Monthly Finds, February 2011

Welcome to the Anthropocene: Humankind's layer on the Earth

TokyoWelcome to the Anthropocene. Man’s impact on the planet is now believed to be so great geologist are considering creating a new geological epoch. What factors are driving such a substantial impact on the planet? What will cause the geological record to mark our presence? If we are in the Anthropocene, when did it begin?

According to Elizabeth Kolbert writing in the March issue of National Geographic, Paul Crutzen coined the term “anthropocene” while attending a scientific conference. When the chairman kept using the term Holocene to describe the current epoch, Crutzen exclaimed “'Let's stop it, we are no longer in the Holocene. We are in the Anthropocene.' Well, it was quiet in the room for a while." That quiet has since led to a lot of thinking and scientists now considering the possibility that a new geological epoch has begun.

Stratigraphers are geologists that study the Earth's strata, the layers you can see at a roadside cut. Kolbert observes:

Rare look at Paleoindian burial, housing, and nutrition

Lagopus_leucura copy.jpg

White-tailed Ptarmigan. Image: Footwarrior11,500 years agoin the Tanana lowlands of central Alaska, a three-year-old child died. The cause of death is not known. According to Natasha Pinol, writing for EurekaAlert, “the remains showed no signs of injury or illness, though that isn't surprising, since most health problems don't leave traces in bones.” The child, a member of a Paleoindian family or clan that was “among the first to colonize the Americas”, lived in a house.

Colored stains in the sediment suggest that poles may have been used to support the walls or roof, though it's not clear what the latter would have been made of. The entire house has not yet been fully excavated, so its total size is still unknown.(Pinol)

After cremation, the child was buried “in a large pit in the center of the home.” Archeologist Ben Potter of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, one of the discoverers, notes:

All the evidence indicates that they went through some effort. The burial was within the house. If you think of the house as the center of many residential activities: cooking, eating, sleeping, and the fact that they abandoned the house soon afterward the cremation, this is pretty compelling evidence of the careful treatment of the child.

Pinol writes:

In contrast to the temporary hunting camps and other specialized work sites that have produced much of the evidence of North America's early habitation, the newly discovered house appears to have been a seasonal home, used during the summer. Its inhabitants, who included women and children, foraged for fish, birds and small mammals nearby, according to Potter's team.

Evidence of a Paleolithic diet was discovered in sediment at the bottom of the 18-inch deep pit, specifically bone of “salmon, ground squirrels, ptarmigan and other small animals.”

The discovery provides a rare look at domestic life of the Paleoindians that crossed, or, more likely, descended from those that crossed the Beringian Land Bridge to Alaska. The report of the find will be published 25 February issue of Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Source: Child's cremation site reveals domestic life in Paleoindian Alaska at EurekaAlert

Gorillas regain health on original diet

John Durant at Hunter-Gatherer found a great video about gorillas fed mostly processed food for years improving their health when returned to an original diet. David A Gabel of ENN writes:

 After a 21 year old gorilla named Brooks died of heart failure at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in 2005, a group of researchers decided to examine how the gorilla’s lifestyle affect their health.

For decades, zoos have fed gorillas bucket loads of high vitamin, high sugar, and high starch foods to make sure they got all their nutrients. At the Cleveland zoo, they have started feeding food such as romaine lettuce, dandelion greens, endives, alfalfa, green beans, flax seeds, and even tree branches which they strip of bark and leaves.

Watch these gentle giants and the progress they are making:

Paleolithic Massage?

Swedish massage. Image: istockphoto.comI am currently on a weekend break in the mountains but no longer snowboarding since my cycling injury. I had a massage yesterday, probably the fourth in my life. The experience led me to consider the origin of this practice. While the written record of massage dates to around 3000 BC, what about massage itself? Could its origin much older and date back to the late Paleolithic?

My experience began at the “sanctuary”, a large dimly lit waiting area with a fireplace lending a cave-like atmosphere. The components of the massage (Swedish in this case) were music (specifically flute), oils, and human touch - each element available to humankind for millennia. In view of the millions of years of hominid grooming, it is reasonable to propose that this behavior became more structured with Homo sapiens, possibly at the time of Cro-Magnon, and led to massage or at least a massage-like practice. The flute is at least 40 thousand years old. Oil lamps were carried into the deep recesses of the Lascaux and Altamira caves by Cro-Magnon 13,000-18,000 years ago. Again, all the elements were there.

Rejuvenation: Robbie Robertson and dopamine

Robbie Robertson with The Band, 1971. Image tSR - Nth Man

Rejuvenation has many faces. It can be a simple walk in park, reading a good book, meditation, yoga. It can result from a focused connection between the inner self and the outer world or between the inner self and the really inner self. Other mental activity fades into the background. 

A short burst can occur at any time. Last Saturday, I was driving to City Floral to get a new houseplant while listening to KBCO. A new song came on: Robbie Robertson’s He Don't Live Here No More (Radio Edit) and the rest was chemical. The “feel good” neurotransmitter dopamine was released.

According to at McGill University neuroscientist Valorie Salimpoor:

You're following these tunes and anticipating what's going to come next and whether it's going to confirm or surprise you, and all of these little cognitive nuances are what's giving you this amazing pleasure," said Valorie Salimpoor, a in Montreal. "The reinforcement or reward happens almost entirely because of dopamine."