Big foot in Ice turns out to be Ape suit

baroniveagh · Number of posts: 66 Age: 30 Location: Somewhere Registration date: 2008-09-18

I'm not entirely sure Robert's findings are wrong. Our knowledge of early travel is very limited, and fixes on the idea that early travel was almost entirely by land. Most models of the out of Africa diaspora frankly hinge on it. Personally I think that it's not impossible that coastal areas were more quickly populated then is currently accepted, particularly since the West Wind Drift current crosses the Indian Ocean and terminates in Australia. It doesn't take a lot of people to start a colony, just like it doesn't take a forest to wash up on shore to create a mangrove swamp.

One thing I've always found irritating is the persistence of the Victorian idea that we're somehow superior to people who lived in more primitive cultures. Only lately does it seem to occur to us that our ancestors were quite possibly just as clever as we are, even if they didn't have the technology and science we have today.

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Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optima

Mauro · Number of posts: 217 Age: 33 Registration date: 2007-10-12

That's just an example of a perfectly legitimate technology which gets bashed or ignored when its results do not fit the preconcieved ideas of the fellows running the show. As I said his methods were spotless and even peer review confirmed his findings on some sites from Arnhem Land and Kimberley. In short, he employed perfectly sound methods which gave results which have been "shocking".
Since we've already staryed very far afield I'll add one final note before being incinerated by Ian. At the moment we know very little about human evolution and even migrations up to 2000 years ago. Genetics have probably caused more problems than they sorted and the problems get worse as our knowledge grows and, ironically, our analytical capabilities improve.
For example I have a biologist friend who did research into the Guanches, the aboriginal inhabitants of the Canaries who were wiped out by the invading Castillans in the XV and XVI centuries. According to "up to date" research they were purebred Cro-Magnons coming from the Atlas Mountains and surviving in isolation until modern times. But Cro-Magnons are not normally believed to have developed seafaring habilities. The Canaries were connected to Africa through a land bridge during the Miocene (24 to 5 million years ago), when man still didn't exist (unless you believe some early hominids to be "men" in the modern sense). So you now understand the magnitude of the problem.

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Fas: Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum.

baroniveagh · Number of posts: 66 Age: 30 Location: Somewhere Registration date: 2008-09-18

As the old saying goes, the more you know, the more you realize you don't really know anything.

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Summum Nec Metuam Diem Nec Optima

agricola · Number of posts: 97 Age: 30 Location: Edinburgh Registration date: 2008-02-26

baroniveagh wrote:

Our knowledge of early travel is very limited, and fixes on the idea that early travel was almost entirely by land.

I recommend you read Barry Cunliffe's heavy tome, Iron Age Communities in Britain: An Account of England, Scotland and Wales from the Seventh Century B.C.Until the Roman Conquest which presents a lot of the evidence for early trading communities. Although Cunliffe later focuses on the Iron Age, he explores earlier periods, and also sets out a good argument applicable to even earlier migrations. In Facing the Ocean he goes even further in explaining theories on migration and trade, which, as he frequently states, has not really changed over time, we just do it a bit faster these days.