pre clovis america

[marduk]

well i'm maybe culturally earlier than you because i still have my bows & arrows,

count yourself lucky
all i've got is a sword

[Minimalist]

Probably lose some weight which wouldn't be the worst thing, but it is an acquired skill. BTW, I still have the muskets and plenty of flint, powder and shot.

well i'm maybe culturally earlier than you because i still have my bows & arrows, know how to flake points and to spin milkweed fiber on my thigh to create bowstrings, knowledge of wild plants, etc. but my primary point remains. if it all went to shit tomorrow morning, in terms of the industrial civ. chain of supply, we all of us would be facing some pretty grim choices. and we would not have the depth of knowledge to be successful in our new lives.

muskets, flints, powder and shot are all manufactured items. you purchased them, yes?

john

Absolutely, well I built the musket from a kit. And, although I know the formula for gunpowder I use a modern substitute called Triple 7, because that way it doesn't take 2 hours to clean the goddamn gun when I fire it.

Again, if things all go to shit, people will have plenty of other problems. For instance, without electricity how will we post on message boards?

[Minimalist]

well i'm maybe culturally earlier than you because i still have my bows & arrows,

count yourself lucky
all i've got is a sword

The muskets have bayonets for in close work.

[john]

Probably lose some weight which wouldn't be the worst thing, but it is an acquired skill. BTW, I still have the muskets and plenty of flint, powder and shot.

well i'm maybe culturally earlier than you because i still have my bows & arrows, know how to flake points and to spin milkweed fiber on my thigh to create bowstrings, knowledge of wild plants, etc. but my primary point remains. if it all went to shit tomorrow morning, in terms of the industrial civ. chain of supply, we all of us would be facing some pretty grim choices. and we would not have the depth of knowledge to be successful in our new lives.

muskets, flints, powder and shot are all manufactured items. you purchased them, yes?

john

Absolutely, well I built the musket from a kit. And, although I know the formula for gunpowder I use a modern substitute called Triple 7, because that way it doesn't take 2 hours to clean the goddamn gun when I fire it.

Again, if things all go to shit, people will have plenty of other problems. For instance, without electricity how will we post on message boards?

minimalist -

cave paintings?


john

[Minimalist]

See?


Maybe those are the earliest smilies?

[stan]

This is off topic,but I wanted to sneak it in somewhere, so while we are on ancient weaponry, I recommend the Chinese film, "Hero," starring Jet Li. It recreates the arms and army of the first Emperor, Qin, along with the palace as well as other interesting details. Superficially, it looked "authentic" to me, but I don't really know. It has a lot of great aerial sword fights a la "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

[Frank Harrist]

try building one

Not a great argument, John. Doubtless there are plenty of people today who could fashion a proper spear point, given the inclination to do so. I've knapped worn flints for my muskets when I've had to in order to get a usable edge. How many of those neolithic flint knappers could go to Comp USA, buy a computer and put it together?

We are the inheritors or a long technological learning curve and the fact that some items have been deemed obsolete does not mean that we lack the ability to go back and recreate them if need be...or even if the mood merely strikes.

Plenty of people dress up in chain mail armor and metal helmets and beat each other over the head with pikes for the 'fun' of it. That means that somewhere in the world, someone is still making chain mail.

minimalist -

been to plenty of SCA (society for creative anachronism) events in my life and frankly its like marie antoinette being a milkmaid. its social/commercial; not survival. Or a culture.

as to your point about ancient civ. putting computers together, it is moot, because computers didn't exist at that time.

my ultimate point is this; as a culture, we no longer have the hand skills to create the tools for our life. we buy them. if the manufacturing source dries up we're shit out of luck.

what would you do if, tomorrow, there were no grocery stores and you had to start out from day one providing food for you and your family?

john

Speak for yourself, John. I could survive just fine. But I grew up in the country, hunting and fishing. I have seen flint knapping done and I know I could do it too, roughly at first, but with practice I could knap with the best ancient human. But having said that I do believe that the majority would just lay down and starve because city people are pussies. People do what they have to do to survive. Nothing more. Nothing less, and we are no less skilled with our hands than our ancestors were. Out of practice maybe, but anyone could learn it if they had to.

