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To: TKEman
Would require an incredible string of luck for people to live to be 105

Yes, was just trying to place a lower limit on the number of people that could make a word-of-mouth chain all the way back. If over the years life expectancy were something lower, say, 25, the number of people in the chain would have to be a larger number. With more retellings, the chance of getting more than one garbled version today of something that happened 30,000 years ago seems virtually certain.

Just like if 1200 people attended a memorable high school basketball game, each would notice different features of the game and 10 years later some story versions might not be recognizable even to others who were physically present in the bleachers at the time.

This is all pretty well obvious, but the small necessary size of the minimum human chain to prehistoric times was kind of interesting. I was actually thinking of eyewitnesses to the Crucifixion when I first started thinking this way. It's only 20 people. 20 could fit in an elevator, or be waiting for burgers at the local instameal.

Looked at this way, something that happened in Serbia 700 years ago, or in Arabia 1300 years ago, or that happened in America in 1776 could reasonably be viewed as nearly current events.

64 posted on 10/04/2001 9:51:22 AM PDT by RightWhale
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To: RightWhale
Nice post. Interestingly, the aboriginal Tasmanians lost a lot of technology that they originally had because of lack of "data transmission." Pretty interesting. Actually, fascinating stuff. Look into it. A couple of good books exist out there regarding what happens when small, isolated populations are kept apart from the rest of humanity, and have technology that they have to pass down from generation to generation.....
67 posted on 10/04/2001 1:23:59 PM PDT by TKEman
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