Spirit Cave Man , is 9,400 years old. He is the oldest mummy ever found in the Americas, Nevada.
Posted on 01/11/2003 2:01:33 PM PST by vannrox
Nice article!
One could argue that a calendar is man's earliest computer - for it can tell both date and time . Modern 8.5x11 pieces of paper are based on modern assumptions which medieval/ancient man did not have.
day length I already talked about it in a previous post.
good theories on the shape of the Earth, help In previous posts, I never mentioned Columbus. Columbus was off in the diameter of the Earth and in his writings, he convinced himself that the earth was NOT larger than he initially believed, but that the earth was in fact the shape of a pear, and that he had just sailed the "stem" part of the pear. Kepler would have had a good belly laugh at the flaw in that thinking.
Go back in time, and forget your digital watch, forget your GPS, how do you figure out where you are? When you jump on a plane and travel East, you'll have to adjust your watch to adjust for the position of the sun. But what do you do in your boat, particularly when you don't have a watch? hugging the coast is NOT exploring ANYONE can do that!
If all you've ever studied is the sun and the earth-sun-angle based on your position, what do you do when the sun goes down? How do you know where you are in a vast ocean? Ok, you'll decide to study the stars. So what stars do you learn? The north star? Not much good to you if you cross the equator. What do you do, if you're fixing your position based on a constellation (such as Orion) and it is not up? What do you do if you have to wait for months for it to come up? How do you calculate rise/set times of your favorite stellar object?
In summary - A calendar is a computation of date/time and position. For example, astronomers don't talk about "calendar" dates-- January 1, 2003 is: 2452640.5 (GMT midnight). Ancient explorers used ephemeris tables based on complex astro-navigation theory. 2452640.5 is very much a "calendar" output.
Anyone can jump in a boat and crash land some where. Knowing how to get back is the real art. The last great navigational challenge that man faced was returning from the moon. We knew how to get there. Getting back was the trick.
If the Chinese did crash land somewhere (I truly doubt it), they sure as heck couldn't get back. Their science wasn't sophisticated enough. The Chinese lacked the math to do predictable overseas navigation. The Vikings and the Mayans had this.
A calendar is a methematical solution of time and space. Understanding the components of the solution are what comprise navigation. Bear in mind is that the author is proposing that the Chinese accomplished the navigational feat of all time, exeeding all civilizations. There is no basis in history to even suggest that the Chinese had the science required for complex navigation and calendar creation.
The west cost calendar will show a Full Moon on October 31, 2001. The East Cost calendar will show the Full Moon on November 1, 2001.
Its the same full moon.
Understanding time, position in space etc etc is the function of a calendar. This is what navigation is all about.
The "basis in history" for crediting the Chinese with some ability to navigate on the face of the earth are two facts:
1. Before the Mongols they managed to achieve the largest land/river based corporate entity ever seen in history up to that point. They were able to get around quite well within their national boundaries and had the navigational and mapping tools to enable them to do this. Applying these sciences to navigation on water was a trivial issue.
2. After the Mongols conquered China, India, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and a whole lot of other stuff, they, the "Mongols", became known as the "Chinese" referenced so often in this thread. These particular "Chinese", aka Mongols, or Ming, developed the largest land/river based corporate entity ever known in human history!
Among other things the Mongols did was the re-opening of the Silk Road. Knowledge, tradegoods, gold and precious stones began passing rapidly back and forth across the Old World. No doubt navigational technology passed rapidly to China (had it not already had such knowledge).
People who could do such things undoubtedly had a quite satisfactory navigational science, and the Chinese calendar system was merely "adjusted" by the Jesuits, not created by them! Shan Dynasty materials reflect the use of a serviceable calendar in China more than three millenia ago.
Now, what was the navigational system used by the ancients? For one thing, the ancients made use of the constellations. They had assigned spots on Earth that corresponded with particular stars. When you saw the constellation overhead, and you knew where one of those spots was located relative to yourself, you knew where all the other spots were located. NOTE: I believe the principal constellation was Argus in the West, while the Chinese called theirs after the Dragon. There are books about this system. Some step off the deep end. Others don't. Others have tried to demonstrate that holes drilled in rocks around Europe were a map/navigational system used by the Neanderthals.
Even American Indians created several different astronomical augmented navigation ssytems. One excellent system is located mostly in Indiana where the Great Dipper was "projected" on the surface of the Earth. The stars at the principal points are represented by mound sites. This "dipper" is also duplicated in a larger outer-dipper with it's Southernmost point at Seymour Indiana at the old council circle. The ten-o'clock line as well as an earlier survey line to the NE are exactly parallel to the lines outlining the big dipper up in the Muncie/Anderson area.
