHp2gQL5-TIZX5pbXdpL7jwb1mlRu5gjQEJvdvxjmg45eVkIiwK-1rSNlGrhozvQUgUf3nmhlzsEFt7gJgL8QwNPGZ4ZlTP3GYV5FVZ/s16000/CC_BY_icon.svg.png" /></a></div></div></h1><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>BLOG-ARTICLE AVAILABILITY AND PAST READERSHIP</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>All of these blog-articles listed below are available online at my blog and most are available as separate PDF documents on academic sites that you can read online or download. All my work is copyrighted under a Creative Commons Copyright, meaning that you can reprint any of my work as long as I am credited.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I converted most of my later blogs to PDF documents which I then posted on three academic sites, Academia.edu. Figshare.com, and ResearchGate.net. </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have recorded over 100,000 views total from these three academic sites. At Academia.edu, in particular, I am in the top 1% of document views, with 695 followers, and over 25,000 views plus about 5000 downloads. My work has been read in about 80% of the countries in the world and 1479 readers of my work are 'highly engaged' meaning they have read and/or downloaded multiple documents. I have one co-author and 32 other papers have mentioned and referenced my work. In addition to the academic sites, my blog has recorded more than 124,000 views over the last ten years.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT AUTHOR/RESEARCHER/THEORIST: RICK DOBLE</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have a Master of Arts in Communication with a minor in Anthropology. And I have a B.A. in English with an Honors in Creative Writer, along with the equivalent of a minor in the Social Sciences. Both degrees are from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE READ MORE ABOUT </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- About Author/Researcher/Theorist: Rick Doble</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Read about Rick Doble's background</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- The Point Of This Blog And Its History</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- The Reasons For Focusing On Basketry And Its Relation To Time</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.”</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Attributed to Albert Einstein </b></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When I told friends that I was going to write a blog about the human experience of time, most said that there was very little to say. Time always flows forward and the sun will rise each day and set each night no matter what we humans do. As Geoffrey Chaucer wrote over 600 years ago "Time and tide wait for no man." But, as the above Einstein quote shows, our understanding of time and our perception of time is often very human. And, as I will argue, the way we perceive time and relate to time has changed considerably during our evolution. Furthermore, I believe that it is our modern ability to work with time, to plan, for example, and to coordinate with others that has made us the dominant specie on the planet because no other animal can do this. And because we have been so successful we are in danger of damaging the Earth's environment with the by-products of our technology.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>After reading and researching I began to realize that time is not just simply time, as is often stated. Instead, time was probably quite different for human creatures a million years ago, for example. For example, I believe the experience of time was different for early hominins who were just emerging from the immediacy of animal existence. And it was also different for early Neolithic farmers who saw time as being primarily cyclical season after season and year after year and not totally linear as we do today. </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT BASKET WEAVING AND WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>For the last two and a half years, I have concentrated on basket weaving technology, which I believe started several million years ago with early Hominins such as Homo habilis. If this technology started that early it affected human evolution by providing more food and materials with baskets and containers. Basketry would also have had cognitive implications because making a basket required imagining the final product before starting and then constructing the basket in a certain order. And these considerations were all related to a sense of time.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Until about 30 years ago, basketry was not considered an important technology that developed only recently in the Neolithic era. This thinking occurred for two reasons. One reason was that the oldest known baskets were from the late Neolithic time period. The second, and I believe more important reason, was that there were a number of incorrect assumptions that prevented research into the possibility that basketry was a key technology even though virtually all experts agreed that there must have been a plant-based technology in addition to the stone tool technology, a technology that went back millions of years. However, because plant material decays very quickly there was no direct evidence. But now, in the last thirty years, a discovery of basket weaving impressions in clay was found that dated back to 27,000 years ago and recently a completely intact large basket was found in Israel that is at least 10,000 years old.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">_______________________________________</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>QUICK OVERVIEW</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>-- Millions of years ago:<br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Some early hominins acquired a unique part of the brain, the pre-frontal cortex, which no other animal had with its capabilities. It allowed rudimentary decision-making about future actions thus bringing a sense of time into play. I have argued that because of this unique part of the brain, hominins had the early stages of a sense of time -- a sense like touch and smell. As the size of the hominin brain increased the ability to imagine future outcomes and to remember past events increased, both critical elements of sensing the passage of time. For example, the size of the hominin brain tripled when comparing Australopithecus afarensis of three million years ago to contemporary Homo sapiens. However, it is important to note that science is not yet certain which came first, the larger brain or the pre-frontal cortex.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig3mcpyr8Abo3HCdP5fV1bgW8ZJo2voKWA3nx-NqAlWo5ihZmi_xdy1nazzBsxWTy-j1PmrND6l16kVzO9RbcK9GfXnnOvMVHuFkMUON2LjEdvwg6DZKnF7nxEMC7e6l_ue8wM6d1fVmjerZRXAwIJINibOLBaHnWovbgqKHSBRAsydWsMkEmfIV67/s800/COMPOSITE_RANDOM_BASKET.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="800" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig3mcpyr8Abo3HCdP5fV1bgW8ZJo2voKWA3nx-NqAlWo5ihZmi_xdy1nazzBsxWTy-j1PmrND6l16kVzO9RbcK9GfXnnOvMVHuFkMUON2LjEdvwg6DZKnF7nxEMC7e6l_ue8wM6d1fVmjerZRXAwIJINibOLBaHnWovbgqKHSBRAsydWsMkEmfIV67/w640-h322/COMPOSITE_RANDOM_BASKET.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Weaverbird nests are well designed and strong. Abandoned ones fell down from Baobab tree limbs which early hominins could have collected. "Weaverbird (Southern Masked Weaver) nest of dry grass, near Pretoria, South Africa"</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weaver_Bird_Nest.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weaver_Bird_Nest.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: A random weave basket made from vines by Nan Bowles. It was constructed with green flexible vines that later dried to make a light, stiff, strong basket. (Basket/Photo by Nan Bowles)</div></div></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>-- About 2 million years ago:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>According to fossil evidence, stone-tool-making hominins (perhaps Homo habilis) lived at the same time and in close association with weaverbirds who made intricate woven sturdy nests which may have served as a model for early containers. These early containers were probably made with a random weave structure that can be light and strong. They would have allowed hominins to gather more food and materials, thus enhancing their ability to survive. This may have been the beginning of basket making and weaving. Basket making was related to time because designing a basket required an initial idea of the basket's shape and purpose and then it required planning and a duration of time to make one.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7GAgviWbXU1PScN6u9PoBV25oXVMUJkGYvA00RBerl0dif-iPEXCI4z4T0fCHMDkG1TTPAC2WiErUl-YpfEV_tJS0ed3buTWzMTAz2oCqfQQ6lon81jSEEKu1DQlNPUJMisw290WVhAcbFiRHEq7_KaGpuSBsGRwaCGnkgAnFcy9uDJbhDlLCDtFC/s800/1536px-Cabane_de_Terra_Amata_1AA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="757" data-original-width="800" height="606" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7GAgviWbXU1PScN6u9PoBV25oXVMUJkGYvA00RBerl0dif-iPEXCI4z4T0fCHMDkG1TTPAC2WiErUl-YpfEV_tJS0ed3buTWzMTAz2oCqfQQ6lon81jSEEKu1DQlNPUJMisw290WVhAcbFiRHEq7_KaGpuSBsGRwaCGnkgAnFcy9uDJbhDlLCDtFC/w640-h606/1536px-Cabane_de_Terra_Amata_1AA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div>A museum recreation of a building (Terra Amata, Nice, France) </div><div> probably made by Homo erectus and considered the oldest known human building.</div><div><a href="http://www.museeprehistoire.com/en/one-thousand-millennia/the-village-to-live-prehistory/4-prehistoric-habitats-from-4-different-periods.html">http://www.museeprehistoire.com/en/one-thousand-millennia/the-village-to-live-prehistory/4-prehistoric-habitats-from-4-different-periods.html</a></div></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>-- About 300 thousand years ago (just a guess):</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The structure of the building at Terra Amata (above) suggests that these hominins could have developed basketry so that it was constructed with a regular right angle or opposing structure, i.e., the horizontal and vertical strands created the basket form. Because this basket making required an idea of a final completed basket before starting plus the process of making a basket was accomplished in regular increments, basketry could have become a symbol and metaphor for time. In addition, basket making could have been taught and communicated via mimicry learning without language. The right angle innovation meant that strong, light, durable sophisticated baskets in a wide variety of configurations were now possible, made out of plants found in any environment in the world. This technology was also scalable so that large structures could be made in addition to smaller items. The regular shape and structure of a woven item plus the process of making them may have led, in part, to a more regular sense of time.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHe1Wd422rjyy3HeQO22YLnQR5GbgS2VJFP1V82G51UfVu56pG2WfQqYxjJDpEWLMEkre-w0KfM4cOCBVYRm83ib0QjnXJVvmFW328AgVn9R-r48zHhcWoWZTQvM1s5z7HN1TGjtnnjZehUYZIg7S6u8wXNjJwXDh46zOwMVyhfbKpEGVpeG1ef4ze/s800/1_COMPOSITE_BURDEN_BASKET_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="800" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHe1Wd422rjyy3HeQO22YLnQR5GbgS2VJFP1V82G51UfVu56pG2WfQqYxjJDpEWLMEkre-w0KfM4cOCBVYRm83ib0QjnXJVvmFW328AgVn9R-r48zHhcWoWZTQvM1s5z7HN1TGjtnnjZehUYZIg7S6u8wXNjJwXDh46zOwMVyhfbKpEGVpeG1ef4ze/w640-h376/1_COMPOSITE_BURDEN_BASKET_2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Known as burden baskets, these were used by nomadic hunter-gatherers on a daily basis and probably during the Neolithic time period as well for harvesting crops.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">LEFT: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ka%C5%A1perjev_Janez_z_listnim_ko%C5%A1em_%22kranjska_svetloba%22,_Podlani%C5%A1%C4%8De_1954.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ka%C5%A1perjev_Janez_z_listnim_ko%C5%A1em_%22kranjska_svetloba%22,_Podlani%C5%A1%C4%8De_1954.jpg</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RIGHT: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:V_ko%C5%A1u_nosi_seno_s_travnika,_Spodnje_Zre%C4%8De_1963_(2).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:V_ko%C5%A1u_nosi_seno_s_travnika,_Spodnje_Zre%C4%8De_1963_(2).jpg</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">-- About 30 thousand years ago:</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens may have begun to develop an early short-term sense of linear time that could be expressed in language. This sense of time was probably immediate and not unlike the Amazon tribe, the Piraha, who think of time only in terms of a couple of days. According to my theory, Upper Paleolithic tribes had by then developed basket-making and woven-fiber structures into a highly sophisticated technology. Based on evidence from Native American Indian nomadic hunter-gathers, large and small waterproof baskets were used to carry water, other baskets were used for cooking, and small boats were made from reeds. Large back-carrying burden baskets were used every day for gathering food or firewood. Most agree that language was well developed by this time. But it is my contention that this Upper Paleolithic language was based on short-term immediate time.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPEpFsAWd0rs5HkFT4gL1I_9aiIgKmC9IsMm5dUzhBevp08NfJRuwri5KEU_Xp7oygJdz-yQbzhpy8XjtTGAhScxGRR1QtsLz2GosZlUHyaiWFSz2xzoisbrWVE_fSeVDmWCvyl9Obc1_k-7gdSUD_SidQwZA2cPvHsh6ku9HY54NGlyAtnP64lshX/s800/2560px-A_photograph_of_the_entrance_to_the_Newgrange_Monument_by_Fiaz_Farrelly_A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="800" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPEpFsAWd0rs5HkFT4gL1I_9aiIgKmC9IsMm5dUzhBevp08NfJRuwri5KEU_Xp7oygJdz-yQbzhpy8XjtTGAhScxGRR1QtsLz2GosZlUHyaiWFSz2xzoisbrWVE_fSeVDmWCvyl9Obc1_k-7gdSUD_SidQwZA2cPvHsh6ku9HY54NGlyAtnP64lshX/w640-h428/2560px-A_photograph_of_the_entrance_to_the_Newgrange_Monument_by_Fiaz_Farrelly_A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The Newgrange passage tomb Ireland.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">"A photograph of the entrance to the Newgrange Monument."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_photograph_of_the_entrance_to_the_Newgrange_Monument_by_Fiaz_Farrelly.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_photograph_of_the_entrance_to_the_Newgrange_Monument_by_Fiaz_Farrelly.jpg</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Many large structures such as Newgrange in Ireland and wooden circular enclosures in Northern Europe were built to indicate when the winter solstice occurred. Most experts agree that they also indicated the importance of time in the Neolithic era.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>-- About 10 thousand years ago:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Neolithic way of life began with sedentary villages and agriculture. This was when modern long-term linear time was developed for agriculture and for complex processes. And basket technology continued to be developed. For example, for most of the early part of the Neolithic era, large back-carrying baskets must have been used to bring the harvest in from the fields since pottery was not invented until late in the Neolithic time period. And other large baskets were specially made to store grain for long periods. Even woven-fiber large boats and houses were possible at this time. A major part of the Neolithic revolution was about a new sense of time that was very different from the immediacy of the Upper Paleolithic. I believe that at this point Neolithic societies were able to conceive of long-term linear time that occurred within the yearly cycles of repeating time. This allowed them to develop very sophisticated processes, some of which were used until recently, and to plan agriculture from year to year. </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizwtfSD9_gBFMouu00UDW95-3423N3b-3oQ7dyVYvvuCdV9RaJY89N56QzPCSZbGXMoVuj3RJiDT9fNL5g9kX_2_HUyE6csn4_ATstOn5CVVE4gHrnR1k_cFsudAXA3_Wv2mlR4fAEAEEgh5gPosE3KW77mNcltsvuWN5LlTjI245_Zjvw0NdgxI09/s640/capture_X007A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="640" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizwtfSD9_gBFMouu00UDW95-3423N3b-3oQ7dyVYvvuCdV9RaJY89N56QzPCSZbGXMoVuj3RJiDT9fNL5g9kX_2_HUyE6csn4_ATstOn5CVVE4gHrnR1k_cFsudAXA3_Wv2mlR4fAEAEEgh5gPosE3KW77mNcltsvuWN5LlTjI245_Zjvw0NdgxI09/w640-h432/capture_X007A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">This painting depicts a large ship made of reeds in early Mesopotamia. The existence of such large reed boats has been well documented. <<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/%D0%A0%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%86%D1%8F_%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D1%83_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B0_%D0%B2_%D0%AD%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B4%D1%83_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%8B%D1%85_%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8_%D0%B2_%D0%A3%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BA.jpg">LINK</a>><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>-- About 5 thousand years ago:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The great civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt took hold. Baskets and woven-fiber items were a central part of their economies which included water-sealed baskets for irrigating the fields, reed and papyrus boats, a variety of woven items for processing grains, and woven sacks for carrying grain. The mythologies of Mesopotamia made clear that basketry was considered a key technology that had led to the rise of civilization. Dividing time into manageable segments such as hours and minutes became necessary for the smooth functioning of these large societies. It is possible that basketry served as a model for the divisions of time as the Babylonian map for the night sky with horizontal and vertical lines was similar to an upside-down basket.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQNjXVioa39OlQAAXAKh2MuJ--ItUHFVuRxakinovzyKPJxwnFmVdwMAvU_t0CooX9NGRvqM8-baFF1fQmqyvfdFT_mwe___JLZ-iCKpgHGCrgXfpw78gfiZhDCczfaQQZQaMfhrkaP-rQgKUs0YN7alWKI1eE5caazP8DzN64cx5ebtpCyNBBu_Ut/s640/Astronomical_Clock_Face_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="587" data-original-width="640" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQNjXVioa39OlQAAXAKh2MuJ--ItUHFVuRxakinovzyKPJxwnFmVdwMAvU_t0CooX9NGRvqM8-baFF1fQmqyvfdFT_mwe___JLZ-iCKpgHGCrgXfpw78gfiZhDCczfaQQZQaMfhrkaP-rQgKUs0YN7alWKI1eE5caazP8DzN64cx5ebtpCyNBBu_Ut/w400-h368/Astronomical_Clock_Face_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Middle Ages Clock: Prague Astronomical Clock, installed in 1410..</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Astronomical_Clock_Face.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Astronomical_Clock_Face.jpg</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Medieval clocks were built using the epicycle gearing of Ptolemy's geocentric astronomy. Ptolemy's astronomy and geography also used a vertical and horizontal 'grid' system probably inherited from the Babylonians. Ptolemy's gearing geometry would lead directly to the construction of machines and the Industrial Revolution. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">(University of Minnesota Libraries, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://apps.lib.umn.edu/bell/map/PTO/GEO/place.html">https://apps.lib.umn.edu/bell/map/PTO/GEO/place.html</a>)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-large;">-- Modern Time: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Starting with Isaac Newton, cosmological time was seen as linear. Today modern science puts the beginning of the Universe at 13.8 billion years ago when the Big Bang occurred. In industrial and consumer societies, time is seen as a commodity, so "time is money." Because of linear thinking people are encouraged to build a career or find a profession where they can advance. Public schools and widespread higher education are a fairly recent part of most societies. A major reason for this requirement is that a sense of modern industrial time has to be learned. It is my contention that thinking in terms of linear time has to be taught. A principal task of education from first grade on is to teach students about working with and working within the modern time frame of scheduling, planning, meeting deadlines, and being on time. Nevertheless, much of daily time is still cyclical, day to day, week to week, New Year to New Year. </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-large;">-- Future Time: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>If humans are to survive, they/we will need to come to terms with very long-term planning and thinking. The short-term consequences of the industrial revolution with CO2 and other by-products have put the global climate at risk, at least as far as Homo sapiens are concerned. A new kind of thinking, in which the planners may not live long enough to see the results of their planning is essential. Some have called this Cathedral Thinking, referring to cathedrals that often took 300 years to build so that most designers and workers never saw their buildings completed in their lifetime. This requires a new conception of time, to work for the sake of future generations and not immediate needs. </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>MY MOST POPULAR AND/OR WELL-RECEIVED ESSAYS</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Animal Senses Compared to the Human Sense of Time</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Evidence for a Basket Weaving And Woven-Fiber Technology in the Paleolithic Era</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- How Language Began and the Human Understanding of Time: Daniel Everett's New Theories About The Evolution of Language</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Computing the Winter Solstice at Newgrange: Was Neolithic Science Equal To Or Better Than Ancient Greek Or Roman Science?</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Mesopotamian Ancient Basket Weaving Technology</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>and the Sumerian Reed Industry</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>EARLY HOMININS</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>________________________________________</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>ANIMAL SENSES COMPARED TO </b></span><b style="font-family: arial;">THE HUMAN SENSE OF TIME</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/08/animal-senses-compared-to-human-sense.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/08/animal-senses-compared-to-human-sense.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/8413225/Animal_Senses_Compared_to_the_Human_Sense_of_Time_By_Rick_Doble">https://www.academia.edu/8413225/Animal_Senses_Compared_to_the_Human_Sense_of_Time_By_Rick_Doble</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Animal_Senses_Compared_to_the_Human_Sense_of_Time_by_Rick_Doble/3443591">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Animal_Senses_Compared_to_the_Human_Sense_of_Time_by_Rick_Doble/3443591</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Many millions of years ago, the human sense of time began with the human brain and a unique part of the brain that only we Homo sapiens have, i.e., the pre-frontal cortex. This part of the brain allows decision-making, which means that possible moves can be contemplated and then enacted. The analogy that is often used is that of a chess player thinking about his or her next move. I was one of the first people to write about this aspect of the human brain and its relationship to time.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">In my article, I suggest that we humans have an actual sense of time, just like touch or smell is a sense. And that we are the only animal that has the ability to understand 'when', when in the past, the present, and the future along with an understanding of duration. Scientific studies back me up.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It is my belief that a simple short-term ability to plan in early humans, such as Homo habilis, eventually evolved into an understanding of time on a larger scale. This probably took millions of years and required a larger brain, a brain that could also recall many memories, as memory is a crucial element to an understanding of the passage of time.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This is my most popular blog-article which has recorded 9,400 pageviews on the blog online and over 2000 views and downloads at my academic sites.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>TIME & CONSCIOUSNESS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/12/time-consciousness.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/12/time-consciousness.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/10158504/Time_and_Consciousness">https://www.academia.edu/10158504/Time_and_Consciousness</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Time_Consciousness/3443594">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Time_Consciousness/3443594</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Related to how the human brain functions is our unique ability to be conscious. Time perception appears to be a major element of conscious awareness.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>PATTERNS & MEMORY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/11/patterns-memory.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/11/patterns-memory.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The human ability to perceive patterns must have developed over a long period of time, Before we could perceive patterns, we must have had a clear memory and a detailed understanding of what we had seen and experienced so we could connect the dots. </span></div><div><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE LOWER PALEOLITHIC ERA</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">_______________________________________</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>PALEOLITHIC EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT HOMO HABILIS COULD HAVE LEARNED WEAVING FROM WEAVERBIRDS (PLOCEIDAE)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/10/paleolithic-evidence-for-early-weaving_27.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/10/paleolithic-evidence-for-early-weaving_27.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/40818725/Paleolithic_Evidence_for_an_Early_Weaving_Technology">https://www.academia.edu/40818725/Paleolithic_Evidence_for_an_Early_Weaving_Technology</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Paleolithic_Evidence_Shows_That_Homo_Habilis_Could_Have_Learned_Weaving_From_Weaverbirds_Ploceidae_Additional_Evidence_That_Basket_Weaving_May_Have_Begun_in_the_Early_Paleolithic_Era_Untitled_Item/10185119">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Paleolithic_Evidence_Shows_That_Homo_Habilis_Could_Have_Learned_Weaving_From_Weaverbirds_Ploceidae_Additional_Evidence_That_Basket_Weaving_May_Have_Begun_in_the_Early_Paleolithic_Era_Untitled_Item/10185119</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Around 2 million years ago at the famous Olduvai Gorge in Africa, the first stone tools made by hominins, known as Oldowan stone tools, were discovered in what has been designated as Bed I which is the oldest layer at the Gorge. And in addition, fossilized remains of weaverbirds (Ploceidae) were found in Bed I. Weaverbirds are known for their elaborate and well-engineered nests which they placed in the open, so they were clearly visible. This means that Homo habilis (and probably other hominins) could have been aware of the nest constructions of these birds and could have used both the shapes and the weaving techniques as models for their own woven objects such as baskets. Baskets would have given them a survival advantage allowing them to gather more food, different food from further away, and also to gather materials.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>EVIDENCE THAT PALEOLITHIC HOMININS LIVED IN CLOSE ASSOCIATION WITH WEAVERBIRDS AND THEIR BASKET-MAKING SKILLS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/04/oldowan-weaverbirds-homo-habilis-basket-making.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/04/oldowan-weaverbirds-homo-habilis-basket-making.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/42651751/Evidence_That_Paleolithic_Hominins_Lived_in_Close_Association_With_Weaverbirds_and_Their_Basket_Making_Skills">https://www.academia.edu/42651751/Evidence_That_Paleolithic_Hominins_Lived_in_Close_Association_With_Weaverbirds_and_Their_Basket_Making_Skills</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Evidence_That_Paleolithic_Hominins_Lived_in_Close_Association_With_Weaverbirds_and_Their_Basket_Making_Skills/12091179">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Evidence_That_Paleolithic_Hominins_Lived_in_Close_Association_With_Weaverbirds_and_Their_Basket_Making_Skills/12091179</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I argue that early hominins, almost two million years ago, lived in close proximity to Weaverbirds. In this article, I cite specific scientific evidence, current mainstream thought, and expert opinions to make my case. And because of this, it is probable that hominins learned initial weaving and knot-making skills along with basket-making, derived from the complex and well-constructed nests of these birds.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>NEW EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THAT BASKET MAKING MAY HAVE BEGUN 2 MILLION YEARS AGO</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/01/new-evidence-basket-making-started-2-million-years-ago.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/01/new-evidence-basket-making-started-2-million-years-ago.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/45010127/New_Evidence_Suggests_That_Basket_Making_May_Have_Begun_2_Million_Years_Ago">https://www.academia.edu/45010127/New_Evidence_Suggests_That_Basket_Making_May_Have_Begun_2_Million_Years_Ago</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/New_Evidence_Suggests_That_Basket_Making_May_Have_Begun_2_Million_Years_Ago/13668605">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/New_Evidence_Suggests_That_Basket_Making_May_Have_Begun_2_Million_Years_Ago/13668605</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">In one study it was found that early humans walked 12 km or 7.5 miles to gather specific stones that they used for making Oldowan stone tools and for putting together a toolkit. And these specific stones made up the majority of stones found.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I argue that to do this, they probably had containers or early baskets to help them carry a large collection of stones back to their settlements, since walking that far would have been counterproductive if they only gathered a few stones. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC ERA</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>TERRA AMATA: DOES THE OLDEST PALEOLITHIC BUILDING SITE INDICATE THE USE OF ADVANCED BASKET WEAVING TECHNOLOGY?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/12/terra-amata-and-modern-basket-weaving.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/12/terra-amata-and-modern-basket-weaving.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/63952553/Terra_Amata_Does_the_Oldest_Paleolithic_Building_Site_Indicate_the_Use_of_Advanced_Basket_Weaving_Technology">https://www.academia.edu/63952553/Terra_Amata_Does_the_Oldest_Paleolithic_Building_Site_Indicate_the_Use_of_Advanced_Basket_Weaving_Technology</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The Middle Paleolithic site at Terra Amata in Nice France provides ample evidence that suggests the transition from random weave basket technology to modern regular basket weaving had occurred by 300 ka with hominins such as Homo erectus.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE INVENTION OF RIGHT-ANGLE CONSTRUCTION IN THE PALEOLITHIC ERA</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/08/invention-of-right-angle-in-paleolithic-era.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/08/invention-of-right-angle-in-paleolithic-era.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/43855673/The_Invention_of_Right_Angle_Construction_in_the_Paleolithic_Era_Including_a_picture_essay_that_illustrates_the_capabilities_of_right_angle_woven_fiber_technology_and_basketry">https://www.academia.edu/43855673/The_Invention_of_Right_Angle_Construction_in_the_Paleolithic_Era_Including_a_picture_essay_that_illustrates_the_capabilities_of_right_angle_woven_fiber_technology_and_basketry</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Invention_of_Right-Angle_Construction_in_the_Paleolithic_Era/13032992">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Invention_of_Right-Angle_Construction_in_the_Paleolithic_Era/13032992</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Right-angle construction is a human invention and not natural. Nevertheless, there has been virtually nothing written about this important discovery. When early humans began to understand the power of this concept, it was a major advance in their technology. When applied to basket weaving and related crafts, it led to the development of hundreds of products. It gave humankind a powerful tool that helped them survive and prevail and eventually build civilizations.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A <i>NATURE JOURNAL </i>ARTICLE VALIDATES</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>RICK DOBLE'S HYPOTHESIS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT PALEO WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/09/nature-article-validates.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/09/nature-article-validates.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/55382895/A_Nature_Journal_Article_Validates_Rick_Dobles_Hypothesis_About_Paleo_Woven_Fiber_Technology">https://www.academia.edu/55382895/A_Nature_Journal_Article_Validates_Rick_Dobles_Hypothesis_About_Paleo_Woven_Fiber_Technology</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/A_Nature_Journal_Article_Validates_Rick_Doble_s_Hypothesis_About_Paleo_Woven-Fiber_Technology/16732321">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/A_Nature_Journal_Article_Validates_Rick_Doble_s_Hypothesis_About_Paleo_Woven-Fiber_Technology/16732321</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">A recent article in the highly respected scientific journal, Nature, states that the authors have found direct evidence of Neanderthal woven-fiber technology in the form of cordage attached to a stone tool. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>GENERAL IDEAS ABOUT </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE PALEOLITHIC ERA</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">THE IMPORTANCE OF PROCESSES </span><span style="font-family: arial;">IN THE PALEOLITHIC ERA</span></span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-importance-of-processes-in.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-importance-of-processes-in.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/41028208/The_Importance_of_Processes_in_the_Paleolithic_Era">https://www.academia.edu/41028208/The_Importance_of_Processes_in_the_Paleolithic_Era</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Importance_of_Processes_in_the_Paleolithic_Era/10968713">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Importance_of_Processes_in_the_Paleolithic_Era/10968713</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Understanding processes is key to understanding early human development. Processes operate sequentially in time and require planning. The ability to implement processes and then expand and develop those processes to more sophisticated levels is one of the principal characteristics of human culture.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">THE TRIBAL-WIDE USE OF PROCESSES </span><span style="font-family: arial;">IN THE PALEOLITHIC ERA</span></span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-tribal-wide-use-of-processes.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-tribal-wide-use-of-processes.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/41388264/The_Tribal_Wide_Use_of_Processes_in_the_Paleolithic_Era">https://www.academia.edu/41388264/The_Tribal_Wide_Use_of_Processes_in_the_Paleolithic_Era</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Tribal-Wide_Use_of_Processes_in_the_Paleolithic_Era/11431419">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Tribal-Wide_Use_of_Processes_in_the_Paleolithic_Era/11431419</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The use of processes was shared by the entire tribe. So it was not just men making stone tools, but women gathering food in baskets and children learning the language of processes.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">EVIDENCE FOR A BASKET WEAVING </span><span style="font-family: arial;">AND WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY </span><span style="font-family: arial;">IN THE PALEOLITHIC ERA</span></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/40430521/Evidence_for_a_Basket_Weaving_and_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era">https://www.academia.edu/40430521/Evidence_for_a_Basket_Weaving_and_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Evidence_for_a_Basket_Weaving_and_Woven-Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era/9896573">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Evidence_for_a_Basket_Weaving_and_Woven-Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era/9896573</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Starting with basket weaving, basketry and weaving developed into a powerful and diverse technology that would be used to make a wide range of items including shoes, clothes, hats, mats, fences, roofs, houses, boats, and even bridges.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>BASKET-WEAVING EDUCATION & ITS COGNITIVE ASPECTS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/02/basket-weaving-education-and-cognitive-aspects.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/02/basket-weaving-education-and-cognitive-aspects.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/45116852/Basket_Weaving_Education_and_Its_Cognitive_Aspects_by_Rick_Doble">https://www.academia.edu/45116852/Basket_Weaving_Education_and_Its_Cognitive_Aspects_by_Rick_Doble</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Basket-Weaving_Education_Its_Cognitive_Aspects/14012657">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Basket-Weaving_Education_Its_Cognitive_Aspects/14012657</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Basket-weaving classes, programs, and instruction books for ages 3 to 18 may provide insights into the cognitive demands of basket-weaving and the development of those skills.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE UPPER PALEOLITHIC ERA</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADVANCED WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY IN THE PALEOLITHIC ERA::</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>INSIGHTS FROM PALEO-INDIAN ARTIFACTS AND ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/01/advanced-basket-weaving-technology-in.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/01/advanced-basket-weaving-technology-in.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/70377004/The_Development_of_Advanced_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era_Insights_from_Paleo_Indian_Artifacts_and_Ethnoarchaeology_By_Rick_Doble">https://www.academia.edu/70377004/The_Development_of_Advanced_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era_Insights_from_Paleo_Indian_Artifacts_and_Ethnoarchaeology_By_Rick_Doble</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Development_Of_Advanced_Woven-Fiber_Technology_In_The_Paleolithic_Era_Insights_from_Paleo-Indian_artifacts_and_Ethnoarchaeology/19121795">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Development_Of_Advanced_Woven-Fiber_Technology_In_The_Paleolithic_Era_Insights_from_Paleo-Indian_artifacts_and_Ethnoarchaeology/19121795</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It is my contention that by the Upper Paleolithic, many technologies were quite advanced. In particular, basket weaving or woven-fiber technology had reached a high point of development. A variety of basket weaving techniques had been mastered along with the manufacture of cordage and the beginnings of textiles.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE GENIUS OF CAVEMEN</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-genius-of-cavemen.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-genius-of-cavemen.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The accurate and technically sophisticated paintings of bison in the Cave of Altamira in Spain by 'cave men' show that not only were they skilled but they had remarkable memories and powers of observation.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW LANGUAGE BEGAN AND THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING OF TIME: DANIEL EVERETT'S NEW THEORIES ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2018/10/everett-how-language-began-and-human-time-keeping.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2018/10/everett-how-language-began-and-human-time-keeping.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/37624870/How_Language_Began_and_the_Human_Understanding_of_Time_Daniel_Everetts_New_Theories_About_the_Evolution_of_Language">https://www.academia.edu/37624870/How_Language_Began_and_the_Human_Understanding_of_Time_Daniel_Everetts_New_Theories_About_the_Evolution_of_Language</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/How_Language_Began_and_the_Human_Understanding_of_Time_Daniel_Everett_s_New_Theories_About_the_Evolution_of_Language/7234688">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/How_Language_Began_and_the_Human_Understanding_of_Time_Daniel_Everett_s_New_Theories_About_the_Evolution_of_Language/7234688</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Daniel Everett has proposed a revolutionary new theory about how language began. He believes it started more than a million years ago not with Homo sapiens, but with Homo erectus and then slowly evolved. I believe his theory works well with my ideas about time.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">_______________________________________</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE NEOLITHIC ERA</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>COMPUTING THE WINTER SOLSTICE AT NEWGRANGE: WAS NEOLITHIC SCIENCE EQUAL TO OR BETTER THAN ANCIENT GREEK OR ROMAN SCIENCE?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/03/computing-winter-solstice-at-newgrange.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/03/computing-winter-solstice-at-newgrange.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/11482254/Computing_the_Winter_Solstice_At_Newgrange_Was_Neolithic_Science_Equal_To_or_Better_Than_Ancient_Greek_or_Roman_Science">https://www.academia.edu/11482254/Computing_the_Winter_Solstice_At_Newgrange_Was_Neolithic_Science_Equal_To_or_Better_Than_Ancient_Greek_or_Roman_Science</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Computing_the_Winter_Solstice_at_Newgrange_Was_Neolithic_Science_Equal_To_or_Better_Than_Ancient_Greek_or_Roman_Science_/3443597">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Computing_the_Winter_Solstice_at_Newgrange_Was_Neolithic_Science_Equal_To_or_Better_Than_Ancient_Greek_or_Roman_Science_/3443597</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This blog has been reprinted </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">at the Newgrange website in Ireland </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.newgrange.com/winter-solstice-newgrange.htm">http://www.newgrange.com/winter-solstice-newgrange.htm</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>STONE-AGE SCIENTIFIC & ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS: </b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">NEWGRANGE & PORTUGUESE BURIAL TOMBS </span><span style="font-family: arial;">COMPARED</span></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2016/08/stone-age-astronomical-instruments.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2016/08/stone-age-astronomical-instruments.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/28954803/Stone_Age_Scientific_and_Astronomical_Instruments_Newgrange_and_Portuguese_Burial_Tombs_Compared">https://www.academia.edu/28954803/Stone_Age_Scientific_and_Astronomical_Instruments_Newgrange_and_Portuguese_Burial_Tombs_Compared</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Stone-Age_Scientific_Astronomical_Instruments_Newgrange_Portuguese_Burial_Tombs_Compared/3988908">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Stone-Age_Scientific_Astronomical_Instruments_Newgrange_Portuguese_Burial_Tombs_Compared/3988908</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The passageways in Portuguese burial tombs were designed to enhance the view of a portion of the sky. This made it much easier to see the first appearance of a particular star just before dawn or just after sunset. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>NEOLITHIC SCIENCE:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A STUDENT HANDS-ON PROJECT</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW TO BUILD A LARGE PORTABLE PINHOLE CAMERA OR CAMERA OBSCURA TO EXPLORE HOW NEOLITHIC OPTICS AT NEWGRANGE WERE ABLE TO ACCURATELY DETERMINE THE TIME OF THE WINTER SOLSTICE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/04/neolithic-science-camera-obscura-project.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/04/neolithic-science-camera-obscura-project.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/77758737/Neolithic_Science_A_Student_Hands_On_Project_How_To_Build_a_Large_Portable_Pinhole_Camera_or_Camera_Obscura_to_Explore_How_Neolithic_Optics_at_Newgrange_Were_Able_to_Accurately_Determine_the_Time_of_the_Winter_Solstice">https://www.academia.edu/77758737/Neolithic_Science_A_Student_Hands_On_Project_How_To_Build_a_Large_Portable_Pinhole_Camera_or_Camera_Obscura_to_Explore_How_Neolithic_Optics_at_Newgrange_Were_Able_to_Accurately_Determine_the_Time_of_the_Winter_Solstice</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Neolithic_Science_A_Student_Hands-On_Project_How_To_Build_a_Large_Portable_Pinhole_Camera_or_Camera_Obscura_to_Explore_How_Neolithic_Optics_at_Newgrange_Were_Able_To_Accurately_Determine_the_Time_of_the_Winter_Solstice/19664193">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Neolithic_Science_A_Student_Hands-On_Project_How_To_Build_a_Large_Portable_Pinhole_Camera_or_Camera_Obscura_to_Explore_How_Neolithic_Optics_at_Newgrange_Were_Able_To_Accurately_Determine_the_Time_of_the_Winter_Solstice/19664193</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The title explains this article's purpose.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">BASKET WEAVING </span><span style="font-family: arial;">AND WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY </span><span style="font-family: arial;">IN THE PRE-POTTERY NEOLITHIC (PPN)</span></span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/02/pre-pottery-neolithic-basket-weaving.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/02/pre-pottery-neolithic-basket-weaving.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/72287747/Basket_Weaving_and_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Pre_Pottery_Neolithic_PPN_">https://www.academia.edu/72287747/Basket_Weaving_and_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Pre_Pottery_Neolithic_PPN_</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Basket_Weaving_and_Woven-Fiber_Technology_in_the_Pre-Pottery_Neolithic_PPN_/19221210">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Basket_Weaving_and_Woven-Fiber_Technology_in_the_Pre-Pottery_Neolithic_PPN_/19221210</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It is clear from the fact that pottery had not been invented until late in the Neolithic era, that other tools and implements must have been fabricated during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN).</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE NEOLITHIC COGNITIVE LEAP:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>MORE THAN A REVOLUTION THE NEW STONE AGE INVOLVED A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF Time</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/05/neolithic-concepts-of-time.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2022/05/neolithic-concepts-of-time.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/79772301/The_Neolithic_Cognitive_Leap_More_Than_a_Revolution_the_New_Stone_Age_Involved_a_New_Understanding_of_Time_By">https://www.academia.edu/79772301/The_Neolithic_Cognitive_Leap_More_Than_a_Revolution_the_New_Stone_Age_Involved_a_New_Understanding_of_Time_By</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Neolithic_Cognitive_Leap_More_Than_a_Revolution_the_New_Stone_Age_Involved_a_New_Understanding_of_Time/19918132">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Neolithic_Cognitive_Leap_More_Than_a_Revolution_the_New_Stone_Age_Involved_a_New_Understanding_of_Time/19918132</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">While all agree that the Neolithic era was a revolution, the change was even more monumental. While I believe Upper Paleolithic people could work with and plan short-term projects and processes, their way of life was generally one of immediacy. They did not store and save food for times of scarcity, for example. But in the Neolithic era, an understanding of long-term linear time allowed the societies to radically change their way of life by planning their farming over a year's time and then developing a large number of processes that required long-term conceptions. It was this ability that allowed the Neolithic cultures to flourish.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>NEOLITHIC FERTILITY SYMBOLISM DURING THE WINTER SOLSTICE AT THE NEWGRANGE PASSAGE TOMB IN IRELAND</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS ONLY:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/13588773/Neolithic_Fertility_Symbolism_During_the_Winter_Solstice_at_the_Newgrange_Passage_Tomb_in_Ireland">https://www.academia.edu/13588773/Neolithic_Fertility_Symbolism_During_the_Winter_Solstice_at_the_Newgrange_Passage_Tomb_in_Ireland</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Neolithic_Fertility_Symbolism_During_the_Winter_Solstice_at_the_Newgrange_Passage_Tomb_in_Ireland/3443606">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Neolithic_Fertility_Symbolism_During_the_Winter_Solstice_at_the_Newgrange_Passage_Tomb_in_Ireland/3443606</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">A number of researchers have suggested that the winter solstice alignment at the Newgrange Passage Tomb in Ireland had a fertility purpose. In this article, I build on the knowledge of many experts to arrive at a possible reason for the monument and its meaning to these Neolithic people.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE ANCIENT MANIPULATION OF TIME: PART 1</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-ancient-manipulation-of-time-part-1.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-ancient-manipulation-of-time-part-1.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/12172223/The_Ancient_Manipulation_of_Time">https://www.academia.edu/12172223/The_Ancient_Manipulation_of_Time</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Ancient_Manipulation_of_Time/3443615">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Ancient_Manipulation_of_Time/3443615</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This combined article explores the growth of human understanding about the nature of time, along with methods for measuring and controlling time. This article covers Neolithic methods from about 5000 BCE and ancient Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greek methods which led to the development of the clock in medieval times.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">THE ANCIENT MANIPULATION OF TIME: PART 2</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-ancient-manipulation-of-time-part-2.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-ancient-manipulation-of-time-part-2.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS - Combined</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/12172223/The_Ancient_Manipulation_of_Time">https://www.academia.edu/12172223/The_Ancient_Manipulation_of_Time</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Ancient_Manipulation_of_Time/3443615">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Ancient_Manipulation_of_Time/3443615</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This combined article explores the growth of human understanding about the nature of time, along with methods for measuring and controlling time. This article covers Neolithic methods from about 5000 BCE and ancient Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greek methods which led to the development of the clock in medieval times.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE IMPORTANCE OF BASKET WEAVING TECHNOLOGY FOR THE WORLD'S FIRST CIVILIZATIONS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-importance-of-basket-weaving.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-importance-of-basket-weaving.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/46899722/The_Crucial_Importance_of_Basket_Weaving_Technology_for_the_Worlds_First_Civilizations">https://www.academia.edu/46899722/The_Crucial_Importance_of_Basket_Weaving_Technology_for_the_Worlds_First_Civilizations</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Crucial_Importance_of_Basket_Weaving_Technology_for_the_World_s_First_Civilizations/14431409">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Crucial_Importance_of_Basket_Weaving_Technology_for_the_World_s_First_Civilizations/14431409</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The rise of the world's first civilization, that of Sumer in Mesopotamia, could not have occurred without a fully developed basket weaving technology that was available from the beginning.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">MESOPOTAMIAN ANCIENT BASKET WEAVING TECHNOLOGY </span><span style="font-family: arial;">AND THE SUMERIAN REED INDUSTRY </span></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS ONLY</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/49359896/Mesopotamian_Ancient_Basket_Weaving_Technology_and_the_Sumerian_Reed_Industry">https://www.academia.edu/49359896/Mesopotamian_Ancient_Basket_Weaving_Technology_and_the_Sumerian_Reed_Industry</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Mesopotamian_Ancient_Basket_Weaving_Technology_and_the_Sumerian_Reed_Industryntitled_Item/14865231">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Mesopotamian_Ancient_Basket_Weaving_Technology_and_the_Sumerian_Reed_Industryntitled_Item/14865231</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">There was an extensive and important reed industry that existed from Neolithic times and continued with the Sumerian civilizations but this industry has not been properly identified.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">MESOPOTAMIAN MISCONCEPTIONS: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">INCORRECT ASSUMPTIONS AND</span></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>MISINTERPRETATIONS OF SUMERIAN TECHNOLOGY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/06/mesopotamian-misconceptions.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/06/mesopotamian-misconceptions.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">A large reed industry was crucial to the rise of civilization in Mesopotamia. Housing made of reeds, for example, may have been much more widespread than previously thought and a huge fleet of reed boats and coracles made with reeds may have been just as important.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">ANCIENT BABYLONIAN SCIENCE </span><span style="font-family: arial;">GUIDED THE MARS ROVER TO ITS LANDING</span></span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/02/ancient-babylonian-science-guided-mars.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/02/ancient-babylonian-science-guided-mars.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSION</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/56446676/Ancient_Babylonian_Science_Guided_the_Mars_Rover_Perseverance_to_Its_Landing">https://www.academia.edu/56446676/Ancient_Babylonian_Science_Guided_the_Mars_Rover_Perseverance_to_Its_Landing</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The Babylonian map of the sky became the model for a grid on the Earth and on Mars and was used to navigate the Mars Rover.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE CLASSICAL ERA</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW THE DISCREDITED GEOCENTRIC COSMOS WAS A CRITICAL COMPONENT OF THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>OR </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW PTOLEMY'S GEOCENTRIC ASTRONOMY HELPED BUILD THE MODERN WORLD</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-discredited-geocentric-cosmos-was.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-discredited-geocentric-cosmos-was.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/12557660/How_the_Discredited_Geocentric_Cosmos_Was_a_Critical_Component_of_the_Scientific_Revolution">https://www.academia.edu/12557660/How_the_Discredited_Geocentric_Cosmos_Was_a_Critical_Component_of_the_Scientific_Revolution</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/How_the_Discredited_Geocentric_Cosmos_Was_a_Critical_Component_of_the_Scientific_Revolution/3443612">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/How_the_Discredited_Geocentric_Cosmos_Was_a_Critical_Component_of_the_Scientific_Revolution/3443612</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The clock became important during the Middle Ages. The gearing mechanism was based on Ptolemy's geocentric astronomy which later developed into modern machines in the Industrial Age.