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Difference Between Us And The Ancients
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Re: Difference Between Us And The Ancients
by threadbear » Wed 14 Oct 2009, 22:43:19
Interesting, isn't it? I guess when food, particularly food in the form of fat, is scarce, fat women have a survival advantage.
Force feeding in Mauritania, or "Honey does this make me look fat? It does??? Oh thank you so much!"
"Other women look back unfavourably on the difficult days when they underwent Leblouh. Hoda's mother hired a fattener when she was eight years old, growing up in the countryside. "That woman fattener was very tough with me," she said. "She would hit me when I got tired of food and when I was about to throw up. She used to make me drink a huge container of milk, of about 5 litres. My stomach almost exploded each time."
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xh ... portage-01
Force feeding in Mauritania, or "Honey does this make me look fat? It does??? Oh thank you so much!"
"Other women look back unfavourably on the difficult days when they underwent Leblouh. Hoda's mother hired a fattener when she was eight years old, growing up in the countryside. "That woman fattener was very tough with me," she said. "She would hit me when I got tired of food and when I was about to throw up. She used to make me drink a huge container of milk, of about 5 litres. My stomach almost exploded each time."
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xh ... portage-01
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Re: Difference Between Us And The Ancients
by hardtootell-2 » Wed 14 Oct 2009, 23:03:36
This sounds interesting. Compared to our ancestors we are soft and weak physically
http://www.timeslive.co.za/sport/article151423.ece
Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 2,45 metres during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood.
Any Neanderthal woman could have beaten former bodybuilder and current California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm wrestle.
These and other eye-catching claims are detailed in a book by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister entitled “Manthropology” and provocatively sub-titled “The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male”.
McAllister sets out his stall in the opening sentence of the prologue.
“If you’re reading this then you — or the male you have bought it for — are the worst man in history.
“No ifs, no buts — the worst man, period...As a class we are in fact the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet.”
Delving into a wide range of source material McAllister finds evidence he believes proves that modern man is inferior to his predecessors in, among other fields, the basic Olympic athletics disciplines of running and jumping.
His conclusions about the speed of Australian aboriginals 20000 years ago are based on a set of footprints, preserved in a fossilised claypan lake bed, of six men chasing prey.
FLEET-FOOTED ABORIGINALS
An analysis of the footsteps of one of the men, dubbed T8, shows he reached speeds of 37 kph on a soft, muddy lake edge.
Bolt, by comparison, reached a top speed of 42 kph during his then world 100 metres record of 9,69 seconds at last year’s Beijing Olympics.
In an interview in the English university town of Cambridge where he was temporarily resident, McAllister said that, with modern training, spiked shoes and rubberised tracks, aboriginal hunters might have reached speeds of 45 kph.
“We can assume they are running close to their maximum if they are chasing an animal,” he said.
“But if they can do that speed of 37 kph on very soft ground I suspect there is a strong chance they would have outdone Usain Bolt if they had all the advantages that he does.
“We can tell that T8 is accelerating towards the end of his tracks.” McAllister said it was probable that any number of T8’s contemporaries could have run as fast.
“We have to remember too how incredibly rare these fossilisations are,” he said. “What are the odds that you would get the fastest runner in Australia at that particular time in that particular place in such a way that was going to be preserved?”
Turning to the high jump, McAllister said photographs taken by a German anthropologist showed young men jumping heights of up to 2,52 metres in the early years of last century.
STARK DECLINE
“It was an initiation ritual, everybody had to do it. They had to be able to jump their own height to progress to manhood,” he said.
“It was something they did all the time and they lived very active lives from a very early age. They developed very phenomenal abilities in jumping. They were jumping from boyhood onwards to prove themselves.”
McAllister said a Neanderthal woman had 10% more muscle bulk than modern European man. Trained to capacity she would have reached 90% of Schwarzenegger’s bulk at his peak in the 1970s.
“But because of the quirk of her physiology, with a much shorter lower arm, she would slam him to the table without a problem,” he said.
Manthropology abounds with other examples:
* Roman legions completed more than one-and-a-half marathons a day (more than 60 kms) carrying more than half their body weight in equipment.
* Athens employed 30000 rowers who could all exceed the achievements of modern oarsmen.
* Australian aboriginals threw a hardwood spear 110 metres or more (the current world javelin record is 98,48).
McAllister said it was difficult to equate the ancient spear with the modern javelin but added: “Given other evidence of Aboriginal man’s superb athleticism you’d have to wonder whether they couldn’t have taken out every modern javelin event they entered.” Why the decline?
“We are so inactive these days and have been since the industrial revolution really kicked into gear,” McAllister replied. “These people were much more robust than we were.
“We don’t see that because we convert to what things were like about 30 years ago. There’s been such a stark improvement in times, technique has improved out of sight, times and heights have all improved vastly since then but if you go back further it’s a different story.
