Читать книгу Pioneer Islands - Dr. Steve Rolland DC - Страница 2

Before the dawn of agriculture, anthropologists agree, we humans flourished in our varied environments, often moving nomadically from one location to the next following successions of ripening fruit, in season, or the migration patterns of herds of herbivores. We hunted with traps and snares or used spears, arrows, hurled stones or darts. Humans fished using toxic herbs or nets. On land they hunted using strategies with diversions, ambushes, fires, or stampeded their prey off cliffs. As gatherers we understood how to identify virtually all food plants in our habitat, we learned when and where they could be found and how to obtain them from treetops or buried beneath the earth. Like Chimpanzees or other animals have been observed to do, we consumed herbs from nature, when needed, to alleviate symptoms of illness. At some archeological sites in Africa scientists have even found remnants of an ancient human culture that used a beer-like brew cultures with a strain of Streptomyces bacteria that yielded a miraculous potion containing therapeutic levels of the antibiotic tetracycline. Even in deep prehistory we humans lived in much more complex societies than most of us realize today, or may ever know, as the evidence of our language, songs, music, philosophy, religion, customs, and morals have been lost through the ages. DNA tracing of ancient human migration patterns reveal that we were far more mobile than previously realized. Humans tread their way from Africa, into Europe, across Asia and throughout the Americas in wave after wave of migrations. The native inhabitants of Australia, as well, traversed thousands of miles by sea through shark infested waters to settle in a land they had no clear way of knowing was there, not once, but on multiple occasions. It is difficult to conceive of the cultural motivations that must have inspired them. Even North America bears archeological evidence of settlers arriving from both Europe and Asia on multiple occasions. All these events transpired before recorded history, and we therefore have relatively few clues about the type of culture in which they lived, but there is enough evidence to reconstruct key elements of their lifestyle and habits. One current human practice that remains almost absent from the archeological record of these early humans, but that does appear in subsequent eras, is war.

To aid us in determining what is or is not “natural” to the human condition, let’s review the social structure of our non-human cousins. Beginning in the mid 1960’s Dr. Jane Goodall observed and recorded chimpanzee culture in a group of chimps in the Gombie reserve of Tanzania, Africa. Males of the tribes would frequently band together to form organized patrols to scout along the borders of their territories. In 1974 Dr. Goodall observed the large Kasakela group go to war with a splinter group of seven males. In a protracted “war” that spanned four years, the larger parent group systematically murdered all seven of the rival males, while preserving the females. Although this occurred over a long period, if viewed in time-lapse fashion it might bear some resemblance to a human war, or series of mafia style “hits” on members of rival gangs [In the Shadow of Man(1971), and in National Geographicmagazine (1964, 1995)]. In 1975 Goodall also witnessed a female chimp, that she had named Passion, kill and eat the newborn offspring of a rival female, Gilka. Passion shared the kill with her daughter, Pom. The mother-daughter team continued to kill and eat infants of other females for the next two years.

In the book, “A study of War” [Quincy Wright & Louise Leonard Wright, 1983] the authors determine that societies with the greatest degree of social stratification, especially when that stratification is compulsory, are more war-like. The more societies come into contact with many rival tribes, and the greater their rival’s cultural differences, the more they favor war. While with smaller the groups, the closer their familial relationships, and looser the social stratification, in general, the less warlike they are.

Social stratification, the rise of governments, and the development of a war-like culture occurred with the advent of agriculture. Humans, for the first time in their cultural history, had something to fight over other than territory. As agricultural communities flourished, they produced an abundance of non-perishable foodstuffs. Properly stored, a farming society could amass enough grain to feed themselves for years.

Now, stealing coveted items is nothing new to the animal kingdom. Penguins, for example, will readily swipe attractive stones with which to build their nests on rocky Antarctic shores, it is very common, in fact, for most species of birds to compete with their own kind for nest building materials, which, of course, is essential for survival and the perpetuation of the species.

I, myself, kept several of my laboratory rats from Behavioral Psychology class at Oregon State University and observed their interactions in my desktop cage as I wiled away my hours of studying. Once satiated with peanuts or sunflower seeds my lab rats would continue to perform tricks such as bell ringing, turning circles, or sitting on their haunches to beg for more nuts. More dominant rats would often snatch the nuts from their social subordinates’ jaws or paws. Stealing is, I conclude, not only human nature, mammalian nature, but it is the natural state of any animal to attempt to take what it needs, not only for survival but for comfort. That is, at least, when those coveted items are not otherwise abundant.

