Satirical Parody of AGW alarmism and Climatism
Reader Tom G tips us to this story:
by Bob Baird, PhD, PG
The scene: some 10-12,000 years ago. It is the late Pleistocene, the end of the last ice age. Neanderthal man is just beginning to notice that the climate is getting warmer. At that time, the ocean shoreline on the North American west coast is about 10-25 miles farther out than now. The east coast is even broader, generally from 30 to 100 miles farther out. Imagine now the fear that struck the hearts of the Neanderthal people as they watched the shoreline inch forward year after year as the land they knew and loved was inexorably claimed by an unmerciful ocean.
At that time, the Neanderthal shamans and tribal chieftains proclaimed to the Neanderthal people that it was the deadly emissions of CO2 from their campfires that were causing this disaster. On his tablet, Neanderthaldom in the Balance, the Profit Goregon lamented that the discovery of fire was the worst thing that ever happened to the planet. Profit Goregon warned that the Neanderthals had only ten winters to act.
Upon learning this, the Neanderthals wailed and wept and threw snow on their heads and tore their hides. They promised to do whatever the shamans and chieftains told them to do if it would stave off this impending doom.
After much deliberation and consultation, the shamans and chieftains proclaimed that the only solution was that the Neanderthal people must bring increased tithes of all their beads, berries and fish to them. This would enable the shamans and chieftains to devote themselves fully to determining how to solve the devastating problem of campfire emissions.
With their newfound freedom from having to provide for themselves, the shamans and chieftains were able to devise a cap-and-tithe program. Anyone lighting a campfire would be required to bring still more of their beads, berries and fish to the shamans and chieftains. This would have two wonderful and delightful consequences: It would cause the Neanderthal people to cut back on their use of fire, which is unnecessary in the first place and hurtful to the planet in the second, and it would generate still more revenue for the deserving shamans and chieftains and allow them to spend even more time in contemplative thought pondering on what things should be done for the good of the Neanderthal people.
In their leisure, the shamans and chieftains developed a new solar technology to replace fire. It was discovered that certain clear quartz rocks could be used to focus the rays of the sun to a small point where much heat would be generated. This clean and renewable energy technology would replace the antiquated and planet destroying fire. Certainly, it would take slightly longer to cook food with a quartz rock and the quartz rocks cost ten times more beads, berries and fish than firewood, but the benefits to the planet would be more than worth it. And the clear quartz rocks could also be used to heat other rocks that could be put in the cave to keep everyone warm during the cold, ice age nights.
As always, there were some extremists among the Neanderthals who, with no basis other than their dislike and envy of the shamans and chieftains, argued that fire was good and brought innumerable benefits to the Neanderthals. But good Neanderthal subjects did not listen to them and called them Australopithecines because of their backwardness and their desire only to build a bridge to the past.
As we sadly now know, the words of Profit Goregon rang all too true. The Neanderthal people did not heed his warnings early enough and were too slow in switching from campfires to quartz rocks. The ten winters came and went and the familiar ice sheets melted and withdrew and the seas transgressed dozens of miles to where they are today. And what of Neanderthal man? Alas, Neanderthal man is no more. They paid the price of being too slow to heed the warnings of Profit Goregon and the shamans and chieftains who were much, much smarter than they.
So, what can we learn from their frightful example? We see that even the CO2 from Neanderthalian campfires was enough to end the ice age, melt the ice sheets, and raise the sea level, and that this had nothing whatsoever to do with any natural processes. And we see where even the slightest selfish hesitancy to do what is right for the planet can lead.
Let us pray that we, in our day, do not follow in their fateful steps and let us be ever willing to trust our scientists and the politicians who fund their grants who, as the shamans and chieftains of old, are selflessly and altruistically working only for our good even if we are too Neanderthalian to recognize it!
Haven’t read past the first few lines yet, but weren’t Neanderthals extinct by then?
Sorry. See it’s a parody. My bad. Not the point…
Neanderthals died out at least 28,000 years ago, & probably much earlier, & of course there were no Neanderthals in North America. But other than that, pretty funny.
As I always say, somehow the Eemian interglacial managed to be a lot warmer than now without benefit of a Neanderthal industrial revolution.
Climate science is so simple even a caveman could do it.
Was this peer reviewed? 🙂
Ya think the Goregons were the ones that interbred with Cro Magnon, and begat our Algore?
Toto says:
November 8, 2013 at 5:20 pm
It helps if you’re a cave person.
