tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/civilisation-2088/articles
Civilisation – The Conversation
2023-10-12T14:08:36Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215313
2023-10-12T14:08:36Z
2023-10-12T14:08:36Z
A tooth that rewrites history? The discovery challenging what we knew about Neanderthals – podcast
<p>For generations, Neanderthals have been a source of fascination for scientists. This species of ancient hominim inhabited the world for around 500,000 years until they suddenly disappeared around 40,000 years ago. Today, the cause of their extinction remains a mystery.</p>
<p>Archaeologist Ludovic Slimak and his team have spent three decades excavating caves, studying ancient artefacts and delving into the world of Neanderthals – and they’ve recently published <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/454664/the-naked-neanderthal-by-slimak-ludovic/9780241617663">provocative new findings</a>. In this week’s episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-conversation-weekly-98901">The Conversation Weekly</a> podcast, we speak to Slimak about how Neanderthals lived, what happened to them, and why their extinction might hold profound insights into the story of our own species, <em>Homo Sapiens</em>.</p>
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<p>Neanderthals migrated to Europe around 400,000 years ago from Africa, the birthplace of humanity. Until now, the general consensus among archaeologists has been that <em>Homo Sapiens</em> were a lot slower to leave Africa, only migrating to Europe approximately 42,000 years ago and in one wave that coincided with the extinction of Neanderthals.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ludovic-slimak-1315718">Slimak</a>, an archaeologist at Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier in France, has published <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/europes-first-humans-may-have-arrived-in-three-waves-180982107/">controversial</a> new work that challenges this.</p>
<p>In 2022, he published <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj9496">research from</a> the Mandrin Grotte in the Rhône valley in southern France, which suggested he’d found a <em>Homo Sapiens</em> tooth within Neanderthal sediment layers. He explains:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We began to work in the middle of these layers that were dated at 54,000 years, and then we began to find incredibly modern Homo Sapiens technologies sandwiched between very classic Neanderthal technologies.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0277444">Slimak’s subsequent research</a> suggests that, rather than a single wave of <em>Homo Sapiens</em> migration from west Asia to Europe, there were in fact three waves, the last of which happened around 42,000 years ago. These findings are provocative: they would rewrite the timeline to suggest that <em>Homo Sapiens</em> arrived in Europe about 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, and so co-existed with Neanderthals for much longer. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-earliest-modern-humans-in-europe-mastered-bow-and-arrow-technology-54-000-years-ago-200609">The earliest modern humans in Europe mastered bow-and-arrow technology 54,000 years ago</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>What tools reveal</h2>
<p>To understand the factors that led to the extinction of Neanderthals and the survival and dominance of <em>Homo Sapiens</em>, Slimak has also compared the tools crafted by both species during the period they co-inhabited Europe. His hypothesis is that examining the evolution of these tools and how they’re made might provide clues into the differing fates of the two human species. </p>
<p>During <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.add4675">a three-year study</a>, he compared flint tools found in Lebanon’s Ksar ‘Akil cave to those in France. Slimak noticed a striking similarity in the flint points atop spears crafted by <em>Homo Sapiens</em>, even those produced tens of thousands of years apart. He explains: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you take <em>Homo Sapiens</em> tools or weapons technology, after you’ve seen a hundred of these tools, they are precisely the same. So, we have a process of standardisation, of production in series that is very specific to our species. But now, if you take Neanderthal tools … each of them will be different from the others. That is systematic among all Neanderthal societies.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Slimak argues that <em>Homo Sapiens</em>’ disposition for systematisation and standardisation might have conferred an evolutionary advantage during that period. It wasn’t a matter of <em>Homo Sapiens</em> wiping out other human species such as Neanderthals. Rather, their efficient ways may have played an pivotal role in their survival.</p>
<p>To find out more, listen to the full episode of <a href="https://podfollow.com/the-conversation-weekly/view">The Conversation Weekly</a> podcast. A transcript of this <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2877/The_Conversation_Weekly_podcast_Neanderthals_transcript.pdf?1698061926">episode is now available</a>. </p>
<p><em>This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany, with assistance from Katie Flood. Eloise Stevens does our sound design, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Gemma Ware is the executive producer of the show.</em></p>
<p><em>You can find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TC_Audio">@TC_Audio</a>, on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">theconversationdotcom</a> or <a href="mailto:podcast@theconversation.com">via email</a>. You can also subscribe to The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/newsletter">free daily email here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Listen to <em>The Conversation Weekly</em> via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/60087127b9687759d637bade">RSS feed</a> or find out <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-listen-to-the-conversations-podcasts-154131">how else to listen here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215313/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ludovic Slimak does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
What could the extinction of Neanderthals tell us about our own species? An archaeologist explains in The Conversation Weekly podcast.
Mend Mariwany, Producer, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/205566
2023-05-18T20:01:27Z
2023-05-18T20:01:27Z
Saving humanity: here’s a radical approach to building a sustainable and just society
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526658/original/file-20230516-25-er9rcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C24%2C4093%2C2721&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sydney-australia-march-15-2019-20-1340782703">Holli, Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Collectively we are driving Earth and civilisation towards collapse. Human activities have <a href="https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html">exceeded planetary boundaries</a>. We are changing the climate, losing biodiversity, degrading land, contaminating freshwater, and damaging the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles upon which we all depend.</p>
<p>We ask how this could happen. Also, why democratically elected governments ignore the wishes of the majority of their people. Why some governments continue to export fossil fuels despite commitments to climate mitigation. Why some go to war in distant lands without any debate in parliament or congress. Why some give tax cuts to the rich while those on the dole struggle below the poverty line.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526657/original/file-20230516-25-rhn88g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Book cover showing a bulldozer approaching a small crowd of people" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526657/original/file-20230516-25-rhn88g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526657/original/file-20230516-25-rhn88g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526657/original/file-20230516-25-rhn88g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526657/original/file-20230516-25-rhn88g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526657/original/file-20230516-25-rhn88g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526657/original/file-20230516-25-rhn88g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526657/original/file-20230516-25-rhn88g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Book cover.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-99-0663-5">Palgrave Macmillan</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>The answers to these questions all come down to one thing: decision-makers and influencers are captured by vested interests. That is the inconvenient truth revealed in <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-99-0663-5">our new book</a>, The Path to a Sustainable Civilisation: Technological, Socioeconomic and Political Change. But these forces can be overthrown. </p>
<p>We argue it is not sufficient for citizen organisations and governments to address specific environmental, social justice and peace issues. It’s certainly necessary, but we must also struggle for systemic change. This means challenging the covert driving forces of environmental destruction, social injustice and war, namely, “state capture” and the dominant economic system. </p>
<p>It’s 90 seconds to midnight on the <a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/">Doomsday Clock</a>, so there’s no time to waste. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-has-overshot-three-planetary-boundaries-based-on-how-we-use-land-183728">Australia has overshot three planetary boundaries based on how we use land</a>
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<h2>Confronting state capture</h2>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Shadow_State.html?id=84toDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Political scientists</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351983848_State_Capture_Analysis_A_How_to_Guide_for_Practitioners">political economists</a> argue governments, public servants, the media and indeed the majority of decision-makers and influencers become captured by vested interests. </p>
<p>This is known as <a href="https://australiandemocracy.org.au/statecapture">state capture</a>, where state means the nation-state. The captors include fossil fuel, armaments, finance, property and gambling industries.</p>
<p>State capture can also involve foreign governments. There is justifiable concern in Australia and elsewhere about <a href="https://clivehamilton.com/books/hidden-hand-exposing-how-the-chinese-communist-party-is-reshaping-the-world/">subversion by the Chinese Communist Party</a>. </p>
<p>Yet there is little discussion of the fact that, since 2015, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/australia-nuclear-submarines-us-admirals/">six “retired” US admirals</a> worked for the Australian government before the <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/about/taskforces/aukus">AUKUS</a> announcement on nuclear powered submarines. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526699/original/file-20230517-27-ontv34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Infographic describing the forces driving the collapse of civilisation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526699/original/file-20230517-27-ontv34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526699/original/file-20230517-27-ontv34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526699/original/file-20230517-27-ontv34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526699/original/file-20230517-27-ontv34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526699/original/file-20230517-27-ontv34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526699/original/file-20230517-27-ontv34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526699/original/file-20230517-27-ontv34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The forces driving the collapse of civilisation, in a nutshell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Diesendorf</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>State capture could explain why Australia’s defence is being shifted to the South China Sea <a href="https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/essay/2022/06/sleepwalk-to-war">under US sovereignty</a>. </p>
<p>Confronting state capture involves reversing several undemocratic practices. Of particular concern is the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-01/donations-australia-federal-politics-foreign/10768226">funding of political parties</a> by corporate interests as well as the <a href="https://australiandemocracy.org.au/statecapture">revolving-door jobs</a> between government and corporate interests. </p>
<p>There is also the concentration of media ownership and the influence of <a href="https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-liberal-party-and-the-institute-of-public-affairs-who-is-whose,8837">so-called “think tanks”</a> funded by vested interests. </p>
<p>The first step is to set up coalitions or networks to oppose the power of vested interests. This would bring together diverse civil society organisations with common interests in democratic integrity and civil liberties. </p>
<p>One example is the <a href="https://australiandemocracy.org.au/">Australian Democracy Network</a>, which campaigns for “changes that make our democracy more fair, open, participatory, and accountable”. The Network was founded in 2020 by the Human Rights Law Centre, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Australian Council of Social Service. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-monster-rally-for-climate-change-but-divergent-goals-hinder-the-fight-125358">A monster rally for climate change, but divergent goals hinder the fight</a>
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<h2>Challenging economic ideology</h2>
<p>Conventional economic theory <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/155970/collapse-neoliberalism">failed us</a> when it came to recovery from the <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2009/february/1319602475/kevin-rudd/global-financial-crisis">Global Financial Crisis</a> of 2007–09 and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/02/covid-and-the-crisis-of-neoliberalism">COVID pandemic</a>. Nevertheless, many governments still accept its prescriptions. </p>
<p>The dangerous and destructive myths of conventional economics include the claims that:</p>
<ul>
<li>economic theory can treat the natural environment as an infinite resource and infinite waste dump</li>
