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Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 4:18 am
by Beagle
http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb ... anaku.html
The rediscovery of these ancient farming techniques is paying off handsomely among the Aymara. About 1,200 farmers have now redeveloped raised fields and at least another 50 villages want training in prehistoric agriculture. The local diet is improving dramatically, for fish and ducks in the canals provide added nutrition in a country where over half the children suffer from malnutrition.
I know this is boringly on topic, but the farming techniques of the Tiwanakus is pretty neat.
It doesn't take much to run a thread off topic, but a slight comment about boats seems to do it.
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 9:17 am
by kbs2244
This basically the same technique that they are finding was used through out the Amazon basin.
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 11:01 am
by Minimalist
Once when I was in my gardening phase I created a boxed in area, filled it with manure, compost, broken eggs shells, banana peels, etc. and ended up with tomato plants 8 feet high.
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 11:47 am
by Digit
Homo Floresiensis will prove another, mark my words.
When I was training people for managerial tasks one of the things I drummed into them was never back yourself into a corner, always leave an escape route, never back your opponent into a corner either.
That is a brave statement RS, it may yet come back to haunt you. Me, I'll do what you insist on with boats, I'll wait for the evidence!
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 6:06 am
by Rokcet Scientist
Digit wrote:Homo Floresiensis will prove another, mark my words.
That is a brave statement RS, it may yet come back to haunt you. Me, I'll do what you insist on with boats, I'll wait for the evidence!
The wait for recognition may be a lengthy one: Galileo Galilei was incarcerated for years for his heliocentric opinions and died thusly. He
never got recognition!
So I wouldn't be surprised if 'Homo Floresiensis' outlived me, or if pleistocene boats would remain unproven during Min's life...
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 9:43 am
by kbs2244
The problem is that it wasn’t until WWII that they learned to make boats out of concrete.
Most any Pleistocene boat would be long gone by now.
I doubt we will ever find direct evidence.
It will have to be reasoned out.
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 10:51 am
by Minimalist
Somehow, early man got from Asia to Australia. If he didn't swim and he didn't fly it really only leaves boats as the solution....unless you want to claim that aliens transported them in their spaceships.
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 11:23 am
by Ishtar
So you don't subscribe to the Sunda/Sahul shelf theory - that they could have paddled... ?
Sunda
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 11:40 am
by Cognito
Try this:
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 12:04 pm
by Ishtar
Brilliant Cogs.
So what did they need boats for, 15 - 25,000 years ago?
QED.
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 12:17 pm
by Minimalist
Ishtar wrote:So you don't subscribe to the Sunda/Sahul shelf theory - that they could have paddled... ?
No.
Wallace's line between Australasian and Southeast Asian fauna. The deep water of the Lombok Strait between the islands of Bali and Lombok formed a water barrier even when lower sea levels linked the now-separated islands and landmasses on either side
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 12:24 pm
by Ishtar
Drat and blast. That's another good theory down the drain!
I blame Cogs, leading me on there.
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 12:30 pm
by Digit
Unfortunately Ish you seem to have missed the earlier arguments on this subject.
Please note that ONLY man and his dog have ever made it from Asia to Australasia. Had there been some land that they could have walked on then certainly Elephants at least, who colonised every island north of Australasia within swimable distance, would have made the crossing.
They didn't!
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 12:31 pm
by Minimalist
Right....and elephants could walk underwater and just put their trunks up...snorkel-like until they reached the other side.
The water must have been very deep!
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 12:33 pm
by Ishtar
Thank you, Dig. I will remember that....but then, how did the kangaroos get there?
Listen, anyway - what's your earliest attested boat, archaeologically speaking?
We've got a possible 3,000 BC petraglyph of a spirit boat in the Shamanic Boats thread, if it's any good to you.