[ennui2]

Unfortunately we don't have a strong representation of anti-civ doomers. They've since gone off to Malthusia. Whether they're still there or not I dunno. I guess Shanny at least, since she started it. But I think this article raises some doubts as to whether Agriculture was really our proverbial fall from grace or not, at least in terms of man's inhumanity to man.

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch ... picks=true

[Shaved Monkey]

Australian aboriginals had shields which suggested thy needed protection from weapons.
They probably had resource wars over water, hunting land and women.

[SeaGypsy]

In reverse order I think Shaved. Not much has changed in outback Australia

[Pops]

fall from grace
original sin
blah
blah

"We're Evil"
or
We're a Virus"

LOL, same story, different god.

[sparky]

.
there is plenty of testimonies of the Sioux ferocious war addiction
and their propensity to wage war at the genocidal level ,
the Pawnees though the Whites were better and allied with them
as for the Apaches , the "snake people " every tribe hated them and they hated everybody else the

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8RiNRMPZjo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiQ7X9jgXog

the Iroquois federation did a pretty good job of clearing up the competition

"More important, many Indian nations living in modern Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Ontario fled for refuge into remote parts of the West such as Wisconsin. These groups included the Sauk, Fox, Potawatomi, Mascouten, Kickapoo, Ottawa, Miami, Huron, Petun (Tobacco), and so-called Neutral Iroquois. The powerful Sioux nations blocked their flight across the Mississippi, so most of these refugees took up territory in Wisconsin and Illinois, where Iroquois military campaigners sometimes pursued them."

Wyman, Mark. The Wisconsin Frontier (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c1998)

[Shaved Monkey]

Native Americans did do agriculture so did most tribes,so protecting property required warfare,all except Australian Aboriginals and Inuits (I cant think of any other modern examples ???).
The Maoris in NZ got a better outcome from white man than the Australian Aboriginal because they were battle ready because they had to protect their property to survive.
Aboriginals being nomadic hunter gatherers had less pressure on their resources,so never needed to be as warlike to survive.

[SeaGypsy]

There was a lot more cultural diversity among Australia's aboriginals, hundreds of distinct languages, two totally different races of people. There was little or no agriculture as such but there was tens of thousands of years of understanding built up about how to exploit the natural abundance of nature. There were tribal wars but they were not genocidal. There were multiple attempts at defence against white invasions but the lack of hardware combined with lack of aboriginal unity fated these to be futile.

[ennui2]

Aboriginals being nomadic hunter gatherers had less pressure on their resources,so never needed to be as warlike to survive.

The Maori had cannibalism.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/cultures/news ... d=10462390

[KaiserJeep]

ALL branches of the human race have cannibalism, as do all of the species of great apes.

In North America, there has never been a Native American tribe - from the time of the Clovis Culture - that showed no signs of cannibalism at one dig site or another.

The last time there was widespread cannibalism among Europeans, was a time we call "The Dark Ages", about 500 AD to 1000 AD.

The next time we have widespread cannibalism is after fossil fuels become too expensive to grow and transport food with. At that point, there will be gun fanciers, busily turning over old manure piles to get the saltpeter crystals to make black powder, and the anti-gun crowd, otherwise known as dinner.

Darwin was right, after all. Think of it as evolution in action.

[Shaved Monkey]

There are easier ways of getting meat
Re; long pig you would get a more palatable meat product feeding crayfish with corpses.

[Newfie]

Unfortunately we don't have a strong representation of anti-civ doomers. They've since gone off to Malthusia. Whether they're still there or not I dunno. I guess Shanny at least, since she started it. But I think this article raises some doubts as to whether Agriculture was really our proverbial fall from grace or not, at least in terms of man's inhumanity to man.

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch ... picks=true

Malthusian seems to have fallen onto hard times. Shanny/AKA General Doom had some hard personal times, site access was limited to keep admin time down, then the number of users just trickled off.

A shame really. I can see something similar here, with there being only a few regular posters anymore and some restricted access. Open access must be a pain to admin, but without new posters the site will die. So GROW OR DIE! LOL.

[Newfie]

I'm don't know what an "anti civ doomer" is but as a Malthusia participant I'll throw in my 2¢. Shanty and I never saw eye to eye on this topic.

I'm of the opinion that all ethics are situational. There is no ultimate right or wrong. The only real rules are to live and procreate. Thus the way people behave is a function of their environment. What shocks and horrifies us today was common in other places at other times.

Jared Diamond spent much of his most recent book "The World Until Yesterday" dismantling the idea of the Nobel savage. That book describes how government's central role is to provide methods for ever increasing numbers of us to live in proximity without resorting to violence. He cites a number of other studies that supposedly support his claims that primitive man was much more likely to die due to violence than modern man.

He claims that primitive man did not conduct large scale efficient eradication of others. The high rate of SETH came from incessant low level warfare nd conflict. We killed in onesies and twosies. Feuds would develop which would kill many over a course of years. Government developed a way to resolve the conflicts so that the village would recognize that justice had been done and the killing could stop.

It's a good read.

[ennui2]

Here is another report of humans driving a species to extinction before the dawn of agriculture.

http://www.myfoxboston.com/news/50000-y ... n/52115930

[Shaved Monkey]

It dangerous to be delicious

The reason that the giant tortoise wasn’t properly classified by scientists for so long appears to be quite simple: they were so delicious that no specimens ever made it back to Europe without being eaten on the voyage.

According to scores of accounts over several centuries, the giant tortoise is by far the most edible creature man has ever encountered.
16th-century explorers compared them to chicken, beef, mutton and butter – but only to say how much better the tortoise was.

http://qi.com/infocloud/giant-tortoises

[Newfie]

A burial pit with a lot of badly mangled bodies. Amputations, hacking.

http://www.livescience.com/53341-pit-of ... vered.html

The nearly 6,000-year-old pit was found near the village of Bergheim, which sits near the border with Germany.

"The discovery of Bergheim is the witness of a very violent event, which took place at a specific time," said study co-author Fanny Chenal, an archaeologist at the University of Strasbourg in France. "Its unique and extraordinary nature does not allow or help us to better understand the daily life of these people."

[ennui2]

Are you surprised Newfie? Dick Cheney is nearly 6,000 years old, yet look at the damage he has done to the Iraqi's--badly mangled bodies. Amputations, hacking

^^^

Another content-free post to add to the collection I see.