Nothing to do with politics but a site in Turkey was found with elaborately carved stones dating back about 10,000 years ago, and conjecture about how they're connected to humans adopting farming.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1157784/Do-mysterious-stones-mark-site-Garden-Eden.html

Could have swore the garden of eden entrance was classified at ethiopia in genesis depending on which version and translation you are using? The vatican admitted to inaccuracies in the bible though about a year ago.

Needless to say neat discovery, should be interesting what kinds of tools and artifacts they will bring up as they reverse engineer it. Similar sites maybe found in Iran, I would bet that would help further understand the origins of early societies of humanities.

Nothing to do with politics but a site in Turkey was found with elaborately carved stones dating back about 10,000 years ago, and conjecture about how they're connected to humans adopting farming.You mean humans in the Middle East adopting farming.

And conjecture is right.

It is kind of interesting how civilized these supposedly "brutish" hunter-gatherers, to coin Tudamorph's phrase, people had the leisure time and know how to create something like that.

It is kind of interesting how civilized these supposedly "brutish" hunter-gatherers, to coin Tudamorph's phrase, people had the leisure time and know how to create something like that.It's a common misconception that hunter-gatherers were brutish, lived in harsh conditions, and had little leisure time.

In fact, even hunter-gatherers today, who are forced to live in fringe areas where it's more difficult to sustain themselves, have developed cultures, live a life of relative ease, and have far more leisure time than farmers in the same regions do.

Furthermore, as hunter-gatherer societies adopted agriculture on a large scale, their quality of life declined dramatically, and they worked as hard as their animals did (and ate nearly as badly).

Agriculture took over as the primary method of food production not because it's easier, or results in a better diet, but because it allow you to feed a lot more people with far less land, and therefore breed more.

The hunter-gatherers were likely content to keep on hunting and gathering as they had always done. But those societies that adopted agriculture were able to breed superior numbers (unhealthy as they may have been) and were able to conquer or assimilate the societies with inferior numbers that stuck to traditional methods, and that is why all of us today get most of our calories from wheat, corn, and rice.

It is kind of interesting how civilized these supposedly "brutish" hunter-gatherers, to coin Tudamorph's phrase, people had the leisure time and know how to create something like that.

Funny thing is about hunter gatherer societies is that they require less time each day to gather enough food, but they also gather a much healthier diet. In fact, quite a few anthropologists believe that it was not until after WW2 that (western) agricultural societies had a better food and leisure time situation for all (or almost all) people. For the better part of 10 or so millenia people had to work harder for less food on average than those hunter gatherers we used to look down on as primitive.
The reason why we stubbornly clung to agriculture of course was that many places humanity moved to were not exactly suitable to gathering (which really is the staple of their diet, not the hunting, no matter what historical androcentric science would like to believe). And unlike hunter gatherers agriculture could produce a surplus. Gatherers could only gather enough for a day (or a few days), and when the area was exhausted it was time to move on. Agriculture produced large amounts of food in good years (and nothing at all in bad years), which allowed for larger concentrations of humans and all the society and organisation that goes with that.


Eri

While this find is preliminary in excavation, I find the interesting part is little no to evidence of agricultural work as well as domesticated animals so far. It looks so far as they did pretty well for themselves at this site for a few years at least. I might wonder, if, there are similar sites in the area people used similar to this site, as a central means for their gathering hunting.

Funny thing is about hunter gatherer societies is that they require less time each day to gather enough food, but they also gather a much healthier diet. In fact, quite a few anthropologists believe that it was not until after WW2 that (western) agricultural societies had a better food and leisure time situation for all (or almost all) people. For the better part of 10 or so millenia people had to work harder for less food on average than those hunter gatherers we used to look down on as primitive.

Yeah, it is interesting to hear about the various changes in bones and new diseases that were found in early agricultural societies. In fact... I got an article about that somewhere.

Original paper (http://www.scribd.com/doc/14663757/Nutrition-and-health-in-agriculturalists-and-huntergatherers)

The study we’re going to look at today is unusual in several respects. First, there is a large amount of data, i.e., a lot of skeletons of both groups. Second, it compares sedentary hunter-gatherers to sedentary agriculturalists. And it compares peoples who probably had the same genetic heritage to one another. Finally, it compares hunter-gatherers to agriculturalists living in the same general area. The only real difference between the two groups of people is the time in which they lived and diet.