I take another lesson from all this. If you listen to the idiot leaders, you’ll go extinct.
Pokerguy, one of the reasons he used Neanderthals were that the did become extinct. Method in the madness and all…
Great satire.
I like to explain sustainability in terms of the cave men. I if the sustainability crowd won the debate, we would still be in caves.
I don’t know if you have noticed, but fire is mostly illegal for peasants these days. Unless, of course, you purchase a permit to light one, which you must then put out before sunset.
Looks like the sharmans won.
The Goregons interbred with Cro Magnon to produce the Gore-Mann. Or the Crogons, I’m not entirely sure. But I have a feeling 10,000 years ago with a 40 year life span humans couldn’t have distinguished a creeping shoreline from a tide.
Brilliant, thank you.
Fantastic parable. One small point: is “…the Profit Goregon…” a Freudian slip, or should it be “…the Prophet Goregon…”?
Neanderthals must have been east-west creatures rather than north- south. Had they been the latter, they would have noticed that they lost 30 – 100 miles east-west because of their fires but gained a couple of thousand miles north to south. Probably this is the cause of the ice age – interglacial cycles. Humanoids lit fires, its CO2 melting the ice. This raised sea-level putting out the fires and presenting a much bigger ocean for dissolving CO2 out of the atmosphere making it colder and a new round of ice development.
and here I thought it was because the starting walking up-right that caused the seas to rise….
Peaceful European Neanderthals were wiped out by genocide by invading African Sapiens colonists.
Well, as it turns out, they did have valid concern about flooding the NY subway system that they had just built. And I guess skeptics pointed out that campfires were only 0.001% of natural CO2 emissions. But sounds like they were smart enough to know that only mining and burning fossil fuels actually adds to the surface load of carbon. So no need to worry about campfires.
It was the Mammoths. You think cows are bad.
Tax Has Been Around for a Long Time
Cartoons by Josh
“Look, I invented a torch.”
“Now you owe me money.”
The shamans didn’t realize it was Mammoth farts causing the trouble? Or did the leaders “pay” to pin it on campfires and Neanderthal man?
Jeff says:
November 8, 2013 at 6:25 pm
Thread winner!
Neanderthals played with fire and got their fingers burned. They vowed never to play with fire again. They went extinct. Humans also played with fire and got their fingers burned, but were too stupid to stop playing with it. So, they played with it in every way imaginable,inventing such things as the stove, the steam engine, internal combustion engine and the jet engine along the way.
Fortunately, it turns out that Neanderthals aren’t completely extinct. They interbred with humans, and their genes turned out to be recessive. So now, thousands of years later, the recessive genes are emerging again, and the Neanderthals are demanding that we stop playing with fire.
Neil Jordan says:
November 8, 2013 at 5:57 pm
The term “profit” is far more applicable to Gore than “prophet”.
As a “prophet”, he’s a failure.
As a scheister, his “profit” is amazing!
the campfires make a point i have made often…..humans evolved living very close to open fires, inhaling smoke has been a natural part of our existence for 10s of thousands of years…..those claiming second hand smoke from cigarettes is harmful show remarkable ignorance of reality…..we CAN handle small exposures to smoke with NO problem.
This is another covert promotion of the stupid delusional idea that sun can heat something, disproven long time ago as highly insignificant by sophisticated global averaging, validated by climate models CP984587-A, B and C and there’s now 99.97% consensus among solar-wind scientists about it! It is something simmilar as to claim the rain can wet the clothes when it is actually the wind which dries them. We the Windpeace Intercontinental of course purely for sake of journalistic objectivity suggest the part about quartz leaved out as unscientific nonsense or at least somehow more hide this inconvenient lie (and we still want to believe passing unnoticed just due to lack of attention during the peer-review process and without sinister motivation involved) perhaps by discreet reminder it was purely religious belief of the ancient Neanderthal shamans. In any case we demand it being ballanced with the prominent mentioning of scientifically unequivocally proven fact that actually it is the wind which can cook the food.
Jeff says:
November 8, 2013 at 6:25 pm
Mad, not bad.
.Bob Baird… a true AGW believer behind a mask.
“With their newfound freedom from having to provide for themselves, the shamans and chieftains were able to devise a cap-and-tithe program. Anyone lighting a campfire would be required to bring still more of their beads, berries and fish to the shamans and chieftains. This would have two wonderful and delightful consequences: It would cause the Neanderthal people to cut back on their use of fire, which is unnecessary in the first place and hurtful to the planet …”
“As always, there were some extremists …”
And those extremists are you my friend skeptical scientists and engineers.
