Wife just finished this book. It infuriated her so much that she's encouraging me to take up deer hunting! I think this is a first in the history of marriage.
Also added to my reading hopper. Thanks!
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Out of Africa
- Thread starter ken_schramm
- Start date
Wife just finished this book. It infuriated her so much that she's encouraging me to take up deer hunting! I think this is a first in the history of marriage.
Also added to my reading hopper. Thanks!
Assuming we move somewhere where there are woods, my wife wants to start deer hunting too. She's a much better shot than me though, so I'll probably just be there to carry stuff.
Syme, the answer is yes, there were honey bees in america, the bees meliponas without sting.
Regards,
Noe
Out even earlier?
I saw this article about a possible pre-human ancestor from 12 million years ago whose skull was found in Spain. Perhaps we started road-tripping even earlier.
Citation: “A unique Middle Miocene European hominoid and the origins of the great ape and human clade Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.” By Moya-Sola, S., Alba, D., Almecija, S., Casanovas-Vilar, I., Kohler, M., De Esteban-Trivigno, S., Robles, J., Galindo, J., & Fortuny, J. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106 No. 22, June 1, 2009.
If someone can translate this into English it would help me considerably, ;D but I think they are suggesting a possible Eurasian origin for man. Are they making any sense?
Medsen
I saw this article about a possible pre-human ancestor from 12 million years ago whose skull was found in Spain. Perhaps we started road-tripping even earlier.
Citation: “A unique Middle Miocene European hominoid and the origins of the great ape and human clade Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.” By Moya-Sola, S., Alba, D., Almecija, S., Casanovas-Vilar, I., Kohler, M., De Esteban-Trivigno, S., Robles, J., Galindo, J., & Fortuny, J. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106 No. 22, June 1, 2009.
If someone can translate this into English it would help me considerably, ;D but I think they are suggesting a possible Eurasian origin for man. Are they making any sense?
Medsen
A clade is a taxonomic group of closely related species.
Afropithecus and Kenyapithecus (and related ilk) are taxa of non-bipedal primates who lived during the Miocene, which was a time of a huge expansion of African primates, particularly apes (a primate without a tail). There has been some speculation that those taxa did not lead to hominids (bipedal apes), but are closely related to one/s that did later in the Pliocene.
A synapomorphy is a shared derived characteristic, that is, a character that a species has that is more "advanced" than ancestral species and is shared with later related species. Cladistics would put species that have synapomorphies as more closely related than those that don't. This European fossil has synapomorphies that would put it into a clade with African apes thought to be closely-related to Pliocene hominids, such as a flatter face, which is a synapomorphy of hominids in relation to, say, monkeys. It is, however extremely fragmentary (although a lot can be told from the right bit of fragment!).
The authors are claiming this one find posits a Euro-asian origin for the Pliocene emergence of hominids--a huge claim because it is thought that the first hominids led to...us. Conversely they say that perhaps there was parallel evolution going on whereby bipedality evolved both in Europe and in Africa.
I haven't seen this fossil, but I am skeptical...contrarary to the abstract, there is a mountain of fossil evidence from Miocene/Pliocene Africa that indicates that the earliest hominids came out of an African clade of apes to roam the savannah as the climate changed and started to dry up the vast jungles they lived in. Which one is not known, due to the difficulty of finding fossils where there is or used to be rainforests (animals don't fossilize in jungles), which is what most of Africa was during the Miocene. But one fossil from Spain? Let's see more fossils, not just one newly-named species
Does that help?
Oh yeah, and since this is a MEAD forum, eventually those African apes evolved into us--MEAD brewing bipedal apes. The pinnacle of the evolutionary process.
Afropithecus and Kenyapithecus (and related ilk) are taxa of non-bipedal primates who lived during the Miocene, which was a time of a huge expansion of African primates, particularly apes (a primate without a tail). There has been some speculation that those taxa did not lead to hominids (bipedal apes), but are closely related to one/s that did later in the Pliocene.
A synapomorphy is a shared derived characteristic, that is, a character that a species has that is more "advanced" than ancestral species and is shared with later related species. Cladistics would put species that have synapomorphies as more closely related than those that don't. This European fossil has synapomorphies that would put it into a clade with African apes thought to be closely-related to Pliocene hominids, such as a flatter face, which is a synapomorphy of hominids in relation to, say, monkeys. It is, however extremely fragmentary (although a lot can be told from the right bit of fragment!).
The authors are claiming this one find posits a Euro-asian origin for the Pliocene emergence of hominids--a huge claim because it is thought that the first hominids led to...us. Conversely they say that perhaps there was parallel evolution going on whereby bipedality evolved both in Europe and in Africa.
I haven't seen this fossil, but I am skeptical...contrarary to the abstract, there is a mountain of fossil evidence from Miocene/Pliocene Africa that indicates that the earliest hominids came out of an African clade of apes to roam the savannah as the climate changed and started to dry up the vast jungles they lived in. Which one is not known, due to the difficulty of finding fossils where there is or used to be rainforests (animals don't fossilize in jungles), which is what most of Africa was during the Miocene. But one fossil from Spain? Let's see more fossils, not just one newly-named species
Does that help?