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE MODERN ERA</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A REVOLUTION IN TIME</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-revolution-in-time.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-revolution-in-time.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">In the industrial age time went through a major change. Time was now geared to railroads and modern machines.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>SCHOOL'S MOST IMPORTANT SUBJECT: TIME</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>WHAT DID YOU LEARN IN SCHOOL TODAY?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/11/schools-most-important-subject-time.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/11/schools-most-important-subject-time.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSION</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/9555940/Schools_Most_Important_Subject_Time">https://www.academia.edu/9555940/Schools_Most_Important_Subject_Time</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">While learning basic skills is essential, education from the first grade teaches an even more critical subject -- the subject of time. This illustrated paper examines the subtle and persistent ways that students from elementary school to graduate school are taught a conception of time.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE PROTECTIVE BUBBLE OF CIVILIZATION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-civilization-bubble.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-civilization-bubble.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Living in buildings and driving air-conditioned cars has shielded us from the outside world.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>MODERN TIME: TIME AS A COMMODITY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/12/modern-time-time-as-commodity.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/12/modern-time-time-as-commodity.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Time is money.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW PHOTOGRAPHY CHANGED TIME: PART 1</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-photography-changed-time-part-1.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-photography-changed-time-part-1.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/71151839/PDF_Version_How_Photography_Changed_Time_By_Rick_Doble">https://www.academia.edu/71151839/PDF_Version_How_Photography_Changed_Time_By_Rick_Doble</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/PDF_Version_How_Photography_Changed_Time_By_Rick_Doble/3980085">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/PDF_Version_How_Photography_Changed_Time_By_Rick_Doble/3980085</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Before photography, there were only written records, which were often subjective, along with paintings and drawings -- plus memories that were often flawed or that faded within a few years' time. Photography freezes time. Photography can record reality, objects, and details in the real world, independent of our memories. This objective ability can allow us to view the past without the mist of emotions, the rose-colored glasses that often tint our recollection of the past. But it also completely changed the perception of time.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW PHOTOGRAPHY CHANGED TIME: PART 2</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-photography-changed-time-part-2.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-photography-changed-time-part-2.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/71151839/PDF_Version_How_Photography_Changed_Time_By_Rick_Doble">https://www.academia.edu/71151839/PDF_Version_How_Photography_Changed_Time_By_Rick_Doble</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/PDF_Version_How_Photography_Changed_Time_By_Rick_Doble/3980085">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/PDF_Version_How_Photography_Changed_Time_By_Rick_Doble/3980085</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">See the description above.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>THE FUTURE</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Short articles about the environment <br />and thinking and planning for the future.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE HISTORY OF THE FUTURE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-history-of-future.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-history-of-future.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It is interesting to view how the future was conceived in the past and what the future became in reality.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE WORK OF THE IMAGINATION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A CRISIS OF IMAGINATION: </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>WE MUST IMAGINE THE FUTURE TO SURVIVE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-work-of-imagination.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-work-of-imagination.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/29096266/The_Work_of_the_Imagination_We_Must_Imagine_the_Future_to_Survive">https://www.academia.edu/29096266/The_Work_of_the_Imagination_We_Must_Imagine_the_Future_to_Survive</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Work_of_the_Imagination_We_Must_Imagine_the_Future_to_Survive/4010052">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Work_of_the_Imagination_We_Must_Imagine_the_Future_to_Survive/4010052</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This paper examines works of the imagination in the past that have led to the ideas and technology of today. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>WHY WE DON'T OR WON'T DEAL WITH CLIMATE CHANGE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2017/09/why-we-dont-deal-with-climate-change.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2017/09/why-we-dont-deal-with-climate-change.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/34503048/Why_We_Dont_or_Wont_Deal_With_Climate_Change">https://www.academia.edu/34503048/Why_We_Dont_or_Wont_Deal_With_Climate_Change</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Why_We_Don_t_or_Won_t_Deal_With_Climate_Change/5386951">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Why_We_Don_t_or_Won_t_Deal_With_Climate_Change/5386951</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">We, humans, are adapting to our own man-made environment and not considering the larger effect that our overall civilized environment has on the Earth's climate. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>GLOBAL WARMING & THE FUTURE: PARTS 1 & 2</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/06/global-warming-future-part-1.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/06/global-warming-future-part-1.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/06/global-warming-future-part-2.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2013/06/global-warming-future-part-2.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The irony is that while technology has caused these problems, technology can provide the solution by helping us design with the environment in mind.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>CLIMATE CHANGE & OUR AGE OF DENIAL</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/05/climate-change-our-age-of-denial.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/05/climate-change-our-age-of-denial.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Since politicians do not often think beyond their four or eight-year terms, they feel no urgency to risk their political future to forge a fifty or hundred-year policy that may be required.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HUMAN NATURE, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND MODERN TECHNOLOGY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2017/09/climate-change-and-modern-technology.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2017/09/climate-change-and-modern-technology.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSION</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/34731937/Human_Nature_Climate_Change_and_Modern_Technology">https://www.academia.edu/34731937/Human_Nature_Climate_Change_and_Modern_Technology</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Recent research concludes that changing the environment is part of our human nature and has been a core trait for as long as humans have existed. Can we tame this aspect of our own nature to prevent damage to the Earth's environment?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE PAST</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>THE MODERNCENTRIC BIAS AGAINST PREHISTORIC CULTURES: PARTS 1 & 2</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-moderncentric-bias-against.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-moderncentric-bias-against.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-moderncentric-bias-against.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-moderncentric-bias-against.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Paleolithic people were very smart. Given their brain size, they did the best with the technology they had. But their abilities have often been dismissed by scientists.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>OVERCOMING GENDER BIAS IN PALEOLITHIC RESEARCH:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">GENDER BIAS MAY HAVE PREVENTED PALEOLITHIC BASKET-WEAVING TECHNOLOGY FROM BEING RECOGNIZED AND ACCEPTED</span></b> <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/12/overcoming-gender-bias-in-paleolithic.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/12/overcoming-gender-bias-in-paleolithic.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/44714134/Overcoming_Gender_Bias_in_Paleolithic_Research_Gender_Bias_May_Have_Prevented_Paleolithic_Basket_Weaving_Technology_from_Being_Recognized_and_Accepted">https://www.academia.edu/44714134/Overcoming_Gender_Bias_in_Paleolithic_Research_Gender_Bias_May_Have_Prevented_Paleolithic_Basket_Weaving_Technology_from_Being_Recognized_and_Accepted</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Overcoming_Gender_Bias_in_Paleolithic_Research_Gender_Bias_May_Have_Prevented_Paleolithic_Basket-Weaving_Technology_from_Being_Recognized_and_Accepted/13385264">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Overcoming_Gender_Bias_in_Paleolithic_Research_Gender_Bias_May_Have_Prevented_Paleolithic_Basket-Weaving_Technology_from_Being_Recognized_and_Accepted/13385264</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">A 60-page exploration of gender bias that affected research into 'women's arts' in the Paleolithic era. The blog focuses on Native American Indian basketry, made by women, that often was quite similar to Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic cultures in Europe but was discounted because it was 'women's work'.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE HISTORY AND FINAL ACCEPTANCE OF A REJECTED IDEA:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>BASKET-WEAVING IN THE PALEOLITHIC ERA</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-history-of-rejected-idea-basket.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-history-of-rejected-idea-basket.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/44206454/The_History_and_Final_Acceptance_of_a_Rejected_Idea_Basket_Weaving_in_the_Paleolithic_Era">https://www.academia.edu/44206454/The_History_and_Final_Acceptance_of_a_Rejected_Idea_Basket_Weaving_in_the_Paleolithic_Era</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_History_and_Final_Acceptance_of_a_Rejected_Idea_Basket-Weaving_in_the_Paleolithic_EraUntitled_Item/13033067">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_History_and_Final_Acceptance_of_a_Rejected_Idea_Basket-Weaving_in_the_Paleolithic_EraUntitled_Item/13033067</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This article outlines ideas about the history of viewing basket-weaving as a technology, ideas that were rejected for almost 100 years, and then finally accepted after irrefutable evidence was found. It then outlines my new ideas that take the origins of this technology much further back into the past.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>REPLACE THE TERM 'BASKET WEAVING'</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>WITH THE TERM 'WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY'</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/03/replace-term-basket-weaving-with-term.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/03/replace-term-basket-weaving-with-term.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/45437517/The_Need_to_Change_the_Term_Basket_Weaving_to_the_Term_Woven_Fiber_Technology">https://www.academia.edu/45437517/The_Need_to_Change_the_Term_Basket_Weaving_to_the_Term_Woven_Fiber_Technology</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Need_to_Change_the_Term_Basket_Weaving_to_the_Term_Woven-Fiber_Technology_/14184881">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Need_to_Change_the_Term_Basket_Weaving_to_the_Term_Woven-Fiber_Technology_/14184881</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Basket weaving "can't get no respect." It is a joke on college campuses. Replace this term with 'woven-fiber technology' that will cover a variety of woven-fiber constructions.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>---------------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW PRECONCEPTIONS INTERFERED WITH DISCOVERY: UNDERSTANDING THE FIRST COMPUTER, THE ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM OF ANCIENT GREECE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2016/03/my-education-interferes-with-my-learning.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2016/03/my-education-interferes-with-my-learning.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">PDF VERSIONS</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/28931421/How_Preconceptions_Interfered_With_Discovery_Understanding_the_First_Computer_the_Antikythera_Mechanism_of_Ancient_Greece">https://www.academia.edu/28931421/How_Preconceptions_Interfered_With_Discovery_Understanding_the_First_Computer_the_Antikythera_Mechanism_of_Ancient_Greece</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/How_Preconceptions_Interfered_With_Discovery_Understanding_the_First_Computer_the_Antikythera_Mechanism_of_Ancient_Greece/3984484">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/How_Preconceptions_Interfered_With_Discovery_Understanding_the_First_Computer_the_Antikythera_Mechanism_of_Ancient_Greece/3984484</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Because authorities did not believe Ancient Greeks could have made a sophisticated geared device that could calculate celestial movements, the Antikythera Mechanism, found in a sunken Roman shipwreck, was ignored for 50 years. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>AFTERWORD</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>_______________________________________</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT THE AUTHOR/RESEARCHER/THEORIST: RICK DOBLE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I am the writer/researcher/theorist of these blog-articles on this page. I have an M.A. in Communication, with a minor in Anthropology, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I also have a B.A. in English from UNC-CH with an Honors in Creative Writing. As an undergraduate at UNC, I had to take 6-8 courses that were not related to my major, and most of the ones I chose were in Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, and Political Science -- i.e., the social sciences. Nevertheless, I am not a professional Anthropologist just a person with a lifelong interest in the human condition. From the age of ten, I put together what I called my 'museum' which included Paleolithic stone tools, Neolithic stone tools, and Native American Indian arrowheads. When I attended Phillips Exeter Academy prep school, I took two courses in experimental physics and chemistry where, for example, we duplicated Galileo's experiments with gravity and an inclined plane. In college, I worked as a research assistant to a professor and I was always able to locate more than enough documents for his research. Later as a professional photographer in the pre-digital film era, I spent almost 15 years doing my own darkroom work, which gave me an in-depth understanding of processes. Process development is a key idea in this timeline of hominid/hominin evolution. As a digital photographer, my experimental ideas were published by one of the largest photographic publishers, Lark Books, in a book entitled "Experimental Digital Photography." I was also the team leader of a historic photographic project in Durham North Carolina which created a photo archive for the Durham library and we also created a timeline exhibit of photographs of Durham.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Nevertheless, I do not have the normal academic credentials for the kinds of ideas I have put forth. However, at the age of 78, I decided it was now or never. I would like to think that at the very least I have asked some worthwhile questions which could be useful in the ongoing conversation about human development, culture, and technology.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>WHY DID I FOCUS ON BASKET WEAVING TECHNOLOGY?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>My wife has a small but varied collection of baskets, from very small to very large, and from different parts of the world and different cultures. These baskets are strong, light, and durable, and are still in good shape after forty years. In addition, my Dad gave me some Mexican furniture that had woven straw seats and backs that are over 70 years old. This furniture is as sturdy today as it was when my Dad tied them to the top of his old Ford and drove from Mexico City to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In other words, I knew that baskets in general are light, strong, and durable, making them a very useful technology.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When I started to write this blog, I discovered from my research that basket technology was present in virtually all cultures in the world, from 'primitive' to modern, using a wide variety of local materials. In addition, two Anthropological researchers compiled aspects that were common to all cultures, new and old, which included containers, cordage, and weaving. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Then again in my research, I found that many people believed that early humans may have gotten the idea for baskets from bird nests. And that is when things started to happen for me. With the incredible research ability of the Internet, I was able to show that Oldowan tools were found in the same Bed at Olduvai Gorge in Africa where fossilized weaverbird skeletons had also been found -- dating back almost two million years. And weaverbird nests are woven, incredibly well-made containers. Next, I was able to show that most experts believed that early Hominins spent much of their time around Baobab trees because the Baobab fruit was an important part of their diet. And Baobab trees were also the preferred habitat of weaverbirds. This means I could show that early Hominins lived in close association with weaverbirds and that logically they could have learned basket-making skills although it would take another two million years to develop basketry into a sophisticated technology that would eventually lead to building large houses and boats in Mesopotamia and also waterproof vessels to irrigate their fields.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As luck would have it, I also knew a local woman (Nan Bowles) who lived in the marshes with her husband and who often made things from natural materials. She, on her own, had made a number of random weave baskets which is what I believe early humans would have made initially. She was able to show me their construction and strength. I was amazed to find how light and strong they were, easily holding five kilograms. So with all these ideas about how basketry could have started, I was off and running. This would lead me to investigate ideas about the development of weaving in the Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic, the Neolithic, the Ancient civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the Classical thinking of Rome and Greece, right up to the modern-day.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT THIS BLOG</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>DECONSTRUCTING TIME</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE OF TIME</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have been writing this blog for ten years now. When I began, I only planned on exploring our contemporary human relationship to time, which has been ignored or not recognized as important. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Yet nothing happens, nothing exists outside of time -- time is ever-present. And nothing happens that did not happen in a moment of time: the passage of time only happens in the immediacy of the moment. Time is the most used word in the English language (and presumably other languages) showing how vital it is to our existence.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I believe our understanding of time and our relationship to time is not only crucial, it shaped our evolution and our development from early Hominins to modern Homo sapiens (us) of today. For example, an understanding of the times when animals migrated or plants flowered allowed early humans to hunt better and gather more food.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When I began this blog, I had no idea that I would be delving into such weighty matters, but inevitably one step led to another and after ten years I had mapped out one scenario of human evolution that included the developing technology of basket making (or woven-fiber technology) and its relationship to time, along with ideas about the development of language.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So in this blog-article, I lay out what I have written in chronological order, showing how the ideas I have discussed in this blog follow a fairly logical progression up to the present day.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>However, when I began these articles, I had no idea that they would connect to each other and that a coherent timeline was possible. I wrote each one as the ideas came to me -- ideas that did not come in a logical order. It was only six months ago that I realized I had mapped out the beginnings of a chronology and at that point, I began to fill in the blanks to complete the overall picture.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>WHY BOTHER?: Is this just an academic exercise or does it matter? I maintain that our understanding of linear time, with a past, present, future and a sense of duration, has made us the dominant species on the planet, since no other animal has this capability. So it could be very useful to gain a better understanding of how we evolved. And studying how this sense of time developed may offer insights into our current way of thinking. Working with horizontal and vertical strands to make baskets and woven structures, for example, maybe one of the reasons we developed the concept of the 'grid' which is everywhere in modern culture. But even more importantly is the fact that we will need to develop a new sense of long-term linear time because that is what it will take to come to terms with climate change. What some have called 'cathedral thinking' means that each generation must now plan and develop technologies whose outcomes they will never see in their lifetime. Short-term thinking of the past is what brought us to this crisis point with the environment. It is only with long-term thinking that we can come to terms with the effect our technology has on the Earth. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A Personal Note: I had written about five of these articles when the COVID pandemic hit. Since my wife and I stayed at home for about a year and a half, I used this time to research and write about this topic. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But I do not know if any of my ideas will become part of mainstream thinking in my lifetime. Of course, I would love it if they were, but that is not the point. In a sense, I have engaged in 'cathedral thinking' because my ideas might be accepted long after I am gone. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Nevertheless, I am confident that a discussion about the development of time concepts will become a major theme in the study of prehistory and later time periods.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-16091100165017546242022-05-22T08:13:00.002-04:002022-05-28T08:31:55.488-04:00Neolithic Concepts of Time<div style="text-align: left;"><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"> The Neolithic Cognitive Leap:</span></h2><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: x-large; text-align: center;"><b>More Than a Revolution the New Stone Age</b></div><div style="font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b>Involved a New Understanding of Time</b></div><div style="font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">By Rick Doble</div><div style="font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Vy6n7tufVpcO1pegTU5n70ml0RgNpLONlgaH2Bo5pFgKT1p04z8dePRkIF9Q4-tTZoClaTOwMHyaNsih194Vqxwk7sEcW0027AabM7ZZOwoMFZ4_VT470UedX_j4_JHYu_DOBaHFR6R0bQMXWODVwa4owUAUvE7AfwZYynYPwFr8_pHfynSFZ-jg/s800/SMWM_-_Jungsteinzeitliches_Dorf_1A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="494" data-original-width="800" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Vy6n7tufVpcO1pegTU5n70ml0RgNpLONlgaH2Bo5pFgKT1p04z8dePRkIF9Q4-tTZoClaTOwMHyaNsih194Vqxwk7sEcW0027AabM7ZZOwoMFZ4_VT470UedX_j4_JHYu_DOBaHFR6R0bQMXWODVwa4owUAUvE7AfwZYynYPwFr8_pHfynSFZ-jg/w640-h396/SMWM_-_Jungsteinzeitliches_Dorf_1A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Model of a Neolithic village. City Museum: Wels (Upper Austria).</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SMWM_-_Jungsteinzeitliches_Dorf_1.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SMWM_-_Jungsteinzeitliches_Dorf_1.jpg</a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">ABSTRACT:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">While all agree that the Neolithic era was a revolution, the change was even more monumental. While I believe Upper Paleolithic people could work with and plan short-term projects and processes, their way of life was generally one of immediacy. They did not store and save food for times of scarcity, for example. But in the Neolithic era, an understanding of long-term linear time allowed the societies to radically change their way of life by planning their farming over a year's time and then developing a large number of processes that required long-term conceptions. And it was this ability that allowed the Neolithic cultures to flourish.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>INTRODUCTION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><b>Imagine that after climbing a hill the member of a small nomadic hunter-gatherer tribe looked down on a Neolithic village for the first time. They would have seen hundreds of people wearing woven cloth garments who lived in one place with solid houses surrounded by carefully cultivated fields of grain. </b></span><b>Because it was so strange, so fantastic, he or she might have thought it was a dream or mirage or believed it was from another world. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In our modern world, we need to recapture this sense of awe. Because the Neolithic (New Stone Age) way of life was dramatically different from the earlier Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle. While it used stone-age implements, it was a completely different way of living with its own unique technology. Instead of looking at the Neolithic era from a modern point of view that sees it as crude and primitive, we need to look at it from the POV of earlier humans who had lived successfully for millions of years as nomads and who lived in small bands as they foraged for food. They must have been astonished to see this very different way to live and survive.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In other words, to understand the Neolithic we need to put ourselves back into their time period and see it from that point of view. </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The problem, oddly, is that the Neolithic way of life is, in a way, familiar. It is like life in small villages that we know today. Yet because of its stone-age technology, this way of life is seen as backward. But we are the ones who have it backward. Small villages are based on Neolithic villages because they were invented by these cultures.</span></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXH_WmIRlkiJm7JshCiWRxTd8-LP5Zjx0rCdLreQxhPxK5BtkI5Kyr9b71H6cGJ3stWvdby4kE4bkXW2_wU2UntDlR43rK3dEu_lqh9djo3Jp5ko5CY5meSaRIfKlgmOxyG52Fzgw1kINPn6Pck8bKexQEH33QXnKPJkMcMEQMgfw7vYLFvG5FCumD/s800/SMWM_-_Jungsteinzeitliches_Dorf_2A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="800" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXH_WmIRlkiJm7JshCiWRxTd8-LP5Zjx0rCdLreQxhPxK5BtkI5Kyr9b71H6cGJ3stWvdby4kE4bkXW2_wU2UntDlR43rK3dEu_lqh9djo3Jp5ko5CY5meSaRIfKlgmOxyG52Fzgw1kINPn6Pck8bKexQEH33QXnKPJkMcMEQMgfw7vYLFvG5FCumD/w640-h412/SMWM_-_Jungsteinzeitliches_Dorf_2A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Model of a Neolithic village. City Museum: Wels (Upper Austria).</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SMWM_-_Jungsteinzeitliches_Dorf_2.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SMWM_-_Jungsteinzeitliches_Dorf_2.jpg</a></div></div><br /><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">It is my contention that the modern age begins with the Neolithic era. For example, until about a hundred years ago and the impact of the industrial revolution, small farming villages were the norm for most nations around the world. In 1900 in the United States, for example, 40% of people farmed and 60% lived in rural areas. (Lusk, The Evolution of American Agriculture)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The great first civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt took the Neolithic model and made it much bigger, more sophisticated, and complex but it was dependent on a sedentary lifestyle supported by agriculture, domesticated animals, trade, and specialization that had been established in the Neolithic era.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><div>Even the invention of metal technologies owed their origins to Neolithic skills. The Bronze Age, seen as a clear break from the 'primitive' stone age, depended on Neolithic inventions. Neolithic pottery kilns were able to achieve high temperatures which had not been possible before. And this ability led directly to the even higher temperatures necessary for metallurgy. Furthermore, the use of New Stone Age tools continued for thousands of years after the invention of bronze because they worked well, were easy to make, and were inexpensive (see more in this article).</div><div><br /></div><div>"From the standpoint of tools, the potter's kiln and art were necessary steps to metals, for a modification of the kiln probably provided the high temperatures ..."</div><div><a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/hand-tool/Neolithic-tools">https://www.britannica.com/technology/hand-tool/Neolithic-tools</a></div></b></span></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg1QSAOPe65hQ8a1JwoH0WZ0upnayElu5CivMSW0Cxk7-2aVhH5JPbcSBwkRFqLn5X5bn1-toEQmQ3JcgNnWryYVf69IPedYgdYW_RlEDRuXP3h_7QPFTyw_lg69p0eDsur2EJ4uWQQS6XP0O66yD5WRQbk6GrokwuxD2nNq2PjOe3mIQ9Mh9Ye_ip/s800/The_Palaces_at_Nimrud_Restoreda.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="800" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg1QSAOPe65hQ8a1JwoH0WZ0upnayElu5CivMSW0Cxk7-2aVhH5JPbcSBwkRFqLn5X5bn1-toEQmQ3JcgNnWryYVf69IPedYgdYW_RlEDRuXP3h_7QPFTyw_lg69p0eDsur2EJ4uWQQS6XP0O66yD5WRQbk6GrokwuxD2nNq2PjOe3mIQ9Mh9Ye_ip/w640-h344/The_Palaces_at_Nimrud_Restoreda.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A fanciful depiction of early civilized life in the Assyrian city of Nimrud ca. 1350 BCE.</div><div>From <i>Myths and Legends of Babylonia & Assyria</i> by Lewis Spence, 1910.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Palaces_at_Nimrud_Restored.jpeg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Palaces_at_Nimrud_Restored.jpeg</a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>THE NEOLITHIC GIANT LEAP</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">For two to three million years, hominins had lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers in small bands of 100 at most. (Birch-Chapman et al., Estimating population size, density and dynamics of Pre-Pottery Neolithic villages...)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">We also know from contemporary hunter-gatherers that when food was found it was eaten immediately and saving food for times of scarcity did not happen. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"Hunter-gatherers have little or no stored food, and no concentrated food sources, like an orchard or a herd of cows: they live off the wild plants and animals they obtain each day." (Diamond, The Worst Mistake...)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">But in a relatively short period of time -- about ten to twenty thousand years -- some nomadic hunter-gatherers adopted a sedentary way of life where they lived in villages with many hundreds of people and grew crops. And this was revolutionary. But as I continued to study, I realized that it was much more. It was a giant cognitive leap, it was a major breakthrough in human understanding.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">While there are many aspects to this cognitive leap, I would suggest the principal one was a new understanding of time.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Life as hunter-gatherers was immediate and of the moment. Life as Neolithic farmers was quite different. It required an understanding of the yearly cycle of seasons and also how to plant, grow, harvest, process, and store grains at just the right times and in the right way which involved planning and preparation.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">However, I believe these Neolithic cultures also saw 'big time' or cosmological time as cyclical. Sunrise to sunset, the phases of the moon, winter, spring, summer, fall, birth, and death were all cyclical. But within those cycles humans could work with linear time.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">For Neolithic people, there were plenty of examples of linear time within cyclical time. The seasons occurred in the same order every year. In early spring seeds were planted which then sprouted and grew through the summer and then were harvested in the fall. Agriculture was a process that had to be done in sequence. This was both a linear progression and also a cycle that repeated itself year after year. Preparing the soil, planting and harvesting had to be done in the correct order and at the right times to ensure a bountiful harvest.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Once Neolithic cultures grasped how linear time functioned within cyclical time, it opened the door to an understanding of processes in general which created a wide variety of new tools and products and also gave people a new control over the environment.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Neolithic time marked the beginning of our modern concept of time, of long-term linear time, time that is conceptualized as something that can be controlled. Time could now be planned or managed or used as a resource. Time did not just flow uncontrollably, it could be harnessed and used to human advantage.</b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">NEOLITHIC TIME CONCEPTS</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">We do not know any Neolithic languages because writing had not been invented. Nevertheless, we can infer a significant amount of information about the Neolithic ability to work with time from their technology. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">We know, for example, that with agriculture they wisely focused on grain crops, which they learned how to harvest and then place in long-term storage which became insurance against droughts and famines. But that was just the start. They learned to domesticate these crops so that their yield increased substantially. In addition, they chose crops whose seeds remained on the stems -- which was a mutation but which was useful because it made harvesting much easier; it was an aberration that humans wisely took advantage of because normally plants allowed seeds to blow and scatter so they could grow in the wild.</span></b></div><blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"Domestication is the process by which farmers select for desirable traits by breeding successive generations of a plant or animal. Over time, a domestic species becomes different from its wild relative.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> "Neolithic farmers selected for crops that harvested easily. Wild wheat, for instance, falls to the ground and shatters when it is ripe. Early humans bred for wheat that stayed on the stem for easier harvesting." (History.com, Neolithic Revolution: Plant domestication)</span></b></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">From the above and other technological innovations (more next), we can surmise that Neolithic cultures had a complete toolbox of shared linear time concepts that allowed them to plan, coordinate and work together for short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals. And judging from all other languages, many of these concepts were probably expressed in words.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"Time reference is a universal property of language..."</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Jacqueline Lecarme, Ph.D., Linguistics </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">(Lecarme, Nominal Tense and Tense Theory)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">These concepts would also have made it possible for them to develop and refine processes. Processes such as making cloth from flax or pottery from clay required a number of specific steps in sequence so an understanding of linear time was key. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I believe this understanding of processes had been developing for hundreds of thousands of years, but with the Neolithic era, there was a flowering of knowledge, understanding, skill, technology, and careful observation. Because it was at this point that technology reached a kind of critical mass in which very new things were possible. Some techniques or processes were so useful and so well thought out, that they are still used today or until recently. I describe some of these later in this article.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">ABOUT ANIMAL TIME, PALEOLITHIC TIME, AND NEOLITHIC TIME</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">It is my contention that early humans, i.e., hominins, slowly emerged from their animal sense of immediate time to gasp a new sense of linear time that had a past, present, future, and duration. It may have taken millions of years but by the Upper Paleolithic, I believe Homo sapiens had a fully developed sense of linear time but still saw time as being primarily immediate. This could be called 'short-term ' linear time. By this, I mean that Upper Paleolithic people could plan to make sophisticated bows and arrows with a variety of materials or plan a group hunt of migrating animals, but understanding linear time as it related to seasons or the yearly cycle was not part of their mindset.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">There is one clear example of this in the time concepts of the nomadic hunter-gatherer Piraha tribe in the Amazon.</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJtVZAfkIM5EIrGL6I9yxDWcL6OOv-WKBcAwyH0smw9uG1noxwMEN_U_LmCGFtoDCCgU5xiCYsD1o2JJa6Q3ImyffEaV-F6Nl3v418eYANDkL0lP4boRg1rOc2ouHjWkWM3OY73pvQ7Llmc3orZH-9JLiIk40D4LAApw6202ktCcDgxet8khofHSOu/s800/1_Pirahas_of_Brazil.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="800" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJtVZAfkIM5EIrGL6I9yxDWcL6OOv-WKBcAwyH0smw9uG1noxwMEN_U_LmCGFtoDCCgU5xiCYsD1o2JJa6Q3ImyffEaV-F6Nl3v418eYANDkL0lP4boRg1rOc2ouHjWkWM3OY73pvQ7Llmc3orZH-9JLiIk40D4LAApw6202ktCcDgxet8khofHSOu/w640-h464/1_Pirahas_of_Brazil.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A Piraha community. The Pirahas are hunter-gatherers who live in the Amazon.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pirahas_of_Brazil.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pirahas_of_Brazil.jpg</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Piraha tribe in the Amazon adheres to an Immediacy of Experience Principle according to linguist Dr. Daniel Everett. Their time frame and concepts are built around the moment. This is integral to their language but also to their culture and their technology. When he asked them what the Amazon jungle was like thousands of years ago, they said it had always been the way it is now -- not believing in any long-term past. The culture rejected any mention of time beyond the Piraha's accepted concepts and this was part of their technology -- as they were not interested in expanding their skills to include longer planning. (Colapinto, Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding...)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Neolithic sense of time was quite different. Neolithic cultures understood long-term linear time within the context of yearly cyclical time. In other words, a long-term sense of time was essential to the Neolithic way of life because it was necessary for an understanding of the seasons and agriculture. This sense of time also played a part in their ability to work with and improve a variety of processes such as pottery, weaving, and tool-making that were time-consuming and required a number of steps in sequence.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The most dramatic and clear-cut example of the difference between a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle and that of the Neolithic is shown in the way each group handled food. For the Piraha mentioned above, food is consumed immediately and there is no thought about planning. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Piraha eat what they catch in the river and gather in the jungle and are quite good at doing this on a day-to-day basis. While they could preserve food for future use, Dr. Everett found they were not interested, even though there were days when they went hungry. (Colapinto, Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding...)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Neolithic societies, however, spent considerable thought and effort on creating storage systems so that they would have food for the long term. The following describes examples of storage designs.</span></b></div><blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"The granaries represent a critical evolutionary shift in the relationship between people and plant foods...The transition from economic systems based on collecting and foraging of wild food resources before this point to cultivation...[of] managed resources in the PPNA (Pre-Pottery Neolithic) illustrates a major intensification of human-plant relationships.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"People in the PPNA were the first in the world to develop systematic large-scale food storage.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"All of the granaries [ED: found in this study] were circular structures ˜3 × 3 m on the outside and were built with suspended floors for air circulation and protection from rodents and insects." (Kuijt & Finlayson, Evidence for food storage and predomestication granaries 11,000 years ago...)</span></b></div></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"In the... Neolithic periods, hermetic storage was used in the form of underground pits. Found in the Middle East as well as in Europe, these pits were used to store dried food.<br />"Simply put, hermetic storage has a gas-tight and moisture-tight environment that kills off insects and inhibits mold growth." (GrainPro, A Brief History Of Hermetic Storage)</span></b></blockquote><p></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> An Example Of A Long-Term Process</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Weaving is a good example of a long-term process that began in the Neolithic era. First flax had to be carefully planted and harvested, next there were complicated procedures to extract fiber from the flax plant, then the fiber had to be spun into thread and finally woven on a Neolithic loom. The last step was to cut and sew the cloth to make a garment. </span></b></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Click on the next link to see detailed descriptions of the 12 steps that are typically involved in the process of making linen from flax. <br /></b><b>From Flax to Linen: <a href="https://ulsterlinen.com/flax-to-linen/">https://ulsterlinen.com/flax-to-linen/</a></b></span></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><div style="text-align: left;"><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">EVIDENCE FOR AN UNDERSTANDING OF YEARLY TIME</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Importance Of The Winter Solstice To Neolithic Societies</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Today it is hard for us to understand the importance of knowing the time of the winter solstice when the solstice occurs. Having such knowledge allowed Neolithic people to be in touch with the precise cyclical nature of reality and also yearly time and the beginning of a new year.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">But even when carefully observed, the math involved with a yearly repeating calendar was daunting, especially since a year is not an even number (roughly 365 1/4 days) and the moon phases do not stay in sync with the sun's yearly cycle. Thousands of years later classical societies, such as Rome, struggled with this problem for centuries causing the calendar to be off a large number of days. This continued until the Julian calendar was adopted.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Knowing the sequence for days and months was easily calculated using the phases of the moon. But the moon's cycles and the sun's yearly cycle did not match. So Neolithic societies needed to find a way to make sure that these cycles worked together.</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWI_7A_MmMzsaAmO-uF_vmoSxsIxxANbabWA5e-FVMMhGrUDLIwRz8i5gA_IMJBAlWHADJZ9WzgMUUbs7wAeInQuZ5cDse2lGVejbEioVJRTcRJykXstPwPqpBy39Ae-9vYO3cAHH9kBa6iCAuekDXm0-JSf0BTc0PmttT6FfgZr8cQ0pf7xhC2_vI/s800/Phases_of_the_MoonAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="103" data-original-width="800" height="82" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWI_7A_MmMzsaAmO-uF_vmoSxsIxxANbabWA5e-FVMMhGrUDLIwRz8i5gA_IMJBAlWHADJZ9WzgMUUbs7wAeInQuZ5cDse2lGVejbEioVJRTcRJykXstPwPqpBy39Ae-9vYO3cAHH9kBa6iCAuekDXm0-JSf0BTc0PmttT6FfgZr8cQ0pf7xhC2_vI/w640-h82/Phases_of_the_MoonAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Phases of the moon.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moon_phases_en.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moon_phases_en.jpg</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Each year the calendar had to be reset so that farmers knew the sequence of the moon's phases in relation to the sun's yearly cycle. Otherwise using only a lunar calendar could cause major miscalculations. In an agricultural society, this would be crucial. </span></b></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Aubrey Burls & Clive Ruggles (two of the most respected authorities) agree that a "concern with the moon...is ‘significant’, (i.e. cannot be coincidental) is widespread and is a feature of Early Neolithic sites."</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">(Mercer, Background notes to Neolithic cosmology)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Neolithic 'calendar' in general was the sun and the moon and the stars. Time was indicated by the change in these cycles. Understanding these cycles was crucial for understanding the passage of time.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">So what the Neolithic people did was not only smart it was brilliant and a cognitive leap. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">They realized that knowing when the winter solstice occurred would allow them to reset the year's calculations and bring their timekeeping into line. However, the winter solstice is very difficult to determine as the lengths of the days around the solstice only vary by a few seconds and the angle of the sun on the horizon hardly varies at all. Moreover, the sun rises later each day after the solstice for about two weeks, which must have been confusing. </span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYcjhI-vBOtUZ2rjabcinn02e0i1N9kPiUzSrjCztGEI0EMcqna5P6OTqFoTjZ6UhZgw9d2WA0uErbu6NVUmAcWRqITmGrjSxKLN6z4qsRYjOJXURcWql4YuS2LhdSlv8KKbEHg-0EDEg4JShErr6Wkf5goY-XwDirHGaQRClLbB0AyQ98bSb6xPcb/s409/DUBLIN_SOLSTICE_2021_COMPOSITEA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="409" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYcjhI-vBOtUZ2rjabcinn02e0i1N9kPiUzSrjCztGEI0EMcqna5P6OTqFoTjZ6UhZgw9d2WA0uErbu6NVUmAcWRqITmGrjSxKLN6z4qsRYjOJXURcWql4YuS2LhdSlv8KKbEHg-0EDEg4JShErr6Wkf5goY-XwDirHGaQRClLbB0AyQ98bSb6xPcb/w400-h330/DUBLIN_SOLSTICE_2021_COMPOSITEA.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Chart of December sunrise times and day lengths in Dublin Ireland in 2021</div></div><div style="text-align: center;">(close to Newgrange) around the time of the solstice.</div><div style="text-align: center;">This chart is derived from information at the following website:</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/ireland/dublin?month=12&year=2021">https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/ireland/dublin?month=12&year=2021</a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Neolithic societies had to create a way to determine the day of the solstice or the time period around the solstice. So many of them created a kind of 'instrument' that was sensitive to the angle of sunlight. When the time around the solstice occurred, the sun would light up a narrow opening.</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdbUQUOhMyEJXg9OUhAl9BQNJlA6kEXC5gUyfXAtroYXbJguXik42QWToxbE8OFJH9JWli73A6lcktVP1RArw5iIyFbMoKakLTvlhpnK05M65NQPUU2vNTNmKtkM2-M8U2T30iaG_GO8TXPbOcEvxIjmLjF0SHCftb_SUHXkWeuXvaO0kzfE4NhsrW/s800/NEWGRANGE_PASSAGEWAYAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="800" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdbUQUOhMyEJXg9OUhAl9BQNJlA6kEXC5gUyfXAtroYXbJguXik42QWToxbE8OFJH9JWli73A6lcktVP1RArw5iIyFbMoKakLTvlhpnK05M65NQPUU2vNTNmKtkM2-M8U2T30iaG_GO8TXPbOcEvxIjmLjF0SHCftb_SUHXkWeuXvaO0kzfE4NhsrW/w640-h260/NEWGRANGE_PASSAGEWAYAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">The passageway at Newgrange allows sunlight to enter it only during the time of the solstice.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Coffey, George. Drawings of Newgrange from the late 1800s. Published in: The Dolmens of Ireland,, by William Copeland Borlase. Published by the University of Michigan Library (January 1, 1897).</div><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The passage tomb at Newgrange in Ireland is the most dramatic example of this capability because its passageway allows light to enter the monument only during 5 days around the time of the solstice and it may even be able to determine the day of the solstice in real-time, although this has not yet been confirmed. </span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8W6E82CUZFb5ipM-OvaVhfha5V4Tm9lDlVHM-8xQdRxG3nBwTtACQzZBpKmak6ye3uuGCTShSbSENI126n7668bBl4d7Oo5FN4ZJrq7-f1Pmee7YFAZ6XnNxD4oQzqI1QYNls3974XhLMUggN0rsrhdW5GJUGjxH8XEUHG7vzyELnhBdqcsoO7iyY/s800/PASSAGEWAYA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="800" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8W6E82CUZFb5ipM-OvaVhfha5V4Tm9lDlVHM-8xQdRxG3nBwTtACQzZBpKmak6ye3uuGCTShSbSENI126n7668bBl4d7Oo5FN4ZJrq7-f1Pmee7YFAZ6XnNxD4oQzqI1QYNls3974XhLMUggN0rsrhdW5GJUGjxH8XEUHG7vzyELnhBdqcsoO7iyY/w640-h426/PASSAGEWAYA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: "A section of the passage leading towards the chamber</div><div>of the Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Passage_leading_towards_chamber_of_Newgrange_passage_tomb_in_Ireland.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Passage_leading_towards_chamber_of_Newgrange_passage_tomb_in_Ireland.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: The light of the solstice in the passageway in 2013.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2013_Solstice_Newgrange.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2013_Solstice_Newgrange.jpg</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">But it is now clear that generally speaking, this was a widely known Neolithic skill. For example, more than a hundred Neolithic 'circular enclosures' have been discovered in Northern Europe and many were designed to determine the time around the winter solstice. These have only just been discovered in the last thirty years from post-hole patterns. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">(Neolithic Circular Enclosures in Europe)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">For example, in 1991 the 'Goseck Circle' in Germany (4,900 BCE - 4,700 BCE) was discovered with areal photography that revealed a pattern of post holes. It was a kind of wooden stone henge. The Goseck Circle had narrow openings that were aligned with the sunrise and sunset of the winter solstice. </span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSpZaNqWasM508_sXR0ySnand6fwmpzYHA-Nie4I52LJ90Zh7kelzn0hBbO7hxG21UISvpdy-BmjYqIgbcXhMFOg5t1feSIZ9y5xcm9QF-P7HvCw1UpZuvbB_SQ3fJQ41QxFYdTuCmewmma93FR2QFE-UfBBtyyOwlebw6CelBC6xViBRx-xZY2nbN/s800/COMPOSITE_GOSECK.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="187" data-original-width="800" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSpZaNqWasM508_sXR0ySnand6fwmpzYHA-Nie4I52LJ90Zh7kelzn0hBbO7hxG21UISvpdy-BmjYqIgbcXhMFOg5t1feSIZ9y5xcm9QF-P7HvCw1UpZuvbB_SQ3fJQ41QxFYdTuCmewmma93FR2QFE-UfBBtyyOwlebw6CelBC6xViBRx-xZY2nbN/w640-h150/COMPOSITE_GOSECK.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Goseck Circle.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Goseck_circle,_Germany_4900_-_4700_BC.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Goseck_circle,_Germany_4900_-_4700_BC.jpg</a></div><div>MIDDLE: A diagram showing how the solstice sunrise and sunset entered the openings in the Goseck circle.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Goseck-2.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Goseck-2.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: An interior shot of the Goseck circle recreation.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WoodHenge-Goseck-Germany-Ringwalk.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WoodHenge-Goseck-Germany-Ringwalk.jpg</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Archaeologist Ralf Schwarz believes that the construction of the site made it possible to coordinate the lunar phases with the more difficult measurements of the solar cycle.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">(Schwarz, Neolithic Circular Enclosures in Europe)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">On the island of Malta the Neolithic temple, Mnajdra, (c.3600 BC – c.3200 BC) is aligned with the summer and winter solstices and also to the equinoxes. It is like a yearly 'clock' because the time of year can be read each morning by the position of the sun's rays on the stone. </span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb71jpVL0i9W2FYulsdBMKfbs_-lG2iy6cGNlkf9r4kSsB44srags600Qu7KsU1_IsaceysHZNn9nygVV49pnVndM2QrKpqABMZiN2dFgVieAC9q-jp6dWsPHkJINjqyj_Bo2Kw-SihO_gLeDR6mdEGD2mZClyxEuQxuRzFf77VkPDfTDFfK3UslEm/s800/lossy-page1-1280px-Schematic_Angles_in_the_Mnajdra_solar_temple.tifA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="524" data-original-width="800" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb71jpVL0i9W2FYulsdBMKfbs_-lG2iy6cGNlkf9r4kSsB44srags600Qu7KsU1_IsaceysHZNn9nygVV49pnVndM2QrKpqABMZiN2dFgVieAC9q-jp6dWsPHkJINjqyj_Bo2Kw-SihO_gLeDR6mdEGD2mZClyxEuQxuRzFf77VkPDfTDFfK3UslEm/w640-h420/lossy-page1-1280px-Schematic_Angles_in_the_Mnajdra_solar_temple.tifA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>"Schematic Angles in the Mnajdra solar temple in Malta."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schematic_Angles_in_the_Mnajdra_solar_temple.tif">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schematic_Angles_in_the_Mnajdra_solar_temple.tif</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div><b style="font-size: large;"> </b><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Writing about Neolithic monuments and megaliths, Michael Gantley of <i>National Geographic</i> wrote,</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"The incorporation of astronomical alignments suggests that Neolithic ceremonies were closely bound with the changing seasons. These cycles were critical to agrarian communities..."