“Let us pray that we, in our day, do not follow in their fateful steps and let us be ever willing to trust our scientists and the politicians who fund their grants who, as the shamans and chieftains of old, are selflessly and altruistically working only for our good even if we are too Neanderthalian to recognize it!”
And many here think this is some kind of satire ?? This is a worship and bow to the prophet Al Gore and the holy climatologists piece for kids and he is not joking if you thought he was. Read it again, it is very deceptive… as usual.
the cows farts and produce CO2
Wayne @ 7:36 you are right , we’ve been conned, again. No sarc
Neanderthals walk among us today, and I’m not just thinking of Michael Mann as I write this. There’s this http://discovermagazine.com/2013/march/14-interbreeding-neanderthals#.Un2zGpEQjWc
and this http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2013/03/is-there-a-neanderthal-in-your-dna-new-study-says-there-might-be.html
Nice story. Sums things up rather well.
It also made me wonder – before about 1900 did anyone ever think that the climate had changed?
Most peoples lives would have been too short to notice any long term changes and I doubt they spent much time worrying about them anyway, what with the difficult business or providing a living to get on with. I suspect that it was not until we had long term records and idle academics that anyone even bothered to pose the question.
I sure like the idea of paying the IRS in beads, berries and fish – especially rotten fish, (though they might not notice the smell given the general stench of the area inside the beltway…)
Although this story is meant to be a comic metaphor it could be seen as ironic.
Wayne – you’re off your gourd, and don’t know a thing about what you are spouting. If you can read this and find a covert AGW’er I think you are being paranoid and are looking for shills in every closet Give it a rest and chill out will you?
Michael COmbs -to be self serving on this issue, I would also link you to http://suspectterrane.blogspot.com/2010/04/neanderthal.html
No need for historical accuracy to spoil a good story. The film industry gives many examples of this. For instance in Prometheus (sci-fi so they should know better) a cave painting with a star chart is found on the Shetland islands dating 20, 000 yrs ago, at which time it would have been under a mile of ice.
Hilarious parody!
Nitpick (doesn’t make it any less true): Neandertal, note the missing ‘h,’ is the correct modern German spelling. It is also the way it should always be pronounced. “Neander” is the place/geographic name; “tal” is German for valley. Old German spelled valley as “thal” with ‘h’ being silent.
Thus, using neanderthal instead of neandertal is promoting a 160 year-plus error. It’s not a significant or even noteworthy error. However, chaos theory (e.g. the Lorentz equation) suggests it MAY lead to enormous differences in the future. 🙂
Edit: Oops…Lorentz should be Lorenz.
Aside from the crummy grammar, it’s mostly wrong. Belches produce the vast majority of CH4 output.
Lew Skannen said @ November 8, 2013 at 8:10 pm
Climatology dates back at least ~2,400 years. Aristotle wrote that the earth was divided into three types of climatic zones based on their distance from the equator. Climate comes from a Greek word meaning latitude. He extrapolated that the area near the equator was too hot for habitation and named the region the Torrid Zone. He had heard from travellers that the lands adjacent to the North pole were permanently frozen. This he called this the Frigid Zone. The only areas that Aristotle believed habitable were the Temperate Zone lying between the Frigid Zones and the Torrid Zone. The Torrid Zone being too hot for human survival meant that we could never visit the southern Temperate Zone. Extrapolation from the known to a false unknown then has a venerable history 🙂
It wasn’t until the time of
that the idea of climate changing over time arose.
Hutton’s book is available in a variety of electronic forms here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14179
This anthropology major is having a hard time suspending disbelief at there being Neandertals in North America…10-12k years ago…but I’m linking it on Facebook anyway. 🙂
milodonharlani says:
November 8, 2013 at 5:05 pm
Neanderthals died out at least 28,000 years ago, & probably much earlier, & of course there were no Neanderthals in North America.
=============
political correctness and land claim considerations prevent exploration of NA sites below 21,000 years ago. the argument being that there cannot be anyone living in the America’s before that time, so no use looking.
suppressed is the evidence for earlier people living in the Americas at least 60,000 years ago, because it contradicts the consensus belief that people from Asia were the original inhabitants, and arrived at most 20,000 years ago.
The concept of “First Nations” relies on being first. So long as no one looks for evidence of earlier peoples, that is easy enough to accomplish.
