pre clovis america

[john]

I believe small HG groups dribbled over the exposed Beringian land mass over thousands of years.


just can't buy that hypothesis.

and there are plenty of others, viz.

humans shifted ground because of climatic change. true enough on the grand scale, for example the neandertals being pushed further and further south and west by glacial activity. the n american anasazi culture "vanishing " in the face of a great, long lasting drought.

humans followed animal migrations. as i previously pointed out, animal migrations tend to be seasonally cyclic. thus the human evidence should mirror the cycle. although i should point out that humans are terribly slow compared to animals, and most likely could not keep up with the migrations. like the inuit and the caribou, my guess is that humans discovered a predictable geographical point in the migration, and centered their territory around that point.

it is possible that the social order required that young males be kicked out of the group - who then found new territories. what is counterintuitive here is that the groups were small enough, and had, additionally, a high mortality rate, so probably valued the continued inclusion of all members.

i am in agreement with you in that i see no justification for the "pack up and go" hypothesis.

but it still leaves a gap.

just what put africans on the australian mainland 40 odd K years ago?

just what put clovis and pre clovis on the n american continent?

two arguments here:

1.) adaptation to changing conditions which forced movement "away" from previous home ground.

2.) opportunism. discovery of new conditions which led to movement "toward" new ground.

clearly both were in play.

however, i feel that adaptation was, relatively, sporadic, while

opportunism was a continuous goad.

of course, there is very little hope of discovering evidence for any of this on the opportunistic side. and the adaptive side doesn't seem to support either the scope or the continuity of human "migration" throughout the world.


so what the hell. more fuel for the forum.


j

[Minimalist]

2.) opportunism. discovery of new conditions which led to movement "toward" new ground.

What about a different model? How about "king of the hill?" Rather than a glorious march to new ground the losers get displaced by the winners?

[john]

2.) opportunism. discovery of new conditions which led to movement "toward" new ground.

What about a different model? How about "king of the hill?" Rather than a glorious march to new ground the losers get displaced by the winners?

i could be cute and say that falls in #1, but no, you're right.

what it DOES assume is that intra-species aggression among humans has existed from day one. talk about being hardwired.

j

[Minimalist]

I am a cynic when it comes to human nature.

[john]

I am a cynic when it comes to human nature.

apart from cynicism (i tend to be a "barking dog", also)

what is the evidence that humans fought each other hard and continuously enough to drive their leaps and jumps into all the continents??

j

[Minimalist]

Absolutely nothing....except perhaps their well-documented tendency to kill each other for something as minimal as a pair of sneakers.


That kind of behavior makes fighting over a water hole seem almost logical by comparison.

[Tech]

Herd migration during the clovis period , informative .

http://pangea.stanford.edu/research/pay ... reasons%22

[Guest]

"Herd migration?" Isn't that what happens when the students roll-in (or is it role-in?) to classes at our institutions of higher dogmatic Darwinian learning?

(Just a joke, no response needed.)

[oldarchystudent]

Herd migration during the clovis period , informative .

http://pangea.stanford.edu/research/pay ... reasons%22

Just read the abstract but that's interesting. That might indicate that it wouldn't take that long to depopulate an area of all mammoth herds. Incoming migrants wouldn't be so much following the herds, as looking for a new one to exploit.