The group of agriculturalists lived in an area called Hardin Village, which is a famous archeological site located in Kentucky on the bank of the Ohio River across from the current day city of Portsmouth, Ohio. These people farmed the area from about 1500 AD to 1675 AD. There is no indication in the archeological record of any European contact with these Hardin Villagers.

The hunter-gatherers lived in the same general area in an archeological site called Indian Knoll, which is a large midden (an ancient refuse heap) located on the Green River in western Kentucky. Carbon-14 dating dates the age of habitation of these hunter-gatherers to about 5000 years ago. Based on the excavation of the deep midden, these people lived at this site for a long period of time, i.e., they stayed in one spot instead of roving as most hunter-gatherers did.
Blog posting about paper (http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-diets/nutrition-and-health-in-agriculturalists-and-hunter-gatherers/). Cool xrays of weird bone things that happened in agriculturists.

My nephew-in-law comes from a tribe of Chippewa from the N. Minnesota area that were traditionally a HG group. They lived on game, fish, berries and wild rice (in season). They've suffered horribly from adopting a modern diet. The diabetes, obesity and other metabolic diseases just ravage their population. I can imagine that the first generations of any HG group probably suffered similarly, but even worse. It is sad to see his health deteriorating too.

While this find is preliminary in excavation, I find the interesting part is little no to evidence of agricultural work as well as domesticated animals so far. It looks so far as they did pretty well for themselves at this site for a few years at least. I might wonder, if, there are similar sites in the area people used similar to this site, as a central means for their gathering hunting.
Animal domestication happened around the same time as agriculture because animals were needed for agriculture. According to Jared Diamond in "Guns, Germs and Steel" (rent the DVD, it's wonderful!) the areas that had the most domesticatable animals advanced into agriculture and modern society the quickest. Areas like the highlands of New Guinea, didn't have any animals that could be domesticated and harnessed to do the heavy work of plowing, so they remained very limited in how far they could progress, in that way.

I am a little enchanted by the idea that the story of Adam and Eve could be about people leaving an idyllic existence of hunter/gatherers to become agriculturists and their regrets over that. But what does being cast out of Eden really represent? Why would people pine for that old way of living and not just return to it? It is really interesting that they stuck with it. You'd think they'd go... "omg, this life sucks. Lets go back."

quote"Animal domestication happened around the same time as agriculture because animals were needed for agriculture"

Of course, which is what I find interesting so far about the site. Eventual deforestation, farming of the area, stuff like that, before it effected the area as it was. It would be interesting whether or not it was just a hot spot for awhile with fruits and veggies in the area along with a healthy herd of meat popsicles. Which is what I find interesting if, the population congregating to this area stripped it of it's resources and moved on with little to no independent farming. That is where I wonder if, there are similar sites to this that would show areas where they began to farm it.

quote"My nephew-in-law comes from a tribe of Chippewa from the N. Minnesota area that were traditionally a HG group. They lived on game, fish, berries and wild rice (in season). They've suffered horribly from adopting a modern diet"

Ya, we had a video tape in middle school on a similar subject, with either Hopi or Navajo Indians, they were eating modern foods like hamburgers, sodas, and stuff, became obese, diabetes and stuff like that. But, when they put them on a traditional native diet their metabolism broke things down better, lost lots of weight, even "cured" diabetes in a couple of them when they got down a large amount of weight, so, long as they stayed pretty traditional for a diet.

quote" am a little enchanted by the idea that the story of Adam and Eve could be about people leaving an idyllic existence of hunter/gatherers to become agriculturists and their regrets over that. But what does being cast out of Eden really represent?"

Oh Pan, you wondering philospher you, that is ok though. Battlestar Galactica covered this pretty well, for deeper metaphoric meaning, it will have similarities with the biblical version. With the eventual ending, with Baltar putting them back on track to repeat with farming. But, that is the question isn't it? Figuring out the origins of humanity in order to have a deeper understanding of ourselves?