So, I feel, what it basically boils down to is that any animal will commandeer the resources of another of its species if that effort is significantly less costly that procuring those resources itself. This fundamental concept is readily apparent by observing any species in the animal kingdom in regards to food, shelter or a mate.

So, with the rise of agriculture 12,000 years ago and the hoarding of vast amounts of food, it was almost inevitable that initially stealing and eventually warfare would emerge, and indeed the archaeological record reveals this to be the case. Admittedly, there must have been some competition for scarce resources before agriculture, such as shelter, mating, or hunting territories and there remain some threads of evidence of this fact, but with humans amassing ever larger caches of food as agriculture progressed through time, this set the stage for the emergence of war.

In Italy, where I lived for some time, and throughout Europe, city-states emerged with the rise of agriculture. In time these initially small settlements responded to raids on their resources by small bands by building defensive walls and recruiting their inhabitants to fight back or risk losing their precious resources. As populations, farmland, and food caches expanded over time, the inhabitants were obliged to encircle themselves with successfully more surrounding walls to enclose and protect the citizens.

In the Americas, however, a different pattern of development was seen. Far fewer native cultures depended heavily on agriculture as a primary food source. Hunting and gathering remained a large part of their subsistence and archaeologists find far fewer examples of societies with defensive walls to shield the citizens and their food supply from marauders. Nor did their population become as dense as that of Europeans. For this reason one finds that European, Middle Eastern, and Asian civilizations have city states that were concentric in design as a reflection of their growth over time, while modern North American cities are almost universally designed on a grid system. This was far more rapid and convenient as the populations of European settlers expanded across the landscape after dislodging the native population with superior weapons, and via diseases the natives were immunologically defenseless against, in their genocidal expansionism.

In the 12,000 years since agriculture began, the raiding of resources from other societies has become a staple of civilization. It requires less effort to simply take someone else’s possessions than procure them yourself. Furthermore, an aggressor can take women, livestock, the city itself, in addition to their food. After an opponent’s assets have been taken and added to their own, they become an even more potent military force and can successfully take on larger and larger opponents. If all the rival fighting men are killed in this endeavor, or its aftermath, it cements the aggressors’ position and nullifies the potential for a future reversal of fortunes.

Historically many wars have been genocidal in nature, the victors slaughtering all the losers and taking permanent control of their assets. In many other wars throughout history the victors have offered to spare some defenders and make them into conscripts in their conquering armies. And in still other cases the dominators have enslaved the populations they are victorious over. Today, in 2011, the United States has been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for nine years and is now orchestrating regime change in Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Libya. It has been a tremendously profitable venture for this government.

Let us now contrast our recent history with the living conditions of pre-agricultural hunter/gatherer societies. First, stone-age societies were usually much smaller in number. There simply were not enough resources in most areas to support populations over a few thousand at most. Rather than remaining in a fixed location, they were often nomadic and many returned to certain habitation sites seasonally. Essentially everyone was afforded the same opportunities in life. Clothing was of animal hide or natural woven fibers. Tools were made of plant or stone and little else. Although there might be optimal locations for obtaining obsidian, for example, to craft razor sharp tools or weapons, these locations were known and often available to anyone in their society or could be obtained through trade with other groups. Likewise, the best plants for harvesting fibers might grow in a specific location, or the best type trees for making strong spear shafts or axe handles, or light weight straight arrow shafts were known. Hunter/gathering societies also had abundant leisure time. There is a common misconception among our current population that Stone Age humans were in constant battle against nature. That life was cruel, brutal, and short. In reality, cultural anthropologists who have studied these types of societies in the recent past have observed that most of these peoples spend a very small amount of their time actually working to survive. Two or three hours a day, on the average, is all that it takes. The remaining hours of each day are spent relaxing, talking, singing, painting, carving, weaving, raising children and the like.

This was, in my opinion, what the Bible refers to as the “Garden of Eden.”Only after humans gained the “fruit of knowledge” and learned of seeds, crops, processing food, animal husbandry, fertilization, irrigation, planting and harvesting cycles, breeding and selection of plants and animals, and fighting, were they banned from their previous carefree existence as hunter/gatherers.

