Archaeologica.org

The collapse of the bicameral mind came slowly, it was a slow erosive breakdown. But Jaynes spotted the first serious indications of collapse by the time of Egypt's Middle Kingdom, around 1700 b.c.e. Authority had started to crumble--and due to this Egypt had to re-unify itself, hence the Middle Kingdom.

Jaynes considers that this slow collapse was caused by natural disasters, such as the Santorini volcanic explosion that devastated many Greek islands. Migration of different peoples into new areas disrupted the bicameral societies already in place. Conquest over peoples by others resulted in further collapse. And writing gradually eroded the "auditory authority of the bicameral mind." [Ibid, pp. 208, 212-213, 220]

Jaynes felt a real tipoff of this bicameral breakdown could be discerned in the Babylonian lines: "My god has forsaken me and disappeared, My goddess has failed me and keeps at a distance... [To Marduk]

John, I like the Odysseus approach, but in 1700bce the Egyptian delta was controlled by the Hyksos. Of course the Egyptian kingdom had crumbled, it started with the Amorite migrations and invasions a couple of hundred years before. Santorini in 1628bce might have had some affect on the activity of the Hittites who sacked Babylon in 1600bce, carrying off the gods in the temples. To the Babylonians their gods had abandoned them (actually, they were stolen). Just seems like the 2nd millenium bce was the wrong period, but mid first milleneum might be more reasonable since Greek writing (as well as others) was in full swing. It took a decent alphabet with vowels to get a great story put down on papyrus.

what was/is the length and breadth and depth of Homo n's horizon of communication?

Thank you for your kindness John. The entire time I was reading your post I thought you would expect me to reply on Jaynes.

To reply though, we don't know for certain. Behaviors can be determined, as can patterns of thinking, etc. But then we have to deduce from the evidence. That's not simple.

HN entered the modern world stage early in the 20th century. We're all familiar with his early representation as an ugly brutish Troglodite, incapable of any communication except grunts. And horribly violent. Not to mention that in the first half of the 20th century he was regarded as German. It doesn't get any worse than that.....at that time.

But not to worry, we live in modern times, and everybody knows differently......except we are humans. We shouldn't forget that the vast majority of voters today will vote the same way their great-grandparents did. And they will spout the same old incredibly stupid arguments that are now 85+ years old.

So now, back to being able to deduce certain things. Two scientists can look at the same evidence and completely disagree. Totally.

So where does that leave us poor slobs who rely on scientific purity of thought? The facts are that Cro-magnon man is an obvious step up in evolution, but that was not originally known. People thought they had always been contemporaneus. And the beautiful Cro-magnon defeated the Huns. And the early 20th century prejudice remains incredibly strong, although people will deny it. As more and more details become irrefutable about Neanderthal, you find a gush of scientific papers that give begrudging ascent to a fact but with some sort of childish agenda that translates into "Yeah, but it wasn't very good and HS did it better". That's ok. It's a victory for freethinkers.

I especially got a kick out of the paper a while back that admitted that Neanderthal had speech, but was also saying - "but he sounded like a girl". You really have to keep a sense of humor in the Neanderthal debates.

Finally John, your question cannot be definitively answered. There's lots of evidence, but as always it's contested. One step at a time. Now, if you're asking my personal opinion, I'm gonna have to pass.

I know you're keeping up with the Clovis First issue too. Lot's of similarities. Lucky for them pre-clovis is so easy to prove. That evidence is everywhere - and yet there are papers still being written anti pre-clovis. It's an amazing scientifc world.

http://magdalenian.co.uk/Ice%20Age%20Bu ... ustoms.htm

Just another HN link. An excerpt from a doctoral thesis apparently. Not powerful, but a little balance.

Forum Monk wrote:KBS2244 - here's a link to a short article that may be of particular interest to you...and any one else interested the concept of ancient trade between HSS groups vs. HN/HSN. I took this one from the list of primary sources on the wiki-neanderthal article.

