February 25, 2013
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the naturual state of not belonging
this started out as a post about how messed up everything is. but, i changed my mind. instead, i have decided to try once again to get some ideas across to people about what we are really in,what this is really about and maybe, just maybe give hope for anyone’s predicament. all i can say is, thanks for letting me try.it is all i want.
one of the strangest things i learned in paleoanthropology was that this sense or aura of being not a ‘part of’, is a large part of our evolutionary path. you can see it even in hominids ,which are the more ape and more towards the beginning of when we get bipedal. lucy or Australopithecus afrensis, was a 4 to 5 foot tall species of erect ape , that was just beginning to exhibit habits like humans.
this was roughly anywhere from 4-5 million years ago. as far as we can tell. as far as not being part of, her kind fit the bill nicely. they originally came from africa, ended radiating out even to india and ethopia.this was a 4 foot tall humanoid , who has a human cladistic ( trait) in her skull, when her kind evolved into gracilis.the skull had became rounded like ours.so, we finally found at least one bipedal hominid (non-human) that had a human fossilized trait. we now have a fossil record possibility that extended back at least 5 million years, which instead of just showing our connection to primates (teeth and other physiological makeup that can be seen in lemurs and monkeys and apes and other primates) but rather, one that is uniquely human.
this is important.because before her kind showed up, there is nothing found. a complete void all the way to a species of quadruped that had left the trees to try and find sustenance in seeds and nuts.roughly 12 million years ago.we still have nothing to demonstrate in between or the missing link you may say from the quadruped to lucy..
so, even before we were human ,it seems we are out of place.
lucy’s fingers are curved,which means she had a proficiency for braichiating or tree climbing. this means that even know she was bipedal,the bipedalism is fairly recent. more of her skeleton demonstrates this,she wasn’t really good at running.her hips or pelvic girdle although similar to ours was more like an apes.so , it would be safe to say that she was not really suited for the open grasslands or a svelte where she lived. it is most likely true that her kind had body hair like apes today.which if ,she came from a wooded area in Africa would most likely be dark.this meant that the 12 foot wingspan eagles that went extinct in the 14th century would have no problem seeing her or her young.
not a good thing really. it is compounded by the fact that in order for her to get the required energy to survive,she needed meat.which her kind scavenged.so this meant competition with hyenas. in modern times there are 3 species of hyena, her time there was like possibly 20 roughly. some were huge.they used to be the answer to the dog requirement in nature. there were huge cats, huge canids, dire wolves plus the wolves successor, the dogs were making a big impact on the ecology. lucy was a small, 4-5 foot tall hominid not really good at walking bipedal,not very good at running, with a dietary need for meat to enable her to maintain the energy she needed to forage and survive. as a result, for the most part, the scavenging was done after everything else had pretty much stripped the prey bare.
lucy had the same kind of teeth we do.she couldn’t break through bone easy enough or effectively chew with the force of a predator.so, her kind devised a method of taking rocks.which somehow they knew would break a certain way. they would chip at the rock with another one, holding it like a person would hold a bar if hanging from a ledge,the thumb was not yet capable of opposition like ours. when they found a carcass, and when a piece broke off the rock ,that was the right shape and size, they would use this flake to slice through the tendon and bone. she knew how to locate the best place on the carcass , because she knew that predators will gnaw on the ends of limbs.so her kind would focus on those areas . sometimes, they would find a skull, picked clean by the scavengers and take it back to their pod or group area and use a rock to smash it open,exposing the brain of the animal.this was rich in the energy they needed. they would all collect and bring the stuff back to this area. they had a sense of community and a sense of social behavior that was far advanced. but,make no mistake, they were not part of this environment .they were out of their element. this not belonging and the need to survive was so strong, it is what began the whole process of our evolution.
for something that didn’t belong in the environment, they somehow survived against incredible odds, giving rise to two species, gracilis and robustus. robustus looking more like an ape, with a sagittal crest (the part of ape skulls that look like a ancient roman or greek helmet). the main difference was that this somehow aided in the stronger jaw muscles to possibly aid in the chewing and breaking of hard stuff. but, it seems that gracilus,the one not very adapted to this area or way of living is the one that would survive and carry on in our evolution.
there is a bit of a black out here now, because from her type to homo habilis is just a bunch of variations of robustus or gracilus,but seemingly out of the blue habilis appears. roughly 3 to 4 mya . this has been considered an over-sized Australopithecus, but others contend it is surely human.at any rate, i go for the human concept.because this animal , which again was out of its place, didn’t really belong, had manifested a better form of communication. it’s larynx had migrated further down its throat,in order to vocalize more effectively. it had to, in order to create stronger bonds between its fellows, as there was too many to bond through grooming.instead, habilis bonded through vocalization.language and the need to communicate was born and instantly put to the best use.these out of place, not really belonging in the environment first humans had begun the intensely fast evolution of culture.
habilis was extremely successful too, giving rise to a few speculative off shoots like blackii. but ultimately the successor that changed the world , arrived.it was homo erectus.
these humans by all rights should be the dominant form of human in existence.they excelled at being out of their element and were actively trying to not be part of. always on the move, erectus was probably the fastest running human alive. the fact they used one tool no matter what for most of their work,the hand axe, ( a sort of tear shaped rock ,that was fashioned the same way no matter how far apart or environment they were in.shows how innovative they were.they could go to any environment and become a apex hunter , it was in their blood.
when we came along, as a contemporary of them, we didn’t belong where they were. we couldn’t out do them, they were physically our master, and like us they were beginning to show care for their own.it was by pure twist of fate that we managed to outlive them. a volcano eruption had made their main places of existence devoid of any real food source. erectus had an incredible need for food which was not easily met in requirement after the eruption.
i can go on but i want to show that,when it comes to our feeling of not belonging to earth,it is a common human sensation.we manifested this ideal before we were even human.it has always been there.so for those of you that feel this way, be at ease,you are being human.more so then most people.
real humans lived in the worst of situations and survived as well as thrived.they faced real fear daily,but were able to function so well that when sapiens came around many abilities to make stuff was already spread and well known.we fashioned clothes and jewelry.to further separate us from nature.then we got fire.this is when erectus and possibly Neanderthal didn’t know how to use fire in all of it’s possible applications. we exploited fire excessively, eventually leading to the bronze and other metal ages. our separation from nature was so far advanced, we already felt that we were not part of, began to create gods and myths to explain how we, humans came to be on earth,how we are special and unique to all other life in so many profound ways.
so in summary,it is normal for a human to feel this detachment from nature.we made it that way and it proved to be a crucial element of our evolution.it is this feeling we have that is a legacy effect lent to us by our ancestors.