Sunday, March 20, 2011

Friday, March 11, 2011

Our Aferican Ancestors

There are many to speculate about the future but here I choose to speculate about that part of the past between the time our ancestors came out of the African jungle and just after they emerged to populate the earth. Some call the 50 thousand years conservative but we do have some archeological information and the earliest Greek evidence of their polis, the forerunners of our city-state development of about the seventh century BC. I suggest that along with developing the spoken word what may be called tribal groups developed all over the African Continent. Perhaps the gatherings were similar to those we see there today where they have over 150 languages and a second language many tribes are familiar with. That second language would be that of the people of the European countries that visited the continent to civilize the people and help them by carving the area up and putting names on each country and to pay for the natural resources they removed like slavery. In the early days and undoubtedly prior to it the trait of fear was part of survival and of course hunger, pain, sex impulses and the ability to run that I have mentioned in previous blogs. When those early ancestors ran animals to exhaustion some of then did not run that far. Like the horse it would run and, experiencing no danger would stop until the hunter could dispatch it. However some hunters might throw a vine improvised noose around the horses neck and lead it back to the tribal area. If human food was plentiful the animal could be saved until needed. during that time perhaps some horses were tame enough to be ridden, a forerunner of the race track industry. Perhaps bovines could have been led home with nursing calves. After the calves were butchered for veil cutlets it was noticed the cow had milk to spare and thus started the dairy industry. Some of the tribes may have used dogs to bring in birds for the hunter to bring home for food and some of the birds were not killed because there were enough dead ones and the live birds might have laid eggs that were valuable and so started the chicken soup and the poultry industries. The retrievers with soft mouths would be desired to fetch uninjured birds and thus began the retrievers used by the hunting industry today. Remember we are talking about a long period of time during which those ancestors survived only if they had the ability to find the food for survival in disastrous times. Also not having any concept about science they grew to wonder about facts of nature that had no reason. Lightening, floods earthquakes and diseases that could have destroyed huge numbers in spite of the health industry of those days. So the survivors had to have remarkable immune systems and they had to have reasons for so much mystery. That was the beginning of the religious industry. There became answers to every question most of which were wrong but satisfying to many and that industry is still with us today. Then our ancestors came out of Africa with their 50 thousand years of knowledge to populate the whole earth. Many scientists believe that in the next few years scientists will make living cells that can replicate themselves and we then may say the wheel has made a full turn. It seems we have the knowledge for the survival of our species but the will to utilizing it is a frightening question.