Showing posts with label man-made. Show all posts
Showing posts with label man-made. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Oldest wooden structure found in Zambia

The Oldest Man-Made
Wooden Structure
Found in Zambia
& 
The Ideas of Rick Doble
who predicted the use of right-angle structures
in the Lower Paleolithic
by Rick Doble

NEW DIRECT EVIDENCE MAY CHANGE THE STORY OF PALEOLITHIC TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN EVOLUTION 
This discovery supports the ideas, theories, and predictions of author, Rick Doble, in this eleven-year-old blog DeconstructingTime.

This discovery is:
-- 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 Nature.

"Structural unit formed by two overlapping logs 
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."

THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS DISCOVERY
It would be hard to overestimate the importance of this find. 
It is actual wood from the oldest wooden man-made structure that has ever been found.
#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.
#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.
#3. Much can be inferred about the cognitive abilities of these pre-Homo sapiens because they imagined a design and then engineered a structure.
#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.

"Annotated images of the...upper log...showing areas of intentional modification.
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. "


A SUMMARY OF HOW THIS DISCOVERY
SUPPORTS DOBLE'S IDEAS
ABOUT THE PALEOLITHIC ERA

Starting in 2014 I have written articles stating that:
-- Early hominins such as Homo erectus were much smarter than previously thought.
-- A well-developed plant material and fiber technology was probable with these early hominins.
-- They had some early stages of cognitive development.
-- 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.
--  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.


DOBLE'S IDEAS AND THIS NEW DISCOVERY

This discovery supports and is consistent with my ideas throughout this blog but especially in my article "Terra Amata:...
the Oldest Paleolithic Building Site." that was published in this blog in 2021. 
See my article:
Terra Amata: the Oldest Paleolithic Building Site (December 2021)

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.

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. 

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.

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."

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.

ABOUT RIGHT-ANGLE STRUCTURES
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.

MY ARTICLE
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
(August 2020)


HOW THIS AFFECTS MY NEW THEORY OF BASKET WEAVING OR WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY IN THE PALEOLITHIC

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. 

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. 

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.

MORE ABOUT THIS NEW DISCOVERY

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.

“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 Nature. 

"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.

UNDERSTANDING EARLY HOMININ COGNITIVE THINKING

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.

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.
“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 Smithsonian Magazine article.

HOW DOES THIS SUPPORT DOBLE'S IDEAS
ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF TIME COMPREHENSION?

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.

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.
"Man must have been conscious of memories and purposes long before he made any explicit distinction between past, present, and future."
Whitrow, Gerald. Time in History: Views of Time from Prehistory to the Present Day. Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press. 1988, pages 21-22.
MY ARTICLE
The Importance of Processes in the Paleolithic Era
(November 2019)
View or download a PDF on the academic site Academia.edu

AND MORE
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. 

SEE THE AFTERWORD: MODERN-CENTRIC THINKING
"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."
Quoted in the NPR article.

THE ORIGINAL NATURE ARTICLE
Evidence for the earliest structural use of wood at least 476,000 years ago. 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. 
ONLINE
PDF

A GOOD BRIEF EXPLANATION
World's oldest wooden structure defies Stone Age stereotypes.
Gabriel Spitzer, September 22, 2023.


OVERVIEWS OF RICK DOBLE'S IDEAS

Should "The Stone Age" Be Called "The Stone and Basket Age?"
View or download a PDF on the academic site Academia.edu


Rick Doble's Theory About The Human Understanding of Time (HUT)
View or download a PDF on the academic site Academia.edu

_________________________________________________________

AFTERWORD 


EARLY HOMININS DEVELOPED ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES CONTRARY TO  MODERN-CENTRIC THINKING

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.

The Development of Advanced Woven-Fiber Technology in the Paleolithic Era: Insights from Paleo-Indian Artifacts and Ethnoarchaeology By Rick Doble  (January 2022)


FROM THE ABOVE ARTICLE
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. 

STONE AGE PEOPLE WERE INTELLIGENT AND KNOWLEDGEABLE
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.

The Moderncentric Bias Against Prehistoric Cultures: Part 1
(March 2014)

The Moderncentric Bias Against Old Stone Age Societies: Part 2 (April 2014)

BIAS #1:
OLD STONE AGE PEOPLE WERE BARBARIC SAVAGES
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.

“Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours.”
Benjamin Franklin
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.



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Saturday, September 2, 2023

Climate Change Denial

A Major Reason
Why We Don't Deal
With Climate Change

by Rick Doble

The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks
While people believed they were superior to the animals,
they also wanted to live in harmony with the animal kingdom.

It's hard to change something that has worked well for thousands of years but today we find ourselves in just that situation.

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

LEFT: Ancient Egyptian agriculture
RIGHT: The Atomic Bomb, 1945
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?

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.

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. 

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.

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.

So now we are locked into the age-old battle of our emotions and old habits vs. reason and science. 

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.

Hurricane Katrina August 28 2005 (NASA)
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. 


DEEP HISTORY

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

But don't take my word for it. Here is a summary from a comprehensive study of the Neolithic.
From the abstract:
"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." 
Weisdorf, Jacob L. (September 2005). "From Foraging To Farming: Explaining The Neolithic Revolution" (PDF).
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.
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.

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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.


WAS THIS NEOLITHIC MINDSET A MISTAKE?

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. 

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.

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. 

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.


THE SPECIFIC PROBLEM

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.

People need to believe that there is a real and immediate danger to the Earth's ecosystem, our way of life, and our civilizations. 

Louis Pasteur in his laboratory
File:Albert Edelfelt - Louis Pasteur - 1885.jpg

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.

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.


DEALING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE

Like any difficult problem, this will need to be dealt with in stages. 

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.

Here is a definition of the word 'mindset'
mindset:
the established set of attitudes held by someone.
Oxford Languages

In other words, a mindset is made up of attitudes and it is those attitudes that need to be identified.

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.

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.

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.


AFTERWORD

DIRECT EVIDENCE 
OF THE NEOLITHIC MINDSET
THAT WE INHERITED

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.

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.

In this example from the Judeo-Christian tradition, humans rule (dominion means to rule).
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.
Gen.1 Verse 26 - Bible, King James Version
This same idea was expressed in other cultures and other faiths. Here is an example from Mesopotamia from the famous Warka Vase. 


The Warka Vase
LEFT: Full photo of the vase
RIGHT: Detailed photo of each level.
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. 
"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."
The votive Vase of Warka, from Warka (ancient Uruk), Iraq. Jemdet Nasr period, 3000-2900 BCE. The Iraq Museum, Baghdad. 

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.

Neolithic Concepts of Time



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