Monday, July 21, 2014

ancient earthenworks pre-date amazonian rainforest

ancient-origins |  A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has revealed that a series of mysterious lines and geometric shapes carved into the Amazonian landscape were created thousands of years ago before the rainforest even existed, according to a report in Discovery News. The purpose of the massive earthworks and who created them remains unknown, and scientists are beginning to realise just how much there still is to learn about the prehistoric cultures of the Amazon and life before the arrival of Europeans. 

The unusual earthworks, which include square, straight, and ring-like ditches, were first uncovered in 1999, after large areas of pristine forest was cleared for cattle grazing. Since then, hundreds of the earthen foundations have been found in a region more than 150 miles across, covering northern Bolivia and Brazil’s Amazonas state.

The ditches were sculpted from the clay rich soils of the Amazon and are typically around 30 feet wide and 10 feet deep, alongside 3 feet high walls. However, the largest ring ditches found so far are an incredible 1,000 feet in diameter.  The purpose of the ditches remains a complete mystery. The fact that many of them are clustered on a 200 metre high plateau suggests they may have been used for defence, however, others have suggested they were used for drainage or for channelling water since most were placed near spring water source. A team of researchers who published a paper in the journal Antiquity in 2010 argued that the layout of the ditches is highly symbolic suggestion a ceremonial and religious function.

Until now, it was believed that the earthworks dated back to around 200 AD. However, the latest study has revealed that they are, in fact, much older. Study author John Francis Carson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, explained that sediment cores had been taken from two lakes near the major earthwork sites.  These sediment cores hold ancient pollen grains and charcoal from long-ago fires, and can reveal information about the climate and ecosystem that existed when the sediment was laid down as far back as 6,000 years ago.

The results revealed that the oldest sediments did not come from a rainforest ecosystem at all. Rather, they showed that the landscape, before about 2,000 to 3,000 years ago, looked more like the savannahs of Africa than today’s lush rainforest.

18 comments:

Vic78 said...

Lucy's story was a little on the optimistic side. It's game over if large metros are doing what the story had NYC doing in 2050.

It's a little off the subject, when did you start calling the man Hon Bro Preznit? When did you conclude that he sucked at parts of his gig?

CNu said...

February 2011 is the earliest I can trace back for that specific public honorific http://subrealism.blogspot.com/search?q=Hon.Bro.Preznit

January 2008 marks my first public expression of misgivings about Obamamandius, the ultimate rorschachian http://subrealism.blogspot.com/search?q=rorschachian

Constructive_Feedback said...

Brother CNu:


You are confronting "BIGot Dono Ne" the wrong way.


Probe into his psychological need to affirm the importance of INHERITANCE in determining one's mental/intellectual attributes.


WHY is it important for him to get everyone to agree with this?

Of course we know that he is a "White Supremacist" and thus if he gets everyone to agree with this "Genes" over "Environment/Culture" meme then he will, in turn, look at Black people, note the testing methodology which has our people registering with an "Intelligence Rate" that is X number of standard deviations shifted to the left (below Whites) and thus he'll have a basis to AFFIRM HIS WHITE SUPREMACY.


What about the ASIAN whose intelligence is X number of standard deviations to the right (higher) than are White folks?


"BIGot Dono Ne" is not Asian. Since they have a higher average IQ than do Whites are THEY SUPERIOR to Whites?


"BIGot Dono Ne" can ONLY claim to be an expert at LOOKING FROM THE OUTSIDE into the "Black Box" of the BRAIN - making note of the SKIN COLOR that this brain is encased in and making INFERENCES based upon this level of knowledge that he is limited to.


I ASSURE YOU that if you took "BIGot Dono Ne" to a university "Artificial Intelligence Lab" - even if it is ONLY full of WHITE FOLKS and then put him in front of the "White board" and asked that he provide them with a LESSON on "Mental Cognition", "Intelligence" and "Human Memory Storage" - THEY'D ALL LAUGH HIM OUT OF THE LECTURE HALL and demand that HE EMPTY THE TRASH CAN ON THE WAY OUT.


Why do people like "BIGot Dono Ne" and "SBPDL" attempt to appropriate the scientific advances made by a cluster of White academics AS THEIR OWN when THEY would look down upon "BIGot Dono Ne" if he was actually in their presence ?

Constructive_Feedback said...

BIGot Dono Ne:


WHICH GAPS?


* The gaps between American students and those in Korea and the Netherlands?
* The gaps in industrial education that allows China to take over our machine tools market?
* The gap which has Indian doctors in America as a major over-representation of their population base?


WHICH GAP would you like for them to stop attempting to close?

CNu said...

Education and highly literate, highly numerate home environments go hand in hand, making high IQ directly heritable.

