No Anthro-Apologies

This was a 2015 article from my Appalachian Confidential blog:

Scientists Discover New Human Ancestor --- or --- No Anthro-apologies

I was recently alerted to a brand-spanking new story about a couple of skinny spelunkers discovering remains of an entirely unknown human ancestor in a cave in South Africa.
You can read the whole excellent National Geographic article right here:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150910-human-evolution-change/

It is fascinating stuff and heaven knows I love any story that gets a lot of people excited and a lot of other people upset. I just picture an artist somewhere putting the final brush-strokes on his “ascension of man” painting that he has slaved over for a year… hearing the news over the radio … and just kicking his easel over in disgust. Better yet --- a young student proudly placing his Master’s Thesis entitled “The Definitive Origins of Man” in a classy binder … hearing the news over the radio (I guess both of these poor bastards listen to NPR or something) and commences to weep like a little baby. I don’t know if either of these stories ends with a suicide --- but I sure hope so.

        Of all the information provided in the piece the one bit that caught my attention completely is this particular snippet near the end of the article:

“Archaeologist Sonia Harmand of Stony Brook University dropped an even bigger bombshell—the discovery of dozens of crude stone tools near Lake Turkana dating to 3.3 million years ago. If stone tools originated half a million years before the first appearance of our genus, it would be hard to argue anymore that the defining characteristic of Homo was its technological ingenuity.”

            What I am about to attempt here is a modestly abridged complete history of Human technology from the beginning of our tool-making passed (based on fossil and material evidence) until modern time.  In so doing I hope to illustrate how basically comically retarded our species remained until ridiculously recently… (MAYBE until the last 5 thousand years – give or take).  Just watch the infuriatingly plodding slow changes manifest --- even after our hairy lice-ridden ancestors develop into recognizable Modern Human beings.  OR (and I kind of recommend this) you can simply skip all of this listed material nonsense (even though I assume there will be some funny bits in there to tickle your fancy).  Chances are my historically shabby researching skills are going to provide some very inaccurate data in however many pages follow (because who has the time to check every single --- or even one --- fact when there is so much to do --- I mean it’s Football Season for god’s sake!) so you can safely spare yourself some reading and get to my summation (as I am sure I will have myself worked up into a frothing lather of absurdly misplaced anger by then).

The choice is yours.

I won’t judge you either way.

            2.6 Million Years Ago --- The very earliest stone tools appear.  These OLDOWAN tools (named for the region in Tanzania where they were first discovered) are found in Africa and spread into the Asia, The Middle East, and Europe … everywhere that the Australopithecine groups were busily chasing giant hairy rhinos and whatnot. These folks (the Australopithecines) were a bit like us only shorter (Avg height being 4.5’) with longer forearms (a hold-over from the tree-swinging days) and of course they had tiny little ape-like brains.  They walked upright (more or less) but didn’t have pants … which is probably why they were dropping their tools all over the damned ancient landscape (the obvious model for Human development would be:

1. Evolve bipedal locomotion
2. Create pants
3. Create pockets in pants --- but nothing in nature is ever so straight-forward).
   The tools themselves are remarkable (remarkably similar to any other rock you are likely to find just lying on the ground). Some of the earliest tools are just that – found stones that possess the characteristics needed for a particular task. Need a pointy stone? --- Find a pointy stone. Need a stone with a flat sharp surface? --- Find a stone with a flat sharp surface. Eventually, however, one of these chimp-brained long-armed freaks figured out that you could MAKE the tool you needed out of any stone --- instead of wasting valuable grunting, humping, and lice-picking time looking for the perfect one. An industry was born.

1.76 Million years ago --- Somewhat more advanced tools start showing up. These tools show more obvious signs of manufacture and serve more deliberate purpose. Yes indeed – it only took a short MILLION years for these brilliant creatures to develop from pointy rocks and flakes for cutting and scraping --- to Hand-Axes and larger more heavy-duty flakes for cutting and scraping.
500,000 years ago --- we figured out fire. It was a pretty big deal. No more raw wooly rhino for our budding gourmets.

