Meditation, self and diet, health related to compassion and the primitive

Neolithic

GROUP 2-THE EARTH-THE STORY OF THE HOME OF MAN-CHAPTER 33
IN THE MIDST OF THE EARTH
The World’s Impressive Subterranean Hollowings and Cavernous Waterways A DUSTLESS AND GERMLESS UNDERWORLD Le t u s now consider the subject of caves. Though caves have not the grandeur of waterfalls, they have always appealed to the imagination of men. There is room in their shadowy grottoes for many dreams and many mysteries, for sibyls and nymphs, for fairies and gnomes, for Typhon and Cyclops. From caverns spake the oracles of Corinth and Delphi; into a cavern in a hill did the Pied Piper lead the dancing children ; and a cavern in the hills of Granada still hides Boabadil and his Moors. But caves have appealed not only to the imagination, but also to the practical instincts of men; they have been used from time immemorial as dwelling-places, as fortresses, and as tombs. Lot went up from Zoar and dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters ; in caves kings of Canaan and kings of Scotland, freebooters, smugglers, and martyrs have found refuge from their foes. In a cave good Obadiah concealed a hundred prophets ; in a cave Joshua imprisoned live kings. In the cave of Machpelah sleep Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah, and Joseph. It is probable that whole races of Palaeolithic men dwelt in caverns, kindling fires there, cooking food there, sharpening their flints there, drawing pictures of mammoths and bisons there. In Neolithic days multitudes of men inhabited the caves, and much of our knowledge of early man is derived from a study of the contents of such rocky chambers. Even still there are cave- dwellers to be found. In the Canary Islands, for instance, within a stone’s-throw of large modern hotels, are natives of the islands who still live in caves. Burial caves, like dwelling caves, are found all the world over, and, like dwelling caves, have done much to throw light on the ways of primitive man. In the Cave of Itruipe, in South America, Humboldt counted 600 skeletons and mummies preserved in baskets woven from the petioles of the palm-tree. Along with the skeletons and mummies were found sandals, and implements, and ornaments. In burial caves in the Aleutian Islands, Mr. W. H. Dali found mummies in a sitting posture which had been carefully wrapped in many wrappings. First came line grass-wrapping ornamented with tufts of reindeers’ hair and with feathers, then a second coarser wrapping, then a sack made of the skin of birds. Then came more mats, line and coarse, then a packing of dry grass, then a covering of fine, large otter-skins. Finally the package was sewn together by a braided network of twisted sinews. Beside the mummies were found masks and effigies, awls and needles, axes and arrows. In a cave in Teneriffe were found more than a thousand mummies, which had been embalmed, sewn up in goatskins, and bandaged with leather. In Egypt the caves in the rocks were sown with myriads of mummies, and in Italy are the Catacombs of Rome ; but these are artificial excavations, and do not rightly come under consideration here. Many caves, known as bone caves, are notable chiefly for the bones of animals which they contain, and the light they thus throw on the biological history of the country. In a cave at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire, Buckland discovered teeth and bones of no less than twenty-three species of animals—hyaena, tiger, bear, fox, weasel, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, ox, deer, hare, rabbit, water-rat, mouse, raven, pigeon, lark, duck. Buckland calculated that there must have been hundreds of hyaenas in the cave. In the Yealm Bridge bone cave there have been found bones and teeth of the elephant, rhinoceros, ox, horse, sheep, dog, wolf, hyaena, fox, bear, water- rat, and of a large bird of unknown species.
EMBRACING GEOLOGY, PHYSIOGRAPHY, CHEMISTRY. PHYSICS,METEOROLOGY

dartmoor

ADOLF HITLER

ADOLF HITLER

TN the June Windsor, W. G. Fit*-Gerald, while carefully avoiding political bias, recounts the romantic and amazing story of Hitler's elevation; how competently the following extracts indicate:

“ A poor * foreign ’ artisan (he only, became a German two years ago!) sits to-day in Caesar’s seat. What is the secret of Hitler’s meteoric rise as a world figure? The story is stranger than any novel.

“ Dire poverty packed this Austrian village lad off to Vienna, where the contrast of Court luxury and slum misery, speedily made him a Socialist.

“ Young Hitler all but starved in that dismal time.

“ Over the Border he goes now into Bavaria, with an eager plea to King Ludwig III. that he may be allowed to serve in the German trenches when the Great War burst upon us all in 1914.

“ No more than Corporal was Adoll Hitler at any time; just a humble Austrian ‘ Tommy ’ of the ranks all through his service, with nothing to distinguish him from millions of others. Destiny had not yet called his obscure name. Then came the great German collapse of 1918.

“ In the Socialist Revolution that followed Hitler came to loath its leaders —‘ the wretched gang of party hacks who had betrayed the nation.’ At long last the Man felt the press and surge of his mission—* I resolved to become a Politician!’

