Let's Look At How The Human Societies Have Turned Out and Why.

 

This is an ambitious blog:

After years of human history we want to know what is clear and what is foggy about the history of human societies. We want to know how well various societies have performed throughout history and with what effects.

What are the facts we can be sure of and can verify?   

We often do not get a clear view of what human activity on this planet has been about and what we have learned of it has been obscured often by historians, by archeologists, by elites, and educators, in my view.

This will be an attempt to put the knowledge we have gained about all this into some perspective, often of what we have learned, forgotten, and had to learn again and then forgot again.

We want to know what is the best knowledge and information we have about ourselves, facts and figures and the clear patterns which have emerged.

That done we should be in some position to know the major drivers in human action, thinking and development.

Be warned: much of it is shocking, at least it was to me.

First some background:

1. From hunter-gatherer to city dweller: this was the first seminal event in human history. How that transistion happened and, more importantly, how has city-building worked out in human history is one focus we will pursue.

Were cities the only choices open to people?

Was it really a good idea to move from the plains and country-side into crowded cities?

More and more authors are concluding: probably not. Cities, it turned out, brought out the worst in human nature, not the best, and the best that did develop, is and was, consistently based on the backs of slaves, women, and the creation of consistent underclasses overlords, castes, warfare, and the subjugation of others.

Harsh, but clearly true as we shall see below.

The bible actually, in my view, many warnings about the dangers of the city and it's affect on human beings. See what you think.

The Bible and its history and importance:

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=47902&authorid=121255

Hint: Some argue that every city in history has utimately failed mostly for the same or similar reasons and with them civilizations and empires as well.

 Let's get started with some background videos on these topics.

Videos below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rKuwTKEXNwY

Out of Egypt Part One

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=18xDrToXyso

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dEKA-i9XLVA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=H7bjXpDStYU

The Citification Process

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rKuwTKEXNwY

The connection between power and trade in cities

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=WM7YCp3mvdg

War and Civilization

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fwp0vBaVgNo

Out of Egypt: Part Two
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=nPgDxjVNbwI

Out of Egypt Part Three

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=AwBnl-F9DxA

Out part of Egypt Part Four

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VZ-F0I5XvIU

"Blood Simple"

Blood Simple: The Human Preoccupation With Blood

The impact of constant violence upon the human psyche: a modern example:

Unconscious America
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=60169&authorid=121255

See defintions of psychopaths:

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=59847&authorid=121255

Were ancient Greece, Sparta and other societies based upon slavery and were they examples of ancient psychopathic societies.? They all, apparently, had societies based upon slavery and incredible acts of cruelty-even democratic Greece? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Uq1T-y0SIno


An interim conclusion from the above is straight forward. Most of us in the modern world are likely descendant from slaves, and, that perhaps, has been imprinted in our genes and has been passed down the generations. (More on that later.)

In fact, modern slavery in its various forms, enslaves as many today as have been enslaved in history.

Astounding.

Slavery-based societies are still with us today.

But let us go to detail on specific societies and look at them more closely.

The Psychopathic Dream of Killing Everyone Who Resists

The Chinese Example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Yb1CcvqJ0gc

The Japanese

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rmE6HR6Pk-E

 The Mongols

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fb21UW3fmkU

The Ottoman Empire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=MpPGxJT9qQI

The Greeks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0lQb0xgxpD0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=nNonYbb4dnA

The Romans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6Sv0QDTRO2A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=F4zkXhNCOJU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gGr52OF4S58

The Celts Fighting The Romans Under Bordica

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Ega3dbE6b08

The Life of the average Roman: Was life in city better than being an independent farmer?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=v_oHnSO0aXc

The Spanish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJfa7aExlPw

The Germans-Women

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KcUbMRI7U5U

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yXL4WL9y9qg

The English

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=CCbJA0HVQNQ

 The United States-Capitalism and Slavery--How they are intertwined.

Gerald Horne on Capitalism and Slavery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6A2TvKgXMTY

http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/102621

http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/103221

The Aegean Civilizations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9W43kcQovdU

The Lombards: Western history might well have turned very differently because a wife was forced to drink from the skull of her dad murdered by her current husband? True?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xuWHaxpzKvE

Alexander the Great. The most ruthless ruler of them all?
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0lQb0xgxpD0

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dEKA-i9XLVA

 
Ancient Egypt:  Matriarchy and Patriarchy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&list=RDKuUMe-43A3E&v=HOL0RnxpPlQ

The point above is that martriarchial societies were very common in pre-antiquity and pre-historical societies and that changed for some still unclear reasons.

Native America before the Europeans-What was it like?

100 million living in Europe, 100 million living in North America in 1492. What happened?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7FItlStGMY4

 Now we are ready to make some interim observations and preliminary conclusions.

1. The move to the cities benefited mostly elites, priests, divine kings, warlords, and economic elites whose so called great empires and civilizations were built on the backs of slaves, murder, mayhem, the weak, many different exploited populations, domestic and foreign. Yet we are given in text books to admire these elites as great, as heroes, as exemplars. Why? Why not tell the story of those civilizations that did not do that?

It is clear that once cities were formed they soon became stratified, took slaves, waged war, plundered, murdered their neighbors, cannabalized them, ate them, raped women and glorified in sadistic practices beyond belief to the modern mind.

I was shocked.

In fact, cities gave rise to the nation state which, by defintion, is "the institution which has a monopoly upon the means of violence." Is this human progress or merely repeating long extent, essentially destructive patterns in human history?