</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">(Gantley, Europe’s Mighty Megaliths "Rock" the Winter Solstice)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">ABOUT THE NEOLITHIC TIME PERIOD</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">While scholars refer to </span></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>the Neolithic</b></span><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> time period, the start and end vary considerably depending on the location and the materials that were available. About 10,000 years ago some of the first Neolithic cultures came about in the Middle East; they made many of their items with reeds. Around three thousand years later, the Neolithic emerged in Europe with wood being a major material.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">In addition, there </span></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>was </b></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>a transitional time period called the Mesolithic which occurred between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. During this time nomadic tribes often settled into one place for several months during the year. Like the Neolithic, the Mesolithic time period and nature of the transition varied considerably.</b></span></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>SPIRALS AS SYMBOLS FOR LIFE CYCLES</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ3CdI4oh3enTYqx-dvRpDu9EsmwyWSpYGJNqAftlzrBLqeswLDBii_2XSAcEnwR0hX4rJ8ZQtC8LRkZXYTOGsnBW4nOLfwt7Dqgu5QOlJjctpnEoK7XNNz8b6KIhW_P-JoRGG_PlyGJ7o8xpCDB_KtL_dR8ShsQd-51rewVC8USoePTVZE5kSTKbD/s800/COMPOSITE_SPIRAL_POTTERY.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="800" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ3CdI4oh3enTYqx-dvRpDu9EsmwyWSpYGJNqAftlzrBLqeswLDBii_2XSAcEnwR0hX4rJ8ZQtC8LRkZXYTOGsnBW4nOLfwt7Dqgu5QOlJjctpnEoK7XNNz8b6KIhW_P-JoRGG_PlyGJ7o8xpCDB_KtL_dR8ShsQd-51rewVC8USoePTVZE5kSTKbD/w640-h254/COMPOSITE_SPIRAL_POTTERY.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Ancient Greek Pottery: Greek Prehistory Gallery, National Museum of Archaeology, Athens, Greece.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Greece_Neolithic_Pottery_-_28171028800.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Greece_Neolithic_Pottery_-_28171028800.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: Romanian pottery, 5th millennium BCE. Museum of Prehistory and Early History, Berlin. </div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Museum_für_Vor-_und_Frühgeschichte_Berlin_095.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Museum_für_Vor-_und_Frühgeschichte_Berlin_095.jpg</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Drawings and images of spirals occur throughout Neolithic societies. The most famous, the triple spiral, was found in the monument at Newgrange Ireland. But these images appear in most Neolithic cultures. Many experts today think that these spirals represent the cyclical nature of the year and of reality itself. </span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRPAy-eRaWP7vL0Yya4lNofXpUWPjJWCQSSxIB136JcXkSTLhhndXxgKzyQfhSshwGayLCbQFYkkLgUf9F3f9jCCTIw-kzJvQDQ_yeTtVTIxdT7iMbWxURQ33kH0tYsoA5dds5SmfaLiwU0GlczpfsKRcseoGi1LG5kKJyHbnqaWlP9t_mZi9LWgCI/s640/Newgrange_(S%C3%AD_an_Bhr%C3%BA)_Monument,_Donore,_%C3%89ireAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRPAy-eRaWP7vL0Yya4lNofXpUWPjJWCQSSxIB136JcXkSTLhhndXxgKzyQfhSshwGayLCbQFYkkLgUf9F3f9jCCTIw-kzJvQDQ_yeTtVTIxdT7iMbWxURQ33kH0tYsoA5dds5SmfaLiwU0GlczpfsKRcseoGi1LG5kKJyHbnqaWlP9t_mZi9LWgCI/w640-h480/Newgrange_(S%C3%AD_an_Bhr%C3%BA)_Monument,_Donore,_%C3%89ireAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>The famous Tri-Spiral in the chamber at Newgrange.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newgrange_(Sí_an_Bhrú)_Monument,_Donore,_Éire.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newgrange_(Sí_an_Bhrú)_Monument,_Donore,_Éire.jpg</a></div></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">In Ireland, for example, the triple spiral is thought of as a symbol for the universal cycles of life.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"The triple spiral is thought to represent Birth, Life, and Death, or Man, Woman, and Child, signifying the unending cycle of life"</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"This close pattern of spirals is the most common of all motifs decorating Celtic tombs, and one that is basic to all Celtic art."</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">(Irish Traditions, The Spirals of Newgrange)</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijhoBZams1lYqn8WsBCU763weu1iUfzJWzpVyg36IKVhfrjbkuxRXf6ngC1eVtIFvx-YUolXgi1Emi1S-Ri58rCBlNMgYbCbLtx07HOJXJVnjK3C1AIbMItoqiEsO6uu5p9iGDR0zSEBan3UjE2fSZxHUHK58z4u093yxWDR1Bzn-K_7yy3tPbhwb1/s800/COMPOSITE_NEWGRANGE_SPIRAL.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="774" data-original-width="800" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijhoBZams1lYqn8WsBCU763weu1iUfzJWzpVyg36IKVhfrjbkuxRXf6ngC1eVtIFvx-YUolXgi1Emi1S-Ri58rCBlNMgYbCbLtx07HOJXJVnjK3C1AIbMItoqiEsO6uu5p9iGDR0zSEBan3UjE2fSZxHUHK58z4u093yxWDR1Bzn-K_7yy3tPbhwb1/w400-h388/COMPOSITE_NEWGRANGE_SPIRAL.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>TOP: The large stone at the entrance to Newgrange</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newgrange,_Meath.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newgrange,_Meath.jpg</a></div><div>BOTTOM: A drawing of the large stone showing the spiral engravings.</div><div>Coffey, George. Drawings of Newgrange from the late 1800s. Published in: <i>The Dolmens of Ireland</i>,, by William Copeland Borlase. Published by the University of Michigan Library (January 1, 1897).</div></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The following quote is consistent with my ideas about Neolithic time being long-term, unlike Paleolithic time which was immediate. If spiral images did represent yearly cyclical time, it is significant that these symbols did not take hold until the Neolithic.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"The spiral motif is rare in European rock art sites from the Upper Palaeolithic [approximately 40,000 to 12,000 years ago]. According to Genevieve Von Petzinger, it is strange that it is not present more often considering...how central this motif becomes in later time periods...The spiral does not become a regular occurrence in Europe until after the Upper Palaeolithic."</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">(Bradshaw Foundation, Ancient Symbols in Rock Art: The 'Spiral')</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">______________________________________________</span></b></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">THE NEOLITHIC ABILITY TO </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">WORK WITH COMPLEX PROCESSES</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Building on the experiences of the Paleolithic era, Neolithic societies had an in-depth knowledge of the properties of plants, animals, and minerals. With plants, for example, this knowledge not only included the composition of the vegetation but also its cycle -- as some qualities were only present at certain seasonal points. And they were skilled at developing and refining processes to suit their needs. They knew, for example, that properties could be altered through processes such as heating clay to a high temperature to make pottery.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>POTTERY (NEOLITHIC)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The ability to make successful pottery was "linked to improved skills in pyrotechnology (firing at the correct temperature) and was finally gratified during the Neolithic Period.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Pottery art is a complex and time-consuming process that presupposes a knowledge of all its stages: choice of suitable clay, removal of impurities (manually or by sieving) and clay preparation...and firing at a temperature up to 850-900 Celsius (1562-1652 Fahrenheit)"</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Hellenic Foundation, Neolithic Pottery)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitk7Z07a4IuIDbVYDbLozy91aAaxgvhBl338iCjm_cdg1xLkBQeBVDx6rSr8DW1tOLeHipasyhrU37aQ3e69REp0k7RX5AT40q5Gr-7M2RtFP28X304hEsNyopiRvy5XQy3p_jowXsVgVjQgqh1kp7CoHP9OoZnoWzzriYw-DSah_JpYtOBYSQq_1X/s800/COMPOSITE_KILN_POTTERY.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitk7Z07a4IuIDbVYDbLozy91aAaxgvhBl338iCjm_cdg1xLkBQeBVDx6rSr8DW1tOLeHipasyhrU37aQ3e69REp0k7RX5AT40q5Gr-7M2RtFP28X304hEsNyopiRvy5XQy3p_jowXsVgVjQgqh1kp7CoHP9OoZnoWzzriYw-DSah_JpYtOBYSQq_1X/w640-h240/COMPOSITE_KILN_POTTERY.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Cucuteni (a Neolithic Culture) kiln reconstruction, Cucuteni Neolithic Art Museum, Piatra Neamt, Romania.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cucuteni_owen_reconstruction.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cucuteni_owen_reconstruction.JPG</a></div><div>RIGHT: Pottery, Neolithic, the Cucuteni Culture, 4300-4000 BCE. Found in Scânteia, Iasi, Romania. Collected by the Moldavia National Museum Complex.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E5%BA%93%E5%BA%93%E7%89%B9%E5%B0%BC%E9%99%B6%E7%A2%97%E9%99%B6%E7%BD%90.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E5%BA%93%E5%BA%93%E7%89%B9%E5%B0%BC%E9%99%B6%E7%A2%97%E9%99%B6%E7%BD%90.JPG</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>5,000 YEARS OF MAKING LINEN: THE HISTORY OF NEOLITHIC FLAX PROCESSING</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Archaeobotanists Ursula Maier and Helmut Schlichtherle reported evidence of the technological development of making cloth from the flax plant (called linen). </b></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>[ED: during the Neolithic]</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Making cloth from flax is not a straightforward process.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Flax is a bast fiber plant--meaning the fiber is collected from the inner bark of the plant--which must undergo a complex set of processes to separate the fiber from the woodier outer parts.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"They report that evidence for Alpine lake house [Neolithic] flax fiber production includes tools (spindles, spindle whorls, hatchets), finished products (nets, textiles, fabrics, even shoes, and hats)...They discovered, amazingly enough, that flax production techniques at these ancient sites were not dissimilar from that used everywhere in the world through the early 20th century."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Hirst, 5,000 Years of Making Linen)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGZMrrceaIzi7zZI0t0wFF-zNyXxhTL_Cmb7RBtFX3fQUegYc5I1BHTn2ecU0T7smbA81KGdT6HbCTcHmlN98dtRaOot5vmNT_Lo_PPnqdgfWnmWrzmjHf5Z34RVXanNk6Tm678WhfT16GebSEl8DdFb630H3Soz4YHFuJ1BZReIwx8uWidEFp5byi/s800/COMPOSITE_LINEN.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="487" data-original-width="800" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGZMrrceaIzi7zZI0t0wFF-zNyXxhTL_Cmb7RBtFX3fQUegYc5I1BHTn2ecU0T7smbA81KGdT6HbCTcHmlN98dtRaOot5vmNT_Lo_PPnqdgfWnmWrzmjHf5Z34RVXanNk6Tm678WhfT16GebSEl8DdFb630H3Soz4YHFuJ1BZReIwx8uWidEFp5byi/w640-h390/COMPOSITE_LINEN.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Woman's linen dress, Smolensk Linen museum, Smolensk, Russia.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:«Smolensk_Linen»_museum_-_001.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:«Smolensk_Linen»_museum_-_001.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: Man's outfit, Smolensk Linen museum, Smolensk, Russia.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:«Smolensk_Linen»_museum_-_058.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:«Smolensk_Linen»_museum_-_058.jpg</a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>-----------------------</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>THINKING BIG</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>One of the characteristics of the Neolithic era was that they could 'think big'. So basic basket weaving technology could be used to make small reed boats and then very large boats, for example, as described next. And that same basket weaving technology could be used to make small </b></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>reed </b></span></span><b style="font-size: large;">huts for a family and then very large buildings for a community.</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>-----------------------</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>THE NEOLITHIC ORIGINS OF SEAFARING IN THE ARABIAN GULF</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Navigation in the Gulf during the Neolithic and Ubaid periods </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"The new discoveries...allow us to speculate on the mechanics of trade during the sixth and fifth millennia BC. First, the question of whether boats were used during the Neolithic period has been answered positively. The vessels were made of reed bundles, lashed together, and then coated with a bitumen amalgam – a technology that prefigures the techniques used to build trading vessels during the Bronze Age, some 3000 years later."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Carter, Neolithic origins of seafaring in the Arabian Gulf)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgutJXKWJf-5kdeUlsejWfaWnFVqZsaJadycvgzPfXFaVTizdphD4LQqgQN5FwSyH3Pya7Cwj0J5rlt9cQu_6EkmgiOKH_JGFnQ0JvgWS_FXAyOaq06DHRuJ9Lg3aeJ4KPPINyIJhXfFn_ddZJvFUGX3-0yyraZG20MgjVdrQL27Wm9Xg_zXyC9ZpTa/s640/capture_X007A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="640" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgutJXKWJf-5kdeUlsejWfaWnFVqZsaJadycvgzPfXFaVTizdphD4LQqgQN5FwSyH3Pya7Cwj0J5rlt9cQu_6EkmgiOKH_JGFnQ0JvgWS_FXAyOaq06DHRuJ9Lg3aeJ4KPPINyIJhXfFn_ddZJvFUGX3-0yyraZG20MgjVdrQL27Wm9Xg_zXyC9ZpTa/w640-h432/capture_X007A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">While this large reed boat would have been constructed for a post-Neolithic Mesopotamian civilization, smaller ships with this general design were used in the Neolithic.<br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%A0%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%86%D1%8F_%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D1%83_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B0_%D0%B2_%D0%AD%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B4%D1%83_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%8B%D1%85_%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8_%D0%B2_%D0%A3%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BA.jpg">LINK</a></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>BITUMEN</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Analysis of the material from Ras al-Jinz has shown that the bitumen was combined with chopped reeds, carbonates, and possibly fish oil, to make an amalgam. This process changed the physical properties of the bitumen, making it adhesive, tough, flexible, and light." [ED: This shows that during the Neolithic era, an understanding of materials and their properties was quite advanced.]</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Carter, Neolithic origins of seafaring in the Arabian Gulf)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-size: large;">MUDHIF</b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRe2-tK4ivTpbGKW1_AgF1F22BMKNoKK_PRIxTC6o_hTG6nKHwZGJge6VMSDfZEVPNqhVgA_HHSQO28sZxjgqKxlXZB7_flFDodSzYtgE5vNaaMj53B08XEjF8ufwFhwiNNA0fBaDag1vODhogMANvRnfpgmfZS3ksLjJtae7G3yzKkRIEX1i2xCyJ/s800/COMPOSITE_MUDHIF.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="800" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRe2-tK4ivTpbGKW1_AgF1F22BMKNoKK_PRIxTC6o_hTG6nKHwZGJge6VMSDfZEVPNqhVgA_HHSQO28sZxjgqKxlXZB7_flFDodSzYtgE5vNaaMj53B08XEjF8ufwFhwiNNA0fBaDag1vODhogMANvRnfpgmfZS3ksLjJtae7G3yzKkRIEX1i2xCyJ/w640-h218/COMPOSITE_MUDHIF.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">"A mudhif, a traditional Marsh Arab guesthouse made entirely out of reeds. <br />The Marsh Arab live a lifestyle that dates back 5,000 years." </div><div style="text-align: center;">(U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, A mudhif) <br /><div>LEFT: "The village headmans house, people of the marshes 1978."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_village_headmans_house,_people_of_the_marshes_1978_-_panoramio.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_village_headmans_house,_people_of_the_marshes_1978_-_panoramio.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: Mudhif Reception Hall.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762).jpg</a></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-size: large;">NEOLITHIC (NEW STONE AGE) TOOLS WERE A MAJOR ADVANCE OVER OLD STONE AGE TOOLS</b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>When I was in college I asked my Modern Civilization professor what was the reason for polished stone tools in the Neolithic era, the technology that defined the era and gave it its name, the New Stone Age. He did not have an answer. I asked another knowledgeable person several years ago and they did not know either. Clearly, this has not been understood until recently when some archaeologists used such tools to cut down a few trees and, as a result, began to see their value. These tools were not just somewhat advanced; they worked very differently and effectively. For example, they chopped down trees quickly and the tools remained sharp. They also worked well when it came to carving and shaping wood to make a variety of items. But dismissing these tools as merely a slight advance in stone tool technology was a mistake and was one of the reasons why the New Stone Age has not been given its due.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqdDGdkoAsabif-MWN5i04NRAve_CZ32_oQCGPScYdvjU-ZpqP10kTbxLoQkZD-RpFZGAmF1mjcTfm_TxwsLKlk5yCrr7DzVefcSRs0ooz6C1UIZeNz_8iRv1LUTtGWngy2fqAIK_Mvy1MkoAILlCdBzTgW0LY92Gvw4VQlYu5ZjAS0bdkYC-7tsGf/s621/COMPOSITE_PALEO_NEO_TOOLSA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="621" data-original-width="547" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqdDGdkoAsabif-MWN5i04NRAve_CZ32_oQCGPScYdvjU-ZpqP10kTbxLoQkZD-RpFZGAmF1mjcTfm_TxwsLKlk5yCrr7DzVefcSRs0ooz6C1UIZeNz_8iRv1LUTtGWngy2fqAIK_Mvy1MkoAILlCdBzTgW0LY92Gvw4VQlYu5ZjAS0bdkYC-7tsGf/w564-h640/COMPOSITE_PALEO_NEO_TOOLSA.jpg" width="564" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Paleolithic 'flake tools'.</div><div>RICHT: Neolithic polished tools.</div><div>Page 280, Volume 15 of the German illustrated encyclopedia Meyers Konversationslexikon, 4th edition (1885-1890).</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meyers_b15_s0280a.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meyers_b15_s0280a.jpg</a></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"The Neolithic Period, or New Stone Age, the age of the ground tool, is defined by the advent around 7000 BCE of ground and polished celts (ax and adz heads) as well as similarly treated chisels and gouges...A ground tool is one that was chipped to rough shape in the old manner and then rubbed on or with a coarse abrasive rock to remove the chip scars...Polishing was a last step, a final grinding with fine abrasive. That such a tool is pleasing to the eye is incidental; the real worth of the smoothing lay in the even cutting edge, superior strength, and better handling. The new ax would sink deeper for a given blow while delivering a clean and broad cut; its smooth bit, more shock resistant than the former flaked edge, had less tendency to wedge in a cut."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Britannica, Neolithic Tools)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Read the excellent complete detailed </div><div>but concise <i>Britannica</i> articles</div><div>about Neolithic hand tools</div><div><a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/hand-tool/Neolithic-tools">https://www.britannica.com/technology/hand-tool/Neolithic-tools</a></div><div>And the Neolithic Era in Europe</div><div><a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Neolithic">https://www.britannica.com/event/Neolithic</a></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Z-xAtGvW6Lc7xJ9YiRbJAQpmoiaCNWhnZlG5t3PT2zLOEqVkZEIdfjgc5wwNS4btFYklHEn_jBIs7Vg2fsRD-AvsaSYqBaKmgSqzEabf7Fm23Smg1hpIyoeYsSyoG1MHiPk0UYTOYO8KPJGWgOR0Z9twYcn_sQQbub0kxKRgynEIp00zZJpBTC_v/s640/1_Neolithic_stone_axe_with_handle_ehenside_tarn_british_museumA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="640" height="345" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Z-xAtGvW6Lc7xJ9YiRbJAQpmoiaCNWhnZlG5t3PT2zLOEqVkZEIdfjgc5wwNS4btFYklHEn_jBIs7Vg2fsRD-AvsaSYqBaKmgSqzEabf7Fm23Smg1hpIyoeYsSyoG1MHiPk0UYTOYO8KPJGWgOR0Z9twYcn_sQQbub0kxKRgynEIp00zZJpBTC_v/w400-h345/1_Neolithic_stone_axe_with_handle_ehenside_tarn_british_museumA.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>"A Neolithic stone axe with a wooden handle. Found at Ehenside Tarn, now in the British Museum."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Neolithic_stone_axe_with_handle_ehenside_tarn_british_museum.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Neolithic_stone_axe_with_handle_ehenside_tarn_british_museum.JPG</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-size: large;">"The polished Neolithic ax, a heavy implement, was in sharp contrast to the delicate small-rock work of the last stages of the Paleolithic period.</b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"In a revealing experiment, 4,000-year-old polished rock axes, furnished by the Danish National Museum and carrying the sharpness left after their last use 4,000 years ago, were fitted with ash handles modeled after that of a Neolithic hafted ax preserved in a bog, giving the ax an overall length of nearly 63 cm (25 inches). (A modern steel felling ax has a 91-cm [36-inch] handle.) When these were used in a Danish forest, it was soon found that the violent action of the modern technique of swinging a steel ax and putting shoulder and weight behind the blade to give long and powerful blows was disastrous, either ruining the edge or breaking the blade. Proper handling meant short quick strokes that chipped at the tree...</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"After getting into form, the men found it possible to fell an oak tree more than 0.3 metre (1 foot) in diameter in half an hour or a pine 61 cm (2 feet) in diameter in less than 20 minutes. One-eighth acre (600 square yards, or 0.05 hectare) of silver birch forest were cleared by three men in four hours. One axhead cut down more than 100 trees on its original (old) sharpening."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Britannica, Neolithic Tools)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>WOOD TECHNOLOGY BEGAN AS A RESULT OF NEOLITHIC TOOLS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkmv_wa5QxksdQu0mqBWnOcc7PGkSku7jHX70mGzp0rYPZDpgZQwRt0CIsGH4BMD4y5-gX-vOQdbbjIQyLMGMa4Ndbr9Ks9_5hkAe0o7PbUC4JWeQVWGm4x_22bw0zDfwn0bVSFwSbJ3WxUSKXpwNSmvfooP5uUOVS7r-dpKQqkGkahYoeup4Bt6de/s800/1280px-Archeoparc_-_H%C3%BCtte_3aA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="800" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkmv_wa5QxksdQu0mqBWnOcc7PGkSku7jHX70mGzp0rYPZDpgZQwRt0CIsGH4BMD4y5-gX-vOQdbbjIQyLMGMa4Ndbr9Ks9_5hkAe0o7PbUC4JWeQVWGm4x_22bw0zDfwn0bVSFwSbJ3WxUSKXpwNSmvfooP5uUOVS7r-dpKQqkGkahYoeup4Bt6de/w640-h428/1280px-Archeoparc_-_H%C3%BCtte_3aA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A Neolithic hut at the archeoParc in Schnals, South Tyrol, Italy.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Archeoparc_-_H%C3%BCtte_3a.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Archeoparc_-_H%C3%BCtte_3a.jpg</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"Wood began its broad role in human life with the ground and polished tools of the Neolithic. Home and fire, furniture and utensils, cradle and coffin were products of the ax, adz, and chisel, which could fashion wood intricately and with precision. This kit of tools turned wood into an almost universal building material, for a host of new things was now possible, such as dugout canoes of oak, paddles and framing for hide-covered boats, sledges, skis, wooden platters and ladles, as well as other household gear."</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Britannica, Neolithic Tools)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQLTe6RYKcGDnjOjZ_QUXfrtqrjp4RudHV1a7Y36AJ129UAXwSbcuc9phBDWIHzkFFrQwsf3OO6iB3tpAK0hifzL41GMipDz3q54DjL7UhViu8ppSt-Vg3J63ZK0Divy_J8iKqZUEaPMNzfy07iBsWTSycS1RUpRLP-xTWbZ2uoP8Xrk1rZGuy__NI/s800/COMPOSITE_LONG_HOUSE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="223" data-original-width="800" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQLTe6RYKcGDnjOjZ_QUXfrtqrjp4RudHV1a7Y36AJ129UAXwSbcuc9phBDWIHzkFFrQwsf3OO6iB3tpAK0hifzL41GMipDz3q54DjL7UhViu8ppSt-Vg3J63ZK0Divy_J8iKqZUEaPMNzfy07iBsWTSycS1RUpRLP-xTWbZ2uoP8Xrk1rZGuy__NI/w640-h178/COMPOSITE_LONG_HOUSE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Reconstructed Neolithic longhouse in the Archaeological Open-Air Museum in Oerlinghausen, Germany.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arch-Freil-Oerlinghausen-Langhaus.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arch-Freil-Oerlinghausen-Langhaus.jpg</a></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jungsteinzeit_AFM.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jungsteinzeit_AFM.jpg</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-size: large;">NEOLITHIC SHOES (OF OTZI THE ICEMAN)</b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The discovery of a ca. 5000-year-old (between 3400 and 3100 BCE) natural mummy called Otzi the Iceman, who was found frozen in the Alps, uncovered a wide range of new information about Neolithic technology. He was discovered in 1991 and is part of the current rethinking about the sophistication of the Neolithic time period. His equipment and shoes, for example, showed that Neolithic people used natural materials in an extremely complex way. They understood animal, plant, and mineral properties and often combined them for maximum effect. But they also understood design, as Otzi's shoes were practical and comfortable.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>His well-preserved shoes, scientists discovered were carefully made of different skins and fibers, each used for its particular qualities. "Microscopic studies of the leather showed that it came from calf on the bindings, deerskin on the uppers, and bearskin on the soles. Following the boot’s structure, the researchers re-created a net made of thin bark strips and stuffed it with hay, which formed a lining that kept the foot warm and cozy." Then according to Hlavacek, a bootmaker who walked in the Alps in these reconstructed shoes, "these boots offered more contact with the ground’s surface than modern shoes and felt like 'walking barefoot, but only better.'" </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Origjanska, Expert re-creates the shoes of 5,300-year-old Ötzi the Iceman)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIFxg6B9qN86SPGuJ7h1B8iVjR6tYh9Pk2bqAWqVJIhzwljriYlGCsJc-J8dR_IyMJgzRGTrDRL6hwMl_HBySTysBMkWQ0RaDJEnzNAXXC1v6u82B1tJMHf-Odvu5oTqzJCJCpB_0JKNeBL8pyr8fVHuXd-ocjepfvJGxLqZt8HDIWrNItmGuQ9EU9/s800/%C3%96tzi-SchuheA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="800" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIFxg6B9qN86SPGuJ7h1B8iVjR6tYh9Pk2bqAWqVJIhzwljriYlGCsJc-J8dR_IyMJgzRGTrDRL6hwMl_HBySTysBMkWQ0RaDJEnzNAXXC1v6u82B1tJMHf-Odvu5oTqzJCJCpB_0JKNeBL8pyr8fVHuXd-ocjepfvJGxLqZt8HDIWrNItmGuQ9EU9/w640-h338/%C3%96tzi-SchuheA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Reconstruction of the Ötzi shoes by Anne Reichart.<br />"The inner braid is made of twisted and twisted cords made of linden bast, the outer shoes made of deerskin with bearskin soles. An insulating layer of dry grass is held in place around the shoe by an inner mesh made of twisted and twisted linden bast cords." (Reichert, wikipedia.org) </div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Reichert">https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Reichert</a></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>THE LASTING LEGACY OF THE NEOLITHIC ERA</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Many important industries and practices began in the Neolithic and continue until today or until recently. This not only demonstrates their skill but their ability to create and craft important long-lasting processes.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>WEAVING</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Weaving basics remain essentially the same after its invention in the Neolithic.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk1Hb5QWtmhwlr4x53GchTaHs_EYbVjNMEAgwcnrYJaoOl1jwnKN8JMjBZ01z7vIjlv7PKxKAnoyiRg5InhK9R0EXMmzaEoCw8v3Gw5iFyu8CHQdm8QMpFTXfLXM55BZ0JK7xrn9Uc45xAtVQ1TgzWsN9tuGCKyYsjdYWNbdDU5c76ll_MDB66ahtE/s800/COMPOSITE_NEOLITHIC_LOOM.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="429" data-original-width="800" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk1Hb5QWtmhwlr4x53GchTaHs_EYbVjNMEAgwcnrYJaoOl1jwnKN8JMjBZ01z7vIjlv7PKxKAnoyiRg5InhK9R0EXMmzaEoCw8v3Gw5iFyu8CHQdm8QMpFTXfLXM55BZ0JK7xrn9Uc45xAtVQ1TgzWsN9tuGCKyYsjdYWNbdDU5c76ll_MDB66ahtE/w640-h344/COMPOSITE_NEOLITHIC_LOOM.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Reconstruction of a Neolithic loom around the time that Otzi, the Neolithic frozen 'ice man', was alive (ca. 3300 BCE), archeoParc in Schnals, South Tyrol, Italy. </div><div>RIGHT: Clothing woven by this loom, archeoParc in Schnals, South Tyrol, Italy.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Archeoparc_-_Ötzi_Webstuhl.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Archeoparc_-_Ötzi_Webstuhl.jpg</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The famous Anni Albers of the Bauhaus School had this to say.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"During the 4,500 years or, in some estimates, even 8,000 years that we believe mankind has been weaving, the process itself has been unaffected by the various devices that contributed to greater speed of execution. We still deal in weaving, as at the time of its beginning, with a rigid set of parallel threads in tension and a mobile one that transverses it at right-angles."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>This basic insight about right-angles has never been overshadowed. Anni Albers went on to say, "And weaving, even the most elaborate, can be done, given time, with a minimum of equipment...Fabrics of great accuracy have been executed without much mechanical aid."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Albers, On Weaving)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>WARP-WEIGHTED LOOM</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVYCnaA4QOXWbjTe6HB-r7j4YEHERAPQu7j_RANgtPH-n3HvogfaUqUtK97Bh-ORfQubRbzpMe23DuFrj0eZv-okKkhrTygQnb45pOoztKypp4frvfXhXc-YcjnY7C7G9r4QVlkKnonPVGnl2zey5nzlxkwyyHYuE-wikgts-gWSS08brxArq-99pX/s921/642px-Reconstruction-of-neolithic-loomA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="921" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVYCnaA4QOXWbjTe6HB-r7j4YEHERAPQu7j_RANgtPH-n3HvogfaUqUtK97Bh-ORfQubRbzpMe23DuFrj0eZv-okKkhrTygQnb45pOoztKypp4frvfXhXc-YcjnY7C7G9r4QVlkKnonPVGnl2zey5nzlxkwyyHYuE-wikgts-gWSS08brxArq-99pX/w278-h400/642px-Reconstruction-of-neolithic-loomA.jpg" width="278" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Reconstruction of Neolithic warp-weighted loom <br />at the National Museum of Textile Industry in Sliven, Bulgaria.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reconstruction-of-neolithic-loom.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reconstruction-of-neolithic-loom.jpg</a></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Warp-weighted loom: Some of the Neolithic-type looms were still being used up until about 50 years ago in Scandinavia.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>FOUNDER CROPS AND THE ORIGINS OF AGRICULTURE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Many core crops of the Neolithic are still important today.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>NOTE: While einkorn wheat and emmer wheat are not grown as much today as they used to, they were major crops until recently. But five of these founder crops are still widely consumed today.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"The Eight Founder Crops, according to long-standing archaeological theory, are eight plants that form the basis of origins of agriculture on our planet. All eight arose in the Fertile Crescent region (what is today southern Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Turkey and the Zagros foothills in Iran) during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period some 11,000–10,000 years ago. The eight include three cereals (einkorn wheat, emmer wheat, and barley); four legumes (lentil, pea, chickpea, and bitter vetch); and one oil and fiber crop (flax or linseed).</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>These crops could all be classed as grains, and they share common characteristics: they are all annual, self-pollinating, native to the Fertile Crescent, and inter-fertile within each crop and between the crops and their wild forms."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Hirst, The Eight Founder Crops)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>POTTERY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Based on detailed information from the visual-arts-cork.com pottery timeline, virtually all pottery/ceramics fundamentals had been invented in the Neolithic, including tourneys/tournettes which were early potter's wheels (4700 BCE). </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Visual-Arts-Cork, Pottery Timeline)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>CORACLE BOATS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Still widely used today in the Middle East and in Asia, the coracle was a boat of the Neolithic era.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgigiW7f8JXzVhxW3LiXdzlbAxiDgfR1A9ZxOcKpGHUPkBsxqLtv_XbA8MGR4zTJpqZitSlwehw-kq12EZw_CL833qFxESzZNjTrfCGSru_kOtY9SBBaiREy7eg4PA09oGgjAPXch7JUzvhHYWq4QnW1bek2R8hqLpaayseT5CzyQqaf7AgdSAZ85Fg/s800/COMPOSITE_CORACLE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="262" data-original-width="800" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgigiW7f8JXzVhxW3LiXdzlbAxiDgfR1A9ZxOcKpGHUPkBsxqLtv_XbA8MGR4zTJpqZitSlwehw-kq12EZw_CL833qFxESzZNjTrfCGSru_kOtY9SBBaiREy7eg4PA09oGgjAPXch7JUzvhHYWq4QnW1bek2R8hqLpaayseT5CzyQqaf7AgdSAZ85Fg/w640-h210/COMPOSITE_CORACLE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Small coracles are still widely used throughout the world.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hogenakkal_Coracle.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hogenakkal_Coracle.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: A coracle can be quite large and carry over 10 tons.</div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kuphar.jpg">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kuphar.jpg</a></div></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-size: large;">"Neolithic navigation: The coracle was surely used for fishing, hunting, and commercial activities."</b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Ancient-Cities, Neolithic navigation: The coracle)</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>The Use Of Stone Tools Continued For Thousands Of Years</u></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>And Was Not Quickly Replaced By Metal Tools</u></span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Stone tools maintained themselves during the Metal Age, yielding only slowly to the new material, which was expensive and the product of special skills. The copper and bronze tools and weapons... that constitute impressive displays in museums were rare luxuries. "</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Britannica, Neolithic Tools)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>CONCLUSION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>For this article, I chose a range of technologies that showed how the Neolithic cultures met basic needs, those of food, clothing, and shelter plus tool and utensil making. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>While I spent a good deal of time detailing how these cultures developed and used these technologies, my main point is the following. They could not have done any of this without a clear understanding of long-term linear time. Their way of life and their processes required long-term linear thinking. Their technology could not have been accomplished otherwise.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>So I believe that by going into detail I have shown that they must have possessed this new sense of time. And this new sense was quite different from the immediacy of the Paleolithic era. It was a game-changer. I think they believed that cosmological time was cyclical, but season to season time was linear and that within the cycle of yearly time, long-term linear time was how the world operated.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Understanding this meant that humans had a new productivity tool. Learning to work with extended linear time and plan long-term gave them a power that they never had before. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><div>Neolithic long-term linear time was a concept that was similar to our own. And this was a radical break with earlier conceptions of time. The main difference between modern time and Neolithic time is that Neolithic cultures saw overall time, cosmological time, as being cyclical. But now in the modern world, we see all time as being linear -- starting with the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yet the basic idea of long-term linear time began in the Neolithic. Instead of seeing time as a flow over which they had no control, time was now seen as something that could be understood and used to human advantage; it could be harnessed. Time was now seen as a commodity, a resource that could be tamed and domesticated, just like the crops and the farm animals.</div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>And this new conception of time was a giant cognitive leap for mankind. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Whether a temple or a grave, ancient people often brought their mundane activities into cosmic synchrony - a cadence of time and space frozen into stone."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(NASA, Designing Your Own Newgrange Tomb!)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;">__________________________</div><div style="text-align: center;">AFTERWORD</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Long-lasting Neolithic designs</div></span></b></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn3x6njsxRm3Mkj6cwzx4DGmVBuV0gNhKFneuzyq1dFhI0xBNqKZWlMO-X3knwhnnk-dzEaIjQUfNBBphs6WeZdi9_3SbAmQX6rKSU5AmKCBx610Y2u-G8eWkVoB7o1g88KtQy-aGDGsnHqeJTAVX1UaHnJLHXQ4LQmcaGlNlnl0PbQa1CZnjO4P65/s800/COMPOSITE_THATCHED_ROOF.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="800" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn3x6njsxRm3Mkj6cwzx4DGmVBuV0gNhKFneuzyq1dFhI0xBNqKZWlMO-X3knwhnnk-dzEaIjQUfNBBphs6WeZdi9_3SbAmQX6rKSU5AmKCBx610Y2u-G8eWkVoB7o1g88KtQy-aGDGsnHqeJTAVX1UaHnJLHXQ4LQmcaGlNlnl0PbQa1CZnjO4P65/w640-h198/COMPOSITE_THATCHED_ROOF.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: A reconstruction of a Neolithic building</div><div>"The Stone Age Horton House as constructed at Butser Ancient Farm 2020." Petersfield, England.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Butser_Ancient_Farm_Horton_House.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Butser_Ancient_Farm_Horton_House.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: Making a modern thatched roof today.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reetdach_P7040055.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reetdach_P7040055.JPG</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3AZElrZfIqDivUv0xkdvGRvJrIap6JbJzeZGHW1re9SfeordS-2skNlhEo9Ahn3ywlNAHsekGPefn79qPF7IrB4kDMCgMG-IF780rr2afqvFgi9pojrLnsHUFGrNgZ9dd89NfduIWdAM31YQ0Oo3duMi8Fn6x4qQWURXvcppRkA4VOGsb5XPeIQSk/s800/COMPOSITE_FISHHOOK.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="556" data-original-width="800" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3AZElrZfIqDivUv0xkdvGRvJrIap6JbJzeZGHW1re9SfeordS-2skNlhEo9Ahn3ywlNAHsekGPefn79qPF7IrB4kDMCgMG-IF780rr2afqvFgi9pojrLnsHUFGrNgZ9dd89NfduIWdAM31YQ0Oo3duMi8Fn6x4qQWURXvcppRkA4VOGsb5XPeIQSk/w400-h278/COMPOSITE_FISHHOOK.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Anatomy of a fish hook.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anatomyofafishhook.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anatomyofafishhook.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: "Fishing hook of bones from the Stone Age, found in Skåne, Sweden."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Metkrok_av_ben_från_stenåldern,_funnen_i_Skåne.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Metkrok_av_ben_från_stenåldern,_funnen_i_Skåne.jpg</a></div></div><br /><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinrbVZDKi2J6onA6VAU-rT1cEnScUlecOfRLWQBFWTPrAF-OAdhqIhaS5JKTquAvUcg-_kr3YZtLLGHxFPcdsYHgmk6sMcnVJKWUr4LfrcgLTNVGFGMm9tfHdc-YG8WUAZLHOijqSWLz1kmnA-hErmtWtxz3XVMJ_88fniLvOTdncfdpa5WzxFavpJ/s800/1_COMPOSITE_FLIP_FLOPS.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="165" data-original-width="800" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinrbVZDKi2J6onA6VAU-rT1cEnScUlecOfRLWQBFWTPrAF-OAdhqIhaS5JKTquAvUcg-_kr3YZtLLGHxFPcdsYHgmk6sMcnVJKWUr4LfrcgLTNVGFGMm9tfHdc-YG8WUAZLHOijqSWLz1kmnA-hErmtWtxz3XVMJ_88fniLvOTdncfdpa5WzxFavpJ/w640-h132/1_COMPOSITE_FLIP_FLOPS.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Flip-flops: A Neolithic design that is still widely used today.</div><div>LEFT: A pair of 'flip-flop' sandals from the Middle Neolithic (5200 and 4800 BCE), Cueva de Los Murciélagos, Albuñol (Province of Granada, Andalusia, Spain).</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandalias_del_Neolítico_de_Albuñol_(M.A.N._Inv._595_y_596)_01.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandalias_del_Neolítico_de_Albuñol_(M.A.N._Inv._595_y_596)_01.jpg</a></div><div>MIDDLE: Ancient Egyptian flip-flops, circa 1580 –1479 BCE, Metropolitan Museum of Art.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pair_of_Sandals_MET_DT310791.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pair_of_Sandals_MET_DT310791.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: Children's flip-flops, 1960, Museum Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blauw_en_witte_kunststof_kinder-teenslippers_met_Y-binding,_bovenkant_van_zool_wit,_onderkant_blauw,_objectnr_69397-1-2.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blauw_en_witte_kunststof_kinder-teenslippers_met_Y-binding,_bovenkant_van_zool_wit,_onderkant_blauw,_objectnr_69397-1-2.JPG</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">______________________________________</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">ENDNOTES</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>Albers, Anni. On Weaving: New Expanded Edition. Princeton University Press, Oct 24, 2017, page 4.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ancient-Cities forum. Plinio.Lisboa: "The coracle was surely used for fishing, hunting, commercial activities." Forum.Ancient-Cities.Com, Nov '18. <a href="https://forum.ancient-cities.com/t/neolithic-navigation/4942">https://forum.ancient-cities.com/t/neolithic-navigation/4942</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Birch-Chapman, Shannon; Jenkins, Emma; et al. (2017) "Estimating population size, density and dynamics of Pre-Pottery Neolithic villages in the central and southern Levant: an analysis of Beidha, southern Jordan, Levant." The Journal of the Council for British Research in the Levant, Volume 49, 2017 - Issue 1. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00758914.2017.1287813">https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00758914.2017.1287813</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Bradshaw Foundation. "Ancient Symbols in Rock Art: The 'Spiral'." <a href="https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/ancient_symbols_in_rock_art/ancient_symbols_in_rock_art.php">https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/ancient_symbols_in_rock_art/ancient_symbols_in_rock_art.php</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Britannica. "Neolithic Tools." Britannica.com. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/hand-tool/Neolithic-tools">https://www.britannica.com/technology/hand-tool/Neolithic-tools</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Carter, R.A. "Neolithic origins of seafaring in the Arabian Gulf." Archaeology International, 2912. pp 44-47. DOI: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ai.0613">http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ai.0613</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Colapinto, John. "Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language?" The New Yorker Magazine, April 16, 2007. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/04/16/the-interpreter-2">https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/04/16/the-interpreter-2</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Diamond, Jared, UCLA School of Medicine. "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race" Discover Magazine, May 1987, pp. 64—66.</div><div><br /></div><div>Gantley, Michael J. "Europe’s Mighty Megaliths 'Rock' the Winter Solstice." National Geographic, November 12, 2017. <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/history-magazine/article/history-europe-megaliths-solstice">https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/history-magazine/article/history-europe-megaliths-solstice</a></div><div><br /></div><div>GrainPro. "A Brief History Of Hermetic Storage." Grainpro.com. <a href="https://news.grainpro.com/a-brief-history-of-hermetic-storage">https://news.grainpro.com/a-brief-history-of-hermetic-storage</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Hellenic Foundation, Greece. "Neolithic Pottery." <a href="http://ime.gr/chronos/01/en/nl/culture/nl_pottery.html">http://ime.gr/chronos/01/en/nl/culture/nl_pottery.html</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Hirst, K. Kris. "5,000 Years of Making Linen: The History of Neolithic Flax Processing." Thoughtco.com, May 20, 2019. <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/making-linen-history-neolithic-flax-processing-171347">https://www.thoughtco.com/making-linen-history-neolithic-flax-processing-171347</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Hirst, K. Kris. "The Eight Founder Crops and the Origins of Agriculture Re-imagining the Beginning of Farming." Thoughtco.com, updated August 31, 2018. <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/founder-crops-origins-of-agriculture-171203">https://www.thoughtco.com/founder-crops-origins-of-agriculture-171203</a></div><div><br /></div><div>History.com. Neolithic Revolution: Plant domestication. History.com Editors, Updated Aug. 23, 2019.</div><div><br /></div><div>Irish Traditions. "The Spirals of Newgrange." Irishtraditionsonline.com, 2016. <a href="https://irishtraditionsonline.com/the-spirals-of-newgrange/">https://irishtraditionsonline.com/the-spirals-of-newgrange/</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Kuijt, Ian & Finlayson, Bill. "Evidence for food storage and predomestication granaries 11,000 years ago in the Jordan Valley." Pnas.org. July 7, 2009. <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0812764106">https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0812764106</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0812764106">https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0812764106</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Lecarme, Jacqueline, Ph.D., Linguistics. "Nominal Tense and Tense Theory." Empirical issues in formal syntax and semantics, 1999. <a href="https://www.academia.edu/2486019/Nominal_Tense_and_Tense_Theory">https://www.academia.edu/2486019/Nominal_Tense_and_Tense_Theory</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Lusk, Jayson. "The Evolution of American Agriculture." Jaysonlusk.com, June 27, 2016. <a href="http://jaysonlusk.com/blog/2016/6/26/the-evolution-of-american-agriculture">http://jaysonlusk.com/blog/2016/6/26/the-evolution-of-american-agriculture</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Mercer, R. "Background notes to Neolithic cosmology." 2014 ScARF Downloads. <a href="https://scarf.scot/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2014/02/Mercer_cosmology_2014_0.pdf">https://scarf.scot/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2014/02/Mercer_cosmology_2014_0.pdf</a> </div><div><br /></div><div>NASA. "Designing Your Own Newgrange Tomb!" P8Newgrange.pdf, p.1. <a href="http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/SED11/P8Newgrange.pdf">http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/SED11/P8Newgrange.pdf</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Neolithic Circular Enclosures in Europe, International Workshop in Goseck (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) 7.-9. Mai 2004 (abstracts).</div><div><br /></div><div>Origjanska, Magda. "Expert re-creates the shoes of 5,300-year-old Ötzi the Iceman, down to the bearskin soles and hay-stuffed lining." Thevintagenews.com, Dec 12, 2017. <a href="https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/12/12/otzi-the-iceman-shoes/">https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/12/12/otzi-the-iceman-shoes/</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Schwarz, Ralf. "Neolithic Circular Enclosures in Europe. Circular ditch systems of the Stichbandkeramik culture in Saxony-Anhalt." (Kreisgrabenanlagen der Stichbandkeramikkultur in Sachsen-Anhalt.) International Workshop in Goseck (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) 7-9 May 2004.</div><div><br /></div><div>U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Digital Visual Library. "A mudhif, a traditional Marsh Arab guesthouse made entirely out of reeds." <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iraqi_mudhif_interior.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iraqi_mudhif_interior.jpg</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Visual-Arts-Cork. "Pottery Timeline (c.26,000 BCE - 1900)." Encyclopedia Of Art. <a href="http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/pottery-timeline.htm">http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/pottery-timeline.htm</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b></b></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></span></div></div></div></span></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-20885264480323652512022-04-25T00:48:00.004-04:002022-04-25T01:05:39.964-04:00Neolithic Science: A Camera Obscura Project<p></p><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>Neolithic Science:<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>A Student Hands-On Project</b></span></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">How To Build a Large Portable Pinhole Camera or Camera Obscura to Explore How Neolithic Optics at Newgrange Were Able To Accurately Determine the Time of the Winter Solstice</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhapJ8Ug1OhQZGE7yK850GSt6xHDDSl8YY20kViXCpDCrTllbY4CIO7jS1j_CXQ7cpBeSfR-u7Y6goBsqpXVtrOlCqO5Yl06h8oTRMwv3zn4Wx-N4UqDW4YiwUCqQgIUCAuvgjEJMggm0sB9-jJbCY-gwG-es5yYAAJmIyIBKRaBmZYf1F0P7mM7zJm/s650/1545_gemma_frisius_-_camera-obscura-sonnenfinsternis_1545-650x337A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="337" data-original-width="650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhapJ8Ug1OhQZGE7yK850GSt6xHDDSl8YY20kViXCpDCrTllbY4CIO7jS1j_CXQ7cpBeSfR-u7Y6goBsqpXVtrOlCqO5Yl06h8oTRMwv3zn4Wx-N4UqDW4YiwUCqQgIUCAuvgjEJMggm0sB9-jJbCY-gwG-es5yYAAJmIyIBKRaBmZYf1F0P7mM7zJm/s16000/1545_gemma_frisius_-_camera-obscura-sonnenfinsternis_1545-650x337A.jpg" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The solar eclipse of January 24, 1544, seen in a camera obscura building.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">"First published picture of camera obscura in Gemma Frisius' 1545 book <i>De Radio Astronomica et Geometrica</i>."</span></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1545_gemma_frisius_-_camera-obscura-sonnenfinsternis_1545-650x337.jpg"><span style="font-family: arial;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1545_gemma_frisius_-_camera-obscura-sonnenfinsternis_1545-650x337.jpg</span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b>ABSTRACT</b></div><div style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This article explains how to build and experiment with a room-sized, but inexpensive, camera obscura which would have been possible in the Neolithic era.</span></div><div style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This how-to article explains how a pinhole camera or camera obscura arrangement could have been possible in the Neolithic era which could have been used to measure the sun's position at the time of the winter solstice in real-time and by direct observation. This article describes how students or others could inexpensively make a large room-sized camera and configure it so that it magnifies or enhances the image of the sun. With a basic prehistoric optical device, the very difficult measurement of the position of the sun during the winter so1tice might have been determined. This determination was so difficult the Romans could not do it with direct observation 3000 years later and often made mistakes even when using other methods. </span></div><div style="font-family: verdana;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="font-family: verdana;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="#howto_make_camera_obscura">Go directly to the hands-on section about how-to make a camera obscura and skip the Introduction.</a></span></b></div><div style="font-family: verdana;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div><b><span style="font-size: large;">INTRODUCTION</span></b></div><div style="font-size: small;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>“In the case of Neolithic astronomy, </b><br /><b>we are dealing not with the prehistory of science, </b><br /><b>but with science in prehistory.” </b><br />(McClellan et al., <i>Science and Technology in World History</i>)</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This article explains how to build and experiment with a room-sized, but inexpensive, camera obscura which would have been possible in the Neolithic era.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This how-to article explains how a pinhole camera or camera obscura arrangement could have been possible in the Neolithic era which could have been used to measure the sun's position at the time of the winter solstice in real-time and by direct observation. </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This article then describes how students or others could inexpensively make a large room-sized camera and configure it so that it magnifies or enhances the image of the sun. With a basic prehistoric optical device, the very difficult measurement of the position of the sun during the winter so1tice might have been possible. This determination was so difficult the Romans could not do it with direct observation 3000 years later and often made mistakes even when using other methods. </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">THE PROBLEM WITH MEASURING THE SUN'S POSITION AROUND THE TIME OF THE WINTER SOLSTICE</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The problem with measuring the sun's position at the time of the winter solstice is very simple, in a way. For about five days or about two days before and two days after the day of the winter solstice, the sun's declination (the sun's angle) hardly moves. And the movement is so slight that any attempt to measure it is made even more difficult due to atmospheric refraction and atmospheric conditions.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To be specific </span><span style="font-size: large;">"the diameter of the sun is 0.5 degrees which is 30 arcminutes or 1800 arcseconds." according to NASA and the sun moves less than 30 arcseconds a day around the time of the solstice or 1/60 of the diameter width of the sun (1800/30 = 60). [See 'Summary Of Numbers' below for references.]</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And to make things even more complicated sunrise occurs later after the solstice not earlier. However, the days are longer, meaning that the sunset is later. But the sun continues to rise later for about two weeks even though the days are lengthening.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The modern word 'solstice' comes from Latin. Sol = sun; sistere = to stand still. So solstice means the standstill of the sun which is how it appeared to the Romans. </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Nevertheless, the Neolithic astronomers at Newgrange were able to detect the slight movement and build a huge monument that revealed this movement.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But 3000 years later the Greeks and Romans could not determine the day of the solstice by direct observation in real-time. Moreover, the Romans made a number of miscalculations and mistakes even using other methods.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">It is clear from practical considerations that no one could have reliably and routinely simply noted the moment when the Sun’s declination was at a given value: ±23;43° for a solstice.