“At the start of the industrial revolution there are statistics about how much harder people worked then.
“The human body is very plastic and it responds to stress.
We have lost 40% of the shafts of our long bones because we have much less of a muscular load placed upon them these days.
“We are simply not exposed to the same loads or challenges that people were in the ancient past and even in the recent past so our bodies haven’t developed. Even the level of training that we do, our elite athletes, doesn’t come close to replicating that.
“We wouldn’t want to go back to the brutality of those days but there are some things we would do well to profit from.”
http://www.timeslive.co.za/sport/article151423.ece
Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 2,45 metres during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood.
Any Neanderthal woman could have beaten former bodybuilder and current California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm wrestle.
These and other eye-catching claims are detailed in a book by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister entitled “Manthropology” and provocatively sub-titled “The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male”.
McAllister sets out his stall in the opening sentence of the prologue.
“If you’re reading this then you — or the male you have bought it for — are the worst man in history.
“No ifs, no buts — the worst man, period...As a class we are in fact the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet.”
Delving into a wide range of source material McAllister finds evidence he believes proves that modern man is inferior to his predecessors in, among other fields, the basic Olympic athletics disciplines of running and jumping.
His conclusions about the speed of Australian aboriginals 20000 years ago are based on a set of footprints, preserved in a fossilised claypan lake bed, of six men chasing prey.
FLEET-FOOTED ABORIGINALS
An analysis of the footsteps of one of the men, dubbed T8, shows he reached speeds of 37 kph on a soft, muddy lake edge.
Bolt, by comparison, reached a top speed of 42 kph during his then world 100 metres record of 9,69 seconds at last year’s Beijing Olympics.
In an interview in the English university town of Cambridge where he was temporarily resident, McAllister said that, with modern training, spiked shoes and rubberised tracks, aboriginal hunters might have reached speeds of 45 kph.
“We can assume they are running close to their maximum if they are chasing an animal,” he said.
“But if they can do that speed of 37 kph on very soft ground I suspect there is a strong chance they would have outdone Usain Bolt if they had all the advantages that he does.
“We can tell that T8 is accelerating towards the end of his tracks.” McAllister said it was probable that any number of T8’s contemporaries could have run as fast.
“We have to remember too how incredibly rare these fossilisations are,” he said. “What are the odds that you would get the fastest runner in Australia at that particular time in that particular place in such a way that was going to be preserved?”
Turning to the high jump, McAllister said photographs taken by a German anthropologist showed young men jumping heights of up to 2,52 metres in the early years of last century.
STARK DECLINE
“It was an initiation ritual, everybody had to do it. They had to be able to jump their own height to progress to manhood,” he said.
“It was something they did all the time and they lived very active lives from a very early age. They developed very phenomenal abilities in jumping. They were jumping from boyhood onwards to prove themselves.”
McAllister said a Neanderthal woman had 10% more muscle bulk than modern European man. Trained to capacity she would have reached 90% of Schwarzenegger’s bulk at his peak in the 1970s.
“But because of the quirk of her physiology, with a much shorter lower arm, she would slam him to the table without a problem,” he said.
Manthropology abounds with other examples:
* Roman legions completed more than one-and-a-half marathons a day (more than 60 kms) carrying more than half their body weight in equipment.
* Athens employed 30000 rowers who could all exceed the achievements of modern oarsmen.
* Australian aboriginals threw a hardwood spear 110 metres or more (the current world javelin record is 98,48).
McAllister said it was difficult to equate the ancient spear with the modern javelin but added: “Given other evidence of Aboriginal man’s superb athleticism you’d have to wonder whether they couldn’t have taken out every modern javelin event they entered.” Why the decline?
“We are so inactive these days and have been since the industrial revolution really kicked into gear,” McAllister replied. “These people were much more robust than we were.
“We don’t see that because we convert to what things were like about 30 years ago. There’s been such a stark improvement in times, technique has improved out of sight, times and heights have all improved vastly since then but if you go back further it’s a different story.
“At the start of the industrial revolution there are statistics about how much harder people worked then.
“The human body is very plastic and it responds to stress.
We have lost 40% of the shafts of our long bones because we have much less of a muscular load placed upon them these days.
“We are simply not exposed to the same loads or challenges that people were in the ancient past and even in the recent past so our bodies haven’t developed. Even the level of training that we do, our elite athletes, doesn’t come close to replicating that.
“We wouldn’t want to go back to the brutality of those days but there are some things we would do well to profit from.”
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Re: Difference Between Us And The Ancients
by Carlhole » Wed 14 Oct 2009, 23:57:01
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hardtootell-2', 'T')his sounds interesting. Compared to our ancestors we are soft and weak physically
In an interview in the English university town of Cambridge where he was temporarily resident, McAllister said that, with modern training, spiked shoes and rubberised tracks, aboriginal hunters might have reached speeds of 45 kph.
