At 10:58 PM 28/05/99 -0700, Spike wrote (somehow, bless him, avoiding mention of g**s):
> Can anyone think of an example, now or in any time
>past, where a society had it and later didn't?
Tasmanian aborigines lost fish hooks and perhaps (I can't swear to this) even fire, after the place became an island some 15 K years back. I believe there was a genetic bottleneck due to low human pop numbers. Post-colonial theorists might argue that they *chose* to abandon these evil technologies and culturally adapted otherwise.
Damien Broderick