<li>endless economic growth on a finite planet is feasible and desirable</li>
<li>wealth trickles down from the rich to the poor</li>
<li>wellbeing and welfare can be measured by GDP </li>
<li>government intervention in the market must be avoided. </li>
</ul>
<p>Although these myths have been refuted many times, even by <a href="https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2011/5/of-the-1by-the-1for-the-1">world famous economist Joseph Stiglitz</a>, they still determine much government policy. </p>
<p>Australian economist Steve Keen first published <a href="https://archive.org/details/debunkingeconomi0000keen">Debunking economics</a> in 2001. The financial crisis of 2007 gave him plenty of material for a revised edition in 2011. Richard Denniss gave us <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/econobabble">Econobabble</a>: How to Decode Political Spin and Economic Nonsense in 2021. Yet, as John Quiggin so eloquently puts it, dead ideas still stalk the land <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691154541/zombie-economics">(Zombie Economics</a>.</p>
<p>They have devastating impacts on our life support system (the biosphere) and social justice. One of the principal destroyers of our planet is excessive consumption, especially consumption by <a href="https://theconversation.com/affluence-is-killing-the-planet-warn-scientists-141017">rich individuals and rich countries</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/affluence-is-killing-the-planet-warn-scientists-141017">Affluence is killing the planet, warn scientists</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>A more appropriate economic framework for human and planetary wellbeing is the interdisciplinary field of <a href="https://islandpress.org/books/ecological-economics-second-edition">ecological economics</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike neoclassical economics, ecological economics gives priority to ecological sustainability and social justice over economic efficiency. It works towards a transition to a steady-state economy. That is, one with no global increase in the use of energy, materials and land, and no increase in population.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526656/original/file-20230516-17-jwvzvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An infographic showing the nine planetary boundaries, six of these have already been exceeded" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526656/original/file-20230516-17-jwvzvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526656/original/file-20230516-17-jwvzvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526656/original/file-20230516-17-jwvzvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526656/original/file-20230516-17-jwvzvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526656/original/file-20230516-17-jwvzvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526656/original/file-20230516-17-jwvzvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526656/original/file-20230516-17-jwvzvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Human activity is crossing planetary boundaries. E/MSY is Extinctions/Mammal Species Years; the biogeochemical flows beyond the safe operating limits are nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). Some sectors are not yet quantified.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Azote for Stockholm Resilience Centre/Stockholm University</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since planetary boundaries have already been exceeded and low-income countries must develop, social justice demands that the rich countries undergo <a href="https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more">planned degrowth</a>.</p>
<p>On the pathway to a sustainable civilisation, environmental protection and social justice must be addressed together. Because the rich are responsible for the biggest environmental impacts, reducing the gap between rich and poor is critical. </p>
<p><a href="https://ubshub.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/social-prosperity-network-ubs.pdf">Universal basic services</a> such as improved public health, education, housing and transportation – and a government-funded <a href="https://www.fullemployment.net/publications/reports/2020/CofFEE_Research_Report_2000-02.pdf">job guarantee</a> – can achieve greater equality and give people incentives to support the transition. </p>
<h2>Citizen action</h2>
<p>Why would governments free themselves from state capture and discard economics ideology? Former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt once told a delegation: “OK, you have convinced me. Now get out there and make me do it!” In other words, pressure from voters is needed to make government action politically feasible. </p>
<p>That’s why we need citizen-based environmental, social justice, public health and peace groups to form alliances to challenge the overarching issues of state capture and flawed economics ideology.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/building-the-new-economy-alternative-strategies-for-the-99-7827">Building the new economy: alternative strategies for the 99%</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205566/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Diesendorf previously received funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
Human civilisation is headed for collapse. Collectively, we are pushing planet Earth beyond the limits of endurance. There has to be a better way. Now a new book makes the case for systemic change.
Mark Diesendorf, Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201479
2023-03-19T12:18:51Z
2023-03-19T12:18:51Z
Wars in cities: three rules for protecting the built environment during conflict
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514768/original/file-20230311-2791-i5k8dp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This is a digitally generated image of what a city might look like after a war.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the course of wars, the infrastructure of cities faces destruction. Fighting, regardless of its intentions, destroys roads, bridges, commercial and residential buildings, as well as the architecture they embody.</p>
<p>Throughout history and around the globe, calls to stop wars have focused on the value of people’s lives. In recent decades, there has been a lot of attention paid to protecting cultural heritage. However, there has been little consideration for the value of public places and people’s memories of these spaces.</p>
<p>Buildings – such as residential and commercial structures, schools and hospitals – are often destroyed in the chaos of conflict, leaving behind psychological trauma that can last for generations. In a recent paper, we set out why cities and their buildings need to be protected. This infrastructure, unique or not, represents people’s history, culture and social fabric. </p>
<p>In our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17549175.2023.2180076?src=&journalCode=rjou20">paper</a>, we coined the term “wartime urbanism” to describe what we believe needs to be done to preserve a city’s distinctive characteristics in times of conflict. </p>
<p>We propose three ways to do this: mapping a city’s real estate development and its relative urban value; enacting national and international laws that criminalise the destruction of physical assets; and raising public awareness about these laws and the importance of city assets.</p>
<p>During times of conflict, cultural heritage and city places can be protected <a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-wars-are-hurting-its-rich-heritage-how-the-law-can-help-180041">under various laws</a>. However, for these laws to be effective, governments must implement them during periods of peace.</p>
<p>We argue that politicians and urban practitioners should incorporate wartime urbanism into city planning and design. This would help protect buildings, infrastructure, services, facilities, and public and private places before, during and after wars. The less severe the material damage (in terms of human lives and physical structures) from conflict, the faster reconciliation can be.</p>
<h2>Protection from destruction</h2>
<p>Conflicts in different parts of the world have caused the displacement of millions of people, and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of buildings and critical infrastructure. When wars intensify, the protection of people is rightly prioritised. Protecting places, however, rarely finds mention.</p>
<p>Wars and the destruction they cause are considered <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/crimes-against-humanity.shtml">crimes against humanity</a>. Prosecution for such crimes is most often enforced by international courts, like The Hague’s <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/about/the-court">International Criminal Court</a>. However, several countries have listed crimes against humanity under their domestic laws.</p>
<p>But there is more that can be done. For instance, the 1945 <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter#:%7E:text=The%20Charter%20of%20the%20United,force%20on%2024%20October%201945.">United Nations Charter</a>, which lists the actions the organisation can take on a variety of issues, doesn’t include the protection of human property. </p>
<p>The 1972 <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/convention/#:%7E:text=The%20Convention%20concerning%20the%20Protection%20of%20World%20Cultural%20and%20Natural,the%20Cultural%20and%20Natural%20Heritage.">Convention on the Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage</a> provides guidelines on securing sites of significant global value. These sites are part of everyday human heritage, and destroying them during peacetime is a crime punishable by law. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ethiopias-war-in-tigray-risks-wiping-out-centuries-of-the-worlds-history-179829">Ethiopia's war in Tigray risks wiping out centuries of the world's history</a>
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<p>However, during war, everything is exposed to extreme destruction. Aggressors often seek to cause irreversible damage to the history and civilisation of the country under attack. If not by genocide, then by destroying people’s homes, memorials and valuable architectural assets. This was seen in <a href="https://theconversation.com/ethiopias-war-in-tigray-risks-wiping-out-centuries-of-the-worlds-history-179829">Ethiopia’s Tigray region</a> during the 2020-2022 war.</p>
<p>Urban planners can play a role in guiding <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/activities/811/">urban conservation and preservation</a> of city places by creating detailed plans that identify the assets that need to be protected – and how they can be protected. They can also develop strategies that mitigate the damage of war by focusing on how to rebuild in the aftermath.</p>
<h2>Three rules of wartime urbanism</h2>
<p>Wartime urbanism emphasises the importance of protecting cities or public places, regardless of their structure. This approach means professionals in architecture, urban planners and urban designers should develop plans that address the possibility of regional, global and international-level conflicts. </p>
<p>To protect city places from the destruction of war – or to restore and rebuild them to normal after a conflict ends – we propose three rules.</p>
<p><strong>1. Pre-documentary mapping</strong></p>
<p>Specialists in architecture and urban planning prepare maps that detail the development of a city, town or urban space. These maps should be kept in safe places physically and virtually. Should a war break out, developers can use these maps to rebuild infrastructure and restore city functions destroyed by conflict. This would help ensure that a city goes back to what it was, which would help minimise people’s psychological trauma. </p>
<p>These maps also preserve invaluable information about a city’s history and culture that can be used to inform future development and restoration projects. Because such maps document city assets, they can be used by international protection agencies to better measure the scale of destruction caused by war. They can also help identify areas of potential conflict – or spaces at risk of being targeted. Maps can further be used to advocate the rights of local populations when rebuilding after war. </p>
<p><strong>2. Criminalising destruction</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.un.org/en/our-work/maintain-international-peace-and-security#:%7E:text=Preventive%20Diplomacy%20and%20Mediation&text=The%20United%20Nations%20plays%20an,political%20missions%20in%20the%20field.">United Nations</a> and <a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/odesa-inscribed-unescos-world-heritage-list-face-threats-destruction?hub=66116">Unesco</a> should add an item to their charters that states that ordinary buildings within a city should not be targeted and destroyed. This would give such buildings the same degree of importance as architecture and cultural artefacts. It would help rally people around protecting ordinary structures, and help reduce the risk of displacement and displacement-related poverty. </p>
<p><strong>3. Raising public awareness</strong></p>
<p>Educational institutions and the media need to raise public awareness on the impacts of war. Conflict not only affects lives, but places too. Destroying people’s homes, for instance, exacerbates poverty and trauma. </p>
<p>Public awareness efforts should also highlight laws around crimes against humanity, and other international and local statutes that punish those who sabotage the structure of cities. This would help deter aggressors from attacking infrastructure, and give citizens a <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/civil-war-to-blame-for-surge-in-online-sales-of-ethiopian-artifacts/a-61069797">greater understanding</a> of the importance of their physical spaces. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-wars-are-hurting-its-rich-heritage-how-the-law-can-help-180041">Africa's wars are hurting its rich heritage: how the law can help</a>
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<p>By following these three rules, politicians and citizens can work together to preserve their cities. This would help reduce the time and money spent on rebuilding what wars destroy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201479/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abeer Elshater is now affiliated with Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Egypt and on temporary leave from Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hisham Abusaada does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Urban spaces are a repository of people’s beliefs, memories and collective conscience.
