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Tristan Rapp

@Afrosmilus

18 Oct

Polynesia and America - a thread.

(1) Of all the daring deeds in the history of Man, few can rival the great voyages of the Polynesians. From their origins in the west, they spread north, south, and east, ever east. Yet what of the furthest east? Were the Americas a sea too far?

(2) The origin of the Polynesians is a mystery that has long perplexed anthropologists. From vagrant Indo-Aryans to castaway Amerindians, it is the latter idea, through the exploits of Thor Heyerdahl, that has captivated the world. Genetics, however, are less kind than the public

(3) Today, we know beyond doubt that the Polynesians came, not from the Americas, but from Asia - almost certainly what is now Taiwan, and before that, the south Chinese coast.
Yet just because the Polynesians did not come *from* America, does not mean they did not go *to* it.

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Tristan Rapp

@Afrosmilus

6 Oct

As a rule, it seems reasonable to contend that any practice which has been historically prevalent among non-agriculturalist groups, and which does not rely upon demonstrably recent technologies, is just as likely to have occurred 50,000 years ago as 500 years ago.

(2) To this category can be counted armour made of materials such as wood or animal hides. The practice of strapping protective material to yourself is hardly rocket-science, and is known to have occurred in hunter-gatherer societies such as the Haida.

(3) Hygenic/aesthetic practices such as complex facial- and body-paint as well as hair-braiding and cropping do not require advanced technology, and are documented from Palaeolithic art as well as modern hunter-gatherers.

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Tristan Rapp

@Afrosmilus

4 Oct

Since night is falling and, by the looks of it, the digital world with it, come along and I'll share some of Tolkien's lesser known verses of Tom Bombadil

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Tristan Rapp

@Afrosmilus

4 Oct

Cases such as the hyenas in the Lion King and the shark of Jaws are always tough, because while one does not want to be some over-censorious spoil-sport, these portrayals *have* had demonstrable conservation consequences. It is a tough balance, yet the problem is legitimate.

The consistently poor reputation of the hyena is a genuine and persistent obstacle for their protection, of which there is a very real need in places africasustainableconservation.com/2020/05/05/tim…

The author of the novel upon which Jaws was based, Peter Benchley, had such severe guilt about the effects of his novel that he dedicated the rest of his life to marine conservation.

(For the record, there are likely less than 4000 individual Great White Sharks in the world)

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Tristan Rapp

@Afrosmilus

22 Sep

Ppl often assume that stone-age cultures must have maintained very simple social organisation, living only in small, nomadic family-tribes. This idea is based in part on actual archaeology, and in part on comparison with modern hunter-gatherers, who largely share this lifestyle.

(2) The logic here seems straight-forward enough - social complexity is a function of resource availability & economic complexity. Hunter-gatherers can only gather small amounts of food, and so can only support small populations. Furthermore, they have to keep moving restock game

(3) The main issue with this conception is that it is wrong.

Most modern-day hunter-gatherers inhabit extremely marginal land - their inability to form and feed complex social structures is just as much a consequence of the land they inhabit as it is of their lifestyle.

Read 9 tweets

Tristan Rapp

@Afrosmilus

19 Sep

The Advent of Japan - a thread

(1) The Japanese archipelago today is one of old, entrenced cultures, political unity & relative ethnic uniformity. Yet the Yamato - the proper name of those often called simply the "Japanese ppl" - are not the only, nor the first on the islands

(2) Crucial to understanding any further discussion of Japan's past is the fact that the Yamato, much like the Celts and Teutons of the British isles, arrived in Japan as migrants & invaders - roughly at the same time the first Celts crossed into Britain, in fact.

(3) To begin our exploration of Japan's creation, we have to go back - far, far back, to the cold and desolate world of the Pleistocene, perhaps 40,000 years ago, when the Japanese archipelago was still connected to the mainland, and the first humans reached the area.

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