To the diserning eye, it will also be clear that in modern war, these exact same practices occur from Iraq, to Afganistan, is practiced by most countries today, illustrating patterns in human history which have remained unchanged down the millennia.

Were cities the only alternative routes to progress for the human race? What were and are the alternatives? Is it true that cities, worsened the condtion of most people and benefit mostly the rich, the powerful and the few?

What can be done about it at this late date? What are the alternatives to the culture of the cities?

What is current wisdom? Look at what the 15 most famous books on business and success say, each boiled down to one sentence.

http://brandongaille.com/53-vital-principles-from-the-top-business-books/

What is wrong with the list above? We take a look in time.

But first:

Have there been alternatives to the city proposed or utilized in human societies? What have they been?

They have included, the village model, the city state, clans, the cottage industry model, the tribal model (the latter lasted 30 thousand years) and several others; all are there in history and we want to know how they compared and faired vis-a-vis the city model; then and now. There is a lot to look at.

But first the Lombards.

The Lombards are covered above but just in case:

Western history, the Fall of Rome, turned on the fact that a wife was forced to drink from the skull of her murdered father by her husband who committed the murder. True?

See video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xuWHaxpzKvE
 

 5/12/14

Now we look at several follow-on questions:

If not cities, then what other configurations for human living have been tried and which have worked?

1. The City State:-face-to-face relationships actually have been tried in various forms: fiefdoms, dutchies, warlord organizations, band, tribal groups, gangs,clans, and even large nomadic groups have had their moments in history. Few of them have been able to resist plunder, murder, slavery, rape, sacrificial spectacles, wine, and gold and other forms of wealth.

But given this sorry history, the question remains which one of these worked best historically in terms of murder, mayhem and preventing damage to the planet?

The answer to that one, if you look at the evidence above, yields the following observations:

1. The societies which have worked best, given the above criteria, indeed, have been small, given to raids not wholescale war. The American Plains Indians occupied the Americas for maybe 40 thousand years and did not destroy the continent, themselves or others on a mass scale.

Their groups remained small.

People came to the new world perhaps 40 thousand years ago and lived in peace until the the Bering Straits opened up. (Yes folks were here thousands of years before the Bering Straits opened up)

The mound buiding American Indians of North America lived with a mixture of self-reliant agriculture and hunting are the best example I have seen of sustainable living along with certain Stone Age peoples. ( I know many will smile at the latter, but read on)

But, note,in fact we, in modern times, are trying to reinvent these modalities by rediscovering home gardens, vegitarianism, (the Egyptians survived for four thousand years not eating meat it seems. Meat causes all kinds of problems which I will note later.)

2. We can also note that societies work best which do not take slaves. Slaves, in the end revolt.  What they don't tell you in the history books is that from Rome to the Mongols, slave revolts and civil wars always occur against over-weening power, always. And, this is a prime reason that not only civilizations fall, but empires as well.

As we can see empires collapse from being over-extended, pushing slavery to the limit and the slaves revolt, taxing the poor beyond common sense but most empires were pushed to do so in order to sustain their empires as they grew larger and larger.

Other reasons include the factors and logistics of water, food, or stunted shrinking or over population growth, climate change occuring, or because empires often become overwhelmed or collapse from the inside.  Note; almost all of the time it is the rural, the poor and slaves who overwhelm the elites of these societies, or internal coups and civil wars.

(For a modern US example of the overextended empire: see

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/13/the-federal-reserve-and-an-unsustainable-empire/)

The impulse to freedom is universal in history. Yet our history book gives us the impression that all that has occured in history is brutal empire-building and so-called great leaders.

They have made history into gossip about elites.

3. Further note most societies in history have had to have access to water to exist, especially large cities. Cities made huge demands on resources and existed only because the problems of supplying water and food to soliders, citizens, slaves and elites was somewhat solved. When, through climate change, or the water and food dried up, or when armies put cities to seige, these cities usually surrendered when the water and food ran out and most, even if they surrendered, were slaughtered anyway by cruel, brutal armies.

Examples of clemency in our history are extremely rare.

So next time lets go to detail on what is sustainable in human societies and what might work in our modern times.

5/12/14
Meantime take a look at yet another group. See what you think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=p6I6L8b6mQs

The Stone Age Peoples Have Been Misrepresented

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=drCzWw14qOA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yKyzHoqtJfE

 5/12/14

Ancient Mesopotamia: Modern Day Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afganistan. What were they like?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=on3cdN3iZqc

 5/12/14

Psychopaths and Civilizations: New 726 page book on the subject.

"In broad scope we witness the history-making leaders in the ancient civilized world, and see the reiteration of psychopathic leadership and personal destinies during the building of contemporary cultures. The individuals, often referred to as Machiavellians, are no less ignoble than the street psychopaths, although they are more intelligent, persuasive, and visionary. From Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar to Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte and Mal Tse-Tung, to Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara, we observe the illuminating and often blinding Machiavellian narcissism  that works its magic in the creation of innovative governments, as well as in the murder and destructions of generations."

 From:

http://darksideofthebrain.com/?page_id=1552

 5/14/15

The Stone Age and the 98 percent gene factor.

 Now from the above we note several important points:

1. The Stone Age people have been given a bad rap. They sustained themselves for upwards of forty thousand years on this planet under challenging conditions, indeed thrived on the planet, and have given us much of what "citified" generations benefited from and for which they took credit. While traveling following game, Stone Age people were not isolated, gathered together regularly, traded and gossiped.

They seldom built cities as we know them, rather living in bands of 25-30 people who came together periodidcally, and, were essentially just like us and took care of the earth.