China's going to go into the environmental and social toilet in its mad dash attempt to emulate American consumerism on a far more massive scale. So much for their "high IQ's".

But I digress, and you pretend. Let's hear more specifics about this genetic hardwiring you keep swearing up and down exists, but for which there's no confirmatory data at this time.

Vic78 said...

I believe a lot of conservatives are going to find themselves in bad shape when shit hits the fan. I imagine hit squads going after people believed to be responsible. It'll be pretty easy to find out who to target. They might put the stupid people on a do not help list. It would contain around 30% of the population. Sounds sustainable to me. Around 96 to 100 million culled in creative ways.

CNu said...

Then the economically unproductive elderly have got to go first. None less than Baroness Warnock herself has already weighed in on this topic BD. If you're volunteering to get the de-parasitization ball rolling, we'll gladly take you up on your offer. As for the rest:

1) People mistake rivalry for scarcity. If one tribe excludes all the others from a water source, forces them to do their will to get water, there’s obviously scarcity, right?

Wrong.

Don’t get me started on the sacralization of (largely inherited) “property rights,” ownership — the right to exclude others.

2) They don’t understand that competitions only virtue is increasing and improving cooperation. Cooperation — non-kin altruism, eusociality, etc. — is the thing that got us to the top of the food chain. Cooperation is what wins the battle against scarcity.

Competition fetishists think that competition is always good because it sometimes improves cooperation, even though it frequently does the exact opposite.

CNu said...

Hierarchy supports cooperation within a group. in fact, a particular hierarchy defines a particular group. most people simply don't think of it this way, they don't particularly notice the hierarchical structure of their group (fish in water).

Cooperation, of course allows any group to better compete with other groups. the group that out competes the other either co-opts, subsumes or eliminates the others, thus eliminating competition and increasing cooperation.

We are currently witnessing the break up of the largest cooperative group in history (industrial humans).

This splintering, will, of course, lead to greater competition between groups.

Constructive_Feedback said...

Vic78:


1) Could you give distinct examples of where the "Conservative's CARBON FOOTPRINT" is any different from the "Enlightened Progressives' Footprint"?


2) When you see the "Great Water Shutoff Detroit 2014" and see people up in arms at the thought of suffering from a degradation of their living standards - HOW IS IT that IDEOLOGY was the first thing to come to your mind in regards to the CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE on "Global Warming"


(Personal note: After my first introduction to your views being tarnished by your "Get The Blacks In Georgia Registered to vote (for Democrats)" I have subsequently noted a broader range in your viewpoints as expressed on this board.

Unfortunately - this reference to "Conservatives and Global Warming" is a second 'Strike' - but not for the reasons that you assume - see below)




3) OF COURSE we are not talking about CONSUMER perspective. The debate is clearly over GOVERNMENT POLICY and the imposition upon CORPORATIONS. Thus we have the "Bear In The Wilderness" meme where the "Man Made Climate Change" advocates - DON'T HAVE TO BE "ABSOLUTELY GREEN".....they just need to be GREENER THAN THE RIGHT-WING who has more connection to PRESENT BUSINESS INTERESTS.


It is clear that those who want to advocate stronger REGULATION - understand that their more leftist position will carry them into POLITICAL POWER:
* Just like 'The War On Women" which is about entitlement distribution
* The "Photo ID Voting" - which tricks the Americanized Negro to look at the OUTWARD THREAT rather than the conditions of his own community
* RACISM AT THE US BORDER - which makes the "crisis" A MATTER OF US POLICY against 12 million illegals and 70,000 kids who crossed the border rather than terrorism and dysfunction among the 200 million people in Mexico and Central America


INTELLECTUAL STD at its best (Space/Time Distortion)


Global Warming/Climate change HAS ALWAYS occurred on this Earth and always will. The land that we call "New York City" was under a 1 mile thick sheet of ice 10,000 years ago.


ANYTHING that is a (substantial) "Man Made" contribution to climate change - via accelerated CARBON dispersion into the air will be CURTAILED by the eventual COLLAPSE OF THE MAN MADE SYSTEMS which EXPLORED/MINED, FINANCED, TRANSPORTED, REFINED AND CONSUMED these key systems and processes that provide us with our high standard of living, producing green house gases as a byproduct.


IF FLOODING is an eventuality - SO BE IT - it will be the "corrective feedback" from the system that we call "Mother Nature". Eventually THE COSTS of rebuilding and the lives lost - will THEMSELVES form the BASIS OF REDUCTION which "takes carbon producers" "OFF LINE.


YOU NEED to look SIDE EYE at the advocates who are staking out their position KNOWING DAMNED WELL that:


1) Man DOES NOT UNILATERALLY DISARM - he is OPPRESSED into changing


2) For them to produce GLOBAL OUTCOMES - they will need to have GLOBAL INSTITUTIONAL POWER


3) That IN THE END these forces of "Climate Change" are EVERY BIT THE COLONIAL IMPERIALISTS seeking to impose their will as are the "European Colonialists" and the present 'Corporate Global Capitalists"


GAME HATES GAME.