Brian H said @ November 8, 2013 at 9:02 pm
And the chemical composition of farts depends on diet and which particular bacteria inhabit the digestive system of the organism doing the farting. Composition of typical human flatus:
Nitrogen: 20-90%
Hydrogen: 0-50% (flammable)
Carbon dioxide: 10-30%
Oxygen: 0-10%
Methane: 0-10% (flammable)
@ Ferd
No doubt you are thinking of this story:
Story here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041118104010.htm
Dr. Baird, was the Profit Goregon and acolyte of Zola?
@Steve from Rockwood
thanks for the laugh!
The Goregons interbred with Cro Magnon to produce the Gore-Mann. Or the Crogons, I’m not entirely sure. But I have a feeling 10,000 years ago with a 40 year life span humans couldn’t have distinguished a creeping shoreline from a tide.
The idea is goofy but could be developed better.
There’s thought to be a tribe of Neanderthals still eking out an existence in deepest Siberia – it’s all their fault!
Thank you, Bob Baird, for a good tale. And even more thanks to Michael Comb for the first of your links. That was a most interesting report on up to date human geneomics (or something).
OT ___
Pleased to see that the Neanderthalers did not die out, they interbred, and live among us today. Our picture of the ancient Neanderthalers is coloured by the first found corpse – which may well be considered to be rather anomalous. Consider the not-too-old corpses depicted on NCIS (yes, I know it is fiction, but any sensible producer/director of crime stories tries to make it measonably realistic), and I think that they would not be too different from the first Neanderthaler corpse found.
So would we know if there were (a) pure bred Neanderthaler (family) families living amongst us today?
@ Gerry Dorrian
Nah, they’re alive and well and living in Australia — Canberra to be specific 🙂
“Asian Neanderthals’ may have occupied Australia”
The Neanderthals might have survived, if they had only spotted the Mammoth in the cave . . . . .
This’ll scare the warmists now they known sea levels will rise even when they drive man back to the caves. So we must go back further do more and act faster!
@ Bob Baird
I notice you title yourself as Bob Baird, PhD, PG.
What does the “PG” stand for?
Cheers
The PG
Bill Taylor says:
November 8, 2013 at 7:13 pm
….we CAN handle small exposures to smoke with NO problem.
Yes, but we can also state that we don’t LIKE that stale stink, and move away from it…because it bothers us. After quitting cigarettes 12 years ago, cold turkey, I have developed an asthmatic response or allergy to tobacco smoke, and really don’t like being around it at all. Maybe no problem for many, but not for this old fart.
The seas rose rather faster than ‘inching ‘ each year. In some areas the sea invaded the land by about 100 meters per year. That must have been pretty spectacular. As your readers will know, it was at this time the surf board first came into wider use and land prices rocketed giving birth to the capitalist society.
Ridicule, that’s the way to do them. 🙂
Nice one.
Change Neanderthals to Solutreans & the parody is much more relevant. After all, the Solutrean peoples had paddled from the Atlantic coast of Europe to America along the fringe of the icepack, 18,000 years ago. I know this as I bought the book.
http://planet.uwc.ac.za/nisl/Conservation%20Biology/Karen%20PDF/Clovis/Bradley%20&%20Stanford%202004.pdf
Don’t laugh I was debating a climate scientists a long time ago he told me Humans made the thick forests of the Sahara become a desert.
I think the lesson here is that you need to be a shaman and let the stupid saps, who believe all your BS, provide you with everything.
The leaders of ‘climate science’, religious cults, pointless bureaucracies and political extremist groups still practice this today, so nothing changes.
There is an old adage which explains everything: “In cess pits, the big lumps always float to the top.”
I know this essay is satire, but I had a guy seriously argue that the CO2 from human campfires ended the last Ice Age and that this was an early sign of how humans could disrupt nature. I asked him if it was possible either or not one year of natural forest fires produced more CO2 than 100,000 years of human campfires, and why the forest fires then wouldn’t have such an utterly devestating effect on climate.
…for some odd reason he never responded back. The most basic logic is just too much for some people when it clashes with belief.
@The Pompous Git:
You wrote: “Nah, they’re alive and well and living in Australia — Canberra to be specific :-)”, if you consider the “housos” here (families living in public funded housing), yes. I live in Canberra. Drove pass a mob of them yesterday having a punch up over a minor car accident. Quite the scene making every effort to deplete the gene pool.
Very keen though on the pronunciations of surnames. My surname is always,mangled. Blame the inadequacies of printed font and text.
