Atlatl-Can't Get No Respect

[Beagle]

Barracuda - the mitochondria is an organelle inside of a cell. It has its own DNA passed down from the mother only. It tells us nothing of our genetic make-up in terms of race, hair color, etc.

Our genes that make up our individual genotype are in the nucleus of the cell and come in chromosomal pairs, one from each parent. When nuclear DNA is examined - that will tell the story. We'll have to accept whatever that verdict is.

Stan - when I was a kid I had one of those store bought boomerangs. With practice, I always got it to come back to me. Unless it hit something.

[Barracuda]

Thanks Beagle!

I think the fact that a boomerang will return if thrown into the air is just a sort of curiosity. I don't think they were meant to do that as a practical matter

[Minimalist]

One can just imagine the debate going on in the cave.

Ork: We have to develop the boomerang as our ultimate weapon!

Grog: But if you throw it and miss it will come back and hit you. It's a doomsday weapon.

Ork: If we don't develop it our enemies will.

Grog: Don't start with your "Boomerang Gap" shit again, Ork!

Ork: Listen, you fossil, we have no choice but to keep ahead of our enemies who want to deprive us of our cave.

Grog: That's what you said about flint spear points. You always want to piss away money on R and D.

...and so on. I wonder how many times mankind has had that argument?

[alrom]

I think the fact that a boomerang will return if thrown into the air is just a sort of curiosity. I don't think they were meant to do that as a practical matter

I could never get my boomerang to fly back to me, but anyway... I was just thinking that maybe a boomerang gives you a slight advantage when hunting (or warring), because in case you missed a shot the weapon would fly back to you (or at least close to you) and you could grab it and throw it again. If you used a spear for example, and missed, the spear would end up close to your target and recovering it would not be easy.

Hm that's just a half-baked idea so I may be completely wrong, but here it is. If I'm wrong please tell me why

[Minimalist]

The Romans developed the pilum so that after they threw it the shaft would bend and it could not be picked up and thrown back.

[Minimalist]

For you atlatl fans, if you get a chance to see a program called
L. A. 10,000 BC on Discovery Times, you will be treated to a demonstration of atlatl throwing.

Very enlightening.

[Sam Salmon]

Atlatl fans will be pleased to see one unit featured in a prominent scene in Apocolypto.

As the unneeded captives are offered a chance to run for the jungle the war leader picks up an Atlatl.

The loading, throwing and the dart rotating in flight fill the frame.

Being a Mel Gibson film the end result is predictable.....

[Minimalist]

Being a Mel Gibson film the end result is predictable.....

He curses out the Jews?

[Beagle]

Of the movies produced by Gibson, I can only remember seeing one, Forever Young, that was not rated R for violence.

And he beat up a fellow in that one too.

[daybrown]

The European HNS descent issue was clouded by group think as soon as the first samples were found... by Christians who didnt even want to *think* about such descent in an era when they could not even admit descent from Africans.

I have argued here, and on usenet that birthing problems in the hybridization process wiped out HNS, but certianly, the disease issue raised here is worth adding to the mix. Altho, given the dispersed populations, it'd have to be a disease like typhoid or HIV that some people can carry indefinately without adverse effects. And given the widely spread thin HNS populations, we'd expecta a lotta genetic diversity, such as seen in inbred hillbilly clans with very different characteristics.

I still see this in the Ozarks, where people know which family lines are all drunks and now methheads, and which are hard working, honest, & rational.

Regarding the Atlatl, it has one advantage in that while pursuing a herd, it can be used on the run. The bowman hasta stand still to aim his shot. The Atlatl can be launched, and the aim adjusted thru the length of the stroke while on the run at a moving target, which may, at the last second, suddenly change vector. The Javelin itself need not be perfectly round and straight since it is not in contact with a bow; the only thing the atlatl archer cares about is where the point is, and where the heel of the shaft is.

I dunno of any HNS use of Atlatl. They laid brush across the bottom of a narrow defile and then drove game down into it where the brush slowed the animals down enough that the thrusting spears were adequate to reach prey. Becuase of their primate ancestry, HNS would have been able to jump and or climb over brush quicker than herbivores.

But when the climate changed to colder tundra without the brushy woods that technique no longer worked.

[Beagle]

I have argued here, and on usenet that birthing problems in the hybridization process wiped out HNS,

Hello Daybrown - I've read what you said about birthing problems, and I remember that I disagreed with you, but I can't remember what your exact point was.

Myself and others here have had many discussions about HNS. I think to a small degree their genome is still with us.

I've enjoyed reading what you have said about HNS. Welcome back.

[Minimalist]

it'd have to be a disease like typhoid or HIV that some people can carry indefinately without adverse effects.

What about something like malaria which can be transmitted by mosquitos? That wouldn't even require contact...merely that the two groups be close enough so the mosquitos could get to both?

BTW, Hi, D/B...nice to see you back.

[Beagle]

There's not much malaria in Europe but I get your point. But something as deadly as smallpox only kills around 50% at worse.

But to agree with you both I'd have to agree that HNS went the way of the dinosaurs. Being gone, in the sense of not being here any more, is certain - but Cro-magnon is also extinct by those standards.

[Minimalist]

Malaria may be rare in Europe today but one of the first great building projects that the Romans undertook was the Cloaca Maxima (The Great Sewer) to drain the swampy land that made up the forum. Then, there were the Pontine marshes which even the Romans could not get a grip on.

Pontine Marshes (pŏn'tēn, –tīn) , Ital. Pontina, low-lying region, c.300 sq mi (780 sq km), in S Latium, central Italy, between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Apennine foothills; it is crossed by drainage canals. The Appian Way, a Roman-built road, passes through the region. In pre-Roman and early Roman times the area was populated and fertile, but it was later abandoned because of the malaria in its unhealthful marshlands. The Roman emperors Trajan and Theodoric and several popes started reclamation works, but a drainage system was not completed until the 1930s under Mussolini. The large estates in the area were then broken into lots, and farmers from N Italy settled there permanently. The first rural town, Littoria (now Latina), was inaugurated in 1932. Sabaudia, Pontinia, Aprilia, and Pomezia were founded in the following years. During World War II the drainage works were damaged and the region was flooded. Wheat and cotton are now produced, and livestock is raised.

Nonetheless, D/B's point of a disease which the host is immune to but can carry the disease is obvious. But with insects and rodents around you can spread a disease without having actual contact between people.

[Beagle]

There is no question about HNS or any other member of the human family being exposed to disease and many dying from it. There are HNS skeletons that have evidence of osteomyelitis (bone infection) and possibly bone cancer. So they definately were at risk just as we are.

But the issue is one of extinction. HNS survived for 210,000 yrs. That's a long time. They had been exposed to Homo Sapiens before in the Levant with no ill effects.

The greatest epidemic that we know of happened to the Native Americans. It brought down much of their civilization but it didn't drive them to extinction.

Hybrid skeletons (adults) have been found. It's much more likely to me that the result was the loss of Neandertal features that we know of through skeletal examination.