</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">(Duke, Ancient Astronomy - Lecture 2)</span></div></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Accounts do not survive but Greek astronomers must have used an approximation method based on interpolation... This method consists of recording the declination angle at noon during some days before and after the solstice, trying to find two separate days with the same declination. When those two days are found, the halfway time between both noons is estimated solstice time. <br /></b>(Dokras, Scientific Borobudur)</span></blockquote><p></p><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Some astronomical tables and quotes from Romans show that they often got the date wrong. The summer solstice was just as difficult as the winter solstice to measure.</span></b></div><div><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>P. Oxy. LXI.4148 is a [Roman] table of dates of summer solstices over a series of years. The dates are in error by about five days...</b><br />(Duke, Ancient Astronomy - Lecture 2)</span></blockquote></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Numerous Romans thought that the solstice occurred on Christmas day.</span></b></div><div></div><blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">In the 5th century, the calendar of Polemius Silvius has an entry for 25 December:</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">25: Birthday of the Lord in the flesh; solstice and beginning of winter.</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">(Pearse, Christmas Day On The Winter Solstice)</span></div></blockquote></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I have made the following point in other articles. Neolithic people did not create something unless there was a compelling need. The length of a day in Rome at the time of the solstice was an hour and a half longer than at Newgrange so the Romans did not feel the need to be as accurate as the societies around Newgrange. The people at Newgrange needed to know (and probably celebrate) the exact point when the sun ended its travel toward darkness and began its return to light. </span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>THE PRECISION OF THE ASTRONOMICAL ALIGNMENT AND PASSAGEWAY AT NEWGRANGE</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKIM3XS_J5aKGsW6HvJ-wyUamCjH9rUBh1uz8rgfQLXOv_JFOjMcS4ymp_R4FJZVhtAS1rR2YuL0CP08bKStT2FSeGPCs8UGgfC9WecoFtEoJm701_evnpx_1_EkI76ToaFnzbGv4C91xnQMNi1B4fBjv9-Lu_S1WlT6IdpQUnyl8GwWZ2LCsMLuZN/s800/NEWGRANGE_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="800" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKIM3XS_J5aKGsW6HvJ-wyUamCjH9rUBh1uz8rgfQLXOv_JFOjMcS4ymp_R4FJZVhtAS1rR2YuL0CP08bKStT2FSeGPCs8UGgfC9WecoFtEoJm701_evnpx_1_EkI76ToaFnzbGv4C91xnQMNi1B4fBjv9-Lu_S1WlT6IdpQUnyl8GwWZ2LCsMLuZN/w640-h270/NEWGRANGE_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Soon after sunrise. Sunrise is the "instant at which the upper edge of the Sun appears over the eastern horizon in the morning."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:L%C3%BCdinghausen,_Berenbrock,_Sonnenaufgang_am_Dortmund-Ems-Kanal_(an_der_Kreisstra%C3%9Fe_23)_--_2015_--_9952.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:L%C3%BCdinghausen,_Berenbrock,_Sonnenaufgang_am_Dortmund-Ems-Kanal_(an_der_Kreisstra%C3%9Fe_23)_--_2015_--_9952.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: "A photograph of the entrance to the Newgrange Monument."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_photograph_of_the_entrance_to_the_Newgrange_Monument_by_Fiaz_Farrelly.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_photograph_of_the_entrance_to_the_Newgrange_Monument_by_Fiaz_Farrelly.jpg</a></div></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b></b></div><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The well-respected magazine, <i>Popular Mechanics</i>, had this to say: </span></b></p><blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Ireland, 3200 B.C.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">On roughly 4 days every year, the winter solstice sun pokes through the top of this Stone Age monument and onto the floor of the interior chamber, filling the ancient temple with light for about 17 minutes. Built before Stonehenge, Newgrange was likely used to track the passing of the years with a PRECISION AHEAD OF ITS TIME. [ED: my emphasis] </span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">(Newcomb, The World’s 20 Most Impressive Ancient Builds)</span></div></blockquote><div></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The astronomers at Newgrange were able to observe the days around the time of the winter solstice with considerable accuracy because they had created a specially designed 'roof-box' above the passageway which enhanced the light.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwn4hh-GqJBBpeTfrd_nqrBH21t-AKsg88j43SCm1zVeyCa39Xtztz4P0P4gRt1Eh6LU1mJeODoYIyWFeYWa6AJ_fNkX3J0c7eGmd1OMNTXTy_R0Anga6fBs2AcDEhG04Bl2m6yIY4ntT68DzMjOlss8FxycMVBKOSzaW8SZLtsEOHhZK8dRAox2-P/s800/ROOF_BOX.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="800" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwn4hh-GqJBBpeTfrd_nqrBH21t-AKsg88j43SCm1zVeyCa39Xtztz4P0P4gRt1Eh6LU1mJeODoYIyWFeYWa6AJ_fNkX3J0c7eGmd1OMNTXTy_R0Anga6fBs2AcDEhG04Bl2m6yIY4ntT68DzMjOlss8FxycMVBKOSzaW8SZLtsEOHhZK8dRAox2-P/w640-h222/ROOF_BOX.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Close-up of the gate to the passageway (bottom) and the roof-box (top).</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newgrange_County_Meath_-_76399266.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newgrange_County_Meath_-_76399266.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: Close-up of the roof-box and the funnel stones. The solstice light comes through this roof-box and this opening not through the passageway.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newgrange_(S%C3%AD_an_Bhr%C3%BA)_Monument,_Donore,_%C3%89ire_-_31630728177.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newgrange_(S%C3%AD_an_Bhr%C3%BA)_Monument,_Donore,_%C3%89ire_-_31630728177.jpg</a></div></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">For 17 minutes, therefore, at sunrise on the shortest day of the year, direct sunlight can enter Newgrange, not through the doorway, but through the specially contrived slit that lies under the roof-box at the outer end of the passage roof.</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">(O'Kelly et al., Newgrange: Archaeology, Art and Legend.)</span></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1N804Vww2lr5wU5juOJyFYIexV52bxmtbvAeEdAwsEDuKLyCt0B_yLHkUpv1jy5__l9b6yN_fSDPqCxwoKa-e3DIAuYyZbYAfVFtHGD2uXMlAnRFbWMd1A2cTk148RfyqrnDilyUuTovRh3qDeyB-Rj5c2n-pcaNMpELB-w3AzkehsIwsuZJwSfLH/s800/PASSAGEWAY_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="800" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1N804Vww2lr5wU5juOJyFYIexV52bxmtbvAeEdAwsEDuKLyCt0B_yLHkUpv1jy5__l9b6yN_fSDPqCxwoKa-e3DIAuYyZbYAfVFtHGD2uXMlAnRFbWMd1A2cTk148RfyqrnDilyUuTovRh3qDeyB-Rj5c2n-pcaNMpELB-w3AzkehsIwsuZJwSfLH/w640-h426/PASSAGEWAY_1.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: "A section of the passage leading towards the chamber <br />of the Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Passage_leading_towards_chamber_of_Newgrange_passage_tomb_in_Ireland.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Passage_leading_towards_chamber_of_Newgrange_passage_tomb_in_Ireland.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: The light of the solstice in the passageway in 2013.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2013_Solstice_Newgrange.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2013_Solstice_Newgrange.jpg</a></div></div><br /></span><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"> <b>I noticed from my photographs that it [ED: the shaft of light] was in a different position each day. As the solstice approached the beam of light seemed to penetrate further each day, beginning on the left and ending on the right. However after the solstice the beam withdrew from the furthest point of entry and penetrated the central chamber less each day until it eventually failed to enter the central chamber at all.<br /></b>(O'Brien, Reflections on Loughcrew and Newgrange)<br /><br /></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.newgrange.com/loughcrew-newgrange.htm"></a></span><p></p><div><div><div></div><blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A further study by Tim O'Brien showed that at the time of construction the sun-beam was so accurately framed by the roof-box aperture that Newgrange could be used to determine the exact day of solstice.</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">(Murphy, Mythical Ireland)</span></div><div><br /></div></blockquote></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">While I agree with Tim O'Brien that the Newgrange setup could determine the day of the winter solstice in real-time, which no other culture could do for about 5000 years, there was even more. The roof-box only allowed light from about Dec. 18 - Dec. 23 to enter the passageway. And on each of these days, the light and timing of the sunrise had a unique signature. This means that if the sky was cloudy, the day of the solstice could still be determined by this unique signature that indicated which day it was around the time of the solstice.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">My Thoughts:</span></b></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Sunrise on the days before the solstice occurred earlier and days after the solstice occurred later. Since these Neolithic scientists were so good at determining the day of the solstice, we can assume that they were skilled in nighttime astronomy as well. The position of the stars at the time of each sunrise around the solstice would have indicated the specific time of each sunrise.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Just how precise was it? Here is what NASA had to say.</span></b></div><div></div><blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"Today the first light enters about four minutes after sunrise, but calculations based on the precession of the Earth show that 5,000 years ago, first light would have entered exactly at sunrise."</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">(NASA, Designing Your Own Newgrange Tomb!)</span></div><div><br /></div></blockquote><div style="font-size: large;"></div></div></div></div><span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Gk9W5W6LxzNxEqtR3wPH9I3kSG2_j1cHwFsfYoni6gSt39tOW01eVmV_t2yugTjzZeJMbAR1ysaS6D2c2Ngmc1JMpcsuyumwyqM9ByxDbFKIGPaHMzQN6z3EwkmO6r6fzhbqX4TfuyU4EH2myMAZxwTLW0Q6T1e1w03KBb7LYyoVjlejf80mSn0E/s800/NEWGRANGE_DRAWING.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="800" height="604" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Gk9W5W6LxzNxEqtR3wPH9I3kSG2_j1cHwFsfYoni6gSt39tOW01eVmV_t2yugTjzZeJMbAR1ysaS6D2c2Ngmc1JMpcsuyumwyqM9ByxDbFKIGPaHMzQN6z3EwkmO6r6fzhbqX4TfuyU4EH2myMAZxwTLW0Q6T1e1w03KBb7LYyoVjlejf80mSn0E/w640-h604/NEWGRANGE_DRAWING.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Coffey, George. Drawings of Newgrange from the late 1800s. Published in: The Dolmens of Ireland,, by William Copeland Borlase. Published by the University of Michigan Library (January 1, 1897).</div></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span><div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b>MAGNIFICATION WAS THE KEY</b></span></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"Measure what can be measured, <br />and make measurable what cannot be measured."</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Galileo Galilei</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The roof-box setup greatly magnified the sunlight and its movement after sunrise. And as we modern people know, magnification can reveal much more detail and information and make distinctions that could not be made without magnification. For example, the sun's light could be seen widening and moving down the passageway in real-time because the sun's motion had been magnified. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">While this kind of magnification is unusual it is not unprecedented.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"The Giant Sundial of Jantar Mantar in Jaipur, India, also known as the Samrat Yantra (The Supreme Instrument), stands 27m tall. Its shadow moves visibly at 1 mm per second, or roughly a hand's breadth (6 cm) every minute." <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sundials">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sundials</a> </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvRtKNJXQTOO9RCrYKwvpBTAsz590ybLrTmoQOKImw11cUa7fkBErmOGghkKSKCJU0fym9VuEpfR51Razxqx8eg--IQvtv8IhO5iT4Mq3nJ_sWvuYlJoIIOUP6NZHx3Rh54wICp7Ut-3GcEBq25aeisxJxbMNaL6TvFbnA7R9xxvAH_2_TTbyAAMl/s409/DUBLIN_SOLSTICE_2021_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="409" height="528" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvRtKNJXQTOO9RCrYKwvpBTAsz590ybLrTmoQOKImw11cUa7fkBErmOGghkKSKCJU0fym9VuEpfR51Razxqx8eg--IQvtv8IhO5iT4Mq3nJ_sWvuYlJoIIOUP6NZHx3Rh54wICp7Ut-3GcEBq25aeisxJxbMNaL6TvFbnA7R9xxvAH_2_TTbyAAMl/w640-h528/DUBLIN_SOLSTICE_2021_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Chart of December sunrise times and day lengths in Dublin Ireland in 2021 <br />(close to Newgrange) around the time of the solstice. <br />This chart is derived from information at the following website:</div><div><a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/ireland/dublin?month=12&year=2021">https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/ireland/dublin?month=12&year=2021</a></div></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The roof box had two main components. The 'box' was recessed above the passageway. It was set-back with two side walls in front of it, one on each side. These narrow walls served as baffles that restricted sunlight from any time other than the solstice to enter the roof-box. When the solstice light did enter the roof-box it was funneled through a slit that then projected light onto the passageway. When the light was funneled through the roof-box, it was in a sense 'processed' to use the modern idea of processing.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></div><blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Importance Of The Roof-Box</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The significance of the roof-box as a unique, purpose-built device, constructed during the Neolithic period and designed to admit the light of the rising sun on the winter solstice can hardly be overstated. So far, no comparable feature has been found among the thousands of other megalithic sites across Western Europe.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The form of the roof-box and what was found within it are without doubt the most persuasive evidence we have of the special importance the winter solstice held for Neolithic communities in Ireland.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">(Williams, Re-discovering the ‘lost’ records of the Newgrange roof-box.)</span></b></div></blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></div><blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">When O’Kelly uncovered the structure in its entirety he found that it consisted of a funnel-shaped box, its top made of overlapping slabs and its sides consisting of low dry-stone walls capped by two slabs, one on each wall. It was closed to the rear by the front edge of the second roofslab. Thus he coined the term ‘roof-box’ to describe it. Deep inside the roof-box, a single quartz block was positioned lengthwise along the back edge of the roofslab. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">(Williams, Re-discovering the ‘lost’ records of the Newgrange roof-box.)</span></b></div></blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I find it very significant that "deep inside the roof-box, a single quartz block was positioned" because quartz is generally transparent or translucent or reflective meaning that it might have acted as a kind of lens or mirror.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"Pure quartz is colorless and transparent or translucent."</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introchem/chapter/properties-of-quartz-and-glass/"><span style="font-size: medium;">https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introchem/chapter/properties-of-quartz-and-glass/</span></a></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9QHdbkCCS-RuQ8rMPl2fQDss9A1oQMwonuC8oAviNfKB1A_GHxl0JoF9pm-EetBZpsF10WMcmxrISUbbsdJgz3j8FwfDAJSoryrFWM-Ycz-RKLv8dCoUUO-SUG_N1n6evzRoR0-Zy26ELtY1j_Tts2x_ZE_5pd8qE_G8ZyTkDTd4Fj8pUi2GgbKHX/s800/Haltern_am_See,_Westruper_Heide_--_2015_--_8371-5A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="800" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9QHdbkCCS-RuQ8rMPl2fQDss9A1oQMwonuC8oAviNfKB1A_GHxl0JoF9pm-EetBZpsF10WMcmxrISUbbsdJgz3j8FwfDAJSoryrFWM-Ycz-RKLv8dCoUUO-SUG_N1n6evzRoR0-Zy26ELtY1j_Tts2x_ZE_5pd8qE_G8ZyTkDTd4Fj8pUi2GgbKHX/w640-h420/Haltern_am_See,_Westruper_Heide_--_2015_--_8371-5A.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A landscape lit by early morning light.</div><div>As filmmakers know, the low angled light right after sunrise or just before sunset can reveal fine detail. In movie making it is known as the 'golden hour' for its golden light but also for the richness of detail. This low angle can allow a clear display of patterns in textures, for example, that cannot be seen when the sun is higher up. The same was possibly true in the passageway at Newgrange, when the low-angled early morning light delivered more 'information', to use the modern idea, than later in the day. The long shadows caused by this light also gave more information about the quality of the sunbeam.<br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haltern_am_See,_Westruper_Heide_--_2015_--_8371-5.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haltern_am_See,_Westruper_Heide_--_2015_--_8371-5.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">NEOLITHIC OPTICS</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">While there has been much speculation about why this monument was built, there has been very little interest in the science that they used.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"How important it was to the people who visited it and what role exactly it played in ancient spirituality is one of the most highly theorized facts about the monument." </b><b>(What is Newgrange?)</b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">As the above quote shows, there has been considerable interest in the reasons and the purpose of constructing Newgrange, but I cannot find much information about Neolithic science, even though it is clear that it was performed and it was accurate. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I am mainly talking about Neolithic optics and their understanding and use of optics. As a result, Neolithic scientists accomplished a number of things at Newgrange. </span></b></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><span style="font-size: medium;">First: They identified the exact day of the winter solstice. </span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Second: They built an "instrument" that was perfectly aligned and could ascertain the day of the solstice in real-time. </span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Third: They built an instrument that processed the light from the sunrises around the time of the solstice and magnified them.</span></b></li></ul></div></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I like to think of Newgrange as the Neolithic equivalent of the Hubble Telescope. They both were precise instruments that took more than a decade to design and build and required hundreds of workers to complete the project.</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">ABOUT CAMERA OBSCURAS (or pinhole cameras)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2AGPa6gOc66tyIxFDKN_BTljAaSXfy9WSYfkUNBKC4Dfza0YAhEykPkVEB13O-e2Fdaovzho2q8IJoMNSR4kgMS_C3mKXVe_ArWlUYZ1lNeVNl--Pf9-HVL7QB01OJ5IszFJwjjGZPphqUKZlUbC7I2c7wLiY9C55FixdmpqbYi8qIoUHfTLo4beG/s810/Clipboard01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="542" data-original-width="810" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2AGPa6gOc66tyIxFDKN_BTljAaSXfy9WSYfkUNBKC4Dfza0YAhEykPkVEB13O-e2Fdaovzho2q8IJoMNSR4kgMS_C3mKXVe_ArWlUYZ1lNeVNl--Pf9-HVL7QB01OJ5IszFJwjjGZPphqUKZlUbC7I2c7wLiY9C55FixdmpqbYi8qIoUHfTLo4beG/w640-h428/Clipboard01.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><div>How a camera obscura projects an image from the outside.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pinhole-camera.svg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pinhole-camera.svg</a></div></div></span><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Long before the invention of photography, in fact, more than 2000 years before, people were aware of a strange phenomenon. When bright light went through a small opening, it projected the scene outside the opening onto a back-surface upside down. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGx8nVQ3S3IjHeAOvJkuhbCLYBPwfExU3c5trv39k2xTcehnFydzlw1ixa9mRKRbqbae81us8xMxpQtaQ_IPT6dDbr1HJa9frFIn1jkRP8YqFPFFsadc8NCUmAmtCEeNxIBMskl-_O5l3D8QRyJyLFUlIXnGrONwlOWFbx7D21BgVza83CNTgZ2y2C/s800/ECLIPSE_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="800" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGx8nVQ3S3IjHeAOvJkuhbCLYBPwfExU3c5trv39k2xTcehnFydzlw1ixa9mRKRbqbae81us8xMxpQtaQ_IPT6dDbr1HJa9frFIn1jkRP8YqFPFFsadc8NCUmAmtCEeNxIBMskl-_O5l3D8QRyJyLFUlIXnGrONwlOWFbx7D21BgVza83CNTgZ2y2C/w640-h306/ECLIPSE_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: "Numerous displays of a solar eclipse on the ground in the shade of tree leaves, due to the camera obscura effect created by light passing through small gaps between the leaves. The photo was taken during the solar eclipse on October 3, 2005 in Madrid."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nils_van_der_Burg_-_eclipse_and_pin-hole_(by-sa).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nils_van_der_Burg_-_eclipse_and_pin-hole_(by-sa).jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: Projections of the "sun during a solar eclipse through the leaves of a tree. St. Juliens, Malta"</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IMG_1650_zonsverduistering_Malta.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IMG_1650_zonsverduistering_Malta.JPG</a></div></div></span><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Aristotle noted the phenomena but did not understand it ca. 350 BCE.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"Why is it that an eclipse of the sun, if one looks at it...through leaves, such as a plane-tree or other broadleaved tree, or if one joins the fingers of one hand over the fingers of the other, the rays are crescent-shaped where they reach the earth?" (Aristotle's work Problems – Book XV)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">What Aristotle did not understand was that the rays were crescent-shaped because the hole through the leaves was projecting the crescent shape, the moon partially covering the sun during an eclipse, onto a surface.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">It was about 1000 years later that the brilliant Arab scientist Alhazen (the western spelling) showed that when light enters a tiny constricted opening it projects the image outside the opening onto the surface behind the hole, upside down.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCfAf1LJk-9pIpSUD6vERM05nsPD4xfc_6MO12-ODOw8VankBTt0jyHyCvSCUpzaBe6bLYkD7cs3LPKKKs6UZ2evcvaz478NfYVCIzNTw_i_JAt5uXmU85URLiJcnF9xRJe2AvtZxD5VzPE4bVad-80LPtCNh_4vRabrBHvH7U0xj25c2XzL3KxXz9/s800/The-concept-of-the-camera-obscura-as-perceived-a-thousand-years-ago-by-Alhazen-Ibn_W640aa.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="800" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCfAf1LJk-9pIpSUD6vERM05nsPD4xfc_6MO12-ODOw8VankBTt0jyHyCvSCUpzaBe6bLYkD7cs3LPKKKs6UZ2evcvaz478NfYVCIzNTw_i_JAt5uXmU85URLiJcnF9xRJe2AvtZxD5VzPE4bVad-80LPtCNh_4vRabrBHvH7U0xj25c2XzL3KxXz9/w640-h456/The-concept-of-the-camera-obscura-as-perceived-a-thousand-years-ago-by-Alhazen-Ibn_W640aa.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><div>"The concept of the camera obscura as perceived a thousand years ago by Alhazen Ibn."</div><div><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/41398886_Micrographia_of_the_twenty-first_century_From_camera_obscura_to_4D_microscopy/figures?lo=1">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/41398886_Micrographia_of_the_twenty-first_century_From_camera_obscura_to_4D_microscopy/figures?lo=1</a></div></div></span><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">While these two instances mentioned above occurred thousands of years after Newgrange, they show that this phenomenon was known to the ancients and also that it occurred naturally. So observant Neolithic people could have noticed this in their own environment when light came through tree leaves, for example.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Around 1500 the first published picture of a construction that utilized this phenomenon was printed. Called a camera obscura, it was a closed darkened room that was often used to observe eclipses since looking directly at the sun was damaging to the eyes.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfGSFA0XHT5vEx4bSuoyQAbEDgX8JbwVO2ZEejTyxTynrMJHjtC2ktmZ4diDfJFMp5AiQYNDwfbg5ZZKCJLYFIR0BwGVutmYRexxZzfan0NUkVheQUT8F5EgpBW3Et9t9XC9B6fEFEPyfFvt5YBd-CgJjeo0jDJs3rDEN_wMjxRgqajieazXvUnRBQ/s800/CAMERA_OBSCURA_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="223" data-original-width="800" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfGSFA0XHT5vEx4bSuoyQAbEDgX8JbwVO2ZEejTyxTynrMJHjtC2ktmZ4diDfJFMp5AiQYNDwfbg5ZZKCJLYFIR0BwGVutmYRexxZzfan0NUkVheQUT8F5EgpBW3Et9t9XC9B6fEFEPyfFvt5YBd-CgJjeo0jDJs3rDEN_wMjxRgqajieazXvUnRBQ/w640-h178/CAMERA_OBSCURA_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: The solar eclipse of January 24, 1544 viewed in a camera obscura building.</div><div>"First published picture of camera obscura in Gemma Frisius' 1545 book De Radio Astronomica et Geometrica."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1545_gemma_frisius_-_camera-obscura-sonnenfinsternis_1545-650x337.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1545_gemma_frisius_-_camera-obscura-sonnenfinsternis_1545-650x337.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: A modern camera obscura at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, my alma mater.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CameraObscura.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CameraObscura.JPG</a></div></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The name 'camera obscura' comes from Latin and means a dark chamber. And the first camera obscuras were actually buildings so making a building was not unusual. The modern word camera comes from this Latin term.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A CAMERA OBSCURA AT NEWGRANGE?</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">This is a quote from my earlier article about Newgrange:</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">As a photographer it struck me that the setup at Newgrange is very much like a camera: there is an opening with a lens or aperture, there is a dark chamber, there is an exposure (a period of time that light is allowed into the camera and then shut off), i.e., the 17 minutes that the light shines down the passageway. (Doble, Computing the Winter Solstice at Newgrange)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A camera obscura design could magnify the sun's position. If the back wall is far from the opening that lets in the light, (e.g., the pinhole in a pinhole camera), the object being looked at and its position (in this case the sun) would be greatly magnified. In a sense, it is as though a Neolithic astronomer was looking at the light via a telephoto lens. The image of the sun would be dimmer, but in a totally darkened chamber (when eyes had adjusted) it would be clear. [See 'Summary Of Numbers' below for references.]</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A pinhole aperture is only one option. An enclosed darkened chamber could use a roof-box type of design to try out different configurations.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Please note, I am *not* saying that the Neolithic people at Newgrange made something similar to a camera obscura, but only that it was possible in the Neolithic era along with variations on a Newgrange type roof-box with a slit that was able to concentrate the beam of light at the time of the solstice.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">However, I believe it must have taken a very long time, thousands of years, to observe the heavens, realize that the years were cyclical based on the sun's precise repetitive movement, and then realize that the lowest point of the sun was the beginning of the next year after which the sun began to move back from its lowest point -- along with probable religious ideas of rebirth and renewal. (I'll go into why in a future blog-article.)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The origins of Newgrange remain somewhat mysterious. Across Ireland, over two hundred similar passage tombs are found, some of which are considerably older than Newgrange... A progression in the scale and sophistication of construction of these passage tombs...may be observed, which taken together indicate a lengthy process of development. [Its origins are] an island-wide story of incremental changes over hundreds of years...</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">(Hensey, First Light: The Origins of Newgrange)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Yet when Newgrange was finally built, its designers and engineers were very sure of themselves. NASA estimated that it took a workforce of 300 laborers at least 20 years to build. They would not have started on such a grand scale if they were not certain that it would work.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">(NASA, Designing Your Own Newgrange Tomb!)</span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>MORE ABOUT NEOLITHIC OPTICS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>It is my opinion that the roof-box and slit arrangement were quite sophisticated 'focusing', magnifying, and enhancing devices that are still not entirely understood today. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>In the case of the Newgrange roof-box and slit design, the beam of light was greatly magnified to its maximum length and width around 8 1/2 minutes after it entered the 'roof-box' at Newgrange on the day of the solstice.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"O'Kelly also stated that in 17 minutes the 'first pencil' of direct sunlight widened to a 17cm band and then narrowed before disappearing entirely." (O'Kelly et al. Newgrange: Archaeology, Art and Legend.)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The length of the passageway is 19m (62ft) and in 17 minutes the beam of light reached the furthest end of the passageway before it receded the full distance. So in 8 1/2 minutes (510 seconds) the light went 19m. Doing a basic calculation, this means that the beam of light moved up the passageway at about 3.7cm (about 1.4 inches) per second (1900cm/510sec).</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The above shows the dramatic enhancement and magnification that these Neolithic scientists were able to achieve with their roof-box and slit design. I believe this enhancement was accurate enough that it could show the distinction between each day before the solstice, the day of the solstice, and each day after the solstice.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a id="howto_make_camera_obscura">HOW-TO SECTION: BUILD YOUR OWN CAMERA OBSCURA</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">HERE ARE BASIC NUMBERS AND CONCEPTS </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">FOR A CAMERA OBSCURA TYPE ARRANGEMENT</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">IN THE NEOLITHIC TIME PERIOD</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">THE CAMERA (CHAMBER)</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- An enclosed totally dark chamber which could be a tent, a hut, a small stone building, etc. It would have to be big enough for a person to be inside. I describe how to make an inexpensive portable totally dark A-frame tent (ridge tent) below.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- The chamber must have a way to make a very small hole at the front that allows light to enter and project onto a back wall. Or a way to position a roof-box type device at the front that is light-tight except for a slit in the box. So the box must be sealed around the edges.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">THE EXPOSURE</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There are four variables needed to compute a correct exposure. In photography, the term 'exposure' is the total of the variables. Together these are needed to determine how to get a workable image.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- The brightness of the light source, in this case, the sun (measured in foot-candles).</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- The sensitivity of the light-sensitive material such as film or digital light sensors, but in this case the sensitivity of the human eye in total darkness (ISO)</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- The amount of time it would take to make an exposure (the shutter speed) but in this case, the shutter speed indicates how bright the image will be. A quick shutter speed (approx 1/2 - 2 seconds or less) indicates that a bright workable image could be rendered on a back wall.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- The f/number that is determined by the size (usually the diameter) of the hole, i.e., the aperture, that lets in the light. This is calculated in combination with the focal length.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">----------</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The f/number calculation is simple: the distance of the hole from the back wall divided by the diameter of the hole. "For example, the formula for a pinhole camera with a focal length of 100 mm and a pinhole 0.4 mm in diameter is: 100/0.4 = 250, hence the f-number is 250 expressed as f/250."</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Determining Exposure Times For Pinhole Cameras</i></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholecameras/exposure_01.html">https://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholecameras/exposure_01.html</a></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">NOTE: While pinhole imaging uses the same formulas as photography, the numbers are often much larger. </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">ABOUT THE SENSITIVITY OF THE HUMAN EYE IN TOTAL DARKNESS (ISO)</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The human eye is quite remarkable. It can change its sensitivity to light depending on the brightness or darkness of the situation.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When I researched human eye sensitivity in darkness on the Internet, I came up with two figures:</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- ISO 800 for the human eye in low-light conditions</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>B&H Photo Video Digital</i></b></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/find/newsLetter/The-Photographic-Eye.jsp"><span style="font-size: medium;">https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/find/newsLetter/The-Photographic-Eye.jsp</span></a></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BUT</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- ISO 15,000 when the human eye has been in total darkness for about half an hour.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"If the lowest ISO of our eyes is 25, and our eyes are 600 times more sensitive in the dark, that means that the maximum ISO of the human eye would land somewhere around ISO 15,000 or so."</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Photo Teach</i>er</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://thephototeacher.wordpress.com/2016/12/30/camera-versus-the-human-eye/"><span style="font-size: medium;">https://thephototeacher.wordpress.com/2016/12/30/camera-versus-the-human-eye/</span></a></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">ABOUT MAGNIFICATION </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The photographer must determine the amount of magnification needed and also the degree of sharpness needed. These are determined as follows:</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- The focal length of the camera determines the magnification. The focal length is the length, normally in mm, from the pinhole to the back wall that the image is projected onto.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- The f/number is the distance of the pinhole from the back wall divided by the diameter of the hole. The f/number is needed to determine an exposure.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- A rough rule of thumb is that the focal length in millimeters divided by 40mm will be the magnification. So if the back wall is 2000mm (2 meters) from the pinhole the magnification will be 2000/40 = 50X.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">[See 'Summary Of Numbers' below for reference.]</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">VARIABLES</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- The larger the hole, the brighter the image but it will be less sharp; the smaller the hole the sharper the image but it will be dimmer (indicated by a longer shutter speed when calculated).</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A STANDARD REFERENCE EXPOSURE</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- Photographers will need to make initial calculations based on a known correct exposure which is then recalculated for the tiny pinhole aperture and the extreme brightness of direct sunlight. These numbers are then plugged into the online calculator I have listed at the end of this section.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- I recommend you work from what is known in photography as a 'Bright Sunny Day' or BSD, i.e., a normal exposure on a sunny day. The formula is that at f/16 the shutter speed will be the inverse of the ISO. So for a camera that has an ISO setting of 400, the exposure would be f/16 at 1/400.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- B&H Camera wrote that the ISO of the human eye is 800 in darkened conditions. So using the formula above the exposure would be f/16 at 1/800.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- However, in this case, the ISO is the sensitivity of the human eye after half an hour in total darkness which is perhaps 10,000. </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">[See 'Summary Of Numbers' below for reference.]</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">ABOUT DIRECT SUNLIGHT</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Bright direct sunlight is at least 10X brighter than an exposure on the ground (BSD) although the light from a sunrise would not be as bright, perhaps only 5X. This means that an initial working exposure can only be determined by trial and error and direct experience. Yet the numbers listed here give a starting point. [See 'Summary Of Numbers' below for reference.]</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">While some web pages have listed higher numbers, than these I list next, for the brightness of the sun and the human eye ISO adjusted for total darkness, the numbers I have proposed (10,000 ISO and sunrise = 5X the foot-candles on a BSD) are a middle ground and easy numbers to work with.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So here is an example using all these numbers:</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- aperture diameter = .5 mm for a sharp image (make this larger for a brighter image, smaller for a sharper image)</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- a focal length of 2 meters or 2000mm = 50X magnification (2000/40)</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- the reference exposure (direct sunrise light) is 5x brighter than a BSD so the standard exposure is (10,000 ISO X 5) or 50,000.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">-- The above results in a 1.25-second shutter speed meaning that the image should be bright enough to work with. It also yields an aperture of f/4000 (I warned you that the numbers would be large :).</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">USING THE ONLINE EXPOSURE CALCULATOR</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Once a standard exposure is decided, it should be used with the online calculator (next) for all calculations. Change the pinhole size and the focal length to see the magnification and the shutter speed which should be about 1/2 - 2 seconds (but again experiment with this). The online calculator will also suggest an optimal pinhole size. If you use that number you will need to rerun the calculations with that number.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">USE THIS EXCELLENT ONLINE CALCULATOR TO WORK WITH THESE VARIABLES</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I suggest you plug in f/16 with a shutter speed of 1/50000 and then vary the pinhole size and the focal length to adjust the magnification</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.photostuff.co.uk/pinholec.htm"><span style="font-size: medium;">http://www.photostuff.co.uk/pinholec.htm</span></a></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgchFqL1Q9102G1fjT7WR-7cEN03CoGZpX_S2T0lIec8Fj8Z4bEFop-KB5Qq-mQjRCKN-bQK5yIABkuyDhG5bfUdm5p0udV3W5SfURT8Rzbk1jfMBnwtZGLO86cb3Wcclx52hh9o7clKlIwxn4KSPrEdnSn-HzGSTXsz9txTOfyVKobYnNgN13H8rE9/s951/pinhole_calc_BLANK.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="494" data-original-width="951" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgchFqL1Q9102G1fjT7WR-7cEN03CoGZpX_S2T0lIec8Fj8Z4bEFop-KB5Qq-mQjRCKN-bQK5yIABkuyDhG5bfUdm5p0udV3W5SfURT8Rzbk1jfMBnwtZGLO86cb3Wcclx52hh9o7clKlIwxn4KSPrEdnSn-HzGSTXsz9txTOfyVKobYnNgN13H8rE9/w640-h332/pinhole_calc_BLANK.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Initial Pinhole Calculator. Change the inches to metric top left.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="http://www.photostuff.co.uk/pinholec.htm">http://www.photostuff.co.uk/pinholec.htm</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">(C) Bob Manekshaw (www.photostuff.co.uk)</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJI6Nb_5yfYKv2ud01cpZ4zDTEpWqUZgJ1KU1rVonleiSxXib4Ho6y-xsRO072hL-5ucWepQ1mSjDtUPdLGaimuDQGThyejlTSeK6J0LVDbYYFlP_MbcjSN_DzHU2tuUaRq95RStzE-2kJfENb55gDGSVr8B5n9lPDmh59KCLeP0IMrYh9sA4NHJa2/s959/pinhole_calc_6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="959" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJI6Nb_5yfYKv2ud01cpZ4zDTEpWqUZgJ1KU1rVonleiSxXib4Ho6y-xsRO072hL-5ucWepQ1mSjDtUPdLGaimuDQGThyejlTSeK6J0LVDbYYFlP_MbcjSN_DzHU2tuUaRq95RStzE-2kJfENb55gDGSVr8B5n9lPDmh59KCLeP0IMrYh9sA4NHJa2/w640-h330/pinhole_calc_6.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Sample starting exposure settings.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="http://www.photostuff.co.uk/pinholec.htm">http://www.photostuff.co.uk/pinholec.htm</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">(C) Bob Manekshaw (www.photostuff.co.uk)</div></div></span></div><br /><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">"Taking photographs with a pinhole camera is always something of an experiment and requires a bit of playing around."</div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholecameras/exposure_01.html">https://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholecameras/exposure_01.html</a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div></div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">HOW TO MAKE A</span></b></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">PINHOLE/ROOF-BOX</span></b></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">CAMERA OBSCURA</span></b></div></span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>HOW TO BUILD THE ROOM-SIZED CAMERA</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8qybGNDUFNzOuOXNclrynqr3uC_iymUKRcHuIntqBEDPeOFbnRNqPKEtrN0BpJWPzq61vFuYOoPShnjC1rhakz_XAmgZ0MKeFAQ460wZ7yec36ON4SL3QPKTNV5wpyJoWJ2D1BDjGr1hvM8Gjntdu_KgpEW29Yx4kt6oqVpGyVmRfm2cFdZ7giFRU/s800/Tentsa.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="232" data-original-width="800" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8qybGNDUFNzOuOXNclrynqr3uC_iymUKRcHuIntqBEDPeOFbnRNqPKEtrN0BpJWPzq61vFuYOoPShnjC1rhakz_XAmgZ0MKeFAQ460wZ7yec36ON4SL3QPKTNV5wpyJoWJ2D1BDjGr1hvM8Gjntdu_KgpEW29Yx4kt6oqVpGyVmRfm2cFdZ7giFRU/w640-h186/Tentsa.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A tunnel tent (left) and an A-frame or ridge tent (right).</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tents.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tents.jpg</a></div><div><br /></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>A large portable light-tight A-frame (ridge) tent can be cheaply and easily made with a wide roll of heavy black plastic, some wooden poles, some rope and twine, a few stakes, and black duct tape (use the Gorilla brand). Make sure that the highest point of the tent allows you to stand up otherwise it can become very uncomfortable after a while. While the middle (the sides) and the floor of the tent can be one continuous piece of black plastic, the black plastic covering for the front and back will need to be sealed with black duct tape. The back could be used as the entrance with a flap that opens under overlapping black plastic and then closes, light-tight, after entry.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGiZ746rQLbm_2nCwXjei0fYRBQBHu_1gYcPLsqnJJ2i3NIVZl5If1J1iKxN0SUtelJFlhqIsJdzrIoKyK2uusCrmDCPeglTVs9V2flDk1du5bljo3kwsvZMP-6IEwXvgO0rGee4hmGhkGrREwHQkj0uwjdVnRU_LCdKq3XXmJFLP8TgDummSfzAos/s800/TENT_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="800" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGiZ746rQLbm_2nCwXjei0fYRBQBHu_1gYcPLsqnJJ2i3NIVZl5If1J1iKxN0SUtelJFlhqIsJdzrIoKyK2uusCrmDCPeglTVs9V2flDk1du5bljo3kwsvZMP-6IEwXvgO0rGee4hmGhkGrREwHQkj0uwjdVnRU_LCdKq3XXmJFLP8TgDummSfzAos/w640-h246/TENT_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: A-frame tent basics.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dining_fly_(tent).svg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dining_fly_(tent).svg</a></div><div>RIGHT: Example of an A-frame tent.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_close-up_of_Tent.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_close-up_of_Tent.JPG</a></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>A tunnel tent can be made almost as easily with poles that bend and are joined at the top. Then the black plastic is hung on these poles.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>No matter what techniques or approach is used, magnification is important, in fact, it is crucial for determining the position of the sun around the time of the solstice. Because it is only with magnification that slight differences can be enlarged and then evaluated. Magnification is possible with both approaches.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqbZ-WMZfll-dIr7Kb_ak2AITXqQGV_mf5XEOD9Mb1BVP1dRPkLdF2G-HxW3GrAIwACQFSnO01doUce006NpJf6xWYePIH9DB2U9-QFSXsYFq8VPBIbz-nUNo8TjA2G2tY7mStU2U2xikbHnuINg7bbxbpnVKrnNbr6Yc956ZoxgxRGC9bJtH32l9e/s800/TENTS_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="262" data-original-width="800" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqbZ-WMZfll-dIr7Kb_ak2AITXqQGV_mf5XEOD9Mb1BVP1dRPkLdF2G-HxW3GrAIwACQFSnO01doUce006NpJf6xWYePIH9DB2U9-QFSXsYFq8VPBIbz-nUNo8TjA2G2tY7mStU2U2xikbHnuINg7bbxbpnVKrnNbr6Yc956ZoxgxRGC9bJtH32l9e/w640-h210/TENTS_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A-frame tents of the past.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Military_Camp_in_K%C5%99e%C4%8Dho%C5%99_23.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Military_Camp_in_K%C5%99e%C4%8Dho%C5%99_23.jpg</a></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tents_in_the_medival_camp_at_UNESCO_celebrations_in_T%C5%99eb%C3%AD%C4%8D,_T%C5%99eb%C3%AD%C4%8D_District.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tents_in_the_medival_camp_at_UNESCO_celebrations_in_T%C5%99eb%C3%AD%C4%8D,_T%C5%99eb%C3%AD%C4%8D_District.jpg</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Students could make a light-tight A-frame or tunnel tent, for example, and then hang a white foam board or some such thing at different distances from the pinhole to determine the optimal focal length and magnification.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tents.jpg"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tents.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTnT1BZbLsPmHDHGmcN7ayY_i3LBERBiK-pCAInwmle8x3XqhtK0J7bDcW4-9p2C938X_OTdYD-FSFJ41uKhJkWFRjROJ1gvi2_RBbXKdxCeklT771UxXAFpWBYXtQ0Ueou_aZ7_8dw5qGwuS19XMCXiYNZo-h-Yy22JlfoeLPSxFdsXXmr8PgtB0S/s800/Field_camp_on_Alaska_in_winterA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="800" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTnT1BZbLsPmHDHGmcN7ayY_i3LBERBiK-pCAInwmle8x3XqhtK0J7bDcW4-9p2C938X_OTdYD-FSFJ41uKhJkWFRjROJ1gvi2_RBbXKdxCeklT771UxXAFpWBYXtQ0Ueou_aZ7_8dw5qGwuS19XMCXiYNZo-h-Yy22JlfoeLPSxFdsXXmr8PgtB0S/w400-h255/Field_camp_on_Alaska_in_winterA.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;">A tunnel tent.<br /><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Field_camp_on_Alaska_in_winter.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Field_camp_on_Alaska_in_winter.jpg</a></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>They could do this at any time of the year to try out various designs, settings, and configurations -- it does not have to be on the solstice. Students could pick any five sunrises in sequence to study initially. When perfected, they could then turn the tent toward the solstice. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Various types/sizes of pinholes or apertures could be tried out such as a horizontal slit. A piece of thin aluminum over a cut-out hole in the front plastic could be made with several different holes, for example. The holes that were not being used could be covered with black duct tape, the tape could then be removed when a particular hole was used.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>NOTE: Ventilation. Inexpensive small darkroom vents can be attached to the plastic tent. This is recommended because a light-tight closed-in tent would need some ventilation.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>A ROOF-BOX CONFIGURATION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>As I said, another approach would be to make a light-capturing device based on the 'roof-box' and slit at Newgrange. It would send a beam of light down the tent. It could be made out of cardboard. The roof-box could be placed in the front supported by a table behind the black plastic. A large rectangular hole would need to be cut in the plastic for the roof-box; its edges would then need to be sealed with black duct tape. In this case, students could observe how the light moves over time, how it spreads, and what differences they could discern from sunrise to sunrise such as the different angles of light.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>It should not be hard to make a small cardboard replica of the 'roof-box' and slit and then see how light is directed through this structure, especially when changing the size or shape of the slit. An adjustable set of sliding horizontal tabs could be made that would allow a student to make the slit longer or shorter and another set of vertical tabs could make the slit wider or narrower. These tabs should be painted black. Once the box is made, students could also play with different configurations, such as using tin foil to funnel the light. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>SUMMARY OF THE NUMBERS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Sunny Day Landscape normal exposure (the reference exposure)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The f/16 ISO rule.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.imagen-estilo.com/Articles/Photography-basics/sunny-16-rule.html">https://www.imagen-estilo.com/Articles/Photography-basics/sunny-16-rule.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Sunny Day Landscape</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">A normal bright sunny day (BSD) exposure of the landscape in foot-candles.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.takethreelighting.com/light-levels.html">https://www.takethreelighting.com/light-levels.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Direct Sunlight From the Sun</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The brightness of direct sunlight in foot-candles:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">11, 802 foot-candles (127,000 lumens/10.76 lumens per foot candle) or more than 10X the exposure for a sunny landscape.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://kogalla.com/blogs/tech-trail/how-many-lumens-is-the-sun">https://kogalla.com/blogs/tech-trail/how-many-lumens-is-the-sun</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi770Ljk7syFVspvhY2vSMS3JXB6Ug8iz8qGdb8EIaq19J7FraDaox5kzKG72Ai-CECGkDgebLrtRTBarHq6P6HFFFjAwrmXBlKulSQM1diDyM8Ef2FyhtfJNW6t_vvGVTAwocKfX2Mb7_9A0ECxX4atn-wpgUIaHYd9csv0NTksfxUw3yXhuFftoKn/s996/1280px-L%C3%BCbbensteine_-_Pinhole_-_Flickr_-_senpatientuloA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="431" data-original-width="996" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi770Ljk7syFVspvhY2vSMS3JXB6Ug8iz8qGdb8EIaq19J7FraDaox5kzKG72Ai-CECGkDgebLrtRTBarHq6P6HFFFjAwrmXBlKulSQM1diDyM8Ef2FyhtfJNW6t_vvGVTAwocKfX2Mb7_9A0ECxX4atn-wpgUIaHYd9csv0NTksfxUw3yXhuFftoKn/w640-h276/1280px-L%C3%BCbbensteine_-_Pinhole_-_Flickr_-_senpatientuloA.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A quality pinhole photo showing what is possible with pinhole photography.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:L%C3%BCbbensteine_-_Pinhole_-_Flickr_-_senpatientulo.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:L%C3%BCbbensteine_-_Pinhole_-_Flickr_-_senpatientulo.jpg</a></div></div></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><b style="font-size: large;">Sensitivity Of The Human Eye </b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The sensitivity of the human eye in darkness:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">In darkened conditions: ISO 800</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/find/newsLetter/The-Photographic-Eye.jsp">https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/find/newsLetter/The-Photographic-Eye.jsp</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">In total darkness with the eye adjusted to the darkness for half an hour:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">ISO 10000 or 15000</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://thephototeacher.wordpress.com/2016/12/30/camera-versus-the-human-eye/">https://thephototeacher.wordpress.com/2016/12/30/camera-versus-the-human-eye/</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Pinhole size:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Optimal for normal pinhole photography is about .3mm. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">But with a long focal length, 1-3 mm may be necessary.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">There are two main considerations, sharpness and contrast. </span></div><div><span><i>Making, Measuring and Testing the “Optimal” Pinhole: Pinhole Adventures Part 3 – by Sroyon</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.35mmc.com/26/10/2020/making-measuring-and-testing-the-optimal-pinhole-pinhole-adventures-part-3-by-sroyon/">https://www.35mmc.com/26/10/2020/making-measuring-and-testing-the-optimal-pinhole-pinhole-adventures-part-3-by-sroyon/</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">---------</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">This website has detailed information about the needle size and the hole it makes. BUT the information is in inches which, in photography, needs to be in millimeters. So convert the inches to millimeters. When making a pinhole rotate the pin so that you have an evenly round hole.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Pinhole Camera Aperture Chart</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.freestylephoto.biz/pinhole-camera-aperture-chart">https://www.freestylephoto.biz/pinhole-camera-aperture-chart</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFkSkmDWvGAPy3l5uK2BSnVhb-1FnUJaJ3WNHyBuwfl5j2uPQcGm8yXXXfU_aUlEGWBQoTVPMy0hRAu9p9n867WPXuXXd08iisltFy9ZlbQAjfkGugNEOwUhBsNULL9UWXgKqn0KlBZeKAjzq50M-bObGSwNb5i6tWwoIHxWzebcW50Dsq5DBZPjJT/s800/SOLSTICE_PHOTO_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="800" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFkSkmDWvGAPy3l5uK2BSnVhb-1FnUJaJ3WNHyBuwfl5j2uPQcGm8yXXXfU_aUlEGWBQoTVPMy0hRAu9p9n867WPXuXXd08iisltFy9ZlbQAjfkGugNEOwUhBsNULL9UWXgKqn0KlBZeKAjzq50M-bObGSwNb5i6tWwoIHxWzebcW50Dsq5DBZPjJT/w640-h210/SOLSTICE_PHOTO_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>'Solargraphs' taken with pinhole cameras. </div><div>LEFT: Pictures of the sun's path at different times of the year. "Solarography Summer solstice, equinox and winter solstice in Skopje."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jovan_KN2-04.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jovan_KN2-04.jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: "1 year exposure taken on the whole year of 2014. The Sun leaves trails in her apparent motion from East to West. From the third elevation on Sashegy, Buda, Budapest, Hungary."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solargraph_from_Sashegy_-_Budapest,_2014.01.01_-_2014.12.31_(1).