400,000 - 200,000 years ago --- Things were coming to a fever pitch here in the “Middle Stone Age” when someone figured out that you could add handles to your tools. This opened the door to the production of spears and handled axes. The awls, and points were much more refined appearing obviously manufactured for specific purposes. Skilled Craftsmanship is increasingly evident (but let us not start slapping ourselves on the back with our hairy misshapen limbs yet--- it’s still rocks).

40,000 - 8,000 years ago --- Tools of this “Later Stone Age” were becoming ever more specialized and ever more distinctly crafted. Glues and adhesives were used to affix points. Antler, bone, and composites of wood and other materials were being used as handles --- making for more precise axes, spears, darts, and blades. The earliest known bows appear at the end of this period --- although there is some debate as to whether these hunting (or warfare) devices might actually predate the Middle Stone Age.

8,000 years ago --- Humans figure out sun baked bricks, spinning fiber, and the process of knitting. We are finally getting excitingly close to pants!

6,000 Years ago --- the first weaving looms are being used. Pants are now practically inevitable!

4,000 years ago --- Mining and the smelting of ore are a thing. We are getting past our addiction to stupid rocks and making stuff that isn’t necessarily stone-related. Yokes and harnesses are developed that finally allow us to make nature our bitch. Domesticated livestock can do the heavy pulling and carrying (sledges are developed for this very purpose).

3,000 years ago --- This is a particularly exciting time. Farmers figure out the plough – and using animals to pull the thing saves time and energy. We also get the potter’s wheel and the actual wheel. Primitive pinch-pots are right out the window and potters are instead throwing lovely formed clay pots. As for the wheel --- HOLY FUCK! Now you can force those stupid animals to carry even MORE materials further distances. The wheel allows people to travel farther faster --- large scale trade is now a possibility.

…and perhaps

…most importantly

THE FIRST PANTS are created! In Central Asia by horsemen (not CENTAURS … whose pants would be hopelessly complicated anyway… but rather folks who were RIDING horses). No doubt this quantum leap in trousery was the result of years of severe ass-chafing suffered by mounted nomads.

2,500 – 2000 years ago --- The Mediterranean World started to bring us MACHINES (attributed to Archimedes --- ‘ol “Mr. Fancy-Fulcrum”) like pulley systems and levers and screw-presses. …Google “Greek Screw Press” at your own peril … I suggest you usher the children out of the room first. Next came Rotary Power which was used for milling flour (formerly performed in mortar and pestle style) now on a much grander scale Using large round stones turned by harnessed animals, Samson, or Conan the Barbarian (depending on your source material).

2000-1700 years ago --- The Romans come on the scene and make some impressive technological advances including:

1.    The invention of cement (pouring forms …or using in concert with brick allowed for faster and lighter durable construction than that which was available by quarrying and shaping individual stones).
   

2.   Roman roads were highly sophisticated multi-layer affairs and one of the largest-scale feats of engineering (more than 50,000 miles built in every conceivable terrain) ever devised by mankind.   The world would not see the like again until the modern age.
   

3.   The Roman Arch, Vault and Dome replaced traditional post and lintel construction allowing for taller, grander, and more intricate buildings.
   

4.   Bridges and Aqueducts.  Spanning rivers and ravines (and also providing reliable access to water) through the construction of immense projects with stones sometimes weighing in excess of 4 tons each is a marvel of engineering.
   

--- And all of this required sophisticated knowledge of mathematics and creative improvements in the art and science of surveying.

1300 – 815 years ago --- Europe experienced a few hundred years on innovation next with its own contributions of:

1.   Windmills (useful for things other than mere jousting practice for un-medicated psychotic Spanish noblemen).
   

2.   Canals and locks (some designs attributed to Leonardo DaVinci … but mostly built by the Dutch … which is pretty impressive for a people for who were hundreds of years away from figuring out that wood was a nonsense material for making footwear).
   

3.   Tidal powered mills (for coastal areas without access to convenient running water which had been powering mills possibly since the time of the Greeks or Romans).
   