Take a look at these videos for background

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&
v=uaw7goqLQ5E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=roYg_kQkkAw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=drCzWw14qOA

Mound Builders in the United States 900ad. and before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=itCWu-m-23E

For contrast here a few counter-examples in England

The use of sounds by elites in the Stone Age to control the population and their overthrow.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=NuOXF81GMvY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=FVb9Q4KBOLc

The 98 Percent Gene Factor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4vOwUtywxI8

Now can we go back to small and tribal  life styles in modern times?

Of course not.

But we have learned from their use in history and imitate several triibal life styles and attitudes not knowing it. Everything from communes, to suburbia, to monastaries, to colonies, political parties--these forms have come down to us across the millennia and are still with us in an essentially updated fashion.

Point of fact is this was the common form of living in this country a mere 200 years ago. The small town or village is the most common form of living today across the world.

Therefore, it is not as foreign to us as we might imagine. And, more to the point, is that when disasters strike, man-made or otherwise, populations head for the country-side when the food in the city gives out, or the water becomes polluted. It is the default form of community for human societies.

The breakdown of the city is common on small scales and happens on a large scale when the electricity goes down. Cities are so vunerable they will fall apart, most of them, in three to five days when food, water and security break down. Every large disaster reveals this pattern.

See blogs below on this topic:

Here is one of my summries looking at our modern situation.

"The summary is a follows:
 

In a word, modern technology does make it possible to live in small more self-reliant groups. That is what the green movement is ultimately all about, moving away from fossil fuels; instant communications and the internet make this idea more feasible.

In the past 300 years people were driven and/or taxed off the land, in say the United States and most countries so elites would have a labor force close to ports for shipping and to save money on those shipping costs and to reclaim the land immigrants had broken their backs clearing and cultivating. That land was bought up for pennies on the dollar or natives driven off by these same city elites who still own the land or own the government and monopolies which now own the land.

See also other patterns below evident in the modern US environment which loom and are pushing us where circumstances will force us to look at other living arrangements and alternatives.

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=48285&authorid=121255


2. A second point deals with the issue why, historically down to the present, have human societies been so blood thirsty, especially after citification. The thesis above, from several authors, is that some humans have been psychopathic throughtout much of history but seldom is there an explaination as to why this has been so. 

So far this blog has taken the tack that cititication and domination by psychopathic elites have been the major factor-this is an environmental, and social explaination.

But other factors and precursers in all of this are worth examining as well.

Precursors include genetic factors. The first we will look is the 98 percent gene factor.

Most have heard the often cited fact that all six billion people on this planet share 98 percent of the same genes along with the Bonobo and the Champanzee. This  invites the question of how can that be, why should it be so, and what does it mean?

Have there been genetic patterns which skew populations toward psychopathic tendencies and explain the astounding lack of gene diversity between in the current world population out side Africa and Africans. That is to say there is more gene diversity between two villagers in Kenya than there is the general population outside of Africa. Why?

 First, lets look at:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIID3Bottlenecks.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck

 http://anthro.palomar.edu/synthetic/synth_5.htm

 5/15/14

Most think that mankind evolved from Gorillas and Chimpanzees. Apparently not. Our closet relative, some say, is the Bonobo. Video on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZnFvZwR69iw

 In examing the above findings we note: 

1. That humankind in its evolution from the Bonobo and the Chimp underwent three bottleneck, planet wide events: one 75 thousand years ago and one 50 thousand years ago one one million years ago. Our planet saw human populations nearly wiped out all three times and the gene pool shrunk to just a few thousand indivduals. What was and is, the impact on the human mind and human behaviors going forward with this shrunken gene pool?

See:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IhiwsqGEjEY

Mound Builders in America

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=itCWu-m-23E

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity

2. The model for human kind must focus on whether genetic patterns found in the traits of the Bonobo versus those traits found in the Chimpanzee dominate; or are we to understand our genetic history as a combination of both, is worth examining. 

As well, as can be seen above, can we postulate the rise to predominance of Chimp genes from bottlenecks as caused by major catastropic events? Put plainly, are modern human genetic mutations and bottlenect factors bring to the fore our Chimp genes? Which of the many theories on this are factual?

What traits are in-born in humans, that is to say genetic, assuming these two ancestors, the Bonobo and the Champanzee? This highlights the allied of question which how many and what genes do we find in our 98 percent  similarities and the question of whether these can be distinguised as those of the Champanzee or those of the Bonobo or both in the 2% differences. It might be that some genes were lost in the bottleneck. Weighty questions. Are there answers?

You will recall that the Bonobos are kind, have a matricarchial society and the Chimpanzee is patriarchial, rough and often murderous. Could Chimpanzee genes have and are feeding the pyschopathic tendencies in some social configurations, like the city?

We ask the question have specfic genes differentiated further in the  bottlenecks and play a role in which ones ultimately moved through to the 98 percent of humanity? And finally we want to know what is the detail of the 2% genetic difference between us and our two ancestors?

Let's take a look.

The Genome Issue: Genes or Plasticity And Social Cues

Below genetics provide some clues:

"While the function of the small differences in DNA in the three lineages today is not yet known, the Max Planck team sees clues that some may be involved in parts of the genome that regulate immune responses, tumor suppression genes, and perception of social cues."

From:

http://news.sciencemag.org/plants-animals/2012/06/bonobos-join-chimps-closest-human-relatives

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdwgco_kindness-and-sexual-behaviours-in-b_tech

While the point is quickly passed over it seems clear we have traits of both primates but note how strikingly different the traits are: lacking the ability to perceive social cues in chimps versus the opposite in the Bonobo who were are seen to be kind in their matriarchical societies. Chimps have immune response problems and turmor issues as these are filtered between both gene and bottleneck manifestations in humans.

