"One hundred ritually sacrificed guinea pigs dressed up in jewellery have been discovered at an Inca archaeological site in Peru. The rodents were found to have been adorned with earrings and necklaces, and some of them wrapped up in tiny rugs—the first time such a find has been made." Source: Archaeology News Network.
"Mummified mice are among the artefacts discovered in a decorated tomb recently unearthed near the Egyptian town of Sohag." Source: BBC.
"The mice and other animals surrounded two mummified human bodies and the burial chamber contains detailed paintings of funeral processions and people working in the fields.
"Experts say the tomb is more than 2,000 years old and is thought to be the resting place of a senior official called Tutu [1] and his wife. It was discovered in October when smugglers were caught illegally digging for artefacts."
Bison kill site near Elk City, Oklahoma. Video from 2011.
"Between 200 B.C. and A.D. 500 American Indian hunters killed hundreds of bison in a canyon near present Elk City, Oklahoma. During the 1990s the site became a focus of a major research project by the Oklahoma Archeological Survey at the University of Oklahoma. The people who made the kills were part of the Late Archaic (circa 2500 B.C. to A.D.1) groups that survived through hunting and gathering and did not practice horticulture. The site is in a large canyon, one of the deepest of many in the area. The canyon has a number of side branches, some of which are flushed nearly clean of fill. Others are still largely filled with sediments and are visually undetectable on the surface. These deposit remnants contain bone beds and other evidence of bison kills and butchering." Source: Oklahoma Historical Society.
Hudson-Meng bison kill site in Nebraska.(2017)
"Bill Hudson and Albert Meng were local [Nebraska] ranchers who are credited with discovering the bonebed in 1954 while digging for a pond. Originally excavated by Dr. Larry Agenbroad in the 1970s, the dig was over 400 square meters and was considered the largest Alberta Culture [1]bison kill site ever discovered. The bison found are not the same species as the bison that currently live in the United States (Bison bison), but are an animal transitional in evolution between the extinct Bison antiquus and the modern species." (Wikipedia)
[1] I might be wrong about this, but I think "Alberta Culture" refers to an Archaic Period paleo-indian culture which was located in the general area of Alberta, Canada and the northern Great Plains in the US.
Note: "For approximately 6,000 years, between about 8,000 and 2,000 years ago, the Archaic period in the Great Plains was a time of human adjustment to changing ecological conditions. Paleo-Indian bison hunting decreased markedly after about 9,000 years ago, due to a steady deterioration of ecological conditions. Subsequently there were several late Paleo- Indian groups ... which were beginning to shift toward the use of small animal and plant resources. By about 8,000 years ago, both bison and human populations in the Great Plains had decreased significantly. Some groups may have moved into the foothills and mountains to the west and others into the prairies on the east. The Plains was not abandoned during the Archaic period, but ecological conditions made it a much less desirable place." (Encyclopedia of the Great Plains)
"In a landscape known for its history of prodigious bison hunting, researchers have uncovered traces of a unique aspect of native hunting tradition — a camp dedicated to making the dried meat-and-fat product known as pemmican." Source: Western Digs (2017)
"The camp is just part of a large bison-hunting site in north-central Montana called Kutoyis, which includes more than 3,500 stone features dating from to the 14th to 17th centuries, a heyday for bison hunting among the ancestors of the modern Blackfoot peoples."
Comment: Pemmican was invented by the Metis tribe in Canada, according to various sources I've seen (I'm not sure how that was determined). The Metis trace their descent to the First Nations peoples, so it's possible that the paleo-indians learned how to make pemmican when they first encountered the bison in the New World. This is all pure speculation, though.
"The dog was the first domesticated vertebrate, and was established across Eurasia before the end of the Late Pleistocene era, well before cultivation and before the domestication of other animals. The archaeological and genetic data suggest that long-term bidirectional gene flow between wild and domestic stocks – including donkeys, horses, New and Old World camelids, goats, sheeps, and pigs – was common." Source: Wikipedia.
