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Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 3:12 pm
by Minimalist
Have archaeologists detected another of those pesky "transitional forms?"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 150619.htm
recent excavations at Dhra' near the Dead Sea in Jordan that provide evidence of granaries that precede the emergence of fully domesticated plants and large-scale sedentary communities by at least 1,000 years.
"These granaries reflect new forms of risk reduction, intensification and low-level food production," Kuijt said. "People in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Age (11,500 to 10,550 B.C.) were not using new food sources, but rather, by developing new storage methods, they altered their relationship with traditionally utilized food resources and created the technological context for later development of domesticated plants and an agro-pastoralist economy.
Re: Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 8:58 pm
by JSteen
non-biological evolution? pesky transitional form? Please, consider this a teachable moment ...
Re: Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 9:10 am
by kbs2244
Collecting and storing wild grains was common among the hunter gathering tribes of Indians in the Minnesota and Manitoba area of N A.
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/wildlife/sha ... drice.html
http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/publicatio ... ldrice.pdf
While I doubt it was rice in Jordan, the concept applies.
Re: Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 7:15 am
by Rokcet Scientist
kbs2244 wrote:Collecting and storing wild grains was common among the hunter gathering tribes of Indians in the Minnesota and Manitoba area of N A.
When?
Re: Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 1:36 pm
by kbs2244
I don’t know when they started, but they taught the Europeans how to do it when they showed up.
They still do it in State Parks and such.
The Indians can do it at will.
A white man needs to get a permit and has a weight limit.
The white man has turned it into a mechanized, paddy, type crop though.
Re: Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 11:49 am
by Minimalist
In the case of the original article the suggestion is that humans developed a means for gathering and storing grain somewhat before they began actually growing it themselves on a large scale.
Interesting idea. Or perhaps, they simply haven't found the fields yet?
Re: Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:08 pm
by dannan14
That is probably the case Min, but i would still bet that grain storage came before agriculture.
Re: Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 1:57 pm
by Rokcet Scientist
dannan14 wrote:That is probably the case Min, but i would still bet that grain storage came before agriculture.
Agree. If 'grain' storage is replaced with 'food' storage.
I bet they did (try) it – storage – with meat, fruit, berries, and (edible) roots as well. As they did with potable water.
Re: Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:16 pm
by Minimalist
Which would indicate that a degree of settlement had been attained. Would pure HG groups have any use for such an installation?
Re: Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 3:56 pm
by Sam Salmon
Minimalist wrote:Which would indicate that a degree of settlement had been attained.
Depends how one defines settlement-groups some would categorise as hunter/gatherers would make caches here/there in traditional territory knowing they'd have use of them at some point as they hunted/gathered/travelled.
Minimalist wrote:Would pure HG groups have any use for such an installation?
Yes if you use my definition.
Re: Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 4:02 pm
by dannan14
Yes Min, i was working under the assumption that storage of other types of food was already going on. At some point, grains were added to their diet and were stored too.
Re: Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 5:28 am
by Rokcet Scientist
Minimalist wrote:Which would indicate that a degree of settlement had been attained. Would pure HG groups have any use for such an installation?
That would depend on the definition of "pure HG groups" then. American prairie indians (of the 19th century) e.g. strike me as "pure HG groups". But they didn't move their tipis every day. Or even every week. Afaik they stayed put – camping – in one place for a whole season at least. So they would have plenty use for food storage, and thus would develop 'technology' for it.
The "pure HG groups" that would not "have any use for such an installation" would be HG groups that moved
every day. What HG groups do that?
Re: Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 8:26 am
by Minimalist
Every "day" is probably a little overstated. I suspect there are no hard and fast rules for how long a group would remain in a given spot. Some environments could be picked clean fairly quickly...others might take a while.
A model which sets up a "depot system" like an 18th century army is probably unlikely.
Re: Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 10:19 am
by Rokcet Scientist
So then we may conclude that all HG groups – 'pure' (whatever that means) or otherwise – would have developed, or at least tried to develop, food storage technologies! And we don't need to theorize or speculate about it, because we know they did: we're always looking for pottery, ceramics, shards, aren't we? That was their food storage technology!
Re: Non-Biological Evolution?
Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 10:40 am
by Minimalist
I don't know....what's the earliest known pottery? Jomon? 10,000-ish BC?
At what stage of development do people begin to settle down and build permanent or at least semi-permanent dwellings?
It was always assumed that it was the beginnings of agriculture but this find suggests that the process may have been a bit more drawn out....or "evolutionary" as I quipped at the beginning.