But we are getting ahead of our story. Le'ts go back and have a look at the impact of bottlenecks on not just humans, but on other species as well. Note this is very, very common in studying genetics and much is known.


The Bottle Neck Effect:

"Bottleneck Effect

"In many species, there have been catastrophic periods caused by rapid dramatic changes in natural selection, during which most individuals died without passing on their genes.  The few survivors of these evolutionary "bottlenecks" then were reproductively very successful, resulting in large populations in subsequent generations.  The consequence of this bottleneck effect is the extraordinary reduction in genetic diversity of a species since most variability is lost at the time of the bottleneck.

 

Bottlenecking also occurs at times in human populations as a result of major epidemics and catastrophic storms, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.  An example of this occurred on the small Micronesian island of Pingelap in the Western Pacific.  In 1775, a typhoon killed at least 90% of its people, thereby eliminating most of the genetic variation.  One of the 20 survivors was a man named Nahnmwarki Mwanenised.  He had achromatopsia, a very rare genetically inherited recessive eye condition that causes total color blindness and extreme sensitivity to light.  Six generations later, nearly 5% of the island's population had achromatopsia.  All of those who had it were descendents of Nahnmwarki Mwanenised.  By comparison, only 1 in 33,000 people in the United States have it.  Not only did the Pinegleapese experience a dramatically reduced genetic diversity as a result of the 18th century storm, but unfortunately that surviving gene pool contained the genes for achromatopsia, making this an example of both the bottlenecking effect and the founder principle."

 From:

http://anthro.palomar.edu/synthetic/synth_5.htm

Also see:
Bottle necks at 1.2 million years ago as well?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=pKP9ru_G5vk

5/19/14

The issue now is a tricky one. We know that one African exodus from Africa 50 thousand years ago was probably prompted by some catastrophe, and probably by the Lake Toba eruption 75 thousand years ago which blanketed the entire earth sulphur dust for as long as eighteen months. There was another exodus even earlier, as much as 100 thousand years ago. But let focus on the former for now.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Toba

Genetics tells us humans were reduced 50 thousand years ago down to perhaps a few thousand individuals who when they left the continent their rich genetic background was drastically reduced, and this bottle neck is the reason that 98 percent of us, without that diversity, are the products of a drastically reduced gene pool. The reduced pool, perhaps, had the effect of highlighting scarce genes and perhaps magnifying aspects of that famed 2%.

Enter here the Bonobo and the Chimpanzee. We know that prior to the exodus humankind was perhaps matriarchial and very cooperative-Bonobos.

After the bottle-neck I am postulating that the traits changed and/or came to emphasize more Chimpanzee traits which gives us Chimpanzee-like tendencies in our social organization.

What are they again you ask? For those of you who did not look at the video I will list them below, next time.

But first here is the argument: prior to the bottleneck humans were more Bonobo like in their societies. This is true of Egypt, of many if not most Stone-Age people, vegetarians, or only ocassional meat eaters. After that event we became mostly meat eaters and more hostile, agressive, and started cities, and invented massive war-more Chimpanzee-like?

This is the thesis. We examine it more closely next time.

5/21/14

Chimpanzee Social Behavior and Why It Should Matter in Understanding Humans.

"Since there is a hierarchy system in chimp societies, most disputes within a community can be solved by threats rather than actual attacks. They use gestures and postures to indicate threat, such as: tipping the head, making hitting gestures, flapping hands in the air, swaying branches, throwing objects, and charging towards another. These gestures are often combined with vocalizations."

"Chimpanzees are however, capable of physical violence. In 1974, Dr. Jane observed a 4 year territory war between two groups of chimps that ended with one group killing all of the other chimps in the other group. This was the first recorded account of non-human primate warfare.

Infanticide also occurs within chimp communities. Male chimps sometimes kill infant chimpanzees, for a variety of proposed reasons, but it is most commonly thought to promote the female who he is mating with, to wean his offspring sooner and to ensure that the offspring is his."

 From:

http://www.janegoodall.ca/about-chimp-behaviour-social-organization.php

And now what are the Bonobos like in detail?

http://www.primates.com/bonobos/bonobosexsoc.html

  "Sex, it turned out, is the key to the social life of the bonobo. The first suggestion that the sexual behavior of bonobos is different had come from observations at European zoos. Wrapping their findings in Latin, primatologists Eduard Tratz and Heinz Heck reported in 1954 that the chimpanzees at Hellabrun mated more canum (like dogs) and bonobos more hominum (like people). In those days, face-to- face copulation was considered uniquely human, a cultural innovation that needed to be taught to preliterate people (hence the term "missionary position"). These early studies, written in German, were ignored by the international scientific establishment. The bonobo's humanlike sexuality needed to be rediscovered in the 1970s before it became accepted as characteristic of the species."

Perhaps the bonobo's most typical sexual pattern, undocumented in any other primate, is genito-genital rubbing (or GG rubbing) between adult females. One female facing another clings with arms and legs to a partner that, standing on both hands and feet, lifts her off the ground. The two females then rub their genital swellings laterally together, emitting grins and squeals that probably reflect orgasmic experiences. (Laboratory experiments on stump- tailed macaques have demonstrated that women are not the only female primates capable of physiological orgasm.)

Male bonobos, too, may engage in pseudocopulation but generally perform a variation. Standing back to back, one male briefly rubs his scrotum against the buttocks of another. They also practice so-called penis-fencing, in which two males hang face to face from a branch while rubbing their erect penises together.

