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Thank you for explaining it. Whose theory is that? Is there a name for it? A prominent author? I also wonder how that claim is made to fit the evidence: It see

Thank you for explaining it. Whose theory is that? Is there a name for it? A prominent author? I also wonder how that claim is made to fit the evidence: It seems very hard to claim that our lives and abilities haven't improved generally and significantly over the 7 million years since we divorced the chimpanzee taxa, though certainly there have been many years and millenia where we went backward for a short time (short relative to 7 million years - of course it's not always linear improvement, but that's a strawperson). Also, is the theory part of the modern political attempt to reject the Enlightenment and anything associated with it? (Edit: I'm not trying to discuss that movement, just understand the context of these claims.) > parallel, diverse evolution, sometimes with independent discovery of the same thing Does anyone say otherwise? It seems unavoidable that, without modern global communication, many/all discoveries would be too isolated to be known globally. > retrograde motion Temporarily? Again, who says otherwise?

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
Most recently, Graeber and Wengrow would likely the poster children of this approach to long history. When I was a child (say, 50+ years ago), we were taught that agriculture was discovered once, in the Levant. This is no longer accepted: it was discovered at least three times (Levant, China, Meso-America), and it would not be surprising if future archeologists find more. The traditional, still widely accepted view of human long history is that we went from hunter-gathers in small tribes to agriculture to larger communities to heirarchies of control to modernity. There are now (c.f. Graeber & Wengrow) some dissenting voices about this.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > Most recently, Graeber and Wengrow would likely the poster children of this approach to long history. Thanks. I'll look them up. > When I was a child (say, 50+ years ago), we were taught that ... It's unfair, especially after you volunteered to inform me, to make you the spokesperson. However, to go on a tangent I am always a bit skeptical about my and others' memories of childhood education: First, it was long ago, and details and nuance tend to fade. Also, there's the question of not what was taught, but what was understood at that age. I may have understood a very simplified story, and lacking intellectual tools, one biased by pre-existing drives and beliefs. Think of the last time you tried to communicate something, especially with any detail or depth or nuance, to a 9 year old. Could you teach one about long history, in a way they'd understand and retain the details we're discussing? Just think of all the general contextual knowledge they'd need. Years ago I did come across a childhood textbook (late elementary school, I'd guess) , and it was pretty good. I don't mean it represents all textbooks, but that it was good from my adult perspective - no surprise because it was written by adults, evaluated by adults, taught by adults, and no doubt they thought it was pretty good. But what I understood as a child is an very different matter.
  - jghn 3y ago
    Well, I was taught the same thing 40ish years ago, if that helps. In retrospect when I was in grade school I was being taught things that were about 10-30 years behind the times in terms of state of the art knowledge in their field. Which makes sense. I wouldn't expect an elementary school teacher to be up to date with the most recent knowledge coming out of academia on these topics. As another example I remember being scoffed at by my teacher in 2nd grade by pointing out how it looked like the continents could fit together. Plate tectonics was known by that point but hadn't become ubiquitous knowledge. I don't remember when I was formally taught the concept of Pangea but it was later on.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      > I was taught the same thing 40ish years ago Normally this question would be obnoxious, but hopefully it makes sense in the context (and in the context of HN): Looking at the issues raised in my GP post (to which you replied), why do you believe that? My hypothesis is, I don't know and I doubt most other people know.
      - jghn 3y ago
        > why do you believe that? Why do I believe what exactly? That this is what I was taught? The point I was raising was now there's an n=2. chiming in. I've learned to trust my childhood memories down to about age 6. I've been proven right close to 100% of the time I've had people challenging those memories. And I remember being taught the whole Fertile Crescent story. I could even tell you the teachers' names that taught it to me over the years, and have distinct memories of their classrooms. That it makes sense that grade school teachers can be behind the times? If that's what you mean it's because almost everyone is behind the times. And I don't expect a grade school teacher to be an expert in their "field". We're talking about an age range where teachers can even be somewhat fungible between subjects. Further, anecdotal evidence from my life (including both as a child and as an adult) corroborates this. The story revolving around the Levant *was* the generally accepted truth at the time among the larger population. It makes sense that this is what was being taught to grade schoolers.
- lIl-IIIl 3y ago
  The thing I don't understand is why in 300K+ of human existence agriculture was independently discovered only in the last 20K years? I think it's one of those things that are possible but not provable - agriculture might have exist 100K years ago. Same thing for writing - it was independently discovered "recently" - could it have been discovered many times in the last 300K years that we don't know about?
  - throwup238 3y ago
    The most recent glacial period started 120,000 years ago and ended about 12,000 years ago. During the glacial period, much of the earth would have been covered with ice and the agriculturally habitable band around the equator was much smaller. Nomadic hunter gatherers, on the other hand, would be able to move around and follow the fauna that had adapted and survived. This is roughly around the time that humans started wearing clothing (based on body lice molecular clock studies) so hunter gatherers would be able to occupy much larger areas with a much larger diversity of food sources than any agricultural society tied to its productive land. IIRC one of our genetic bottlenecks is from this time period so humanity barely survived as it is and the glaciers would have destroyed most evidence of human habitation, especially when it's in an open field ala agriculture. The stuff that survives was generally buried in a cave of some sort and protected from the elements so even if they had discovered agriculture, evidence of that fact would not have survived. During the glacial period the sea level was also much lower than it is now, so all the settlements are now far underwater, if they existed at all.
    - a_gnostic 3y ago
      During the ice ages, the sea level is lower, making more equatorial regions habitable. The sea level dropped about 200 feet (60 m) at the highest glaciation in the past 100K years.
    - aksss 3y ago
      > underwater See Doggerland, for example.
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
082349872349872 3y ago
> Temporarily? The post starting this thread seems very confused about how long a few thousand years might be when compared to the several hundred thousand year history of just H. sapiens.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