I think what the critics of the Chinese and other ancient navigators are pointing to is the total absence of INSTANTANEOUS navigational information. That does not mean they had no information at all. I will admit the early Chinese probably couldn't target a nuke very well, but they didn't need to. On the other hand, they knew how to find latitude without difficulty. They could actually pace off longitude. Using a trailing rope technique, there is no doubt they could measure longitude at sea. The maps they did of the West Coast of South America in 1410 were quite good! So were the ones they did of the East Coast.
No doubt navigational technology passed rapidly to China (had it not already had such knowledge).
That's highly speculative. The Chinese never demonstrated a knowledge of navigaiton.
the Chinese calendar system was merely "adjusted" by the Jesuits, not created by them!
Not true at all. The Chinese calendar prior to the Jesuits was based on averagecalcuations, not on exact position of the moon Today's calendar (thanks to the Jesuits and Kepler) is based on the position of the New Moon as calculated from 120 E.
The Chinese lacked even the fundamental knowledge on planetary motion, stellar navigation. Heck, they needed Kepler's help in their calendar!
Just wanting the Chinese to be the world's greatest explorers doesn't make it so. I've seen no evidence that they had anything other than basic mathematics and scientific knowledge. To be sure they are an interesting culture, and they contributed many things to world culture but exploration was not one of them.
The Greeks discovered pi, but never used it. It was the Romans who invented the arch, the barrel vault, the dome. This doesn't make the Greeks incompetent, but the arch and the Greeks just don't go hand-in-hand. World exploration and the Chinese are in the same category.
I always wondered why the Indians and the Mayans were so fond of Chow mein!
LOL! The Chinese and the sand-maggots are the new "Russians" in that regard.
800 BC: Crete and Greeks – First use of lime in mortar. They slaked the lime and mixed it with sand, much as mortar is made today. The Romans probably borrowed this idea from them, as evidenced in the hardness of their structures.
300 BC – 476 AD: Greeks and the Roman Empire – Both groups learned that the addition of finely ground volcanic deposits, when mixed with lime and sand, produced a very strong mortar that had sulfate resistance. The Greeks used volcanic tuff from the island of, what was then named, Thera. The Roman builders used material found near the Bay of Naples. The highest grade of the volcanic material was found in the village of Pozzuoli, Italy, near Mt. Vesuvius. This material was named "pozzolana", which is the root for the word "pozzolan" used today to denote a material that possesses cementitious properties. pottery or tile to get the same effect. They also learned to use animal fat, blood, and milk as admixtures to improve the properties of the concrete. The Romans apply the term, "concretum" to the finished mass. This is the root of the word concrete, as we know it today.
The Chinese must certainly have had astrolabes and compasses. Let's consider this: you are on the Coast of California and need to get back to China. How would you do this? You probably sighted the North Star and various stars on the outbound voyage. As long as you sight those stars all the way on the return voyage, you will hit Asia. Their massive ships could have easily supplied the crews for long voyages. It's that simple. The Spanish ran into Chinese junks on the West Coast of Mexico. The Indians told them that they had been coming for centuries as traders. The Tlinglit Indians also claim to have voyaged to Japan and Hawaii for trade.
Remember ancient mariners didn't need the acute time tolerances of space voyagers. Navigation was a priori to accurate calendrics. It is not a spinoff of calendrics. The outline of the World was pretty well established by the time modern navigation was introduced in the 18th century and modern navigation was used primarily for commercial purposes and military manuevering. The Age of Exploration via sea was pretty much past except for Cook, Trobriand and a few sundry others.
Thanks, that was just fine. I was hoping for something in the BC period. I guess that would be the Han.
Because, of course, that's exactly what they did, and the sort of thing that had been going on for centuries.
Regarding the "Silk Road", it was more a state of mind than a road. Fundamentally it was a trade route, generally East/West, and certainly not paved. It had been in operation for millenia until it was stopped by reason of the Dark Ages that began in the 530's AD. The Mongols made passage through the area both safe and profitable for everybody.
But you have to be pulling my leg to claim such detailed knowledge of what science the Chinese had at their command and yet not know what the Silk Road was.
BTW, the Chinese ALSO had a Dark Age at the same time as Western Europe and quite a bit of ancient knowledge was lost. However, they recovered a couple of hundred years before the West and became a ripe target for Mongol takeover. If China had not recovered, the Mongols would have redoubled their efforts to take Europe and you'd be making me tea in a yurt before I rode out on my little pony to look to my yaks wondering around in Loudon County, eh?!
Caucasoid skeletons dating from 7 to 9 thousand BC have been unearthed in several locations throughout the United States.
Some of Chris' ancestors, no doubt.
Spirit Cave Man , is 9,400 years old. He is the oldest mummy ever found in the Americas, Nevada.
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.