Posted on 09/08/2010 8:16:59 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Timothy Taylor is an anthropologist and archaeologist based at Bradford University. In his new book, The Artificial Ape, he argues that the moment our apemen ancestors began chipping at lumps of stone to create their first tools, they released a force -- technology -- that has played a pivotal role in shaping the human species. Such innovations have altered the way we nurture our offspring, prepare our food, use our strength and establish cultures. We did not invent technology, this 50-year-old scientist argues. Technology invented us.
"...There is a perception that technology -- from the industrial revolution to the computer age -- has suddenly put us into a new world, one that is a bit scary. We worry that computers might take us over, for example. But it was ever thus. The genus Homo is a product of the realm of technology. It underpinned our evolution and turned us into a highly intelligent creature. That is why I describe Homo sapiens as an artificial ape... one important development would have been the construction of the first slings for carrying around newborn babies. Without them, women would have expended more biological energy carrying their children in their arms than they would have used on providing them with milk, on lactation. But now, if you had tools to make spears, you could kill animals and remove their skins with the knives you had learned how to make and [from the skins] you could make a sling with which to carry your baby... brain size has decreased slightly over the past 30,000 years and I think that has a lot to do with technology. By that period in our evolution, a caveman no longer needed to remember how many mammoth tusks he was owed by another caveman."
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
:’) It could be you’re not old enough to remember. :’) I only know from reruns.
:’) I just meant, maybe there’s an undiscovered archive, cuneiform, referencing its construction, or even just the local archive. The Mari archive was preserved only because one of the other city-states showed up and burned down the city. :’)
Not *yet*.
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