I make a point being in a multi-cultural environment at work to articulate my co-workers names as best I can.
Its Neandertal.
Sadly, this kind of thing has happened before. Read about the South African cattle killing movement (1854-1858). Disease was killing the local cattle and settlers were overwhelming the Xhosa. A girl told them she met some spirits who told her that ALL the Xhosa’s cattle must be killed and crops destroyed in order to save themselves. The rest is history. 🙁
Good one. 🙂
Really?
(Population misconceptions – score card for chimps v grads, Joe 6pack).
The Neanderthals did not go extinct, they simply decided to leave. Basing the timing of their departure on a quantum event they rippled the 10th dimension creating a hominid free universe containing a cooler planet Earth in to which they stepped sideways using the sixth.
Hey, in a quantum universe anything is possible.
Old Smokey has nailed it here [2009].
ROFL! Especially at the brilliant ‘Profit’ Goregon. Wonderful.
For those skeptics who find this par0dy revealing, read this one:
“The affordable boat act”
http://www.boatered.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=163507
Neanderthals seem to be alive and well.
pokerguy says:November 8, 2013 at 5:03 pm
Haven’t read past the first few lines yet, but weren’t Neanderthals extinct by then?
Interesting book by M. Crichton, ‘The 13th Warrior’. It is taken from an Arab’s journal of a journey to the far north, ~700AD?, and encountering what appear to be be Neandertals, but we hadn’t discovered their existence yet.
@catcracking says:
November 9, 2013 at 5:44 am
For those skeptics who find this par0dy revealing, read this one:
“The affordable boat act”
http://www.boatered.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=163507
===================================================
Excellent! Thanks for the link.
Michael Combs says: @ November 8, 2013 at 8:08 pm
Neanderthals walk among us today, and I’m not just thinking of Michael Mann…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is what happened to the genes of the “… extremists among the Neanderthals who, with no basis other than their dislike and envy of the shamans and chieftains, argued that fire was good and brought innumerable benefits to the Neanderthals.”
I’d rather be a nandy than a crom
yes I would, If I could, I surely would
I’d rather use my models and ad-hom
yes I would, If I could, I surely would
Away, I rather splice away
Like a Penn that’s here again
A Mann whose head is spinning round
He gives the world its saddest sound
Its saddedst sound
I am dismayed at the number of commenters assuming Neandetals were as ignorant as politicians. Just connect-the-dots on these research conclusions, and you will arrive at a startling conclusion: Neandertals had larger craniums than modern mam; traces of their DNA exist in all populations except those in sub-Saharan Africa (home of “modern man”; the DNA found increases with the distance from sub-Saharan Africa; and IQ studies (which cannot be discussed in “polite company”, but they were published research) show Asians average 110, Europeans 100 (of course, that’s what the scale was normalized to), and sub-Saharan Africans, 80. I think there is a case to be made that they were smarter than today’s Man (and vastly more intelligent than politicians). If so, their added intelligence did not translate into increased survival skills. Perhaps they were not as violent as Modern Man, or simply did not breed as copiously.
Sorry, modern man, not modern mam. Why is it I do my best proof-reading just as I click on ‘send’?
Brilliant bit of humour for the week end. Many thanks for it.
“So easy, a caveman can do it.”
Nick, may I remind you of the AGW talking point re: pre-historic CO2. It is indeed the culprit of a warming world from an ice age (big or small), and completely natural in source. Just remember: warming from non-anthropogenic CO2 good, warming from anthropogenic CO2 bad. Ugh ugh.
hmmm. I like the idea of cavemam. Now I just need to find a club and a man.
Jtom says:
November 9, 2013 at 8:05 am
Neanderthals were if anything more violent than modern humans. Like us, they were cannibals, but also killed big game in ways more up close & personal than modern hunters with superior technology. While moderns & Neanderthals clearly made love as well as war, they lost the war, whether by being wiped out or not being able to compete as well for the same resources. Despite today’s improved understanding of Neanderthal abilities, it still appears that their lives fit Hobbes’ description of the state of nature, ie nasty, brutish & short.
That Neanderthals (N) had empathy and cared for the sick, injured and elderly is well demonstrated in the discovery of the 12 skeletons in the Shanidar Cave in Iraq (dated 60-80,000yrs ago). There were individuals who had suffered severe accidents (presumably) with broken and atrophied limbs that had healed up and an elderly fellow 40-50 yrs old – a remarkable age for N- with deformities from age and from severe trauma crushing the orbital bone of one eye at an earlier age. There can be no question that these fellows would have been unable to survive long enough to heal without their family/companions taking care of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanidar_Cave
Ever skeptical, I wonder if there has been some fiddling of data to try to make it unlikely that N had gone extinct before “modern man” arrived so that it would be impossible for us to have any N in our systems. I know it is disputed and that we apparently do have some N in us.