BigDonOne said...

The sufficiently well-prepared will not have to cooperate with anybody. They will have a superior bargaining position for any resources. And, of course, attackers will merely augment the preppers' food supply... https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=preparing%20the%20human%20corpse%20for%20consumption

CNu said...

There's no arguing the fact that conservatives have the lion's share of the guns and the psychological inclination to use them. (which always begs the question everytime you pretend that any other human sub-group can hold a candle to the most systemically and systematically violent sub-group on the face of the earth)

BigDonOne said...

When to use guns (or machetes) is an FTO issue.


In the higher-IQ realm, it is a last resort. In Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, Philly, NO, Atlanta, etc., it is a genetically-instinctive Firzt Rezort....

Vic78 said...

I've always had a broad range of views. What I talk about depends on a given topic. When I talk about electoral politics, my views come from what I see. You have Democrats and Republicans. The GOP make the Democrats look normal. This country's affairs are better managed when the Democrats are doing it. The GOP can't govern. This can be seen on the federal and state level.( I know you can talk about the local level and the community's valuables, on the local level check the education and wealth of the population. The uneducated poor aren't going to hold politicians accountable like their affluent counterparts). Supporting the Democrats is a compromise. I would like to do different shit, but 20% is better than 0. To even have the possibility of my vision on the federal level being discussed, Democrats have to win. Dealing with climate change will take a managed collective action. Democrats at least accept climate change as a fact. Me putting a solar panel on the roof is cute, but it's not enough.

Vic78 said...

Well, it's "enlightened progressives" that are trying to come up with new ways of living and working. They aren't a monolithic group. Most of them are decent people that are trying. I care nothing for the dipshit pundits that claim to speak for the left.

Ideology's guiding people to do much of what they do. The people running Michigan have 'I got mine, fuck you' as their ideology(and the people of Detroit should accept that and act accordingly, whatever that entails). All conservatism's about is the maintenance of power and the slowing to outright stopping any progress(intellectual giant Buckley said he was telling history to stop).

We'll have to take government action on climate change or it'll be worse than that video. This going after me with your blog posting is silly. I would talk about the other issues, but I only have the patience for climate change right now. So, what is your suggestion, or do you not believe it's happening? If you don't have a solution or idea, it's time to start thinking about that. If you don't believe in it after all this time, you're out of touch.

CNu said...

lol, nah..., your primitive notions of future-time orientation are only overmatched by your purely imaginal and painfully naive concepts of violence and death-dealing - oh - and don't try to change the subject BD. You know that I know that you know that you and your kindred are the undisputed, (though no longer undefeated) two-legged champions of indiscriminate death-dealing and violence of all time!

In every single one of your apartheid settler colonies, resource appropriation and exclusion is a sacrament and the gun is the means of violently enforcing your psychopath religion. This is the essence of the cultural and psychological environment you've created for yourselves and imposed on all the darker-skinned peoples that you've stolen from, violated and exploited. THAT is your cultural legacy and your vaunted FTO construct.

As you ought be aware, we're not talking about the final century of human civilization, rather, we're talking about the final civilization of the unsustainable and utterly phukked up abomination (higher-IQ realm) that you inexplicably celebrate.

As Nietzsche was fond of saying, "let us insofar be honest with ourselves"....,

The apartheid-settler creche is a projective psychopathocracy in which you subsist in the moist, dank fear of the peoples you have wronged and the terror you have unleashed. Guns and apartheid are your only hope. But that neurotic "hope" is also your undoing. It's suicide, and it's why the life-force is being withdrawn from you and yours such that you're incapable of reproducing at anything approaching your replacement rate.

Vic78 said...

Once again, the topic was climate change. What I said about rounding up conservatives was a shot at Dumb Don. If shit gets that bad, a lot of people are going to be held responsible and put on their asses.

What's your idea as far as getting something done? I'd like to know how you keep your hands from getting dirty?

umbrarchist said...

What kind of Capitalist business man does not know the difference between Gross and NET?

Sart shooting economists who can't explain why it has made sense to ignore Demand Side Depreciation for the last 60 years. Torture the ones who did not even notice that they had been ignoring it. LOL

BigDonOne said...

Not Gaps, rather Gapz (as in Boyz).
Please read more carefully....

Master Arbitrageur Nancy Pelosi Is At It Again....,

🇺🇸TUCKER: HOW DID NANCY PELOSI GET SO RICH? Tucker: "I have no clue at all how Nancy Pelosi is just so rich or how her stock picks ar...