“ As such he had no lueir. A few conspirators rallied to the unknown exsoldier. These met in the Biirgenfrau beer-cell a r, outside Munich, and there Hitler planned a forlorn stroke. He invited high officers of State, both civil and military, to a * lecture.’ When this was over his notable guests were staggered by the action of their crazy and reckless host. Leaping up, Hitler drew a pistol and fired at the ceiling:

‘ To-morrow,’ he yelled. * we shall have a new Government—or we’ll all be dead men!’    ¹

“Hitler led his buccaneer band across the Ludwigbriicke, disarming the gendarmes on the. way. In the Odeonsplatz the rioter's were chat-. Ienged by a body of Regular troops. Asked three times to disperse, a volley was fired at them, and sixteen Hitlerite ¹ martyrs ’ fell dead or bleeding in what looked an ulterly hopeless cause. The rest fled in all directions.

“ Hitler himself escaped into hiding. Hermann Goering, now Premier ot Prussia, dragged His broken leg as fat as Innsbruck. Captain Roehm was soon captured, with bis fugitive chief, The pair of them were now put in a felon’s dock, and Adolf Hitler got four years as a disturber of the peace.” To-day he wields a power beyond that of any Kaiser or Tsar. “ Physically he is a frail man, and the emotional orgies which accompany his public appearances leave him limp and shaken.”

solstice

dirty progress

'oldest cave art

Thursday, 21 June 2012

'oldest cave art'

 Bristol researchers removing samples for dating from Tito Bustillo Cave

 The El Castillo Cave has numerous red discs on its walls. One was dated to 40,800 years ago

Red dot becomes 'oldest cave art'

A look inside the Altamira Cave in northern Spain

• Earliest music instruments found
• Remains are 'earliest Europeans'
• Ancient 'paint factory' unearthed

Red dots, hand stencils and animal figures represent the oldest examples yet found of cave art in Europe.

The symbols on the walls at 11 Spanish locations, including the World Heritage sites of Altamira, El Castillo and Tito Bustillo have long been recognised for their antiquity.
But researchers have now used refined dating techniques to get a more accurate determination of their ages.
One motif - a faint red dot - is said to be more than 40,000 years old.
"In Cantabria, [in] El Castillo, we find hand stencils that are formed by blowing paint against the hands pressed against the wall of a cave," explained Dr Alistair Pike from Bristol University, UK, and the lead author on a scholarly paper published in the journal Science.
"We find one of these to date older than 37,300 years on 'The Panel of Hands', and very nearby there is a red disc made by a very similar technique that dates to older than 40,800 years.
"This now currently is Europe's oldest dated art by at least 4,000 years," he told reporters. It is arguably also the oldest reliably dated cave art anywhere in the world.
The team arrived at the ages by examining the calcium carbonate (calcite) crusts that had formed on top of the paintings.
This material builds up in the exact same way that stalagmites and stalactites form in a cave.
In the process, the calcite incorporates small numbers of naturally occurring radioactive uranium atoms. These atoms decay into thorium at a very precise rate through the ages, and the ratio of the two different elements in any sample can therefore be used as a kind of clock to time the moment when the calcite crust first formed.
Uranium-thorium dating has been around for decades, but the technique has now been so refined that only a tiny sample is required to get a good result.
This enabled the team to take very thin films of deposits from just above the paint pigments; and because the films were on top, the dates they gave were minimum ages - that is, the paintings had to be at least as old as the calcite deposits, and very probably quite a bit older.
The oldest dates coincide with the first known immigration into Europe of modern humans (Homo sapiens). Before about 41,000 years ago, it is their evolutionary cousins, the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), who dominate the continent.
Dr Pike's and colleagues' work therefore raises some intriguing questions about who might have authored the markings.
If anatomically modern humans were responsible then it means they engaged in the activity almost immediately on their arrival in Europe.
If Neanderthals were the artisans, it adds another layer to our understanding of their capabilities and sophistication.

 The Panel of Hands: Produced by blowing paint over a hand pressed against the wall

The great antiquity of the paintings leads co-author Joao Zilhao, a research professor at ICREA, University of Barcelona, to think the Neanderthals produced the motifs. Finding even older paintings than the red dot at El Castillo might confirm that "gut feeling", he said.
"There is a strong chance that these results imply Neanderthal authorship," Prof Zilhao explained.
"But I will not say we have proven it because we haven't, and it cannot be proven at this time.
"What we have to do now is go back, sample more and find out whether we can indeed get dates older than 42, 43, 44,000.
"There is already a sampling programme going on. We have samples from more sites in Spain, from sites in Portugal and from other caves in Western Europe and so eventually we will be able to sort it out."
Tracing the origins of abstract throught and behaviours, and the rate at which they developed, are critical to understanding the human story.
The use of symbolism - the ability to let one thing represent another in the mind - is one of those traits that set our animal species apart from all others.
It is what underpins artistic endeavour and also the use of language.

• Earliest music instruments found
  25 MAY 2012, SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
• Remains are 'earliest Europeans'
  02 NOVEMBER 2011, SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
• Ancient 'paint factory' unearthed
  13 OCTOBER 2011, SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
• Ancient horses' spotted history
  07 NOVEMBER 2011, SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
• Colourful ancient art 'is alive'
  28 DECEMBER 2010, SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
• New method used to date cave art
  07 OCTOBER 2008, BRISTOL
• Neanderthal 'face' found in Loire
  02 DECEMBER 2003, SCI/TECH

• University of Bristol
• Science