Where to hunter/gatherers come from?

[Soul Searcher]

The Biblical account if taken historically seems to state that there would have been about 6 weeks between the earth being dry enough for vegetation and Noah getting off the Ark. 6 weeks for vegetation to regrow and on salted soil at that. The moment all the animals on the Ark had disembarked, the food chain would have become hopelessly top-heavy because of the extremely high predator-prey ratio and the inadequate photosynthesizer base.

Lasting a year under these circumstances would have been miraculous. No wonder Noah took to drinking.

Agreed, wonder where Noah got his drink from? You think he had a still on the ark?

Thinking about that brings up another point though and that is that fresh water would have been hard if not impossible to find in the days, weeks, even months after the flood.

 

[BeamMeUpScotty]

While this may be true, being a hunter/gatherer is a highly uncertain way to live. Settling down offers security, a reliable food source, and a long life. Hunter/gatherers are at mercy to the migrations of their prey, competition with other predators, and the weather.

Farmers and herders basically only need fertile land and water, and water can be supplied from reliable sources like rivers and wells.

Actually, this is another myth. Here is a famous article written by Jared Diamond of Guns, Germs, and Steel fame:

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race[/FONT]

This article details how H/G societies have a wonderfully varied diet which provides a far greater balance of minerals and nutrients than the relatively small choice of agriculture, work far less hours per week in food procurement, and were actually taller (at the end of the ice age), than people from around 3000 BCE. Also there skeletal and dental health was markedly better.

Also, the fact that they didn't rely on one or two crops was a strength. To wit: the Irish potato famine. When you eat over 75 types of plants, if several die out for whatever reason, you still have a lot to choose from.

Also, H/G societies have very low population densities, which can help prevent the spread of diseases, as well as preserve food and water resources.

Please realize that I am not necessarily talking about modern agricultural societies, which is an entirely different discussion, but early agricultural societies.

Oh, and farmers are at the "mercy" of all the things you mention as well, even more so many times.

 

[Chalnoth]

It should be no surprise that humans are better-adapted to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. That's basically what we were for the millions of years of evolution before the agricultural revolution 10,000 or so years ago.

And sure, agricultural societies were still subject to the occasional natural disaster, but there was much less worry about the next day: hunter/gatherer societies could never store much, because they could only take what they could carry. Thus settled societies had much more of a resistance to changes in the environment, particularly if built along rivers (though still subject to flooding, this was a fairly rare phenomenon).

I still claim that the day-to-day uncertainty of hunter/gatherer life would have made agriculture very appealing indeed.

Edit: By the way, I hadn't yet noticed the article when I posted the above. I have since read it, and it does present some interesting points. I do take major issue with his apparent conclusion that moving away from a hunter-gatherer society was a mistake, though. And even if life was harder for those engaged in agriculture early-on, it still offers at least a greater appearance of security, I claim.

 

[shernren]

Agreed, wonder where Noah got his drink from? You think he had a still on the ark?

Thinking about that brings up another point though and that is that fresh water would have been hard if not impossible to find in the days, weeks, even months after the flood.

I was referring to the post-Flood incident where Noah got drunk and Ham caught him with his pants (robe) down. If you read carefully, Scripture goes on to describe him as "the first to plant a vineyard" - in other words, he invented wine. That raises a load of questions. One being yours, how did he come up with a still? Or where did he get the idea to leave the grapes to ferment? The biggest one being how can you have a world full of wicked people (before the flood) and yet not one of them ever gets drunk?

Now that I think about it, it seems fantastically surreal. Here we have the only righteous man in the world, who first builds the biggest boat in the world, and then becomes the first drunk in the world. What the?

 

[USincognito]

Actually, this is another myth. Here is a famous article written by Jared Diamond of Guns, Germs, and Steel fame:

I kept the content of the book (specifically the "Apples or Indians" chapter) when I thought about this question earlier and yes, there is debate about the relative merits of agriculture vs. hunting and gathering - but that's not really what I was getting at in my OP. The question is not is it wiser to adopt agriculture or remain hunter/gatherers, but do we have any examples in history or archeaology of societies that had agriculture abandoning it for hunting/gathering.

I can't recall Diamond citing a single example, though I may just be forgetting right now, of a society that developed agriculture and then completely abandoned it in favor of hunting and gathering like the Yamomamo, !Kung San or Aborigines.

I mentioned the aboriginal Tasmanians specifically in the OP because in the chapter "Yali's People" Diamond details the technologies and artifacts they lacked that the mainland Aborigines posessed - "barbed spears, bone tools, boomerangs, ground or polished stone tools, hafted stone tools, hook, nets, pronged spears, traps, the practice of catching and eating fish, sewing and starting a fire."1

Now that's an awful lot of really basic cultural artifacts for a people to lose in, say 1000 or 2000 years (50-100 generations) after coming from Noah and sons who posesses, as has been pointed out several times - carpentry, ship building, woven clothing, vintnering and at the very least animal husbandry - sophisticated technologies compared to things like bone tools and being able to catch fish.

