Fenrir wrote:The Australian aboriginal was not "culturally isolated" from the rest of mankind. Across a significant area of the north they lived right next door to, and traded with, and fought with, and intermarried with people who use bows. Why they didn't take up bow use themselves is open to discussion, the fact that a significant area of Australia was well aware of bows and that extensive trading occurred across the continent is not.

Well since they developed their own indigenous weapon, in the form of the boomerang, one which comes back to the user if it misses the target, I suspect they thought a weapon that didn't return to them if it missed was pretty pointless ...

[Edited to include quote to maintain proper flow of context]

Various articles (without citations to considered works in the main) on the net declare that trade in weapons between the mainlanders and the islanders was largely in the form of spears moving from the mainland to the islands, and that mainland spears were sought after by the islanders. Apparently they were better made and more gruesomely deadly than the island version.

Why bows were not considered worthwhile by mainlanders is also subject to conjecture. Such conjecture includes the possibility that the available bows were more suited to the smaller prey species found in New Guinea and not suitable for the larger and more robust prey of the mainland.

I'm not an anthropologist though and rank speculation does not appeal.

My point, I feel, remains relevant, mainlanders were well aware of the bow and chose not to use it.

It could come down to something as simple as not having a widespread species of woody plant that would be suitable for arrows, but was great for spears. It could be that the mainland peoples just didn't find the weapon appealing.

Until such time as one takes into consideration how critical it is to have a quiver of consistent arrows, and by consistent I mean for weight, length, flex, fletching (or lack thereof), nocking method and point differences, one cannot fully appreciate the extensive application of analytical thought. Without that consistent flight one couldn't have an idea of the arc, and torque yaw, of any arrow and you'd just have to shoot and hope for the best. I don't think any bowman of worth would rather have a stack of different arrows when he/she can have each arrow as near a clone to the next as he/she can get. The fact that people living, or dying, as a result of their weapons sort of automatically applies a selective force for keeping what works and discarding that which doesn't.

The boomerang may have been better than an arrow at taking out a bird, or several, in a large flock on the wing, as are know to occur in Oz. A stone tipped arrow is a fragile thing that doesn't do well when banging into rocks. A well made boomerang could probably be used for years. That would allow a hunter to know his/her weapon very well indeed. You'd know what your weapon did in the wind, heat, rain and all sorts of conditions. If the boomerang isn't an example of unique analytical thinking applied to a pressing problem there isn't one. I think I've read that there were all sorts of boomerang, and some were made to fly a great distance, and were not meant to return to the thrower.

I've yet to see a defense of the assertion that paleolithic people didn't have the ability to think analytically which has withstood close examination. I didn't miss that did I?



RS

Calilasseia wrote:

Fenrir wrote:The Australian aboriginal was not "culturally isolated" from the rest of mankind. Across a significant area of the north they lived right next door to, and traded with, and fought with, and intermarried with people who use bows. Why they didn't take up bow use themselves is open to discussion, the fact that a significant area of Australia was well aware of bows and that extensive trading occurred across the continent is not.

Well since they developed their own indigenous weapon, in the form of the boomerang, one which comes back to the user if it misses the target, I suspect they thought a weapon that didn't return to them if it missed was pretty pointless ...

[Edited to include quote to maintain proper flow of context]

The original hunting boomerangs did not return they flew straight with skill applied. They were also more deadly or damaging than an arrow with the same accuracy. That might explain why the bow and arrow was not in use in Australia.

Oldskeptic wrote:

The original hunting boomerangs did not return they flew straight with skill applied. They were also more deadly or damaging than an arrow with the same accuracy. That might explain why the bow and arrow was not in use in Australia.

Still it's notable that the bow and arrow was not used anywhere on this continent with its variety of biomes. If you had a world map of land where the bow and arrow was used before western colonisation, there would be this one blank area surrounded by water and you could recognise it, Oh yes, this big inhabited area is “the continent of Australia". it’s one of the terminals of human migration:




In this Wiki pic green means early hominin occupation, yellow means Neanderthal

I know you know all this. How reasonable is your case that the boomerang would render the bow and arrow unnecessary? In open country maybe, but in forest hunting? I’m thinking that a bow can be slowly drawn or a blowpipe slowly maneuvered to aim but a boomerang needs space “to throw a cat” and is launched with a flurry, it’s a great big thing coming at the prey compared with a poisoned dart or arrow. Maybe the Australians thought the koalas were tooo cute to be hunted.

Anyway, supposing the boomerang is that superior, why wasn’t it exported through New Guinea to Eurasia? Accepting Fenrir’s interesting evidence that Northern Australian aboriginals had contact with what is now Indonesia. It seems that technological progress hasn’t automatically travelled. Maybe it has often travelled though conquest and in some of those cases, the advanced technology enabled conquest. Thinking of the Asian riding stirrup and African iron smelting of the Bantu speaking peoples.

Some weapons seem to have been invented independently in several places, like the blowpipe but the bow and arrow maybe once only and that I still maintain that might be because it’s irreducibly complex with three components of which only the arrow might have been associated with weaponry, as a sort of spear.

All very interesting, this bow 'n arrer stuff. But I still say that this bleeding great wooden boat didn't exist and if it did it wouldn't have floated for more than five minutes in a rough sea.