"The diversity of erotic contacts in bonobos includes sporadic oral sex, massage of another individual's genitals and intense tongue-kissing. Lest this leave the impression of a pathologically oversexed species, I must add, based on hundreds of hours of watching bonobos, that their sexual activity is rather casual and relaxed. It appears to be a completely natural part of their group life. Like people, bonobos engage in sex only occasionally, not continuously. Furthermore, with the average copulation lasting 13 seconds, sexual contact in bonobos is rather quick by human standards."

http://evolutionaryanthropology.duke.edu/research/3chimps/chimps-bonobos

http://www.primates.com/bonobos/bonobosexsoc.html

Now this is interesting. I think between the two ape primates, if we were to extrapolate though the lens of the bottle neck, we have some ideas to work with.

Thereafter, we will want to identify, if we can, specific genes which might apply.

But luckily we do have a 98 percent, relatively homogenous gene pool to work from and a 2 percent differential to compare that against. It is starting to look like it might be possible to garner gene data to support some parts of these ideas.

We will get back on the morrow.

 5/22/14

The 2% Factors

"For example, chimps have a great many more genes related to olfaction than we do; they've got a better sense of smell because we've lost many of those genes. The 2 percent distinction also involves an unusually large fraction of genes related to the immune system, parasite vulnerability, and infectious diseases: Chimps are resistant to malaria, and we aren't; we handle tuberculosis better than they do. Another important fraction of that 2 percent involves genes related to reproduction—the sorts of anatomical differences that split a species in two and keep them from interbreeding."

 From:

http://discovermagazine.com/2006/apr/chimp-genome

Ok, some have asked me to spell out the issues I am trying to understand.

Here it is: Modern day Africans, even in the same village have tremendous genetic diversity, more diversity from each other in the same village than humans every where else outside African share with each other. How did this happen?

Since most humans outside Africa have much less diversity in their genes we want to know how is that? Most geneticists simply ignore this problem.

Here's one that didn't.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/Oct/23/chimps-bonobos-humans-pluripotent-stem/

1. We have explored the bottleneck theory above. Perhaps humans were almost wiped out at some point and progenerated from that point with fewer genes and a smaller gene pool.

2. Perhaps, some argue, the 98 % similarities maybe are due to in-breeding in a small initial population and hence less diversity.

3. Some argue that the original diversity was lost once migrations started out of Africa and can be expected in populations as they disperse.

4. Some suggest gene destruction over time by say, cosmic rays, meaning that as population moved north they lost some of natural protections that equatorial locations might have provided.

Let's keep looking. Tomorow.

5/23/14

Background: more authors are stressing that our societies look like Chimpanzee genetic societies rather than bonobo genetic societies.

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=59847&authorid=121255

 5/24/14

But is the Chimp-dominated model really true for all human societies, presently and historically?

Let's see if we can find out, because to ask the question is to ask the big question of what is human nature.

Nice chart comparing Chimps and Bonobos

http://www.eva.mpg.de/3chimps/files/apes.htm

Video on Chimps and Bonobos compared

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/3/l_073_03.html

Cognitive Differences Between Chimp and Bonobos

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012438

 If you took a look at the videos above they argue that Chimps and Bonobos differentiated on the basis of available food supplies. Chimps were unable to compete with Gorillas for food on the ground and Bonobos, on the other hand, did not have the Gorilla to compete with. Chimps became agressive in the fight for food with the Gorilla and among themselves as well.

Now this brings up some very interesting points in our quest to understand human beings. Here are some posits:

1. We see, in an abundant food and water environment, humans for the most part lived peaceful lives for thousands of years on this planet. We see that in stone age people around the globe and many other groups.

In food-scarce environments, humans evolved settled argiculture to feed people, and therewith, cities.

But the city while creating abundance had unintended consequences; a power structure gained and maintained power by gaining control of food supplies and trade, with religion, or with an army. Crops, the masses were told, depended upon divine kings or priests who know how to appease the gods.

This is also the point where, it seems, matriarchical societies were overwhelmed by patriarchial ones.

Thus, the use of food and controlled scarcity as power levers went hand in hand with the development of cities and the rest is, so to speak, history.

But, may we ask, what of those Bonobo genes and tendencies? The answer seems to be, my guess, is that they are still present in human activities, except they are at the bottom and within the lower strata of the societies ruled by the Chimp elites.

(I like saying that.)

So modern human beings have both sets of genetic inheritances and social history, the archeological evidence bears this out, one set of tendencies wars with the other. One is the history of the dominated Bonobos fighting and rebelling periodically against their Chimp gene overlords, but their peaceful tendencies made them, for long times, slaves, the murdered, and conquered.

Thus, in this argument, control of food and actual shortages and crises drove people to accept overlords. Following this logic plentiful food and peace undermines overlord power, and overlords understand this perfectly and have sought historically to maintain an artifical scaricity via taxation, power, and control of food and water.

And, just as often over time, the Bonobo parts of society realize that the Chimp overloads extract a too high a price in life and rebel or simply kill members of the ruling class and go back to simpler ways of life. A good example is the Mayan example. But it has happened all over the world, many, many times. The judgement is made that, however awe-inspiring elites were, they, in end, failed the people and were eliminated, at least, for a time.

This seems to be pattern in history, freedom is a demand to share resources-and seems to, in the history of human societies, a system to work best in the long run.

Now some have mentioned that the above is a one-sided analysis, ignores all of the incredible strides human societies have created, that looking at going backward is an odd view and not possible.

