Intellectual History is wild: the originator of the Neolithic Revolution concept was a British Marxist by the name of Vere Gordon Childe who saw it as evidence for Historical Materialism.
Archaeology has always been deeply political.
"If early primate history had for some reason promoted precision of control of the sphincter, and of the accumulation and discharge of intestinal gas, speech sounds today might be anal spirants"
I dare @hankgreen.bsky.social to make a video on this idea.
If authors thought as much about their own words as students of their works, I doubt they'd ever finish writing anything.
Maybe it's a case of someone being so steeped in local history and culture that those references come about without much deeper intention.
That's the beauty of not being limited to authorial intent, because authors more often than not don't even understand the full significant of their own words.
TPOT. What do you expect?
So... AI is about as good at recalling vaguely remembered research papers as I am?
Well... that's ... great.
Damn, that's... quite something. Now I have to re-read it.
Well... Jefferson and Johnson did ,)
Now that I think about it, quite a lot of parallels, considering how Denmark treats the Greenlanders :(
I immediately checked if you mentioned how inoculation was quite well-known throughout the African and Muslim world, and was relieved you did.
:)
I have long subscribed to James C. Scott's read of the data, and that means I have to get back to the secondary sources and do a lot more reading.
Maybe I can get Iain Provan to talk with me about it. :)
Convenient Myths is a really challenging book for me. I'm completely down with the first part, but the second part goes against some of my long-standing beliefs regarding the role of violence in human deep history.
Tagging both in a blatant attempt to get them interested, and possibly talk to me about their research. Would love to have them speak directly to the topic for my video.
My next episode will directly deal with the myth of the "Human Revolution" or "Upper Paleolithic Transition."
I'm exceptionally grateful to @elliescerri.bsky.social and @manuelwill.bsky.social for their research on this topic and it will feature prominently in my discussion.
Much of what the general public believes it knows about archaeology is not based on scientific research but national mythmaking propagated by political actors.
From my understanding of the history of archaeology, it has always been - and still is - closely tied to national mythmaking.
Not necessarily by the archaeologists themselves, but by those who fund the research and those who market the findings to the general public.
You want Eternal Truth?
Get yourself a religion. Science ain't for you.
What the Scientific Consensus IS can change at any time, but that does not change that there is a Scientific Consensus.
The fact something used to be the Scientific Consensus, but now isn't simply proves that the Scientific Consensus Process works.
The Scientific Consensus is whatever most experts agree that most experts agree on, even if they themselves don't agree with it.
The more I read about this topic, the more I am convinced the idea of the Upper Paleolithic Transition needs to be entirely discarded.
Here's an excellent article on the topic, and I have yet to see an even reasonably persuasive rebuttal:
Congratulations!
A great piece on the so-called Cognitive Revolution with @elliescerri.bsky.social and @manuelwill.bsky.social
I'm using Scerri and Will's research for my upcoming video on John Vervaeke's discussion of the "Upper Paleolithic Transition."
Nah, he's a bullshit artist. Just the first video in his series is full of hilarious nonsense.
He's one to talk about bullshit....
He's a grand master of it.
here's a little corrective to John Vervaeke's nonsense.
I honestly don't understand how this guy is taken seriously. The very first video in his AFTMC series is full of nonsense claims.
This video addresses just one of them.
I am very happy to announce my first video in my Debunking John Vervaeke series on Youtube.
John Vervaeke is basically a mid-level bullshirt artist, and I'm having a lot of fun pointing out all his nonsense.