The study of religious or heroic legends and tales. One constant rule of mythology is that whatever happens amongst the gods or other mythical beings was in one sense or another a reflection of events on earth. Recorded myths and legends, perhaps preserved in literature or folklore, have an immediate interest to archaeology in trying to unravel the nature and meaning of ancient events and traditions.
Minimalist wrote:Actually I am inclined to think that writing developed as a response to a need. That need was primarily commercial. The need for merchants and kings to keep track of things.
I think that's a fair assumption based on how we are today. But I think that may be a faulty premise.
India has been described as a living museum and people there have absolutely prodigious memories.
Just one example: I was in a long line of women of all shapes and sizes and nationalities being measured for a sari top - those little, tight fittting blouses Indian women wear with their saris - and although the dressmaker measured my top from about five different angles, including my arms, she didn't even write down my name, let alone my measurements. And the next day I returned to pick up a perfectly fitting sari top.
But this is just one example of so many that I came across when I was there. And it made me think about memory ... and wonder if my own was so degraded because because I relied so much on the written word, so that part of my brain was no longer needed so much. As they say, it's a case of use it or lose it, and I think we've lost much of our memories, over time.
Thanks for showing me those maps and latest research. It's very interesting and I'll give it some thought, as it does conflict with the latest genetic evidence, so maybe there's a puzzle here yet to be solved.
I'm also expecting from Amazon any day now: Nicholas Ostlers' "Empires of the Word - A Language History of the World" - recommended by a friend who says that Ostler connects all the dots between language, geography, DNA and myth.
Just one example: I was in a long line of women of all shapes and sizes and nationalities being measured for a sari top - those little, tight fittting blouses Indian women wear with their saris - and although the dressmaker measured my top from about five different angles, including my arms, she didn't even write down my name, let alone my measurements. And the next day I returned to pick up a perfectly fitting sari top.
Are you sure that you weren't the only English woman in her shop that day?
Then again, Ish, I'm sure that in any circumstance, you are unforgettable.
I suppose I could dig through Davies' book...although Finkelstein seems to agree with him, too. Even Hancock notes prodigious feats of memorization among people reciting religious texts. While someone might memorize the tax receipts for Nineveh in 700 BC I have to think that the bureaucrats running the operation would want to see it written down.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Minimalist wrote:
While someone might memorize the tax receipts for Nineveh in 700 BC I have to think that the bureaucrats running the operation would want to see it written down.
Maybe that's what all those stone fragments are, still locked in George Smith's wooden boxes in the basement of the British Museum?
The perennial concept of people, language, and agriculture arriving to India together through the northwest corridor does not hold up to close scrutiny. Recent claims for a linkage of haplogroups J2, L, R1a, and R2 with a contemporaneous origin for the majority of the Indian castes' paternal lineages from outside the subcontinent are rejected, although our findings do support a local origin of haplogroups F* and H.
So if they didn't come down from the northwest, that only leaves the northeast.
OT: Ish, I've asked Michelle to re-open the Jesus Astrological Analogy thread and move it wherever she likes.
There is a new book coming out on the subject of dating Hebraic writing.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
The perennial concept of people, language, and agriculture arriving to India together through the northwest corridor does not hold up to close scrutiny. Recent claims for a linkage of haplogroups J2, L, R1a, and R2 with a contemporaneous origin for the majority of the Indian castes' paternal lineages from outside the subcontinent are rejected, although our findings do support a local origin of haplogroups F* and H.
So if they didn't come down from the northwest, that only leaves the northeast.
What about those pesky Himalayas? Well, I suppose a northeast passage is more than possible.
The problem I see with DNA studies resulting in migration patterns comes from the fact that a few samples are collected at point A being say, 20KY old, and others at point B being say, 15KY old and so a line is drawn from point A to B and labelled" migration". Maybe some leaps of faith are taking place? I think the path from A to B is totally opinion.
Monk;
Re: those maps and Siberia being so arid.
How much plant life does it take to support a herd of Mammoths?
Haven’t they found a number of their remains up there?
That would indicate a pretty good grazing ground.
kbs2244 wrote:Monk;
Re: those maps and Siberia being so arid.
How much plant life does it take to support a herd of Mammoths?
Haven’t they found a number of their remains up there?
That would indicate a pretty good grazing ground.
KB it takes hundreds of pounds of vegetation and gallons of water each day to sustain a mammoth. Physiologically there were very similar to modern elephants. It is impossible for mammoths to have lived on glaciated or frozen tundra or arid steppes. They need grassy savannahs of the type which stretched across central asia during the late Pleistocene and as the ice retreated northward, so did their habitation.
The fact that some corpses have been found in the tundra does not mean they thrived there during the LGM. Some of the corpses actually predate the LGM.
Everything you ever wanted to know about mammoth dung.
Something to chew on
If mammoths were similar to elephants in their eating habits, they were very remarkable beasts. Consider the following facts about modern elephants:
Spend 16 to 18 hours a day either feeding or moving toward a source of food or water.
Consume between 130 to 660 pounds (60 to 300 kg) of food each day.
Drink between 16 to 40 gallons (60 to 160 l) of water per day.
Produce between 310 to 400 pounds (140 to 180 kg) of dung per day.
Since most mammoths were larger than modern elephants, these numbers must have been higher for mammoths!
From the preserved dung of Columbian mammoths found in a Utah cave, a mammoth’s diet consisted primarily of grasses, sedges, and rushes. Just 5% included saltbush wood and fruits, cactus fragments, sagebrush wood, water birch, and blue spruce. So, though primarily a grazer, the Columbian mammoth did a bit of browsing as well.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
There are a couple of places through the Himalayas into India east of the Khyber Pass, FM. They are used by people today, so would be a walk in the park for stronger, fitter, hunter gatherer types.
The Iranian Vendidad talks about Yima living with his people in the north, and then God (Ahura Mazda) warns him about the oncoming ice age.
If this is true, it's entirely possible that the Indians/Iranians migrated south BEFORE the last ice age. It would explain the genetics picture anyway.
I'm intrigued to see that you can post into our messages (see my post of Wednesday in this thread, 8.04 am, where I ask you about the book.)
I didn't realise you had such powers, even though you are an Egyptian fertility god an' all!
So it's now occurred to me, maybe I should give you power of attorney over my input. That way, whenever I make a complete tit of myself in a post, you could go into it and correct it - and make me appear all sensible and logical!