4.    Clockwork.  Admittedly the Chinese developed the rudiments of clockwork more than a hundred years earlier – but the complex gearing was much improved in the clock-towers of Europe.  First powered by water (as in the Chinese model…which was unfortunately destroyed … and probably raped… by a Mongol Horde shortly after it was finished) the later European models used pendulums to power increasingly precise movement.
   

5.   Cloth Mills began the mechanization of textile production --- which would be improved upon in the looming Industrial Revolution (“looming” – ZING! – see what I did there?)
   

600 - 500 years ago --- Let’s see … Johanne Gutenburg took time away from shooting the first “Police Academy” film to invent the printing press … and sort of accidentally launched the religious reformation and brought literacy to the masses (while saving generations of Monks from painful Carpal-Tunnel Syndrome writing all of those books by hand). Also improvement in clockwork mechanization makes possible the introduction of household clocks for the incredibly rich.

300 – 200 years ago --- We see the invention of steam engines, boilers, pistons, and cylinders … comprising great big loud hissing and whistling machines that look like and experiment involving Rube Goldberg, Dr. Seuss, and a handful of psychedelic mushrooms.
Spinning Mills with moving parts inexplicably referred to as mules, flying shuttles, and spinning jennies revolutionized the textile industry and all of the efficiency caused an increase in demand for cotton (in turn providing America a profitable export which was planted, harvested, and processed using a pronouncedly unsavory mode of labor) … which lead to Eli Whitney devising the Cotton Gin (a device that made the processing of cotton fiber much faster than the use of traditional manpower … a situation that lead to a bit of local conflict you might have read about). Luckily for the United States this time period also witnessed the invention of machine tools and cylinders that made mass production of gun barrels and cannons possible --- so in a few years there would be plenty of relatively inexpensive weapons available to settle any unpleasant disputes.

200-100 years ago --- We see much more industrialization. Iron-works (first seen in bridge-building) is providing the ability to build increasingly taller buildings – which is important as mills (textile, paper, and machining) were requiring larger and larger labor forces – and more efficient use of real-estate was necessary to house everyone. City populations were exploding and traditional farming (for the folks who hadn’t “up and moved” to the rat-infested slums) was becoming increasingly mechanized (as machines replaced beast-power as well as man-power). The raw materials for all of this industry caused a boom in mining and refinery of steel (and massive rail-systems were being built to move men, machines, and goods where needed). Glass was being manufactured by machine (as opposed to the old method of blowing it by hand … which sounds all sexy dirty but was actually terribly dangerous and slow craft-work). By the end of this period steam was being replaced with electric power.

The last 100 years --- This era has been basically a parade of miracles. If you were born in 1915 and were still alive today – the world of your childhood and the world of today would be practically unrecognizable. Let’s start with 1900 … nothing happened – boring year … sooooo:
1901 – Marconi invents the Telegraph
1903 – Wright brothers invent the first motorized aircraft
1913 – Henry Ford begins mass production of automobiles (previously they had been hand-carved from a single block of steel using only a chisel and file).
1915 – Our Theoretical 100 year old man is born (because his parents didn’t die of Syphilis which was provided a cure in 1909 … which was handy because his theoretical father was overly fond of theoretical whores).
1920 – First radio Broadcast.
1921 - First Household electrical appliances are available: refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, clothe dryers … all of the stuff you would eventually find on the “Showcase Showdown” on “The Price is Right”.
1923 – First Television Camera
1926 – First Television Broadcast
1935 – First Nylon and Plastics invented
1945 – First Nuclear Bomb exploded in New Mexico desert (a month later --- a couple were dropped in Japan – ending WWII and quite possibly birthing Godzilla)
Also – First electronic computer (although punch-card pornography wasn’t terribly erotic).
1955 – First Television Remote Control
--- Also First Microwave Oven
1957 – First Satellite (Sputnik) launched into outer space
--- Also First Birth Control Pill
1958 – First Jet Airliner
1961 – Russia’s Cosmonaut is the first person to orbit the Earth (we aren’t great at Space yet)

