If Reality Required Words
If reality required words, animals would be in a terrible fix.
( ) ?
( ) !
( ) ?
( ) !
Further, we wouldn’t have to wonder why it’s speech instead of speach.
If reality required words, animals would be in a terrible fix.
I love it!
When I was about 5 years old, I wondered how animals could get by in the world, because they didn’t have any language for their parents to tell them what was safe to eat and what wasn’t.
If reality required words, animals would be in a terrible fix.
I love it!
When I was about 5 years old, I wondered how animals could get by in the world, because they didn’t have any language for their parents to tell them what was safe to eat and what wasn’t.
True. On the plus side, without words were the young animals less likely to get really bad advice?
Mark 16:18 - “They will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all;”
Maybe we have the best words. Maybe not.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-02-14/there-such-thing-octopus-sign-language
Maybe we have the best words. Maybe not.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-02-14/there-such-thing-octopus-sign-language
As an octopus on a rock
I neither smile nor frown,
it is very hard to tell
if I’m feeling up or down.
One certain indication is my shade of green or pink,
and if I’m really incensed
you will see a cloud of ink.
One of the best movie scenes of all time is the conclusion of Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Quest for Fire, 1981.
Naoh, a young Neanderthal man has seen his friend, a Homo sapiens girl, Eka, start a fire with a hand drill. When his tribe once again loses the embers in their tinder basket and all seems lost, Naoh tells the forlorn people that he can create fire with a cold stick! Mystified, they watch as he sits down and tries to repeat what he saw the girl doing. He spins and spins the stick, wipes his brow as,the looks of hope around him fade from all the faces. Another magic fantasy. Eka’s hand appears over his, stopping him. She takes his place. Only the sound of her palms spinning the stick. Again and again, and again. A tendril of smoke appears. The wave of astonishment through the tribe. Tinder is added. Fire! Fire from a spinning stick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gONbRf8e37I
One of the best movie scenes of all time is the conclusion of Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Quest for Fire, 1981.
Naoh, a young Neanderthal man has seen his friend, a Homo sapiens girl, Eka, start a fire with a hand drill. When his tribe once again loses the embers in their tinder basket and all seems lost, Naoh tells the forlorn people that he can create fire with a cold stick! Mystified, they watch as he sits down and tries to repeat what he saw the girl doing. He spins and spins the stick, wipes his brow as,the looks of hope around him fade from all the faces. Another magic fantasy. Eka’s hand appears over his, stopping him. She takes his place. Only the sound of her palms spinning the stick. Again and again, and again. A tendril of smoke appears. The wave of astonishment through the tribe. Tinder is added. Fire! Fire from a spinning stick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gONbRf8e37I
Yes, that was a great scene. Another good scene is the one where she shows him another way to have sex – face to face. Those boys had a lot to learn.
One of the best movie scenes of all time is the conclusion of Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Quest for Fire, 1981.
Naoh, a young Neanderthal man has seen his friend, a Homo sapiens girl, Eka, start a fire with a hand drill. When his tribe once again loses the embers in their tinder basket and all seems lost, Naoh tells the forlorn people that he can create fire with a cold stick! Mystified, they watch as he sits down and tries to repeat what he saw the girl doing. He spins and spins the stick, wipes his brow as,the looks of hope around him fade from all the faces. Another magic fantasy. Eka’s hand appears over his, stopping him. She takes his place. Only the sound of her palms spinning the stick. Again and again, and again. A tendril of smoke appears. The wave of astonishment through the tribe. Tinder is added. Fire! Fire from a spinning stick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gONbRf8e37I
Yes, that was a great scene. Another good scene is the one where she shows him another way to have sex – face to face. Those boys had a lot to learn.
I’m glad you noticed that. Then the one where she ‘taught’ them how to laugh! And did you notice the scene where the three brothers defended themselves with throwing sticks against Neanderthal attackers who only had spears? I think they must have learned that technology from the girl or her tribe. Then the scene where Naoh is investigating an abandoned Sapiens village (Eka’s people) and finds the gourd-shaped clay vessel - handling it, tapping on it. Not to mention her body paint!
There was a brief shot of one of the Neanderthal tribe trying his hand at the fire-starting technique, and I’ll bet some of the girls were experimenting with her ash, ochre and charcoal ‘cosmetics’. Taking design cues from Eka, birds and leopards? Not to mention repeating some of her words.
The fire starting and missionary position were indeed the second and third best parts of the movie Quest For Fire.
And coming in at number one…
Annaud’s Quest for Fire came out in 1981. 40 years later, some recent reconstructions: https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS693US693&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=reconstruction+of+neanderthal+woman&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiq_tLnob_vAhWBMX0KHQpTDZIQjJkEegQIBBAB&biw=1365&bih=606#imgrc=Y0C17tAMLu8pTM
Have any of you watched the galleries with director’s commentary on the DVD?
