The dawn of civilization

[Angrboda]

Yeah, if you're just gonna be a dick, I don't think I care much to participate.  I gave a theory.  I'm sorry it didn't meet with your expectations or approval, but it is a very valid theory that has plenty of support.  If you want to actually talk about the substance of that theory and other theories about religion, agriculture, and civilization, then I'm open to that.  If you're just going to whine that I didn't fulfill your expectations when I did in fact fulfill the request in your OP, then you can fuck the hell off.

This is the kind of abuse I coped since day one.
Savagery

Honey, you don't know what abuse is. If abuse is what you want, I assure you that I can provide it. In the meantime, in my prior post and my original post I raised substantive issues in response to your OP and your reply to me previously. You have done nothing but play the drama queen and make insubstantive complaints in reply. And I will point out that in my opinion, your behavior on this forum has engaged substantially with this forum's rule against trolling. I stand by what I've said. You can either address it or not. Your choice. But this whining is pathetic, and does you no service. I suggest you shape the fuck up or ship the fuck out. Elsewise, you might end up receiving staff assistance with the latter.

[T0 Th3 M4X]

Modern Atheism = Fear Mongering
Modern Theism = Fear Mongering
Caveman = Beat fear mongerers with club

I tend to believe that the cavemen, and cavewomen respectfully, were probably very intelligent and possibly more efficient than we are today as individuals. We have advancements in technology that make lots of tasks easier, whereas the caveman would have to go out and hunt, potentially risking his life, to feed his family. Now we have farms for everything from fish to cows. Want a hamburger? No problem. Just pick one out from the pasture, someone will knock it out with a cow clunker inside the processing facility, toss it in the meat grinder, and there ya have it. MOOOOO! Eat up. What used to be a life and death situation has been reduced to a 5 minutes trip over to the nearest McDonald's. Honestly, that's what I believe us guys need. We need to revisit those roots and be cavemen. Less crying and more going out and beating sabertooth tigers with clubs. Why? Because that's what real men do when they can. IMO, of course.

[The Grand Nudger]

There's scant indication of human beings having been on the menu.  What few animal marks we find suggest post mortem scavenging, instead.  It's assumed that most large predators could have eaten us...but that's been true for all of history, as well..and yet such incidents are rare.   Then there's the issue of why some intelligent fully modern human would go out picking fights with bears or tigers.  

Your idea of what Real Men™ were up to is an artifact of cartoons and adventure flicks combined with a thoroughly modern fixation on a specific sort of masculinity, not a comment on the reality of the lithic period. The truth of the matter is that it was less he-man wrestling the mammoths and more long distance walker grazing while he strolled. Human beings had more to worry about by stepping on an acorn and getting tetanus than from being eaten by a sabretooth cat..mostly owing to the fact that they had largely gone extinct by the time we really came into our own..having been replaced by smaller cats....which would also go extinct in short order.

One of the only hard cases of contact known to us, when it comes to that, comes from schonigen(sp?)....it's a young latidens surrounded by spears. Less a duel between equals, and more an execution by mob.

[Angrboda]

There's scant indication of human beings having been on the menu. 

Not true!  Intelligence can be eaten!  Oscar Kiss Maerth said so!  Humans were their own worst enemy!

<click me!>

[T0 Th3 M4X]

There's scant indication of human beings having been on the menu.  What few animal marks we find suggest post mortem scavenging, instead.  It's assumed that most large predators could have eaten us...but that's been true for all of history, as well..and yet such incidents are rare.   Then there's the issue of why some intelligent fully modern human would go out picking fights with bears or tigers.  

Your idea of what Real Men™ were up to is an artifact of cartoons and adventure flicks combined with a thoroughly modern fixation on a specific sort of masculinity, not a comment on the reality of the lithic period.  The truth of the matter is that it was less he-man wrestling the mammoths and more long distance walker grazing while he strolled.  Human beings had more to worry about by stepping on an acorn and getting tetanus than from being eaten by a sabretooth cat..mostly owing to the fact that they had largely gone extinct by the time we really came into our own..having been replaced by smaller cats....which would also go extinct in short order.

One of the only hard cases of contact known to us, when it comes to that, comes from schonigen(sp?)....it's a young latidens surrounded by spears.  Less a duel between equals, and more an execution by mob.

Large predators don't typically go after humans because they don't view us as prey.  Just like if you go to the buffet and you see some strange food on the buffet, you are less likely to slap it on your plate.  Aggressive behavior is more defensive than not.  Although on occasion, there might be a rogue animal that acts otherwise.  As far as the acorn bit, somewhat but not entirely.  Typically the problem is when something foreign is introduced.  For example, the Native Americans were healthy people until others came over from across the pond and introduced foreign disease, then it was like a plague to them as they started dying off from sickness.  But then again, it all depends on the sickness because the human body is designed (if you will) to give designations to cells for fighting particular diseases.  That's the whole point of getting inoculated for something.  It's not the shot that does it.  It's your body's reaction to the shot.  The strain is weakened significantly or dead so that the body can use it to create a defensive mechanism against it in case the "real deal" shows up.  Despite all that, I still believe men need to be men.  So if the sabertooth tiger or modern day predator, such as a lion shows up, you're not running and screaming, but rather willing to take action to beat the beast senseless.

