MemberlistThe Library Index  FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 
On Getting the Horse to the Americas (History)
Reply to topic Goto page 1, 2  Next
View previous topic :: View next topic  
DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Exposing the Columbus Myth by following the horse

A rather grand title for a rather brief essay, but maybe interesting.
http://www.beforebc.com/ExposingtheColumbusMyth.html

Discussion here:
http://www.grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

My own thesis goes something like this.

1. Horses are a North American species (that's orthodox).

2. Horses did not become extinct in North America c 12000 BC (as orthodoxy mysteriously claims), they were domesticated by the Plains Indians. This has the same effect so far as the fossil record is concerned since, unless the domesticators have rather defined cultural practices, no horse will get fossilised.

3. These horse-nomads crossed into the Old World (in the guise of what we call Mongols).

4. For thousands of years these horse nomads operated a system of permanent grassland steppes (basically you "bark" every tree to kill them and then your animals stop further growth) in North America and Asia.

5. They prevented the spread of horses into the southern Americas to ensure there was no threat from there.

6. Though they couldn't prevent the horse-secret spreading through the Old World for obvious geographical reasons.

7. Every time anyone from the Old World seemed likely to reach the Americas (across either ocean), the "Mongols" intervened in local politics to prevent it.

8. When it became obvious they couldn't keep the Old World out, they made sure that "all of a sudden" both the Incas and the Aztecs came to monopolistic power in their respective spheres to keep the newcomers out.

9. But without horses (et al) this didn't work and the whole system collapsed, first in North America and later in Asia.
Send private message
Hatty
Site Admin

In: Berkshire
View user's profile
Reply with quote

These horse-nomads crossed into the Old World (in the guise of what we call Mongols).

Sounds plausible, no-one seems to know the origins of the 'Mongols', but why go north-east rather than south? The horse certainly figured large in Chinese history, e.g. the terracotta figures - but Chinese society was more likely to be influenced by Mongols than the other way round.

Every time anyone from the Old World seemed likely to reach the Americas (across either ocean), the "Mongols" intervened in local politics to prevent it.

Don't see how expeditions would be prevented in order to keep the "horse secret" and also not convinced that the Mongols were responsible for the Inca and Aztec dynasties.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

These horse-nomads crossed into the Old World (in the guise of what we call Mongols).

Sounds plausible, no-one seems to know the origins of the 'Mongols', but why go north-east rather than south?

It's a question of grass and space -- the two desiderata of horse nomads. There's now't much of either south of the Rio Grande. Nor, it would seem, were the "Mongols" able to get through bottlenecks ie access either the pampas of South America or the savannahs of Africa. This suggests (contrary to their very much later actions) that the whole movement was natural expansion rather than being organised on the grand scale. However their actions -- in keeping vast grassland steppes treeless -- were on a grand scale, though presumably carried out piecemeal at the local scale.

I urge you all to consider "grasslands". How natural are they? Their extent in North America and Asia suggest that true treeless steppe is possible in a variety of climatic zones -- if the human will is there. This would suggest that the horse nomads could only flourish in the absence of settled populations, and hence their lack of success in south-east Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

The horse certainly figured large in Chinese history, e.g. the terracotta figures - but Chinese society was more likely to be influenced by Mongols than the other way round.

The horse is notably absent from Chinese culture and indeed everywhere in southern Asia. The horse, as you yourself indicate, is military, ceremonial and high-caste. This suggests to me that either Chinese high-castes were themselves Mongol (certainly the overt case for several Dynasties) or were "fed" horses by the Mongols.

Every time anyone from the Old World seemed likely to reach the Americas (across either ocean), the "Mongols" intervened in local politics to prevent it.

Don't see how expeditions would be prevented

As soon as Chinese navigators reached (or threatened to reach, the evidence is unclear) the Americas in the fifteenth century, ALL overseas expeditions were immediately prohibited by the Chinese government. This astonishing decision is greeted with a shrug by orthodoxy. Similarly the fact that Europeans never (apparently) crossed the Atlantic (which is a relative piece-of-piss) for so long is treated by everybody as "just one of those things".

in order to keep the "horse secret"

That's not what I am saying. The Mongols wished to prevent the Europeans and the Chinese entering North America. Even a firm non-conspiracist would have to agree that Attila, Ghengis Khan and Tamurlaine all popped up just when things were getting all expansionist in the West, and set everything back once more.

and also not convinced that the Mongols were responsible for the Inca and Aztec dynasties.