Also, I live near this place in Tenn. called "the farm". A bunch of hippies bought some land and were doing some communal living, it worked ok after the first 10 years or so, the first 5-10 years were pretty rough though, but, eventually alot of the younger folks integrated back into society and stuff. I could look into it a bit, but, I really don't want to talk to my sister's ex husband or Gaskin, but, I have some others in mind. Very few actually live there now.

Why would people pine for that old way of living and not just return to it? It is really interesting that they stuck with it. You'd think they'd go... "omg, this life sucks. Lets go back."Because, as Jared Diamond puts it, a hundred malnourished farmers can still outfight one healthy hunter-gatherer.

The National Geographic program is really a poor version of the book, which is very interesting, as is The Third Chimpanzee on these topics.

[Edit] This early paper by Diamond is basically a draft version of one chapter in The Third Chimpanzee, and worth a read: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race (http://www.environnement.ens.fr/perso/claessen/agriculture/mistake_jared_diamond.pdf).

I posted that paper here once and someone, I thought it was you Tuda, disagreed and said that Paleo people had short, brutish nasty lives. Maybe it was Fyyr though.

I'd recommend reading both books, as well as his latest, Collapse. The DVD you speak of is really a bad version of one book.

I posted that paper here once and someone, I thought it was you Tuda, disagreed and said that Paleo people had short, brutish nasty lives. Maybe it was Fyyr though.
Not me.

Not because of the hunter gatherer lifestyle, that is. The HG lifestyle was most probably much less stressful than our lives today.

I don't believe that the procurement of food was a major population limiting factor(until later). If you have ever spent any time hunting in California, which is not really known for being a great hunting state, you will realize that game animals develop certain behaviors based on being prey from humans.

For example, deer hunting season begins in Sept. You can sneak up on male deer easily for most of the year, in fact sometime see them running across roads. But after that first gunshot on opening day, you will be hard pressed to see any male deer for months. I have been four wheeling in deer country in Summer, prior to opening day, and they are almost fearless to humans and vehicles, relatively speaking.

But female deer, which are not hunted. Even during hunting season, you can virtually walk right up to them, without even attempting to sneak up to them.

Bow season deer behave much much differently than rifle season deer as well. Much less skittish, even with the woods full of bows an arrows.

Human population levels at this time were very low, by induction or deduction, most prey animals would have been very tolerant of humans getting close to them. Hunting them with pointy sticks and sharp rocks would have been relatively easy.

Another thing learned from modern day hunting. It is illegal to hunt(or fish for most game fish) animals at night. Because it is too easy, even without night vision or scopes, and has been for a very long time, to hunt at night.

Our ancestors had no such laws to give prey animals a better chance of escaping. Hunting at night had to be so prevalent and done for so long that it changed our physiology(the word menses has the same etymology as moon). Even today, modern hunters know that the best time to hunt is at dusk or dawn on nights of a full moon. Prey animals are much less wary during these times, and are caught out in the open more frequently.

It is much much more plausible, that because of relatively small numbers of humans, in fertile valleys, along fertile rivers, lakes, streams, oceans that food was relatively abundant for humans, using less work than we use today(in the US).

The biggest threat to contemporary hunter gatherers has never been famine or starvation, it has always been from other encroaching agricultural humans.

One thing that bothers me about the original article, and Tuda's linked article, though is the Venus of Willendorf etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines

There are many implications of the dating of these figures, they predate this 'Garden of Eden' by 10 to 15K years. And of their context to the deductions of the original post.

Namely, these statues were most probably carved by men. Would men(hunters) of HG(only) societies carve such figures?

Are fertility goddess figures seemingly the best subject of the highest form of art in the world(at that time) going to occur in hunter/gatherer societies? Or is it more plausible that they would occur in some quasi horticultural/agrarian/HG hybrid lifestyle?

We know from societies on the cusp of history, that goddesses, fertility worship, or goddess worship are mostly associated with some form of crop fertility, in addition to sexual fertility. Was that the same case 25K years ago?

I'd recommend reading both books, as well as his latest, Collapse. The DVD you speak of is really a bad version of one book.
Yeah, I need to read the books. One of the reasons I really liked the DVD was seeing how the people in New Guinea highlands lived, how hard they had to work just to get a few calories (and almost no protein) and also I thought the segment on Africa, especially the current problem with malaria, was really good. I totally lost it when he was in that hospital with all the sick kids.