I used to have strong interests, but it’s been harder to feel connected to them in recent years.
I’d like to see if anyone else here shares them:
If any of this overlaps with what you enjoy, I’d like to know what specifically you’re focusing on within it.
prehistoric humanity
Who isn’t interested in this? I’m no expert but it’s fascinating all the same.
Since it's prehistory, by definition, there's no historical record.
Which leaves it open to interpretation and speculation based of patchy evidence. Interesting but always subject to revision.
There's some fanciful stuff out there.
But the antikythera mechanism, albeit not prehistory, points to more sophistication than some allow.
People 10,000 or 50,000 were not mentally much different to now. The problem is we have issues to piece it together from what ever scraps survived.
Since it's prehistory, by definition, there's no historical record.
Which leaves it open to interpretation and speculation based of patchy evidence. Interesting but always subject to revision.
There's some fanciful stuff out there.
But the antikythera mechanism, albeit not prehistory, points to more sophistication than some allow.
People 10,000 or 50,000 were not mentally much different to now. The problem is we have issues to piece it together from what ever scraps survived.
That’s interesting, perhaps these ancient accounts of giants were just really tall everyday people but to the observers seemed unearthly and almost alien. I suppose when transport was limited and new cultures/civilisations met others it would have felt like they were worlds apart in some ways.
If you reads some accounts from Greek and Roman sources they do mention how tall some peoples were, such as the Germanic tribes and the Scots too, even today there's a height difference between populations, with shorter people tending to come from around the southern Mediteraean and taller people from the north such as Scandinavia and Germany.
There is a medical problem that causes people to keep groing taller, it can be treated but not I think easily.
Many fossils were thought to be of giants, not just dinosaurs, but ice age mega fauna too.
You are correct that the prehistoric period generally refers to the period when something wasn’t written down, but it means more than that. Prehistoric refers to the period before the first known writing systems were developed, so you definitely didn’t consume your breakfast in the prehistoric period.
I was referring to written works, ie, written in the historical period, that are discussing events in the prehistoric period, before writing was invented.
The timeline of when prehistory begins and ends depends on which part of the world it refers to, as writing systems developed at different times.
Archaeologists usually refer to the prehistoric period as dating from Neolithic times which in the Levant dates from around 8300 BCE - 4500 BCE, to around 590 BCE. These dates differ in other parts of the world.
The Palaeolithic period in the Levant predates 8300 BCE, but it is sometimes loosely described as prehistoric and some people have started referring to prehistoric as any time back to the dawn of the first humans.
Even though there aren’t written records of a prehistoric person’s last meal, archaeologists sometimes find the remains of food in the stomach of a body that has been preserved in a peat bog or ice. Scientific analysis can show what their last meal contained. Grains of barley, wheat, berries and other things provide huge amounts of evidence about health, wealth, times of famine and so on.
I would suppose a giant would be not of this earth in terms of his or her height. If you go with the texts they were not of the highest powers creation and therefore deemed unnatural, impure, immoral and evil. The great flood was the means of mass execution for these half breeds. If the higher power created man in his image perhaps the fallen were the same, they would still need to be able to relate in some way to human beings unless they did so without emotion and only on the higher powers orders.
possibly giants
What would qualify as a giant? 7 feet tall, 20 feet etc?
There are some humans who have been known to grow really tall but they often have serious health issues as a direct result of this, Since these are natural and know I imagine you would consider someone much taller.
At, say, 20 feet tall, the human frame could not support this so an foreign genome would be required to be compatible with humanity to be able to create a hybrid as you describe.
I'm curious as to what qualifies as a fallen one? If they were angelic would they have been shaped by God to be able to reproduce? If so, it raises lots of interesting questions as to why they were deliberately designed with unnecessary equipment.
An interesting thought experiment could grow from this.
There is mention in certain texts of fallen ones making home with people….creating monstrous offspring…possibly giants and the like. I am not one to close all doors unless I can be certain, I’ll always be superstitious but I also have a keen interest in the supernatural.
Giants….any belief in those?
There's a known tendency for species that are isolated on islands to become giants. Galapagos tortoises, for example. See island gigantism.
Sometimes they grow smaller, though (like Homo floresiensis, the Indonesian "hobbits").
Not all prehistoric evidence is recorded in writing!
Isn't that in the definition of history vs. prehistory? History is written down and prehistory isn't? But then, not everything was written down after writing was invented, so is what I had for breakfast historic or prehistoric? Anyone know if there is an official definition?