Well, I can't say I am exactly "convinced" either. It is merely a fact of history that after several thousand years of small-scale regional governments flourishing in meso-America, all of a sudden two amazingly successful unifying Empires (the Incas and the Aztecs) sprang up in the middle of the fifteenth century AD just when the Europeans were finally getting their Atlantic act together. But I'm all ears if anybody's got a better explanation. Oh! Coincidence! Yeah, I'd forgotten that one.
Send private message
DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
View user's profile
Reply with quote

if one area of the world is preparing to make intercontinental voyages, it might be that such sudden localised prosperity attracts the attention of hungry steppe nomads. Or maybe it's the other way round, and a squeeze on the Silk Road raises prices at either end and prompts entrepreneurial types to seek alternative sea routes. Or...or...or...

Don't forget that nomads are marginal and epibiotic: dependent on the settled population for the development and supply of the materiel necessary for maintaining their non-conducive ecological niche. It's tempting to think the Mongols wouldn't know and wouldn't care what imperial China was up to, but, on the contrary, they should have been very worried about their host nation gaining interests (whether as masters or slaves) elsewhere.

2. Horses did not become extinct in North America c 12000 BC (as orthodoxy mysteriously claims), they were domesticated by the Plains Indians. (This has the same effect so far as the fossil record is concerned since, unless the domesticators have rather defined cultural practices, no horse will get fossilised.

What, all of them were domesticated? None would be fossilised?

3. These horse-nomads crossed into the Old World (in the guise of what we call Mongols).

Of course, it will be assumed that the racial similarities between them are due to Old-to-New-World migration. Anyone know what the genetics have to say?

4. For thousands of years these horse nomads operated a system of permanent grassland steppes (basically you "bark" every tree to kill them and then your animals stop further growth) in North America and Asia.

It's not that trees and horses don't get on. What do you think it is: just that they developed a grassland culture and spread it where they could?

I urge you all to consider "grasslands". How natural are they?

Good question... Also consider the bison (which exists in both New and Old World)... and the pig, which, if memory serves, is reckoned to have been domesticated in China and was a particular preoccupation of the Celts. Cf. Urumchi mummies and the Middle East's disdain for pigs.

Maybe the mystery of the Plains Indian horse-cum-buffalo culture, supposedly evolved in the twinkling of an eye and supported by their own legends of the sudden adoption of the lifestyle, is that they made a swift transition from riding and herding horses, as in Mongolia, to riding horses and hunting buffalo...

...maybe coz they had to look for another way to secure their livelihood now that they had lost the battle to keep the north-western sedentaries to themselves...

This would suggest that the horse nomads could only flourish in the absence of settled populations, and hence their lack of success in south-east Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

Well, they certainly needed to live near... but settled life requires forests and hedges and cities and roads...

The horse is notably absent from Chinese culture and indeed everywhere in southern Asia. The horse, as you yourself indicate, is military, ceremonial and high-caste.

Does the horse figure highly in peasant life anywhere (until modern times)? Horse nomads don't count: they have artificially flat hierarchies: everyone is effectively high-status.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Don't forget that nomads are marginal and epibiotic: dependent on the settled population for the development and supply of the materiel necessary for maintaining their non-conducive ecological niche.

Yes...kinda...there is a curious, and curiously unexplored, relationship between nomads and their immediate neighbours. On the one hand, the nomads do need stuff from the settled population (but not necessarily vice versa), on the other hand the nomads are way stronger than their (immediate) neighbours. It's a very tense nexus.

It's tempting to think the Mongols wouldn't know and wouldn't care what imperial China was up to, but, on the contrary, they should have been very worried about their host nation gaining interests (whether as masters or slaves) elsewhere.

I'm slightly confused by your terminology. When the Mongols and Chinese are discrete entities then, yes, the Mongols wouldn't be concerned. No matter how strong the Chinks get, they are unlikely to want to impinge specially into the alien nomad regions. But once the Chinese are the host nation ie the Mongols have taken over the Chinese Empire...then, well, would they still much care? In ordinary circumstances? I would have thought not. Overseas expansion is just more grist for the Mongol coffers, surely?

2. Horses did not become extinct in North America c 12000 BC (as orthodoxy mysteriously claims), they were domesticated by the Plains Indians. This has the same effect so far as the fossil record is concerned since, unless the domesticators have rather defined cultural practices, no horse will get fossilised.