“We can assume they are running close to their maximum if they are chasing an animal,” he said.
In an interview in the English university town of Cambridge where he was temporarily resident, McAllister said that, with modern training, spiked shoes and rubberised tracks, aboriginal hunters might have reached speeds of 45 kph.
“We can assume they are running close to their maximum if they are chasing an animal,” he said.
Well, you can't blame modern physiques on the Industrial or Agricultural Revolutions. If your source' claims are true, there must be some evolutionary reason for declining physical abilities. Why would there be evolutionary pressure to "degenerate"?
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Re: Difference Between Us And The Ancients
by Homesteader » Thu 15 Oct 2009, 00:11:21
Heck, just read accounts of the old logging days, or Almanzo's father tossing up 250 lb. hay bales in the Laura Wilder books.
"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences…"
Sir Winston Churchill
Beliefs are what people fall back on when the facts make them uncomfortable.
Sir Winston Churchill
Beliefs are what people fall back on when the facts make them uncomfortable.
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Re: Difference Between Us And The Ancients
by SeaGypsy » Thu 15 Oct 2009, 00:17:19
In early Eropean settlement pigs were brought to Australia. They were the round, fat, pink ones we all know as bacon. Some escaped and became feral. Within a few generations the descendents reverted to fully wild boars. From this example it appears the hybridisation of humans may have masked our genetic capability rather than destroyed it. The same thing has happened with feral cats, dogs, goats, donkeys, buffalo and camels.
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Re: Difference Between Us And The Ancients
by Carlhole » Thu 15 Oct 2009, 00:49:19
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'I')n early Eropean settlement pigs were brought to Australia. They were the round, fat, pink ones we all know as bacon. Some escaped and became feral. Within a few generations the descendents reverted to fully wild boars. From this example it appears the hybridisation of humans may have masked our genetic capability rather than destroyed it. The same thing has happened with feral cats, dogs, goats, donkeys, buffalo and camels.
The ancestors of the Aboriginals you work with migrated to Australia around 60,000 years ago from the Asian mainland. Although they have a distinctive look - and they certainly mastered their environment - they possess no super-physicality because they are modern humans like the rest of us.
The Neanderthal physique lost out to modern humans. It's been hypothesized that they did not breed as quickly and that was the reason. But there was plenty of time for evolutionary pressure to work upon Neanderthals during the millenia that they were in competition with modern humans. If Neanderthals were merely at a reproductive disadvantage, why did evolutionary pressure fail to influence their reproductive rates?
I'm tend to scorn these notions that the ancients somehow had greater knowledge, vaster accomplishments, and possessed fabulous physical abilities. Why on Earth would evolutionary pressure create a DE-volvement?
BTW, what are those Aborigines like? Just folks? Or are they unique in some way?
- Carlhole
Re: Difference Between Us And The Ancients
by SeaGypsy » Thu 15 Oct 2009, 01:21:23
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'I')n early Eropean settlement pigs were brought to Australia. They were the round, fat, pink ones we all know as bacon. Some escaped and became feral. Within a few generations the descendents reverted to fully wild boars. From this example it appears the hybridisation of humans may have masked our genetic capability rather than destroyed it. The same thing has happened with feral cats, dogs, goats, donkeys, buffalo and camels.
The ancestors of the Aboriginals you work with migrated to Australia around 60,000 years ago from the Asian mainland. Although they have a distinctive look - and they certainly mastered their environment - they possess no super-physicality because they are modern humans like the rest of us.
The Neanderthal physique lost out to modern humans. It's been hypothesized that they did not breed as quickly and that was the reason. But there was plenty of time for evolutionary pressure to work upon Neanderthals during the millenia that they were in competition with modern humans. If Neanderthals were merely at a reproductive disadvantage, why did evolutionary pressure fail to influence their reproductive rates?
I'm tend to scorn these notions that the ancients somehow had greater knowledge, vaster accomplishments, and possessed fabulous physical abilities. Why on Earth would evolutionary pressure create a DE-volvement?
BTW, what are those Aborigines like? Just folks? Or are they unique in some way?
Actually there are some very important differences to do with cultural breeding practices.
In traditional Aborinal cultures only the strongest and oldest men got to father children. Plus they have a very strict 'kinship' system to prevent inbreeding.
It's not really true that there is a distinctive Aboriginal look. There were 2 major waves of migration to start with. The 1st being down from the southern flanks of the Himalayas through Java about 60,000 years ago. The next was the Melanisian down the entire east coast including the land bridge to Tasmania which was flooded about 15,000 years ago.
I have seen classicly beautiful Greek shaped faces in some of the desert tribes as well as the north coast.
One tribe I worked with and was adopted into is the Warlpiri. One of the most feared tribes in Australia, they are known for their violence and sense of humour. They can vary in stature from close to Pygmy to Zulu.
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