Hisham Abusaada, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, Housing and Building National Research Center
Abeer Elshater, Professor of Urban Morphology, Ain Shams University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/179829
2022-03-29T16:12:12Z
2022-03-29T16:12:12Z
Ethiopia’s war in Tigray risks wiping out centuries of the world’s history
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453819/original/file-20220323-27-1xt3zno.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tigray's al-Nejashi Mosque, one of Africa's oldest Islamic sites, was damaged in December 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Eduardo Soteras/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/ethiopias-war-in-tigray-risks-wiping-out-centuries-of-the-worlds-history-179829&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p>The human carnage and heritage destruction in Ethiopia’s Tigray region that began in November 2020 has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/02/ethiopia-1900-people-killed-in-massacres-in-tigray-identified">devastating</a>. Thousands have been killed, millions displaced and several historical monuments damaged by invading forces in the East African country’s north.</p>
<p>Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54964378">military campaign</a> against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front on 4 November 2020. As troops from the Ethiopian military and Eritrea, as well as Amhara militia groups, brutally attack civilians, they have also destroyed religious, historical and cultural sites of immense value. Some of the damage to these sites has been documented through calls made by Tigrayans using satellite phones.</p>
<p>The region’s heritage sites have been <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2021/03/tigray-why-are-soldiers-attacking-religious-heritage-sites/">deliberately</a> targeted. To appreciate the weight of these attacks, the role and influence of <a href="https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/28644/1/10672804.pdf">the church in Ethiopia</a> needs to be understood. </p>
<p>The church underpins historical and modern claims of political and military authority in Ethiopia. It has shaped community identity and informed cultural narratives. </p>
<p>Therefore, the <a href="https://eritreahub.org/the-destruction-of-tigrays-world-important-cultural-heritage">bombing and destruction</a> of churches, as well as other religious sites, strikes at traditional power structures. These sites are <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2021/03/tigray-why-are-soldiers-attacking-religious-heritage-sites/">cherished</a>, multi-functional gathering places and sacred spaces. Looting and attacking them is a grave dishonouring of cultural values.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1499010183778361&set=pcb.1499010343778345">report</a> from the Tigray Orthodox Church Diocese three months into the war in February 2021 found 326 members of the priesthood had been killed. There is no clear data on how many members of the clergy have been killed since then. While at least 40 churches and monasteries have had a general assessment of damages, <a href="https://eritreahub.org/tigray-war-regional-implications-volume-2">my analysis</a> finds hundreds of such sites have been affected by the war.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/religion-was-once-ethiopias-saviour-what-it-can-do-to-pull-the-nation-from-the-brink-171763">Religion was once Ethiopia's saviour. What it can do to pull the nation from the brink</a>
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<p>I have received <a href="https://eritreahub.org/first-comprehensive-analysis-of-the-looting-of-tigrays-heritage-as-ebay-halts-sale-of-ethiopian-treasures">confidential local reports</a> from those with satellite phones on the scale of devastation. This is a result of the network I have established over the past decade during <a href="https://martinplaut.com/2022/03/22/the-tigray-crises-and-the-monastery-of-waldba/">visits</a> to several historical sites in Tigray to carry out manuscript assessments and digitisation. </p>
<h2>Monuments of civilisation</h2>
<p>Ethiopia is the <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201506191183.html#:%7E:text=It%20is%20being%20regarded%20as,the%20land%20of%20religion%20tolerance.">source</a> of various civilisations in sub-Saharan Africa. It is believed to have more than 3,000 years of history. Most of the historical artefacts the country is famous for are originally from today’s Tigray. </p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/kingdom-aksum/">Aksumite civilisation</a>, one of the four known civilisations established in the first century CE (in addition to Rome, Persia and China), was in today’s central Tigray. </p>
<p>In the Bible, Qurʿan and inscriptions in South Arabia, terms like “Ethiopia” and “HBST” (Abyssinia) exist. Almost all the city-states and centres of civilisations prior to 13CE were found in today’s Tigray, Eritrea, and Agaw (a highland in today’s northern Ethiopia). </p>
<p>The <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/15/#:%7E:text=The%20ruins%20of%20the%20ancient%20Aksumite%20Civilization%20covered%20a%20wide,3rd%20and%204th%20centuries%20AD.">Aksumite Monuments</a> and <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/18/">Lalibela rock-hewn churches</a>, both UNESCO-registered heritage sites, are among the treasures of East African civilisation. </p>
<p>The alpha-syllabic Aksumite writing system, Gǝʿǝz/Fidäl, is the only ancient writing system still functional in modern Africa. Gǝʿǝz script is still used in Ethiopia, illustrating that Africa is not only the cradle of people and culture, but also of literacy. </p>
<p>Tigray is the foundation for hundreds of thousands of manuscripts, and hundreds of inscriptions written in Gǝʿǝz. The world’s oldest existent Christian manuscript (from 6CE) – The Gospel of Gärima – is preserved in central Tigray. </p>
<p>Abrahamic religions were introduced in the early ages – Christianity before the 4th century and Islam in the first half of the 7th century – in Africa through Tigray. </p>
<p>Its early introduction to these monotheistic religions and its writing system saw Tigray preserve a huge amount of religious and cultural artefacts. This heritage documents the history of the Ethiopian state and its religious institutions. </p>
<h2>Complex political culture</h2>
<p>Ethiopia is a country of rich anthropological value and complex political culture. It is also known for wars with foreign invaders, as well as civil conflict. In these clashes, countless cultural heritage items have been destroyed. </p>
<p>In the current war, many of Tigray’s heritage sites have been targeted by invading troops. The region has thousands of churches, monasteries, mosques and symbolic Islamic settlements, archaeological sites, museums and ritual centres. These spaces are popular with tourists from around the world and pilgrims from across the country.</p>
<p>Hundreds of these heritage sites have been <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-in-tigrays-war-ancient-christian-and-muslim-houses-of-worship-risk/">destroyed</a> in the ongoing war. For instance, the Church of Aksum Tsion is the head of Ethiopian churches and monasteries. It is symbolised as the dwelling place of the Ark of the Covenant. It was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/24/fabled-ark-could-be-among-ancient-treasures-in-danger-in-ethiopias-deadly-war">vandalised</a> after hundreds of civilians were <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr25/3730/2021/en/">massacred</a> around its yard by Eritrean soldiers in November 2020. </p>
<p>The al-Nejashi Mosque, a symbol for the first introduction of Islam in Africa, was <a href="https://eritreahub.org/historic-al-nejashi-mosque-in-tigray-badly-damaged-and-looted">bombed</a> in December 2020. </p>
<p>Precious medieval manuscripts have been <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B591G8u42pw">burned and vandalised</a>. Thousands of artefacts have been looted and smuggled for an <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/civil-war-to-blame-for-surge-in-online-sales-of-ethiopian-artifacts/a-61069797">international market</a>. </p>
<h2>The impact</h2>
<p>Heritage artefacts offer historical evidence and are a means of tourism development. But more than that, they are a social ingredient, upgrading human existence and giving it more meaning. People are emotionally connected to their heritage, beliefs, language and identity. </p>
<p>Religious objects and ecclesiastical materials are transcendent, emotive instruments between believers and their God/creator. They are also a display of genetic memory between descendants and their ancestors. </p>
<p>In this conflict, the people of Tigray have been denied their natural and human rights. They have had both their existence and meaningful life challenged. </p>
<p>The global community needs to step in to address the continuing loss of human lives and salvage Tigray’s cultural heritage. The destruction of the region’s tangible heritage and vandalising of its monuments of intangible value may lead to irreversible cultural shocks and social collapse. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-african-unions-mediation-effort-in-tigray-is-a-non-starter-169293">Why the African Union's mediation effort in Tigray is a non-starter</a>
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<p>While <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-59227672">many</a> international agencies have expressed their concern about the situation in Ethiopia, there hasn’t been practical action taken to save the lives of Tigrayans or their inheritance.</p>
<p>The African Union put up its headquarters in Addis Ababa in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/organisation-african-unity-oau">a nod</a> to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-battle-of-adwa-an-ethiopian-victory-that-ran-against-the-current-of-colonialism-132360">Battle of Adwa</a> (in Tigray), which was against colonialism. Yet, in a stroke of historical irony, the union has been slow to condemn the brutal killing of Tigrayans and the destruction of historical artefacts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179829/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hagos Abrha Abay receives funding from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under German’s Excellence Strategy, project no. 390893796. He/she is affiliated with Center for the Study of Manuscript Culture (CSMC) at Universität Hamburg. </span></em></p>
Many of the artefacts Ethiopia is famous for are found in Tigray. Their continued destruction could lead to irreversible culture shock and social collapse.