What, all of them were domesticated? None would be fossilised?

Yup. Consider how animals get fossilised. For a start, since the process is so highly circumstantial, there has to be a lot of live animals for a kick-off. Domestication suddenly reduces the horse from being free-roaming over the continent to being concentrated into human-required small chunks. Now, how does a domesticated horse get fossilised? Only if it gets formally buried by human beings or the bones get casually tossed around after butchery. Now I don't know very much about Mongols and their horses but does anyone have the record for horse fossils being found in Asia during the last twelve thousand years? Of course a few domesticated horses will wander off, die and get fossilised but in such teensy numbers they are unlikely to be found by palaeontologists not looking for such bones. But if they were -- if they have -- you can be sure a bit of special pleading would be hastily cobbled together.

Of course, it will be assumed that the racial similarities between them are due to Old-to-New-World migration. Anyone know what the genetics have to say?

Orthodoxy is very useful here. Because of the absurd similarities -- cultural as well as genetic -- between Mongols and Plains Indians, and because Asia to America is paradigmatic -- it is taken as axiomatic that they are one and the same people. Though of course orthodoxymorons scratch their head when you ask, "So how come, after a twelve thousand year time lag, the descendants suddenly remembered how to operate a horse-nomad steppe culture from scratch?"

It's not that trees and horses don't get on. What do you think it is: just that they developed a grassland culture and spread it where they could?

You're right, it's not that horses and trees don't get on; it's that Mongols and trees don't get on. It's part of their culture to desire to see nothing as far as every horizon. I can't account for this strange belief (theories, please!) but I do know that you have to work very hard to remove every tree (look at the acacias and thornbushes in the African savannah if you don't believe me.)

Good question... Also consider the bison (which exists in both New and Old World)...

Yes, look at the bison. It's the key to everything!

Maybe the mystery of the Plains Indian horse-cum-buffalo culture, supposedly evolved in the twinkling of an eye and supported by their own legends of the sudden adoption of the lifestyle, is that they made a swift transition from riding and herding horses, as in Mongolia, to riding horses and hunting buffalo...

Yes, possibly. Though then we would have to acknowledge that out of the n zillion cultures that have ever existed in the world, just two became horse-nomads...and they both invented it completely independently...even though they are the same people! I think we're looking at odds of billions to one for this explanation.

...maybe coz they had to look for another way to secure their livelihood now that they had lost the battle to keep the north-western sedentaries to themselves...

No, this cannot be correct. The evidence is clear that horse-nomadery was extant on the Plains long before the Europeans got anywhere close. And of course the Native Americans of the north-west (Innuit or Amerindian) are notably useless in every way when it comes to competition. There's stackeroonies of room thereabouts.

Does the horse figure highly in peasant life anywhere (until modern times)? Horse nomads don't count: they have artificially flat hierarchies: everyone is effectively high-status.

The point I was making is that a) the horse isn't important anywhere for the general population until modern times and b) even less important in the east. Oh, and by the way, it wasn't even important in post-Columbian North America -- the wagon trains were pulled by oxen and agriculture was overwhelmingly ditto. Yes of course there were sufficient number of horses to escape and go feral (the orthodox explanation) though how big Spanish (and Yankee) horses metamorphosed into Pinto ponies in a handful of generations is something even orthodoxy doesn't like to think about.
Send private message
Ishmael


In: Toronto
View user's profile
Reply with quote

if one area of the world is preparing to make intercontinental voyages, it might be that such sudden localised prosperity attracts the attention of hungry steppe nomads...

Don't forget that nomads are marginal and epibiotic: dependent on the settled population for the development and supply of the materiel necessary for maintaining their non-conducive ecological niche.


One model for the relationship between "Civilized" peoples and "Barbarians" is that which exists between the farm and the farmer. Civilizations are periodically plundered by barbarians in much the same way that a farm is periodically harvested by the farmer. The farmer seeds the farm then lets it grow until the time is ripe for the next harvest.

The nomadic system is unsustainable in isolation - just as the farmhouse cannot feed itself. Perhaps likewise, certain areas of the world need to be preserved in which civilization may flourish for the sole purpose of being periodically plundered by the barbarian overlords who actually run the system.
Send private message
DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
View user's profile
Reply with quote

It's tempting to think the Mongols wouldn't know and wouldn't care what imperial China was up to, but, on the contrary, they should have been very worried about their host nation gaining interests (whether as masters or slaves) elsewhere.