[Cognito]

Beags wrote:

The Atlantis story however is not anything that I find worth taking seriously. But I certainly don't begrudge anybody that may feel differently to do so.

Many theories revolve around the end of the Ice Age. The Younger Dryas "only" lasted about a thousand years I think. That would be a thousand years shy of Platos' story. But indeed, it would be a time of great flooding. I say this without checking. If I'm wrong...sorry.

First off, everything that I have read about Atlantis is total crap. Most "experts" appear to be looking for a location and attempting to fit facts with their own bias. They look to the Atlantic Ocean, the Americas, Cuba, Antarctica, etc. There is no reasonable basis for believing that an advanced ice age civilisation existed in any of those locales.

However, whoever is responsible for the Atlantis Myth stated that the deluge occurred about 9,600bce. That date coincides with flood events at the termination of the Younger Dryas. Must have been a lucky guess. If the timing was different by a few thousand years either way, then the story would have died off by now.

[john]

Beags wrote:

The Atlantis story however is not anything that I find worth taking seriously. But I certainly don't begrudge anybody that may feel differently to do so.

Many theories revolve around the end of the Ice Age. The Younger Dryas "only" lasted about a thousand years I think. That would be a thousand years shy of Platos' story. But indeed, it would be a time of great flooding. I say this without checking. If I'm wrong...sorry.

First off, everything that I have read about Atlantis is total crap. Most "experts" appear to be looking for a location and attempting to fit facts with their own bias. They look to the Atlantic Ocean, the Americas, Cuba, Antarctica, etc. There is no reasonable basis for believing that an advanced ice age civilisation existed in any of those locales.

However, whoever is responsible for the Atlantis Myth stated that the deluge occurred about 9,600bce. That date coincides with flood events at the termination of the Younger Dryas. Must have been a lucky guess. If the timing was different by a few thousand years either way, then the story would have died off by now.

kinda interseting thing here, and this really deserves its own thread....... the mazama indians of southern oregon/northern california include in their oral history the account of the volcano eruption which created crater lake, about 10k years ago.

what deserves its own thread is the tenacity and accuracy of oral history.

in my opinion, much oral history crept into early written accounts, and got severely twisted, as is the habit of written accounts. such as atlantis, or the "bible". i've got zero problem with the possibility that there might have been a natural seaborne catastrophe about that time. what you need to look at is the corresponding sedimentation, just as geologists on the nw coast of america have found clear, geological evidence of subsidence earthquakes, i.e., earthquakes which cause an abrupt subsidence of existing coastline to to tune of 100 - 300 feet. obviously, any communities in this zone would be totaled, and any survivors would preserve it in their oral history. getting back to the mazamas, clearly the eruption of a volcano, and the deleterious effects on the people of the time made a lasting impression on the knowledge passed from generation to generation.

john

[Sam Salmon]

If any of you have the time/inclination here's a link to some of the remaining knowledge of ancient Polynesians-the greatest navigators known.
http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/navigate/wayfind.html

[Beagle]

That's a great link Sam. Thanks. I wish you could get here more often.

[Beagle]

The migration of the Polynesians and their skill at navigating is very often overlooked when discussions about the Americas happen. I've mentioned them in a couple of threads recently when discussing certain anomalous artifacts.

I've just had a chance to look at this in depth Sam, and thanks again.

[Minimalist]

Hmmm....


http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal. ... 2032-2021r

LIMA -- A team of Peruvian and US archaeologists have discovered prehistoric stone tools and weapons some 10,000 years old in an Andean town, the National Institute of Culture announced Friday.

Stone axes, spearheads, and weapons were found in the main square of San Pedro de Chavin de Huantar, an Andean town some 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of Lima, officials said.

[john]

Hmmm....


http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal. ... 2032-2021r

LIMA -- A team of Peruvian and US archaeologists have discovered prehistoric stone tools and weapons some 10,000 years old in an Andean town, the National Institute of Culture announced Friday.

Stone axes, spearheads, and weapons were found in the main square of San Pedro de Chavin de Huantar, an Andean town some 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of Lima, officials said.

aw shucks. wasn't even gonna mention it . probably the lost tribes, again. they just gained some altitude, is all.

john

[Minimalist]

Stone axes?


I thought there weren't any stone axes in the New World?