Archaeological evidence reveals that ancient peoples of the Paleolithic era (6.2 million years ago to about 12,000 years ago) were as healthy as those in the Neolithic era (12,000 years ago to present), with the exception of those Neolithic humans who consumed very high amounts of carbohydrates, or the elite who consumed significantly more of these pleasing and addictive foods and showed many disease-related abnormalities in their skeletal remains. In fact, in heavily agricultural societies of the Neolithic, mean height at maturity declined by an average of 4 to 6 inches, presumably due to the high levels of phytates (a chemical compound in grains) in the diet which binds with calcium and other minerals in the digestive tract, making them unable to be absorbed into the bloodstream and utilized by the body. [Source:Angel, Lawrence J. (1984) "Health as a crucial factor in the changes from hunting to developed farming in the eastern Mediterranean." In: Cohen, Mark N.; Armelagos, George J. (eds.) (1984) Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture(proceedings of a conference held in 1982). Orlando: Academic Press. (pp. 51-73)]

Tooth decay, for example, was almost unheard of until after the reliance of high carbohydrate grains as a food staple. Even recent medical records show a dramatic increase in heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity in hunter/gatherers who adopt “Western” diets. A recent study in Australia shows that Aborigines who eat Western diets and develop diabetes often recover full health when restored to their hunter/gatherer diet. Our current cultural norms and the diet that we have adopted is at odds with our evolutionary nature.

With the rise of permanent settlements and the adoption of full-time agriculture and animal domestication, the number of hours spent toiling for ones existence increased considerably. During harvest season, for example, people would need to arise before dawn to utilize the cooler hours of the day and then rest and eat during the hottest part of the day. They would then resume work until as late as possible in the evening, with their hours extended into the night during a “harvest moon” before eating again. This gave rise to our custom of eating three meals per day, opposed to the “eat it as you find it” practice of the gatherers, who had no reason to “wait until dinner time” before eating insects, nuts, fruits or roots. With agriculture came an increase in the number of work hours per day, but also the benefit of a large store of food. This enabled the rise of “occupations” of some citizens and specialization of labor. There was now opportunity for people to have occupations other than food provider. As cultures developed through time some members would focus their time on producing clothing, buildings, pottery, arts and jewelry or war. This also set the stage for the emergence of hierarchies within society and the specializations of religion and government. As societies grew in size, laws were crafted that would restrict peoples speech and activities. For the first time in human history punishments were inflicted on certain members of society that broke these rules of religious or governmental origin.

At this stage in our cultural evolution it became necessary to keep track of our resources. At first crude tallies were kept of the quantities of food harvested and stored. As the sums of harvests increased over time different symbols needed to be used to signify successfully larger harvests of plants and animals. As settlements increased in number, size, and complexity, new forms of pictographs were employed to provide greater detail to record keeping. Undoubtedly some citizens were afforded a greater or lesser share of the take based on their contributions of effort or social status. Finally, written languages became complex enough to record historical events such as family or social histories, battles over resources or religious beliefs that consumed the imaginations of our forbearers. It is of little surprise that the majority of the most ancient texts in many cultures do, in fact, record such events. As social hierarchies were established within groups, as inevitably happens among animals, some more dominant individuals who achieved higher status became farther and farther removed from the drudgeries of menial labor in the fields and became the alpha male or females of their populations. Essentially, this was the dawn of taxation.

Initially, taxation of the populations by the elite was undoubtedly in the form of containers of grain, animals from their herds and the like. Those unable to pay their taxes with goods would pay with labor for their overlords. As those victorious in war, who could “snowball” their winnings by amassing ever larger armies and supplies from those they conquered. So could the leaders of populations cement their socially dominant positions by acquiring ever increasing assets and use those to ensure the allegiance of their subordinate minions to quell any dissent among the populations they controlled, eventually creating the rise of oligarchies. Individuals who did not surrender taxes would be subject to whatever “justice” their rulers might deem a fitting example to the citizenry including increased taxation, forced labor, physical punishment, incarceration, torture, or death. In Winston Churchill’s own words: “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Granted, civilization has afforded humans with incredible advances in learning, science, and technology. However, it has also created an environment where those in the elite classes have the all consuming power over their fellow humans, giving these few the power to control the occupation, mating, health, safety, freedom and life or death of their citizenry at a whim. Repeatedly throughout history this absolute power over others led to unimaginably cruel tyranny. In civilizations march through time the stranglehold of the ruling class over the masses has been enhanced with advances in technology. As countries have grown in size and resources, the power wielding elite has become ever more adept at manipulating the masses through propaganda that has grown in sophistication to the point of virtual mass media mind control. It is my expert opinion that those who today control the monetary systems of the world, which is coalescing into a single entity, are using elaborate methods via the mass media to dumb down the U.S. population, shackle them into perpetual debt, and rob them of their tremendous human potential.