Yes people can be protective of their niche and some archaeologists have been possessive of their research too, especially in early archaeological endeavours, when untrained men with money and connections went off round the world to look for treasure.
Even in more recent times, some archaeologists are well known for not publishing the results of their research, or not publishing in a timely fashion, so lots of data is sitting in files that is yet to be put into a report with conclusions. It is senseless to cause destruction to archaeological sites if nothing positive is going to come of it.
Interestingly, someone who worked on the Channel 4 TV programme “Time Team” (that used to be on in the 1990s) told me that the archaeological sites were dug up and never recorded or put into a site report or final report. I was taken aback to learn this, so I searched online unsuccessfully, and wrote to Channel 4 asking where reports could be accessed, but didn’t get a reply.
Thankfully, most archaeologists now are conscientious and always write up archaeological site reports. Universities often have ‘public archaeology’ lectures or workshops, and moder archaeological techniques mean that destruction of archaeology and the environment isn’t always necessary.
I got that Josephine Quinn book when I first came out, it's brilliant.
I know what you mean about "ritual deposits", maybe a better term would "intentional deposits", something depositied with more meaning than chucking something in the bin, although midden heaps are archaeological gold mines. But you're right, nobody has come up with a better explaination despite years of trying, ritual and sympbolic thinking do seem to be core to human brains and thinking.
I love a multidisciplinary approach too, over the last 30 odd years that I've been interested in ancient history, i've seen so many attitudes change, probably the biggest is a multidisciplinary approach, previously people were so protective of their academic niche it actually stiffled new discoveries. I remember when using wear patterns on rocks to help with dating them was seen as thoroughly contravercial and on a par with conspiracy theories. There was so much racism too, with discoveries made by Indian underwater researchers showing the remains of the Indus valley culture were totally snobbily downgraded by white academics because they didn't trust the methodology of "colonials".
The ‘Human’ series was fascinating indeed and the rock markings cannot be mistaken as incidental abrasion, rather than deliberate intention.
i would have liked to have understood more about how much time could have elapsed between making the tools and their deliberate burning and breakage. I am always reticent when deposits like these are interpreted as highly indicative of an offering, but as no credible alternative has been proposed, it is a valid suggestion.
On the subject of one sided written records, this was a key theme in the book, “How the World Made the West” by Josephine Quinn, in which she shows how Britain was shaped by things around the world, rather than simply Greek and Roman classical civilisation.
There are some things we may rely on a bit more such as Egyptian accounts of poor harvests and long winters, little sun that come from the destruction of Thera, modern day Santorini,
I love that historians and archaeologists, together with geologists, palaeontologists, anthropologists, biologists, meteorologists, etc, draw on interdisciplinary evidence to give us a deeper and fuller understanding of the past, such as you describe.
Here is a clip of the rock markings from the TV series ‘Human’.
ArchaeC, one fo the fascinating things about the recent documentary series Human was an enormous rock that had been enhanced to make it appear more snake like, it's thought to be one of if not the earliest signs of symbolic thought.
Most pre-historic evedence isn't recorded in writing and when it is it's often problematic as its so one sided, like we know a little about Britain just before and at the time of the Roman invasion, as the people of Britain didn't leave any writing of thier own, we have to rely on Roman sources who were hostile. There are some things we may rely on a bit more such as Egyptian accounts of poor harvests and long winters, little sun that come from the destruction of Thera, modern day Santorini, so widespread were the effects that they were written about by many literate societies of the time, such as India. These sources are only just being "rediscovered" by Western scholars who've traditionally been very wary and dismissive of non European sources.
Homo floresiensis
Were these the ones found in a cave in Asia? Small and 3ft-4ft in height?
Homo floresiensis demonstrates miniaturisation, as you'd expect on an island with limited resources. Other animals do the same.
The question is what the driver is for people to be particularly large. Especially given diseases, availability of quality food and the problems with childbirth.
Of course exceptional individuals are possible due to pituitary problems. But such individuals struggle for calories and nutrition and are shorter lived.
But claims for a race of giants doesn't seem to have much evidence to me.
Not all prehistoric evidence is recorded in writing! There may be speculation over some aspects, but we can say much from archaeological analysis of pottery, from scientific analysis of clay composition to representation of culture - DNA - agriculture, diet, health …. There are many facts.
