Historical Satire Thread #1

[Mamie]

Neil you gave us carte blanche!
A couple of rules to consider at least use a faulty type of sholarship in posting. There are very good examples from the past. Is it remotely possible? but above all have fun the serious tuff is for the other threads in this forum.
This is #1 in case we have different lines of thought.

Now back to the Scythians. I have actually heard of this before the thread came up.

Now most "primitive" peoples have a name for themselves that if understood usually means "the people" of their immediate environment. It's when they come into contact with invading or neighbouring peoples they gat called something that may have gotten written down somewhere. So were Celts Scythians or something else entirely. Was the region the so called Sycthians called Scythia by the residents - probably not. Were they what are now considered to be Celts - maybe, maybe not. But unless you lived then do you really know?

Much of neolithic and mesolithic history is guessed at using the evidence left us. Our view and understanding is changing as we find new sites to study. Even the way we study an archealogical site is different from 100 years ago. But even when a site rich in artifacts is found and carefully studied we still must make assumptions about the people who made these "sites".

[J-J]

Interesting...if I understand you right,this means that all attribution of ethnic origin from archaeological sources is moot?

[Mamie]

'Course since we all are descended from a relatively small base population as shown genetically and are 99% related to chimpanzees race doesn't even come into it. We aren't different species.

Ethnicity is something else entirely. What had caused us to become "different" peoples? Is a group of individuals shaped by their environment, their food and water, their beliefs. My ggggggetc. grandfather found a congenial group of others and they became Jamtska. Who in turn became Swedes. Maybe next century we won't have countries we will have continents and I'll be an American (gasp). And you'll be a....?

Inuit have many different words for snow. Is it because they live in an environment that has variations in snow or because so much of the time there is snow. Or both. Would we turn brown or black if we spent all of our lives in a climate where the sunlight is more intense. Would our children's children's children have darker skin? Language is an agreement that certain sounds mean a particular thing. Pictograms are better.

[J-J]

Mamie I think you know much more about this field than I do,but I'll try to contribute something.
First,you are spot-on about race.There are no races
I think the answer to what makes ethnicity is yes.All of those.Particular high level adaptations to the environment.
Interestingly your comments about language and pictograms suggest a remnant of a deeper,common culture that we shared in our past,when we were few in number and confined to a small area of the planet.Are those aspects of human culture analogous to the bios chip in a computer?The basic set up,the beginnings of language and communication written into our genetic code?Maybe we could put the pieces of that culture together somehow.What were they like?

[J-J]

"Maybe next century we won't have countries we will have continents and I'll be an American (gasp). And you'll be a....?"

I'll just be me,as ever.Don't really care what label gets slapped on me.As long as it's easily peeled off again.

[Mamie]

I think that's what I'll be.

Human Bios. I guess you'd have to say that the need to procreate is part of that. But I suspect the instructions are a little more complex. A picture paints a 1000 words.


So let me paint you a picture - Lucy to higher evolved being(God maybe).

Are you an onion to be peeled off bit by bit in layers?

[J-J]

Universalians sounds better I think.That's how I think of myself too.It's an attitude we'll need if we ever meet the aliens.Hopefully they'll be Univers - aliens too!

"Are you an onion to be peeled off bit by bit in layers?"
Mamie that is such a violent image!I see your point though.Well if an individual buys into the whole deal of defining themselves with their nationality I suppose shedding your nationality would be like shedding part of yourself.But for me these things are external-if someone declared me French I don't think I'd be too bothered.

As for Lucy evolving into God-I need to think about that one.In principle I am all for it though.