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solargraph_from_Sashegy_-_Budapest,_2014.01.01_-_2014.12.31_(1).jpg</a></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The size of the sun</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">1800mm</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>NASA, Space Math</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/YOSS/YOSS.pdf">https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/YOSS/YOSS.pdf</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The amount of movement around the days of the solstice is 30 mm.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Scientific Borobudur</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Dr. Uday Dokras</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>2021, Indo Nordic Author's Collective</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/45293374/Scientific_Borobudur">https://www.academia.edu/45293374/Scientific_Borobudur</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Focal Length</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The focal length is the distance in millimeters between the pinhole and the back wall or the surface that the image is projected onto.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholecameras/exposure_01.html">https://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholecameras/exposure_01.html</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Magnification:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Focal length divided by 40 mm, approx.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Based on the calculations made with the Pinhole Calculator</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.photostuff.co.uk/pinholec.htm">http://www.photostuff.co.uk/pinholec.htm</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>__________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>AFTERWORD</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>MY PINHOLE BACKGROUND</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Years ago I worked with pinhole cameras for a while.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1rEZ4U5CqBRt_DYt46YqvfxG7ISoi1BCVdEi8EiulEKvriLrEKT_DJtCoydu0Jnm29Gz0pOTFNJQqV3dyjqZyQ2pyvVb_lwtDJmb3NPmV8rJJ2lC3NZR_ViZPB4yMl0qyQUn6mUxv1JntRgvXCVsUuJ2JzgEVQIylr5p0-O7pATfLpbkd2jaKwapI/s800/QUAKER_PINHOLE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="294" data-original-width="800" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1rEZ4U5CqBRt_DYt46YqvfxG7ISoi1BCVdEi8EiulEKvriLrEKT_DJtCoydu0Jnm29Gz0pOTFNJQqV3dyjqZyQ2pyvVb_lwtDJmb3NPmV8rJJ2lC3NZR_ViZPB4yMl0qyQUn6mUxv1JntRgvXCVsUuJ2JzgEVQIylr5p0-O7pATfLpbkd2jaKwapI/w640-h236/QUAKER_PINHOLE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: A pinhole camera made from a Quaker Oats box.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Quaker_Oats_Quick_1-Minute_Oats_(43805375390).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Quaker_Oats_Quick_1-Minute_Oats_(43805375390).jpg</a></div><div>RIGHT: A photograph taken with a pinhole camera similar to the Quaker Pinhole (right).</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tridge_Ypsilanti_-_pinhole_photo_by_Matt_Callow.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tridge_Ypsilanti_-_pinhole_photo_by_Matt_Callow.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>I designed and taught a pinhole photography workshop with young people at the Durham Museum of Life and Science for a couple of years. We used a Quaker Oats box for the camera. We then cut a small opening in the middle, attached tin foil over the hole, and then made a pinhole in the tin foil. For film, we used regular photographic printing paper which resulted in a negative image when developed. The kids could then make a positive by contact printing. The negative was placed on top of an unexposed piece of print paper and then a light source was turned on above it. When developed the bottom paper was a positive.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicL-NWG2azzQ-K_Kntm7ZWsmN-WAc4pN-6cTkMRHCDxTX4sCLZlfw9yp62LFyVsrn_2AQAGv-UlyVixYAdosDqvtSiuznIaJTExe8C47uHDhjZkZ-TQ0y5-ekzRicDBMh6lf_F57yAJZPiVxunJp-xt0a-DQAllnBerlpDXbItQW2KtoXxZff5q5Cm/s800/ZEISS_COMPOSITE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="800" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicL-NWG2azzQ-K_Kntm7ZWsmN-WAc4pN-6cTkMRHCDxTX4sCLZlfw9yp62LFyVsrn_2AQAGv-UlyVixYAdosDqvtSiuznIaJTExe8C47uHDhjZkZ-TQ0y5-ekzRicDBMh6lf_F57yAJZPiVxunJp-xt0a-DQAllnBerlpDXbItQW2KtoXxZff5q5Cm/w640-h188/ZEISS_COMPOSITE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>How I made a 'zoom' Polaroid pinhole camera. :)</div><div>A Zeiss Ikon bellows camera of 1925 (left). A Polaroid Big Swinger (middle); I cut the back off with a hacksaw and then attached it to the back of the Zeiss Ikon camera with epoxy. Polaroid Film pack (right). This film pack went into the Polaroid back now attached to the Zeiss Ikon camera.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ica_Ideal_225.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ica_Ideal_225.jpg</a></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polaroid_Big_Swinger_3000.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polaroid_Big_Swinger_3000.jpg</a></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polaroid_Packfilm_offen_IMGP1865_WP.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polaroid_Packfilm_offen_IMGP1865_WP.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>I also invented (sort of) a zoom pinhole Polaroid camera. Really! Someone gave me an old Zeiss Ikon bellows camera made around 1925. I took off the front lens and covered the hole where the lens had been with tin foil. Then I made a pinhole in the tin foil. Next, I took off the Zeiss Ikon film back which was designed for 6X9cm sheet film, and attached the back of a plastic Polaroid 'Big Swinger' camera that I had cut in half with a hacksaw. I used epoxy to join the camera to the Swinger film back. The Swinger used the early Polaroid peel-apart film. Because the bellows could compress to just a few mm in front of the film, making it a wide-angle lens, and then rack all the way out to about half a meter from the film, making it a telephoto lens, I had a zoom pinhole camera. </b></span></div></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmfZ941LHpDXcjXMZ6WHUrgb6JlNsS19YmEMs6bCLpijCzNqUJsLcrle1MfT_00rkk5BskqT5YvaDKO72XAHDorSxI3XevtPBRHQo5SlBebGjkHjHoGANkCUKjL8pf7qWTcOeQYd6xKHQ_lvu3Ps3pXh3Qpln13KOkX456olAo-Sebbqhvf5AjG9jn/s320/summer13.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="320" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmfZ941LHpDXcjXMZ6WHUrgb6JlNsS19YmEMs6bCLpijCzNqUJsLcrle1MfT_00rkk5BskqT5YvaDKO72XAHDorSxI3XevtPBRHQo5SlBebGjkHjHoGANkCUKjL8pf7qWTcOeQYd6xKHQ_lvu3Ps3pXh3Qpln13KOkX456olAo-Sebbqhvf5AjG9jn/w400-h300/summer13.gif" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>A real shaft of sunlight in my home.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This moving image is made from real undoctored photographs that I put together in sequence to make an animation. They are about a surprising 'light show' that happened by chance in our home 20 years ago. The animation was made by shooting regular photographs in sequence and then sandwiching them together to make a GIF animation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">About a month after the spring equinox, a beam of light came through our small kitchen window soon after sunrise. The light then continued through a doorway that funneled the light onto an oil lamp sitting on a shelf 20 feet from the kitchen window. I also observed that the light moved very quickly over the lamp during this time, about 3.5 inches a minute. About ten minutes later the light beam was gone and a week later this event stopped entirely. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">This happened 20 years ago but today, after writing about the light in the passageway at Newgrange, it makes more sense. First: It happened by chance, so similar chance happenings in a forest, for example, could have happened in prehistoric times. Secondly: The way the light was funneled and its distance from the window magnified its movement. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">I am also quite sure that living with changing light from dawn to dusk and from season to season was something that the Neolithic people understood much better than we do today since we spend so much time indoors under artificial light. </div></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">________________________</div><div style="font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">ENDNOTES</div><p>Doble, Rick. "Computing the Winter Solstice at Newgrange: Was Neolithic Science Equal To or Better Than Ancient Greek or Roman Science?" Newgrange.com/winter-solstice-newgrange.htm. <a href="https://www.newgrange.com/winter-solstice-newgrange.htm">https://www.newgrange.com/winter-solstice-newgrange.htm</a></p><p>Dokras, Dr. Uday. Indo Nordic Author's Collective, 2021, p. 27. <a href="https://www.academia.edu/45293374/Scientific_Borobudur">https://www.academia.edu/45293374/Scientific_Borobudur</a></p><p>Duke, Dennis, PhD. Department of Physics, Florida State University, Lecture 2. <a href="https://computingreimagined.com/~dduke/lectures/lecture2.pdf">https://computingreimagined.com/~dduke/lectures/lecture2.pdf</a></p><p>Hensey, Robert. First Light: The Origins of Newgrange, Oxbow Books, 2015. The review cites information from this book. <a href="https://www.newgrange.com/origins-of-newgrange.htm">https://www.newgrange.com/origins-of-newgrange.htm</a></p><p>McClellan, James E. III; Dorn, Harold. Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction, third edition. Johns Hopkins University Press; third edition, 2015, p. 23. </p><p>Murphy, Anthony. "101 facts about Newgrange. " Mythicalireland.com. <a href="https://mythicalireland.com/ancient-sites/101-facts-about-newgrange/">https://mythicalireland.com/ancient-sites/101-facts-about-newgrange/</a></p><p>NASA. "Designing Your Own Newgrange Tomb!" P8Newgrange.pdf, p.1. <a href="http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/SED11/P8Newgrange.pdf">http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/SED11/P8Newgrange.pdf</a></p><p>Newcomb, Tim. "The World’s 20 Most Impressive Ancient Builds." Popular Mechanics, April 8, 2021. <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a35867403/ancient-architecture/">https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a35867403/ancient-architecture/</a></p><p>O'Brien, Tim. "Reflections on Loughcrew and Newgrange." www.newgrange.com. <a href="https://www.newgrange.com/loughcrew-newgrange.htm">https://www.newgrange.com/loughcrew-newgrange.htm</a></p><p>O'Kelly, Claire. Illustrated Guide to Newgrange and the Other Boyne Monuments. 1978, p. 112.</p><p>O'Kelly, Michael J.; O'Kelly, Claire. Newgrange: Archaeology, Art and Legend. Thames & Hudson, 1982.</p><p>Pearse, Roger. "Christmas Day On The Winter Solstice." Roger-pearse.com/weblog. <a href="https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2009/12/26/christmas-day-on-the-winter-solstice/">https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2009/12/26/christmas-day-on-the-winter-solstice/</a></p><p>What is Newgrange? Whatisarchaeo.wixsite.com/whatisarchaeology/newgrange. <a href="https://whatisarchaeo.wixsite.com/whatisarchaeology/newgrange">https://whatisarchaeo.wixsite.com/whatisarchaeology/newgrange</a></p><p>Williams, Ken. "Re-discovering the ‘lost’ records of the Newgrange roof-box." Shadowsandstone.com/newgrange-roofbox <a href="https://www.shadowsandstone.com/newgrange-roofbox">https://www.shadowsandstone.com/newgrange-roofbox</a></p></div></div><div><br /></div></span></div></div></div></span></div></div><p></p>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-72841997773357299872022-02-16T03:30:00.002-05:002022-02-23T01:09:25.719-05:00Pre-Pottery Neolithic Basket Weaving<h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Basket Weaving<br />and Woven-Fiber Technology<br />in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN)<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">By Rick Doble</span></span></h1><h1></h1><h1 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgmJaZBcyDCv2xNsOLye5vg7uNSHtnJ2QVBItR_u3SNduEYkV1Azw4Hw9h0vD_10zJCnCqPFTNLfSj-pz4FaBERwU4v428EbKMH-NtkPWT4zPMK7A2odp1WiYy7Wc9DVmLGgDF53d3tElv3PD8J_qjWHtMTAM4zZzktZ2T840rFNdP1VcFhfzPuxLJ9=s800" style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="800" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgmJaZBcyDCv2xNsOLye5vg7uNSHtnJ2QVBItR_u3SNduEYkV1Azw4Hw9h0vD_10zJCnCqPFTNLfSj-pz4FaBERwU4v428EbKMH-NtkPWT4zPMK7A2odp1WiYy7Wc9DVmLGgDF53d3tElv3PD8J_qjWHtMTAM4zZzktZ2T840rFNdP1VcFhfzPuxLJ9=w640-h428" width="640" /></a></h1><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">"The [basket that this] grandmother is weaving about herself <br />is to be used as a store for grains and vegetables."<br />This storage basket is very similar to an early Neolithic basket that was just found.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This is a colorized b&w photo from <br /><i>American Indians: first families of the Southwest</i> by Huckel.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Indians_-_first_families_of_the_Southwest_(1920)_(14775904322).jpg" style="font-size: x-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Indians_-_first_families_of_the_Southwest_(1920)_(14775904322).jpg</a>></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">"Relatively few tribes of American Indians understood pottery, except in the crudest form. As for basketry, it may be said that every Indian from the land of the Esquimaux down through Mexico was a basket weaver."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div></div><div><b>ABSTRACT</b></div><div>It is clear from the fact that pottery had not been invented until late in the Neolithic era, that other tools and implements must have been fabricated during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN). Serge Svizzero points out in his quoted article that agriculture would have required a necessary set of support tools and containers to be successful; it is not enough to say that the Neolithic way of life occurred because of agriculture and the domestication of animals. In this article, I present direct and indirect evidence of Neolithic basketry to show that many of these implements could have been made using woven-fiber technology or basket weaving skills, a technology that may have been passed down from Upper Paleolithic societies. And I suggest these skills continued to be employed all during the Neolithic time period. Furthermore, I suggest these skills were passed on to the emerging civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt who made full use of this technology when needed.</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="font-size: xx-large;"><br /></b></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>INTRODUCTION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>There is a large gap in the commonly accepted timeline of Neolithic technological development. Agriculture, domestication of animals, polished stone tools, pottery, and textiles are the accepted hallmarks of the Neolithic time period. But pottery did not occur until about 6,500 BCE and the domestication of pack animals did not occur until 3,500 BCE. This means that during the early part of the Neolithic, or for at least 3500 years, a large number of containers, implements, and tools were made with pre-pottery, pre-pack animal technology. And the technology that probably provided many of these things was basket weaving technology or woven-fiber technology as I have suggested this technology be called. Yet when I researched this topic, I could find almost no mention of basket weaving technology in the early Neolithic even though there is now direct evidence of basket use. However, I was able to find a substantial amount of information about Neolithic pottery. Clearly, baskets played a major role in the establishment of Neolithic settlements and were widely used before and after pottery took hold. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>THE NEOLITHIC TIME PERIOD:</b> It is generally agreed that the time period of the Neolithic in the Levant went from ca. 10,000 BCE to ca. 4000 BCE when the first cities began to emerge in Mesopotamia. The first part of the Neolithic era, known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic A & B (PPN), ran from ca. 10,000 to ca. 6,500 BCE. This was followed by the Pottery Neolithic time period which ran from ca. 6,500 - ca, 4,000 BCE. In other words the PPN eras lasted about 3500 years and its technology proceeded the later Pottery Neolithic which lasted about 2500 years.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">NOTE: These dates can only be roughly assigned and will change as discoveries are made. At the moment the above applies to the areas around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the Persian Gulf.</span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This is another example of basket technology being taken for granted or simply not considered, even though it was crucial for Neolithic development and furthermore it had become highly developed and useful in the time period before the Neolithic. Later it would be just as important to the first civilizations. </b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><div><b>ABOUT THE NEOLITHIC TIME PERIOD</b></div><div>The Neolithic is not a fixed time period. It is a time after the Upper Paleolithic (the late Old Stone Age) and before the emergence of civilization when hunter-gatherers settled into a permanent sedentary life of villages and agriculture. For example, in Europe the Neolithic ended much later than in Mesopotamia and Egypt. The first civilizations in Mesopotamia emerged about 6000 years ago while the first European civilizations began less than 4000 years ago.</div><div><b>NOTE ABOUT THE MESOLITHIC:</b> There is a time period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic called the Mesolithic which was a transitory period when many hunter-gatherers became semi-nomadic, for example. In this blog-article I mainly am concerned with the Neolithic time before the emergence of civilization.<span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div></blockquote><p> </p><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY AND NEOLITHIC CULTURES</div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">It is my contention that advanced woven-fiber technology by nomadic hunter-gatherers of the Upper Paleolithic (see my earlier blog-article) was passed on to Neolithic cultures. Then during the Neolithic sedentary way of life people were able to expand and develop these technologies to create a kind of "infrastructure" that would allow them to farm and settle in villages. As Svizzero points out (see next), the Neolithic was not just about farming and domesticating goats and sheep, it required a wealth of support items many of which were woven-fiber based, such as large grain storage baskets used to store seeds for next year's harvest, waterproof woven fiber containers (often coated with bitumen) for irrigation and carrying water, grass houses, small boats, sandals, hats, fences, and much more.</div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY IN THE NEOLITHIC ERA</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>When the Neolithic revolution -- or more likely a slow transition -- occurred, there must have been a large number of support implements and methods that developed but are not often mentioned. The following quote makes this clear.</b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;"><i></i></span></b></div><blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: large;"><i> Persistent Controversies About The Neolithic Revolution</i></span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>"The domestication of plants and animals is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the transition from foraging to an economy fully-based on agriculture to occur. Indeed, domestication can be seen as an innovation but many other innovations are required for the whole human population to be fed from agropastoralism activities. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>"These additional innovations are respectively related to the production of food resources, their processing, storage and consumption. Even if we consider agriculture in its first stage, specific tools and techniques are required, for instance, a digging stick to sow grains, an irrigation system, even if it is very basic or a sickle to harvest cereals. Once they have been harvested, domestic cereals require human activity, in the form of threshing and winnowing, to separate and disperse seeds. Once the seeds were obtained, they had to be stored in order to reduce the seasonal food risks. This requires some storage systems.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>"Even though the innovations listed above seem us to be very basic they were all necessary for a complete transition to agriculture."</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>(Svizzero, "Persistent Controversies About The Neolithic Revolution")</b></div></blockquote><div style="font-size: large;"><b></b></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"></div><blockquote style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><div>PACK ANIMAL, any domesticated animal that is used to carry freight, goods, or supplies. The ass or donkey is the oldest-known pack animal, having been in use possibly as early as 3500 BCE</div><div><<a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/pack-animal">https://www.britannica.com/technology/pack-animal</a>></div></blockquote><p> </p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">WHAT WAS USED BEFORE PACK ANIMALS? BURDEN BASKETS?</span></b></p><p><b style="font-size: large;">Although the following is only an educated guess, I believe it is worth considering as it provides a logical way that harvesting and processing grain, for example, would have been done before pack animals. </b></p><p><b style="font-size: large;">I suggest that early Neolithic people employed 'burden baskets'. These are often huge baskets, carried on the back, that are capable of carrying a substantial amount of harvested plants. These baskets are still in use by hunter-gatherers today and were widely used by nomadic Native American Indians and other tribes. They were so important many Indian tribes had a unique design and also a unique name for these baskets as they had a special status. And they are still in use today in virtually every region of the world. Of course, like all baskets, we do not have direct evidence as these baskets from long ago would have decayed and left no indication of their existence. But their wide cross-cultural use, use by contemporary hunter-gatherers, and continued recent use on farms suggest that they could have been made in the Neolithic time period and would have helped accomplish the work these societies needed to bring in the harvest.<br /><br /></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgPlmyBBcprFOSEMUnl41zLxZa7PxD-IfJfDLOuZaCSfGn3nue0AKZBTSckwq1oWyW8eI912V6WV-FJLIr2ero-lazTsZIZA_P3LpGH1XZP1mrD5VaquOCxoCMCEA6E2GYJTS7lnWMXh59B_ICFyq1v_m2LeaouXqpkuqInqP3qzfXPRCkvrpUjnGub=s800" style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="509" data-original-width="800" height="408" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgPlmyBBcprFOSEMUnl41zLxZa7PxD-IfJfDLOuZaCSfGn3nue0AKZBTSckwq1oWyW8eI912V6WV-FJLIr2ero-lazTsZIZA_P3LpGH1XZP1mrD5VaquOCxoCMCEA6E2GYJTS7lnWMXh59B_ICFyq1v_m2LeaouXqpkuqInqP3qzfXPRCkvrpUjnGub=w640-h408" width="640" /></a>Contemporary pygmy hunter-gatherers use burden baskets for a variety of purposes.<br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pygm%C3%A9es_(RDC).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pygm%C3%A9es_(RDC).jpg</a>><br /><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiK-AB1gMGbLhjRGelhNK6HCbiUovSOCQm-NdL3_lYxX7p6m24NIElYQZD4TcQmCsjIQKy4WoiciRcPYp4v5Y4jFhDyrTbnQ12nyL8Z1lAJSsBMtnw9csUZIhi4-o9-VIuFK5HMqrYYlE_LRLhDEo17ztY2W4N7RoQc-ft73vqBm-DbMCQXaC_lRZg7=s800" style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="800" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiK-AB1gMGbLhjRGelhNK6HCbiUovSOCQm-NdL3_lYxX7p6m24NIElYQZD4TcQmCsjIQKy4WoiciRcPYp4v5Y4jFhDyrTbnQ12nyL8Z1lAJSsBMtnw9csUZIhi4-o9-VIuFK5HMqrYYlE_LRLhDEo17ztY2W4N7RoQc-ft73vqBm-DbMCQXaC_lRZg7=w640-h376" width="640" /></a>Back baskets in Slovenia ca. 1963.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ka%C5%A1perjev_Janez_z_listnim_ko%C5%A1em_%22kranjska_svetloba%22,_Podlani%C5%A1%C4%8De_1954.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ka%C5%A1perjev_Janez_z_listnim_ko%C5%A1em_%22kranjska_svetloba%22,_Podlani%C5%A1%C4%8De_1954.jpg</a>></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:V_ko%C5%A1u_nosi_seno_s_travnika,_Spodnje_Zre%C4%8De_1963_(2).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:V_ko%C5%A1u_nosi_seno_s_travnika,_Spodnje_Zre%C4%8De_1963_(2).jpg</a>></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4mAPAq_KzmwmiSu_gQ-X00C6bGMiWba3GevSN9KBVZZ5Vxnu9JpvDPUKN5_z1pYEyBJN4Jz4nLOE1ofiti6QOX9jzwmohHs_eLdKTa11pm4lu4Y4LUu-A-6FLN4-cybl_EmrB_L9pI6Of6DhD01AtECUZdRo-tyKOTAxe0Z4ya0v2JHnJXeDte7QC=s800" style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="344" data-original-width="800" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4mAPAq_KzmwmiSu_gQ-X00C6bGMiWba3GevSN9KBVZZ5Vxnu9JpvDPUKN5_z1pYEyBJN4Jz4nLOE1ofiti6QOX9jzwmohHs_eLdKTa11pm4lu4Y4LUu-A-6FLN4-cybl_EmrB_L9pI6Of6DhD01AtECUZdRo-tyKOTAxe0Z4ya0v2JHnJXeDte7QC=w640-h276" width="640" /></a>LEFT: "<span>Haymaking - man collects grass in a pannier"<br /></span><span>RIGHT: Harvest in Argenteuil (France) </span>at the beginning of the 20th century.<br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:046_Fienagione_-_uomo_raccoglie_l%27erba_in_una_gerla.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:046_Fienagione_-_uomo_raccoglie_l%27erba_in_una_gerla.jpg</a>><br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vendange_argenteuil_95.png">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vendange_argenteuil_95.png</a>></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjwBC-98jfdd8yE-E0LnSwdAhhLbYg0cOF2PIO2eGdQfrRE97WIjnR3tRhtL_c0IhjqKkr7TRUL7mVFuVd0y9OrlIwschzrN3oWf6CXinTDFnY9Cma1yXEknwx_bEtAv5WuXwZVZHMmhhS6ghmwYAWI3ycaHIwaO4gga2xM-Av9uMU5nyeTpCBA21v5=s800" style="font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="501" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjwBC-98jfdd8yE-E0LnSwdAhhLbYg0cOF2PIO2eGdQfrRE97WIjnR3tRhtL_c0IhjqKkr7TRUL7mVFuVd0y9OrlIwschzrN3oWf6CXinTDFnY9Cma1yXEknwx_bEtAv5WuXwZVZHMmhhS6ghmwYAWI3ycaHIwaO4gga2xM-Av9uMU5nyeTpCBA21v5=w640-h400" width="640" /></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: 400;">LEFT: Pima Carrying Frame<br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: 400;">(Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, Fig. 100, p. 294)<br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: 400;">RIGHT: "Pima Indian woman...carrying firewood in her Kathak"<br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: 400;">(University of Southern California, 1904, Pima Indian woman)<br /><br /></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg00KzKGM1MW3TJj4BoTREIxSwD-Y-iZLDAhopEDtB3H-9WWB2_15ugMRxoooq2R7khXsMtPZyfdyskubexgJC2x_ywu4NaIpJKwM_ItQ8dgyIfaT8IjbRa5ZuYNxfneRAsyUPIux4KABDMKE-2ke80Ue2xP5EdeHTffqP3zXaGet1QXwy4LOVdool_=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="800" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg00KzKGM1MW3TJj4BoTREIxSwD-Y-iZLDAhopEDtB3H-9WWB2_15ugMRxoooq2R7khXsMtPZyfdyskubexgJC2x_ywu4NaIpJKwM_ItQ8dgyIfaT8IjbRa5ZuYNxfneRAsyUPIux4KABDMKE-2ke80Ue2xP5EdeHTffqP3zXaGet1QXwy4LOVdool_=w640-h316" width="640" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><div style="text-align: center;">LEFT: Carrying Basket, Paiute Indians, Utah.</div><div style="text-align: center;">(Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, Fig. 185, p. 494)</div><div style="text-align: center;">RIGHT: "Apache Indian woman carrying a "Kathak" on her back, Arizona, ca.1880."</div><div style="text-align: center;">(University of Southern California, ca.1880, Apache Indian woman carrying a "Kathak")</div><span style="text-align: start;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEimLfIsiup91lUrnJzt8P1zKYzG4OIwcCh810nmUNHiLTrbN5Cr-gJvSaVjAt7ZjCYAUp-yYeMLamgn0_EEWzCy48LzZrtb1CE1lejRn6MuT76MaAsNigGu42onmQTRADlGOzR3_TSFeYuOKfIh7_sPEqRQjlRaRsAK6guBFhipYhOTam-DPV1PUwQ7=s758" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="758" height="592" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEimLfIsiup91lUrnJzt8P1zKYzG4OIwcCh810nmUNHiLTrbN5Cr-gJvSaVjAt7ZjCYAUp-yYeMLamgn0_EEWzCy48LzZrtb1CE1lejRn6MuT76MaAsNigGu42onmQTRADlGOzR3_TSFeYuOKfIh7_sPEqRQjlRaRsAK6guBFhipYhOTam-DPV1PUwQ7=w640-h592" width="640" /></a><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">"Silva, 3 years old, goes to the field with her mother in 1954," Slovenia.<br /></span></span><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silva,_3_leta,_Planina,_gre_s_ko%C5%A1kom_z_materjo_na_njivo_1954.jpg" style="color: #29aae1; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-family: arial;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silva,_3_leta,_Planina,_gre_s_koškom_z_materjo_na_njivo_1954.jpg</span></a>></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Burden baskets are just one example of woven-fiber technology that could have been used in the Neolithic era. And even when pack animals were common, they carried baskets, such as these esparto donkey panniers pictured here.</b></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgnm6Kj64NuuzFQ4US-Mjb4-yxIgFYA6CMHgFuwXxBs6igGcxBIsw9iqWPpsEN6nXoVHpFF-TBv5VZHRxTQBy09iEGfPrGg7xxjhiZ-Ma3cKLLvlJ_L_Ru4WdxPZcVSew11_dGuvlocbEZoBIvPeBvuTGg199nO1dq7epR1UWEHN1wc3qlCIjYGTJEn=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="765" data-original-width="800" height="383" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgnm6Kj64NuuzFQ4US-Mjb4-yxIgFYA6CMHgFuwXxBs6igGcxBIsw9iqWPpsEN6nXoVHpFF-TBv5VZHRxTQBy09iEGfPrGg7xxjhiZ-Ma3cKLLvlJ_L_Ru4WdxPZcVSew11_dGuvlocbEZoBIvPeBvuTGg199nO1dq7epR1UWEHN1wc3qlCIjYGTJEn=w400-h383" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey_panniers.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey_panniers.jpg</a>></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b>BASKET IMPLEMENTS IN THE PRE-POTTERY NEOLITHIC </b></span></div><div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>As I pointed out earlier, for more than half of the Neolithic era, there was no pottery, yet these agricultural societies clearly needed a wide variety of containers and related items for harvesting, winnowing, milling, sifting, and storing plus household items for cooking. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br />I argue that many woven-fiber items were invented, created, and used for agriculture. But as I wrote in the article before this one, much of this technology had been handed down from Paleolithic societies. Here are some examples of grain processing baskets that Native American Indians used around 1900 when these photos were taken. As I have pointed out in my previous article, many Native American Indians lived a way of life that was roughly equivalent to the Upper Paleolithic in Europe so studying their technology may be helpful.</b></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRNFRdgLdQeJ4pNKQbf7NZ1tfaoWoydWv4s7Yu7PAiyyPtKeGyn13wgWxNZpGzt2TQ4mGKWM31bT8ZTf_HWuM9zQ7_pYeuBCoyYDs-ixQuAIQp-5ZrQIUX4VLxx94rWl4tR6M_1EfBOKdFjpAn4gkrutL8iTm7ZSmBc1HcA7VgOiG7NiRq-aZBzwEC=s918" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="918" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRNFRdgLdQeJ4pNKQbf7NZ1tfaoWoydWv4s7Yu7PAiyyPtKeGyn13wgWxNZpGzt2TQ4mGKWM31bT8ZTf_HWuM9zQ7_pYeuBCoyYDs-ixQuAIQp-5ZrQIUX4VLxx94rWl4tR6M_1EfBOKdFjpAn4gkrutL8iTm7ZSmBc1HcA7VgOiG7NiRq-aZBzwEC=w446-h640" width="446" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Examples of milling baskets; Pomo milling baskets. </div><div>(Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, Plate 97, explanation p. 350)</div><div><br /></div></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEha7eOWAREd1Pyq8NKWEpEDTDMY3nPP8Vyr_x3M5lMn-z3tjPCfZHA90ajx95rWIKe6rtJYteBVfbfZkJ--AfGdm_bsC0cJDX_FgT-g8UdaODnQ-WTKdi_ca4Db67bHpBeSAlvd6_3L8psQqOM9-5Am2eCSA4eF_5nZSDoRPUKR4Sn7Ii3SmQnfB_04=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="800" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEha7eOWAREd1Pyq8NKWEpEDTDMY3nPP8Vyr_x3M5lMn-z3tjPCfZHA90ajx95rWIKe6rtJYteBVfbfZkJ--AfGdm_bsC0cJDX_FgT-g8UdaODnQ-WTKdi_ca4Db67bHpBeSAlvd6_3L8psQqOM9-5Am2eCSA4eF_5nZSDoRPUKR4Sn7Ii3SmQnfB_04=w640-h350" width="640" /></a></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">LEFT: Paiute Indian woman grinding acorns for flour, Lemoore, Kings County, ca.1900.<br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paiute_indian_woman_grinding_acorns_for_flour,_Lemoore,_Kings_County,_ca.1900_(CHS-922).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paiute_indian_woman_grinding_acorns_for_flour,_Lemoore,_Kings_County,_ca.1900_(CHS-922).jpg</a>><br />RIGHT: Yokut woman shifting meal.<br /><<a href="https://archive.org/details/aboriginalameric00maso/page/n579/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/aboriginalameric00maso/page/n579/mode/2up</a>></div><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></p><span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZhbP_48pifJTvPclOB_q8vAX6Xg3n1C7ZNDH5ZSvElGE6HUJKoo3iKpGenR0Mm4SCF-5jrIsGzb0DYG2VTBhZzeM5hrB7qffZy2ZsCM3GDSrlB-WQ7jX5LQgvqljhqCEtq3tOGCxF_wjBho5yWxOzfGS-YwnPW4J8ja-E8-sxkmooKstZSTutXsQy=s800" style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="358" data-original-width="800" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZhbP_48pifJTvPclOB_q8vAX6Xg3n1C7ZNDH5ZSvElGE6HUJKoo3iKpGenR0Mm4SCF-5jrIsGzb0DYG2VTBhZzeM5hrB7qffZy2ZsCM3GDSrlB-WQ7jX5LQgvqljhqCEtq3tOGCxF_wjBho5yWxOzfGS-YwnPW4J8ja-E8-sxkmooKstZSTutXsQy=w640-h286" width="640" /></a>"Gathering Seeds--Coast Pomo," 1911, Edward_S._Curtis_Collection.<br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_S._Curtis_Collection_%E2%80%94_Gathering_Seeds--Coast_Pomo.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_S._Curtis_Collection_%E2%80%94_Gathering_Seeds--Coast_Pomo.jpg</a>></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg15VzQtITAa8zKh8GkbUmFpcVgI47qBohsWJg0xlCM_G8Lt6CIVeH3ClqOeYbXHBbgafrxKOU0WQSX5kkTCRSAXhBT4zCB7a9Bro9yEHG_WAgelTCdSEivhLnCXIzUl6VtAAk8sK2tJW4ZPwyx8NODKxZpJMs5AxK673aoB8BBGFP1TxQNt000iah6=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="800" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg15VzQtITAa8zKh8GkbUmFpcVgI47qBohsWJg0xlCM_G8Lt6CIVeH3ClqOeYbXHBbgafrxKOU0WQSX5kkTCRSAXhBT4zCB7a9Bro9yEHG_WAgelTCdSEivhLnCXIzUl6VtAAk8sK2tJW4ZPwyx8NODKxZpJMs5AxK673aoB8BBGFP1TxQNt000iah6=w640-h488" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">From this photo, it appears that the 'paddle' this Pomo Indian woman used was carefully constructed. It has a wrapped handle and a strong paddle surface for hitting plants so that she could collect their seeds in a burden basket.</div></span><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>BASKETS ARE TOOLS</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>For some reason, baskets are not often included as tools, but they are. Thinking of baskets as tools changes the way that they are evaluated and also elevates their importance.</b></span></div></blockquote><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgV5w0WV174a_R0ADT03Vc8Sm21debqWPwR5wDnr000G-i1d-ROlqFOcXJDK_fueC2UrXFnVl-BjLetE_iPO145DhRULp3jXsOyALG4KGzRVAxS12EI2I0qFJUry7VU1WCGHcjGbV5b97xgZPieZN7uKjSNaipczUCkaaAczbUMBsDy8xSA7JFZ6S-1=s802" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="802" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgV5w0WV174a_R0ADT03Vc8Sm21debqWPwR5wDnr000G-i1d-ROlqFOcXJDK_fueC2UrXFnVl-BjLetE_iPO145DhRULp3jXsOyALG4KGzRVAxS12EI2I0qFJUry7VU1WCGHcjGbV5b97xgZPieZN7uKjSNaipczUCkaaAczbUMBsDy8xSA7JFZ6S-1=w510-h640" width="510" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Baskets were important tools for Egyptian agriculture.<br />TOP: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_second_series_of_the_Manners_and_customs_of_the_ancient_Egyptians_(Page_87)_BHL21584712.jpg"><https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_second_series_of_the_Manners_and_customs_of_the_ancient_Egyptians_(Page_87)_BHL21584712.jpg></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">BOTTOM:</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mietitura_delle_spighe-_ricolta_e_battitura_delle_medesime_(NYPL_b14291206-425523).jpg"><https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mietitura_delle_spighe-_ricolta_e_battitura_delle_medesime_(NYPL_b14291206-425523).jpg></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>ESPARTO WOVEN-FIBER ARTIFACTS</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Just how versatile was this technology? What kind of products could it provide? Woven-fiber technology was dependent on the plants that grew wild locally. So reeds were plentiful and versatile around Mesopotamia, papyrus was widely used in Lower Egypt, and in Spain and in North Africa the esparto plant was valued for its many uses.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br />Fortunately, in the case of esparto, we have direct evidence since many baskets, shoes, and mats from the Neolithic era (5200-4600 BCE OR 7200-6600 BP. Los Murcielagos Cave, Albunol, province of Granada, Andalusia) have survived intact. They were found in a dry cave near Granada Spain. The existence of these items also shows that basketry and weaving technologies were being widely used in the Neolithic. </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6QFTGNOc74KrMLxMCVHeLfjQn0AsGknsazeey7nKee7mMLCDWSLD5b5yWVZfLYxgx9fTyLAusClqf7YvBFbiHZJn1sz9CYQVtWMbft1D2CbEWbgnYD_nqfugzIn2LSLtkUloCT_eKUNMPALeaFKJx_4coQwt1lJVLLqNRdMQit6vxQdBaFGou7jML=s575" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="575" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6QFTGNOc74KrMLxMCVHeLfjQn0AsGknsazeey7nKee7mMLCDWSLD5b5yWVZfLYxgx9fTyLAusClqf7YvBFbiHZJn1sz9CYQVtWMbft1D2CbEWbgnYD_nqfugzIn2LSLtkUloCT_eKUNMPALeaFKJx_4coQwt1lJVLLqNRdMQit6vxQdBaFGou7jML=s320" width="320" /></a></div>Esparto distribution.<br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Esparto_distribution.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Esparto_distribution.jpg</a>></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The following is quoted from:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>Traditional Craft Techniques of Esparto Grass (Stipa tenacissima L.) in Spain</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/19717708/Traditional_Craft_Techniques_of_Esparto_Grass_Stipa_tenacissima_L_in_Spain?auto=download">https://www.academia.edu/19717708/Traditional_Craft_Techniques_of_Esparto_Grass_Stipa_tenacissima_L_in_Spain?auto=download</a></span></div><div><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Numerous archaeological artifacts and remains of esparto basketry have been discovered that date from the Neolithic period in southeast Spain. THESE PIECES DEMONSTRATE HIGH STANDARDS OF QUALITY COMPARED WITH MORE MODERN PIECES. [ED. My emphasis] In addition, there are many imprints of esparto basketry in clay or pottery (Ayala and Jiménez 2007). Among the abundant archaeological remains, some of the most outstanding are the artifacts dating back to 7,200– 6,600 BP, which were found with several mummies in Cueva de los Murciélagos (Granada). These pieces represented clothes, hats, tunics, sandals, baskets, and ropes—ALL MADE WITH THE FINEST TECHNIQUES. </b></span><b style="font-size: large;">[ED. My emphasis] </b><b style="font-size: large;"> In some cases, the artifacts included colored espartos." (Fajardo et al. "Traditional Craft Techniques of Esparto Grass...")</b></blockquote></div><div></div><blockquote><div><b>The authors list all the things that can be made with esparto:</b></div><div>Baskets (wide variety), Beehive, Belt for mules and donkeys, Bottle and container covers, Bowls, Canteen, Chair, Cheese mold, Clothing, Covered basket, Donkey pannier, Dough basket, Espadrilles Esparteñas, Fan, Ferret basket, Fishing net, Fish trap, Fodder basket to feed animals, specially mules and horses, Hat Sombrero, Long rug, Net for fishing or to carry straw in the cart, Oil mill basket for pressing olive pulp, Pitcher, Rope, Round rug, Saddle, Saffron basket to collect saffron flowers, Sandals, Shepherd spoon, Provisional spoon to eat curd, Shutters to keep the home fresh, Shepherd’s slings, Snail basket to catch snails, Sowing basket, Stool, Swarm catcher to catch bee swarms, Table mat, Toys and ornaments, Tunics.</div></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Baskets, Shoes, And Mats From The Neolithic Era (5200 - 4600 BCE or 7200 - 6600 BP)</b></span> <br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Found In Los Murcielagos Cave, Albunol, Province Of Granada, Andalusia, Spain.</span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhT6PodkzycpPFosFwL_RqXR_WzQKtqwq3m1bbeXJlSajbGWzS0QfhIU23asOLmGKK4e4mjXOzFKhC_yX7d5m5iKYnW-3flmpnFgM2DVdOkm5J6_kgSN7lNkv18uvaC3Uzdm9XFkxdw_fz45FaFNfmf-VEfb04CBnGVFYzeay4QnILrT1Omj1a5ecVI=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="344" data-original-width="800" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhT6PodkzycpPFosFwL_RqXR_WzQKtqwq3m1bbeXJlSajbGWzS0QfhIU23asOLmGKK4e4mjXOzFKhC_yX7d5m5iKYnW-3flmpnFgM2DVdOkm5J6_kgSN7lNkv18uvaC3Uzdm9XFkxdw_fz45FaFNfmf-VEfb04CBnGVFYzeay4QnILrT1Omj1a5ecVI=w640-h276" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Bowl RIGHT: Detail of bowl</div><div><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cester%C3%ADa_Murci%C3%A9lagos_03.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cester%C3%ADa_Murci%C3%A9lagos_03.JPG</a>></div></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgE34mLiwKt6aLY1a-gupPTMppXG1UnSFY4L4NTkyX-Hpt9OgQZm9VGOXnN8zDtQwrxHlptz_mhotLIcwp8O7Yo8kX4cjH7Uarlgx7LEeV0PmxpdGBifR7RhCnyhwbnoCBSuA9_OgV1mTz-04TaagYAzkphGFTruQrfiFYFQ88Tauyx28iaCtjyFAUA=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="800" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgE34mLiwKt6aLY1a-gupPTMppXG1UnSFY4L4NTkyX-Hpt9OgQZm9VGOXnN8zDtQwrxHlptz_mhotLIcwp8O7Yo8kX4cjH7Uarlgx7LEeV0PmxpdGBifR7RhCnyhwbnoCBSuA9_OgV1mTz-04TaagYAzkphGFTruQrfiFYFQ88Tauyx28iaCtjyFAUA=w640-h376" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Basket RIGHT: Detail of basket</div><div><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cester%C3%ADa_Murci%C3%A9lagos_02.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cester%C3%ADa_Murci%C3%A9lagos_02.JPG</a>></div></div><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgeYW7kR1zXZJ6AdPLZhtjTjcDonryhheGaFjBdMO4fgtgiycKzOphyvupQUfSoGAfrz1t6mf3NsyCQtfKS63moc0PfNFFwZ1kDQLWhfCILCX0a0jxhhYD_sS7uYJ2SPHy4YPDfF167WmwY9AiJFjuzVGj2RRzB1yP4vVX-O2KABtpqKa7HtulC5Uid=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="368" data-original-width="800" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgeYW7kR1zXZJ6AdPLZhtjTjcDonryhheGaFjBdMO4fgtgiycKzOphyvupQUfSoGAfrz1t6mf3NsyCQtfKS63moc0PfNFFwZ1kDQLWhfCILCX0a0jxhhYD_sS7uYJ2SPHy4YPDfF167WmwY9AiJFjuzVGj2RRzB1yP4vVX-O2KABtpqKa7HtulC5Uid=w640-h294" width="640" /></a>LEFT: Mat fragment. RIGHT: Detail of mat fragment.<br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fragmento_de_estera._Neol%C3%ADtico._Museo_Arqueol%C3%B3gico_Nacional_de_Espa%C3%B1a.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fragmento_de_estera._Neol%C3%ADtico._Museo_Arqueol%C3%B3gico_Nacional_de_Espa%C3%B1a.jpg</a>><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2HwNvgKphLNgJyypoUsxJxzYRNJOfjUgPiv-WWSYyRFINEtdP2hHeL7vkfV6lHI0e9J9IZV1knq_ez6oMNq_h8mdPVatxdQ32b9SkPbNsNCmXmSIf54lB2d8-5S1ob6Tp2uAGsK3xB1MeQWV3VlhLMkjFA5K___WS_JVnjkluvy7oNcujf4sqQPkX=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="800" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2HwNvgKphLNgJyypoUsxJxzYRNJOfjUgPiv-WWSYyRFINEtdP2hHeL7vkfV6lHI0e9J9IZV1knq_ez6oMNq_h8mdPVatxdQ32b9SkPbNsNCmXmSIf54lB2d8-5S1ob6Tp2uAGsK3xB1MeQWV3VlhLMkjFA5K___WS_JVnjkluvy7oNcujf4sqQPkX=w640-h340" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Neolithic Sandals </div><div><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandalias_del_Neol%C3%ADtico_de_Albu%C3%B1ol_(M.A.N._Inv._595_y_596)_01.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandalias_del_Neol%C3%ADtico_de_Albu%C3%B1ol_(M.A.N._Inv._595_y_596)_01.jpg</a>><br /><br /></div></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjf9YllTky7htqr0DnqniL8qjxzb4WP_5Cs-Rjrhojw_MckJExgWhdQQKGBJV14dxbBjJ87x-graqgUV3DOlT5IfQt1QPE1rCVQZELjF5O4gxDoKLtp47veZO2U98WhRNaiTdZmv9rVoZGZB6vDb0Uu8VB2l7CAhogW7zCPPtK1lYIJ5J3YZZyOPG4o=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="800" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjf9YllTky7htqr0DnqniL8qjxzb4WP_5Cs-Rjrhojw_MckJExgWhdQQKGBJV14dxbBjJ87x-graqgUV3DOlT5IfQt1QPE1rCVQZELjF5O4gxDoKLtp47veZO2U98WhRNaiTdZmv9rVoZGZB6vDb0Uu8VB2l7CAhogW7zCPPtK1lYIJ5J3YZZyOPG4o=w640-h238" width="640" /></a></p><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: Recreation of a Neolithic snail basket, <br />a traditional basket for collecting and gathering snails <br />RIGHT: Detail snail basket</div><div><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Snail_basket.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Snail_basket.jpg</a>></div></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>There are also many ways of processing the esparto plant and many ways of weaving the plant for various purposes which show the depth of knowledge people had.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">DIRECT EVIDENCE OF NEOLITHIC BASKETRY IN AGRICULTURE</div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">In 2021 in Israel the world's oldest complete basket, including lids, was discovered and dated to 10,500 years ago (BP), or near the beginning of the Neolithic era.</div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">This large basket could hold about 92 liters or about 24 gallons, about as big as a human torso. According to Dr. Haim Cohen of the Israel Antiquities Authority project, "the ancient people who manufactured it probably...used it for storage."</div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">This find was a major discovery. It was direct evidence of basketry in the early part of the Neolithic.(Palace "Oldest Basket Ever Found") </div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><<a href="https://www.thevintagenews.com/2021/03/24/basket/">https://www.thevintagenews.com/2021/03/24/basket/</a>></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">This basket looks remarkably like this Native American Indian basket pictured next. The size, the shape, and even the lids are similar.</div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg9Q23ym_zwb1g-_QBVGJdGdq-mx-Q1mMQ4aJUdx8hpzQBXFGJfwpBMA2_SZP76nmtzOdLSzqj7KWS3CXp9MYUtmTDOE7pz7i9NEZts2mLqcgVpZbTqc-UE8LN1Tq-Bvc3V0-X3slE-sG6XY1izeuHPILzk2EA3IKbj5Pzq-m9WBapGCqE_hh-82mmp=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="703" data-original-width="800" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg9Q23ym_zwb1g-_QBVGJdGdq-mx-Q1mMQ4aJUdx8hpzQBXFGJfwpBMA2_SZP76nmtzOdLSzqj7KWS3CXp9MYUtmTDOE7pz7i9NEZts2mLqcgVpZbTqc-UE8LN1Tq-Bvc3V0-X3slE-sG6XY1izeuHPILzk2EA3IKbj5Pzq-m9WBapGCqE_hh-82mmp=w400-h351" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: 400;">Coiled Granary, Pima Indians</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: 400;">The newly discovered basket in Israel looks remarkably like this <br />large Native American Indian one which was also used for storage and had similar lids.<br />(Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, Fig. 203, p. 524)</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: 400;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><b>OTHER NEOLITHIC BASKET FINDS</b></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"The oldest basketry found in Egypt dates to the Neolithic period (ca. 5900–4000 BCE). In the Fayum Oasis, about 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Cairo, grain storage pits were excavated in the desert floor, lined with coarse straw basketry." "Near the Neolithic grain storage pits part of an extremely finely coiled basket was found, dated to about 4200 BCE, made of separate bundle and winder materials..." </b></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Wendrich "Basketry in Ancient Egypt")</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Basketry is known from the earliest sites in Egypt [ED: Neolithic]. Remains of baskets have been found in the Fayum dating to the Neolithic period, about 5000 BCE. Basketry found in a predynastic context [ED: i.e., Neolithic] is often of very high quality, not surpassed later." (Bizzari "Weaving And Basketry In Ancient And Modern Egypt")</b></span></div></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>This direct evidence indicates that basket weaving was an essential technology in the Neolithic. But baskets are not the only example of woven-fiber technology. Weaving cloth, building large grass houses, and thatching roofs, were also highly developed. This has been well established. So weaving skills were widespread and very much a part of Neolithic life.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: large;">ABOUT WEAVING AND NEOLITHIC LOOMS</span></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">The establishment of weaving and making cloth throughout Neolithic societies, both in the Levant and later in Europe, indicates that in the early Neolithic these societies were well acquainted with the art of weaving in general and also skilled in the making of thread.</div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Impressions of plain-weave have been found in clay and dated to 23,000 BCE. However, it is an educated guess that these early impressions came from small handlooms for making belts and narrow strips.</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjlKMcm1hzdoivFydMvEFK08saqI1uo1_SdhhzUFarH2Ph0Uq_-0YJrQk5G7qdJAejC9joeR-kXFKamb--283vvuEtZcskwrtiGc9oxuWncSCUPsjx83bMrbuCUcSVEccH_u0TVcpF7k40rb7DXu8T0lTVVAdeXmjERY2-sQtB-mDqKx8yW2kkmgYdJ=s1000" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="792" data-original-width="1000" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjlKMcm1hzdoivFydMvEFK08saqI1uo1_SdhhzUFarH2Ph0Uq_-0YJrQk5G7qdJAejC9joeR-kXFKamb--283vvuEtZcskwrtiGc9oxuWncSCUPsjx83bMrbuCUcSVEccH_u0TVcpF7k40rb7DXu8T0lTVVAdeXmjERY2-sQtB-mDqKx8yW2kkmgYdJ=w400-h316" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>"Guatemalan woman, handloom, 1970s."</div><div><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guatemalan_woman_hand_loom_1970s.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guatemalan_woman_hand_loom_1970s.jpg</a>></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The large looms necessary to make fabric and clothing, which are characteristic of the Neolithic era, probably looked like this.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEil1dZUSghnd_MaD5hGNqj_bqwa10Holo4WU5GwbIZmGVJbuQgqlwHIkfBOdiuG88XbYtWTV5buANfzVGjB_nnBv03I4tk25vnkAVJZSsHPfUedS5xQtBqRjSJY-ohyO8H7UzYn6OwWTyAizzIo7Yrzn3YpVuKXg2ZqcB_9wQeNw6WPS1IqwxO3M3qO=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="429" data-original-width="800" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEil1dZUSghnd_MaD5hGNqj_bqwa10Holo4WU5GwbIZmGVJbuQgqlwHIkfBOdiuG88XbYtWTV5buANfzVGjB_nnBv03I4tk25vnkAVJZSsHPfUedS5xQtBqRjSJY-ohyO8H7UzYn6OwWTyAizzIo7Yrzn3YpVuKXg2ZqcB_9wQeNw6WPS1IqwxO3M3qO=w640-h344" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">This is a recreation of a Neolithic warp-weighted loom about 5300 years ago. The recreation is by The ArcheoParc Schnals Museum of South Tyrol, Italy. The clothing pictured here is also a recreation by the museum and part of their loom display.<br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Archeoparc_Schnals_-_Museum#/media/File:Archeoparc_-_%C3%96tzi_Webstuhl.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Archeoparc_Schnals_-_Museum#/media/File:Archeoparc_-_%C3%96tzi_Webstuhl.jpg</a>></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">"The first proof of true weaving [ED: weaving wide cloth] occurs circa 7000 B.C.E. at the start of the Neolithic, with impressions of plain-weave and basket-weave on clay at Jarmo (north-east Iraq) and a pseudomorph (minerals having outward characteristics of organic materials) of a plain-weave textile on a bone at Çayönü Tepesi (southern Turkey). These fabrics are too well done to be the start of weaving." (Barber "Prehistoric Textiles")</blockquote><p style="font-size: large;"> </p><p style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><b>NEOLITHIC BUILDINGS</b></p><p style="font-size: large;"><b>Weaving was also an important part of building. In the early Neolithic, homes were often made with weaving skills. </b></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiJl3orBk1dy9lKm8zAp9b5woPO7EcJ0ZMQCUIuf8xUqX8pEWcw8oXmnChbtzBaSTi26oIEDnTSmOBqLjxiYOAdMu6mNAp7IVVODb_kKcrnL59W-ttoF58iXDWbIoxW0sQng1C6pHG8AbweYeOrI40RBY0q64PJiLcyq8ZyV2uedEE4o5dzUSNtuLQX=s800" style="font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="487" data-original-width="800" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiJl3orBk1dy9lKm8zAp9b5woPO7EcJ0ZMQCUIuf8xUqX8pEWcw8oXmnChbtzBaSTi26oIEDnTSmOBqLjxiYOAdMu6mNAp7IVVODb_kKcrnL59W-ttoF58iXDWbIoxW0sQng1C6pHG8AbweYeOrI40RBY0q64PJiLcyq8ZyV2uedEE4o5dzUSNtuLQX=w640-h390" width="640" /></a>Recreation of Neolithic huts </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">in the Steinzeitdorf Kussow open-air museum, Damshagen, Germany.<br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kussow,_Steinzeitdorf.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kussow,_Steinzeitdorf.jpg</a>></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Some Native American Indian buildings, such as this one below, showed sophisticated weaving skills. As I have argued, I believe that Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic technology was highly developed and was passed on to Neolithic societies. And again, as I have argued, the skills of Native American Indians around 1900 can be seen as similar to those of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic in Europe.</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><blockquote>“While it is now certain, that perishable fibre industries were part of the first Americans, [ED: Native American Indians] they also seem to have been part of Upper Palaeolithic techno-economic suite for much longer than we have imaged.” (Soffer "Recovering Perishable Technologies")</blockquote></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg9zox964dSqIeesS1lde0O2RHh79y1RUmUPTrJ05axgm9AOXXL6PWcFx9hXo8lvqC8FfAZmmjaw5W72dUSHqYMFh5SCNFPZD5oP0HdAst055XPAv3T6ymhxu9IZ3cPadmCzRs6D1kHVdLxFsWfquZ9Nc8eZhDLNQhnoArCpRiO5ShUphRH7EECyj9r=s800" style="font-weight: bold; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="309" data-original-width="800" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg9zox964dSqIeesS1lde0O2RHh79y1RUmUPTrJ05axgm9AOXXL6PWcFx9hXo8lvqC8FfAZmmjaw5W72dUSHqYMFh5SCNFPZD5oP0HdAst055XPAv3T6ymhxu9IZ3cPadmCzRs6D1kHVdLxFsWfquZ9Nc8eZhDLNQhnoArCpRiO5ShUphRH7EECyj9r=w640-h247" width="640" /></a>"Wichita Indian group building a lodge," 1904</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">LEFT: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wichita_Indian_group_building_a_lodge_in_the_Department_of_Anthropology_at_the_1904_World%27s_Fair.jpg"><https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wichita_Indian_group_building_a_lodge_in_the_Department_of_Anthropology_at_the_1904_World%27s_Fair.jpg></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">RIGHT: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wichita_Indian_group_building_their_lodge_for_the_Department_of_Anthropology_exhibit_at_the_1904_World%27s_Fair.jpg"><https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wichita_Indian_group_building_their_lodge_for_the_Department_of_Anthropology_exhibit_at_the_1904_World%27s_Fair.jpg></a></div></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">Later homes looked more like modern houses but still had thatched roofs. And thatching has continued to this day.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhpNs7KBXwC731EWTP5flGQ7cqqE3YRuSNRtNDgInkNSBNb3gVVtB9TOXAkEPKChxJ2A6ARZDpx8gVb3i0GoV6lQaH0LzcS63A1YpRZ1VA3iWEj_gOCjAIZTygf6p_TNwPOEr0BkmKz7NMspl8a9fG_naR6-XlPDPybQ_jCngT-6XfzWPaiJ1l2fuDG=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="800" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhpNs7KBXwC731EWTP5flGQ7cqqE3YRuSNRtNDgInkNSBNb3gVVtB9TOXAkEPKChxJ2A6ARZDpx8gVb3i0GoV6lQaH0LzcS63A1YpRZ1VA3iWEj_gOCjAIZTygf6p_TNwPOEr0BkmKz7NMspl8a9fG_naR6-XlPDPybQ_jCngT-6XfzWPaiJ1l2fuDG=w640-h224" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">LEFT: "The Stone Age Horton House reconstructed at Butser Ancient Farm open-air archeological museum in Hampshire, England, UK." Quoted from: <a href="https://www.alamy.com/the-stone-age-horton-house-reconstructed-at-butser-ancient-farm-open-air-archeological-museum-in-hampshire-england-uk-image435529225.html"><https://www.alamy.com/the-stone-age-horton-house-reconstructed-at-butser-ancient-farm-open-air-archeological-museum-in-hampshire-england-uk-image435529225.html></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Picture credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Butser_Ancient_Farm_Horton_House.jpg"><https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Butser_Ancient_Farm_Horton_House.jpg></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>RIGHT: Roofer covering a modern thatched roof house in Escheburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reetdach_P7040055.JPG"><https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reetdach_P7040055.JPG></a></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b>CONCLUSION</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>It is clear from the fact that pottery had not been invented until late in the Neolithic era that other tools and implements must have been fabricated during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN). As Serge Svizzero points out in his quoted article, agriculture would have required a necessary set of support tools and containers to be successful. From direct and indirect evidence I have presented in this article, it seems likely that many of these could have been made using woven-fiber technology or basket weaving skills, a technology that may have been passed down from Upper Paleolithic societies. And I suggest these skills continued to be employed all during the Neolithic time period. Furthermore, I suggest they were passed on to the emerging civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt who made full use of these skills when needed.