[The Grand Nudger]

"Men being Men" is, in your mind, men being dumb enough to duel a tiger.  I'm pointing out that there's no reason to assume that this was the case in the lithic, no more so than there is today.  As the example of the latidens shows us, what men being men did..was to gather up a clutch of people and execute a juvenile - because that's how it's done.

Similarly, husbandry and livestock operations as well as dedicated food processing began in the late neolithic, before farming, even.  This was also "men being men", blockading wild game rather than engaging in some life or death hunt.  Bringing these goods back for processing and curing for yet more convenience.  Situating their encampment in annual grasses and conveniently located to water.    

The things we do today are advanced many thousands of years from that, but entirely of the same type.  We even began to specialize then, with the organized division of labor, as the concentrations of different tools in different structures in many settlements show us.  

Ultimately, all of these things laid the foundation for the transition from lithic to ceramic cultures. Real Men™ of the stone age were gatherers and parents - not monster hunters with a death wish. They'd have considered the grocery store and the mcdonalds with the same affinity that we do...we're the same people. That's what full human modernity means. That our present situation somehow inculcates an inferiority complex in you is your own business..it had nothing to do with them or what they did.

Ironically, we have a historic case of what Real Men™ in stone age cultures do in the face of modern tech. They quickly see it's worth and assume it. The late mississippian period in the US couldn't be more instructive in this regard.

[T0 Th3 M4X]

"Men being Men" is, in your mind, men being dumb enough to duel a tiger.  I'm pointing out that there's no reason to assume that this was the case in the lithic, no more so than there is today.  As the example of the latidens shows us, what men being men did..was to gather up a clutch of people and execute a juvenile - because that's how it's done.

Similarly, husbandry and livestock operations as well as dedicated food processing began in the late neolithic, before farming, even.  This was also "men being men", blockading wild game rather than engaging in some life or death hunt.  Bringing these goods back for processing and curing for yet more convenience.  Situating their encampment in annual grasses and conveniently located to water.    

The things we do today are advanced many thousands of years from that, but entirely of the same type.  We even began to specialize then, with the organized division of labor, as the concentrations of different tools in different structures in many settlements show us.  

Ultimately, all of these things laid the foundation for the transition from lithic to ceramic cultures.  Real Men™ of the stone age were gatherers and parents - not monster hunters with a death wish.  They'd have considered the grocery store and the mcdonalds with the same affinity that we do...we're the same people.  That's what full human modernity means.  That our present situation somehow inculcates an inferiority complex in you is your own business..it had nothing to do with them or what they did.

No, it's men being "smart enough to duel a tiger."  When you understand the difference, you'll get it.  I'm not afraid that I'm going to die, but he better be afraid I'm going to have him for dinner.  When you add all the other nonsense to it, then it's the modernized version of it.  Lets have the beast go down a conveyor belt while its unconscious and turn him into ground meat so we can ship the remaining products to Walmart for someone to buy.

[The Grand Nudger]

Then it's good that our civilization exists to cradle you in it's bosom - because you'd be one of the dead ones, and those who depended on you would have starved or been taken in by others.

Again, this complex of yours has absolutely no connection to the realities of stone age life.  It is a fantasy. Cartoon prehistory. Do you understand that much, at least? It's okay to fantasize, it's your fantasy, you do you. Mel Gibson playing william wallace is exactly the sort of fantasy we're discussing..when it comes down to brass tacks. All that I hope to achieve is to show you that your fantasy is divorced from the object of it's fixation. You may desire to be a specific kind of man that you are not, but people in the neolithic weren't that, either. They were like us.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Then it's good that our civilization exists to cradle you in it's bosom - because you'd be one of the dead ones, and those who depended on you would have starved or been taken in by others.

Again, this complex of yours has absolutely no connection to the realities of stone aged life.  It is a fantasy.  Do you understand that much, at least?  It's okay to fantasize, it's your fantasy, you do you.  Mel Gibson playing william wallace is exactly the sort of fantasy we're discussing..when it comes down to brass tacks.  All that I hope to achieve is to show you that your fantasy is divorced from the object of it's fixation.

Early humans likely divided the world into four catagories:

1.  Things to eat.

2.  Things to mate with.

3.  Things to run away from.

4.  Rocks.

All of human development is expansion of these four.

Boru

[T0 Th3 M4X]

Then it's good that our civilization exists to cradle you in it's bosom - because you'd be one of the dead ones, and those who depended on you would have starved or been taken in by others.

Again, this complex of yours has absolutely no connection to the realities of stone aged life.  It is a fantasy.  Do you understand that much, at least?  It's okay to fantasize, it's your fantasy, you do you.  Mel Gibson playing william wallace is exactly the sort of fantasy we're discussing..when it comes down to brass tacks.  All that I hope to achieve is to show you that your fantasy is divorced from the object of it's fixation.

Uh huh, surrrrre.

While you're pottying your diaper because you seen a lion, me and the other guys will be busy eating him.  The difference.  You told yourself "I can't", and we went out and whooped his a$$ because we knew it was possible.  As far as the William Wallace thing, you missed the point.  It's not about "fantasy", but rather having purpose.  I'll have my lion story, while you'll try to avoid telling everybody about your dirty diaper from when the lion popped up.  Call it what you will, but I'll stick with option A.  You may prefer B, but I grew out of wearing Huggies decades ago.  Maybe you should try it.  You may actually like it.