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Lion-man

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Re: Lion-man

#81
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had a lot to do during winter, though, cause it was a society with subsistence economy.

Subsistence economy as a hunter gatherer is much easier than as a farmer.

I don't think so. I know, somebody recently re-popularized Sahlins theory claiming that HG essentially spent most of their lives happily dancing and singing around fires, but the popularity, I believe, is due to tapping into the lost paradise trope, not because it's well-established.

For instance, I heard Reich said in a podcast that genes linked to obesity, and diabetes, which in our times are, of course, seen as detrimental, were norm among Eurasian WHG population. And this suggests they weren't detrimental to them. Now, what would make quick fat in-body production beneficial? I guess, when your calories intake is uncertain and irregular. There are other researches on the same Kalahari Bushmen, Sahlins used to made the theory of HG affluence, which e.g. emphasize how food scarcity affects customs of food sharing. Similar observations made about "uncontacted" Amazonian tribes, where food theoretically is abundant, but the amount of time, and effort one needs to extract them with pre-metal era tools is still too high to go to rest without at least a slight feeling of hunger.

Reality is that Sahlins probably made observations in an unusually good year, and then romanticized them too much. And that's the only data point on which the theory rests to the best of my knowledge, with many points contradicting it.

One may argue that hunting with its short feedback loop, and camaraderie of a tight group relying on each other's help are healthier psychologically compared to office politics and closing boring tasks, or even farming work - not without merit. But uncertainty of survival, calorie deficit, and amount of both mental, and physical effort HG-ing required is definitely underappreciated among followers of "Original affluent society" theory. HG didn't have easy lifestyle with long creative rests. It's just something we'd love to believe, because of how cool it sounds.

Re: Lion-man

#82

A bit of a meta comment: I love when wikipedia articles are posted to HN, I always click on them as I know they will be interesting. On one of the recent wikipedia article posts (Glacier Mice I believe) someone commented that there should be a bluesky bot that collects and posts these so I (well Claude..) made one! https://bsky.app/profile/hnwiki.bsky.social Check it out! This article is the first post, and if there…

this is my favorite Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

It puts everything in perspective, although not sure if the best one, can be overwhelming and ie many religious people tune out since there are no clear answers they were conditioned from childhood to expect, its hard to find god in endless universe with protons decayed for example.

Its easy to feel that everything is meaningless on long/large enough scale, even if we decide to annihilate Earth, or whole Solar system, or entire Milky way somehow. Universe will continue its dance from sub-quarks to largest filaments of galaxies unaffected and end state is as inevitable as the fact that tomorrow will happen.

Re: Lion-man

#83

Between 35,000 and 41,000 years old. Germany.

TIL that Humans have been around for more than 40,000 years! I thought we started around 1000s of BC.

Oh no, sir, you are definitely right and these infidels and their heretical ways will soon learn the wrath of the one true God.

Which is Zeus.

Re: Lion-man

#84
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How certain are we really that not the materials but the resulting figurine is authentic? From Wikipedia on the Lion-man (English): > It was not until archaeologist Joachim Hahn started an inventory and assembly of more than 200 fragments that a figurine with animal and human features began to emerge.[5] We have seen countless examples before, from the Brontosaur skull mixup mess to the heavy-handed "restoration" of…

Exactly, the reconstruction is subjective and can lead to damage. It is better to make copies of the parts and reconstruct those

you convinced me with this concise argument

so the fragment-recombining future looks like robot archaeology: fragment collection done by careful robots documenting and keeping statistics on each grain of sand or potential fragment, those datasets will constantly be repuzzled with gradient descent and better and better loss functions, and humans go to the museum or dataset download page of reconstructed artifacts, or at least watch the funniest ones among an unlikely large cloud in likelihood space...

Re: Lion-man

#85
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 30-40k timelines are right that's way before agriculture and any kind of "economy". It's firmly hunter-gatherers and there's not much of that to do when it's after sunset.

"Economy" by merits of its definition is an applicable term for hunter-gathering societies. And is used widely in this quality, in fact. Nobody says they couldn't find a time to do carving (existence of the artifact shows they could). The issue in question is comparative value of the time spent on it. Hunting, gathering and concomitant works were certainly both physically and mentally very demanding activities, and t…

Pastimes are in fact incredibly valuable. And it's possible the motivations that led to the creation of this artifact wasn't just all about the end product.

Re: Lion-man

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that our hunter-gatherer ancestors were running around 16 hours a day with no downtime is a fantasy to begin with. They had more leisure time than early farmers and many Americans[1] [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0614-6

Just as animals in the wild - especially other apex predators - spend a lot of time sleeping/lounging. A famous example - the lion.

Not a great example. All felines sleep a lot, it's part of their physiology. It has no bearing on pre-historic humans.

Re: Lion-man

#87
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is my favorite Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

A dramatic rendition of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4izuDMUQA

Thank you for the recommendation! Once started, I just couldn't stop watching it.

Re: Lion-man

#88

For those interested in very early human history, this 2010 documentary by Werner Herzog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Forgotten_Dreams It was filmed in 3D as was the hype at the time, but the 2D version is completely watchable and is the most commonly distributed format.

Hey, thanks for this recommendation! Just watched it and enjoyed it. Very interesting and unexpectedly spiritual. (This must be the one and only Herzog film I've managned to watch to the end.)

Re: Lion-man

#89

A bit of a meta comment: I love when wikipedia articles are posted to HN, I always click on them as I know they will be interesting. On one of the recent wikipedia article posts (Glacier Mice I believe) someone commented that there should be a bluesky bot that collects and posts these so I (well Claude..) made one! https://bsky.app/profile/hnwiki.bsky.social Check it out! This article is the first post, and if there…

Related: https://www.orangecrumbs.com (nice weekly summary of top wikipedia posts on HN)

Re: Lion-man

#90

In Hindu religion, lion man is called Lord Narasimha, the 4th avatar of Lord Vishnu. He is often worshiped in Ahobilam, Andhra Pradesh, India. This avatar is after Wild Bohr (Varaha) which wandered the forests before it took the avatar of Lion man and settled in caves.3rd and 4th avatars' common link was both were mammals.Second was Tortoise (Reptile) and first was Fish (Aquatic vertebrates)

Bhai, Sanatana Dharma is ancient, but surely this statue is far older. This statue is around 35,000 years old. Hinduism is fairly young by contrast and is only around 4000 years old.

Nah, that is Hinduism as seen through the Western lens.

"Sanatana" in Sanatana Dharma means Eternal. The 4 cyclic yugas are well documented in every Sanskrit literature. We are currently in year 5127 of Kali Yug i.e. it started in 3102 BC with the departure of Bhagavan Krishna from earth after Kurukshetra war, which marked the end of previous yuga (Dwapara).

Kali Yug lasts 432,000 years. After which the next cycle begins.

Eventually after Brahma's lifetime is over, Pralaya occurs. Then the universe goes quiet for a long time, until Lord creates again. And this cycle of creation and destruction goes on forever.

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