Hagos Abrha Abay, Postdoctoral researcher, University of Hamburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/161556
2021-07-16T15:42:28Z
2021-07-16T15:42:28Z
When did humans start experimenting with alcohol and drugs?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409989/original/file-20210706-27-1jjx6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C2481%2C1385&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nicholas Longrich</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Humans constantly alter the world. We fire fields, turn forests into farms, and breed plants and animals. But humans don’t just reshape our external world – we engineer our internal worlds, and reshape our minds.</p>
<p>One way we do this is by upgrading our mental “software”, so to speak, with myths, religion, philosophy and psychology. The other is to change our mental hardware – our brains. And we do that with chemistry. </p>
<p>Today, humans use thousands of psychoactive compounds to alter our experience of the world. Many derive from plants and fungi, others we manufacture. Some, like coffee and tea, increase alertness; others, like alcohol and opiates, decrease it. Psychiatric drugs affect mood, while psychedelics alter reality. </p>
<p>We alter brain chemistry for all kinds of reasons, using substances recreationally, socially, medicinally, and ritually. Wild animals sometimes eat fermented fruit, but there’s little evidence that they eat psychoactive plants. We’re unusual animals in our enthusiasm for getting drunk and high. But when, where and why did it all start?</p>
<h2>High on life in the Pleistocene</h2>
<p>Given humanity’s love of drugs and alcohol, you might assume getting high is an ancient, even prehistoric tradition. <a href="https://theconversation.com/prehistoric-cave-painters-might-have-been-high-on-oxygen-deprivation-new-study-159159">Some researchers</a> have suggested prehistoric cave paintings were made by humans experiencing altered states of consciousness. Others, perhaps inspired more by hallucinogens than hard evidence, suggest that <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Food-Gods-Knowledge-Evolution-1999-05-06/dp/B01NBQ0HBU/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=food+of+the+gods+mckenna&qid=1622922434&sr=8-2">drugs triggered</a> the evolution of human consciousness. Yet there’s surprisingly little archaeological evidence for prehistoric drug use. </p>
<p>African hunter-gathers – <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Harmless-People-Elizabeth-Marshall-Thomas/dp/067972446X/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=harmless+people&qid=1622922739&sr=8-2">Bushmen</a>, Pygmies and the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hadza-Hunter-Gatherers-Tanzania-Origins-Behavior/dp/0520253426/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=hadza+marlowe&qid=1622922608&sr=8-1">Hadzabe people</a> – likely live their lives in ways similar to ancestral human cultures. The most compelling evidence for the use of drugs by such early humans is a potentially hallucinogenic plant <em>!kaishe</em>, used by Bushmen healers, which supposedly makes people “<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780873659086">go mad for a while</a>”. Yet how much Bushmen historically used drugs <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02791072.1989.10472143">is</a> <a href="http://www.ethnopharmacologia.org/prelude2020/pdf/biblio-hm-75-mitchell.pdf">debated</a>, and otherwise, there’s little evidence for drug use in hunter-gatherers.</p>
<p>The implication is that, despite Africa’s diverse plants and fungi, early humans used drugs rarely, maybe to induce trances during rituals, if at all. Perhaps their lifestyle meant they rarely felt the need for escape. <a href="https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-020-09323-y">Exercise</a>, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12203667/">sunlight</a>, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-79924-5">nature</a>, time with friends and family – they’re powerful antidepressants. Drugs are also dangerous; just as you shouldn’t drive drunk, it’s risky to get high when lions lurk in the bush, or a hostile tribe waits one valley over.</p>
<h2>Out of Africa</h2>
<p>Migrating out of Africa <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6016/453">100,000 years ago</a>, humans explored new lands and encountered new substances. People discovered opium poppies in the Mediterranean, and cannabis and tea in Asia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409990/original/file-20210706-23-4f2pue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map showing where different drugs originated" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409990/original/file-20210706-23-4f2pue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409990/original/file-20210706-23-4f2pue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409990/original/file-20210706-23-4f2pue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409990/original/file-20210706-23-4f2pue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409990/original/file-20210706-23-4f2pue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409990/original/file-20210706-23-4f2pue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409990/original/file-20210706-23-4f2pue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many drugs were discovered beyond Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nicholas Longrich/Wikimedia/Google Earth</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Archaeologists have found evidence of opium use <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1751696X.2014.993244?journalCode=rtam20">in Europe</a> by 5,700 BC. Cannabis seeds appear in archaeological digs at 8,100 BC <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332081250_The_oldest_archeological_data_evidencing_the_relationship_of_Homo_sapiens_with_psychoactive_plants_A_worldwide_overview">in Asia</a>, and the ancient Greek historian Herodotus reported Scythians getting high on <a href="https://blog.britishmuseum.org/introducing-the-scythians/">weed</a> in 450 BC. Tea was brewed in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep18955">China by 100 BC</a>.</p>
<p>It’s possible our ancestors experimented with substances before the archaeological evidence suggests. Stones and pottery preserve well, but plants and chemicals decay quickly. For all we know, Neanderthals could have been the first to smoke pot. But archaeology suggests the discovery and intensive use of psychoactive substances mostly happened late, after the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/neolithic-agricultural-revolution">Neolithic Revolution</a> in 10,000 BC, when we invented farming and civilisation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406266/original/file-20210614-118145-sf8g7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A timeline showing when drugs were discovered" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406266/original/file-20210614-118145-sf8g7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406266/original/file-20210614-118145-sf8g7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406266/original/file-20210614-118145-sf8g7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406266/original/file-20210614-118145-sf8g7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406266/original/file-20210614-118145-sf8g7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406266/original/file-20210614-118145-sf8g7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406266/original/file-20210614-118145-sf8g7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evidence suggests human drug use came after the Neolithic Revolution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nicholas Longrich</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The American psychonauts</h2>
<p>When hunters trekked across the Bering Land Bridge <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bor.12449">30,000 years ago</a> into Alaska <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6024/1599">and headed south</a>, they found a chemical cornucopia. Here, the hunters discovered <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/115/46/11742">tobacco</a>, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/abs/early-holocene-coca-chewing-in-northern-peru/6452FDEFF4B27959A376256AFCFAEECE">coca</a> and <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/109/35/13944">maté</a>. But for some reason, indigenous Americans were especially fascinated with psychedelics. </p>
<p>American psychedelics included <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378874105002990?casa_token=yJk1yRejNhcAAAAA:qplks2A8LiYGfdwGIzTdSCs4AeGtG4bS14mr1ZHv0DhzgOsGS44sx5DisB1hwnyMhZwIjmXQ">peyote cactus</a>, <a href="https://europepmc.org/article/med/16625512">San Pedro cactus</a>, <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/163/3864/245">morning-glory</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0378874181900209"><em>Datura</em></a>, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/hup.2304"><em>Salvia</em></a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anadenanthera"><em>Anadenanthera</em></a>, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/116/23/11207">Ayahuasca</a>, and <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/163/3864/245">over 20 species</a> of psychoactive mushrooms. It was a pre-Columbian Burning Man. Indigenous Americans also invented the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1751696X.2014.993244?casa_token=wTjfLwI7raoAAAAA%3AHLPVm0Eu9AB6BNCdk2BsNbj1wPgN4c1NYUY-j0PtCTxvINvV4XEu80hMHnN7GZZOBTV-pYQ6t1s">nasal administration</a> of tobacco and hallucinogens. They were the first to snort drugs – a practice Europeans later borrowed.</p>
<p>This American psychedelic culture is ancient. Peyote buttons have been carbon-dated to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378874105002990?casa_token=x0xrrPHIp4oAAAAA:pd1IWXPlos-12buqAEapc0Q7HjCRpA5liLCyRKPhMkebLquxqgylNCg-Pyqd_xBAdxLUpO4Gbg">4,000 BC</a>, while Mexican <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1751696X.2014.993244?casa_token=wTjfLwI7raoAAAAA%3AHLPVm0Eu9AB6BNCdk2BsNbj1wPgN4c1NYUY-j0PtCTxvINvV4XEu80hMHnN7GZZOBTV-pYQ6t1s">mushroom statues</a> hint at <em>Psilocybe</em> use in 500 BC. A <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/116/23/11207?fbclid=IwAR0P1Y41hp7BaUSYksjyZeZy9ifrMrOPr4BQTnbvgr6duAFzCtCwTe9xYfU">1,000 year-old stash</a> found in Bolivia contained cocaine, <em>Anadenanthera</em> and ayahuasca – and must’ve been one hell of a trip.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404676/original/file-20210606-23-keh5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A depiction of Mixtec life" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404676/original/file-20210606-23-keh5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404676/original/file-20210606-23-keh5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404676/original/file-20210606-23-keh5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404676/original/file-20210606-23-keh5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404676/original/file-20210606-23-keh5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404676/original/file-20210606-23-keh5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404676/original/file-20210606-23-keh5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Mixtec Codex showing the ceremonial use of mushrooms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Am2006-Drg-226">British Museum</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Inventing alcohol</h2>
<p>A huge step in the evolution of debauchery was the invention of agriculture, because farming made booze possible. It created a surplus of sugars and starches which, mashed and left to ferment, magically transformed into potent brews.</p>
<p>Humans invented alcohol many times independently. The oldest booze dates to <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/101/51/17593">7,000 BC</a>, in China. Wine was fermented in the Caucasus in <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/114/48/E10309.abstract">6,000 BC</a>; Sumerians brewed beer in <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ac00056a002">3,000 BC</a>. In the Americas, Aztecs made <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/111/39/14223.full.pdf"><em>pulque</em></a> from the same agaves used today for tequila; Incas brewed <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272687748_Let's_Drink_Together_Early_Ceremonial_Use_of_Maize_in_the_Titicaca_Basin"><em>chicha</em></a>, a corn beer.</p>
