CPTBILs mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

[Oroblanco]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Don Jose de la Mancha wrote

A side thingie. It was deduced that the early Scandinavian settlements in North America failed because faulty diets decreased the pelvic dimensions of the Women causing horrible birth problems in trying to pass the heads of the newly being born, eventually killing so many with the complications that the settlements were abandoned.

Could there be a similar problem with Cro Mag heads?

Hmm this is the second time you have referred to Cro Magnon man, where it appears that you might have meant to say Neanderthals? As I understand it, Cro Magnon or Cromagnon man is basically the same as us, that is it is our direct ancestors, with little anatomical differences between them and us. Here is an extract

The term Cro-Magnon (pronounced /kroʊˈmæɡnən/, French [kʀomaɲɔ̃]) refers to one of the main types of anatomically modern humans of the European Upper Paleolithic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cro-Magnon

Now I am not trying to be picky with you amigo, just want to understand which you are referring to - is it a case of using the term Cro Magnon when you meant Neanderthals, or do you hold that Cro-Magnons have also gone extinct? As you can tell, I am tired and easily confused tonight!

The head size-birth problem theory (connected to diet) is one I am not familiar with. The mystery of what happened to the Greenland and Vinland colonies though is very interesting to me, I would appreciate it if you could elaborate on this a bit? Thank you in advance,
Oroblanco

 

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[cactusjumper]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Don Jose,

Assuming there was something lacking in the diets of those first Scandinavians which caused a decrease in pelvic dimension's, why did any race survive? I would imagine everyone ate pretty much the same thing in that environment and in that era.

Take care,

Joe

 

[cactusjumper]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Roy,

The Vikings arrived in Greenland from Iceland around 980 A.D. At that time, the country was uninhabited. They were, "primarily farmers and traders". By 1,000 A.D. There were around 5,000 Vikings living in small farming communities.

Around 1200 A.D. The Inuit people migrated into Greenland. One of the suspected reasons for the demise of the Vikings, was the fact that they killed the first native people they saw. Relations were antagonistic from that point forward. This is considered, by many, to be primary cause for the Vikings disappearance.

Other reasons include: [Loss of support from “home” or trade partners, Environmental Degradation, Climate change and faulty social values.] All of these factors contributed to the failure of the settlements.

As for a change in diet......that is a fact. In addition to the problems listed above, "Diamond asserts that the Greenland Norse developed some sort of taboo against eating fish, suicidal in hindsight." There are other factors which point to a change in diet, including thinner soils and shorter growing seasons of Greenland. "Many Viking bones indicate that near the demise of the population, the Greenlanders were severely malnourished amidst abundant un-utilized food sources."

The above information comes from a number of sources including Jared Diamond's book, "Collapse".

Take care,

Joe

 

[Oroblanco]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

HOLA amigos,

Cactusjumper wrote

As for a change in diet......that is a fact. In addition to the problems listed above, "Diamond asserts that the Greenland Norse developed some sort of taboo against eating fish, suicidal in hindsight." There are other factors which point to a change in diet, including thinner soils and shorter growing seasons of Greenland. "Many Viking bones indicate that near the demise of the population, the Greenlanders were severely malnourished amidst abundant un-utilized food sources."

I did know about the climate change and resulting diet problems, but - how does this cause pelvic problems / birthing trouble due to head size? Is there evidence that the women born in Greenland did not develop properly, or that there were many miscarriages? The last <newest> remains found in Greenland did show dietary problems, but in this we may be getting a "skewed" look at the problem since most or all appear to have been the elderly, sick and/or very young - as if the mature healthier adults vanished. There is a record of Skraelling <Eskimo> attacks on the east coast colonies, so the hostile relations were definitely a problem too. I know there was yet another factor which some have proposed as an explanation for the sudden disappearance, that Christianity had only recently arrived in Greenland (and Vinland) and that a part of the Norse living there refused to convert, choosing instead to remain in the old faith and sought new lands elsewhere.

Sorry for digressing off-topic, this particular mystery (like the disappearance of the Roanoke colony) fhas fascinated me for some time. It may even explain why Norse artifacts and inscriptions are found so far from the "known" areas where it is believed they had either colonies or at least visited. The west Greenland colonies especially seem to have just suddenly been de-populated, and if the last survivors had been killed by enemies their remains would not have been buried so ought to have been found; likewise if the last survivors had died from malnutrition - who or whom buried them? No remains were found (as far as I was able to determine) un-buried, so someone had taken the trouble to do that. Of course there are even more fantastic theories too such as UFO mass abduction, which cannot be disproven since we have so little evidence to work with. Perhaps one answer may lie in the fact that no Viking boats were found?

Thank you for the interesting reply amigo!
Roy ~ Oroblanco

 

[cactusjumper]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Roy,

It is a medical fact that women who suffer from chronic malnutrition have an increased risk of obstructed labor because of the size of the baby's head in proportion to the reduced size of their birth canal. There are, of course, other problems that accompany malnutrition in pregnant women, such as higher risk of infection.....etc.

Here are a few links to confuse the issue of Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon even more:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070115215252.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061103083616.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060824222042.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070423185434.htm

Take care,

Joe

 

[Oroblanco]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Greetings Joe (and HOLA amigos),
Thank you for the links amigo, this is definitely NOT a cut-n-dry subject!