Alan B wrote:All very interesting, this bow 'n arrer stuff. But I still say that this bleeding great wooden boat didn't exist and if it did it wouldn't have floated for more than five minutes in a rough sea.

Could such a boat made from wood even have floated for long in a millpond?
With a crew of a handful, who would have manned the pumps against the inevitable leakage and accumulated animal piss?

Pumps? Now you're introducing 'modern' technology.

tolman wrote:

Alan B wrote:All very interesting, this bow 'n arrer stuff. But I still say that this bleeding great wooden boat didn't exist and if it did it wouldn't have floated for more than five minutes in a rough sea.

Could such a boat made from wood even have floated for long in a millpond?
With a crew of a handful, who would have manned the pumps against the inevitable leakage and accumulated animal piss?

Yes, I was going to ask about those as well because the whole damn thing was kept closed up until the window was opened to let the birds out. They were drowning in pee. (Unless the suspended animation thing actually happened).

tolman wrote:

Alan B wrote:All very interesting, this bow 'n arrer stuff. But I still say that this bleeding great wooden boat didn't exist and if it did it wouldn't have floated for more than five minutes in a rough sea.

Could such a boat made from wood even have floated for long in a millpond?
With a crew of a handful, who would have manned the pumps against the inevitable leakage and accumulated animal piss?

You'd be hard put to build such a structure successfully on dry land let alone in a millpond and no way in open water. All the 1/2 scale replicas I've seen have either been built on a steel barge and/or have large amounts of steel holding the structure together.

Yep! I've heard of these people using evil steel to build a wooden boat. It's the Devil's work, mate. These people haven't read the Good Book properly and have little trust in de Lard. [/ ]

Y'all are missing the "gopher wood" bit. See, gopher wood is stronger than steel but so easy to work with even a 600 year old dude can do it with a bronze adze. It gets it's name from Noah, when he looked at Shem and said "fuck me, you better take the donkey and gopher some more wood, son".

Lak, always good for a laugh.

Jayjay4547 wrote:The value of the story lies in its messages about the human condition. Vulnerability, catastrophe, responsibility, consequence, mankind’s special relationship with nature. When water appears in a vision-like story, it might be a metaphor for something in the personality. When I have dreamed of massive amounts of water, those seem to stick in my memory, I could almost say they haunt me.

Bullshit, it's about an alleged petty and genocidal supreme being who decided that killing 99.99999% of the extant higher lifeforms [including infants] on the planet by drowning was the best option.
Are you one of these people that write children's books that sugar-coat this depraved myth?

I'd like to know how Noah took care of sanitation aboard the Ark as well as ventilation. The Ark must have been an appallingly smelly vessel below deck with all that urinating and defecating by 70,000 animals. It would have been unbearable!

I don't see why he needed a flood in the first place. Fuck, ain't he the Grand Exulted Poobah Lord God of the Whole Fucking Shebang? Ain't he the dude who magicked the whole thing into existence by an act of will? Didn't he stop the fucking SUN in the sky? If he can do all that just with a nod and a wink, then wiping out all the sinners and dinos would have been a snap of His fingers. But NO, that's not good enough, he's gotta get all righteous and wrathful and go Cecile B DeMille on our asses.

I've heard from some spectacularly brain-damaged fundies that he was using the flood to "teach us a lesson". Teach fucking WHO a lesson? They're all goddamned DEAD now you moronic asshat. Do you honestly think Noah and that lot wouldn't have been just as fucking impressed if he'd just made everybody else drop over dead at once? Was 7 MILES of water actually necessary? Who is this fool anyway? Busby Berkeley's cinematographer?

You'd think hey?

laklak wrote:I don't see why he needed a flood in the first place. Fuck, ain't he the Grand Exulted Poobah Lord God of the Whole Fucking Shebang? Ain't he the dude who magicked the whole thing into existence by an act of will? Didn't he stop the fucking SUN in the sky? If he can do all that just with a nod and a wink, then wiping out all the sinners and dinos would have been a snap of His fingers.

But but they had iron chariots!

BooBoo wrote:I'd like to know how Noah took care of sanitation aboard the Ark as well as ventilation. The Ark must have been an appallingly smelly vessel below deck with all that urinating and defecating by 70,000 animals. It would have been unbearable!

It would have been worse than that(had it been real), it would have been fatal for all the animals within 24 hours.

I pointed out in a previous thread about Noah's Ark, as usually depicted, a comparison with modern day large intensive pig and poultry sheds. These buildings are fairly hot and smelly when operating normally - with huge air extraction electric fans every few metres along their length. If the fans are stopped by a breakdown or power cut it is normal procedure to open all doors to try to keep some air flowing through, but even with this emergency option, if the fans aren't running after six hours or so, pigs, chickens or turkeys (as applicable) start dying of suffocation and heat stress.
I experienced this first hand when I worked for a battery cage laying hen company about 40 years ago. Fortunately for the hens, whenever power cuts or breakdowns occurred they were always fixed/power restored soon enough to avoid any deaths when I was there.

Do creationists believe Noah had electric fans on the Ark? Or automated manure removal systems?

DaveScriv wrote: Do creationists believe Noah had electric fans on the Ark? Or automated manure removal systems?

Of course they do! It's all done by Gawd's Magick and it's not in the Bible 'cos that would taking de Lard's name in vain - or sumfink.