The Deep Anthropocene
aeon.co
The Deep Anthropocene
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Re: The Deep Anthropocene
#2This is fascinating. Whenever something like this comes up, I think of people like Terence McKenna or Graham Hancock. People who, admittedly, had some very out there ideas, but maybe not completely unfounded.
Do we really know how advanced ancient societies were, and what trade networks they had? Consider this:
> Advances in the study of plant silica micro-fossils (phytoliths) have helped trace banana cultivation from the Island of New Guinea more than 7,000 years ago – from where it spread through Island Southeast Asia, and eventually across the Indian Ocean to Africa
Did that happen without any societal involvement. Did humans just carry seeds like birds might, or was there an organized effort to spread agriculture like this?
> ... it’s clearer than ever before that most places we think of as ‘pristine’ or ‘untouched’ have long relied on human societies to fill crucial ecological roles."
I hope that we'll continue to learn more.
Re: The Deep Anthropocene
#3This is fascinating. Whenever something like this comes up, I think of people like Terence McKenna or Graham Hancock. People who, admittedly, had some very out there ideas, but maybe not completely unfounded. Do we really know how advanced ancient societies were, and what trade networks they had? Consider this: > Advances in the study of plant silica micro-fossils (phytoliths) have helped trace banana cultivation fro…
Well, edible bananas don't have seeds, you have to excavate and extract, prepare, and then bury (plant) culms to spread them. So yes, it was definitely deliberate, people carried banana culms around with them in order to plant them as they traveled from island to island.
Re: The Deep Anthropocene
#4This is fascinating. Whenever something like this comes up, I think of people like Terence McKenna or Graham Hancock. People who, admittedly, had some very out there ideas, but maybe not completely unfounded. Do we really know how advanced ancient societies were, and what trade networks they had? Consider this: > Advances in the study of plant silica micro-fossils (phytoliths) have helped trace banana cultivation fro…
Well, edible bananas don't have seeds, you have to excavate and extract, prepare, and then bury (plant) culms to spread them. So yes, it was definitely deliberate, people carried banana culms around with them in order to plant them as they traveled from island to island.
Um, that is only modern bananas. "old" bananas are mostly seed.
Re: The Deep Anthropocene
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, edible bananas don't have seeds, you have to excavate and extract, prepare, and then bury (plant) culms to spread them. So yes, it was definitely deliberate, people carried banana culms around with them in order to plant them as they traveled from island to island.
Um, that is only modern bananas. "old" bananas are mostly seed.
Yes, that's why I said "edible" bananas... those "mostly seed" ones aren't really edible, there's nothing to eat. The mutation / hybridization that resulted in seedless edible bananas must have preceded their being spread around by humans or we wouldn't have bothered.
Re: The Deep Anthropocene
#6This is fascinating. Whenever something like this comes up, I think of people like Terence McKenna or Graham Hancock. People who, admittedly, had some very out there ideas, but maybe not completely unfounded. Do we really know how advanced ancient societies were, and what trade networks they had? Consider this: > Advances in the study of plant silica micro-fossils (phytoliths) have helped trace banana cultivation fro…
Well, edible bananas don't have seeds, you have to excavate and extract, prepare, and then bury (plant) culms to spread them. So yes, it was definitely deliberate, people carried banana culms around with them in order to plant them as they traveled from island to island.
Musa acuminata bananas, native to SE-Asia, and probably the sort talked about in this article, do have seeds, though the domesticated variants have significantly less. It seems highly unlikely that these particular bananas had no seeds.
Re: The Deep Anthropocene
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Um, that is only modern bananas. "old" bananas are mostly seed.
Yes, that's why I said "edible" bananas... those "mostly seed" ones aren't really edible, there's nothing to eat. The mutation / hybridization that resulted in seedless edible bananas must have preceded their being spread around by humans or we wouldn't have bothered.
Oh, anyone bothers if they get really hungry. Stone Age people were fairly resourceful when it came to food.
A friend of mine who used to hike in the Pyrenees had incredible stories regarding hunger and eating.
Re: The Deep Anthropocene
#8This is fascinating. Whenever something like this comes up, I think of people like Terence McKenna or Graham Hancock. People who, admittedly, had some very out there ideas, but maybe not completely unfounded. Do we really know how advanced ancient societies were, and what trade networks they had? Consider this: > Advances in the study of plant silica micro-fossils (phytoliths) have helped trace banana cultivation fro…
Fascinating indeed. Climate change goes far beyond CO2 levels.
Another thing that we miss is our history before the last ice age, which still lies in complete mistery.
Re: The Deep Anthropocene
#9[deleted]
Re: The Deep Anthropocene
#10TL;DR: TFA claims climate change don't real. Money quotes:
"Recent popular conceptions of the Anthropocene risk making a similar mistake, drawing a thin bright line at 1950 and describing what comes after as a new, modern form of ecological disaster." (implying that what's happened after 1950 isn't an ecological disaster)
"In the ‘pristine myth’ paradigm ... human societies are recent destroyers, or at the very least disturbers, of a mostly pristine natural world." (implying that human-caused climate change is a "myth")
If you read the article you'll find it's using a lot of double negatives like the ones above, and a lot of innuendo, but it ultimately boils down to denying that humans are causing climate change right now and we need immediate political change to reverse it.