This study is a very different approach to understanding early human (and pre-human) social behavior. It stresses the valuable role that dancing and singing would have played in enhancing group solidarity and communication in hominid bands during the Pleistocene. These researchers feel it was so important that it left genetic markers. A sample of contemporary …
Author: Reid Farmer
Spring Poppies
These California poppies (Eschschalzia californica) are in bloom where we’ve planted them under our mail box. It is the state flower and a sign of what passes for spring here in Southern California. Our climate is so temperate that spring isn’t so much a sign of warmer temperatures as it is a change from a …
Crash – Not the Movie
Two nights ago my dog Sadie and I were driving to Petco to shop for dog supplies. I had just gotten off of the 101 Freeway and was driving through a green-lighted intersection when a young lady driving the opposite direction ignored the red left-turn arrow and turned in front of me. I couldn’t stop …
Not a Tomb After All
The new tomb discovered in Eqypt’s Valley of the Kings, anounced last month turns out not to be a tomb, but a mummification room. The original announcement was made prior to their entering the area and analyzing the remains. Still a cool find.
“The New World” and Reconstructed Languages
This article in the New York Times is an interesting read on efforts made to reconstruct the extinct Algonquian language spoken by the Indians who interacted with the English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. This work was funded to support the filming of Terrence Malick’s movie, “The New World”, that portrays the John Smith …
More Pleistocene Hunting
I am in the midst of reading what I am coming to believe is an extraordinary book, The Nature of Paleolithic Art by R. Dale Guthrie. It is not just an “art” book – it uses art as a window to look back into the Pleistocene to learn about extinct animals, human social systems, religion, …
Volcanic Disruptions
Most of us know the story of Pompeii, the Roman city destroyed but astonishingly preserved by the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius in AD 79. A new study now documents similar astonishing finds resulting from an earlier eruption of Vesuvius in 1780 BC. The damage caused by this eruption was less than in AD 79 …
Why Blokes Barbecue
This article from The Sydney Morning Herald (in its Aussie way) echoes the theme I expressed in my previous post. Archaeologist Mark Horton believes men enjoy cooking outdoors over open fires as an evolutionary holdover from our hunter-gatherer past.
Our Minds are in the Pleistocene
This article by Max Borders is a good reminder of a maxim I always use in evaluating human behavior – the bodies and minds of our species evolved under the conditions of the Pleistocene, conditions very different from today. A quote Borders captures says it: “The environment that humans — and, therefore, human minds — …
Our New Friend
You may recall I posted in January about the search the Connie and I made for an Australian Shepherd puppy. With Matt’s discussion about the whippet puppy that his family is getting, I thought I would bring you up to date. On February 4, we brought the female puppy home that I pictured in the …