I'm slightly confused by your terminology.

I'm saying China is the host nation upon which the Mongols' depend for their (evolution/)survival.

When the Mongols and Chinese are discrete entities then, yes, the Mongols wouldn't be concerned... Overseas expansion is just more grist for the Mongol coffers, surely?

You're the one who suggested they wanted to interfere in China's affairs!

But you miss my point. China is an ordinary settled nation. The Mongols are a separate culture relying on China to provide some cruxial material needs. {If the Mongols take over and operate the Chinese empire in the usual way, then for these purposes they become Chinese and cease to be nomads.}

So it seems to make sense that the attention paid by China to the Mongols is very much the Mongols' business. They have no hope of controlling China's access to the Pacific, but may well have affected their will to make use of it.

I was going to say the European non-settlement of America due to the "American Mongols" was a weak argument... but it's just the same: horse nomads to their left might well have deterred the settled, western Indians from getting friendly with the Europeans on their right.

Eventually, neither lot of nomads could keep their sedentary neighbours from being distracted. At just that time, in America, a new culture is supposed to have been invented and someone else got to assert themselves in the guise of an empire or two.

Domestication suddenly reduces the horse from being free-roaming over the continent to being concentrated into human-required small chunks.

No wild horses were left wild, you're saying? Unlike the wild sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, fowl, cats, dogs, hares... still milling about as well as the domesticated versions.

Depending on where the horses are known to have lived, I suppose it's possible...

Was anything else domesticated in the Americas?

Maybe the mystery of the Plains Indian horse-cum-buffalo culture, supposedly evolved in the twinkling of an eye and supported by their own legends of the sudden adoption of the lifestyle, is that they made a swift transition from riding and herding horses, as in Mongolia, to riding horses and hunting buffalo...

Yes, possibly. Though then we would have to acknowledge that out of the n zillion cultures that have ever existed in the world, just two became horse-nomads...and they both invented it completely independently...even though they are the same people! I think we're looking at odds of billions to one for this explanation.

The orthodox explanation is billions to one, but that's not what I'm suggesting. I'm agreeing that the horse nomads existed "primordially"; but the Mongols are horse-only while the Americans are, latterly, horse + buffalo. This may be a relatively subtle shift that is mistaken for the (impossibly) wholesale invention of the horse culture.

Maybe there was no such shift, but something in both orthodoxy and native legend says something happened.

And of course the Native Americans of the north-west (Innuit or Amerindian) are notably useless in every way when it comes to competition. There's stackeroonies of room thereabouts.

Let's say the Innuit are by definition the ones that live in the frozen wastes, eating caribou, fishing, sealing and whaling. They are one of the marginal, epibiotic groups in a marginal environment that could not have come into existence before a normal, temperate population took the time to develop flint and antler tools and stuff that the usual crop of nutters would need to survive in the wilderness.

The Indians of the north-east are known for being settled and civilised! They were in a position to play host to the nomads and/or the freezophiles. And they were the ones to be contacted tentatively then inexorably by the Europeans.

Where does competition come into it?

Yes of course there were sufficient number of horses to escape and go feral (the orthodox explanation)

Which Jim Bowles challenges, saying that escaped horses run around, not away. (He's right: with all that trouble over branding and rustling, you'd think no one would ever let a single head get away.)
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

I'm saying China is the host nation upon which the Mongols' depend for their (evolution/)survival.

I think you've got the nomad/settled people balance wrong. It is true that nomads depend on agricultural people (or perhaps we should say, come to depend) for bits-and-bobs, and maybe in functional terms even necessary bits-and-bobs, but this is all taken care of by local barter and exchange. It would be quite out of character to involve a distant entity like China (in the sense of the organised Chinese state). And of course if one lot of agricultural people do get organised (or organised by) a fairly powerful state, then the nomads are in the perfect position to go elsewhere for their necessary supplies.

You are free to argue however that going from mere horse-nomads to "Mongols" requires symbiosis with a rich neighbour (how else would one keep such free spirits together?).