This to that:

1. Progress under our postulated Chimp overlords had not been progress at all and in the final analysis imposed a too high price upon societies. It has created overlord societies which threaten the very existence of the planet, (such progress) has had incredibly high costs to humans, to the environment and, I note, progress is known by its outcomes. Our outcomes are horrible, on balance. There is no question that this is the case.

 Here is the way one author explains it:

"For chimpanzees and bonobos, food represents a resource that’s at the heart of decision-making in any environment. As with humans, chimpanzees and bonobos have different personalities and may choose different strategies to solve problems or make decisions related to resources, but this study highlights the fact there are differences between species.

The evolutionary significance of such differences is a puzzle, but bonobos evolved in a relatively tiny area of Africa (south of the Congo River) in lush resource-rich forests, separated from other great ape species, with whom they would have had to compete for resources. Chimpanzees have evolved alongside gorillas, their competitors for fruit and other resources.

Bonobos share food readily with other individuals, whereas chimpanzees have to beg and coerce and negotiate between each other for special food items."

From:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012438

 5/25/14

Now before going into even more detail on the differences between Bonobos and Chimpanzees noted above, one more item.

The question outstanding is why did we not see the rise of Chimp-like aggressions in pre-city societies? The answer, seen above, is that small groups cannot maintain themselves with Chimp-like aggressions and saw such characteristics as a threat to the co-operation needed to survive. Chimp-like characteristics were a threat to the entire group such that individuals were killed or banished or abandoned or dealt with in tribal adjudications.

This system lasted for thousands of years.


Only with the rise of the cities did Chimp-genes come to the fore in the fertile environment of cities.

Lets have a look at the skill sets which, in a city setting, made Chimps rulers.

First Chimps are:
 

1. Excellent took makers. The Bonbos are not. In a plentiful food environment tool making is not needed. The Chimps were the opposite; scarce food made them excellent tool makers and competitive, and also what we can call the "engineers" of the forest. Their groups were political, patriarchial and those skills and tendencies passed down the eons, reminding me of the central skills elites in cities display: engineering was a critical component of Roman power and the power of all city elites to get food, and to figure out ways to get water to a city was critical to their assuming and maintaing power.

Bonobos apparently did not have this as a part of their genetic background.

 Here is a quote on the differences between the Chimp and the Bonobo on the mental and cognitive level.

 "Chimpanzees and bonobos are humans' closest living relatives (the common ancestor of all three was around 6 million years ago), and are themselves very closely related (common ancestor around 2 million years ago). Despite their evolutionary closeness, the behavior of these two great ape species differs in important ways, and this might lead us to hypothesize that their cognitive skills differ correspondingly. For example, in their natural habitats, chimpanzees are extractive foragers who use many different types of tools to obtain food from challenging places, whereas bonobos rely on tools very little [1], [2]. This might suggest different skills of causal analysis, since using tools effectively requires an understanding of the physical requirements of the situation. On the other hand, bonobos are viewed as being more socially cooperative, and they are temperamentally shyer of new things and more tolerant of others in feeding situations [3], [4]. Given recent results with young children in which a clear connection between shy temperament and “theory of mind” skills has been demonstrated [5], we might expect bonobos to have better social-cognitive skills than chimpanzees."

 Now couple these skills with a foraging tendency you can see these thriving in later genetic development into penchants for trade, power, engineering, and how cognitive skills in the Chimp could presage these capabilties in humans as well.

But a central question remains: Are these skills co-mingled in the human gene structure or is it that environments and evolution from these two species have remained mostly separate in humans such that species differentiation has been maintained largely over time?

A weighty question which hints at the issue of whether modern humans come in two varieties.

To be sure that has been the historical pattern with over 3 different kinds of huminids identified alive in the last 30,000 thousand years, 17 total in the human branches.
 

See:

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-family-tree

Why exclude homo sapiens from this pattern of variety?

Some present day scholars have weighed in on the idea that leadership in today's modern society is psychopathic.
 

See below for details.

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=59847&authorid=121255


Next time we look at sex evolution between the two apes and I posit a two species theory.

(We see Bonobo traits clearly in Stone Age North American Plains Indians, whose kindness to one another and even captives has been documented.
See:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sgXtkiFPZLo)
 

5/26/14

Now history here just might provide us a laboratory where bringing together two cultures, which no matter how we label them, show very different attitudes toward life and social arrangements- The North American Plains Indians and Europeans.

1. Europe and North America are roughly the same size geographically.

2. Both continents had, in 1491, roughly the same population, each with about 100 million souls.

3. Europe was a totally hierarchical society with kings, serfs, vassals, war-ravaged, diseased ridden, polluted rivers, forests gone; an entrenched nobility class and land in the hands of the few.

Desperate to find new riches, and free land, the adventurers, the pirates, the kings and queens of Europe were involved in an arms race to carry on centuries old wars, religious and civil.

Extending my genetic analysis from above, these sound hauntingly similar to Chimp society to me. It has caused me to wonder if this thesis could be verified via Chimp genes.

But the North American Plains Indians had a strikingly different cultural configuration. They were, many of them living in matriarchial balanced societies, where women had significant power, could inherit land, and made many of the significant decisions in the tribal group. (See the video above for details.)

They were raiders before the Europeans came but most experienced large scale war for the first time as allies of the British and French who brought their large scale wars, from Europe to the New World in an extension of their European conflicts.

The Indian nations were as ruthless as the Europeans in defending their lands as the Europeans were in trying to take it from them. The brutality in this 60 year Indian war happened on both sides.