Most recently, Graeber and Wengrow would likely the poster children of this approach to long history. When I was a child (say, 50+ years ago), we were taught that agriculture was discovered once, in the Levant. This is no longer accepted: it was discovered at least three times (Levant, China, Meso-America), and it would not be surprising if future archeologists find more. The traditional, still widely accepted view of human long history is that we went from hunter-gathers in small tribes to agriculture to larger communities to heirarchies of control to modernity. There are now (c.f. Graeber & Wengrow) some dissenting voices about this.

wolverine876 3y ago
> Most recently, Graeber and Wengrow would likely the poster children of this approach to long history. Thanks. I'll look them up. > When I was a child (say, 50+ years ago), we were taught that ... It's unfair, especially after you volunteered to inform me, to make you the spokesperson. However, to go on a tangent I am always a bit skeptical about my and others' memories of childhood education: First, it was long ago, and details and nuance tend to fade. Also, there's the question of not what was taught, but what was understood at that age. I may have understood a very simplified story, and lacking intellectual tools, one biased by pre-existing drives and beliefs. Think of the last time you tried to communicate something, especially with any detail or depth or nuance, to a 9 year old. Could you teach one about long history, in a way they'd understand and retain the details we're discussing? Just think of all the general contextual knowledge they'd need. Years ago I did come across a childhood textbook (late elementary school, I'd guess) , and it was pretty good. I don't mean it represents all textbooks, but that it was good from my adult perspective - no surprise because it was written by adults, evaluated by adults, taught by adults, and no doubt they thought it was pretty good. But what I understood as a child is an very different matter.
- jghn 3y ago
  Well, I was taught the same thing 40ish years ago, if that helps. In retrospect when I was in grade school I was being taught things that were about 10-30 years behind the times in terms of state of the art knowledge in their field. Which makes sense. I wouldn't expect an elementary school teacher to be up to date with the most recent knowledge coming out of academia on these topics. As another example I remember being scoffed at by my teacher in 2nd grade by pointing out how it looked like the continents could fit together. Plate tectonics was known by that point but hadn't become ubiquitous knowledge. I don't remember when I was formally taught the concept of Pangea but it was later on.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    > I was taught the same thing 40ish years ago Normally this question would be obnoxious, but hopefully it makes sense in the context (and in the context of HN): Looking at the issues raised in my GP post (to which you replied), why do you believe that? My hypothesis is, I don't know and I doubt most other people know.
    - jghn 3y ago
      > why do you believe that? Why do I believe what exactly? That this is what I was taught? The point I was raising was now there's an n=2. chiming in. I've learned to trust my childhood memories down to about age 6. I've been proven right close to 100% of the time I've had people challenging those memories. And I remember being taught the whole Fertile Crescent story. I could even tell you the teachers' names that taught it to me over the years, and have distinct memories of their classrooms. That it makes sense that grade school teachers can be behind the times? If that's what you mean it's because almost everyone is behind the times. And I don't expect a grade school teacher to be an expert in their "field". We're talking about an age range where teachers can even be somewhat fungible between subjects. Further, anecdotal evidence from my life (including both as a child and as an adult) corroborates this. The story revolving around the Levant *was* the generally accepted truth at the time among the larger population. It makes sense that this is what was being taught to grade schoolers.
lIl-IIIl 3y ago
The thing I don't understand is why in 300K+ of human existence agriculture was independently discovered only in the last 20K years? I think it's one of those things that are possible but not provable - agriculture might have exist 100K years ago. Same thing for writing - it was independently discovered "recently" - could it have been discovered many times in the last 300K years that we don't know about?
- throwup238 3y ago
  The most recent glacial period started 120,000 years ago and ended about 12,000 years ago. During the glacial period, much of the earth would have been covered with ice and the agriculturally habitable band around the equator was much smaller. Nomadic hunter gatherers, on the other hand, would be able to move around and follow the fauna that had adapted and survived. This is roughly around the time that humans started wearing clothing (based on body lice molecular clock studies) so hunter gatherers would be able to occupy much larger areas with a much larger diversity of food sources than any agricultural society tied to its productive land. IIRC one of our genetic bottlenecks is from this time period so humanity barely survived as it is and the glaciers would have destroyed most evidence of human habitation, especially when it's in an open field ala agriculture. The stuff that survives was generally buried in a cave of some sort and protected from the elements so even if they had discovered agriculture, evidence of that fact would not have survived. During the glacial period the sea level was also much lower than it is now, so all the settlements are now far underwater, if they existed at all.
  - a_gnostic 3y ago
    During the ice ages, the sea level is lower, making more equatorial regions habitable. The sea level dropped about 200 feet (60 m) at the highest glaciation in the past 100K years.
  - aksss 3y ago
    > underwater See Doggerland, for example.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago

082349872349872 3y ago

> Temporarily? The post starting this thread seems very confused about how long a few thousand years might be when compared to the several hundred thousand year history of just H. sapiens.