But you miss my point. China is an ordinary settled nation. The Mongols are a separate culture relying on China to provide some cruxial material needs. {If the Mongols take over and operate the Chinese empire in the usual way, then for these purposes they become Chinese and cease to be nomads.}

Well, this is to be argued. It may suit both sides to pretend they are one but whether they are is another matter. We see this syndrome everywhere -- from the Roman Empire to the Raj -- that Rulers and Ruled (especially if you are relying on the historical record) are all one and indivisible. A rather better way to view the true relationship is perhaps to look at Russian history (and the film of Ivan the Terrible) and how the Golden Horde are viewed from the agriculturalists' point of view. (Though of course we haven't got the counter-view from the Mongolian Eisenstein about how they were only bringing civilisation and order to these pathetically backward peasants.)

No wild horses were left wild, you're saying? Unlike the wild sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, fowl, cats, dogs, hares... still milling about as well as the domesticated versions.

That's precisely what I'm saying. "Farming" is all about monopoly control. You keep the weeds out. But the buggers keep returning so you end up spending your whole life weeding. With large herd animals you have a better strategy available -- kill all the weeds everywhere ie all the wild horses everywhere. Are there aurochs in Hertfordshire? Are there lots of wild reindeer in Lapland? Or is every last one part of somebody or other's herd?

Now you know why ancient man kept on going to all that monumental and highly counterproductive labour of driving entire herds over cliffs in order to (as Orthodoxy claims) slice some steaks out of a few of them.

Depending on where the horses are known to have lived, I suppose it's possible...

No, depending on where the Mongols lived. They operate on a trans-continental scale. Killing every damned wild horse in North America (which the palaeontological record clearly shows took about a thousand years) would have taken them...max...probably about a thousand years.

Was anything else domesticated in the Americas?

No. The palaeontological record is clear that all other large herd species disappeared in the same thousand years across the whole of North America. The orthodox explanation, by the way, is that the newly arrived Man did this using his Clovis point spears, animal by animal....and we're supposed to admire this dude's one-ness with nature?

Though there is...the beaver...and the passenger pigeon...

The orthodox explanation is billions to one, but that's not what I'm suggesting. I'm agreeing that the horse nomads existed "primordially"; but the Mongols are horse-only while the Americans are, latterly, horse + buffalo. This may be a relatively subtle shift that is mistaken for the (impossibly) wholesale invention of the horse culture.

Ingenious but it falls down on the palaeontological "fact" that everything disappeared except the buffalo (which downshifted in size in the classical domestication way) twelve thousand years ago. Of course what the local tribes might have done quite swiftly (and the legends they would make up about it) when the Mongols left and all them buffalo became feral...ah, Jim lad, that'd be telling.

Which Jim Bowles challenges, saying that escaped horses run around, not away. (He's right: with all that trouble over branding and rustling, you'd think no one would ever let a single head get away.)

I'd like to hear more about this boringly sensible chap.
Send private message
Hatty
Site Admin

In: Berkshire
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Was anything else domesticated in the Americas?
No. The palaeontological record is clear that all other large herd species disappeared in the same thousand years across the whole of North America.

What about the husky, upon which the Inuit depend for transport? Its origins, like those of the buffulo (aka bison), seem unclear, though huskies are thought to have come from Siberia.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

I don't regard the far north as part of North America for these purposes. That said, I had forgotten about the husky. Which is an interesting example of domestication -- there is, I believe, an isolated example of an apparently domesticated dog in North America that predates the Old World but I can't remember anything about it (can anyone assist?)

The relationship between the dog and the wolf (which appears to be highly germane to the husky) is a subject all Applied Epistemologists should thoroughly immerse themselves in. And then report back.
Send private message
Hatty
Site Admin

In: Berkshire
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Dogs, i.e. domesticated wolves, occur all over the place, used for hunting but also as pets and a food source, in China anyway. No-one seems able to agree how many thousands of years ago the process occurred but have agreed on a somewhat arbitrary figure of 15,000 years ago.

There are several breeds of husky - interestingly, they have to be kept in secure enclosures, otherwise they tend to disappear on long hunting trips and are not given to blind obedience, so the wolf-like characteristics haven't been entirely eliminated.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Dogs, i.e. domesticated wolves,

You shouldn't say this baldly. We do not actually know that dogs are domesticated wolves. There are various other possible candidates (as well as the possibility that wolves are feral dogs!).

occur all over the place, used for hunting

mmm...again...this is not wholly known or knowable. Dogs are found "in association" with human beings in archaeological sites but whether "for hunting" is only one possibility. However, you remind me, huskies are definitely NOT used for hunting...are they? And by the way, let's not forget that all the hunting dogs we do know about are very, very specifically bred.

but also as pets and a food source, in China anyway

The chow is said to be a Chinese breed and looks to me more like a wolf than most dogs. Perhaps Dan could tell us whether there is an etymological link between chow and chow (slang for food).