==================================================================
Maybe you don’t have enough Neanderthal DAN? 😎
Jtom says:November 9, 2013 at 8:05 am
I found the information on IQ distribution interesting when it came out. You might add to what you said by pointing out the sub-Saharan Africans are the purest Homo Sapiens genetically. From my own reading on paleo-anthropology over the past 50 years, it seems to me that people who live where food is readily available in a warm climate, don’t need much intelligence to survive. If you live where it is cold, you need clothes, fire and food storage. All these need intelligent strategies for continuous survival. It would be acute irony if we discovered our intelligence is actually from the archetypal heathen, Neandertal.
Pamela Gray says:
November 9, 2013 at 8:31 am
hmmm. I like the idea of cavemam. Now I just need to find a club and a man.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Where do you think I found my husband? The National speleological Society. (Lots to choose from too.)
Steve Keohane says: @ November 9, 2013 at 9:23 am
Jtom says:November 9, 2013 at 8:05 am
…. All these need intelligent strategies for continuous survival. It would be acute irony if we discovered our intelligence is actually from the archetypal heathen, Neandert[h]al.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Stolen from William McClenney (August 2013):
“The onset of the LEAP occurred within less than two decades, demonstrating the existence of a sharp threshold, which must be near 416 Wm2, which is the 65oN July insolation for 118 kyr BP (ref. 9). This value is only slightly below today’s value of 428 Wm2. Insolation will remain at this level slightly above the glacial inception for the next 4,000 years before it then increases again.”
http://www.particle-analysis.info/LEAP_Nature__Sirocko+Seelos.pdf
with respect to:
“An examination of the fossil record indicates that the key junctures in hominin evolution reported nowadays at 2.6, 1.8 and 1 Ma coincide with 400 kyr eccentricity maxima, which suggests that periods with enhanced speciation and extinction events coincided with periods of maximum climate variability on high moisture levels.”
http://www.manfredmudelsee.com/publ/pdf/Trends-rhythms-and-events-in-Plio-Pleistocene-African-climate.pdf
Gary Pearse says:
November 9, 2013 at 9:06 am
The date is as valid as can be. What appears to have happened in the Middle East over a long period was alternating occupation by early moderns & Neanderthals depending upon climatic conditions, until the Ns were locally extirpated before about 50 Ka. Moderns then invaded Europe, slowly extirpating Ns there, too, until the last of their subspecies died out around 28 Ka in the southern Iberian Peninsula. Gibraltar might well have been the scene of their last stand before extinction, except to the extent that their genes live on in some modern populations.
Got brow ridges? You might be of Neanderthal extraction.
Gail Combs says:
November 9, 2013 at 2:03 pm
Thanks for Trauth, Larrasoan & Mudelsee’s paper, although I wish in Section 6 they had said “maximum” when that’s what they meant instead of “maxima”. We’re headed for a major eccentricity low in about 30,000 years.
It so happens there were important developments in human evolution around 600 & 200 Ka, also. Some might argue 1.4 Ma, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_heidelbergensis
Anatomically modern humans (or almost so) evolved between 160 & 200 Ka.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens_idaltu
We’ve been duped! I want my beads, berries and fish back!
At 8:05am milodonharlani says:……
…………………………………………….
N’s tools were more complex and diverse that Homo Erectus. Cannibalism was rare, perhaps forced by the ice age, and their diets consisted of meat and cooked vegetables. There is evidence of medicinal use of plants. Those who were buried were generally of an ‘elderly’ age, between 40 and 50. I doubt if modern man fared much better until he acquired cheap, reliable energy.
Reminds me of an old cartoon of two cave men talking. One is saying, “I don’t understand it. We get plenty of exercise, only eat natural organic food, live with nature, breath pristine air, drink unpolluted water, and don’t smoke. So why is our average life expectancy 42?”
===================================================================
I’ll return them in exchange for Manhattan.
(Well, on second thought…)
Jtom says: @ November 9, 2013 at 3:23 pm
At 8:05am milodonharlani says:……
…………………………………………….