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>___________________________________________<br />ENDNOTES<br /><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>Barber, Elizabeth Wayland. Prehistoric Textiles. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. Excerpt ("Prehistoric Textiles" in LoveToKnow.com. <a href="https://fashion-history.lovetoknow.com/fashion-history-eras/prehistoric-textiles">https://fashion-history.lovetoknow.com/fashion-history-eras/prehistoric-textiles</a> Accessed Jan. 30, 2922.</div><div><br /></div><div>Bizzari, Heba Fatteen. "Weaving And Basketry In Ancient And Modern Egypt." TourEgypt.net, 2011. <a href="http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/basketry.htm">http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/basketry.htm</a> Accessed Jan. 30, 2922.</div><div><br /></div><div>Fajardo, J., Verde, A., Rivera, D., Obón, C. & & Leopold, S. "Traditional Craft Techniques of Esparto Grass (Stipa tenacissima L.) in Spain." Economic Botany ISSN 0013-0001 Econ Bot DOI 10.1007/s12231-015-9323-x <a href="https://www.academia.edu/19717708/Traditional_Craft_Techniques_of_Esparto_Grass_Stipa_tenacissima_L_in_Spain?auto=download">https://www.academia.edu/19717708/Traditional_Craft_Techniques_of_Esparto_Grass_Stipa_tenacissima_L_in_Spain?auto=download</a> Accessed Jan. 30, 2922.</div><div><br /></div><div>Palace, Steve. "Oldest Basket Ever Found is Part of Dramatic Discovery in Israel’s 'Cave of Horror'" The Vintage News, Mar 24, 2021. <a href="https://www.thevintagenews.com/2021/03/24/basket/">https://www.thevintagenews.com/2021/03/24/basket/</a> Accessed Jan. 30, 2922.</div><div><br /></div><div>Soffer, O. (2004). Recovering Perishable Technologies through Use Wear on Tools: Preliminary Evidence for Upper Paleolithic Weaving and Net making. Current Anthropology 45, (3): 533.</div><div><br /></div><div>Wendrich W. (2008) Basketry in Ancient Egypt. In: Selin H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8470">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8470</a> Accessed Jan. 30, 2922.</div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div></div><p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></p><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"></div></div></span></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-63208192334781804252022-01-30T03:05:00.016-05:002022-02-15T02:36:04.465-05:00Advanced Basket Weaving Technology in the Paleolithic Era <h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Development Of Advanced<br /> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Woven-Fiber Technology<br /> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">In The Paleolithic Era</span></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Insights from Paleo-Indian artifacts and </b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Ethnoarchaeology</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiVKYREAjoKeylDwCsrYZwLCc4SIaA8ALR_r1KaLT60jPPUawb01zkF0LZyMUia2WzHdcOxgX_WnG1yl34Q4HQNPmI0uk4Mr1cOH11pncahFELyS94ii2ol3QMbezC67uqFKv0eoA4CyULYdcBCnAsN8aOFqvDyeNHtzzXQWvRoRFxk4YfY_k2OEn-k=s640" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiVKYREAjoKeylDwCsrYZwLCc4SIaA8ALR_r1KaLT60jPPUawb01zkF0LZyMUia2WzHdcOxgX_WnG1yl34Q4HQNPmI0uk4Mr1cOH11pncahFELyS94ii2ol3QMbezC67uqFKv0eoA4CyULYdcBCnAsN8aOFqvDyeNHtzzXQWvRoRFxk4YfY_k2OEn-k=w640-h640" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"Basket, Apache people, Arizona, ca. 1900, <br />coiled willow and devil's claw - Chazen Museum of Art."</span></div></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Basket,_Apache_people,_Arizona,_c._1900,_coiled_willow_and_devil%27s_claw_-_Chazen_Museum_of_Art_-_DSC01849.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Basket,_Apache_people,_Arizona,_c._1900,_coiled_willow_and_devil%27s_claw_-_Chazen_Museum_of_Art_-_DSC01849.JPG</a>></span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><h1><span style="font-size: small;">ABSTRACT:</span></h1><h1><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></h1><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">It is my contention that by the Upper Paleolithic, many technologies were quite advanced. In particular, basket weaving or woven-fiber technology had reached a high point of development. A variety of basket weaving techniques had been mastered along with the manufacture of cordage and the beginnings of textiles. This knowledge and these skills were then passed on to Neolithic cultures who were able to make full use of these technologies in their sedentary and agricultural societies. Basket weaving or woven-fiber technology was a central technology all during the Pre-Pottery A & B Neolithic time period, a time period that lasted much longer than the later Pottery Neolithic. Furthermore, even after the invention of pottery, basket weaving skills continued to be crucial to both the Neolithic cultures and to the first civilizations.</span></div><h1 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">INTRODUCTION</span></b></h1><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">In the past, the Upper Paleolithic era has been thought of as primitive and unsophisticated, a time of crude cavemen and savages. Today that perception is changing with the discovery of the ceramic Venus of Dolní Vestonice made at least 27,000 years ago and the discovery of rope and rope handling tools dated to about 40,000 BP. But what has still to be uncovered is basket weaving or woven-fiber technology because fibers decay quickly and leave little trace. Impressions on clay have been discovered and confirmed, dating to about 25,000 years ago. The impressions show a technology that was quite advanced including weaving with a loom.</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgkZMP3yjTqzCgP1ll2CjCATQQXcROoGkv7mZ5B5ZcG96a5z7S4yoNzqjEQhhrFai8edEA-cuiBVEVKfNIJyz5EWA5on8eMydplRkJEBUC9xjoIO-Y5TB14gDsuh5fNA5-hJ2myAES23bTL6A5dUpA27Q6qi7smBeikN_kkQDJB81vrHU3jwLulffGi=s1250" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1250" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgkZMP3yjTqzCgP1ll2CjCATQQXcROoGkv7mZ5B5ZcG96a5z7S4yoNzqjEQhhrFai8edEA-cuiBVEVKfNIJyz5EWA5on8eMydplRkJEBUC9xjoIO-Y5TB14gDsuh5fNA5-hJ2myAES23bTL6A5dUpA27Q6qi7smBeikN_kkQDJB81vrHU3jwLulffGi=w205-h400" width="205" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">For more than 100 years it was assumed that shaping and then firing clay, known as ceramics and pottery, began in the middle of the Neolithic era (Pottery Neolithic) about 8,500 years ago. The discovery of this Venus figure changed that understanding because it was made in the Upper Paleolithic 27,000 years ago, almost 20,000 years earlier. (Soffer, Adovasio, et al, "Perishable Industries from Dolní Vestonice I")<br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vestonicka_venuse_edit.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vestonicka_venuse_edit.jpg</a>></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Since many authorities agree that European Upper Paleolithic and Native American Indian cultures were similar, based on stone tool artifacts, in this article I look at the Indian cultures for evidence since some of their ancient basketry has survived. Then to go further I use the modern method of ethnoarchaeology and well-researched information from 100 years ago about Indian tribal life at that time, which had changed little over time, to show the complexity of their woven-fiber technology and the wide range of products that could be produced. </b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;">A MAJOR DISCOVERY THAT HAS CHANGED PEOPLE'S UNDERSTANDING </span></b></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Before I present evidence I want to 'set the stage' so to speak with information about new discoveries that have changed the way this time period has been viewed.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">In the last 30 years, there has been a major shift in attitudes and preconceptions about the Paleolithic era. Starting around 1990 and continuing to today, important discoveries have altered previous ideas regarding the Old Stone Age, the New Stone Age, and the Bronze Age. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">For example, technologies and processes that were exclusively associated with the Neolithic era were found in some Upper Paleolithic sites such as ceramics. </span></b><b><span style="font-size: medium;">These discoveries signaled that the 'Age' categories were a bit too rigid and that prehistoric technologies and cultures may have developed in ways and at times that had not been understood.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">In particular, in the 1990s a dramatic major discovery got everyone's attention. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">GOBEKLI TEPE CHANGES</span></b></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">THE CULTURAL EVOLUTION NARRATIVE</span></b></div></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmm_h25or7e6nK3nyCqHZFnaQonIkoTzdUFsE1iI7nqdBy7JAPOsrQvGkItRjKOan4xfaRDynyFMfCDovvGyVKumR7HEuAquu3RCyJxPkhYTutAbbqeex5ALGpjZO8oSHSzUAnS7TIfPZZXVEz-VWgxlR8McMFc3lhEYZH9lO3yjy7K5YOAcRyxMUk=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmm_h25or7e6nK3nyCqHZFnaQonIkoTzdUFsE1iI7nqdBy7JAPOsrQvGkItRjKOan4xfaRDynyFMfCDovvGyVKumR7HEuAquu3RCyJxPkhYTutAbbqeex5ALGpjZO8oSHSzUAnS7TIfPZZXVEz-VWgxlR8McMFc3lhEYZH9lO3yjy7K5YOAcRyxMUk=w640-h360" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">A main area that is being excavated. <br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Göbekli_Tepe,_Urfa.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Göbekli_Tepe,_Urfa.jpg</a>></div></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">In 1995 archaeologist Dr. Klaus Schmidt began excavations in an obscure part of Turkey based on a hunch. What he found was Gobekli Tepe, a 22-acre complex that has so far revealed about 200 of the world's oldest megaliths, carefully carved stones as tall as 16 feet and weighing seven to ten tons each. Built about 11,000 years ago by hunter-gatherers during the Paleolithic era and before the beginning of agriculture and the Neolithic era, no one had thought that people at this time were capable of creating such a monumental structure. And just as remarkable, all the work was accomplished with stone-age tools.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEika9w2v8RzBs-26zc87pJEuha2GTB7sdcb0aBiIUvL42SeJ8ytN-d37cQccgmOuGAtSmN9CYgzVTtm03RJ4I1pI_WQDKyqpZBB9QpG_1d2mTuIAPAYvxYyxGPW6JI-KJqpQXY8p_ghRtWwuQwSwRL5MrY-Q_oMa5xiNB3n4AIuayzn0f22lYUIds26=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="557" data-original-width="800" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEika9w2v8RzBs-26zc87pJEuha2GTB7sdcb0aBiIUvL42SeJ8ytN-d37cQccgmOuGAtSmN9CYgzVTtm03RJ4I1pI_WQDKyqpZBB9QpG_1d2mTuIAPAYvxYyxGPW6JI-KJqpQXY8p_ghRtWwuQwSwRL5MrY-Q_oMa5xiNB3n4AIuayzn0f22lYUIds26=w640-h446" width="640" /></a></div></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><div>LEFT: A stone pillar.</div><div>RIGHT: An animal carving in stone.<br /><div><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Göbekli2012-7.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Göbekli2012-7.jpg</a>></div><div><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GobeklitepeHeykel.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GobeklitepeHeykel.jpg</a>></div></div></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 700;">And while the technology of Gobekli Tepe is awe-inspiring, the implications are just as earth-shaking. Dr. Schmidt called the site the "world's first temple." He saw it as a religious center, "This is the first human-built holy place." It was a "cathedral on a hill."</span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj2-DEdpe_ilzCP_LM6FHxwegzTN_sUq3tEGAd82yAR5kE_KFEJl5Yf5OKsCULXY3Eutw_IHR83dknlzjRmnG6wggLMuZ2R9Ejw5Tku3HclZc6MCPMuF31FNOflwwUFmqOjeLCiFsFdLPj2BA7Igzw-veY4war9EJV90wr8vj5OZ57GYeM6jxvQi9ba=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="800" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj2-DEdpe_ilzCP_LM6FHxwegzTN_sUq3tEGAd82yAR5kE_KFEJl5Yf5OKsCULXY3Eutw_IHR83dknlzjRmnG6wggLMuZ2R9Ejw5Tku3HclZc6MCPMuF31FNOflwwUFmqOjeLCiFsFdLPj2BA7Igzw-veY4war9EJV90wr8vj5OZ57GYeM6jxvQi9ba=w640-h298" width="640" /></a></div></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Aerial views: (left) long shot of main area (see ground photo above) <br />and (right) closeup of this area from above.<br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_archaeological_site_of_G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe_-_main_excavation_area.png">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_archaeological_site_of_G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe_-_main_excavation_area.png</a>></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Smithsonian website put it this way, "Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple? Predating Stonehenge by 6,000 years, Turkey’s stunning Gobekli Tepe upends the conventional view of the rise of civilization."</span></b></div><div><<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/">https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/</a>></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>While controversial, the Smithsonian wrote, "To Schmidt and others, these new findings suggest a novel theory of civilization. Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and live in settled communities did they have the time, organization, and resources to construct temples and support complicated social structures. But Schmidt argues it was the other way around: the extensive, coordinated effort to build the monoliths literally laid the groundwork for the development of complex societies." </b></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Curry, smithsonianmag.com)</b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="font-weight: bold;"></div><blockquote><div style="font-weight: bold;">MY COMMENT</div><div>In other words this seems to imply that societies which became considerably larger than the smaller tribal size of hunter-gatherers, needed a belief system first that they all shared and that formed the foundation of their expanding culture, before they could construct the larger complex villages and towns of the Neolithic era. Tribes were rarely bigger than 100 people while early Neolithic villages could contain 400 people and later ones 4000 people. (Birch-Chapman et al., "Estimating population size, density and dynamics of Pre-Pottery Neolithic villages...")</div></blockquote></span></div><div><span><h1 style="font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">ABOUT WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY<br /></span></h1><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the last thirty years, surprise after surprise about the intelligence and skills of early hominins has completely changed the narrative about human, cultural, and technological evolution. Some technologies in the Upper Paleolithic (circa 40 ka - 20-10 ka) and the Middle Paleolithic (circa 200 ka - 40 ka) were sophisticated and complex.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Baskets made by nomadic hunter-gatherers were constructed with great skill but at the same time, most nomadic tribes did not make pottery. In the past, the development of pottery was seen as an indication that an advanced level had been reached and that the supposedly 'older' and less sophisticated craft of basketry had been surpassed. However, this was a major mistake. Basketry continued to be used, and used more than pottery by some tribes, long after pottery was invented. </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I believe that basket weaving and woven-fiber technology developed to a very high level in the Upper Paleolithic and then was passed on to the Neolithic cultures who used it to their advantage to create a sedentary agricultural way of life. Then in the Neolithic era, woven-fiber technology reached a pinnacle of refinement, diversity, and precision. (More about this in my next blog.)</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">THE PROBLEM WITH BASKETRY </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have quoted the following in many of my articles about basket weaving technology, but the point is crucial. It explains why there is so little direct evidence of basketry and woven-fiber materials.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-size: medium;">"In whichever way archaeological remains are interpreted, one must always be aware that the vast majority of the materials with which prehistoric people were surrounded and with which they worked is lost to us today. ...organic materials start to decay as soon as they are deposited in the ground."</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Grömer, Dr. Karina. "An Introduction to Prehistoric Textiles" Brewminate.com, Natural History Museum, Vienna, March 01, 2016, <a href="https://brewminate.com/an-introduction-to-prehistoric-textiles.">https://brewminate.com/an-introduction-to-prehistoric-textiles.</a></span></div></blockquote><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This lack of evidence has, in the past, stymied research into the possibility of early basket weaving technology. But now that people are looking at the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras with a more open mind, there may be a way to make a case that basketry began much earlier than had been generally thought and that it could have become quite advanced in the Paleolithic period. One way to back up this assertion would be to use the modern method of ethnoarchaeology -- but more about this later in this article.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">RECENT EVIDENCE OF WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To begin I would like to highlight recent evidence that confirms an early advanced Paleolithic fiber/plant technology, a technology that involved natural plant materials and woven-fibers. I did not include basketry in this list as I will go into detail about basket weaving technology later in this article.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The following list is in chronological order. I used the most conservative dates that there was general agreement about.</span></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">-- HAFTING: 200,000 years ago (200 ka)</div><div style="font-size: large;">Hafting is the processing of joining a stone or bone artifact (and later metal) to a handle or strap such as a stone arrowhead to a wooden spear, or a wooden handle to a stone ax head. This is considered a major advance in tool making that demonstrates an understanding of materials and their properties. (Rots et al., "When does hafting first appear?")</div></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div></span><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><span><div></div></span>-- BITUMEN: 70 ka</b><br />Bitumen when used in combination with plants or fibers was an adhesive often used for hafting and also for sealing and waterproofing baskets to carry water and for sealing the bottoms of reed boats. (Hirst, "Mesopotamian Reed Boats Changed the Stone Age.")</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In a study entitled: "New evidence of adhesive as hafting material on Middle and Upper Palaeolithic artifacts from Gura Cheii-Râsnov Cave (Romania)" the researchers concluded that they had discovered bitumen usage by Paleolithic peoples. "All these hydrocarbons [found via chemical analysis] confirm that the black substance is highly weathered bitumen" (Cârciumaru et al., "New evidence of adhesive [bitumen]...on Middle and Upper Palaeolithic artefacts")<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><p style="font-size: large;"><b>-- ROPE: 40 ka</b><br />Direct evidence has been found of rope strands from the late Middle Paleolithic. Microscopic photos confirm that sophisticated rope making was taking place before the Upper Paleolithic. (Hardy et al., "Direct evidence of Neanderthal fibre technology...")</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhhIKUXo1TARJsE0p_oZ-LaWUJuAxB0mMTBSWQCcwT3gq91EmeSXQq7pEY9nlji_Icii4WZH7dKSwQI7BZJA4av88o5NznSXMl0WZ9vDHZcvKX2s-OSiQ-ihK27tVwZaMUOZJ0t79egSr07MeEVwekN0Xyvn6EspgAi15FDSVeTsH6oQkM1B2B-6C-H=s640" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="516" data-original-width="640" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhhIKUXo1TARJsE0p_oZ-LaWUJuAxB0mMTBSWQCcwT3gq91EmeSXQq7pEY9nlji_Icii4WZH7dKSwQI7BZJA4av88o5NznSXMl0WZ9vDHZcvKX2s-OSiQ-ihK27tVwZaMUOZJ0t79egSr07MeEVwekN0Xyvn6EspgAi15FDSVeTsH6oQkM1B2B-6C-H=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61839-w">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61839-w</a>></span></div><p><b style="font-size: large;">-- ROPE MAKING TOOL: 40 ka</b><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">For a hundred years, the 'batons' as they were called remained a mystery. Then in 2016 Prof. Nicholas Conard demonstrated that ones with four holes could be used to make rope and in addition that the wear marks on the tools were consistent with rope making.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"The discovery underlines the importance of fiber technology and the importance of rope and string for mobile hunters and gatherers trying to cope with challenges of life in the Ice Age." (Universitaet Tübingen. "How rope was made 40,000 years ago.")</span></p><p><b style="font-size: large;">-- ROPE HANDLING TOOLS: 40 ka<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;">Similar to the batons with many holes. these smaller 'batons' were studied in-depth and were found to be consistent with wear caused by rope handling. These batons were found throughout Europe and thus showed a widespread knowledge of working with rope. (Lucas et al., "Investigating the use of Paleolithic perforated batons")</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgxH6jH2kNKpJ6SodlcgjBCyaoqL4V7F18zNz2DcjsI17lqADtZJcUUyO5-8_biJ_07V2NeB7Yvv_CAoNulYSiuQHTBOZxXpbJ7wL_Iw_mLaWAO3giWvf_BRqtEIARcHx4sRfUreMdGKlz5NM3BnOp-FmIETxXwrFSpEQe0j4PtdfX6od28W7UVohyU=s611" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="504" data-original-width="611" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgxH6jH2kNKpJ6SodlcgjBCyaoqL4V7F18zNz2DcjsI17lqADtZJcUUyO5-8_biJ_07V2NeB7Yvv_CAoNulYSiuQHTBOZxXpbJ7wL_Iw_mLaWAO3giWvf_BRqtEIARcHx4sRfUreMdGKlz5NM3BnOp-FmIETxXwrFSpEQe0j4PtdfX6od28W7UVohyU=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baton_Lartet_MHNT_PRE_.2010.0.1.2_Global_fond.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baton_Lartet_MHNT_PRE_.2010.0.1.2_Global_fond.jpg</a>></div><br /><p><b style="font-size: large;">-- LOOMS: 25 ka<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;">It was always assumed that weaving with a loom could not have started before the Neolithic era. Yet the discovery of clay fiber impressions showed clearly that one impression was of a plain weave fabric which could only have been done with a loom. This placed the time period for weaving with a loom in the Upper Paleolithic contrary to widely held century-long assumptions. <span style="text-align: center;">(Soffer, Adovasio, et al, "Perishable Industries from Dolní Vestonice I")</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">NOTE: Some researchers consider the loom <br />to be the first man-made machine. <br />The <i>Encyclopedia Britannica</i> defines a loom as a "machine for weaving cloth." <<a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/loom">https://www.britannica.com/technology/loom</a>></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEixy2P4lqxVA8HbPA_Ks-YVjOznqI1Mx9dYFFqReachXuoFTZ2kQSPagxFJu4PWxoo0Ujz2eKxO6AkPr3BtLyrd8JQ_Aaq0_TQbeKhddsqwgJwQkTmMzanjZ8oU2H3M9lLRFM9_T3RtYFkI7yqBL7eyHiEHe3OL0e0LiGXJCEQ3nr7-bA5REFMS72sw=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="246" data-original-width="800" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEixy2P4lqxVA8HbPA_Ks-YVjOznqI1Mx9dYFFqReachXuoFTZ2kQSPagxFJu4PWxoo0Ujz2eKxO6AkPr3BtLyrd8JQ_Aaq0_TQbeKhddsqwgJwQkTmMzanjZ8oU2H3M9lLRFM9_T3RtYFkI7yqBL7eyHiEHe3OL0e0LiGXJCEQ3nr7-bA5REFMS72sw=w640-h196" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">LEFT: This is a loom of the indigenous Japanese tribe, the Aino (or Ainu). It is a "loom for weaving belts of ohiyo (elm) bark. Single heald; primitive shuttle; sword batten; warp spreader with holes burnt through."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">MIDDLE: "Guatemalan woman hand loom 1970s."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">RIGHT: "This woman is showing how local textiles are woven. Cusco, Peru."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:History_of_Inventions_USNM_31_Loom.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:History_of_Inventions_USNM_31_Loom.jpg</a>></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guatemalan_woman_hand_loom_1970s.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guatemalan_woman_hand_loom_1970s.jpg</a>></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Making_Peruvian_Inca_Textiles.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Making_Peruvian_Inca_Textiles.jpg</a>></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><b style="font-size: large;">-- REED & FIBER BOATS: 7 ka<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;">Large seagoing Neolithic boats and boat traffic has been established in the Persian Gulf area. While evidence of 7 ka puts these boats in the Neolithic era, it also suggests that the first small simple reed and fiber boats were made many thousands of years earlier. Boats such as this were certainly possible in the Upper Paleolithic, especially when constructed with bitumen. (Carter, "Boat remains and maritime trade in the Persian Gulf during sixth and fifth millennia BC," pp. 52-63) (Carter, "Neolithic origins of seafaring in the Arabian Gulf," pp.44-47)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>"Mesopotamian reed boats constitute the earliest known evidence for deliberately constructed sailing ships, dated to the early Neolithic Ubaid culture of Mesopotamia, about 5500 BCE. </span><span>Showing an understanding of material properties, a sophisticated mixture was created. "Bitumen caulking of the reed boats was made by applying a heated mixture of bitumen, vegetal matter, and mineral additives and allowing it to dry and cool to a tough, elastic covering." </span><span>(Hirst, "Mesopotamian Reed Boats Changed the Stone Age.")</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhLNSRsZuoa9VMTIEVFbD46gWd7Dm8jNXABfY7PNEW28hkUfB2kcg4SvqGkdYvzTuLfwpKCfNk4sE4mbGZCC9ozYuIMSB1xrN9Q8blNTwQouP5h18o192EP_3nhXYS8yywUXgzmPwhOadsWtQfkQYA4-ZNWcC431Qn4yTPyul1Gkbj2TUSJ8cMGHrrc=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="609" data-original-width="800" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhLNSRsZuoa9VMTIEVFbD46gWd7Dm8jNXABfY7PNEW28hkUfB2kcg4SvqGkdYvzTuLfwpKCfNk4sE4mbGZCC9ozYuIMSB1xrN9Q8blNTwQouP5h18o192EP_3nhXYS8yywUXgzmPwhOadsWtQfkQYA4-ZNWcC431Qn4yTPyul1Gkbj2TUSJ8cMGHrrc=w640-h488" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">TOP LEFT: "Tankwa or tangwa: Traditional Ethiopian embarcation from Lac Tana, made of papyrus by Nagades people."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">TOP RIGHT: "Reed boat at Ekehagen Prehistoric village outside Åsarp, Falköping Municipality, Västergötland, Västra Götaland County, Sweden." </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">BOTTOM LEFT: "Reed boat; exhibition in the Doria Castle of Castelsardo, Sardinia, Italy"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">BOTTOM RIGHT: "Traditional reed boat on Lake Titicaca, Bolivia."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EthiopieLacTanaTankwa.JPG">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EthiopieLacTanaTankwa.JPG</a>></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ekehagens_forntidsby_vassbåt_6790.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ekehagens_forntidsby_vassbåt_6790.jpg</a>></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Castelsardo-016.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Castelsardo-016.jpg</a>></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bolivia-130_-_Reed_Boat_(2218109064).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bolivia-130_-_Reed_Boat_(2218109064).jpg</a>></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="font-size: large; text-align: left;"><b>Archaeologists assume that, when they find a sophisticated item, the skill for making this item must have started many thousands of years earlier. So it appears from the examples discussed here that a large number of technologies may have developed at an early stage in the Paleolithic period, including the Middle and perhaps even the Lower Paleolithic.</b></p><p style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></p><h1 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"> ABOUT BASKET WEAVING TECHNOLOGY IN THE PALEOLITHIC ERA</span></b></h1><div><b><span style="font-size: large;"><blockquote>"Prehistory seems ready to at last accept the probably huge importance of basketry and simple weaving in the Upper Palaeolithic.” (Bahn 2001:272)</blockquote></span></b></div></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">POSITIVE PROOF OF WOVEN-FIBER/BASKET TECHNOLOGY IN THE PALEOLITHIC</span></b></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In 1995 at the <i>Society for American Archeology</i>, Dr. Olga Soffer of the University of Illinois at Urbana and Dr. James M. Adovasio of Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa. announced they had found pieces of clay with clear impressions of the earliest fabric artifacts -- the first to be confirmed from the Paleolithic time period. Since the impressions were so small they could not tell whether these were from textiles or from baskets. The leading world paleo-fiber expert, Dr. Adovasio, confirmed the find. </b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This one discovery pushed back the beginnings of these 'soft' technologies about 10,000 years well into the 'old stone age' and well beyond the Neolithic or 'new stone age' when everyone in the field had assumed that basketry, textiles, and weaving had begun. These new findings have now been dated to at least 25,000 years ago. </b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When the clay impressions were examined closely they revealed at least two different weaving techniques. Dr. Adovasio commented that the regularity of the weave and the 'narrow-gauge' indicated that the technology was quite advanced so that the origins of weaving had to be much earlier. </b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">OLDEST DIRECT EVIDENCE OF BASKETRY</span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The oldest direct evidence of baskets was found in Faiyum in Upper Egypt. Basket fragments have been carbon-dated to between 10 ka - 12 ka. </b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(Erdly, History, Basket Weaving.) </b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This is much earlier than pottery. Archaeologists believe that pottery was too heavy and breakable for mobile hunter-gatherers. </b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(Diamond; Guns, Germs, and Steel, p. 261)</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Thousands of years later, "In the Fayum Oasis... grain storage pits were excavated in the desert floor, lined with coarse straw basketry." </b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">"Both the coarse basketry pit-lining and the very fine, decorated baskets found near or inside some of the pits demonstrate that there was a basketry tradition, with objects made from readily available local materials." </b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">(Wendrich, "Basketry in Ancient Egypt")</b></blockquote></blockquote><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"></b><p></p></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div><br /></div><div><span><div style="font-size: large;"><b>IN 2921 THE WORLD'S OLDEST COMPLETE BASKET WAS DISCOVERED & DATED TO 10,500 YEARS AGO</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEicF_TsTtRpfDI_GiI9jsB7pRc0OyVofm-y0mdX3nO_9piSYAo0GrizzhLSnDX28OQgiD6YdyP6wNhRHxZ6_8f1GKhQY6FdKeUciy-IahWi0dNWC_IhmqbAenuTt4r3AH0WaRooEGG6slvIC7UKXyMDY4ejhS_B6vCNDntx_nDM9M5p-Hp7_5GfQfSU=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="703" data-original-width="800" height="562" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEicF_TsTtRpfDI_GiI9jsB7pRc0OyVofm-y0mdX3nO_9piSYAo0GrizzhLSnDX28OQgiD6YdyP6wNhRHxZ6_8f1GKhQY6FdKeUciy-IahWi0dNWC_IhmqbAenuTt4r3AH0WaRooEGG6slvIC7UKXyMDY4ejhS_B6vCNDntx_nDM9M5p-Hp7_5GfQfSU=w640-h562" width="640" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;">The newly discovered basket in Israel looks remarkably like this large Native American Indian one which was also used for storage and had similar lids.<br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Coiled Granary, Pima Indians</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">(Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, Fig. 203, p. 524)</span></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">While many discoveries have been made in the last thirty years, none are more important to woven-fiber technology than the following in early 2021.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Just last year, on March 16, 2021, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced that a perfectly preserved large woven basket dating back some 10,500 years was unearthed in the Judean Desert. And lids for the basket were found as well.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"As far as we know, this is the oldest basket in the world that has been found completely intact and its importance is, therefore, immense,” the IAA said.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The basket could hold about 92 liters. But according to Dr. Haim Cohen of this IAA project, the ancient people who manufactured it probably did not live in the cave, but instead used it for storage.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Judean desert possesses the perfect climate for preserving materials that would otherwise disintegrate. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">While there is still plenty to be learned, this much is known: the basket was made from woven reeds and it took two people to weave it. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">See this video:</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Thrilling finds have been uncovered <br />by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the Judean Desert</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1Aty1O-j_A">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1Aty1O-j_A</a>></span></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y1Aty1O-j_A" width="320" youtube-src-id="y1Aty1O-j_A"></iframe></div><br /></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b>ABOUT THIS IMPORTANT DISCOVERY</b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The Israel Antiquities Authority believes this basket was from the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic but the dating places it on the cusp of the Neolithic and the time period before that. </b><b>In any case, it is clear that this sophisticated basket technology must have begun thousands of years earlier during the Paleolithic era as I have suggested. </b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">It is important to note that it was probably used for storage and looks very similar to the Native American Indian basket shown above and made for the same purpose. And it was built with a right-angle or opposing strand construction (see the video) which I have also written about in an earlier blog-article.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A NEW PAIR OF EYES</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Dr. Adovaso and Dr. Soffer sum up this new way of looking at past eras very nicely in this quote:</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Finally, the identification of textiles and basketry ca. 25,000 B.P., together with extensive evidence of Upper Paleolithic ceramic technologies (Vandiver et al. 1990), raise serious questions about the technological “signatures” or artifactual associations used to define particular epochs in prehistory. The Moravian sites are by chronological assignation clearly Paleolithic and not Neolithic in age, preceding the “Neolithic Revolution” (Childe l936) by some 15,000 years. They were occupied by people who subsisted by foraging, not by horticulture, and whose settlement systems, as a result, featured residential mobility rather than year-round sedentism. Yet, these populations produced geometric microliths, made ceramics, manufactured ground stone tools, and wove textiles and basketry, all supposed “hallmarks” of the Neolithic." </b><span style="text-align: center;"> <b>(Soffer, Adovasio, et al, "Perishable Industries from Dolní Vestonice I")</b></span></span></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY,</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">THE EUROPEAN UPPER PALEOLITHIC ERA,</span></b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">AND NATIVE AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE</span></b></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b><blockquote><b>“While it is now certain, that perishable fibre industries were part of the first Americans </b>[ED: Native American Indians], <b>they also seem to have been part of Upper Palaeolithic techno-economic suite for much longer than we have imagined.” <br />(Soffer "Recovering Perishable Technologies")</b></blockquote><b></b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>THE SIMILARITY BETWEEN PALEOINDIAN AND UPPER PALEOLITHIC</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Using the modern idea and methods of "ethnoarchaeology" which is "the branch of archaeology that studies contemporary primitive cultures and technologies as a way of providing analogies and thereby patterns for prehistoric cultures," (dictionary.com) I looked at studies of Native American Indians whose way of life was well documented about 100 years ago. A number of tribes were nomadic hunter-gatherers but made superb baskets, such as the Apache. The Smithsonian Institute in particular did extensive studies about Indian cultures (see next).</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Explaining the similarity of Upper Paleolithic cultures in Europe and North America, Hyland et al. wrote:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Systematic visual and microscopic examination of impressions on these [excavated] Far Eastern ceramics [Eastern European Upper Paleolithic impressions in clay] reveals the presence of a sophisticated plantfiber-based perishable technology. Interestingly, the technological types represented in this assemblage PRECISELY MIMIC THOSE RECOVERED FROM THE EARLIEST LEVELS OF A NUMBER OF WESTERN NORTH AMERICAN SITES [ED: my emphasis] and may represent the prototype for this venerable industry as expressed in the New World." (Hyland et al., 2002, p. 1)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>There are "technological similarities between European Upper Paleolithic artifacts and 13,000-year-old Native American artifacts." (Pennsylvania Archaeology, Paleoindian Period)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>So there was a clear similarity between European Upper Paleolithic and ancient Native American Indian stone artifacts. But because these Indian cultures continued to exist until a more recent time in North America there were large numbers of fiber artifacts and baskets that also survived (unlike Europe). Since it appeared that the Indian basket-weaving culture and the Upper Paleolithic way of life were similar, baskets could have been a key technology of the European Upper Paleolithic as well.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>One specific example is that of ancient water-tight baskets.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh7_dx2b-G-1AuNETs9SZPN0O6o4Hjpr3pUbKYDFxb5moKfGwk-8fy7TznaqwsoRg-b_a17S4XJmKQZxBe0N0FEgCaYEVI-ubDKzlcwF1Ngi9EFYPa5nRLV8WX6A9Kb--cC7rPIG1TxEGTTSMI3GxWwoCEnaOLBebQX3iWLDH-ZiG81lzFOD6Ek_R-5=s1279" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1279" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh7_dx2b-G-1AuNETs9SZPN0O6o4Hjpr3pUbKYDFxb5moKfGwk-8fy7TznaqwsoRg-b_a17S4XJmKQZxBe0N0FEgCaYEVI-ubDKzlcwF1Ngi9EFYPa5nRLV8WX6A9Kb--cC7rPIG1TxEGTTSMI3GxWwoCEnaOLBebQX3iWLDH-ZiG81lzFOD6Ek_R-5=w400-h640" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">"Major J. W. Powell, during his topographical and geological survey of the valley of the Colorado River of the West...made a collection of water-tight basket work from the Paiute Indians [ED: nomadic hunte-gatherers]...Both coiled and twined work are found in great varieties. Plate 32 represents the varieties of these water-tight carrying jugs or bottles." <br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">(Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, Plate 32, explanation p. 258)</span></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-size: large;"><b>Unfortunately, we cannot know the exact dates of these pictured 'ancient' water-tight basket bottles but they were made with both twining and coiling methods. It appears reasonable to conservatively place them in the 8,000 to 1,000 BP time period but they could be older. </b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large;"><b></b></div><p><b></b></p><blockquote style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">----- ABOUT DATING -----</span></b></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><div><span style="font-size: medium;">"Coiled basketry dates to more than 8,000 years ago in the Eastern Great Basin and is found in the Western Basin by 4,500 years ago." (Connolly, "Implications Of New Radiocarbon Ages On Coiled Basketry From The Northern Great Basin.")</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">"Before the appearance of coiled basketry there was an early use of simple twined basketry (11,000 to 7,000 BP) and a more complex use of twining (7,000 to 1,000 BP)." (Connolly et al., "Radiocarbon Evidence Relating to Northern Great Basin Basketry Chronology.")</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">"The tribal peoples now living in the Great Basin are descendants of the people who have been in the region for several hundred to several thousand years." (National Park Service, "Historic Tribes of the Great Basin.")</span></div></div></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">"There is no reason for believing that the ancient ware differed from the modern. In the Interior Basin also baskets are used [instead of]...pottery by tribes that are not sedentary." (See Plate 32.) (Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, p. 258-259.)</span></blockquote><p> </p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">BASKET WEAVING’S IMPORTANCE IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE</span></b></p><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"Basket Weaving’s Importance In Native American Culture:</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"One of the oldest crafts in Native American cultures is basket weaving. Each tribe has its own Native American specific methods and materials to create woven baskets...In fact, basket weaving can be traced back to the beginning of mankind.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"In a world where there were no cupboards, plates, or bowls to hold your belongings, baskets served as indispensable items that had multiple purposes. They allowed people to carry water, [wear] clothing, [gather and cook] food, and much more.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"In Native American cultures, baskets took the place of every modern convenience we take for granted and also served as a representation of tribes and stories." (Kachina House)</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Basket-weaving skills were central to many if not most Native American Indian cultures. "Tribal women provided almost all household tools and utensils, storage containers, cups, and cradles by using one art: basket weaving." (Boule, 1992, p. 38)</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />The Smithsonian publication made this clear:<br />"Basketry supplied nearly every domestic necessity of the Indians, from an infant's cradle to the richly decorated funerary jars burned with the dead. The wealth of a family was counted in the number and beauty of its baskets and the highest virtue of woman was her ability to produce them." (Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, p. 335) </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The following is quoted from the Smithsonian's Aboriginal American Basketry of 1904, pp. 197-198. You can download the entire book from the address listed below.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><blockquote><b>Full Citation: </b>Aboriginal American basketry: studies in a textile art without machinery. Contributors: Mason, Otis Tufton; Coville, Frederick Vernon. Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution; Report of the U.S. National Museum. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904.<a href="https://archive.org/details/aboriginalbasket00masorich"><https://archive.org/details/aboriginalbasket00masorich></a>. Accessed 12/10/2020.</blockquote></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>NOTE: The language in the Smithsonian's Aboriginal American Basketry of 1904 is horribly outdated. The word 'savage', for example, is often used. Nevertheless, the document expresses respect and an understanding of the remarkable Indian culture which was quite unusual at the time. It is one of the most complete books on the subject of American Indian basketry and also the way that basketry was a critical part of life in the many hunter-gatherer Indian tribes.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"The chief dependence, however, of the basket maker is upon the vegetal kingdom. Nearly all parts of plants have been used by one tribe or another for this purpose roots, stems, bark, leaves, fruits, seeds, and gums. It would seem as though in each area for purposes intended the vegetal kingdom had been thoroughly explored and exhausted above ground and underground. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Is it not marvelous to think that unlettered savages should know so much botany? Mr. Chesnut, in his Plants used by Indians of Mendocino County, California, calls attention to the fact that in our advanced state we are yet behind these savages, not having caught up with them in the discovery and uses of some of their best textile materials.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"How did the savages find out that the roots of certain plants hid away under the earth were the best possible material for this function* And for another use the stem of a plant had to be found, perhaps miles away, so that in the makeup of a single example leagues would have to be traveled and much discrimination used. Unless the utmost care is exercised the fact will be overlooked that often three or four kinds of wood will be used in the monotonous work of the weft. One is best for the bottom, another is light and tough for the body, a third is best for the flexible top. This in addition to the employment of half a dozen others for designs, for warp or foundation, or for decorative purposes." (Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, pp. 197-198) </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: large;">THE FOLLOWING PICTURES</b></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>ARE OF OBJECTS MADE WITH BASKET WEAVING TECHNOLOGY</b></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b>BY NATIVE AMEICAN INDIAN NOMADIC HUNTER-GATHERERS</b></div></b></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjvS8LegXfIXvf1BgcjZ1DXtFK2RI7PQPKfRpLIFjsdpucEg5-cj-UMB9hyX6XF8N5Ea4pGqvBr6HRiPQp2gTCzyrRZZUzEvDkGiNe_kVgICZF7ZU7nkPc-L-dQ0Au_jDnE5mRfTK6yAnwoWoytRaRTYipNE5CH7Rtav5Wkdjvavj35N3EPDuS7jQCg=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="800" height="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjvS8LegXfIXvf1BgcjZ1DXtFK2RI7PQPKfRpLIFjsdpucEg5-cj-UMB9hyX6XF8N5Ea4pGqvBr6HRiPQp2gTCzyrRZZUzEvDkGiNe_kVgICZF7ZU7nkPc-L-dQ0Au_jDnE5mRfTK6yAnwoWoytRaRTYipNE5CH7Rtav5Wkdjvavj35N3EPDuS7jQCg=w640-h496" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Apache coiled ollas (jars)</div><div>(Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, Plate 42, explanation p. 285)</div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7z_se-7it0lCQfJcOiEgBUoyg9_RpWHaQhT6PPxLF8J6OMUbIZfN8kptJL4dIwmhtzRFOfn286iUDBxc2jloTFBZlRY1C0On9BdI3R-MKgXVLP-bqC9caq6-SreT7BjPSB-J4mArPoxmLZfiXOuUkEP4cBJsPc6MawSPo0RYns-WBPqjVkOVwBlUq=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="800" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7z_se-7it0lCQfJcOiEgBUoyg9_RpWHaQhT6PPxLF8J6OMUbIZfN8kptJL4dIwmhtzRFOfn286iUDBxc2jloTFBZlRY1C0On9BdI3R-MKgXVLP-bqC9caq6-SreT7BjPSB-J4mArPoxmLZfiXOuUkEP4cBJsPc6MawSPo0RYns-WBPqjVkOVwBlUq=w640-h340" width="640" /></a></div><div><div>Chemehuevi coiled baskets</div><div>(Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, Plate 232, explanation p. 519)</div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div></div></div></div><b style="font-size: large;"><br /></b></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzlrN2bQBMnOIQNhAYaiITkUqWI8J9vnkik1eHsaSmHAcPZM9JtvxUjocfVqzFg9l8rgCC-cVhGiXjJPoyfoR_1HHG4TEH43WUE-kcNqQchqcRIsXuGHKXs1XdlXAj2Eeioj-9_cnpADI1CB5Wwtha15C6Z4YIZh8UYD4fhQGOjkr5-mOK0kYqcrgf=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="800" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzlrN2bQBMnOIQNhAYaiITkUqWI8J9vnkik1eHsaSmHAcPZM9JtvxUjocfVqzFg9l8rgCC-cVhGiXjJPoyfoR_1HHG4TEH43WUE-kcNqQchqcRIsXuGHKXs1XdlXAj2Eeioj-9_cnpADI1CB5Wwtha15C6Z4YIZh8UYD4fhQGOjkr5-mOK0kYqcrgf=w640-h316" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">LEFT: Carrying Basket, Paiute Indians, Utah.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">(Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, Fig. 185, p. 494)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">RIGHT: "Apache Indian woman carrying a "Kathak" on her back, Arizona, ca.1880."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">(University of Southern California, ca.1880, Apache Indian woman carrying a "Kathak")<br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQmHKsZTOkS4iPCIJePdlrtgXdBTPtVsxh-dOuiuQBCKQnXJVe4MS5g3JIIoe7R0EM-T5dFp8Lw1KgiPmSVZz853P5N0bA2MgyR3hv_hwwEzGuE-e1xk6IxTyFSLH7_L6El3u6Zht6NxHI7a7H7CY_VJceUoQbms5RHwLrdPCVbOLFVIq4hRJuvRTE=s1447" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1447" data-original-width="1247" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQmHKsZTOkS4iPCIJePdlrtgXdBTPtVsxh-dOuiuQBCKQnXJVe4MS5g3JIIoe7R0EM-T5dFp8Lw1KgiPmSVZz853P5N0bA2MgyR3hv_hwwEzGuE-e1xk6IxTyFSLH7_L6El3u6Zht6NxHI7a7H7CY_VJceUoQbms5RHwLrdPCVbOLFVIq4hRJuvRTE=w552-h640" width="552" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"Apache Indian maiden with an olla on her head, ca.1900."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">(University of Southern California, ca. 1900, Apache Indian maiden)</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>MATERIAL SOURCES</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>While I run the risk of going into too much detail in this part of this article, I need to make the point that well-made baskets were a highly-developed technology. If you are not familiar with basketry you might assume that it is simple and mundane. We are all familiar with the jokes about the absurdly simple college course in "underwater basket making" which could not be more wrong. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>From the Burke Museum, (UW College of Arts & Sciences), Teacher's Guide For Basketry, Northwest Coast Basketry:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Materials used in basketry vary, depending upon the type of basket being made, its intended function, the tastes of the maker, and the materials available. A basket used for heavy loads would use stiff, sturdy material such as cedar withe or cedar root. A container made to fold flat requires flexible material such as spruce root. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Some of the more common materials used in basketry include cedar bark, cedar root, spruce root, cattail leaves, and tule. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>GATHERING AND PROCESSING THE MATERIALS </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Most raw materials used in weaving are harvested or gathered at specific times of the year. This ensures that the materials are collected when they are best suited for weaving. Weavers understand the growing cycles of the natural materials they use and recognize when a tree or plant is ready for harvesting. Often, special prayers are said or songs are sung by the weaver while she gathers and processes her materials.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Most materials are collected in the spring or early summer. This includes grasses, which must be picked at just the right time. If it is too early in the season, certain grasses are too soft or narrow for weaving. Other kinds, such as reed canary grass, need to be harvested before the plant blooms. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Pioneering work by Conklin (1957) and others documented that traditional peoples...often possessed exceptionally detailed knowledge of local plant and animals and their natural history, recognizing in one case some 1,600 plant species." (Inglis, 1993)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Instead of thinking that basketry was incompatible with a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle, the truth may be the opposite. These societies needed well-designed light, strong, durable, flexible, versatile, and portable basket items and implements that they could carry with them as they traveled. And they needed to be able to make baskets from whatever plants they found as they moved around -- plants that women were experts at harvesting. So baskets fit well with their mobile way of life.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>USING BITUMEN WITH BASKETS AND FIBERS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"The use of asphaltum [another name for bitumen] by aboriginal peoples is well documented in early historic accounts and abundant archeological evidence extends its use well back into the prehistoric era. Asphaltum was the caulk, glue, and paint...: when heated, the viscosity decreases, and the molten asphaltum can be applied, cooling to form a jet-black, waterproof coating, an adhesive or a decorative paint." (Calhoun, 1964)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>MAKING WATERPROOF BASKETS AND CANTEENS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The woman "making such baskets, [was] distributing the pitch over the inside of the receptacle by placing lumps of asphaltum in the basket with hot stones and shaking the whole with a rotary motion, causing the melting asphaltum to be distributed evenly over the surface." (Barrows, 1900, p. 41)</b></span></div></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiDg9SR1p4zDwMgaEfwr-2i3MO67bvtwU4kme_oZojYog3l2n-Z_7M7Eg5_jCgkr1NQ9lUA0AJ8aoHawsvBfoYNPaOOkJGQ3hzmHD579F_w6G8e8QzzbREIpuPpnsEHYl8beLrCJ5XHmeYbNmINlIyQvo25ZyTCVcZXEOCVFSSrHg8VX7y_PJKnNBmj=s1029" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1029" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiDg9SR1p4zDwMgaEfwr-2i3MO67bvtwU4kme_oZojYog3l2n-Z_7M7Eg5_jCgkr1NQ9lUA0AJ8aoHawsvBfoYNPaOOkJGQ3hzmHD579F_w6G8e8QzzbREIpuPpnsEHYl8beLrCJ5XHmeYbNmINlIyQvo25ZyTCVcZXEOCVFSSrHg8VX7y_PJKnNBmj=w398-h640" width="398" /></a></div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Paiute basket bottles</div><div>(Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, Plate 117, explanation p. 361)</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">COOKING WITH BASKETS:</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"Baskets also made fine cooking pots. Very hot rocks were taken from a fire and tossed around inside baskets with a looped tree branch until food in the basket was cooked." (Boule, 1992, p. 8)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"Closely woven, watertight containers were also used to cook foods. Red-hot rocks were placed in a water-filled basket, bringing the water to boil and cooking the contents. As the rocks cooled off, they were removed from the water with wooden tongs and replaced with newly heated rocks." (Burke Museum, Teacher's Guide)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">POTTERY VS. BASKETRY</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">It is possible that baskets made by nomadic hunter-gatherers were quite advanced and also that most of these tribes did not make pottery. Pottery should not be seen necessarily as an advance over basketry -- it just depended on the needs of the society. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Well-made baskets were strong, light, and could last for generations. Native American Indian nomadic hunter-gatherers whose lifestyle was similar to Upper Paleolithic people in Europe were well respected for the quality and utility of their baskets. Pottery on the other hand was heavy and fragile. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">"Nomadic hunter-gatherers are limited to technology that can be carried. If you move often and lack...draft animals, you confine your possessions to babies, weapons, and a bare minimum of other absolute necessities small enough to carry. You can’t be burdened with pottery...as you shift camp." wrote author Jared Diamond. </span></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Diamond; Guns, Germs, and Steel, p. 261)</b></span><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> This suggests that nomadic hunter-gatherers may have focused on making practical well-made baskets for many of their needs. