Re: Skull binding and Neandertals
H. M. Hubey (hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu)
21 Nov 1995 01:14:13 -0500
Philip <pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> writes:
>those that are being trained to hunt. The only reasonable functional
>aspect of head binding is social differentiation which is only seen in
>more hiararchal societies, those associated with advanced civilization.
sorry it is this that is difficult to buy. Unless you can show
that headbinding is common I don't see why it would have to
crop up at all. it's a weird custom. There'd have to be some
serious reasons for people to want to deform their children
starting at such an early age. The easiest explanation for me
is that it was an attempt to look like some other people, like
blacks ironing their hair to look white, or M. Jackson getting
all kinds of operations, and plastic surgery galore these days
for similar reasons.
Your explanations are too contrived.
>to a certain region and not randomly scattered across the american
>continent this lends to the conclusion that this was an isolated
>development.
Tribes have moved around and around. It could have gotten stuck
in some isolated tribe and turned into religious signficance
like circumcision or the like.
>1. If protoamericans traveled to Alaska via a ice bridge why is there a
>persistence of water traveling vessels in native-american technology. Did
>all travel by ice or was this just a superfulous convienience?
I thought it was a land bridge. Besides it wouldn't make much
difference if it wasn't a complete land bridge, or if they had
to cross a narrow waterway or over ice. IF they already had the
means to survive in cold weather they would have made it across
anyway. I personally think that the Americans are closer to others
in Asia like Uralic-Dravidian speakers than only to Altaic. There
could have been a displacement of Dravidians away from the region
by movement from the south -- i.e. Mongoloid types.
Yes, I know about the Greenberg categorization of the Amerindian
languages, and also about teh Nostratic and the Proto-world theories
of language.
>2. There are aguments (genetic and archeological) that humans had reach
>the americas prior to the end of the last ice age and yet there is little
.... [cut]
>branched from a single point or did these technologies evolve
>independently?
It's always easier to copy than to invent.
That's the simplest explanation of why the Amerindians were not
as developed as the rest of the world. The middle east could/would
eventually get everything from north AFrica, ASia and Europe
because it sat at the cross roads. Subsaharan africa and
Australia were relatively isolated as well as northern Europe.
And that explains the relatively late development of these lands.
America was even further removed, and had to develop on its own.
>3. How come, after 200000 years of human existence did advance
>civilizations develop on two different continents almost simulataneously.
Crossing over from Asia ?
>independently. The only force that I can see which would independently
>force this change is technology, yet this implies that the
yep.
--
Regards, Mark
http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey
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