No-one seems able to agree how many thousands of years ago the process occurred but have agreed on a somewhat arbitrary figure of 15,000 years ago.

I'm a bit surprised at this late figure. I have vague memories of Australians turning up with dingoes c 30,000 BP. This would be significant since taking dogs to Australia would presumably be definitive that they were domesticated whereas merely finding dog bones "in association" with human bones wouldn't necessarily prove domestication.

However, my thoughts about early American dogs seem way off the mark. This page is quite interesting (also from other, Applied Epistemological, perspectives):
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/reviews/05_09_raisor.htm

There are several breeds of husky - interestingly, they have to be kept in secure enclosures, otherwise they tend to disappear on long hunting trips and are not given to blind obedience, so the wolf-like characteristics haven't been entirely eliminated.

Yeah but how is this different from any other wild dog, not merely wolves? Still and all, it should be noted that huskies are exactly like reindeer ie they are only semi-domesticated. This peculiar status -- quite unlike our fully domesticated species -- is very important in the Revisionist History Of Mankind.
Send private message
DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Mick wrote:
It would be quite out of character to involve a distant entity like China (in the sense of the organised Chinese state). And of course if one lot of agricultural people do get organised (or organised by) a fairly powerful state, then the nomads are in the perfect position to go elsewhere for their necessary supplies.

I'm not sure that the second claim is (straightforwardly) true, but even so, you suggested the Mongols were interfering in international politics. If this is now "quite out of character" then I have completely lost the thread.

You are free to argue however that going from mere horse-nomads to "Mongols" requires symbiosis with a rich neighbour (how else would one keep such free spirits together?).

Even horse-nomads require symbiosis (more to the point: epibiosis)... but why do you equate nomadism with free-spiritedness? They are not free to come and go as they please: they wring a living out of marginal resources by technical means (materiel and logistics). They are 'locked in' to the demands of their life-style and there isn't much opportunity for advancement or change: their hierarchies are typically 'flat', everyone does the same things no matter who they are. Giving up and becoming townies is an increasing trend among Mongols.

Turning the technical skills to empire-building... that's about the feisty, ruling, warrior types (even if they entrain everyone into the war effort): and the way to keep them together is to continue to be successful?

It may suit both sides to pretend they are one but whether they are is another matter. We see this syndrome everywhere -- from the Roman Empire to the Raj -- that Rulers and Ruled are all one and indivisible.

Let's start again. Everyone can be divided into gadabouts and stay-at-homes. Another distinction is rulers and ruled. And another is sedentaries and nomads/marginals.

The bulk of the population, upon which the others rely, are sedentary stay-at-homes, sometimes ruled by their kin, sometimes by foreigners.

Now, what do you want to say about horse-nomads and steppe-warriors?
Send private message
DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Mick wrote:
That's precisely what I'm saying. "Farming" is all about monopoly control... Now you know why ancient man kept on going to all that monumental and highly counterproductive labour of driving entire herds over cliffs in order to (as Orthodoxy claims) slice some steaks out of a few of them.


OK, I can see that.

So how come there are wild versions of sheep, cattle, pigs, rabbits...? They're too different to be recently feralised, aren't they?

The orthodox explanation, by the way, is that the newly arrived Man did this using his Clovis point spears animal by animal....and we're supposed to admire this dude's one-ness with nature?

Buddhist goes into a pizza parlour and says "make me One with Everything". Anyway, suppose this oneness with Nature thing stems from a "Fuck! We almost died out too! moment... Is there any sign of a human 'bottleneck' at the same time; or would it help if we postulated one?

the palaeontological "fact" [ is ] that everything disappeared except the buffalo (which downshifted in size in the classical domestication way) twelve thousand years ago.

Aah. Interesting.

Of course what the local tribes might have done quite swiftly when the Mongols left and all them buffalo became feral...

You've lost me now. What model of Mongols and Great Plains Indians are you kicking around? They're related? They're different and the Mongols moved out west: way west? What?
Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic Goto page 1, 2  Next

Jump to:  
Page 1 of 2

MemberlistThe Library Index  FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group