But a significant difference was that the indigenous peoples nonetheless had real cultural and societial differences:
Indian culture had a concept of adopting some captives (younger ones) and allowing them to become full fledged members of the tribe; allowing captives to take the place of some family member dead or fallen in battle. What is remarkable is that the young person assumed a beloved place in a given family which adopted him or her along with rank, priviledges and other honors of the missing family member.

They did this without respect to color, creed, or race.

This is a very different concept of civil society, one which raises the question of whether we are looking at Bonobo traits in a modern human setting. This is true not only of these many pre-European plains indians but of many groups across the globe.

The differences we see are where some groups like the Aztecs and the Incas, differed significantly from the tribal groups in that the former built cities and from there built empires which looked very much like their European counter parts, enslaving neighbors, murder, ritual sacrifice and other similarities too familiar to note.

So there you have it, city-based empires exhibit Chimp-like societes and non-city cultures, where land, water and food is not controlled by an elite, seem more similar to Bonobo societies.

Can this thesis be proven? Can genetic tests be done on various cultures to test this idea? Can the genetic differences between Bonobo genes and Chimpanzee ones be isolated in various human cultures?

And if so, to what extent, given these profound differences, can we ascribe genetic differences different enough such that we can isolate them genetically so as to call these differences large enough to make the claim that there are two different species of man as are the Bonobo and the Chimpanzee?

The point here is that the Bonbobo and Chimpanzee are clearly different species of ape. The question here is whether, these species differences on the genetic level carried through to humankind. We want to know if we can isolate those genes in modern societies.

That later.

But the thought which strikes me is that Chimps in close contact with Bonobos would find the peace-loving Bonobos easy prey and would dominate or eliminate those with Bonobos traits easily and/or relentlessly.

Is this the hidden pattern in human history-Chimp societies preying up Bonobos in the human species?


But first more information:

http://io9.com/5794988/are-humans-more-like-chimps-or-bonobos-the-correct-answer-is-changing
 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2159027/Humans-share-genetic-code-endangered-ape-species-bonobo.html

http://www.animalfactguide.com/animal-facts/bonobo/

From the above articles one hypothesis is clear: Humans with these two ancestors, and these two ancestors themselves, have gene structures which did and continuously react to and interacted with the environments in which they found themselves. Therefore, genes may be part of the answer, but environment also plays and did play a vital role in how humans organized their societies.

If we go with a mixed mosaic theory of gene-mixing between the two species, the Bonobo and the Chimpanzee, we can easily come to the conclusion that, genes aside, environment can be a decisive factor.

Aha, we come full circle: what environmental factors would these be: cities, control of food, water, and divination of climate change and/or the will of the gods, and other life events?

5/27/14

I will continue to look through the literature to see if there have been studies along the lines I have suggested above. Are genes from the Champazee and the Bonobo distinguishable in modern humans and what are the genes which we can identify with specific traits down the millenna?

And, if so, what are the findings? Is it feasible that humans come in largely two varieties and the center of gravity in some are Bonobo-like and in others Chimpanzee-like?

Meantime, it is interesting to see how far can this idea be pushed. I give examples below which I will explore, with your patience.

 Questions and observations:

1. We see in tribal societies predominately democratic social structures with a council of elders and structures which often include women. The opposite is true in hierarchtical societies.

2. In psychology, the shy Bonobo would be described as an introvert, and the Chimpanzee an extrovert.

3. Sex among the Bonobos can be characterized as a certain kind of pan-sexualism different from the rather violent sex lives of Chimps.

4. In religion and spiritual matters we can contrast the strict religious structures of hierarchtical societies with the more pan-spritualism of other and tribal societies.

5. Family structures differ between the two species. One stresses discipline and the other is more lenient highlighting the family structures of the two groups as very different.  (See videos above)

6. Taking a modern example, I have in a companion blog, make the case that our media in the US are extremely violent. Are we looking at Chimp viewers identifying with attackers, and Bonobo groups identifying with the victims?
Interesting thought, if verifiable.

The question is straight forward: what is the breakdown of viewers of violence between those who identify with the person commiting the violence as opposed to those who identify with the victims of violence? It would explain the mass audience such violence seems to draw.

(We would also want to know historically as well as in modern times who are the victims of violence. What if any, are patterns discernable?)


"The largest discrepancy between the real world and the world depicted on television is for murder, the most violent crime of all. Only 0.2% of the crimes reported by the FBI are murders, whereas about 50% of the crimes shown in reality-based TV programs are murders (Oliver, 1994). According to film critic Michael Medved ( 1995), the claim that the entertainment industry merely reflects the level of violence in society is a lie."

From:

http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abstracts/2000-2004/01BA.ap.pdf
 
These issues and themes show up everywhere: in literature, in politics, in religion (good and evil) and seem to dominate human thought. Here we want to see if there is a genetic connection.


Finally some argue that the Chimp line is essentially a male line and violent,
and by implication Bonobo-like characteristics are found in the females of our species-a twist on the two species idea.

Take a look:

"Yet there is no denying that both chimpanzees and humans do have a capacity for violence. Moreover, there seems to be a difference between the sexes. Only three per cent of same sex murders in Britain, Canada and America are committed by women."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3317461/Apes-of-war...-is-it-in-our-genes.html


I will look into all of this in the coming days.

Pray for me.

5/28/14

Genomes of all of the great apes have been done. Let's look at the findings

http://www.livescience.com/37943-great-ape-genomes-sequenced.html

The Moasic and interbreeding Theories:
"Humans split from chimps and bonobos around 4.5 million years ago, and chimps and bonobos then separated around a million years ago.