Standard archeology explains why it was so: over the course of 10,000 years (500 or so generations) of isolation a small population of Neolithic peoples never developed new technologies and over time lost some of the technologies their ancestors brought to Tasmania with them 15,000-20,000 years earlier.

Flood archaeology has to explain how people descended from Bronze Age shipbuilders who could make wine and woven cloth could abandon or lose so much technology in so little time to wind up like they did in 1642 when the Euroepeans first encountered them.

1. Guns, Germs and Steel p. 312

 

[shernren]

Not just Bronze Age shipbuilders. Remember that all the peoples of the world are supposedly descended from people who could make brick and tar (Genesis 11), and were ambitious enough to try to reach the heavens with their brick and tar.

 

[Chalnoth]

Which reminds me of another, similar point...how could the Americas possibly have been populated before a few hundred years ago in a YEC picture?

 

[shernren]

Columbus being the first to discover America is an evolutionary myth. The Amer-Indians had powered flight right after Babel but they didn't know the way and so they crashed in the New World, an accident which caused all their scientists to die leading to the loss of this powered flight technology. Ever wondered why they worshiped a flying serpent?

And because science can never fully determine the past, you can't prove that Columbus wasn't the first to discover America. So there!

 

[USincognito]

Which reminds me of another, similar point...how could the Americas possibly have been populated before a few hundred years ago in a YEC picture?

Read the Book of Mormon...

Shernren's comments about Babel got me to checking the other chapters in that section of Genesis, and in Chapter 10, which lists the woefully incomplete descendents/ethnicities of the world, they're already building cities shortly after the flood. Asshur is specifically mentioned as building Ninevah, and city names everyone would know are given to three sons, Sidon, Sodom and Gemorrah.

 

[USincognito]

Are not Creationists able to step up to the plate with a viable scientific explanation of why we had/have hunter/gatherer societies when the entire population of the Earth supposedly is descended from people who had agriculture, oinoculture, shipbuilding, civil engineering, woven cloth, oh, and skyscrapers only 4,000 years ago?

Anyone? Soul Searcher's doing a yeoman's job, but I'd really like to hear from some hard core Creationists.

 

[AV1611VET]

Are not Creationists able to step up to the plate with a viable scientific explanation of why we had/have hunter/gatherer societies when the entire population of the Earth supposedly is descended from people who had agriculture, oinoculture, shipbuilding, civil engineering, woven cloth, oh, and skyscrapers only 4,000 years ago?

I'll answer this from the perspective of cavemen:

As societies began to pop up on the earth after the Flood, there were some people who, just like today, couldn't function very well in society.

These people, rather than meld with society, preferred the hermit lifestyle; and caves provided good, no-cost housing units away from the "big cities".

Far from being idiots, these social outcasts were very intelligent and artistic people. Those Geiko commercials depicting cultured cavemen playing the piano and "dressed for success" are very good descriptions.

Jephtah in the Bible is an excellent example of one such individual.

The city of Petra is another good example.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I'll answer this from the perspective of cavemen:

As societies began to pop up on the earth after the Flood, there were some people who, just like today, couldn't function very well in society.

These people, rather than meld with society, preferred the hermit lifestyle; and caves provided good, no-cost housing units away from the "big cities".

Far from being idiots, these social outcasts were very intelligent and artistic people. Those Geiko commercials depicting cultured cavemen playing the piano and "dressed for success" are very good descriptions.

Jephtah in the Bible is an excellent example of one such individual.

The city of Petra is another good example.

and the entire continent of Australia where the aboriginal languages had enough time to diverge so that 1/2 of the language FAMILIES on earth were in Australia before the arrival of Europeans.

 

[USincognito]

AV, I'm not referring to "cavemen" so you're not actually addressing the societies/populations I'm referring to. I'm also not referring to hermits either. I'm referring to hunter gatherers and many exist today. You might do a search for the following groups:
- Khoi San
- Yanomamo
- Australian Aborigines
to help get you back on the right track. You might also go back and read my post specifically about the Tasmanian Aborigines.

 

[AV1611VET]

You might also go back and read my post specifically about the Tasmanian Aborigines.

This is from The Answers Book, by Ken Ham, Jonathan Sarfati, and Carl Wieland, p. 234:

In some instances, the stone tools may have been used temporarily, until their settlements were fully established and they had found and exploited metal deposits, for example. In others, the original diverging group may not have taken the relevant knowledge with them. Ask an average family group today how many of them, if they had to start again, as it were, would know how to find, mine and smelt metal-bearing deposits? Obviously, there has been technological (cultural) degeneration in many post-Babel groups.