"...The domestication of plants began at least 12,000 years ago with cereals in the Middle East, and the bottle gourd in Asia. Agriculture developed in at least 11 different centres around the world, domesticating different crops and animals."
Animal and plant domestication -- two of the key features of the Neolithic revolution -- made the development of settled communities possible:
"Before the Neolithic revolution, it's likely you would have lived with your extended family as a nomad, never staying anywhere for more than a few months, always living in temporary shelters, always searching for food and never owning anything you couldn’t easily pack in a pocket or a sack. The change to the Neolithic way of life was huge and led to many of the pleasures (lots of food, friends and a comfortable home) that we still enjoy today." Source: The Khan Academy.
Some people -- the anarcho-primitivists, in particular -- believe that the Neolithic Revolution, aka the Agricultural Revolution, was a disaster because it led to the rise of civilization, warfare, property ownership, social hierarchy, overpopulation and the organized domination or domestication of the masses and the natural world:
"Anarcho-primitivists, such as John Zerzan, define domestication as 'the will to dominate animals and plants', claiming that domestication is 'civilization's defining basis.'" (Wikipedia)
I don't want to get off on a long tangent about the anarcho-primitivists since I've already written about them elsewhere, but even if you think they're right it should be obvious that it doesn't matter. Plant and animal domestication, and the Neolithic Revolution that followed, had a huge impact on human history and there's no turning back now.
The Neolithic Revolution was such a major change that it even effected our DNA:
"The agricultural revolution was one of the most profound events in human history, leading to the rise of modern civilization. Now, in the first study of its kind, an international team of scientists has found that after agriculture arrived in Europe 8,500 years ago, people’s DNA underwent widespread changes, altering their height, digestion, immune system and skin color." Source: New York Times (2015).
Animal domestication started thousands of years ago, perhaps when wild wolves began to hang around encampments of Stone Age hunter-gatherers, eating the leftovers from their kills. That scenario is mostly speculative, but it makes sense. One way or another, the association between humans and wolves was beneficial to both species:
"Wolves, and their dog descendants, likely derived significant benefits from living in human camps – more safety, more reliable food, lesser caloric needs, and more chance to breed. They would have benefited from humans' upright gait that gives them larger range over which to see potential predators and prey, as well as better color vision that, at least by day, gives humans better visual discrimination. Camp dogs would also have benefited from human tool use, as in bringing down larger prey and controlling fire for a range of purposes." (Wikipedia)
"Humans would also have derived enormous benefit from the dogs associated with their camps. For instance, dogs would have improved sanitation by cleaning up food scraps. Dogs may have provided warmth, as referred to in the Australian Aboriginal expression 'three dog night' (an exceptionally cold night), and they would have alerted the camp to the presence of predators or strangers, using their acute hearing to provide an early warning."
The domestication of the wolf was one of the critical factors in the long process that led to the birth of civilization and everything, good and bad, that has happened since. The result, on balance, has been hugely beneficial. This can be seen in the population growth that occurred following the Neolithic Revolution.
Personally, I'm glad the revolution happened. I'm no fan of the decaying modern civilizations we live in now, but given a choice between civilization and returning to the Stone Age, I'll take civilization. It's easy to romanticize prehistoric hunter-gatherers and the pristine wilderness they lived in, but I've reached the age where I'd rather buy my food in a grocery store than have to hunt a woolly mammoth with a spear to keep from starving. When the snow starts falling and a polar vortex moves in, I'll take electricity, central heating and a warm bed over a campfire in a cave anytime.
Video from 2014. Lecture on fox domestication starts at 20:39.
"In the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, between the third and second millennium BC, a widespread funeral practice consisted in burying humans with animals. Scientists have discovered that both foxes and dogs were domesticated, as their diet was similar to that of their owners. " Source: Science Daily.
"European hunter-gatherers acquired domesticated pigs from nearby farmers as early as 4600 BC ... The international team of scientists showed there was interaction between the hunter-gatherer and farming communities and a 'sharing' of animals and knowledge. The interaction between the two groups eventually led to the hunter-gatherers incorporating farming and breeding of livestock into their culture, say the scientists." Source: Science Daily.