More on our Neanderthal genes: https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/05/07/2892936.htm
The scene from Quest for Fire that LJ points out is certainly another of the best from this Canadian movie – contagious laughter, sans language. You both make me want to see it again (I don’t have the DVD).
A long time ago I read (forget where) that a couple of paleontologists were having a discussion, and one of them said, ‘if you gave a Neanderthal a shave, dressed him in a suit and put him on a city bus, no one would notice’. To which the other one replied, ‘personally, I would get off the bus’. Which gets one to wondering, how different were Neanderthals anyway? In addition to what they looked like, what’s even more fascinating to wonder about is their culture and behaviour, for which we’ll probably never have clear answers.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Neanderthals, and share the sentiment at the end of the posted link: “It’s cool to think that some of us have a little Neanderthal DNA in us”.
The scene from Quest for Fire that LJ points out is certainly another of the best from this Canadian movie – contagious laughter, sans language. You both make me want to see it again (I don’t have the DVD).
A long time ago I read (forget where) that a couple of paleontologists were having a discussion, and one of them said, ‘if you gave a Neanderthal a shave, dressed him in a suit and put him on a city bus, no one would notice’. To which the other one replied, ‘personally, I would get off the bus’. Which gets one to wondering, how different were Neanderthals anyway? In addition to what they looked like, what’s even more fascinating to wonder about is their culture and behaviour, for which we’ll probably never have clear answers.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Neanderthals, and share the sentiment at the end of the posted link: “It’s cool to think that some of us have a little Neanderthal DNA in us”.
I saw a censored movie theater version in the early ‘80’s in Grass Valley, CA. Presently, this small-town library got an uncensored copy for me via inter-library loan. I see by the sticker on jacket that it came from Seaside, Oregon. The Blue Pacific!
Music Before Words?
Notice the music in the soundtrack of Quest for Fire. For upwards of 200,000 years Neanderthal children playing around the campfire must have noticed that hollow bird bones and reeds made wonderful variable sounds when they blew into them.
Inspiration from wild neighbors: bird song, wolves, frogs, insects, rattlers, drummers (grouse) ‘rappers’ (woodpeckers) serenaders to each other (owls).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVfiIp3QGs4 (grouse drumming)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=933uhj79lmg (single flute)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpjBOmJUahs (pan pipes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcDzlx-DFHU (pan pipes - Zamfir)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN-542IYoE0 (didgeridoo with rattle)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tRMqbPH_pk (humpback whale)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds5RtEB-xuE (for 200,000 years our ‘lullaby as we fell asleep?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGF5xT1kUlE (Neanderthal child watching coals as she falls asleep)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxP8kxUn5bc (waking up in the morning, before the others)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVPLIuBy9CY (everything is rhythm)
(we can surmise how tough it was, but during those 200,000 plus years . . . there must have been such moments)
I did a little internet search for the oldest know human musical instruments.
Here are a couple of links:
https://www.oldest.org/music/musical-instruments/
There seems to be some dispute about a bone flute made from a bear femur found in the cave of Divje Babe in Slovenia. The top link above, (oldest.org), claims the flute is 50,000 years old and was made by Neanderthals. The other link, (discover-music), dates the flute around 43,100 years old and states that it could have been made by either Cro-Magnons or Neanderthals.
There is also some conjecture that the flute is not a musical instrument at all, but is instead just a bone chewed up by a hyena. This is seems unlikely to me for this reason: “Ljuben Dimkaroski, member of the Ljubljana Opera Orchestra for 35 years (trumpet), was given a clay replica of the flute by the curator of Slovenian National Museum on occasion of Ljuben’s exhibition “Image in Stone”. In his dreams, about a year later, he got a clue of how to play this prehistoric instrument.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHy9FOblt7Y&t=156s
The 2:25 minute mark of this video is pretty mind blowing. Also, at the beginning of this video, the flute is stated at being 60,000 years old.
One of the most interesting things about all the bone flutes found so far is that they are “are inescapably diatonic and will sound like a near-perfect fit within ANY kind of standard diatonic scale, modern or antique.”
I’m not an anthropologist, but it seems to me that around 40,000 years ago, humans made some sort of evolutionary leap, culturally. And not just musically, but artistically.
One of my favorite documentaries is Werner Herzog’s, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which shows art from the Chauvet cave in France, which may be the earliest cave paintings known.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kULwsoCEd3g
I remember taking an art history class years ago, and one of the assignments was to reproduce by hand a work of art of our choosing. Many students picked European cave art from 30,000 years ago or so, probably because they assumed it would simple and easy to copy. The students got a shock at at how difficult it was to reproduce that cave art. Our instructor noted that those first known artists had created art that was not primitive, unsophisticated or hesitant, but was instead, fully realized art.