In some cases, harsh environments may have contributed. The Australian Aborigines have a technology and cultural knowledge which, in relation to their lifestyle and need to survive in the dry outback, is most appropriate. This includes the aerodynamic principles used in making boomerangs (some of which were designed to return to the thrower, while others were not).

Sometimes we see evidence of degeneration that is hard to explain, but is real, nonetheless. For instance, when Europeans arrived in Tasmania, the Aborigines there had the simplest technology known. They caught no fish, and did not usually make and wear clothes. Yet recent archaeological discoveries suggest that earlier generations had more knowledge and equipment.

For instance, archaeologist Rhys Jones believes that in the Tasmanian Aborigines' distant past, these people had equipment to sew skins into complex clothes. This contrasts with the observations in the early 1800's that they just slung skins over their shoulders. It also appears that they were in fact catching and eating fish in the past, but when Europeans arrived, they had not been doing this for a long time. From this we infer that technology is not always retained and built upon, but can be lost or abandoned.

Animist peoples live in fear of evil spirits and often have taboos against healthy practices like washing, and eating various nutritious foods. Again this illustrates how loss of knowledge of the true Creator-God leads to degradation (Romans 1:18-32). END OF QUOTE

 

[BeamMeUpScotty]

This is from The Answers Book, by Ken Hamm, Jonathan Sarfati, and Carl Wieland, p. 234:

In some instances, the stone tools may have been used temporarily, until their settlements were fully established and they had found and exploited metal deposits, for example. In others, the original diverging group may not have taken the relevant knowledge with them. Ask an average family group today how many of them, if they had to start again, as it were, would know how to find, mine and smelt metal-bearing deposits? Obviously, there has been technological (cultural) degeneration in many post-Babel groups.

In some cases, harsh environments may have contributed. The Australian Aborigines have a technology and cultural knowledge which, in relation to their lifestyle and need to survive in the dry outback, is most appropriate. This includes the aerodynamic principles used in making boomerangs (some of which were designed to return to the thrower, while others were not).

Sometimes we see evidence of degeneration that is hard to explain, but is real, nonetheless. For instance, when Europeans arrived in Tasmania, the Aborigines there had the simplest technology known. They caught no fish, and did not usually make and wear clothes. Yet recent archaeological discoveries suggest that earlier generations had more knowledge and equipment.

For instance, archaeologist Rhys Jones believes that in the Tasmanian Aborigines' distant past, these people had equipment to sew skins into complex clothes. This contrasts with the observations in the early 1800's that they just slung skins over their shoulders. It also appears that they were in fact catching and eating fish in the past, but when Europeans arrived, they had not been doing this for a long time. From this we infer that technology is not always retained and built upon, but can be lost or abandoned.

Animist peoples live in fear of evil spirits and often have taboos against healthy practices like washing, and eating various nutritious foods. Again this illustrates how loss of knowledge of the true Creator-God leads to degradation (Romans 1:18-32). END OF QUOTE

Ken Hamm is a quack. I see lots of speculation here and him quoting other people (poorly), but I doubt he actually went out and did any fieldworkd to find evidence. The last one is hilarious. King Louis XIV was told by his physician that the reason he was catching colds was that he was taking too many baths and he should cut the number in half--to one a year!!

Also, people here in Japan up until the end of WWII were animists (some still are) and they have always been healthy and clean--among the longest living people on the earth. Even today, most Japanese have no religion, and you should see the food culture and the cleanliness (baths are almost ritualized).

 

[shernren]

Quibble. Ken Ham has one m.

 

[BeamMeUpScotty]

Quibble. Ken Ham has one m.

Well, I just figured he needs everything he can get.

 

[USincognito]

Oh for Pete's sake! I just now noticed the typo in the thread title.

You know I joke around that I type 60 words per minute (30 accurately) but lately my average is dropping precipitously.

 

[Pats]

I see lots of speculation here and him quoting other people (poorly),

(emphasis mine)

Can you be more specific? I'm only asking out of curiosity regarding the validity of some of the claims in the quote.

Thanks.

 

[BeamMeUpScotty]

(emphasis mine)

Can you be more specific? I'm only asking out of curiosity regarding the validity of some of the claims in the quote.

Thanks.

Well, he actually only cites one person (so I should not have written "people"):

For instance, archaeologist Rhys Jones believes that in the Tasmanian Aborigines' distant past, these people had equipment to sew skins into complex clothes.

However, here he provides no source for validation, which is using citations poorly. Pretty much everything else in the original quote from the Ham et. al. book seems to be nothing more than armchair speculation.