Notes: "Farmers may have domesticated pigs 9000 years ago," according to Science (2015). Researchers speculate that the farmers "corralled a few wild boars and—by separating them from their fellows and breeding them for favorable traits like tameness, size, and meatiness—they developed the domesticated oinkers that we see all over the world today."
Something like that must've happened, but the history is complicated. "For one, archaeological evidence now indicates that pigs were domesticated at least twice, once in China’s Mekong valley and once in Anatolia, the region in modern-day Turkey between the Black, Mediterranean, and Aegean seas. For another, a 2007 study of genetic material from 323 modern and 221 ancient pigs from western Eurasia suggests that pigs first came to Europe from the Near East, but that Europeans subsequently domesticated local wild boar, which seemed to replace those original pigs."
Comment: Domesticating wild pigs must've been hazardous. Some of these beasts are dangerous. And wild boars and feral hogs are nothing compared to the piglike Archaeotherium, a real monster that wreaked havoc in North America "during the Eocene and Oligocene epochs (38—24.8 mya)," according to Wikipedia.
"In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, two human skeletons were discovered during basalt quarrying at Oberkassel, Bonn in Germany. With them were found a right mandible of a 'wolf' and other animal bones. After the end of the First World War, in 1919 a full study was made of these remains. The mandible was recorded as 'Canis lupus, the wolf' and some of the other animal bones were assigned to it. The remains were then stored and forgotten for fifty years. In the late 1970s there was renewed interest in the Oberkassel remains and the mandible was re-examined and reclassified as belonging to a domesticated dog. The mitochondrial DNA sequence of the mandible was matched to Canis lupus familiaris - dog, and confirms that the Oberkassel dog is a direct ancestor of today's dogs. The bodies were dated to 14,223 YBP. This implies that in Western Europe there were morphologically and genetically 'modern' dogs in existence around 14,500 years ago." Source: Wikipedia.
"Later studies assigned more of the other animal bones to the dog until most of a skeleton could be assembled. The humans were a man aged 40 years and a woman aged 25 years. All three skeletal remains were found covered with large 20 cm thick basalt blocks and were sprayed with red hematite powder. The consensus is that a dog was buried along with two humans. A tooth belonging to a smaller and older dog was also identified but it had not been sprayed with red powder. The cause of the death of the two humans is not known. A pathology study of the dog remains suggests that it had died young after suffering from canine distemper between ages 19 and 23 weeks. The dog could not have survived during this period without intensive human care. During this period the dog was of no utilitarian use to humans, and suggests the existence of emotional or symbolic ties between these humans and this dog. In conclusion, near the end of the Late Pleistocene at least some humans regarded dogs not just materialistically, but had developed emotional and caring bonds for their dogs."
This excerpt from a 2016 National Geographic program shows that prehistoric dog burials were common around the world.
"Coinciding with the Pit Grave culture (4200-3600 years before our era), coming from Southern Europe, the Neolithic communities of the north-eastern Iberian Peninsula started a ceremonial activity related to the sacrifice and burial of dogs. The high amount of cases that are recorded in Catalonia suggests it was a general practice and it proves the tight relationship between humans and these animals, which, apart from being buried next to them, were fed a similar diet to humans'. " Source: Science Daily.
"About 25,000 years ago, ice age hunters in what is now Poland threw a light spear known as a javelin at a mammoth. Now, the discovery of that javelin, still embedded in the mammoth's rib, has revealed a major surprise: the first evidence that ice age people in Europe used weapons to hunt the giant beasts." Source: Live Science.
Note: The video shows how to make a spear using a bone spearhead. The javelin that killed the mammoth had a flint point "which likely broke when a hunter drove the spear into the mammoth's body." The mammoth probably wasn't killed by this one wound, however, and researchers think it was brought down by several hunters working together.