<p>While in America psychedelics appear to have been particularly important, Eurasian and African civilisations seem to have preferred alcohol. Wine was central to ancient Greek and Roman cultures, was served at <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html">Plato’s Symposium</a> and at the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Last-Supper-Christianity">Last Supper</a>, and remains incorporated in the Jewish Seder and Christian communion rituals.</p>
<h2>Civilisation and intoxication</h2>
<p>Archaeology suggests alcohol and drugs date back millennia, to early agricultural societies. But there’s little evidence early hunter-gatherers used them. That implies something about agricultural societies and the civilisations they gave rise to promoted substance use. But why?</p>
<p>It’s possible large civilisations simply drive innovation of all kinds: in ceramics, textiles, metals – and psychoactive substances. Perhaps alcohol and drugs also promoted civilisation – drinking can help people socialise, altered perspectives encourage creativity, and caffeine makes us productive. And it may just be safer to get drunk or high in a city than the savannah.</p>
<p>A darker possibility is that psychoactive substance use developed in response to civilisation’s ills. Large societies create large problems – wars, plagues, inequalities in wealth and power – against which individuals are relatively powerless. Perhaps when people couldn’t change their circumstances, they decided to change their minds. </p>
<p>It’s a complex problem. Just thinking about it makes me want to grab a beer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161556/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas R. Longrich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Today, Homo sapiens regularly use psychoactive chemicals to modify the mind – but how did it all begin?
Nicholas R. Longrich, Senior Lecturer in Evolutionary Biology and Paleontology, University of Bath
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/128799
2020-01-03T09:36:46Z
2020-01-03T09:36:46Z
How the extinction of ice age mammals may have forced us to invent civilisation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307690/original/file-20191218-11900-s0uqmp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hunting_Woolly_Mammoth.jpg">Wikimedia Commons/Cloudordinary</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Why did we take so long to invent civilisation? Modern <em>Homo sapiens</em> first evolved roughly <a href="https://theconversation.com/modern-humans-evolved-100-000-years-earlier-than-we-thought-and-not-just-in-east-africa-78875">250,000 to 350,000</a> years ago. But initial steps towards civilisation – harvesting, then domestication of crop plants – began only <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/288/5471/1602?ijkey=3c1b653d8a610f044ce71bd2e41594fe7be12060&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha">around 10,000 years ago</a>, with the first civilisations appearing <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10814-010-9041-y">6,400 years ago</a>.</p>
<p>For 95% of our species’ history, we didn’t farm, create large settlements or complex political hierarchies. We lived in small, nomadic bands, hunting and gathering. Then, something changed. </p>
<p>We transitioned from hunter-gatherer life to plant harvesting, then cultivation and, finally, cities. Strikingly, this transition happened only after the ice age megafauna – mammoths, giant ground sloths, giant deer and horses – disappeared. The reasons humans began farming still <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-04-food-thought-farming.html">remain unclear</a>, but the disappearance of the animals we depended on for food may have forced our culture to evolve. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306925/original/file-20191214-85428-1rtscoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306925/original/file-20191214-85428-1rtscoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306925/original/file-20191214-85428-1rtscoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306925/original/file-20191214-85428-1rtscoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306925/original/file-20191214-85428-1rtscoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306925/original/file-20191214-85428-1rtscoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306925/original/file-20191214-85428-1rtscoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Humans hunted wild cattle, horses, and deer in France 17,000 years ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Early humans were smart enough to farm. All groups of modern humans have similar levels of intelligence, suggesting our cognitive capabilities evolved before these populations separated <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6363/652/tab-pdf">around 300,000 years ago</a>, then changed little afterwards. If our ancestors didn’t grow plants, it’s not that they weren’t clever enough. Something in the environment prevented them – or they simply didn’t need to. </p>
<p>Global warming at the end of the last glacial period, 11,700 years ago, probably <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-antiquity/article/was-agriculture-impossible-during-the-pleistocene-but-mandatory-during-the-holocene-a-climate-change-hypothesis/246B240BFFFBE904B1AC31296AD72949">made farming easier</a>. Warmer temperatures, longer growing seasons, higher rainfall and <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/605359">long-term climate stability</a> made more areas suitable for cultivation. But it’s unlikely farming had been impossible everywhere. And Earth saw <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/292/5517/686">many such warming events</a> – 11,700, 125,000, 200,000 and 325,000 years ago – but earlier warming events didn’t spur experiments in farming. Climate change can’t have been the only driver.</p>
<p>Human migration probably contributed as well. When our species expanded from southern Africa throughout <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6363/652/tab-pdf">the African continent</a>, into <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22968">Asia</a>, Europe and then <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6456/891">the Americas</a>, we found new environments and <a href="https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2012.04253.x">new food plants</a>. But people occupied these parts of the world long before farming began. Plant domestication lagged human migration by tens of millennia.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306927/original/file-20191214-85376-sg48bc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306927/original/file-20191214-85376-sg48bc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306927/original/file-20191214-85376-sg48bc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306927/original/file-20191214-85376-sg48bc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306927/original/file-20191214-85376-sg48bc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306927/original/file-20191214-85376-sg48bc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306927/original/file-20191214-85376-sg48bc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rye, one of the first crops.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If opportunities to invent farming already existed, then the delayed invention of agriculture suggests our ancestors didn’t need, or want, to farm.</p>
<p>Agriculture has significant disadvantages compared to foraging. Farming <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race">takes more effort and offers less leisure time and an inferior diet</a>. If hunters are hungry in the morning, they can have food on the fire at night. Farming requires hard work today to produce food months later – or not at all. It requires storage and management of temporary food surpluses to feed people year round. </p>
<p>A hunter having a bad day can hunt again tomorrow or seek richer hunting grounds elsewhere, but farmers, tied to the land, are at the mercy of nature’s unpredictability. Rains arriving too soon or too late, droughts, frosts, blights or locusts can cause crop failure – and famine. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307696/original/file-20191218-11900-14xokd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307696/original/file-20191218-11900-14xokd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307696/original/file-20191218-11900-14xokd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307696/original/file-20191218-11900-14xokd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307696/original/file-20191218-11900-14xokd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307696/original/file-20191218-11900-14xokd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307696/original/file-20191218-11900-14xokd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Agriculture has many disadvantages over hunting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_agriculture#/media/File:Maler_der_Grabkammer_des_Sennudem_001.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Agriculture has military disadvantages as well. Hunter-gatherers are mobile and can travel long distances to attack or retreat. Constant practice with spears and bows made them <a href="https://theconversation.com/were-other-humans-the-first-victims-of-the-sixth-mass-extinction-126638">deadly fighters</a>. Farmers are rooted to their fields, their schedules dictated by the seasons. They are predictable, stationary targets, whose food stockpiles tempt hungry outsiders.</p>
<p>And having evolved to the lifestyle, humans may simply have loved being nomadic hunters. The Comanche Indians <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003KN3MDG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1">fought to the death</a> to preserve their hunting lifestyle. The Kalahari Bushmen of southern Africa <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24821867">continue to resist</a> being turned into farmers and herders. Strikingly, when Polynesian farmers encountered New Zealand’s abundant flightless birds, they largely abandoned agriculture, creating the Maori <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/maori-material-culture">moa-hunter culture</a>.</p>
<h2>Hunting abandoned</h2>
<p>Yet something changed. From 10,000 years ago onward, humans repeatedly abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle for farming. It may be that after the extinction of mammoths and other megafauna from the Pleistocene epoch, and the overhunting of surviving game, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle became less viable, pushing people to harvest and then cultivate plants. Perhaps civilisation wasn’t born out of a drive to progress, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/112492/plagues-and-peoples-by-william-h-mcneill/">but disaster</a>, as ecological catastrophe forced people to abandon their traditional lifestyles.</p>
<p>As humans left Africa to colonise new lands, large animals disappeared everywhere we set foot. In Europe and Asia, megafauna like wooly rhinos, mammoths, and Irish Elk vanished <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Adrian_Lister/publication/264785182_Patterns_of_Late_Quaternary_megafaunal_extinctions_in_Europe_and_northern_Asia/links/53f0e69f0cf2711e0c431517.pdf">around 40,000 to 10,000 years ago</a>. In Australia, giant kangaroos and wombats disappeared <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/292/5523/1888">46,000 years ago</a>. In North America, horses, camels, giant armadillos, mammoths and ground sloths declined and disappeared from <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/326/5956/1100.full">15,000 to 11,500 years ago</a>, followed by extinctions in South America <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618209004236">14,000 to 8,000 years ago</a>. After people spread to the Caribbean Islands, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/100/19/10800.short">Madagascar</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379114003734">New Zealand</a> and <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/217/4560/633">Oceania</a>, their megafauna vanished as well. Megafaunal extinctions inevitably followed humans.</p>
