Crying Wolf (Life Sciences)

[berniegreen]

My dear Michael,

The solution is as plain as a pikestaff. Turn it all into a novel and you will sell millions. If Philip Pullman can do it so can you.

[Mick Harper]

Who would want to be Philip Pullman?

[berniegreen]

There is this geezer who is pointing out that there were three waves of Cro-Magnons arriving on the shores of France/Spain (http://www.atlantisquest.com/Anthropology.html). And that they have different characteristics to the "perigordian" bunch of AMMs. He proposes that the perigordians were an Out of Africa group but that the CMs all came at different times from Atlantis - but maybe you knew all about this.

Reading this triggered the thought that Chad has maybe made a very good case for a sort of "Atlantis solution". Not a sinking island but rising seas driving the CMs from their happy hunting grounds hundreds of miles east of Brazil to North Africa and Southwest Europe.

[berniegreen]

[Mick Harper]

I'd rather apply Occamite principles on this occasion.

[Grant]

Mick, would it help if we subscribed for copies before publication? Put me down for five copies

[Mick Harper]

Here is the second of the ten 'diagnostic characteristics of domestication'.

2. Curious extinctions. When domestication occurs it is often the case that the domesticated variant is sufficiently protected as to expand and oust the competing wild version. This can happen (from Man's perspective) wittingly or unwittingly ie it might suit him to deliberately get rid of the wild version or it might happen, as it were, quite naturally. The witting choice may arise either from wishing to expand numbers of the domesticated version rapidly which means of necessity cutting down equally rapidly on the opposition but there are also good reasons for eliminating the wild version because a) it prevents cross-breeding and b) it eliminates diseases arising in the natural population.

Of course extinctions occur in nature and they also arise in the general expansion of Man's other activities so it is not possible to equate extinctions with domestication. That is why we use the term 'curious extinction' because it is only in peculiar circumstances that we would suspect that domestication is the cause. Given that Man has only been capable of extinguishing species in recent times, 'curious extinctions' can be limited to the last fifty thousand years and in 'continental' circumstances ie it has to be somewhat larger than dodo-scale.

[Ishmael]

My god. That's 10 books!

Don't you think that might have been the problem? Narrow the focus.

[Mick Harper]

Could be, could be. I prefer to wait until the book is written before deciding. If that's all right with you. You have to bear in mind that the basic megalithic stuff amounts to ten thousand words (the theory is so elegant it doesn't take much writing up, as you'll remember from Treasure Hunt days) so there's lots of scope for buttressing. But yes, you're perfectly right, it was the buttressing that put the publisher off.

The same thing happened with THOBR, the entire Anglo-Saxon theory is contained in the ten thousand words of the first chapter. I presume it is a consequence of Occamite truth to be succinct.

Let's forge a new AE dogma: ten thousand words is all it takes!

[Ishmael]

Why not write them back and suggest paring the book back to the essential elements that initially piqued their interest?

[Mick Harper]

I am already an unperson in their eyes... such is the way of publishers.

[Hatty]

Do specialisations arise from 'aberrant genes' or are they caused by breeding experiments? Mongooses, a 'domesticated' species, are obviously useful being immune to snake venom but they can also be a great nuisance so perhaps they were culled. Weasels in folklore were supposed to be able to kill snakes which is what mongooses are known for but Wiki says very firmly that while mongooses may look like weasels they "are not closely related".

Mongooses are not mustelidae but Herpestidae (which sounds like 'designed to keep pests down') and seem to have no connection with Mongolian steppes or Egyptian cat-cults even though they are 'from Eurasia and Africa'. The disparity in presumed places of origin is a bit of a give-away I'd have thought.

[Ishmael]

I don't understand why the publishers of THOBR/TSHEL would not be interested in a follow-up. They made money on the first book and a second one would renew interest in the first.

[berniegreen]

Michael, I realise that I have the reputation here of simply being a nay-sayer. But believe me that the following comment is intended in a very positive sense, so don't just write it off as though it is just another negative contribution.

Curious extinctions
Without at least one example to support it the contention reads oddly.
And it seems to me that on Occamite principles your overall thesis doesn't need this. So I feel that inclusion of this is weakening your argument instead of strengthening it.

BTW I only know of two extinction events in non-historic times that are definitely man-made. One is the hunting to death of the Moa by the Maoris and the other is the destruction of the mega-fauna in Oz by the introduction of "firestick-cultivation" by the Aborigines. And neither, obviously, is linked to domestication. It may be that the deforestation of Easter Island caused another one but I don't know of any relevant evidence.

[Hatty]

A propos of level plateaux, there's one in Champagne in the area where Troyes stands. Directly north of Troyes is Reims, the 'spiritual capital' of France where kings were traditionally crowned.

It is similar to the layout of Avebury and Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain and, like Salisbury Plain, it is chalk terrain where the French military do whatever it is that the military do.