April 9, 2005

• Maybe, maybe not…

  Some
  paleoanthropologists are apparently giddy with enthusiasm over the
  conclusions they’ve drawn from the recent discovery of an edentulous
  hominin skull in the Republic of Georgia.  Some have made the
  speculative claim that this discovery indicates that ancient
  proto-people treated their elders with compassionate care.

  I don’t think so.

  Don’t get me wrong.  I have no opinion about whether this guy they
  are calling the “Old Man” was cared for and kept alive for a few years
  by others 1.8 million years ago after he lost all but one of his teeth
  (his left canine tooth).  I’m just saying that such a conclusion
  is not proven by that find.  That is one of the possibilities
  there, but not the only one.

  I think it is just as reasonable to conclude that he had been tough and
  smart enough to figure out ways to soften his food or survive on
  naturally soft foods.  My ex has been living for about a decade
  without teeth, and he doesn’t get a lot of help or care with his
  feeding.  He doesn’t have electricity at his place for blenders or
  choppers, either.  What he can’t gum he mashes, slices, or shreds
  with hand tools.  That prehistoric old man could have done
  something similar.

  The
  Old Man might have had enough knowledge and skill to make him valuable
  to his kin so that they helped him as he aged.  That makes
  sense.  It also makes sense that he might have been skilled,
  strong, mean and nasty enough to have either made it on his own or
  compelled others to help him along.  Such patterns of social
  interaction are currently found among humans, other primates, and even
  other classes of animals.

  This discsussion reminded me of one of my past lives.  It isn’t
  the earliest life I recall.  In that earliest life, I died very
  young, at about age three.   But there was one Stone Age
  incarnation in which I lived fairly long for that culture, about as
  long as the Old Man of Dmanisi.  I lived long enough to rear my
  grandson after his mother died.

  That wasn’t as long ago as the Georgian find.  We lived in caves
  and migrated seasonally, but we looked more human and less simian than
  the reconstructions of the skulls from Dmanisi.  Our culture
  certainly did treat its more helpless and/or dependent members with
  some compassion, but not unless that member had value to the
  clan.  They weighed the costs and benefits because the clan’s
  survival was marginal.

  Children were cared for.  That’s more or less standard practice
  among mammals.  Homo sapiens is not the only species where orphans
  are adopted and reared by older siblings, grandparents, aunts, etc.

  As an elder, I was cared for, too, but only because I had value to the
  social group.  I had knowledge of herbal medicine and skills for
  setting bones and treating wounds.  As my grandson grew to
  adulthood and I grew older and more frail, he learned my skills. 
  We had bonds of affection as well as interdependence.  When at
  last a time came when the clan was ready for the trip to wintering
  grounds and I would have had to be carried, others in the clan
  persuaded my grandson that it was time to leave me behind.

  Abandonment of burdensome members by nomadic peoples has been a common
  practice even into historical times.  My grandson, who had learned
  enough of my skills to replace me in the clan, had enough compassion
  for me to prepare a deadly drink so that I would not be left alone in
  the cold to starve.  I can’t help wondering how the Old Man above
  met his end.

  For more on the Dmanisi find:

  http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0504/feature2/index.html

  http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/old_man_of_georgia/#continue

  http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/04/07/MNGIAC48UJ1.DTL

  http://www.pandasthumb.org/ April 6, 2005

  • 5:08 pm
  • 8 Comments