<p>Harvesting big game like <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/112/14/4263.short">horses, camels</a> and <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/334/6054/351">elephants</a> produces <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24107608_The_Primitive_Hunter_Culture_Pleistocene_Extinction_and_the_Rise_of_Agriculture/link/57dd854f08ae4e6f1849a954/download">a better return</a> than hunting small game like rabbits. But large animals like elephants reproduce slowly, and have few offspring compared to small animals like rabbits, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24107608_The_Primitive_Hunter_Culture_Pleistocene_Extinction_and_the_Rise_of_Agriculture/link/57dd854f08ae4e6f1849a954/download">making them vulnerable to overharvesting</a>. And so everywhere we went, our human ingenuity – hunting with spear-throwers, herding animals with fire, stampeding them over cliffs – meant we harvested large animals faster than they could replenish their numbers. It was arguably the first sustainability crisis. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308109/original/file-20191220-11929-1gc4m3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308109/original/file-20191220-11929-1gc4m3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308109/original/file-20191220-11929-1gc4m3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308109/original/file-20191220-11929-1gc4m3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308109/original/file-20191220-11929-1gc4m3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308109/original/file-20191220-11929-1gc4m3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308109/original/file-20191220-11929-1gc4m3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">With our hunting prey gone, we were forced to invent civilisation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/egypt-sakkara-step-pyramid-king-djoser-109821740">WitR/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the old way of life no longer viable, humans would have been forced to innovate, increasingly focusing on <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24107608_The_Primitive_Hunter_Culture_Pleistocene_Extinction_and_the_Rise_of_Agriculture/link/57dd854f08ae4e6f1849a954/download">gathering, then cultivating plants to survive</a>. This let human populations expand. Eating plants rather than meat is <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=jared+diamong+third+chimpanzee&rlz=1C5CHFA_enGB841GB841&oq=jared+diamong+third+chimpanzee&aqs=chrome..69i57j35i39l2j0l4j69i60.4797j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">a more efficient use of land</a>, so farming can support more people in the same area than hunting. People could settle permanently, build settlements, then civilisations. </p>
<p>The archaeological and fossil records tell us our ancestors could have pursued farming, but did only so after they had little alternative. We probably would have continued hunting horses and mammoths forever, but we were just too good at it, and likely wiped out our own food supply.</p>
<p>Agriculture and civilisation may have been invented not because they were an improvement over our ancestral lifestyle, but because we were left no choice. Agriculture was desperate attempt to fix things when we took more than the ecosystem could sustain. If so, we abandoned the life of ice age hunters to create the modern world, not with foresight and intent, but by accident, because of an ecological catastrophe we created thousands of years ago.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128799/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas R. Longrich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Overhunting of megafauna such as mammoths may have force us to take up farming, ultimately leading to modern society
Nicholas R. Longrich, Senior Lecturer, Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Bath
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/123593
2019-09-16T20:39:24Z
2019-09-16T20:39:24Z
Civilization: The Way We Live Now – powerful, troubling photographs of a crowded planet and uncertain future
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292530/original/file-20190916-19040-ps0atd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C38%2C2354%2C1849&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cyril Porchet, Swiss born 1984, Untitled 2014 from the series Crowd, inkjet print
139.0 x 169.0 x 3.5 cm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Cyril Porchet</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1955, an enormous photographic exhibition, <a href="https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2429">The Family of Man</a>, challenged the world as to what it meant to be human. The curator, Edward Steichen, assembled 503 photographs by 273 photographers from 68 countries, while his brother-in-law, the poet Carl Sandburg, provided the lyrical subtext to the show and its title.</p>
<p>In his poem, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53250/the-long-shadow-of-lincoln-a-litany">The Long Shadow of Lincoln: A Litany</a> (1944), Sandburg wrote, “There is dust alive/ With dreams of the Republic,/ With dreams of the family of man/ Flung wide on a shrinking globe”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292520/original/file-20190916-8693-2zcyhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292520/original/file-20190916-8693-2zcyhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292520/original/file-20190916-8693-2zcyhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292520/original/file-20190916-8693-2zcyhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292520/original/file-20190916-8693-2zcyhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292520/original/file-20190916-8693-2zcyhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292520/original/file-20190916-8693-2zcyhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292520/original/file-20190916-8693-2zcyhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Taloi Havini & Stuart Miller Sami and the Panguna mine 2009–10, 80.1 × 119.9 cm, type C photograph National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2014</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Taloi Havini and Stuart Miller</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In some ways, this new vast exhibition, <a href="https://www.fep-photo.org/exhibitions/civilization-the-way-we-live-now/">Civilization: The Way We Live Now</a>, a version of which has just opened at the National Gallery of Victoria, catches the flame of the challenge of The Family of Man with its dreams of humankind living on a rapidly shrinking globe. </p>
<p>The show brings together over 100 contemporary photographers from Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and Australia with over 200 photographs. Unlike its illustrious predecessor of more than 60 years earlier, many of the photographs in this exhibition are huge in dimensions and in a very wide range of mediums.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292533/original/file-20190916-19035-dt2dyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292533/original/file-20190916-19035-dt2dyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292533/original/file-20190916-19035-dt2dyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292533/original/file-20190916-19035-dt2dyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292533/original/file-20190916-19035-dt2dyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292533/original/file-20190916-19035-dt2dyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292533/original/file-20190916-19035-dt2dyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292533/original/file-20190916-19035-dt2dyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Massimo Vitali, Italian born 1944, Piscinao de Ramos 2012, Lightjet print.
232.5 x 185.5 x 6.0 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Massimo Vital</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Civilization”, the title of numerous exhibitions, conjures the image of civilisations of the past – Egypt, Rome, Byzantium – empires that rose and collapsed. This exhibition explores the concept of a “planetary civilisation” – one, where for the first time in human history, more people live in cities, than in rural settings.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292525/original/file-20190916-8687-ygela8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292525/original/file-20190916-8687-ygela8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292525/original/file-20190916-8687-ygela8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292525/original/file-20190916-8687-ygela8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292525/original/file-20190916-8687-ygela8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292525/original/file-20190916-8687-ygela8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292525/original/file-20190916-8687-ygela8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292525/original/file-20190916-8687-ygela8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reiner Riedler,
Austrian born 1968, Wild River, Florida 2005 from Fake Holidays series type C photograph.
100.0 x 120.0 x 4.0 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Reiner Riedler</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Human mobility and interconnectivity have meant that more people, countries and economies are interdependent than ever before. For the first time, there is a real prospect that the human species stands to comprehensively annihilate itself, not through an act of war, but through man-made climate change and over consumption. It is also the first time that photographers are virtually everywhere and are photographing virtually everything.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292526/original/file-20190916-8693-1thj1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292526/original/file-20190916-8693-1thj1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292526/original/file-20190916-8693-1thj1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292526/original/file-20190916-8693-1thj1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292526/original/file-20190916-8693-1thj1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292526/original/file-20190916-8693-1thj1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292526/original/file-20190916-8693-1thj1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292526/original/file-20190916-8693-1thj1qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">
Gjorgji Lichovski, Macedonian born 1964,
Macedonian police clash with refugees at blocked border 2015, type C photograph.
70.7 x 104.0 x 3.5 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© epa european pressphoto agency / Georgi Licovski</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The curators of this exhibition, William A. Ewing and Holly Roussell, have examined many thousands of contemporary photographs and have spoken to hundreds of photographers around the world. </p>
<p>Through this process of interrogation, the material has suggested eight fluid, porous sections around which the exhibition is arranged: Hive, Alone together, Flow, Persuasion, Control, Rapture, Escape and Next. These, as Ewing stresses, are some of the broad themes that are preoccupying many of the world’s finest photographers today.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292543/original/file-20190916-19035-m6ouhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292543/original/file-20190916-19035-m6ouhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292543/original/file-20190916-19035-m6ouhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292543/original/file-20190916-19035-m6ouhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292543/original/file-20190916-19035-m6ouhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292543/original/file-20190916-19035-m6ouhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292543/original/file-20190916-19035-m6ouhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292543/original/file-20190916-19035-m6ouhc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Priscilla Briggs.