Oh yeah, and since this is a MEAD forum, eventually those African apes evolved into us--MEAD brewing bipedal apes. The pinnacle of the evolutionary process.
Does that help?
MEAD brewing bipedal apes. The pinnacle of the evolutionary process.
It helps enormously!
Some of us are more pinnacle-headed than others. :laughing4:
Thank you teacher, that was a very nice lesson. I guess I need to bring you an apple (or better yet, cyser).
a clade is a taxonomic group of closely related species.
Afropithecus and kenyapithecus (and related ilk) are taxa of non-bipedal primates who lived during the miocene, which was a time of a huge expansion of african primates, particularly apes (a primate without a tail). There has been some speculation that those taxa did not lead to hominids (bipedal apes), but are closely related to one/s that did later in the pliocene.
A synapomorphy is a shared derived characteristic, that is, a character that a species has that is more "advanced" than ancestral species and is shared with later related species. Cladistics would put species that have synapomorphies as more closely related than those that don't. This european fossil has synapomorphies that would put it into a clade with african apes thought to be closely-related to pliocene hominids, such as a flatter face, which is a synapomorphy of hominids in relation to, say, monkeys. It is, however extremely fragmentary (although a lot can be told from the right bit of fragment!).
The authors are claiming this one find posits a euro-asian origin for the pliocene emergence of hominids--a huge claim because it is thought that the first hominids led to...us. Conversely they say that perhaps there was parallel evolution going on whereby bipedality evolved both in europe and in africa.
I haven't seen this fossil, but i am skeptical...contrarary to the abstract, there is a mountain of fossil evidence from miocene/pliocene africa that indicates that the earliest hominids came out of an african clade of apes to roam the savannah as the climate changed and started to dry up the vast jungles they lived in. Which one is not known, due to the difficulty of finding fossils where there is or used to be rainforests (animals don't fossilize in jungles), which is what most of africa was during the miocene. But one fossil from spain? Let's see more fossils, not just one newly-named species
does that help?
Oh yeah, and since this is a mead forum, eventually those african apes evolved into us--mead brewing bipedal apes. The pinnacle of the evolutionary process.
¡¡¡¡ wow !!!!
I'd probably be a much happier teacher if my students brought me cyser instead of apples.
:drunken_smilie:
Might get in trouble with the boss, though...
Ancient wine production
Ancient wine productions.... why not mead? This a You-Tube Video highlighting an archeological dig in Armenia. It's subtitled in English…interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7PfAVHCma0&NR=1
Ancient wine productions.... why not mead? This a You-Tube Video highlighting an archeological dig in Armenia. It's subtitled in English…interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7PfAVHCma0&NR=1
Hmm. Interesting. If wine was being made commercially at that scale that long ago, how very much longer have people been making it?
And I remain convinced that as soon as people discovered they could ferment sugars to make tasty and intoxicating food/drinks, they aggressively did so with whatever sugar they had available (I have a video of animals eating fermented fruit that I wish I could attach). It might take some knowledge and skill to brew excellent, but brewing alcoholic doesn't, and it does all get you to the same place eventually.
Just from a logical perspective, once you hazard the bees and collect their honey, you generally have a lot of honey--more than you can use on your toast, anyway. A pound of honey lasts me a long time, and I love the stuff. You can trade it away for other desirable goods, but let's face it: making mead makes sense when you have a surfeit of honey. And alcohol is considerably more expensive (valuable? Did they have usurious alcohol taxes back in antiquity?) than an equal amount of raw honey, probably worth more when trading.
Of course, evidence for none of this is likely to be found in archeological sites of paleo- meso- or even neolithic pre-literate societies, more's the pity. Sometimes you just want to set aside your empiricist hat and put on your just-so story hat so you can enjoy the narrative without those pesky facts.
Thanks for posting, Al.
And I remain convinced that as soon as people discovered they could ferment sugars to make tasty and intoxicating food/drinks, they aggressively did so with whatever sugar they had available (I have a video of animals eating fermented fruit that I wish I could attach). It might take some knowledge and skill to brew excellent, but brewing alcoholic doesn't, and it does all get you to the same place eventually.
Just from a logical perspective, once you hazard the bees and collect their honey, you generally have a lot of honey--more than you can use on your toast, anyway. A pound of honey lasts me a long time, and I love the stuff. You can trade it away for other desirable goods, but let's face it: making mead makes sense when you have a surfeit of honey. And alcohol is considerably more expensive (valuable? Did they have usurious alcohol taxes back in antiquity?
) than an equal amount of raw honey, probably worth more when trading.Of course, evidence for none of this is likely to be found in archeological sites of paleo- meso- or even neolithic pre-literate societies, more's the pity. Sometimes you just want to set aside your empiricist hat and put on your just-so story hat so you can enjoy the narrative without those pesky facts.
Thanks for posting, Al.
Yeah, if you accept the notion that our primitive ancestor were intrinsically as smart as we are, and probably more observant of the natural phenomena around them, then the use of honey in fermentation would be quite logical.