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></div><blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">There is ample evidence that basketry preceded clay vessel production almost everywhere. Clay vessels just wouldn't work for nomadic Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, but baskets would be sturdy and portable. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Vince Pitelka</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Appalachian Center for Crafts</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Tennessee Technological University</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><<a href="http://www.potters.org/subject58018.htm">http://www.potters.org/subject58018.htm</a>></span></b></div></blockquote><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">However, many contemporary anthropologists have assumed that pottery was superior to basketry for cooking and carrying water, but at least for nomadic Native American Indians that was not the case. They often preferred baskets.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">But there are other implications as well. The use of these advanced baskets along with sealing agents such as bitumen could mean that later Neolithic people inherited a well-developed woven-fiber technology and not something primitive. (I will go into detail in my next blog about the Neolithic use of basketry.)</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">This idea, however, is the opposite of standard thinking for most of the last century when it was assumed that basket weaving only began in the Neolithic and that in any case, Upper Paleolithic technology was rather crude. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I would also add that when pottery was invented and became part of the Neolithic sedentary lifestyle, a good deal of basketry continued to be used along with pottery -- as each had its strengths and weaknesses.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><span><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">BASKETRY IN THE PRE-POTTERY NEOLITHIC ERAS</div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">While the important invention of pottery occurred during the Neolithic, there was a long time period before that invention known as PPN A and PPN B, or Pre-Pottery Neolithic A & B (10000 - 6500 BCE). This was followed by Pottery Neolithic with the invention of pottery, which went from ca, 6500 to ca. 4000 BCE when the first cities in Mesopotamia began to take shape. In other words for more than half of the Neolithic era, there was no pottery -- yet these agricultural societies clearly needed a wide variety of containers and related items for harvesting, winnowing, milling, and sifting plus household items for storage and cooking. </span></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgapukqDJYrqNRAhHEvQl5mMlZ80X3WsJX6eNUmst5_7e-rqrXZzuUfWXhHzbPPeJchHKn5ksF6tv-idwxLcw7Y3LN_6COUM4C211ohZu37frqKVGPG_FXLfo1IVeSCpe_Htc83_0aj7S2yULNR325fe3GFywXu_-BXFfjLSXWY-c4nElBTCJKSSm0G=s909" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="909" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgapukqDJYrqNRAhHEvQl5mMlZ80X3WsJX6eNUmst5_7e-rqrXZzuUfWXhHzbPPeJchHKn5ksF6tv-idwxLcw7Y3LN_6COUM4C211ohZu37frqKVGPG_FXLfo1IVeSCpe_Htc83_0aj7S2yULNR325fe3GFywXu_-BXFfjLSXWY-c4nElBTCJKSSm0G=w450-h640" width="450" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Examples of milling baskets; Pomo milling baskets. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">(Aboriginal American Basketry, 1904, Plate 97, explanation p. 350)</span></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Those containers were most likely a wide variety of baskets. The three examples of large baskets mentioned here in this article were used to store grain, for example. Yet, I find it odd that this fact is rarely mentioned when I researched pottery and containers in the Neolithic era; the attention of researchers has been almost entirely on the invention of pottery. Clearly, baskets played a major role in the establishment of Neolithic settlements and were widely used before and after pottery took hold. </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This is another example of basket technology being taken for granted or simply not considered, even though it was crucial for Neolithic development and furthermore it had become highly developed and useful in the time period before the Neolithic.</span></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>I also believe that woven-fiber technology played a major role in the first civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Both reed and papyrus boats were crucial to both, for example. Large grass houses in Mesopotamia were revered for their cathedral-like designs. And baskets were essential for dredging the marshes and hauling clay to make bricks. In Egypt there were many paintings of baskets being used in agriculture. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>See much more detail about this in my earlier blog-article:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Importance of</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Basket Weaving Technology</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">for the World's First Civilizations</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><<a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-importance-of-basket-weaving.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-importance-of-basket-weaving.html</a>></b></span></div></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: large;">CONCLUSION</span></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: large;">While many of the Native American Indian tribes were nomadic hunter-gatherers who made old stone age tools and seemed to live a life similar to Upper Paleolithic cultures in Europe, they also may have developed what we </span><span style="font-size: medium;">might call a 'hi-tech' basket technology. The sophistication of this technology is clear as the waterproofing of basket canteens shows along with the durability and wide variety of baskets.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Many times our preconceived notions as to what ought or ought not to be present at a given site of a given age clouds and limits our ability to admit new possibilities. Ideological and theoretical biases can be quite powerful and often subtly alter our ability to see new and wonderful things." (Hyland et al, 2002, p. 8)</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What does seem apparent to me is:</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">#1. Hominins from Homo habilis to Homo sapiens were very smart with the brainpower that each had and smart as to their use of the natural environment -- they were much smarter than previously thought.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">#2. Inventing a technology from absolute zero that can utilize local materials and be put to use in the local environment of each tribe, is very difficult and takes a really long time.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">#3. Hominins did not invent, develop or improve a technology or a process unless they had a compelling need. So, I believe nomadic hunter-gatherers did not need writing since they were a small group nor did they need pottery as it was too heavy and it broke, but they did need light durable baskets and they could make baskets from local materials anywhere they went. Calling them illiterate was a misunderstanding; it was comparing contemporary culture to their culture and then passing judgment on it.</span></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhknJfDtVUmIHt8ZRLPds3oqzKxPZ8GtDCzIAXfJuh3QOA5IV_OwdI-ffa2FPfnsnXbk5n1kCXB_s7kzwnVVzzfkhmpXcDb0mDgdUdm3YA4MHHwlaiPUzYhaZw1oTn58wf-qWojswMSQlG8dat_Y1rQvHI8EELZ3su8uuEXT1vZT8GLSKogma9IeswT=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="800" height="408" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhknJfDtVUmIHt8ZRLPds3oqzKxPZ8GtDCzIAXfJuh3QOA5IV_OwdI-ffa2FPfnsnXbk5n1kCXB_s7kzwnVVzzfkhmpXcDb0mDgdUdm3YA4MHHwlaiPUzYhaZw1oTn58wf-qWojswMSQlG8dat_Y1rQvHI8EELZ3su8uuEXT1vZT8GLSKogma9IeswT=w640-h408" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">"Two Havasupai Indian women in front of a native dwelling, Havasu Canyon, ca.1899." <br />The woman on the left is carrying a basket on her back. In the middle is a finished basket. And on the right, a woman is making a basket.</div><div style="text-align: center;">A good example of two different products: precise basket making and a crude shelter.<br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_Havasupai_Indian_women_in_front_of_a_native_dwelling,_Havasu_Canyon,_ca.1899_(CHS-3791).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_Havasupai_Indian_women_in_front_of_a_native_dwelling,_Havasu_Canyon,_ca.1899_(CHS-3791).jpg</a>></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">#4. Technical processes, innovation, and development do not necessarily progress in an orderly fashion. Contemporary archaeologists, for example, need to rid themselves of modern notions and realize that some past technologies may have developed haphazardly. Some tribal technologies might have been quite advanced along with simple crude technologies used at the same time by a tribe.</span></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzidLaEV0mIX_6eMQlipkQZ2H3tnTv7K2QV6Me-hJ05MhEi8WkOlqyldQuD0iBb8OirncjnBxLFe0uL7Ir3Cl8Pm9zUA0BHNX9gJS9UMk4Wx48oFZlleWGN_z3mCmTchqrFE7GoZGMt-X4woLlsyFsv2VU-WPbrORIdphjp8ytEjc1dw3ooR_7adY0=s931" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="931" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzidLaEV0mIX_6eMQlipkQZ2H3tnTv7K2QV6Me-hJ05MhEi8WkOlqyldQuD0iBb8OirncjnBxLFe0uL7Ir3Cl8Pm9zUA0BHNX9gJS9UMk4Wx48oFZlleWGN_z3mCmTchqrFE7GoZGMt-X4woLlsyFsv2VU-WPbrORIdphjp8ytEjc1dw3ooR_7adY0=w640-h356" width="640" /></a></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">"Indian in canoe made of rushes, Calif., 1924." <br />Notice the basket in the bow of her 'tule'.<br /><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Upper_lake_Pomo_In_the_tule_swamp.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Upper_lake_Pomo_In_the_tule_swamp.jpg</a>></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">___________________________________</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">ENDNOTES</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div><br /></div><div>Bahn, Dr. Paul. (2001). Paleolithic weaving – a contribution from Chauvet. Antiquity, 75:271-272.</div><div><br /></div><div>Barrows, David Prescott. The Ethno-botany of the Coahuilla Indians of Southern California. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1900. <<a href="https://archive.org/details/ethnobotany00barrrich/page/n7/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/ethnobotany00barrrich/page/n7/mode/2up</a>>. Accessed 28 November 2020.</div><div><br /></div><div>Birch-Chapman, Shannon; Jenkins, Emma; et al. (2017) "Estimating population size, density and dynamics of Pre-Pottery Neolithic villages in the central and southern Levant: an analysis of Beidha, southern Jordan, Levant." The Journal of the Council for British Research in the Levant, Volume 49, 2017 - Issue 1. <<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00758914.2017.1287813">https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00758914.2017.1287813</a>></div><div><br /></div><div>Boule, Mary Null. Hupa Tribe. Kahle/Austin Foundation. Vashon, Washington: Merryant Publishing, 1992. <<a href="https://archive.org/details/hupatribe0000boul">https://archive.org/details/hupatribe0000bou</a>l>. Accessed 28 November 2020.</div><div><br /></div><div>Burke Museum, UW College of Arts & Sciences. "Northwest Coast Basketry." Teacher's Guide For Basketry by Silvia Koros. Burkemuseum.org. <<a href="https://www.burkemuseum.org/static/baskets/Teachersguideforbasketry.htm">https://www.burkemuseum.org/static/baskets/Teachersguideforbasketry.htm</a>>. Accessed 28 November 2020.</div><div><br /></div><div>Calhoun, Cecil. "A Polychrome Vessel from the Texas Coastal Bend." Text from: Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society, 1964, 35: 205-211. <<a href="https://texasbeyondhistory.net/coast/nature/images/asphaltum.html">https://texasbeyondhistory.net/coast/nature/images/asphaltum.html</a>>. Accessed 28 November 2020.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Cârciumaru M., Ion R.-M., Nitu E.-C., Stefanescu R., 2012. "New evidence of adhesive as hafting material on Middle and Upper Palaeolithic artefacts from Gura Cheii-Râsnov Cave (Romania)." Journal of Archaeological Science: Volume 39, Issue 7, 2012, pp. 1942–1950.</div><div><<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440312000805">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440312000805</a>></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Connolly, Thomas J. "Implications Of New Radiocarbon Ages On Coiled Basketry From The Northern Great Basin." Cambridge University Press, American Antiquity, Vol. 78, No. 2 (April 2013), pp. 373-384. <<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23486324">https://www.jstor.org/stable/23486324</a>></div><div><br /></div><div>Connolly, Thomas J; Fowler, Catherine S; Cannon, William J. "Radiocarbon Evidence Relating to Northern Great Basin Basketry Chronology." UC Merced Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 20(1), 1998-07-01. ISSN 0191-3557. <<a href="https://escholarship.org/uc/item/52v4n8cf">https://escholarship.org/uc/item/52v4n8cf</a>></div><div><br /></div><div>Curry, Andrew. "Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?" Smithsonian Magazine, 2008. <<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/">https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/</a>></div><div><br /></div><div>Diamond, Jared M. (2005). Guns, Germs, and Steel : The fates of human societies. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. p. 261. ISBN 978-0-393-06131-4. </div><div><br /></div><div>Erdly, Catherine. "History". Basket Weaving. Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2008-05-08.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hardy, B.L., Moncel, MH., Kerfant, C. et al. Direct evidence of Neanderthal fibre technology and its cognitive and behavioral implications. Sci Rep 10, 4889 (2020). <<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61839-w">https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61839-w</a>> <<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61839-w">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61839-w</a>></div><div><br /></div><div>Hirst, K. Kris. "Mesopotamian Reed Boats Changed the Stone Age." ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020. <<a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/mesopotamian-reed-boats-171674">https://www.thoughtco.com/mesopotamian-reed-boats-171674</a>> Accessed 4/14/2021.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hyland, David C.; Zhushchikhovskaya, I. S.; Medvedev, V. E.: Derevianko, A. P.; Tabarev, A. V. "Pleistocene Textiles in the Russian Far East: Impressions From Some of the World's Oldest Pottery." Antropologie: Xl/1 • Pp. 1–10 • 2002, p. 1. <<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280385206_Pleistocene_Textiles_in_the_Russian_Far_East_Impressions_From_Some_of_the_World's_Oldest_Pot">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280385206_Pleistocene_Textiles_in_the_Russian_Far_East_Impressions_From_Some_of_the_World's_Oldest_Pot</a>></div><div><br /></div><div>Inglis, Julian T., Editor. Concepts and Cases: International Program on Traditional Ecological Knowledge. International Development Research Centre (Canada), 1993, <<a href="http://library.umac.mo/ebooks/b10756577a.pdf">http://library.umac.mo/ebooks/b10756577a.pdf</a>>. Accessed 12 December 2020.</div><div><br /></div><div>Kachina House. "Basket Weaving’s Importance In Native American Culture." Kachinahouse.com, 21 December 2016. <<a href="https://blog.kachinahouse.com/basket-weavings-importance-in-native-american-culture/">https://blog.kachinahouse.com/basket-weavings-importance-in-native-american-culture/</a>>. Accessed 28 November 2020.</div><div><br /></div><div>Lucas, C.; Galway-Witham, J.; Stringer, C. B.; Bello, S. M. "Investigating the use of Paleolithic perforated batons: new evidence from Gough’s Cave (Somerset, UK)" Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences volume 11, pages 5231–5255 (2019) <<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-019-00847-y">https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-019-00847-y</a>></div><div><br /></div><div>National Park Service. "Historic Tribes of the Great Basin." Great Basin National Park. <<a href="https://www.nps.gov/grba/learn/historyculture/historic-tribes-of-the-great-basin.htm">https://www.nps.gov/grba/learn/historyculture/historic-tribes-of-the-great-basin.htm</a>></div><div><br /></div><div>Pennsylvania Archaeology. "Paleoindian Period." <<a href="http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/archaeology/native-american/paleoindian-period.html">http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/archaeology/native-american/paleoindian-period.html</a>>. Accessed 12 December 2020.</div><div><br /></div><div>Rots, V., Hardy, B. L., Serangeli, J., & Conard, N. J. (2015). "When does hafting first appear?" "Residue and microwear analyses of the stone artifacts from Schöningen." Journal of Human Evolution, 89, 298-308. <<a href="http://www.evohaft.org/thematic-studies/first-appear/">http://www.evohaft.org/thematic-studies/first-appear/</a>></div><div><br /></div><div>Soffer O, Adovasio JM, Hyland DC, Klíma B, Svoboda J. "Perishable Industries from Dolní Vestonice I: New Insights into the Nature and Origin of the Gravettian." Paper Prepared for the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology Seattle, Washington, 25–29 March 1998. <<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257344691_Perishable_Industries_from_Dolni_Vestonice_I_New_Insights_into_the_Nature_and_Origin_of_the_Gravettian">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257344691_Perishable_Industries_from_Dolni_Vestonice_I_New_Insights_into_the_Nature_and_Origin_of_the_Gravettian</a>>. Accessed 28 November 2020.</div><div><br /></div><div>Soffer, O. (2004). Recovering Perishable Technologies through Use Wear on Tools: Preliminary Evidence for Upper Paleolithic Weaving and Net making. Current Anthropology 45, (3): 533.</div><div><br /></div><div>Universitaet Tübingen. "How rope was made 40,000 years ago." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 22 July 2016. <<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160722093459.htm">www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160722093459.htm</a>></div></div><p style="text-align: left;">Wendrich W. (2008) Basketry in Ancient Egypt. In: Selin H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. <<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8470">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8470</a>> Accessed Jan. 30, 2922.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p></p><div><br /></div></div></div></div></span></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-45359925607425423342021-12-11T08:20:00.003-05:002021-12-14T04:38:27.489-05:00Terra Amata and Modern Basket Weaving Technology<h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Terra Amata:<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Does the Oldest Paleolithic Building Site<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Indicate the Use of<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Advanced Basket Weaving Technology?<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">By Rick Doble</span></h1><h1 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNuU1eABXZ7aFHByA2RGQSM02u1ogtUcs2wIB37e6AlAi-q3shuXdsPZ09fYvUTakdEV48grp06aBPJOfwOzcXPy_kOXELkDe8zvoasVl_Wvq2XGlGnJWxdgop2YGrm2Azaez9JeEOkBR_X38Qh3vY-_gpYlqi6_DdT4bqbAlWmJltVeqMXPzJIpYB=s800"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNuU1eABXZ7aFHByA2RGQSM02u1ogtUcs2wIB37e6AlAi-q3shuXdsPZ09fYvUTakdEV48grp06aBPJOfwOzcXPy_kOXELkDe8zvoasVl_Wvq2XGlGnJWxdgop2YGrm2Azaez9JeEOkBR_X38Qh3vY-_gpYlqi6_DdT4bqbAlWmJltVeqMXPzJIpYB=w640-h606" /></a></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is a reconstruction of one of the 300,000-year-old Terra Amata huts in the Prehistoric Village of the Gorges du Verdon Museum in Quinson, France. The museum states, "The habitats [in their prehistoric village] have all been reconstructed based on research and observations by archaeologists. They are maintained by the museum's scientific team."</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.museeprehistoire.com/en/one-thousand-millennia/the-village-to-live-prehistory/4-prehistoric-habitats-from-4-different-periods.html">http://www.museeprehistoire.com/en/one-thousand-millennia/the-village-to-live-prehistory/4-prehistoric-habitats-from-4-different-periods.html</a></span></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">ABSTRACT<br />I have been writing about Paleolithic basket weaving technology for 2 years now. In this article, I attempt to show that there was an intermediate period in the development of the technology when an understanding of structure and constructions based on right angle or opposing fibers occurred. This was the crucial breakthrough that eventually would give humans the power to make an almost unlimited number of items both large and small, such as large boats and large houses made out of reeds. It is my contention that it was this key technology that led to the rise of civilization. In previous articles, I have shown that basket weaving technology could have begun in a rudimentary form 2 million years ago with the creation of random weave basketry. About 6 thousand years ago this culminated in the rise of the Sumerian and the Egyptian civilizations. But somewhere in-between the power of right angle and opposing fiber structure was discovered which then opened the door to this versatile technology. The Lower Paleolithic site at Terra Amata in Nice France provides ample evidence that suggests this transition from random weave basket technology to modern regular basket weaving had occurred by 300 ka with hominins such as Homo erectus. In this article, I list that evidence and argue that it suggests an advanced form of basket weaving had already taken place. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">INTRODUCTION</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">For the last two years in this blog, I have argued that basket weaving technology (or woven-fiber technology as I have suggested it be called) was a crucial technology that developed over millions of years. I believe it began 2 million years ago or earlier. I have suggested that these first baskets could have been made with a random weave and probably used weaverbird nests as models since early humans often lived in close proximity to weaverbirds in Baobab trees (most scientists believe that early humans spent a good deal of time around Baobab trees). (Doble 2020-04) Next, I have argued that a fully advanced basket weaving technology culminated in the first civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt and was crucial for the emergence of these civilizations. Engineers and craftsmen built boats, houses, irrigated fields, dredged canals, and constructed levees with an advanced woven-fiber technology, for example. (Doble 2021-04)</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhaRvShfwwzAJw_koMv1T9it610LywNHim3Rhm6MyR07rDQyTbucPkg9KOUbsCQAz3iVsA75-OBRj1pgqoLtra10iRQoB9T5nECgyI5OofIkCjA4CMlVZxGFuZ5zwSpbkdMYtIyxH59FmlHg3ydqGs2olgdMTIhUsETJR_g0OEH3RjQSCNoLkL_vm32=s800" style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhaRvShfwwzAJw_koMv1T9it610LywNHim3Rhm6MyR07rDQyTbucPkg9KOUbsCQAz3iVsA75-OBRj1pgqoLtra10iRQoB9T5nECgyI5OofIkCjA4CMlVZxGFuZ5zwSpbkdMYtIyxH59FmlHg3ydqGs2olgdMTIhUsETJR_g0OEH3RjQSCNoLkL_vm32=w640-h322" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div>LEFT: "Weaverbird (Southern Masked Weaver) nest of dry grass,</div><div>near Pretoria, South Africa" <b><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weaver_Bird_Nest.jpg">LINK</a>></b></div><div>RIGHT: Random weave basket (Basket/Photo by Nan Bowles)</div></div><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">I have also argued that after more than a million years or so, random weave technology began to develop into a technology that used a regular design and right-angle or opposing strand construction. This was the crucial breakthrough. Because once this had been achieved modern basket weaving technology as we know it was invented. And it was with this basic model that shoes, hats, containers, houses, boats in a wide variety of configurations, flexibility, size, and strength could be created.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">The purpose of this blog-article is to suggest when this innovation could have occurred. And my current research is pointing to a time roughly around 300 ka with our direct ancestor, Homo erectus.</span><br /><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></div><blockquote><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>FROM RANDOM TO REGULAR</i></span></b></div><span style="font-size: medium;">For the purposes of this article, I am going to speak of 'Random Basket Weaving Technology'. And then I will speak of 'Modern Regular Basket Weaving Technology' meaning, for example, that the strong vertical spokes and the flexible horizontal strands that are used to make a plaited basket are placed at regular intervals in an orderly fashion and are not random.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEimbAiIkNSekE5O6Iifcy1SAkMONNyUpT_J8g53AIazFzQHGps5WfflmWgyh7q_0H8hz5Im0dyJMEg6_UsOuRvfdXJBi9n66mG1-_wG-lpoIqptsEshGyZIK-Xlt7uag0qUrCWOD-HtlUUJRNOdjq60OeWZ4tvAzjL2o9ZKSugATyFza9nBnNizYYWB=s800" style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEimbAiIkNSekE5O6Iifcy1SAkMONNyUpT_J8g53AIazFzQHGps5WfflmWgyh7q_0H8hz5Im0dyJMEg6_UsOuRvfdXJBi9n66mG1-_wG-lpoIqptsEshGyZIK-Xlt7uag0qUrCWOD-HtlUUJRNOdjq60OeWZ4tvAzjL2o9ZKSugATyFza9nBnNizYYWB=w640-h226" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div>From a weaverbird nest (left) to a random weave basket (middle) to an advanced basket (right) made with opposing strands and regular even spacing.</div><div>LEFT: Weaverbird: "Fallen nest of Ploceus cucullatus" <b><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ploceus_cucullatus_nest_dsc01212.jpg">LINK</a>></b></div><div>MIDDLE: Random weave basket (Basket/Photo by Nan Bowles)</div><div>RIGHT: "Basket, palm leaf, Huaorani" "Exhibit in the South American collection of the American Museum of Natural History, Manhattan, New York City" <b><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Basket,_palm_leaf,_Huaorani_-_AMNH_-_DSC06184.JPG">LINK</a>></b></div></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">The change from random weave basketry to modern regular weave basketry ushered in the modern construction of baskets and woven-fiber structures. This was a technical revolution that greatly affected the ability of hominins to survive and to prevail. And it affected their cognitive abilities as well. I believe it may have taken hundreds of thousands of years to fully develop this technology. But by the Neolithic era, there is evidence that large boats and large buildings were being made with reeds, for example, around the area of Mesopotamia. (Doble 2021-04)</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWyv_m9rJ6qBBpBcIFlZjHDjRn2TTjw0PTeUuveFeNpwbe2_DXATK-Sjv9NeuLo3Z5qPYD4rK2_ypvwRcqktS3B0EhHyheI8fo20aFf9ft4zCEAQCaSjDqAYh31RZrc4w9tezeC7kund3uDaUNO1UGPlX-rmPZX72qmyBXV9Bsf4Qpp-QrF9G-8ZbY=s800" style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWyv_m9rJ6qBBpBcIFlZjHDjRn2TTjw0PTeUuveFeNpwbe2_DXATK-Sjv9NeuLo3Z5qPYD4rK2_ypvwRcqktS3B0EhHyheI8fo20aFf9ft4zCEAQCaSjDqAYh31RZrc4w9tezeC7kund3uDaUNO1UGPlX-rmPZX72qmyBXV9Bsf4Qpp-QrF9G-8ZbY=w640-h260" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div>Baskets are made in virtually all cultures and made worldwide from local materials. A basket made from the palm-like karagumoy tree in the Philippines is one example of making a basic basket from local materials.</div><div>LEFT: Karagumoy (Pandanus simplex): "The leaves are used as materials for weaving native hats, bags and mats in the Philippines" <b><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Karagumoy_-_Familiar_sight_in_Bulusan%27s_Farm_Patches.jpg">LINK</a>></b></div><div>RIGHT: A basic basket made from the wide leaves of the palm-like karagumoy tree woven in a hexagonal pattern <b><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Karagumoy_kinab%27anan_fruit_bowl.jpg">LINK</a>></b></div></div><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">Once the basic principles of modern regular basket weaving technology were understood, it was like a blueprint that could be expanded, elaborated, enlarged, and reconfigured. It was like a Paleolithic "Principia," i.e., the famous work by Isaac Newton that is the foundation of classical mechanics and led to the scientific and technological revolutions. The plants of the natural world could now be processed and woven to create whatever the human mind could imagine within the constraints of the technology. It was the plastic of its age.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">When the power of regular weave structure was understood, it was a major technological leap. Combined with an understanding of right-angle or opposing strand construction, it opened up limitless numbers of possible basket and woven-fiber objects. For example, baskets could now be small or large, flexible or rigid, designed for heavy-duty or light-duty use, made with an open or closed weave, open or closed as containers, and worn on the back or carried by hand. And this new technology could do all of this using local plants found anywhere around the world. These baskets were usually light, strong, and durable. For example, many baskets made by Native American Indians lasted several generations and were revered as important family objects. (Doble 2020-12) But baskets were only the beginning and only part of the story. This technology was scalable so the basic model led to a technology that could be applied to building grass houses, thatched roofs, fences, walls, fish traps, grass boats, shoes, hats, cooking baskets, levee foundations, and waterproof canteens and buckets, etc. And it could be combined with other materials such as bitumen, wood, rope, and clay.</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh8b4LIse0zt7KuBxEP-aS5-vvAwbJ7kIuano62y9Br6jwsXe9scwksYbNLciDjtyx60ZfthVlYDFvJVKdcgnlPz5uqZI5zDe_s4bCxo7_eO7s7AOhklWCbLuAcfqxh6Bm2-px0osBT2w7iNtuFgOFyFgDJQ5TWqSrLi2KdAH2UIj2h_Zab9SrVwDUg=s800" style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh8b4LIse0zt7KuBxEP-aS5-vvAwbJ7kIuano62y9Br6jwsXe9scwksYbNLciDjtyx60ZfthVlYDFvJVKdcgnlPz5uqZI5zDe_s4bCxo7_eO7s7AOhklWCbLuAcfqxh6Bm2-px0osBT2w7iNtuFgOFyFgDJQ5TWqSrLi2KdAH2UIj2h_Zab9SrVwDUg=w640-h174" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div>The advanced development of basketry led to a wide variety of products such as this basic boat. Notice the essential right-angle cordage that ties and holds the bundles together.</div><div>LEFT: "Building a Papyrus Boat. Nigeria, Africa." <b><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Budowa_%C5%82odzi_papirusowej_-_Nigeria_-_001274s.jpg">LINK</a>></b></div><div>MIDDLE: "Reed boat at Ekehagen Prehistoric village...Sweden" <b><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ekehagens_forntidsby_vassb%C3%A5t_6790.jpg">LINK</a>></b></div><div>RIGHT: "Reed Boat, Lake Hawassa, Ethiopia" <b><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reed_Boat,_Lake_Hawassa_(10903076965).jpg">LINK</a>></b></div></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;">See a Slide Show of Woven Items </span></b><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>(Doble, 2019-09)</b></span></span></div><i style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Evidence for a Basket Weaving</span></b></div></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">and Woven-Fiber Technology</span></b></div></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">in the Paleolithic Era</span></b></div></span></i><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html</span></a></b></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">Nevertheless, this does not mean that once a tribe or tribal group discovered this technology that it spread quickly to other groups. It may have been found but then lost; it may have been discovered by different groups but then not accepted by other groups. But eventually, I believe, it was widely known among hominins.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><br /><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">CAN THIS BE PROVEN?</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">However, there are major problems in an effort to prove that this kind of basket weaving technology began hundreds of thousands of years ago. First and most important is the fact that basket plant material decays quickly and rarely leaves trace evidence</span></b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b> (see the Afterword). (Soffer et al.) (Grömer) And </b></span><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">secondly the further we go back in time, the less likely we are to find direct evidence. Some indirect evidence is possible such as microwear patterns on tools or impressions in clay fragments. But even these are hard to find.</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEic_fMHvN0oDBbSMVpUz3Me26bln8ZsDocvTd9YId7CEMPkck_GEqwyNnVRZunr5V_1VbmLHX1uvhFn9Qrk0TlJJI3HvFPlLIPZ4H4TIeJN7aRxJngSs3y_dyKu67QMmo6wxbzOTHnJ39ZmOa_oLo1vPjcsOJDNHSxCcqaktDzOFmTZO9xGi9_y6sp6=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="800" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEic_fMHvN0oDBbSMVpUz3Me26bln8ZsDocvTd9YId7CEMPkck_GEqwyNnVRZunr5V_1VbmLHX1uvhFn9Qrk0TlJJI3HvFPlLIPZ4H4TIeJN7aRxJngSs3y_dyKu67QMmo6wxbzOTHnJ39ZmOa_oLo1vPjcsOJDNHSxCcqaktDzOFmTZO9xGi9_y6sp6=w640-h316" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">DIRECT EVIDENCE FROM A SITE </span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">WHERE EVIDENCE OF THE OLDEST BUILDINGS HAS BEEN FOUND</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In this blog-article I will focus on one Lower Paleolithic site, Terra Amata, in Nice, France, where there is direct evidence of the construction of the oldest buildings found so far. Then, using clear evidence from this site, I will suggest a hypothesis about the beginnings of 'modern regular basket weaving' technology.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">However, much of what I will say about basketry is based on inference because direct evidence, as I have said, rarely exists,</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So, for the time being, we are stuck with the following. We need to determine what was possible and then what was probable.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I can make a case based on the possible, i.e., how possible was it that basic random basket weaving technology was used in Terra Amata, for example. Did they have the necessary materials, did they have the necessary skills, and did they have a compelling need?</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Once the above questions are answered, the next is even harder. How probable is it that these hominins actually worked with and used this basket weaving technology? If the answer is yes, then the question becomes, if they used basic basketry, could they or did they take it to the next step, i.e., make baskets with a modern regular structure. What evidence do we have that points to that conclusion? So how likely was it that they had discovered basic modern regular basket weaving technology as described above?</span></b></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>WAS BASKET WEAVING POSSIBLE FOR THESE HOMININS?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Did they have the materials?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- As you will read next, the following plants were plentiful in the area where Terra Amata was located. Heather and several pines (sea pine, Aleppo pine, and Norway pine) along with genista were all well known in the ancient world for their usefulness when it came to making baskets. </b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(Dear) (Farm)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Genista, in particular, was highly valued in the ancient world for its fiber weaving qualities. <br />"The well-known Genista Spanish Broom is a native of the south of Europe and is found wild in ...the south of France. The plant is known to yield a fibre. It has long been regarded as the material of cordage, nets, bags, and even sails, which were in use by the Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians."</b></span></div></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Royal Gardens. "The Spanish Broom as a Fibre Plant." Kew. Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, No. 63, March 1892. </span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Did they have the skills, e.g., hand coordination, ability to visualize and plan?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- It is clear from their architectural skills, described next, that they did have these skills and therefore would have been able to make basic baskets.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Did they have the need?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- Dr. de Lumley chief archaeologist and the man who discovered the site made the point that this group of hominins was highly mobile and only stayed at this location for a short time period. So it seems likely they needed some way to help them carry and transport essential tools, food, and other items when they were on the move.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>SO BASIC RANDOM BASKET WEAVING TECHNOLOGY WAS POSSIBLE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>BUT WAS IT PROBABLE?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Based on the evidence described next, it seems unlikely that an advanced hunter-gatherer society that could plan and build buildings, make a fire in those buildings, and craft biface Acheulean stone tools, would not have discovered how to make simple random weave baskets. Furthermore, there were many plants available in the area that could have been used to make basket-type woven-fiber items as shown above in the listing of materials.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Basketry in particular would have been extremely useful for a mobile tribe in their travels and also to help them gather materials when they camped. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b><i><u>So Did The Terra Amata People Probably </u></i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b><i><u>Have A Basic Random Basket Weaving Technology</u></i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b><i><u>In A Word "Yes"</u></i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>HOWEVER, WAS IT PROBABLE <br />THAT THEY HAD BEGUN TO MAKE BASKETS <br />WITH A MODERN REGULAR BASKET WEAVING TECHNIQUE?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>To answer that question, we have to look in detail at the direct evidence that was found at the site at Terra Amata.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The Huts At Terra Amata</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The best direct evidence of hominins working with vegetable/plant matter to make structures hundreds of thousands of years ago can be found in the ruins of the huts at Terra Amata. It is dated about 300 ka (see the footnote about dating). Since virtually all evidence from baskets and woven-fiber items has been lost, the construction of these well-documented large structures might give us major clues about hominins working with plants and vegetation. </b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b>FACTS ABOUT THE TERRA AMATA HUTS </b></div><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b>AND THE SITE IN NICE, FRANCE<br /></b><b>Quotations From Dr. de Lumley's <br /><i>Scientific American</i> Article In 1966 And More</b></div></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;">de Lumley, H. (1969). A Paleolithic camp at Nice. Scientific American, 220, 42-50. <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-paleolithic-camp-at-nice/">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-paleolithic-camp-at-nice/</a></div></span></div></blockquote><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEijdt0-OVYbSHnAjtuyLON8YmZSYFAPwa1d0g6PNtW58HmEvm6vUDaPmB_y-E0s6tBl0GoVZBr1qFswqCfjxZbwVLg4ht2q_1Rl4ZOSEXlKZ23ig2M-LBEC0Vz0QWLraO9MaeSpn0WSrJ8BbsWt9gtW2uavbstPUHWddjpM8rN0v2jTvYIqgSGjIgXl=s320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;">Genista </span><b style="font-family: arial;"><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spartium_junceum_(habitus).jpg">LINK</a>></b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /><b>MATERIALS</b><br /><b>"Pollen studies...indicate that fir and Norway pine on the alpine heights grew farther down the slopes than is now the case, and that heather, sea pine, Aleppo pine, and holm oak covered Mont Boron and its coastal neighbors. (42)</b><br /><b>"A few seashore plants-grasses, horsetails, short-stemmed plantain and various shrubs grew in the cove. (43)</b><br /><b>"Our other indirect source of information consists of fossilized human feces found in the vicinity of the huts. De Beaulieu's analysis of their pollen content shows that...it comes from plants, such as genista." (45)</b><br /><br /><b>THE STRUCTURES</b><br /><blockquote><b>PLEASE NOTE:</b> Dr. de Lumley, who is French, referred to the poles that made up the walls as 'stakes' which in English is a bit confusing as stakes are not usually as long as the poles that made the Terra Amata huts. I have decided to call these wall stakes 'stake-poles' as they were 3 inches in diameter and probably from 10 to 13 feet long.</blockquote></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"The superimposed living floors at Terra Amata are located in three separate areas. Four are on the section of beach that had formed the sandbar until the sea level dropped; six are on the beach seaward of the bar, and 11 are on the dune inland. The huts that were built on the living floors all had the same shape: an elongated oval. They ranged from 26 to 49 feet in length and from 13 to nearly 20 feet in width. Their outline can be traced ...[wit] the imprint of a series of stake-poles, averaging some three inches in diameter, that were driven into the sand to form the walls of the hut. </b><br /><b>"The palisade of stake-poles that formed the walls was not the huts' only structural element. There are also visible the imprints left by a number of stout posts, each about a foot in diameter. These supports were set in place down the long axis of the hut. Evidence of how the palisade and the center posts were integrated to form the roof of the hut has not survived."</b><br /><b>In a caption to a hypothetical drawing de Lumley wrote:</b><br /><b>"Some larger posts were set up along the huts' long axes, but how these and the walls were joined to make roofs is unknown." </b><b> </b><b>(43)</b><br /><br /><b>FIRE AND WIND PROTECTION</b><br /><b>"A basic feature of each hut is a hearth placed at the center. These fireplaces are either pebble-paved surface areas or shallow pits, a foot or two in diameter, scooped out of the sand. A little wall, made by piling up cobbles or pebbles, stands at the northwest side of each hearth. These walls were evidently windscreens to protect the fire against drafts, particularly from the northwest wind that is the prevailing one at Nice to this day.</b><br /><b>"It is worth noting that the hearths at Terra Amata, together with those at one other site in Europe, are the oldest yet discovered anywhere in the world." (43) </b><br /><br /><b>THE PEOPLE</b><br /><b>There was found "the imprint of a right foot, 9 1/2 inches long, preserved in the sand of the dune."</b><br /><b>"If...one uses the formula applied to Neanderthal footprints found in the grotto of Toirano in Italy, the individual whose footprint was found at Terra Amata may have been five feet one inch tall." (45)</b><br /><blockquote><b>NOTE: </b>While there has been some doubt in the past about which early hominins camped at Terra Amata, the museum in Nice, The Museum Of Prehistory Of Terra Amata, which is continually updating its information now clearly states, "A footprint and a tooth from a seven-year-old child are direct testimonies of Homo erectus at Terra Amata." (Museum Of Prehistory Of Terra Amata) So Dr. de Lumley's original assessment that it was Homo erectus who camped here appears to be correct.</blockquote></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>TOOLS</b><br /><b>Picture Caption: "Representative Tools unearthed at Terra Amata include...a bone fragment pointed to make an awl." (45)</b><br /><b>ALSO:</b><br /><b>"A bone...fragment has one end smoothed by wear; still another [bone tool] may have served as an awl..." (49)</b><br /><blockquote>There were also a number of biface Acheulean stone tools ("so named because many of the tools are made out of stone 'cores' that are shaped by chipping flakes from both faces rather than from one face only"). The biface stone age technology is considered to be an indicator of increased intelligence and a major advance in technology.</blockquote></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A CONTAINER<br />"On the dune a spherical imprint in the sand, filled with a whitish substance, may be the impression left by a wooden bowl." (49)<br /><br />THE SOCIETY<br />"The 11 living floors on the dune at Terra Amata are so precisely superimposed that they almost certainly represent 11 consecutive yearly visits, probably involving many of the same individuals." (49)<br />"At least one of the projectile points unearthed at Terra Amata could not have been produced locally. The stone from which it is made is a volcanic rock of a kind found only in the area of Esterel, southwest of Cannes and some 30 miles from Nice. This discovery allows us to conclude that these summer visitors' travels covered at least that much territory in the south of France, although we cannot be sure how much more widely they may have roamed." (47)<br /><br />THE AGE<br />"These huts [were] put up by hunters [hunter-gatherers] who visited the shore of the Mediterranean some 300,000.years ago." (42)<br />"There is no older evidence of man-made structures than that at Terra Amata." (49)<br /><br />SUMMARY:<br />The site contained 21 different huts of different sizes but all shaped the same which was an elongated oval. While it would have been easier to build the two opposing walls in a straight line rather than with the curve of an oval, this gave the hut more space and also showed engineering and design sophistication.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br />There was a substantial difference in overall size, the smallest being about one-third the square footage of the largest. "They ranged from 26 to 49 feet in length and from 13 to nearly 20 feet in width." </b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">(43)</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br />The main numerous stake-poles were about three inches in diameter but there were some stout posts one foot in diameter "set in place down the long axis of the hut" but how is not clear.</b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">(43)</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="font-size: large;"><br />The three-inch diameter stake-poles "were driven into the sand to form the walls of the hut" and, according to the recreation by the museum and de Lumley's depictions, were placed at regular intervals. "Evidence of how the palisade and the center posts were integrated to form the roof of the hut has not survived." </b><b style="font-size: large;"> </b><b style="font-size: large;">(43)</b><br /><br /><br /><b style="font-size: large;">ABOUT THE BUILDINGS</b><br /><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#" style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgmbtIvIPaNGd6ir5H6y5oHWysh2LCMoKiooX076biEsBsM72iAJFNBdIh5Vxk4cE2Od_v4vI5-bVIPn8zit7qD7Gq853vuunVMn9-YfoCGDTSslherLJrcNFVXhtD6_uFaanKU_oJDi8s5sZsrZz3pPQICP_2Lb8EpnR6VAo9Q53BC1_8d9sB-Wsvu=w640-h480" /></a><br />Based on my research this recreation by the Gorges du Verdon Museum seems like the most accurate model of one of the huts, which is very similar to the model of a hut in the Terra Amata Museum in Nice where the original archeological site is located.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT THE RECREATION OF THE TERRA AMATA HUT<br />Based on the current recreation by the Gorges du Verdon Museum, the hut that is pictured required at least 40 stake-poles to make both walls, all about 3-inches in diameter and about the same length. In addition, there were several posts that were one foot in diameter. The 3-inch stake-poles were pushed into the sand which left a lasting impression and which allowed these structures to be discovered.</b></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#" style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLp6m6bI-9C48cMh4IXMKNz5bFVaS8XJ2Xn67pMHNOsjTf7tXv89owXEZmlOeGvFqHbmJZmexw1VhF7H7iGjza0Y5OrqDw9yvcGiZMviYnRC6FqMBhX3KoZoNC-QZ2x9qnqgDgxOUs2r1U9aofMVI51jxCg3ysyQSiH8PD8EwEz7qoMLVJLRZDC015=w640-h208" /></a><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Using the Pythagorean formula (and assuming a building height of 6 feet since the people were estimated to be 5 feet tall), each of the 40 stake-poles would have been about 12 feet long up to the apex for the largest structure and about 9 feet up to the apex for the smallest. I would also assume that the stake-poles had to be at least a foot longer to go above the apex and then be joined with the ends of other stake-poles. According to the recreation by the Gorges du Verdon Museum these stake-poles were fairly straight and they may have been trimmed to remove small protruding limbs which is also depicted in the Smithsonian picture of a Terra Amata hut. (Smithsonian Institution) It should also be noted that the oval shape meant that some stake-poles needed to be longer than others and this had to be factored into building the huts.</b></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIJ1OvoNhDcTI2GnXctkm5aGb9wlS3shSw5WfYb16mykG5U2rtdBoVycMlUcLuyeZETqxX5o2q4dmj02p58lolEfxwAJcOf4beYNLy38BQ4UpLMHBSOX9cUK08-4c0wF1EISCK4LhX2UsPH3v-JINHTaYsQTYPoyhtgtOkJuO_pDlIQmhDgxeE6xVE=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="463" data-original-width="800" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIJ1OvoNhDcTI2GnXctkm5aGb9wlS3shSw5WfYb16mykG5U2rtdBoVycMlUcLuyeZETqxX5o2q4dmj02p58lolEfxwAJcOf4beYNLy38BQ4UpLMHBSOX9cUK08-4c0wF1EISCK4LhX2UsPH3v-JINHTaYsQTYPoyhtgtOkJuO_pDlIQmhDgxeE6xVE=w640-h370" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br /></div></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The two sides or walls of the building had to be at a proper angle to allow hominins who were perhaps five feet tall to enter. In addition, the structure had to provide enough space inside the building for human activity and also to create a solid structure -- one that could withstand the famous strong mistral wind in that area. The basic idea behind a structure such as this is that when the wind hits a wall the opposing wall resists and keeps the first wall from collapsing -- which is the key to stability and resilience and the strength of a triangular structure. <br /><br />However, I do think that these walls might have been covered by animal skins or a basic grass or leaf thatching to reduce the effect of wind and rain -- see the note in the Afterword.<br /><br />There are more than five drawings or models of a Terra Amata hut which are all a bit different. But in all cases the depictions show: <br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- multiple stake-poles making up one leaning wall </b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- a wall that is opposed by a leaning wall of the same size on the opposite side that is made up with about the same number of stake-poles. </b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- an overall shape that is a long triangle. </b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- stake-poles in parallel in a line, pressed into the sand and laid out in an oval.</b></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>-- the front of the building open for hominins to enter and exit</b></span></li></ul>To the modern eye, the recreation of this simple structure does not seem like much of a breakthrough, but it is. It indicates a unified sense of design that could be configured to be large or small, for example, since some buildings were about a third the size of the largest ones. It indicates planning and a sense of math and geometry such as shape and volume. A certain number of straight stake-poles of the right length and width had to be pushed into the sand at regular intervals and the same done on the opposing wall. Then the walls were laced or attached together at the top to secure them. All of this defined and enclosed a useful artificial space that had been created by and for hominins.<br /><br />Furthermore building these huts required communication and coordination among members of the tribe. And since each hut needed a large number of stake-poles that had to be gathered and trimmed, there must have been a number of hominins involved. See the Smithsonian picture of the construction of the Terra Amata Shelter </b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(Smithsonian Institution)</b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> which shows six men working on the construction of these buildings.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br />And if this is true, these huts would also have required a shared idea of what the hut would look like once constructed. And since the huts could be made large or small with an oval design, this added another layer, another level, to the sophistication of the construction and the communication. Also, the building of these huts meant that the people involved were adept at planning, coordinating, and doing this work in a proper sequence. Stake-poles had to be located, cut down, and trimmed, meaning that the processing of materials was involved before the building was erected. Moreover, the actual construction of these buildings was probably a bit complicated and required teamwork because each pole had to be supported probably by an opposite pole when it was being put together since an unsupported leaning pole would collapse. All of the above is something we take for granted in the modern world, but for early hominins, this was a major step toward an advanced culture and technology.<br /><br />The cooperation and teamwork strongly suggest that there was a proto-language that was being used to communicate as Dr. Daniel Everett has suggested. </b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(Everett)</b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> While this may be true, ideas and construction such as this can be also done without words or with just a few words It could be accomplished with a kind of 'show and tell' approach with drawings in the sand, for example. </b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(Doble 2021-02) (Blackmore pp. 225-255) (Boyette)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br />While this ability to work together was not necessarily important for an individual making a basket, it clearly indicated a high level of intelligence and the ability to conceptualize and to plan -- all of which were important for making baskets or woven-fiber structures.<br /><br />Taken together, the above paragraphs describe the same abilities that were also required for a modern regular basket weaving technology (or woven-fiber technology as I have suggested it be called). These were the same skills needed to make a basket or container or a hat or a small straw boat.<br /><br />EVIDENCE OF EARLY BASKETRY?<br /><br />Could The Terra Amata People Have Begun <br />To Make Advanced Basket Weaving Constructions <br />Using Right-Angle And Opposing Strand Structure?<br /><br />Let's Examine The Evidence</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><blockquote><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">MAKING INFERENCES (FROM EXPII.COM)</div><b><i>An inference is a conclusion or educated guess drawn from observations as well as previous knowledge.</i></b><i><br /><b>Similar to a hypothesis, an inference is an informed guess about science or scientific relationships. Inferences are based on real, observed evidence but are still just guesses about the true relationship that exists.</b></i><br />Scientific Inference — Definition & Examples<br /><a href="https://www.expii.com/t/scientific-inference-definition-examples-10307">https://www.expii.com/t/scientific-inference-definition-examples-10307</a></blockquote><br /><b>ABOUT INFERRING THESE QUALITIES FROM TERRA AMATA</b><br /><b></b><blockquote><b>A recent study about Acheulean stone age tools showed that their manufacture also provided hints about the hominins who made them. </b><br /><b>"Lead author of the study, James Green, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, added: 'By deciphering the mental and physical processes involved in the production of prehistoric artefacts, we can gain valuable insights into the abilities of the individuals who made them.'