American born 1966
Happy (Golden Resources Mall, Beijing), from the series Fortune 2008
type C photograph
100.0 x 128.0 x 4.5 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Priscilla Briggs</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Last year, the exhibition was shown in Seoul, earlier this year in Beijing and now it is in Melbourne, where it has been considerably trimmed of some of its international content and supplemented by a number of Australian photographers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292534/original/file-20190916-19072-1bwpke2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292534/original/file-20190916-19072-1bwpke2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292534/original/file-20190916-19072-1bwpke2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292534/original/file-20190916-19072-1bwpke2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292534/original/file-20190916-19072-1bwpke2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292534/original/file-20190916-19072-1bwpke2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292534/original/file-20190916-19072-1bwpke2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292534/original/file-20190916-19072-1bwpke2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ashley Gilbertson, 1,215 American soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors pray before a pledge of enlistment on July 4, 2008, at a massive re-enlistment ceremony at one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces in Baghdad, Iraq 2008,
from Whiskey Tango Foxtrot series, type C photograph 69.0 x 94.0 x 5.5 cm.
Courtesy of the artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Ashley Gilbertson / VII Network</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Next year, the exhibition will travel to Auckland, in 2021 to Marseilles and there is promise of future venues in the coming years. The Family of Man was to tour for eight years and attracted over nine million visitors and there is every possibility that this exhibition will match or exceed this number.</p>
<h2>‘Homogenising humanity’</h2>
<p>If The Family of Man posed the question what do humans have in common to make them human, photographs in Civilization focus on what the curators term the “shared human experience”. The historian <a href="http://www.niallferguson.com/">Niall Ferguson</a> noted in his book Civilization: The West and the Rest (2011): “It is one of the greatest paradoxes of modern history that a system designed to offer infinite choice to the individual has ended up homogenising humanity.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292528/original/file-20190916-8668-2n4z3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292528/original/file-20190916-8668-2n4z3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292528/original/file-20190916-8668-2n4z3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292528/original/file-20190916-8668-2n4z3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292528/original/file-20190916-8668-2n4z3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292528/original/file-20190916-8668-2n4z3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292528/original/file-20190916-8668-2n4z3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292528/original/file-20190916-8668-2n4z3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mark Power, British born 1959, The funeral of Pope John Paul II broadcast live from the Vatican, Warsaw, Poland, 2005.
from the series The Sound of Two Songs, 2004–09, type C photograph
106.7 x 134.0 x 4.4 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Magnum Photos London © Mark Power / Magnum Photos</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This homogenised humanity prevails in many of the photographs, whether it be in the claustrophobic clutter of the great metropolises of the “Hive” or the truly unsettling images of the “Next” section. This is a future where a perfect race appears in Valérie Belin’s models, robots replace humans in Reiner Riedler’s photographs and we leave this crowded planet in the images of Michael Najjar.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292541/original/file-20190916-19059-qqoidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292541/original/file-20190916-19059-qqoidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292541/original/file-20190916-19059-qqoidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292541/original/file-20190916-19059-qqoidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292541/original/file-20190916-19059-qqoidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292541/original/file-20190916-19059-qqoidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292541/original/file-20190916-19059-qqoidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292541/original/file-20190916-19059-qqoidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Valérie Belin, French born 1964, Untitled.
from the Models II series, 2006, pigment inkjet print
130.0 x 105.0 x 4.0 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels © Valérie Belin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In navigating this extensive exhibition, you experience mixed emotions – on one hand these photographers are holding up a mirror to this concentrated global urban environment that we recognise as real and a shared experience, but on the other hand this is an exhibition of very significant art. </p>
<p>Many of the names of these photographers read like a roll call of some of the leading documentary and art photographers in the world.</p>
<p>In one of the iconic images of this exhibition, <a href="https://www.maxhetzler.com/zh/news/2019-08-31-thomas-struthicons-worship-and-adoration-group-show-kunsthalle-bremen-bremen-19-october-2019-1-march-2020">Thomas Struth’s “Pergamon Museum 1, Berlin” (2001)</a>, a huge type C photograph, our civilisation has recreated a past civilisation so that we can stand in triumph over past achievements. </p>
<p>The great veteran photographer, Lee Friedlander, records America through the prism of the car window, while the Canadian Edward Burtynsky presents a huge panoramic view of mass food production in his “Manufacturing #17, Deda Chicken Processing Plant, Dehui City, Jilin Province, China” (2005). </p>
<p>The young Russian photographer, Sergey Ponomarev, in one of the most moving photographs in the exhibition, “Migrants walk past the temple as they are escorted by Slovenian riot police to the registration camp outside Dobova, Slovenia, Thursday October 22, 2015” comments on the theme of mass migration in the era of the new world order.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292557/original/file-20190916-19040-r5erfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292557/original/file-20190916-19040-r5erfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292557/original/file-20190916-19040-r5erfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292557/original/file-20190916-19040-r5erfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292557/original/file-20190916-19040-r5erfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292557/original/file-20190916-19040-r5erfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292557/original/file-20190916-19040-r5erfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292557/original/file-20190916-19040-r5erfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sergey Ponomarev, Migrants walk past the temple as they are escorted by Slovenian riot police to the registration camp outside Dobova, Slovenia, Thursday October, 22, 2015 2015, from Europe’s Refugee Crisis series type C photograph, 70.6 x 104.0 x 3.2 cm, Courtesy of The New York Times.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is also a powerful section on images of escape – an escape from a created reality that now imprisons us – the fake wilderness in American amusement parks recorded by the Austrian Reiner Riedler or the American Jeffrey Milstein’s “Caribbean Princess” (2014) an inkjet print from the Cruise Ships series.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292559/original/file-20190916-19059-s9k8t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292559/original/file-20190916-19059-s9k8t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292559/original/file-20190916-19059-s9k8t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1250&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292559/original/file-20190916-19059-s9k8t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1250&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292559/original/file-20190916-19059-s9k8t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1250&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292559/original/file-20190916-19059-s9k8t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292559/original/file-20190916-19059-s9k8t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292559/original/file-20190916-19059-s9k8t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jeffrey Milstein, Caribbean Princess 2015, from the Cruise Ships series 2014, inkjet print.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Jeffrey Milstein</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A hallmark of a memorable exhibition is that it seduces the viewer through its sheer beauty, while at the same time making us question the reality that we inhabit. </p>
<p>Civilization: The way we live now is an important milestone exhibition that raises questions of the single planetary civilisation that is now evolving, where a stranger on social media may appear more real than our neighbour, and where our very future appears increasingly problematic.</p>
<p><em>Civilization: The Way We Live Now is at NGV Australia, Federation Square
until 2 Feb 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sasha Grishin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Many of the world’s greatest photographers focus on our shared human experience in a milestone exhibition.
Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/112682
2019-03-07T19:05:43Z
2019-03-07T19:05:43Z
Friday essay: rebooting the idea of ‘civilisation’ for Australian soil
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262336/original/file-20190306-48426-15vbjvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Yolngu boys from north-eastern Arnhem Land perform the Bunggul traditional dance during the Garma Festival in 2018. The Yolngu have flourished for up to 50,000 years.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This piece is republished with permission from <a href="https://griffithreview.com/">GriffithReview 63: Writing the Country</a> (Text), ed Ashley Hay.</em></p>
<p>At the same time as a headline in The Guardian announced: “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/21/indigenous-australians-most-ancient-civilisation-on-earth-dna-study-confirms">Indigenous Australians most ancient civilisation on Earth, DNA study confirms</a>”, we could also read that $3 billion had been left by healthcare tycoon Paul Ramsay to set up, under the direction of right-wing former prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott, a plan to install courses on “Western civilisation” in major Australian universities. </p>
<p>This contrast is confusing, but telling. Civilisation has nothing to do with science as such (DNA is indifferent to it), nor is it something a passing political initiative can uphold. But with a long view of Australian history, the concept of civilisation is caught precisely in this politically charged dichotomy: between an Indigenous civilisation and a recently arrived “Western” one.</p>
<p>It seems that the upholders of the latter would like the former to remain dubious and “ancient”, of little relevance to the future of the country. This essay is a personal reflection on the possibilities for a more reasonable hybrid definition of “civilisation” based on Australian soil.</p>
<p>What does the word mean? Well, it is city life, if you follow the etymology. From the Latin <em>civis</em>, we derive the group of words that includes “citizen” and “civil”. Outside of the walls of the city roamed the uncivilised, those speaking barbarian tongues. There is a prejudice about civilisation that is reinforced every time the Tigris and Euphrates are cited in accounts of world history as being the “cradle of civilisation”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262342/original/file-20190306-48426-16ss6ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262342/original/file-20190306-48426-16ss6ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262342/original/file-20190306-48426-16ss6ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262342/original/file-20190306-48426-16ss6ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262342/original/file-20190306-48426-16ss6ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262342/original/file-20190306-48426-16ss6ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262342/original/file-20190306-48426-16ss6ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262342/original/file-20190306-48426-16ss6ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A young man jumps from the old Fallujah bridge into the Euphrates river in Iraq in 2011. There is a prejudice reinforced every time the Euphrates and Tigris are cited in accounts of world history as being the ‘cradle of civilisation’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mohammed Jalil/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sometimes contesting “cradles” are noted in China, India or the Americas. But rarely mentioned are the oldest continually surviving “cultures”, those of Australia, because it is still hard, in the European tradition, to think of civilisation without cities. But perhaps the idea of building walls to keep others at bay is not such a civilised idea. Let’s consider what civilisation might mean in Australia today, starting with what The Guardian reported as the first civilisations of the country, since they stood the test of a very long period of time – without walls.</p>