Most any fruit/juice will ferment spontaneously in any container in which it is kept, but most fruits and juices will not create a high enough alcohol level to be microbiologically stable and will quickly spoil. Our forebearers didn't have a lot of options to chaptalize with. When you make a dry batch that isn't so great, attempting to sweeten it would be a natural next step. I'm confident that it didn't take them very long to figure out that if you kept adding honey to a batch of fermenting juice, the sweetness would go away and it would get stronger, until it reached a point where it would stay sweet. Such a batch would last much longer before spoiling as the step feeding would push the alcohol level up and the most ethanol tolerant yeast would remain through "natural" selection.
I reckon there aren't a lot of grapes in Africa, but when they found grapes which could be fermented into a beverage high enough in alcohol to stay stable, a whole new era of fermentation ensued. ;D
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I'm a dual US/South African citizen. If there have been others who lived in Africa on this thread, they've probably pointed out that even the Bushmen drunk honey beer. They didn't need anything except gourds. Some of the Khoisan who worked for me called a neighboring valley "The land flowing with goat's milk and honey beer"
Those guys have that enzyme problem as well. Even the alcoholics there (which are most of them, seriously) are stumbling after one beer. After two, they're cross eyed and looking for a fight. There really is a lot of data on how different ethnic groups respond to alcohol, and it's fascinating.
My credentials: Minor in Anthropology from University of Georgia (although I was 2 classes from having a double major with my BA in journalism [basically all my electives were anthropology classes because I liked it, while others took art and basket weaving for easy A's {which explains in part why I can't get into grad school now (but I do know how to layer multiple parenthetical ideas)}]).
Observation 1: Monkeys in South America have been videotaped during a feeding frenzy of half-rotten fruits fallen to the forest floor, while perfectly good fruits were still on the tree. This resulted in observed clumsiness, violence, homosexuality, autoeroticism, and laziness.
Conclusion 1: Humans have been getting drunk since before they were humans, and fruit is probably the first since it's now known that primates do it on purpose, although they don't make it, just gather it, it is my understanding that honey won't ferment by itself very often, as fruit will.
Speculation 1: I doubt more than a few months passed between the time a human deliberately fermented fruit and the time a human deliberately fermented honey. In 10 thousand years from now, humans may ask "which came first, TV's or computers?" TV's are computers. Chicken, egg, etc.
Observation 1: Monkeys in South America have been videotaped during a feeding frenzy of half-rotten fruits fallen to the forest floor, while perfectly good fruits were still on the tree. This resulted in observed clumsiness, violence, homosexuality, autoeroticism, and laziness.
Conclusion 1: Humans have been getting drunk since before they were humans, and fruit is probably the first since it's now known that primates do it on purpose, although they don't make it, just gather it, it is my understanding that honey won't ferment by itself very often, as fruit will.
Speculation 1: I doubt more than a few months passed between the time a human deliberately fermented fruit and the time a human deliberately fermented honey. In 10 thousand years from now, humans may ask "which came first, TV's or computers?" TV's are computers. Chicken, egg, etc.
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What? No heterosexuality? No standard issue eroticism? Simultaneous violence and laziness? I'm going to need to see a reference!
One lasting thing I am curious about: where does the claim of mead being the oldest beverage originate? It may be mythological, but we humans can obviously keep a good myth going without any concern for its veracity, now, can't we? My questions are, where did it come from, and why?
Yeah, just look at Keynesian economics.
For a long time it has seemed more logical to me that early humans' first experience with alcohol would have been with spoiling fruit or juice that was collected. Any early attempts at making wine would have produced a non-sulfited, probably low-alcohol result that would have been highly prone to spoilage. Not wanting to waste perfectly good alcohol, the earliest mazers figured out that sweetening it with honey would cover a multitude of sins (it works for me even now ;D). And lo, the melomel was born.
Purely supposition on my part, but plausible right?
I think that Gayre's book, Wassail! In Mazers of Mead, and Ransome's book "The Sacred Bee," have been a large influence in promoting this idea. Mostly Gayre, since his book seems more well known than Ransome's.
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Yeah, it's plausible. ;D
Well, sort of. It's been a mistake, IMHO, to look for the earliest wine, beer, or mead because what we're doing is imposing modern categories on very ancient ways of thinking. The earliest fermented beverages were made with whatever materials were at hand, and a culture would develop around this. Levi Strauss, also the author of fermented beverages in ancient Mexico, show how regions developed around the making of certain types of fermented beverages indigenous to the area. Honey was certainly used, wherever honey was to be found.
Look at the Jiahu beverages -- 9,000 years old, and it's neither wine, beer, nor mead. It's in a category all its own.
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Creative, intelligent beings that we are, I suspect that as soon as the process of fermentation (and its products) were discovered, no matter what the root source, we were likely more than willing to experiment with everything edible (and every possible combination of those things), to see what ferments into a pleasant potable. Clearly the Jiahu discovery points to "no boundaries" in the formulation of those early recipes. ;D