Well that does make sense (birth problems due to malnutrition of the mother) yet if this could lead to a total collapse of a colony, then wouldn't it also logically have led to huge population collapses in places like Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ethiopia, even India and China (in the past) have had periods of severe famines but we have not seen anything quite like the Greenland cases. Probably I should address the Greenland colonies as two cases, for the western colonies vanished before the eastern. It puzzles me why the eastern colonies didn't make some effort to stay in contact/communication with the western colonies - rather they appear not to even have noticed that no one came from the west anymore.
Roy ~ Oroblanco

 

[cactusjumper]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Roy,

"Well that does make sense (birth problems due to malnutrition of the mother) yet if this could lead to a total collapse of a colony, then wouldn't it also logically have led to huge population collapses in places like Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ethiopia, even India and China (in the past) have had periods of severe famines but we have not seen anything quite like the Greenland cases."

I would guess that the overall population had something to do with the survival of the countries you mentioned. The Vikings lived on small subsistence farms and were relatively small in numbers. Whittle the numbers down from millions to thousands, and each of those peoples could have vanished.

The Vikings had lost contact with the old country, and had antagonized/killed the Inuit ......their only possible source for help. I don't find it at all surprising that they died out. The fact that they, for some reason, decided to stop eating the most plentiful food source only hastened their demise.

Take care,

Joe

 

[cactusjumper]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

Roy,

It's hard to believe that after this many years of searching the cave on Flores Island, no other skulls have been found. That makes me wonder if LB1 wasn't just a sick and deformed member of a clan who abandoned her in the cave. I can see where tribe members might have continued to bring her food and water, but may not have wanted her in camp. Pretty much how many modern folks take care of elderly family members.

Where are the other (complete) skulls? This species did not live over vast areas, but were concentrated on a small island. More specifically, it is believed this cave was a long term abode. There is a Pygmy tribe that lives close to this cave......today. Was LB1 from that line?

Take care,

Joe

 

[Oroblanco]

Re: CPTBIL's mention of Aztec pictographs in SE Arizona

HOLA mi amigo Joe (and everyone),

Cactusjumper wrote

It's hard to believe that after this many years of searching the cave on Flores Island, no other skulls have been found. <snip> Where are the other (complete) skulls?

It may seem as if they have had plenty of time to have fully searched the cave in questiono on Flores, but as I understand it, in fact they have had relatively very little access to the cave and it is CLOSED to everyone today. Human remains are difficult to find even in places where they ought to be found by the thousands (as in the necropolis of ancient Alexandria in Egypt) apparently humans do not persist well in the environment as corpses, especially in wet climates. I will place a bet, a dollar to a donut, that other "Hobbit" remains will be found, on other islands in the vicinity within a few years. The search team did find another site some 40 kilometers away which has turned up a good number of artifacts,
<BBC article online>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4339740.stm

the odd thing is the AGE of the new site which is up to 850,000 years old, or at least 700,000 years older than the original find. The new site (Mata menge) has stone tools which are small and well crafted, just like those of Liang Bua, so it looks promising. Here is an extract

""If we've got hominids on Flores, we've almost certainly got them on Timor, because there are reports of Stegodon fossils associated with stone tools there," he explained.
"Timor, probably Sulawesi, maybe Sumbawa - we don't know. If hominids got to any of these other islands they would have evolved into unique endemic species.

"So we've got the prospect of having other new species of human on various parts of island South-East Asia. Some of them could be really weird, having adapted to specific island environments."
It is still not known how hominids travelled by sea between these islands. Building watercraft may have been a skill too far for them. "
end extract
I think it is modern bias to presume that building watercraft would be too difficult for them. If ants, with brains the size of a grain of sand, can make rafts out of leaf cuttings and thus make river crossings, surely a humanoid with a brain far larger and much more tool making ability, could notice that wood floats.

The fact that there are modern pygmies living nearby does not necessarily show any ancestral lineage to the Hobbits, for all modern pygmies have fully modern brains with modern wrist and ankle structures, which Homo Floresiensis did not. There are more physical differences than just stature involved, which point to Floresiensis being a separate species and probably a descendant of a very ancient type of man. (Habilis) In fact it is perfectly logical to find modern pygmies living in the same environment that supported ancient pygmies, as the local habitat obviously favors pygmy type humans. It may even cause them, perhaps some deficiency in the minerals obtainable from local foods and waters (zinc comes to mind and has a definite effect on stature, though I don't know if that would lead to a genetic change).

This brings up a major puzzle (for me) for some anthropologists are saying that the Hobbits arrived on Flores already small, which is supported by a LACK of evidence of larger sized humans as their ancestors, (this could change tomorrow) and I have to wonder how these pint-sized humans managed to cross open seas? This is not to say that pygmies could not build rafts, but it seems to me, the tasks involved would be much more difficult for small people. We are talking about people three feet tall here, weighing less than 100 pounds - the idea of people this size hauling huge logs to build a raft.....!!!!!

If you can allow me a few days, I may be able to enlarge on this problem of the scarcity of Hobbit skulls. Been getting pretty busy around here lately and our new pups, like all Huskies, need no housebreaking (they seem to have this knowledge from birth) they are also still not able to "hold it" all night - needing to be let out every few hours to take care of business; this has resulted in our getting less sleep the last couple of weeks but it is worth it. Let me get back to you on this one.
Roy ~ Oroblanco