Original Sin and the Clovis People

Originally posted by Suzianne
Yes, well, the Native Americans never did manage to wipe out the thousands upon thousands of bison that used to roam the plains of North America in the over 10,000 years they lived there. And they were probably the biggest megafauna around. It wasn't until the white man came with their 'boomsticks' and their 'iron horse' that the bison finally became endangered.

I think the Aborigines managed to wipe out their mega fauna without "boomsticks".

Originally posted by Suzianne
Yes, well, the Native Americans never did manage to wipe out the thousands upon thousands of bison that used to roam the plains of North America in the over 10,000 years they lived there. And they were probably the biggest megafauna around. It wasn't until the white man came with their 'boomsticks' and their 'iron horse' that the bison finally became endangered.

From Wikipedia:

During the last 50,000 years, including the end of the last glacial period, approximately 33 genera of large mammals have become extinct in North America. Of these, 15 genera extinctions can be reliably attributed to a brief interval of 11,500 to 10,000 radiocarbon years before present, shortly following the arrival of the Clovis people in North America.

The ancestors of the Native Americans (the Clovis people) did indeed cause the extinction of quite a few species of megafauna larger than the bison before settling into the pattern which the Europeans found them in.

Originally posted by Zamboner
*Waiting for a Sweetest Taboo joke*

You're a pretty subtle guy.

Originally posted by e4chris
What i meant was not aware, but too aware, like HAL, they realised whatever rules were governing there surroundings they didn't have to follow them anymore. if that makes sense.

Fine.

On your subject of whether Original Sin has scientific merit, I think a widely shared mythical story has staying power if it addresses an important aspect of human reality in a spiritually satisfying way. So My question would be, what human reality does the O.S. myth address, and what is satisfying about (or what is being satisfied) by that myth?

Edit: I am reading "A NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON ORIGINAL SIN".

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~grjan/origsin.htm

Excerpt:

"The doctrine of original sin, as formulated by Augustine 1600 years ago was a perceptive understanding that man has an innate will to do , in his words, evil. A reasonable current perspective on this is the knowledge that the oldest regions of the brain, especially the limbic system including the hypothalamus, control and in fact promote those aspects of self preservation that lead to territoriality, aggression, violence, fighting and lust. These basic drives are very strong. Fortunately, in mankind, they are restrained by inhibitory influences coming from the neocortex that act on the limbic system. These inhibitory influences derive from conscious thoughts that are in turn derived from moral and ethical teachings, the development of law, and civilization."

Originally posted by avalanchethecat
They were pretty far from the biggest of the megafauna. It is curious how they managed to dodge the bullet though.

Okay, name one species bigger than the bison that was endemic to North America.

During the time of man, of course. And that was somehow driven to extinction by man.

Originally posted by rwingett
From Wikipedia:

[quote]During the last 50,000 years, including the end of the last glacial period, approximately 33 genera of large mammals have become extinct in North America. [b]Of these, 15 genera extinctions can be reliably attributed to a brief interval of 11,500 to 10,000 radiocarbon years before present, shortly following the arrival of the Clovi ...[text shortened]... na larger than the bison before settling into the pattern which the Europeans found them in.[/b]

Well, you claim that Wikipedia claims that there were 33, not species, but genera, of large mammal extinctions in North America, 15 of which were attributed to the Clovis.

Let's have a list.

Originally posted by rwingett
[quote]During the last 50,000 years, including the end of the last glacial period, approximately 33 genera of large mammals have become extinct in North America. [b]Of these, 15 genera extinctions can be reliably attributed to a brief interval of 11,500 to 10,000 radiocarbon years before present, shortly following the arrival of the Clovis people in North A ...[text shortened]... na larger than the bison before settling into the pattern which the Europeans found them in.[/b]

The Clovis people, huh?

Weren't they from Europe?

I thought most native americans in the Americas had descent from Asiatic peoples. You know, access from the Bering land bridge.


Edit: Ok, geeeez, forget I said this. I have no clue what I was thinking. I had them mixed up with a theory I heard recently about early europeans coming over on ice masses from Europe.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Okay, name one species bigger than the bison that was endemic to North America.

During the time of man, of course. And that was somehow driven to extinction by man.

The American Mastodon.

i dunno but they hunted a lot of mammoths, i'm not expert in them... thing is i'm sure scientists must agree a shift in human evolution, when we started to rely more on tools then any evolved advantage, we slowed down evolving and speeded up learning. and very quickly, in evolutionary terms changed the planet, wiping out any animal that was vaguely interesting / large

to be honest, i don't think christians are that interested in this story, compared to others in the bible, you have creationists but they are on the whole more mad then christian. But its an important one for the 20th century, we sort of crashed out of eden then.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Well, you claim that Wikipedia claims that there were 33, not species, but genera, of large mammal extinctions in North America, 15 of which were attributed to the Clovis.

Let's have a list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction_event#North_America

You see a lot of large herbivores on that list. Many were either directly exterminated by the Clovis people, or vulnerable, stressed populations were helped on their way toward extinction by them. You also see several species of carnivore, like the saber-toothed cat, that were driven toward extinction when their prey was made scarce by the Clovis people.

You don't need guns to drive whole species into extinction, and Pleistocene populations have much blood on their hands in that regard. They certainly weren't all as wise caretakers of the land as we'd like to believe. At least they weren't after they acquired improved weapon making skills which allowed them to transition from scavenger/gatherers into hunter/gatherers. Sometime around 70,000 years ago is when mankind was figuratively evicted from Eden.

Originally posted by avalanchethecat
Not to take issue with your theory directly, but Clovis points are only found in the Americas. Likely antecedants are found in northeast Asia, but unless you're buying into the (probably unsound and at the very least highly controversial) Solutrean Hypothesis, that's your lot I'm afraid. I reckon they probably did do for the American megafauna though ...[text shortened]... ggested that they may have simply been to stupid and well-fed to realise they were in danger!

hadn't heard of the Solutrean Hypothesis to be honest!

I would say yes something is wrong with man 🙂 All kidding aside why do we have evil? Recorded history shows that evil has been around since the beginning of recorded history and we can't eradicate it



Manny

Originally posted by menace71
I would say yes something is wrong with man 🙂 All kidding aside why do we have evil? Recorded history shows that evil has been around since the beginning of recorded history and we can't eradicate it



Manny

Recorded history is only a small portion of human existence.

Originally posted by avalanchethecat
They were pretty far from the biggest of the megafauna. It is curious how they managed to dodge the bullet though.

I think I read it was because they had more advanced digestive systems than other big animals idk