THE LAST 50 YEARS

1965 – Gemini Missions carry U.S. Astronauts into Outer Space (look what we are doing)
1969 – U.S. Astronauts walk on the moon (yeah --- we figured out Space, bitches)
--- Also the ARPANET is invented (precursor to our modern Internet)
1970 – Digital Music (hopefully no one figures out how to make this stuff free and available on that thing they just invented last year)
1971 – First Commercial computer micro-processors
1973 – First Cell Phone
1978 - GPS
1979 – Sony Walkman (portable music)
*Nothing happened in the 1980’s except for “Come on Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners … The first really cool arcade games and home gaming consoles … and the expansion of Cable TV.
1990 – Launch of the World Wide Web
1996 – First Cloned Sheep
1998 – First MP3 Player

--- At this point it’s just ridiculous. Home computing, Cellular communication, internet expansion, entertainment options, pre-packaged food that doesn’t resemble something made in a Play-Do Fun Factory or taste like a Hobo’s Taint, digital media, hand held computing devices, electric cars, Natural Gas extraction, Podcasting, and Keurig Coffee makers --- most of these things are improved, updated, and made obsolete every 6 months to a year. There is a lot of stuff going on – is what I’m trying to say here.

*If you have just skipped straight to this section --- good for you. That whole list contained an awful lot of numbers – and dates – and I for one do not trust dates (especially after seeing the poisoned date kill that adorable monkey in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” when I was sweet and impressionable child) not to mention the fact that my legendarily sloppy research methods insure that the dates for practically everything pre-described is off by decades in a best case scenario. …But these likely alarmingly imprecise dates don’t take away from my central thesis which is:

For most of human history – we have been complete and utter dummies. It took our ancestors A MILLION FUCKING YEARS to improve from shitty stone tools to somewhat less shitty stone tools. AND if the data from the National Geographic article is correct --- IT WAS CLOSER TO TWO MILLION YEARS. What is that? 80 Thousand Generations (I would check my math on that one… I am the Australopithecine of arithmetic) of lumbering hairy dimwits incapable of making a single noticeable improvement on the very tools they depended on for survival? Then we spent an additional HALF A MILLION YEARS making significantly better things --- but still out of rocks. It is ridiculous!

Admittedly things started picking up 8,000 years ago --- But we were still 5,000 years away from pants. Bear in mind that we have been Modern Human beings (meaning that these ancestors looked like us and had the same brain capacity) for at least the last 100 Thousand years. We had Fire for 5 times that long … and didn’t figure out smelting until 4 Thousand years ago. These are not the actions of an incredibly intelligent species! Look what we did in the 20th Century --- we went from couple of bumpkins building an airplane out of twigs and canvas to a Jet Airliner in fifty years. If we had been following the traditional model – today we should only have a wood and canvas craft that can fly eight feet further. Instead we were sending men into outer space less than 60 years later.
We routinely make improvements in our technology in a decade where (until fairly recently) it used to take hundreds years. The point is – we aren’t any smarter than our pantsless ancestors of a hundred thousand years ago – they were just as capable of performing the mental calculations as the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, or Chinese (without the benefit of our modern computers) but their advances took thousands of years to manifest. I guess what I’m trying to say is that until just a few thousand years ago --- Humans were just about completely useless. They were dumb. They were primitive screw-ups despite possessing these great big impressive brains.
I’m not saying that all of our recent advances have been amazing (of course it didn’t take two hundred generations to get from VHS to DVD) but what I will stand by without reservation is that it shouldn’t have taken 97 Thousand years to figure out the wheel! All you had to do was drop a spherical object on a slight incline (a roundish rock – a piece of fruit … a coconut … a portly child falling down a hill) and notice that it rolled. It was a ridiculously obvious observation … and still, until Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain--- NOT A SINGLE WHEEL EXISTED IN NORTH OR SOUTH AMERICA.

Alright. That is probably enough. Everyone gets the point – I’m just repeating myself now. Sorry. …I get overly excited by things. I’ll try to work on that before we meet again when I’m babbling about some other damned topic.