We don't yet know what the common ancestor of humans, chimps and bonobos looked like, but we do now have an idea of how many of them there were. By comparing the levels of genetic diversity in the three species, Pääbo estimates that the ancestral population numbered about 45,000 individuals.

The bonobo genome shows no sign that genes were passed between bonobos and chimps after they separated, suggesting that the two species split completely and did not carry on interbreeding. It may be that they were cut off from each other when the Congo River formed, allowing them to evolve separately.

That's not what happened at the earlier split, when humans broke away from chimps and bonobos. Pääbo's analysis shows that more than 3 per cent of the human genome is more closely related to chimps and bonobos than chimps and bonobos are to each other - suggesting that our ancestors carried out interbreeding with apes for a while.

A similar result emerged from the gorilla genome, released earlier this year. The ancestors of gorillas split from the other great apes around 10 million years ago, but interbred with the ancestors of humans and chimps.

These findings add to the evidence that apes and hominins have a tangled ancestry. Modern humans interbred with at least two related species, Neanderthals and Denisovans, and it seems that, millions of years earlier, their ancestors also interbred with apes."

From:

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2012/06/bonobo-genome-hints-at-common.html

 The politics of the argument on human kind's ancestors

http://www.democraticunderground.com/122817302

  Just for fun I am adding there more cultures and their history.
 

The Ottoman Empire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=MpPGxJT9qQI

The Stone Age Peoples

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IhiwsqGEjEY

The Anasazi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=p80wjtVQhYk

The Crimean War

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ni8jAvJIQug

Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo

The Movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tdZIOP6N4NU

The Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=oKmqRqY0RLg

So we have a bewildering array of theories of what constitutes, genetically, a human being. Let's delve into this next time and five theories which underpin them.

 5/29/14

The battle of the Genomes: The Politics of it all.

The battle of the Genome has several competing theories at play:

1. The Out of Afriica geneticists, whose views have been standard for many years, argue that humankind originated in Africa and spread out over the entire planet.
And, given the bottleneck thesis above, most humans, therefore, have an amazing similarity in their gene structure.

2. The Many Origins geneticists, want to argue that humans developed independently in at least three cases, the Neanderthals, the Siberian Denisovans and a Asian group, they identify as Melonisians.

3. The Mixed Mosaic Group which says that given inter breeding in the ancestors of humans, and apes, our genetic pattern clearly shows a mix of heritages where humans interbread with Gorillas, and other apes and other types of "cousin" humans Neanderthals etc.

4. The Creationists deny originating from Africa and some claim God created humans, or at least deny any African origins.

5. My argument in all of this I will not repeat. Suffice to say I stick with what can be proven; our ancestors were Bonobos and Chimpanzees. Different genes and "species" of man may just prove that our huminoid "cousins" arose and merely adopted to their environment and conditions. Genes interact with the environment.

The interesting point for me is that, irrespective of one's point of view, history makes it perfectly clear that man has both the aggressive animal traits and cooperative traits. That has been demonstrated over eons and is, given our ancestors, genetically verifiable.

Which predominates in any given society, I have explained in terms of environmental factors, ie., the creation of cities and subsequent elites.

None of the above theories do that but an interesting and scary aspect is that three above mentioned "cousin" groups" where homo sapiens either killed off, interbreded with none of those groups survived. We homo sapiens claim we were more competitive than they and they simply died out. Maybe. Maybe not.

Gene exchanges don't usually happen without sex and Interbreeding. The later may have happened but my view is that it was for the most part inter breeding was not likely voluntary.

Homo sapiens raped, kidnapped women, and considered them spoils of raids and war. Voluntary may have happened but likely happened rarely.

Genghis Khan's genes can be traced to over 16 million individuals today.
Capture and rape was his and most conquerers common form of interbreeding. This pattern is common in all of humankind history, sad to say.

See:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html

 5. Others claim that, with racial theories in mind, that all humans were born in racial silos and were created in their original races.

Now this Battle of the Genomes is not a neutral one; much of it is increasingly political in that there are many agendas at work in the theories above and all of them try to crowd the journals with evidence for their point of view.

The plethora of "genetic" findings in all of this tells us that genetics can be manipulated to come to conclusions one wants to and one article below makes that point while taking a hybrid point of view on human origins.

http://stirling-westrup-tt.blogspot.com/2011/07/tt-ns-2823-patchwork-people-our-hybrid.html?m=1

We get down to cases tomorrow and see what the detail in this looks like.

5/30/14

The Citification Process

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rKuwTKEXNwY

The connection between power and trade in cities

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=WM7YCp3mvdg

Culture Clash:

5/31/14

The Celts against the Romans. Boudica, a Woman is the Leader of the Celts. Fascinating Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Ega3dbE6b08
 

6/8/14

Eight videos on the so-called "Dark Ages" Excellent BBC presentation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YTWsUvT8nsw

6/9/14
 

The Edwardian Period, Life Under a Plutocracy for Domestic Servants?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8n_vWOo_rBk

Did the Anglo-Saxons Really Invade England? A Myth?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fB1C6fZzwo0

6/11/14
The Lives of Children During the Middle Ages-Riveting Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QaK8RXllHNs
 

6/11/14

How It Really Was For Peasants For During The Middle Ages

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Yg3YDN5gTX0

6/11/14 The Longest War in Human History

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Rb9ZTypvWK4

 6/11/14 The First Emperor of China

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Yb1CcvqJ0gc

6/12/14

Rome: Great Video on how Rome ran on constant wars and plunder to sustain the empire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VtxSeGkeyKk