Reminds me of an old cartoon of two cave men talking. One is saying, “I don’t understand it. We get plenty of exercise, only eat natural organic food, live with nature, breath pristine air, drink unpolluted water, and don’t smoke. So why is our average life expectancy 42?”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Must be those smokey fires and that damp cave. I have slept in a cave. The 100% humidity means you wake up soggy and the sound of the creek running through will just about drive you nuts.
cartoon
Jtom says: @ November 9, 2013 at 3:23 pm
N’s tools were more complex and diverse that Homo Erectus….
I forgot to mention my farm was a favorite site for Archaic Indians. I donated a lot of my finds (permanent loan) to the local park. The ranger in charge of the exhibit hall told me the really ancient tools were the more sophisticated. He was really pleased since I had choppers, awls and hand axes as well as the usual spear and arrow heads. I have a good eye for spotting worked flint, a life time as a rock hound no doubt. As a two year old we lived near Herkimer (Herkimer diamonds) and I was hooked from then on.
Jtom says:
November 9, 2013 at 3:23 pm
I should hope Neanderthals’ tools were better than those of H. erectus, which remained virtually unchanged for up to 1.8 million years. However Neanderthals’ tools were not better than those of H. sapiens sapiens, ie us, although towards the end it does appear as if they copied those of the moderns in their area.
Definite or suggestive signs of cannibalism appear at Neanderthal sites clear across Europe. Even ceremonial burial has been debunked, although not definitively so. It’s possible that rodents could have introduced the flower heads found a Shanidar into the putative “grave” there. It’s not at all clear that Neanderthal burials were ceremonial or simply disposing of a dead body or natural covering of a corpse left in the open that didn’t happen to be torn apart by scavengers.
Neanderthals apparently never fished, although even watching bears should have showed them how to do so at the many convenient salmon sites in their territory. The indications of Neanderthal “art” & “music” are similarly questionable, or in imitation of moderns with whom they came in contact.
Their brains, while big, were organized quite differently from moderns’.
Milodonhalani: Interesting. Could you provide some links that go into the details of what you described? I’ve checked about 20 research sites, but have failed to turn up virtully any of what you have described. I’m especially interested in how researchers determined how their brains were organized. Also, burials, including strong evidence of ritualistic burials, are descibed in neadertals.org. Do you have links to research explaining how or why so many of the dead ended up with their head facing west and feet pointing east? Or an explanation of the Shanidar cave site?
I’m just not finding the info you found, and would like to read more before tossing out everything I have read on the subject.
Thanks.
Jtom says:
November 9, 2013 at 8:05 am
BTW, high-IQ East Asian populations have little or no Neanderthal ancestry, although possibly Denisovan. Neanderthals petered out in Uzbekistan, Central Asia.
Gross Neanderthal cranial anatomy is famous for the bun at the back, but we now know more about the details of brain structure:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130319093639.htm
For the flowers at Shanidar being rodent-borne, as I mentioned before:
D.J. Sommer, The Shanidar IV ‘Flower Burial’: a Re-evaluation of Neanderthal Burial Ritual, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, vol. 9(1), pp. 127-129, 1999
And for other burials, here’s a reporter’s interpretation of a Spanish site at odds with what its more scientifically circumspect excavators actually felt they could conclude:
http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/neanderthal-burial-ground-afterlife-110420.htm
http://www.jscarrion.com/pdf_tercera/walkerpress.pdf
I’d be interested in evidence for statistically significant, systematic burial orientation (east-west), as I’ve not seen that study. IMO archaeologists haven’t been able conclusively to determine that Neanderthal burials are ceremonial at all rather than simply placing slabs over their dead in a cave they want to keep using, or even to distinguish definitely that coverings weren’t from natural rock falls or sediment accumulation. For instance, the paw cited in the above reference could simply have been a belonging of the deceased which others didn’t want to take, rather than some kind of grave good or offering for use in an after life.
IMO too much has been inferred upon too little evidence. Neanderthals may have had symbolic beliefs, but the evidence to that effect is slim at best, with more speculation than substance.
Neanderthals were physically adapted to a particular way of life, in the case of men as ambush hunters of forests. When climate changed, as it always does, they were stressed, as they had been before, but with the added competitive factor of invasion by moderns. We are lightly built, more agile, swift & adaptable humans, armed with projectile weapons suitable for a more arid, steppe environment, rather than with thrusting weapons reliant upon strength. Our culture changes constantly, so that our special adaptation is the capacity to adapt. In support of your IQ hypothesis, however, I suppose that extra-tropical populations would require even more cultural flexibility.
