Posted on 05/25/2013 6:50:05 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
...People were already making finely worked bone needles 20,000 years ago, probably for embroidery as much as sewing animal skins, like the thousands of ivory beads and fox teeth that covered the bodies of a girl and a boy buried at Sunghir, Russia, around 28,000 years ago. This was some serious bling, representing years of accumulated work.
And -- caveman stereotypes aside -- stone age clothes weren't just animal skins. We've known since the 1990s that people were weaving fabric back then, revealed by impressions in baked clay from the sites of Pavlov and Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic. We don't actually know for sure that these were used for clothes, but the materials weren't heavy duty, and the variety in weaving styles suggests a long tradition. And at Dzudzuana Cave in Georgia, 30,000 year old spun plant fibres were found which had been dyed: pink, black and turquoise blue!
...Another study looked at what modern day hunter-gatherers wear according to the local climate, and built a model predicting what Neanderthals would have needed to wear to stay warm. Even after correcting for Neanderthals being able to cope better with the cold, the results suggested they would have needed to cover at least 80% of their body during cold periods, especially hands and feet.
Quite astonishingly, there is physical evidence that Neanderthals more than 100,000 years ago were tanning animal skins -- a stone tool from the site of Neumark-Nord in Germany has preserved scraps of organic material stuck to it that were soaked in tannin, the substance in oak bark used to make leather. It was probably part of the tool handle that got wet while the hides were being worked.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Yeah, I can believe folks from 100,000 years back used handles ~ maybe even 250,000 years back ~ or 1.2 million years back ~ and homemade spear points.
High heels. Why do women wear them? They seem so uncomfortable. But they sure look good in them and when they are wearing them, you know they are coming by way of that that click-clack sound. I do appreciate the warning so that I have the opportunity to correct my own appearance as they approach.
That is the last time that I will offer you a Penny’s for you thoughts, you don’t want to become a Targets.
There is no particularly logical reason to posit a constant or even continuous growth rate for the human population.
Even in historical times we know of periods during which the population in various areas stagnated or even declined sharply.
In the course of about a century the human population off the world dropped by about 10% due to Mongol massacres.
China has a repeated cycle over the last 3000 years of one dynasty falling apart,partially due to population reaching its limits with available resources. The resultant chaos often lasted for decades or even a century or two. When the next dynasty finally got control, the population was often 25% to 50% of what it had been under the previous dynasty. Population starts to built in the peace created by the new dynasty... Rinse and repeat.
Population under the Roman Empire was a large multiple of that supported during the Dark Ages.
The human population of the Americas dropped by something liked 85% to 95% during the 1500s as a result of the introduction of Afro-Eurasian diseases.
“...I.Magnin became extinct in 1984.”
You sure about that date?
I still have a pair of shoes I bought on sale during the fall of 1986, at I.Magnin in Portland, Oregon. This was the year my enlistment in the Navy ended.
I just knew I shouldna used wiki.
Steel was first made in Africa over 100,000 years ago. It was repeated in Damascus before the birth of Jesus Christ. Yet, in neither case did wide-scale manufacturing result. That occurred in Europe in the last few decades of the 18th century in Germany, spreading to England then to the U.S.A.
Whether a discovery or invention becomes popularly known and replicated is separate from its initial occurrence.
The Roman Republic had all the theories in place to launch the Industrial Revolution, but it never happened. China invented gunpowder and eyeglasses, but gun manufacturing and optometry never became industries in that nation.
The book, Guns, Germs and Steel, explains why.
The first guy caught in a winter storm must be the guy who invented clothes.
The historical growth rates I use, already reflect that, it’s got the plague, the dark ages, the wars, etc built in. I just don’t buy that mankind was around 100,000 years and maintained small numbers for the first 95,000.
Just look at the documented growth rates of the last 5000 years. Or any 1000 years and you’ll see what I mean.
And some archeological finds would have us believe that modern humans were around much longer than that.
I don't think anybody claims 95,000. More like 10,000.
That's about when agriculture started to develop. Prior to the production of food, human populations were drastically limited by the carrying capacity of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, which was very low. Humans being the ultimate apex predator, they required huge tracts of land. Tigers also have never been dense on the ground.
Just finished a book about the Yanomamo of the Amazon. They are sparsely settled over their territory, mostly because they constantly raid and kill each other.
I suspect this was the norm of human history prior to the development of agriculture and government, the two institutions that allowed dense populations to develop.
Is that a trick question? Because the answer is too easy: a nekkid man!
Bingo
Study of lice DNA shows humans first wore clothes 170,000 years ago
>> Is that a trick question? Because the answer is too easy: a nekkid man!
When did the first transvestite realize that he was "born that way"? And was his mama surprised to discover that he came miswrapped upon delivery???
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Barney Rubble was a great actor.
I hear tell that an eruption of the supervolcano Toba came close to extinguishing the human race about 70,000 years ago. If true, that would have been pretty much a start-over point.
Actor? What are you suggesting?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.