A Human Migration Fueled By Dung?

Science News Magazine ^ | 8-9-2003 | Sid Perkins

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Week of Aug. 9, 2003; Vol. 164, No. 6

A human migration fueled by dung?

Sid Perkins
Science News Magazine

From Reno, Nevada, at a meeting of the International Union for Quaternary Research

When people made their way from Asia to the Americas, the path they took may have been covered in dung.

At the peak of the last ice age, when sea levels were low, a land bridge that's now submerged in many places connected what are now Alaska and northeastern Russia. Although much of the area was dry more than 50,000 years ago, firm archaeological evidence of human occupation in this region dates to only around 14,000 years ago, says David Rhode of the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nev. Recent genetic data supports this timing (see "New World Newcomers," in this week's issue: Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/20030809/fob4.asp). Some scientists have proposed that humans took so long to migrate into this frigid, treeless expanse because there wasn't any wood for heating or cooking.

Rhode and his colleagues, however, contend, people could have burned dried dung.

Today, many residents of the Tibetan Plateau use yak dung for almost all of their heating and cooking needs. A single family living in a 10-square-meter tent requires between 25 and 40 kilograms of dried dung per day in the summer and about twice that in the winter, says Rhode. That adds up to about 20 metric tons of dung per year. Although that sounds like a huge amount, Rhode and his team observed one group of Tibetans collect about a quarter-ton of dung from their yak herd's pasture in just 4 hours. The researchers estimate that one person could gather an entire family's average fuel supply in less than 1 hour per day.

Today's conditions on the Tibetan Plateau match the cold, arid climate of the ancient land bridge's tundra. Scientists believe that the region then supported large populations of herbivores such as bison, mammoths, horses, and wooly rhinoceroses (SN: 4/19/03, p. 244: http://www.sciencenews.org/20030419/fob3.asp). Unless there were far fewer of these animals than currently estimated, there should have been plenty of dung available for fuel, says Rhode.

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Ping.

[thegreatbeast]

S*, that's interesting! Thanks for posting.

The dems really could lead the way in getting us out of a tight energy crisis.

[John Beresford Tipton]

"A human migration fueled by dung?"

I have heard hippies say:
"You gotta get your shiite together,
before you can take it on the road."

Who knew, that they knew?

[dirtboy]

A Human Migration Fueled By Dung?

What's so new about this? Democrats have been drawn to bullsh** for years.

[Bigg Red]

The title made me think that this was a story of brainless Rat women being attracted to Hitlery book signings.

[CholeraJoe]

There's very little wood on the northern plains of the US. Natives used to burn buffalo dung.

[AdamSelene235]

This is standard practice in Mongolia, as well.

Nothing like a cup of fermented mare's milk while warming up by nice cowsh*t fire.

[ZGuy]

This is old news.

Everyone knows that Mousie Dung caused massive relocation of people in China.

[insert groan here]

[TC Rider]

Hu Phlung Dung?

[farmfriend]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
List for articles regarding early civilizations , life of all forms, - dinosaurs - etc.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this ping list.

[WhiteGuy]

What is brown and sounds like a bell?


























Dung!

[blam]

"There's very little wood on the northern plains of the US. Natives used to burn buffalo dung."

I've read speculation that there was a Northern Forest there until they burned it too.

[CholeraJoe]

As I understand it, the Native Americans used to set fire to the prairie every spring to encourage growth of new grass to attact the buffalo. Any tree seedlings would be destroyed by the fire.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Chief: I have bad news and good news.

Tribe: What's the bad news?

Chief: We're out of food and we have to eat buffalo dung all winter.

Tribe: What's the good news?

Chief: We've sufficient buffalo dung for the entire winter.

[Taffini]

Nothing like a cup of fermented mare's milk while warming up by nice cowsh*t fire


I love it when you talk romantic

[Digger]

As I understand it, the Native Americans used to set fire to the prairie every spring to encourage growth of new grass to attact the buffalo. Any tree seedlings would be destroyed by the fire.

I'll give it about five years from now & then if you make a true statement like this, you'll be going to jail.

[blam]

"Nothing like a cup of fermented mare's milk while warming up by nice cowsh*t fire."

Early run-up to cheese making?

[AdamSelene235]

Early run-up to cheese making?

No, they usually use camel's milk for cheese.

Ferment mare's milk aka airag is the primary form of alcohol in the boonies. If the sun is up, dip your ring finger in the glass and flick some up into the air as an offering to the sky. Mongols don't seem to think the sky is present at night. It isn't polite to refuse airag which tastes like watery vodka with an aftertaste of horse.

mmmmmm mmmm good.

[happygrl]

LOL!

Mousie Dung....