</b><br /><b>"These [Acheulean] axes demonstrate social learning and effortful activity...They also provide some of the earliest evidence of something being deliberately made in a sequence from a picture in someone's mind." </b><br />University of York. "Researchers Trace Evolution Of Self-Control." Phys.Org, May 12, 2020. <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-05-evolution-self-control.html">https://phys.org/news/2020-05-evolution-self-control.html</a></blockquote></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In the same fashion, simple huts such as those found at Terra Amata can reveal a good deal about the processes that led to their construction which, in turn, can uncover a significant amount of information about the cognitive abilities of the hominins who made them.</b><br /><br /><b>About The Triangular Shape</b><br /><b></b><blockquote><i>One of the shapes that can bear weight very well is the triangle...When a force (the load) is applied to one of the corners of a triangle, it is distributed down each side. The two sides of the triangle are squeezed. Another word for this squeezing is compression. </i><br />Let's Talk Science. "Why is a Triangle a Strong Shape?." August 17,<b></b>2020. <a href="https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/backgrounders/why-a-triangle-a-strong-shape">https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/backgrounders/why-a-triangle-a-strong-shape</a></blockquote></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj7ZfBzwRY6-DikgEkLCQ-bSHIQ1wHYt5zad_T3vWGchDbEogdnztQeEjzxgimD0faeV0stczSkK32h4jsVE3mqWUKp5DqSa_vPAkfRTHTg9JzU4vXZN_jFHkidoiJXshWkJ7FEcT4ppD7mp1JjUBnddX7suUbC4ijKp5zs6483rIyHs1ZmQyA309_2=s287" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="284" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj7ZfBzwRY6-DikgEkLCQ-bSHIQ1wHYt5zad_T3vWGchDbEogdnztQeEjzxgimD0faeV0stczSkK32h4jsVE3mqWUKp5DqSa_vPAkfRTHTg9JzU4vXZN_jFHkidoiJXshWkJ7FEcT4ppD7mp1JjUBnddX7suUbC4ijKp5zs6483rIyHs1ZmQyA309_2" width="284" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="font-size: large;">It was quite remarkable that early hominins understood the strength of the triangle which was the basic shape later used for the construction of Egyptian pyramids and for Native American Indian teepees.</b><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span><blockquote style="font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b>SPECIFIC HUT MAKING SKILLS IN COMMON</b></i></div><i><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b>WITH MODERN REGULAR BASKET WEAVING TECHNOLOGY</b></i></div></i><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b>* = information from Dr. de Lumley's article</b></div></b><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b>-- = similar modern regular basket weaving skills</b></div></b><b>The builders:</b><br /><b>* were able to plan.</b><br /><b> -- Construction of a basket requires planning.</b><br /><b>* had to find material and then construct the building in a specific sequence.</b><br /><b> -- Basket making requires the gathering of material and then construction in a sequence.</b><br /><b>* had a basic general mental concept, i.e., a triangle.</b><br /><b> -- A basket craftsman must have an understanding of basic basket shapes.</b><br /><b>* had a specific concept of a particular finished building.</b><br /><b> -- To make a specific basket, a craftsman must have a clear image of the finished basket before starting.</b><br /><b>* created an oval-shape design and a mental image of one.</b><br /><b> -- Same as above.</b><br /><b>* designed a structure that was symmetrical.</b><br /><b> -- Baskets in general are symmetrical.</b><br /><b>* had the cognitive, mathematical and geometric skills to scale the huts large or small with the same basic shape and construction. </b><br /><b> -- Baskets require the same skills since baskets can be made large or small and can be scaled.</b><br /><b>* had the concept of creating an artificial environment within the building.</b><br /><b> -- A basket is an artificial space that is created for a specific human purpose and is a portable environment (i.e., can carry multiple things together).</b><br /><b>* designed for human needs, i.e., for five foot people to enter/exit and designed for the use of fire in the building.</b><br /><b> -- A basket is designed for a specific human need.</b><br /><b>* found multiple stake-poles the same width and length.</b><br /><b> -- Simple baskets are often built with rigid vertical poles (called spokes) the same width and length around which flexible weaver strands are woven.</b><br /><b>* processed (i.e., trimmed etc) multiple stake-poles prior to construction.</b><br /><b> -- Plants used for modern regular basketry are usually processed.</b><br /><b>* placed the stake-poles so they were supported by stake-poles on the opposite wall thus creating a stable structure which could handle the force of the strong mistral winds.</b><br /><b> -- Opposing structure is the basis of 'modern regular basket weaving'. </b><br /><b>* placed stake-poles vertically in parallel while placing them securely in the sand.</b><br /><b> -- The spokes for many basket configurations are placed securely vertically in parallel with regular spacing.</b></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh8F2PMEIlNFIPLNy70neDZu3QBnIg_cr4Lu7K2oKzfiHcWwqxV_s5mNpbzGRvt4Ljf0R0LyAuAilrV3YuwWgaLZoeTAce-Pxxk2I_ZTS71gJ02NivIi48Y4IMKjyRFnsV7DK8_ZNUe-PZyoCQ4qqJUdjyvGRTS_lMcoLAE2QT-pOK92iCGCM_fRHZi=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="800" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh8F2PMEIlNFIPLNy70neDZu3QBnIg_cr4Lu7K2oKzfiHcWwqxV_s5mNpbzGRvt4Ljf0R0LyAuAilrV3YuwWgaLZoeTAce-Pxxk2I_ZTS71gJ02NivIi48Y4IMKjyRFnsV7DK8_ZNUe-PZyoCQ4qqJUdjyvGRTS_lMcoLAE2QT-pOK92iCGCM_fRHZi=w640-h224" width="640" /></a><span style="font-size: medium;">LEFT: The vertical spokes can be plainly seen as this young girl begins to make a basket. </span><b><</b><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Country_School-_Everyday_Life_at_Baldock_County_Council_School,_Baldock,_Hertfordshire,_England,_UK,_1944_D20551.jpg" style="font-weight: bold;">LINK</a><b>><br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;">RIGHT: The stiff vertical spokes and the right-angled horizontal flexible weaver strands are clearly visible in this basket that has almost been completed. </span><b><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_bamboo_basket_making_1.JPG">LINK</a>></b></div><b style="font-size: large;"><blockquote>This idea quoted earlier applies to both the building of these huts and also to the construction of baskets which "provide... evidence of something being deliberately made in a sequence from a picture in someone's mind." (University of York)</blockquote></b><br /><b style="font-size: large;">TO SUMMARIZE</b><br /><br /><b style="font-size: large;">TERRA AMATA HUT STRUCTURE SIMILARITIES </b><br /><b style="font-size: large;">WITH MODERN REGULAR BASKET WEAVING TECHNOLOGY</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>--- They were structures built with opposing forces, i.e., two opposing walls at Terra Amata, vertical spokes, and horizontal strands with basic basket technology.</b><br /><b>--- Both used regular repeating construction vs. random or non-standard non-regular construction.</b><br /><b>--- Both processed materials before construction.</b><br /><b>--- Both required a mental image of the finished structure.</b><br /><b>--- Both used regular spacing and a regular size for the stake-poles along with a standardized model. </b><br /><b>--- Both designs were scalable. Huts were different sizes as are baskets.</b><br /><b>--- Both created an artificial space designed for human needs.</b><br /><b>--- Both were symmetrical.</b><br /><b>--- The triangle design gave each hut strength that spread pressure (compression) which is similar to modern regular basket weaving construction.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="800" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhPxc0B9nVH0T-ncBCRrE4JgeCvpYp2mz42hJyrG_lyLofVl1WJZfQCknMCtf-u2QgblL7pclH8jlQZdQMZ6imi-8tifNnKfgTJhbeTeKyfAVN3ohkqhSmAFilOH3RymSzcRvkBjUFRWoU3w4P4ygt9B9H0Fskos44Aw-D0EfIRuT2QtsS0O7NJmvjX=w640-h216" width="640" /></div></b><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">In these three examples the power, simplicity and variety <br />of right-angle or opposing design can be seen.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:43.SFF41.Day2.NM.WDC.28jun07_(657130602)_(2).jpg">LINK</a>> <<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Basket,_Huaorani_-_AMNH_-_DSC06167.JPG">LINK</a>> <<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Basket,_palm_leaf,_Huaorani_-_AMNH_-_DSC06184.JPG">LINK</a>></b></div><br /><b style="font-size: large;">SO WAS MODERN REGULAR BASKET WEAVING TECHNOLOGY</b><br /><b style="font-size: large;">PROBABLE FOR THESE HOMININS?</b><br /><br /><b style="font-size: large;">The above lists indicate that these hominins at Terra Amata had more than enough intelligence and skills to weave baskets and that the skills they did have were similar to those required for basketry.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /><b>It's a lot like a puzzle where many of the pieces are missing. Nevertheless, the pieces we do have need to be placed in the proper position to begin to grasp the whole picture. Then when we have enough clues, not unlike the TV game <i>Wheel of Fortune</i>, we can make an educated guess about the big picture, but at that point, it is only a hypothesis and not a proof.</b><br /><br /><b>However, a well-crafted hypothesis can guide us to look for the other missing pieces and to look for direct or indirect evidence, And this is what happened, for example, with the discovery of cordage that was 40 ka and made by Neanderthals in the south of France (see the Afterword). </b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(Ledsom)</b></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> Researchers realized that there was a micro-environment when cordage was attached to a stone tool and when they looked at this with a microscope, they made a major discovery.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b><br /><b>CONCLUSION</b><br /><br /><b>We can say with confidence that the hominins at Terra Amata had the intelligence, the imagination, the skills, the knowledge plus the math, geometry, and the cognitive abilities to conceptualize and to plan -- all of which modern regular basket weaving required. Plus this highly mobile group of hunter-gatherers clearly needed baskets to help them carry numerous items when they were often on the move. We can also say that adequate basket-making materials were available to them.</b><br /><br /><b>So it seems likely that these hominins made or had made the most basic random weave baskets. But then it also seems probable that they could have taken it to the next level.</b><br /><br /><b>Therefore it is my hypothesis that around 300 ka (give or take) modern regular basket weaving, that we would recognize, probably was being used by these hominins at Terra Amata. </b><br /><br /><b>What we cannot know is how advanced their basket weaving technology had become. There are three basic ways to weave a basket, each one more difficult than the previous one. Plaiting is the simplest; it is just basic vertical spokes and horizontal weaver strands with the strands woven over and under the spokes. Simple basic basket making often uses wide materials and does not take long to make. Twining is the next way and can take much longer. Finally, there is coiling which can take a very long time, often months. And there are endless variations. (Beckman)</b><br /><br /><b>Therefore, as Lower Paleolithic sites are discovered, archaeologists need to be aware that there could be evidence that supports an early development of modern regular basket weaving by Homo erectus or other hominins.</b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggbN10gR1TOoNl_yMkj65zp6GaKoj-EoSknMo0SsjJSmdG3nT4U0lxmkPjJL0iiPfGCS5TQQzS__AbGmkoSQNrtGUeE6Osr24REMal8o0uUh6DR5QEzL659JNdrBDSDsLF3Do6o4YzMaWbEJafkpKAaf8FKI4jZTkbdhjSYeMbFqsVv8pqISoTlzUF=s797" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="797" height="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggbN10gR1TOoNl_yMkj65zp6GaKoj-EoSknMo0SsjJSmdG3nT4U0lxmkPjJL0iiPfGCS5TQQzS__AbGmkoSQNrtGUeE6Osr24REMal8o0uUh6DR5QEzL659JNdrBDSDsLF3Do6o4YzMaWbEJafkpKAaf8FKI4jZTkbdhjSYeMbFqsVv8pqISoTlzUF=w640-h386" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span>"Indian in canoe made of rushes, Calif., 1924." </span><br /><span>Notice the basket in the bow of her 'tule'. </span><b><</b><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Upper_lake_Pomo_In_the_tule_swamp.jpg" style="font-weight: bold;">LINK</a><b>></b></div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>_________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>AFTERWORD</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><div><br /></div><div>PLANT MATERIALS FORMED THE BULK <br />OF HUNTER-GATHERER CULTURAL ITEMS <br />BUT DUE TO DECAY, EVIDENCE HAS BEEN LOST</div><div><br /></div><div>Dr. Adovasio has made the point that there is "ample ethnographic evidence that perishable technologies form the bulk of hunter-gatherer material culture even in arctic and sub-arctic environments (e.g. Damas 1984; Helm 1981). Archaeologists working with materials recovered from environmental contexts with ideal preservation clearly confirm that this is also true for the past as well. Taylor (1966:73), for example, notes that in dry caves he recovered 20 times more fiber artifacts than those made of stone, Croes (1997:536) reports that wet sites yield inventories where >95% of prehistoric material culture is made of wood and fiber, and Collins (1937) confirms the same for sites in Alaskan permafrost." (Soffer et al.)</div><div><br /></div><div>"The vast majority of the materials with which prehistoric people were surrounded and with which they worked is lost to us today. ...organic materials start to decay as soon as they are deposited in the ground." (Grömer)</div></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT THE AGE OF TERRA AMATA</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The site of Terra Amata is 230 +/- 40 ka old, based on two thermoluminescence (TL) dates on burnt flints from the littoral marine deposits (Beach and Lower Cycle) published by the Oxford Laboratory (Wintle and Aitken 1977... However, an electron spin resonance (ESR) date on quartz grains from the same deposits indicates an age of 380 +/- 80 ka B.P. (Falgueres, Yokohama, and Quaegebeur 1988). Neither the fauna (cf. comments on the fauna in Mourer-Chauvird and Renault-Miskovsky 1980) nor the lithic assemblage, nor, indeed, the strati-graphic sequence, allow us to choose between the ESR date and the TL results. (Villa 196)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So the exact age of the Terra Amata site is still being determined. But what we can say with a good deal of certainty, is that the site is at least 190 ka (derived from the lowest dating listed above: 230 - 40 = 190) which is still quite old. When the figures from the quote above are averaged, the date for the site is close to 300 ka which is the figure I used in this article and the date that Dr. de Lumley used.. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT THE BONE TOOL POINTED TO MAKE AN AWL</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In the Scientific American article de Lumley wrote that he found a "bone fragment pointed to make an awl." (45) Among Native American Indians, the women who made baskets used a bone awl to make those baskets and this was the one indispensable tool that they used. (Doble, 2020-12)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In an exhaustive study of prehistoric bone awls, Douglas Campana determined that they were used primarily to puncture animal skins and to make baskets. In the study of bone tool use, Campana concluded "These [bone awl] tools were used both as perforators in the working of skins and leather or as manipulators in the making of basketry." <br />(Campana 54) </b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(Buc,Loponte pp. 143-157)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A MAJOR FIBER DISCOVERY IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>For about 100 years it was an accepted assumption among archaeologists and anthropologists that basket weaving technology could not have started earlier than the Neolithic era. This was not based on facts or science but prevented research into woven-fiber technology during the Paleolithic era. Now there is direct evidence that sophisticated rope was being made in the Middle Paleolithic era by early hominins and not Homo sapiens. This new discovery supports my hypothesis that basket weaving technology was developed all through the Paleolithic era. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>At the prehistoric site of Abri du Maras in the south of France direct evidence of cordage made by Neanderthals about 40 ka (B.P.) was discovered using microscopic examinations of fiber attached to a stone tool. This site is about 200 km (as the crow flies) from Terra Amata. The cord was made from a conifer, so the pines at Terra Amata were similar. This discovery of complex cordage indicated that hominins such as Neanderthals were much more sophisticated than previously thought and that their invention of cordage must have begun many thousands of years earlier since it required advanced thought and processing. (Doble 2021-09) </b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>(Hardy et al.)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>ABOUT THE ROOF AT TERRA AMATA</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It is important to note that de Lumley wrote several times in his Scientific American article that he could not state the exact form of the buildings, that the way "the walls were joined to make roofs is unknown; the form shown [in his article drawing] is conjectural." (43) So the complete configuration of the huts is not clear. However, based on temporary shelters made by contemporary African nomadic tribes, animal skins or grass thatching could have been part of the design. They could have been attached to the stake-poles to cover the walls (walls which were also the roofs in all of the hut recreations). These would have reduced the effect of the wind which nevertheless would still have been an important factor when the famous mistral winds were at their maximum. These winds can blow at 40 knots for several days with much stronger gusts and are part of the environment around Nice. (Ledsom) This would explain why the huts' hearths needed to be "protected from drafts by a small pebble windscreen" even though the covered walls could have provided a basic shield. (de Lumley 43)</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Writing about another prehistoric campsite, Mary Leaky pointed out that contemporary nomadic tribes constructed temporary buildings by bending branches to make a structure and then covering these with grasses or animal hides to make a wall. (Leaky 24)</b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7YtisDm23k8oIoh70qigabsprX0Gc7gXvHD-EUogcw2mOeU8mV8SVfbfhqeWmg0Tf1fUGQPn_BQehO05AwO4zJ5hq0xwriKa90yOL_uuLRxP8fyw0zDap-w4xnLa0ovvaQ_G-DZp5hHY-OSkyzc4K7Xr2_am3j-kdyEqfzVcn4kDJcANfRm_OmFWu=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="800" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7YtisDm23k8oIoh70qigabsprX0Gc7gXvHD-EUogcw2mOeU8mV8SVfbfhqeWmg0Tf1fUGQPn_BQehO05AwO4zJ5hq0xwriKa90yOL_uuLRxP8fyw0zDap-w4xnLa0ovvaQ_G-DZp5hHY-OSkyzc4K7Xr2_am3j-kdyEqfzVcn4kDJcANfRm_OmFWu=w640-h316" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></span><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><<a href="https://archive.org/details/aboriginalbasket00masorich">LINK</a>> <<a href="https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/CS.aspx?VP3=DamView&VBID=2A3BXZG0YIUE&SMLS=1&RW=1043&RH=532">LINK</a>></span></b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The development of advanced basketry would have led to "burden baskets" or large baskets carried on the back such as these pictured here that were used by Native American Indians. These baskets were used worldwide and in their early stages would have helped hominins to be able to gather food and materials which would have increased their chances for survival.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1Ms-mX2bwGXnGjrDNHVDwud5TSNvd0B9wPdjxGvj0u1DaCEmeKsfG8Eg4FBzwk3uV8H096Rgd0ikevfBNJRWPZn8GEJaZwBN-8DzdcIVeSBPhYdYCt0-aZ3zBYo7RZE2xAbDCVzRzrxnisrJRH6CIphsH2FUbmZ3Na_NoIykInsoS8YbGK24C9Dzn=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="501" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1Ms-mX2bwGXnGjrDNHVDwud5TSNvd0B9wPdjxGvj0u1DaCEmeKsfG8Eg4FBzwk3uV8H096Rgd0ikevfBNJRWPZn8GEJaZwBN-8DzdcIVeSBPhYdYCt0-aZ3zBYo7RZE2xAbDCVzRzrxnisrJRH6CIphsH2FUbmZ3Na_NoIykInsoS8YbGK24C9Dzn=w640-h400" width="640" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><<a href="https://archive.org/details/aboriginalbasket00masorich">LINK</a>> <<a href="https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/CS.aspx?VP3=DamView&VBID=2A3BXZG0YAFG&SMLS=1&RW=1043&RH=532">LINK</a>></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>_________________________________</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>ENDNOTES</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Beckman, Tad. "Indian Basketry: Form and Use." Harvey Mudd College. <a href="http://pages.hmc.edu/beckman/indian/basketry/forms.html">http://pages.hmc.edu/beckman/indian/basketry/forms.html</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Blackmore, Susan. "Evolution and Memes: The Human Brain as a Selective Imitation Device." Cybernetics and Systems, Vol 32:1, 225-255, 2001.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Boyette, Adam; Hewlett, Barry. "Teaching in Hunter-Gatherers." Washington State University. # Springer Science+Business Media, Dordrecht, 2017. DOI 10.1007/s13164-017-0347-2. BoyetteHewlett_teaching_in_HG_tYq6NC7.pdf. Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Buc, Natacha; Loponte, Daniel (2007). "Bone tool types and microwear patterns: Some examples from the Pampa region, South America." Methods and Interpretations in Worked Bone. INAPL. pp. 143–157.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Campana, D. "Natufian and Protoneolithic Bone Tools. The Manufacture and Use of Bone Implements in the Zagros and the Levant." BAR International Series No 494. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1989, page 54. <<a href="https://www.academia.edu/8195058/Natufian_and_Protoneolithic_Bone_Tools_The_Manufacture_and_Use_of_Bone_Implements_in_the_Zagros_and_the_Levant">https://www.academia.edu/8195058/Natufian_and_Protoneolithic_Bone_Tools_The_Manufacture_and_Use_of_Bone_Implements_in_the_Zagros_and_the_Levant</a>>. Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Dear,Caroline. "Notes On Heather Use In Basket Making." The University of St Andrews and Scottish Basketmakers' Circle. <a href="https://wovencommunities.org/collection/caroline-dear-notes-on-heather-use-in-basket-making/">https://wovencommunities.org/collection/caroline-dear-notes-on-heather-use-in-basket-making/</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">de Lumley, H. "A Paleolithic camp at Nice." Scientific American, 220, pp. 42-50, 1969. <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-paleolithic-camp-at-nice/">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-paleolithic-camp-at-nice/</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">DOBLE'S ARTICLES ARE LISTED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Doble, Rick. "Evidence for a Basket Weaving and Woven-Fiber Technology in the Paleolithic Era." DeconstructingTime, 2019-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Doble, Rick. "Evidence That Paleolithic Hominins Lived in Close Association With Weaverbirds and Their Basket Making Skills." DeconstructingTime, 2020-04.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/04/oldowan-weaverbirds-homo-habilis-basket-making.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/04/oldowan-weaverbirds-homo-habilis-basket-making.html</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Doble, Rick. "Overcoming Gender Bias in Paleolithic Research:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Gender Bias May Have Prevented Paleolithic Basket-Weaving Technology from Being Recognized and Accepted." DeconstructingTime, 2020-12. <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/12/overcoming-gender-bias-in-paleolithic.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2020/12/overcoming-gender-bias-in-paleolithic.html</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Doble, Rick. "Basket-Weaving Education and Its Cognitive Aspects." DeconstructingTime, 2021-02. <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/02/basket-weaving-education-and-cognitive-aspects.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/02/basket-weaving-education-and-cognitive-aspects.html</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Doble, Rick. "The Importance of Basket Weaving Technology for the World's First Civilizations." DeconstructingTime, 2021-04.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-importance-of-basket-weaving.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-importance-of-basket-weaving.html</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Doble, Rick. "A Nature Journal Article Validates DeconstructingTime's Blogs." DeconstructingTime, 2021-09. <a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/09/nature-article-validates.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2021/09/nature-article-validates.html</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Everett, Dr. Daniel. How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention. Liveright/W. W. Norton & Company, 2017.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Farm, Joybilee. "Making Pine Needle Baskets From Local Materials." <a href="https://joybileefarm.com/making-pine-needle-baskets-from-local-materials/">https://joybileefarm.com/making-pine-needle-baskets-from-local-materials/</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Grömer, Dr. Karina. "An Introduction to Prehistoric Textiles" Brewminate.com, Natural History Museum, Vienna, March 01, 2016, <a href="https://brewminate.com/an-introduction-to-prehistoric-textiles">https://brewminate.com/an-introduction-to-prehistoric-textiles</a> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Hardy, B.L., Moncel, MH., Kerfant, C., et al. "Direct evidence of Neanderthal fibre technology and its cognitive and behavioral implications." Sci Rep 10, 4889 (2020). <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61839-w">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61839-w</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Leakey, M. D. Olduvai Gorge: Volume 3, Excavations in Beds I and II, 1960-1963. Cambridge University Press, p. 24. ISBN 9780521077231.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Ledsom, Alex. "France's Crazy Wind is the Main Reason Behind Provence's Sunny Climate." The Culture Trip, 22 June 2017. <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/frances-crazy-wind-is-the-main-reason-behind-provences-sunny-climate/">https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/frances-crazy-wind-is-the-main-reason-behind-provences-sunny-climate/</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Let's Talk Science. "Why is a Triangle a Strong Shape?." August 17, 2020. <a href="https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/backgrounders/why-a-triangle-a-strong-shape">https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/backgrounders/why-a-triangle-a-strong-shape</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Museum Of Prehistory Of Terra Amata. <a href="https://www.nice.fr/fr/culture/musees-et-galeries/presentation-du-musee-terra-amata">https://www.nice.fr/fr/culture/musees-et-galeries/presentation-du-musee-terra-amata</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Museum of Prehistory of the Gorges du Verdon. (Musée de Préhistoire des Gorges du Verdon.) <a href="http://www.museeprehistoire.com/en/home.html">http://www.museeprehistoire.com/en/home.html</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Prehistoric village (Quinson). "Prehistoric habitats from 4 different periods." Museum of Prehistory of the Gorges du Verdon. (Musée de Préhistoire des Gorges du Verdon.) <a href="http://www.museeprehistoire.com/en/one-thousand-millennia/the-village-to-live-prehistory/4-prehistoric-habitats-from-4-different-periods.html">http://www.museeprehistoire.com/en/one-thousand-millennia/the-village-to-live-prehistory/4-prehistoric-habitats-from-4-different-periods.html</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Royal Gardens. "The Spanish Broom as a Fibre Plant." Kew. Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, No. 63, March 1892. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Smithsonian Institution. "Terra Amata Shelter." Page Last Updated: June 17, 2020. <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/hearths-shelters/terra-amata-shelter">https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/hearths-shelters/terra-amata-shelter</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Soffer O, Adovasio JM, Hyland DC, Klíma B, Svoboda J. "Perishable Industries from Dolní Vestonice I: New Insights into the Nature and Origin of the Gravettian." Paper Prepared for the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology Seattle, Washington, 25–29 March 1998. DolniVestonice.pdf. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The University of York. "Researchers Trace Evolution Of Self-Control." Phys.Org, May 12, 2020. <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-05-evolution-self-control.html">https://phys.org/news/2020-05-evolution-self-control.html</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Villa, Paola. "Middle Pleistocene Prehistory in Southwestern Europe: The State of Our Knowledge and Ignorance." The University of Chicago Press. Journal of Anthropological Research, 1991, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 193-217. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285975075_Middle_Pleistocene_Prehistory_in_Southwestern_Europe_The_State_of_Our_Knowledge_and_Ignorance">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285975075_Middle_Pleistocene_Prehistory_in_Southwestern_Europe_The_State_of_Our_Knowledge_and_Ignorance</a> Accessed 2021-12-09.</span></div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></div></span></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9002294256759880711.post-13084806043023595682021-10-30T01:40:00.003-04:002021-10-30T07:46:52.435-04:00New Big Ideas About Stone Age Evolution, Language, Technology<h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>3 New Big Ideas <br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>About Stone Age<br /> </b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>Human Evolution, Language and Technology<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>by Rick Doble</b></span></h1><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RVktGsfUozA/YXqVYvE3KaI/AAAAAAAAECc/PYwQAG27Py8HmOih779581PxOqVSb6cYwCLcBGAsYHQ/s800/Mudhif_Reception_Hall_%252830943793762%2529A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="800" height="448" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RVktGsfUozA/YXqVYvE3KaI/AAAAAAAAECc/PYwQAG27Py8HmOih779581PxOqVSb6cYwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h448/Mudhif_Reception_Hall_%252830943793762%2529A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div>This grass house (mudhif) was built entirely out of reeds, including the rope and mats. Many archaeologists believe this basic design was older than the first Mesopotamian cities and these types of buildings housed many people after the Sumerian civilizations had risen.</div><div>"Iraq's Marsh Arabs use reeds to build vaulted reception halls called mudhifs, such as this one at Albu Hamrah near the ancient Sumerian archaeological site of Lagash."</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762).jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mudhif_Reception_Hall_(30943793762).jpg</a></div></div><div style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">INTRODUCTION</span></b></div></span><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I am a generalist when most people who study a subject are specialists. This is *not* a criticism of specialization but it is a criticism of overvaluing specialization. There is room for both disciplines although they approach their subject matter quite differently: the specialist approaches from the bottom up so to speak, the generalist from the top down.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>What often gets lost, when a discussion about generalism occurs, is that there are rules. It is much too easy to weave together a number of ideas and then come up with a theory that attempts to prove aliens built Stonehenge, for example.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Like specialization, a generalist should rely on proven facts and accepted ideas. It is my opinion that generalists should provide ample substantiated evidence pointing to the truth of their ideas. And this evidence should come from a range of reliable sources and disciplines. Just because they/we are generalists does not free us from the burden of the scientific process. If anything, it requires that we do more.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The problem is that generalists often think outside the box. They often do not have major academic credentials, they often propose ideas about disciplines that they have not specialized in. They often have wide-ranging knowledge of several fields, for example, which they then weave together.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>A good example is that of Charles Darwin whose wide-ranging interests allowed him to come up with his theory of evolution. It was his study of geology (and not biology) that provided the key because it became clear that the world was much, much older than previously believed which also meant that natural forms, including humans, could have evolved over long periods of time. He discovered clear evidence of this timetable when he found seashells in Cape Verde, high up in the mountains, indicating that the mountains had once been at sea level and then, over thousands if not millions of years, had moved. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iF0Jw_SCGh8/YXqVsgnYgDI/AAAAAAAAECk/-qIh8L-HZzcPHN82vFTmC4V45FISl_OgACLcBGAsYHQ/s800/Fossilized_seashells_at_the_summit_of_Mt._Diablo%252C_CAA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="800" height="398" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iF0Jw_SCGh8/YXqVsgnYgDI/AAAAAAAAECk/-qIh8L-HZzcPHN82vFTmC4V45FISl_OgACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h398/Fossilized_seashells_at_the_summit_of_Mt._Diablo%252C_CAA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;">"Fossilized sea shells in sandstone outcroppings at the summit <br />of Mount Diablo, Contra Costa County, California (Altitude: 3,864 feet)"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fossilized_seashells_at_the_summit_of_Mt._Diablo,_CA.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fossilized_seashells_at_the_summit_of_Mt._Diablo,_CA.jpg</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Plate tectonics and continental drift are examples of a theory that was initially rejected as absurd, but that now is central to our understanding of the Earth's geology. There was considerable evidence pointing to the truth of this idea but no one, including its founder Wegener, could explain the dynamics that caused the continents to move. Alfred Wegener came up with this idea around 1915 but was often ridiculed by major authorities such as George Gaylord Simpson who attacked it as nonsense and instead promoted his own idea, which now seems absurd, a theory of periodic huge floods. Admittedly Wegener's ideas needed further proof. Yet when positive proof did appear the prestigious journal <i>Nature</i> refused to print an article that considered this theory. In the 1950s solid irrefutable proof was found based on the new study and technology of paleomagnetism which was able to show "seafloor spreading," i.e., that the floor of the oceans had moved, as shown by the timetable of the shifting polarity of undersea volcanic rock which records the shifting magnetism of the Earth over time. Continental drift is now considered one of the great scientific ideas of the last 100 years. And it caused a paradigm shift.</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-az6n_holjIA/YXqWI-Z-6DI/AAAAAAAAECs/aB0H_KLQikgtbmCqIHROWQBvtZ-E54WBQCLcBGAsYHQ/s777/Fig2-5globes.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="777" data-original-width="623" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-az6n_holjIA/YXqWI-Z-6DI/AAAAAAAAECs/aB0H_KLQikgtbmCqIHROWQBvtZ-E54WBQCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Fig2-5globes.gif" /></a>j</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The history of the continents and continental drift</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fig2-5globes.gif">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fig2-5globes.gif</a></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>While I, of course, do not consider myself to be in the same 'league' as these two monumental scientists, I think their examples are important. </b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>ABOUT MY WORK AND THIS BLOG</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>As of 10/26/2021, my blog has recorded: 116,561 page views along with total combined views of another 100k at two academic websites, academia.edu and figshare.com, along with about 17k PDF downloads of these articles.</i></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I started this blog about the human experience of time in 2012. When I began I did not know where this inquiry would take me. But now years later it has yielded more ideas than I ever imagined. Often one initial idea lead to another and then another and before I knew it I had begun to map out a certain aspect. My blogs about basket weaving technology are a good example. I began with a basic idea that basket weaving technology (or woven-fiber technology as I have suggested it be called) had created a wide variety of products in prehistoric cultures. But almost two years later, I thought it was possible that this technology might have begun 2 million years ago with Homo habilis (or other hominins) who could have learned from the intricate nests of weaverbirds and also that the first civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt could not have emerged without a highly developed woven-fiber technology. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>So with this introduction, I will list three of my major ideas that I have formulated over the last ten years in this blog about the human experience of time. While I have an M.A. in Communication (minor in Anthropology) and a B.A. in English (with many Anthropology and Sociology courses), I clearly do not have the credentials in Anthropology, for example, that would normally be required if I were working in the academic world. Nevertheless, I have a lifelong interest in Paleolithic and Neolithic cultures -- as I collected Neolithic stone tools and other artifacts for my own personal "museum" starting at the age of 9. And now at the age of 75+, I want to put my ideas 'out there' while my thinking process is still clear and before old age closes in.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>My hope is that some of my ideas have "legs" and that other researchers and specialists will consider them. In any case, I have hoped to add to the ongoing dialogue about the human condition.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>All of my work is copyrighted under the Creative Commons Copyright meaning that you can quote as much as you like as long as you give me credit.</i></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>THE HUMAN SENSE OF TIME</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In Brief: </b>Homo sapiens have a unique part of the brain that may have led to the development of a 'sense' of linear time -- time with a past, present, future, and duration.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Animal Senses Compared to the Human Sense of Time</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/08/animal-senses-compared-to-human-sense.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/08/animal-senses-compared-to-human-sense.html</a></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KCQvGnMQvt8/YXqW3JYGi0I/AAAAAAAAEC0/Oi2woUukfIUOLba46mLcSYOB0uTnIfWewCLcBGAsYHQ/s800/COMPOSITE_EYE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="285" data-original-width="800" height="228" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KCQvGnMQvt8/YXqW3JYGi0I/AAAAAAAAEC0/Oi2woUukfIUOLba46mLcSYOB0uTnIfWewCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h228/COMPOSITE_EYE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Opo_Terser_-_Compound_Eyes_of_a_Robber_Fly_-_(Holcocephala_fusca)_(by).jpg">LEFT:</a> </span>Compound eyes of a Robber fly</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iris_-_left_eye_of_a_girl.jpg" style="font-weight: bold;">RIGHT:</a> Left eye of a girl</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As we all know dogs have a much better sense of smell than we humans do. Their sense of smell is at least 1000 times more acute than that of Homo sapiens. Different animals often have different senses and their ability to sense things in the world can be quite unusual. In this article, I make the argument that humans have a unique sense of time -- a sense just like touch and sight. We are the only animal that understands linear time -- time with a past, present, and future and also a sense of duration. No other animal has this, although most have a sense of cyclical time, such as a dog knowing when it is time to be fed. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Furthermore, it is this sense of linear time that allows us to work with time, to plan, and to coordinate. This gives us a power no other animal has and has allowed us to become the dominant species on the planet. Brain research has shown that we have a unique part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex (PFC) which we are only beginning to understand but which definitely does involve working with time. Much of this was not understood when I wrote this article in August 2014 so my blog may be one of the first to suggest this.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This is my most popular article which has been viewed over 11,000 times: 9,064 times on my blog and these two academic sites: 1,408 (views & downloads) on Academia.edu and 855 (views & downloads) on Figshare.com. This has been viewed by researchers in about 90 countries.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>THE PDF FILE ON ACADEMIC WEBSITES</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Animal Senses Compared to the Human Sense of Time</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Academia.edu</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.academia.edu/8413225/Animal_Senses_Compared_to_the_Human_Sense_of_Time_By_Rick_Doble">https://www.academia.edu/8413225/Animal_Senses_Compared_to_the_Human_Sense_of_Time_By_Rick_Doble</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Figshare.com</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Animal_Senses_Compared_to_the_Human_Sense_of_Time_by_Rick_Doble/3443591">https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Animal_Senses_Compared_to_the_Human_Sense_of_Time_by_Rick_Doble/3443591</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">HOW LANGUAGE BEGAN AND THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING OF TIME</b></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In Brief: </b>If language developed over a million years as Dan Everett has suggested, the earliest languages would probably have had immediate concepts of time, since Homo sapiens or earlier species had just begun to emerge from the immediacy of animal existence.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>How Language Began and the Human Understanding of Time: Daniel Everett's New Theories About the Evolution of Language</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.academia.edu/37624870/How_Language_Began_and_the_Human_Understanding_of_Time_Daniel_Everetts_New_Theories_About_the_Evolution_of_Language">https://www.academia.edu/37624870/How_Language_Began_and_the_Human_Understanding_of_Time_Daniel_Everetts_New_Theories_About_the_Evolution_of_Language</a></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>All linguists agree that reference to time is a universal aspect of all languages. In fact, language is the primary tool for communicating time concepts, for working with time, and for planning and coordinating. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But since animals live in the immediate moment and we emerged from our animal existence to invent language and conceive of linear time, the concept of time was probably quite different in the beginning. In this article, I suggest that the early concepts of time were concepts of immediacy. And there is a 'primitive' tribe in the Amazon that refers to time in this manner. While the tribe is thought of as 'primitive' the language is quite sophisticated and is able to express a complex view of immediate time. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This fits very nicely with Daniel Everett's new theory about the development of language. He believes that it developed over a million or so years. I believe an evolving concept of time from the immediate to the modern sense of linear time might have taken that long to come into being.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This article has been well received by the academic community. I posted this article on my blog and also on two academic websites, Academia.edu and Figshare.com. At these two academic sites, I recorded a combined 800 page views and 235 downloads. Here is one comment I got on Academia.edu from Terence Meaden, Alumnus of the University of Oxford, "Originality and likely correctness."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The initial posting on my blog.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Daniel Everett's New Theories About The Evolution Of Language </i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2018/10/everett-how-language-began-and-human-time-keeping.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2018/10/everett-how-language-began-and-human-time-keeping.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Read more of my articles about the development of language:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/p/time-concepts-origins-of-language-it-is.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/p/time-concepts-origins-of-language-it-is.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rax7j52EHLU/YXqXxq4TJHI/AAAAAAAAEDE/Ax7jnAi74AMhUNG7xZF5Bg1y3rMibbylwCLcBGAsYHQ/s800/1_Helen_Keller5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="800" height="478" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rax7j52EHLU/YXqXxq4TJHI/AAAAAAAAEDE/Ax7jnAi74AMhUNG7xZF5Bg1y3rMibbylwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h478/1_Helen_Keller5.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Deafblind Helen Keller reading the lips of First Lady, Mrs. Coolidge, in 1926. Helen wrote that time did not exist for her until she learned language. "My inner life, then, was a blank without past, present, or future...There were no stars—no earth—no time."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">See my blog about Helen Keller: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/12/time-consciousness.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2014/12/time-consciousness.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Photo credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Helen_Keller5.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Helen_Keller5.jpg</a></b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>EVIDENCE FOR A BASKET WEAVING AND WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY IN THE PALEOLITHIC ERA</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>In Brief: </b>Basket weaving technology may have begun in the earliest days of hominin existence and helped these species survive and evolve. Later, when basket weaving technology was fully developed, it was a crucial technology for the emergence of the earliest civilizations.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Evidence for a Basket Weaving and Woven-Fiber Technology in the Paleolithic Era</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/2019/09/evidence-for-basket-weaving-technology.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-es1c0xf5Kqw/YXqYNIvZ6AI/AAAAAAAAEDM/semdYkByv10we9ABET4frcLTorAKmYNfwCLcBGAsYHQ/s800/COMPOSITE_RANDOM_BASKET.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="800" height="322" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-es1c0xf5Kqw/YXqYNIvZ6AI/AAAAAAAAEDM/semdYkByv10we9ABET4frcLTorAKmYNfwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h322/COMPOSITE_RANDOM_BASKET.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weaver_Bird_Nest.jpg">LEFT:</a> </b>"Weaver bird (Southern Masked Weaver) nest of dry grass. <br />Near Pretoria, South Africa."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RIGHT: Random weave basket (Basket/Photo by Nan Bowles)</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The third big idea is that 'basket weaving technology' (or 'woven-fiber technology' as I have suggested it be called) began very early in the evolution of hominins and continued to be a crucial technology for the emergence of civilization. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Simple baskets made with a random weave at the beginning would have allowed more food to be gathered along with more resources such as carefully chosen quartz used in tool making that was collected at a distant location and for which there is evidence. In addition, I have shown that hominins lived in close association with weaverbirds who made elaborate strong nests, so these nests could have served as an early model for a basket technology. The problem, as I have pointed out, is that 'basketry can't get no respect'. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Yet during the emergence of the world's first civilizations in Mesopotamia, this technology was used to build huge sophisticated grass houses and large boats along with important items for irrigation and the management of agriculture. So this was not a minor contribution to the rise of Sumerian civilizations but a major factor. From cuneiform tablet evidence I have shown that a robust reed industry existed in ancient Mesopotamia.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I have spent almost two years writing about this in detail, attempting to construct a timeline from about 2 million years ago to about 6,000 years ago when a fully developed technology was available. My first fully detailed blog about this is now my second most popular blog article, from month to month. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>NOTE: It is one of the ironies of life, that I had begun to formulate my ideas about basket weaving technology when the COVID 19 virus became rampant and my wife and I stayed home most of the time. So during the next year or so I concentrated on this idea about basketry, as I had the time to do so. I wonder if I would have done such a complete study if the virus shut-down had not occurred.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5q2wtJaI34A/YXqYgRVjycI/AAAAAAAAEDU/6BOHpg2FICE5QIMElVLu1sFPT7DnTrV5gCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/capture_X007A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="640" height="432" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5q2wtJaI34A/YXqYgRVjycI/AAAAAAAAEDU/6BOHpg2FICE5QIMElVLu1sFPT7DnTrV5gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h432/capture_X007A.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This is a fanciful, but perhaps not inaccurate, painting of a large ship made of reeds at the port of Eridu, considered to be the oldest city of the first civilization in Mesopotamia, about 5000-6000 years ago. The ship as pictured is not unrealistic and was constructed using bundled reeds, a large version of coiled basket weaving techniques.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%A0%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%86%D1%8F_%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D1%83_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B0_%D0%B2_%D0%AD%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B4%D1%83_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%8B%D1%85_%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8_%D0%B2_%D0%A3%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BA.jpg"><b>View the original Russian language page.</b></a></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>PDF FILE</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Evidence for a Basket Weaving and Woven-Fiber Technology in the Paleolithic Era</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.academia.edu/40430521/Evidence_for_a_Basket_Weaving_and_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era">https://www.academia.edu/40430521/Evidence_for_a_Basket_Weaving_and_Woven_Fiber_Technology_in_the_Paleolithic_Era</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>See a listing of more than a dozen blog-articles about basket weaving technology:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html">https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Download a complete set of articles in PDF format:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>The Illustrated Theory of Paleo Basket-Weaving Technology by Rick Doble</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.academia.edu/44237715/The_Illustrated_Theory_of_Paleo_Basket_Weaving_Technology_by_Rick_Doble">https://www.academia.edu/44237715/The_Illustrated_Theory_of_Paleo_Basket_Weaving_Technology_by_Rick_Doble</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Two PDF articles that focus on basketry in the earliest civilization:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Mesopotamian Ancient Basket Weaving Technology and the Sumerian Reed Industry</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.academia.edu/49359896/Mesopotamian_Ancient_Basket_Weaving_Technology_and_the_Sumerian_Reed_Industry">https://www.academia.edu/49359896/Mesopotamian_Ancient_Basket_Weaving_Technology_and_the_Sumerian_Reed_Industry</a></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_a55qVhS2s0/YXqY-hbsakI/AAAAAAAAEDc/TWRjUi6wm_A2oQwGKp8ruXxRibE-GHTagCLcBGAsYHQ/s630/IRB-6-BringingDeckMat-KC603-8A.jpg" style="font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="414" data-original-width="630" height="420" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_a55qVhS2s0/YXqY-hbsakI/AAAAAAAAEDc/TWRjUi6wm_A2oQwGKp8ruXxRibE-GHTagCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h420/IRB-6-BringingDeckMat-KC603-8A.jpg" width="640" /></a><div>A traditional South American suspension bridge made entirely of rope. It has now been established that rope was being made 40 ka by early hominins and that the rope technology was probably much older.</div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IRB-6-BringingDeckMat-KC603-8.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IRB-6-BringingDeckMat-KC603-8.jpg</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>CURRENT ACADEMIC THINKING ABOUT THESE TOPICS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The subject of time has been recognized as important but there are very few academic papers that examine the human development of time concepts in any detail.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"It must have required enormous effort for man to overcome his natural tendency to live like the animals in a continual present."</b></span></div><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Whitrow G.L., </b><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Time in History: Views of Time from Prehistory to the Present Day<i>,</i> Oxford University Press, 1988.</b></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>"Time reference is a universal property of language..."</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Jacqueline Lecarme, Ph.D., Linguistics</b></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The subject of time has not really been dealt with. While it is clear that humans must have grasped a sense of time over thousands of years, starting with the immediate animal sense of time to the linear time we live with today, there has been very little academic discussion. My work tries to bring this topic to the fore. Clearly our concepts and understanding of time play a major role in our technology, language, culture, and our lives.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>For almost 100 years it was assumed that basketry could not have started before the Neolithic era. This assumption was not based on facts or science. Recent discoveries have shown that sophisticated basketry was being made 27 ka. And very recently rope was discovered that is 40 ka. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>My work suggests that even today current academic assumptions about basket technology are incorrect. It could have begun millions of years ago, for example, and I may be the first or one of the first to make this assertion. If true then this technology not only aided the survival of hominins but played a role in the evolution of humans. My work also suggests that basketry was a key technology, if not the key technology, that allowed the first civilizations to emerge in Mesopotamia and Egypt. This is a new idea about the development of civilization.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>If any of these ideas become accepted or influence the inquiry and research into these topics, it would be a major shift in current thinking. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div></div>Rick Doblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15156455976281649370noreply@blogger.com0