I think one can read between the lines here and if there is any validity to the conclusions, it implies HSS could communicate between separated groups and at a level that HN/HSN seemed incapable of doing.

It seems you are guilty of my usual faux pas of not supplying a link. I think I hold the record for doing that.
Anyway I posted that article in one of these HN threads a long time ago. I think the BBC carried the article.

Beagle wrote:It seems you are guilty of my usual faux pas of not supplying a link. I think I hold the record for doing that.
Anyway I posted that article in one of these HN threads a long time ago. I think the BBC carried the article.

Guilty as charged - here's the link:
http://www.newswise.com/p/articles/view/510666/

FM, a quote from your referenced article:

"While Neanderthals probably cooperated with one another to some extent, the evidence does not support the view that specialization arose from any formal division of labor or that inter- or intra-group trade existed, he says. These practices seem to require all the things that Neanderthals lacked: a more complicated social organization, a degree of innovative behavior, forward planning and the exchange of information, ideas and raw materials." (Italics mine)

Beyond economics it just appears that Neanderthals never really understood how to party. That was obviously their downfall, along with a lack of beer.

Cognito wrote:Beyond economics it just appears that Neanderthals never really understood how to party. That was obviously their downfall, along with a lack of beer.

Too bad he couldn't hang for another 20K years until the egyptians came along. They could have painted their faces with red ochre and partied like frat boys.

Beagle wrote:http://magdalenian.co.uk/Ice%20Age%20Bu ... ustoms.htm

Just another HN link. An excerpt from a doctoral thesis apparently. Not powerful, but a little balance.

In my opinion, the writer of this article made some significant leaps of faith with no evidence. Not saying he doesn't have evidence - he just doesn't present it in the article.

I am left wondering if neanderthal was not really a very intelligent animal and the current mtDNA studies support the notion. Of course what constitutes "being a man" is a great philosophical question.

The bicameral mind theory doesn't sit right with me. I am not convinced that the evidence exists to reach a conclusion which essentially states that people didn't self-analyse their thought processes until a certain point in history.

Maybe I am misreading the information presented by John, but it seems to me far fetched to conclude that there was an absence of "conscious minds" and "introspection" by analysing a narrative.

Isn't Jaynes guilty of exactly the sort of assumptions that are now being made, i.e. based on our own experiences and perception of reality?

With regard to an "afterlife" HS, HN and HE appear to have all been bound by the same anthropic principles. What interests me in respect of burial was when did hominids "progress" from simply accepting death to "wishing that there was something beyond this life"? - No I don't agree KB that it is a new thought - exactly the reverse.

I am left wondering if neanderthal was not really a very intelligent animal and the current mtDNA studies support the notion.

The difference observed in HSS versus HSN mtDNA really has nothing to do with intelligence. It only shows us that on the maternal side the two groups separated hundreds of thousands of years ago. Bear in mind that the analysis of mtDNA has its limitations. If we had substantial amounts of genomic nuclear sequences to analyze, then we could be looking at a totally different story. That's what Svante Paabo is working on so diligently.

The odds of HSN mtDNA winding up in the human genome are astronomical -- you just won't find any. It requires a female HSN mating with a male HSS with a resulting female hybrid child. If that child is not sterile, a big IF, then she must create an unbroken maternal descent line by mating with more HSS. The odds of having no female children over time is just too great. Once the chain is broken, no more HSN mtDNA in the hybrid pool. The odds of male HSN yDNA aren't much better and, if it happened, the haplogroup would probably look really weird. We ain't seen that at all.

The best locale for finding traces of HSN hybrids is in the "junk" DNA section of the human genome. It isn't just junk, but incorporates past historical diseases, especially retrovirus inserts into genetic material over time. This is an area of great promise in the field of archaeogenetics. The following article, although totally wild, attempts to identify various genes that could identify past events. Read it with extreme caution:

http://www.rdos.net/eng/asperger.htm#Help

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the author of the online article do not necessarily represent the views of this writer, but if you enjoy the article send money anyway. If you do not have money to spare, please send your first-born daughter as long as she is 18 years or older. Thank you.

