From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Date: Fri Jan 24 1997 - 07:48:25 MST
The Low Willow wrote:
>
> On Jan 23, 7:50pm, Michael Lorrey wrote:
>
> } scavengers for meat. Having to be bipedal to have hands free to tear and
> } carry flesh quickly away from the killsite, as well as to throw rocks in
> } defense against other animals seems rather logical.
>
> Bipedalism also allows one to carry a bag, in which one can store more
> meat, or for that matter a collection of rocks, which might otherwise be
> hard to gather at a moment's notice on the savannah. I wouldn't think
> bags are noted for leaving fossils. I'm not imaginative at the moment
> to be sure of what the lowest possible tech bag could be.
The lowest possible tech bag is a patch of hide (to which a hunk of meat
may be attached) impaled on a stick, like tho proverbiale hobo's pouch.
Given this, here's a scenario for the next chunk: prehumans collected
pretty things to impress the chicks, typically the easiest to find
pretty stuff was pyrite or other metallic crystals. If the prehuman
hunter carried this metal in the same pouch as the flint tool, how many
pouches caught fire accidentally before they caught on to what was
happening?
I think we
> can rule out anything involving sewing.
>
> Is fire a Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon/sapiens development? That's always
> good for scaring predators.
>
Here's where we might look at Vinge's "firebirds" in _Marooned in
Realtime_ as a possibility. Areas prone to lightning storms on the
savannnah (pretty typical) would of course start brish fires that animal
could not escape from. Prehumans could see such fires coming, dig holes
to hide in, and come out to scavenge the not so bright victims....
--
TANSTAAFL!!!
Michael Lorrey
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#!/usr/local/bin/perl-0777---export-a-crypto-system-sig-RC4-3-lines-PERL
@k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_
]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256;
&S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}
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