Jtom says:November 9, 2013 at 6:50 pm
Here are a couple of sites, the first is pretty general wrt Cro-magnon and Neanderthals. The second goes into just Neanderthals, although focused on a theory of autism & the N. gene, it has a lot of references at the end, and an index of topics.
http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/cro_magnon_Homo_sapien.htm
http://www.rdos.net/eng/asperger.htm
Steve Keohane says:
November 9, 2013 at 8:51 pm
Ns were not built for running. Their ankles differed markedly from ours, as did their legs & pelvises. Perhaps even more strikingly, their balance organs, the ear canals, were markedly smaller than moderns’, & for that matter than other hominids & apes, relatively.
http://io9.com/5751619/proof-that-humans-could-outrun-neanderthals
Modern humans are cursorial hunters, more like dogs, while Ns were more like tigers, ie forest ambush hunters. The injuries to N’s skeletons have been compared to those of rodeo competitors.
Toto says:
November 8, 2013 at 5:20 pm
“Climate science is so simple even a caveman could do it”
I think this should be the comment of the month at WUWT.
Or maybe the year.
Great parody and a fun read!
Jtom said @ November 9, 2013 at 3:23 pm
From Bones, Stones, and Molecules: “Out of Africa” and Human Origins 2004 p 224:
Estimating age at death from skeletal remains is fraught. The Git recalls the exhumation of skeletons from a crypt at Spitalfields in London some decades ago. Forensic pathologists were asked to estimate age at death for them. The actual age was known to the researchers and were approximately twice the number of years estimated by the pathologists. The deaths were from the 19th C and doubtless the severe smog had a debilitating effect on those buried in the crypt.
Addendum to the above re Spitalfields. The Century was 18th, rather than 19th. A cursory Internet search failed to find the study I remember. So it goes…
I noticed you posted Red Cross for donations to Typhoon victims in Phillipines. Red Cross is
totally corrupt. Very little of the $$ gets to the victims.
In haiti they are still living under tarps and have gotten little help. Also United Way, Unicef
totally corrupt.
Give to the Salvation Army or Samaritans Purse Those 2 send the help directly to the victims.
Didnt mean to get off subject just want people to know how corrupt these crooks are stealing
from victims who desperately need help.
The book by Michael Crichton deals with the story of Beowulf-type creatures in Scandinavia in the 900s. It’s based (apparently loosely) on a manuscript by an Arab traveler that was discovered a few decades ago. It has two titles, “Eaters of the Dead” (original) and “The 13th Warrior” (title of a movie). Used copies of the paperback are cheap.
http://www.amazon.com/Eaters-Dead-Vintage-Michael-Crichton-ebook/dp/B007UH4ELM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384106253&sr=1-1&keywords=The+13th+Warrior
Well played. Very well played indeed.
Steve Keohane said @ November 9, 2013 at 8:51 pm
Many thanks for that Steve. That second link sure gave me some food for thought.
We Homo Sapien Climate Experts being superior in the knowledge of what is best for all. We knew it was the NeanderTal fires that caused the seas to rise and also most of our other problems . So we killed the bastards. We killed them all. It felt good too, felt righteous.
True Patriot says: @ November 10, 2013 at 6:16 am
I noticed you posted Red Cross for donations to Typhoon victims in Phillipines. Red Cross is
totally corrupt. Very little of the $$ gets to the victims….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Unfortunately I fear you are correct. My Dad was a Army/Red Cross liaison in WWII. Stuff in the USA that was advertised as donated by various companies was sold to soldiers in hospitals by the Red Cross.
Later when my husband and I were station overseas we were told to go to the Salvation Army not the red cross by the older enlisted guys. The Salvation Army is the only organization my husband and I will donate to and I am agnostic and my husband an atheist.
Heck one of my girl friends worked for the Red Cross and she told me to donate to the Salvation Army!
For Salvation Army: https://donate.salvationarmyusa.org/TyphoonHaiyan
Other choices listed here: http://www.parade.com/227828/ashleighschmitz/12-ways-to-help-typhoon-haiyan-victims-in-the-philippines/ (Click on red name)
Gail Combs says:
November 11, 2013 at 5:45 pm
I’m in total agreement with you re Salvation Army v. Red Cross. I posted that link in another topic on this blog.
The Pompous Git says:November 11, 2013 at 10:53 am
You are welcome. It may be perhaps too late, I found this related bookmark:
http://www.neanderthalproject.com/?tag=aspergers-syndrome