So, is that article says they were driven to extinction because HS were better traders?
I can understand that concept.
The thing that I find new is that we now seem to be saying that they traded at all.
The whole concept of moving something from on place to another for a profit of some kind is a pretty abstract one.

KB, the huge difference between HSS and HSN at the time of mutual contact over a period of 10,000 years is this: HSS was expanding in all directions throughout the globe while HSN was staying put. Hopefully, we can all agree on that fact. That would make HSS similar to a salesman from out of town with wonderful new stuff ... do you think that HSN women had the same gene for shopping?

It is natural to trade one thing for another and requires cooperation between the parties. Given the above, HSS would have been the group prompting most of the trading since they were doing the bulk of the traveling. "Grog, you've been eyeballing my cool knife ... I'll trade you for that side of beef and bag of berries." Grog gets new technology while Buford gets to feed his family for another week while on his way over the next hill.

Local HSN would have been useful to HSS. While HSN knew where all the caves, best paths, and local animals migrated, their tall and skinny cousins brought excitement to the fireside (and possibly some new diseases that they left behind). I believe HSS would have traded with HSN and occasionally mated, but I doubt they liked each other's company enough to settle down together long-term since they were too anatomically different.

Forum Monk wrote:

Cognito wrote:Beyond economics it just appears that Neanderthals never really understood how to party. That was obviously their downfall, along with a lack of beer.

Too bad he couldn't hang for another 20K years until the egyptians came along. They could have painted their faces with red ochre and partied like frat boys.

Beagle wrote:http://magdalenian.co.uk/Ice%20Age%20Bu ... ustoms.htm

Just another HN link. An excerpt from a doctoral thesis apparently. Not powerful, but a little balance.

In my opinion, the writer of this article made some significant leaps of faith with no evidence. Not saying he doesn't have evidence - he just doesn't present it in the article.

I am left wondering if neanderthal was not really a very intelligent animal and the current mtDNA studies support the notion. Of course what constitutes "being a man" is a great philosophical question.

The paper is not much different than the Wiki article. One doesn't need to cite evidence for already accepted facts. I think there were times that he wrote that certain statements were still being contested. I don't know what his larger point was in his dissertation, but in this excerpt he just stated facts.

To your second statement, that is really astounding. Any species with the genus Homo in front of it is classified as human. An ape is a pithecine, so any name with pithecus in it is an ape. I think you just set the record for "far out" statements about Neandertal.

Beagle wrote:I think you just set the record for "far out" statements about Neandertal.

Not at all Beagle. It seems obvious to me and perhaps I am mistaken, that you take a view that Neanerthal possessed very advanced qualities - by that I mean human-like. But I am not ready to go there yet because I think the evidence is still too preliminary. The classification of neanderthal as HSN is not a given. It is still being debated. My point is, neanderthal may have been an very intelligent animal - nothing more. I never implied that genetics determines intelligence nor did I imply that he was more closely related to the apes. The point I am making is both HN and chimps are related to HSS but we are different species. We may have been no more capable of breeding with HN than we could with chimps. The qualities which make us human (so-called higher order beings) are not necessarily proven in HN and so I am taking what I consider a more convervative point of view and till shown evidence to the contrary.

What constitutes 'homo' is even debated -
http://media.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3744

The classifications are made on a somewhat arbitrary and outdated basis, IMO.

you take a view that Neanerthal possessed very advanced qualities - by that I mean human-like.

Yes - because they are human. That isn't going to change, nor should it.
The human family includes:
H Habilis (that is the only one that has recently been opened for debate)
H Ergaster
H Erectus
H Heidelbergensis
H Neandertalensis
H Sapien
H Sapien Sapien (us)
H Floriensis (if he turns out to be a separate species.)

I can't believe that I'm even posting that chimps are not going to be added.Habilis could break flint to get a sharp edge and then cut meat from a scavenged animal, and some scientists think he should be kicked out. The next guy up, Erectus, could control fire.

No Monk, you've got that record for the time being I'm afraid.