Domestication & The Neolithic Revolution
"The dog was the first domesticated vertebrate, and was established across Eurasia before the end of the Late Pleistocene era, well before cultivation and before the domestication of other animals. The archaeological and genetic data suggest that long-term bidirectional gene flow between wild and domestic stocks – including donkeys, horses, New and Old World camelids, goats, sheeps, and pigs – was common." Source: Wikipedia.
"...The domestication of plants began at least 12,000 years ago with cereals in the Middle East, and the bottle gourd in Asia. Agriculture developed in at least 11 different centres around the world, domesticating different crops and animals."
Animal and plant domestication -- two of the key features of the Neolithic revolution -- made the development of settled communities possible:
"Before the Neolithic revolution, it's likely you would have lived with your extended family as a nomad, never staying anywhere for more than a few months, always living in temporary shelters, always searching for food and never owning anything you couldn’t easily pack in a pocket or a sack. The change to the Neolithic way of life was huge and led to many of the pleasures (lots of food, friends and a comfortable home) that we still enjoy today." Source: The Khan Academy.
Some people -- the anarcho-primitivists, in particular -- believe that the Neolithic Revolution, aka the Agricultural Revolution, was a disaster because it led to the rise of civilization, warfare, property ownership, social hierarchy, overpopulation and the organized domination or domestication of the masses and the natural world:
"Anarcho-primitivists, such as John Zerzan, define domestication as 'the will to dominate animals and plants', claiming that domestication is 'civilization's defining basis.'" (Wikipedia)
I don't want to get off on a long tangent about the anarcho-primitivists since I've already written about them elsewhere, but even if you think they're right it should be obvious that it doesn't matter. Plant and animal domestication, and the Neolithic Revolution that followed, had a huge impact on human history and there's no turning back now.
The Neolithic Revolution was such a major change that it even effected our DNA:
"The agricultural revolution was one of the most profound events in human history, leading to the rise of modern civilization. Now, in the first study of its kind, an international team of scientists has found that after agriculture arrived in Europe 8,500 years ago, people’s DNA underwent widespread changes, altering their height, digestion, immune system and skin color." Source: New York Times (2015).
Animal domestication started thousands of years ago, perhaps when wild wolves began to hang around encampments of Stone Age hunter-gatherers, eating the leftovers from their kills. That scenario is mostly speculative, but it makes sense. One way or another, the association between humans and wolves was beneficial to both species:
"Wolves, and their dog descendants, likely derived significant benefits from living in human camps – more safety, more reliable food, lesser caloric needs, and more chance to breed. They would have benefited from humans' upright gait that gives them larger range over which to see potential predators and prey, as well as better color vision that, at least by day, gives humans better visual discrimination. Camp dogs would also have benefited from human tool use, as in bringing down larger prey and controlling fire for a range of purposes." (Wikipedia)
"Humans would also have derived enormous benefit from the dogs associated with their camps. For instance, dogs would have improved sanitation by cleaning up food scraps. Dogs may have provided warmth, as referred to in the Australian Aboriginal expression 'three dog night' (an exceptionally cold night), and they would have alerted the camp to the presence of predators or strangers, using their acute hearing to provide an early warning."
The domestication of the wolf was one of the critical factors in the long process that led to the birth of civilization and everything, good and bad, that has happened since. The result, on balance, has been hugely beneficial. This can be seen in the population growth that occurred following the Neolithic Revolution.
Personally, I'm glad the revolution happened. I'm no fan of the decaying modern civilizations we live in now, but given a choice between civilization and returning to the Stone Age, I'll take civilization. It's easy to romanticize prehistoric hunter-gatherers and the pristine wilderness they lived in, but I've reached the age where I'd rather buy my food in a grocery store than have to hunt a woolly mammoth with a spear to keep from starving. When the snow starts falling and a polar vortex moves in, I'll take electricity, central heating and a warm bed over a campfire in a cave anytime.
Posted at 06:59 AM in Commentary, Culture, Mammals, Prehistory, Videos | Permalink