<h2>Valuing traditional law</h2>
<p>I would like to define civilisation as planned, sustainable collective living. The usual definition of it as human society defined by “urban development, social stratification … and a perceived separation from and domination over the natural environment”, as given in Wikipedia, is crying out for revision because it ignores sustainability and relegates non-human life, “nature”, to a resource. Perhaps a new ecological perspective is what is needed as we endeavour to reset modernity, to reboot the idea of living in a civilised fashion within the limits of our earthbound existences.</p>
<p>Far from advocating that Australians today can learn from the wisdom of Indigenous traditions about living “in harmony with nature”, we shall have to rethink the very concept of a singular nature and be aware that it, too, was a colonial imposition on the hundreds of types of country that had in place highly managed, biodiverse ways of living.</p>
<p>So the first step in rebooting civilisation in Australia will be to start with the oldest heritage, in the very places where most Australians can’t see any heritage at all – places they call “remote” simply because they are a long way from cities. The distancing effect of calling them remote contributes to their fragility and degradation at the same time as it generates and invests all major values in the self-assurance of big city life.</p>
<p>But cities, too, are vulnerable, especially in the light of the environmental threats that demand we reset the parameters of civilised life. Tim Flannery, in his 2005 book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48463.The_Weather_Makers">The Weather Makers</a>, speaks, as many do, about climate change as a threat to civilisation as we know it. He makes it clear he is talking about cities: “Very large cities lie at the heart of our global society, and our most valued institutions are found in them.”</p>
<p>It is a scale-based logic, because those cities under a 100,000 people are not likely to host a university and they need to be over a million to have an opera house. He speaks of the vulnerability to climate change of just this kind of civilisation, because infrastructure designed to deliver water or electricity to millions can be disrupted rapidly, while small towns are more likely to have manageable self-sufficiency. </p>
<p>What he doesn’t mention, as an Australian, are the civilisations that persisted here for many thousands of years. He could have thought of the way the word was used in that context by American anthropologist Lloyd Warner in his 1937 study of the <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/8489691?selectedversion=NBD4184259">Yolngu, A Black Civilisation</a>. If the Yolngu have flourished for up to 50,000 years, while the kind of civilisation based on large cities could self-destruct after only a few hundred, perhaps it is time to recalibrate what we mean by civilisation.</p>
<p>Today, the Yolngu are among the more robust of Indigenous communities, with their celebrated artistic heritage, their annual Garma Festival, and their business and political skills. A Yolngu kid wanting higher education can head into university in Darwin or another major city, or decide to develop traditional knowledge further by sitting with Elders to eventually “graduate” as a law boss. Or both. Both are viable institutions, so let’s explore their differences for a moment, bearing in mind that one may be more vulnerable to climate change events.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262337/original/file-20190306-48441-1i6kod3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262337/original/file-20190306-48441-1i6kod3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262337/original/file-20190306-48441-1i6kod3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262337/original/file-20190306-48441-1i6kod3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262337/original/file-20190306-48441-1i6kod3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262337/original/file-20190306-48441-1i6kod3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262337/original/file-20190306-48441-1i6kod3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262337/original/file-20190306-48441-1i6kod3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A clan member of the Yolngu people prepares to perform the Bunggul traditional dance during the Garma Festival near Nhulunbuy, East Arnhem Land, last year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Traditional law and culture is an institution, even if it is not housed in bricks and mortar, and doesn’t need a large annual budget. The Yolngu call it “wangarr”; it is “tjukurpa” in central Australia and “bugarrigarra” in the west Kimberley, where I have worked. People invest time and energy in it, organise each other in different roles and strive for collective outcomes that are highly valued. It includes the process of initiation through which people are literally “made”; in that sense you can’t be a “proper” Aboriginal person without going through the law. </p>
<p>But isn’t it hopelessly idealistic to give value to such traditional institutions, when clearly they can’t be configured in terms of economic progress? Today’s world is one in which everything can be given an economic value, and entities are defined by competition and inequality. Under this regime, traditional knowledge would have to be gathered up by a university or by native title law and turned into accountable knowledge of a more whitefella sort.</p>
<p>For the latter articulation, gaining native title gives communities (sorry, “bodies corporate”) the right to negotiate with mining companies and hence gain royalty or compensation income. That’s just the way things work, you might say. This is the real world, suck it up. And don’t even think about getting a real pay-to-learn university until your community has grown to 100,000.</p>
<h2>A monocultural push</h2>
<p>Such scaled economisation of the world – reducing everything to the same mechanisms for creating monetary value – is, unfortunately, a monocultural push that tends to destroy the plurality that is civilisation itself. How so? Well, civilisation, as it is defined by those who see it as a collective planning for better ways of living rather than as a dog fight, is one in which numerous religions can have adjacent temples, where scientific knowledge advances, where the law is impartial, the arts flourish and politicians prioritise our collective problems. For the sake of the argument, let’s call the opposite of this a primitive society. Primitives seek to dominate with their narrow agenda. </p>
<p>So if science sought, in the name of its own principles, to slap down the other institutions, debunk religion, dismiss the arts as merely subjective and so on, it would be primitive. People inhabiting a pluralist civilisation will assert the value of difference by saying things like, “Well, we do things this way, but we respect those other folk doing it their way.” You will notice that this is just the kind of wishy-washy relativist talk that the Ayn Rands of the world would denounce as weak liberalism. </p>
<p>For them, only competitive force gains real value; there are only winners and losers, patriots or enemies. Or that’s how they talk. If neoliberal ideology had succeeded in dominating the world, then public bars would be full of poker machines, corporations would be able to buy politicians, art schools would be shut down, the neutrality of the law would be impugned, churches would be profitable, scientific method questioned and Indigenous heritage sites declassified to clear the way for mining. Unthinkable! Thank goodness civilisation in Australia is more robust than that.</p>
<h2>Our fragile civilisation</h2>
<p>Australia has had some good moments. Once known as the lucky country, it profited from postwar agricultural and industrial development, which morphed into a mining boom until suddenly, very recently, it became stuck between two unsustainable delusions. The country doesn’t know where it came from or where it is going. It still falsely claims that its heritage is white (those more than 50,000-year-old civilisations count for nothing much except tourism revenue), and it is deluded into thinking that it can continue to profit from an ever-expanding global economy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262340/original/file-20190306-48447-nivy9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262340/original/file-20190306-48447-nivy9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262340/original/file-20190306-48447-nivy9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262340/original/file-20190306-48447-nivy9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262340/original/file-20190306-48447-nivy9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262340/original/file-20190306-48447-nivy9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262340/original/file-20190306-48447-nivy9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262340/original/file-20190306-48447-nivy9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Rio Tinto West Angelas iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of West Australia in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alan Porritt/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Certainly, this situation has been developing for half a century, but it is the threat of environmental disasters that has suddenly introduced a weird reversal of time. We can’t rely on past form any more. Now it is an actually knowable climate-changed future that is crashing back onto the present with an argument that we must make sensible policy changes. It is this that has opened the fault lines of denial in what I want to call our “fragile civilisation”.</p>
<p>It is like we are stuck on an interminable intercontinental flight and the pilot announces that we will have to land, somewhere, and it is actually a nightmare. We can’t go back to pre-modern life before carbon-fuelled industrial acceleration, and the globe we thought could accommodate everyone’s economic growth is just not big enough to do that. We need to land somewhere else: on Earth perhaps, where we will be bound by Earth’s rules rather than fantasies of endless global expansion; or even escape to another planet.</p>
<p>Two great thinkers have informed me as I composed this essay. It was <a href="http://www.bruno-latour.fr/">Bruno Latour</a>, the French philosopher of science, who told me the allegory of the nightmare plane trip with nowhere to land, and who once greeted me when I arrived in Paris with a friendly, “Welcome to civilisation!” His irony was alluding, at the time, to Tony Abbott’s infamous <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/politics/the-town-that-turned-up-the-temperature/news-story/6fe0d32a32e42341a12b999f6da82ec5">“absolute crap”</a> line on climate science in 2009. The other great influence on me was Paddy Roe, a Goolarabooloo Elder from the west Kimberley who died in 2001.</p>
<p>Roe was born well before World War I and had seen his hometown, Broome, go through the throes of colonisation. Feudal pastoralism and the murderous pearling industry were to give way to resource extraction, but in the middle quiet period of the 20th century, when assimilation policy was the norm, he woke up to the fact that his cherished “bugarrigarra” (law and culture) was dying out. Looking for boys to go through the law, he saw them instead dressed up nicely on their way to church and school, where they learned to look down on the ways of the old people.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262555/original/file-20190306-100802-1274yio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262555/original/file-20190306-100802-1274yio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262555/original/file-20190306-100802-1274yio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262555/original/file-20190306-100802-1274yio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262555/original/file-20190306-100802-1274yio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262555/original/file-20190306-100802-1274yio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262555/original/file-20190306-100802-1274yio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262555/original/file-20190306-100802-1274yio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paddy Roe photographed in 1979.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Dieter Kirchner</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Paddy Roe mobilised some other law bosses and they did what they could to revive positive interest in their heritage. They did this under the name of Goolarabooloo, which is an ancient name for “west coast cultures”. It was never a tribal or language name, but was created long ago to unify a string of communities that follow the songline of the ceremony used every season to sing the boys into men. When the people gather to perform the ritual they draw down on the sacred authority of the “bugarrigarra”, while also drawing in the totemic plants and animals as participants. As custodians, they are conscious that their job is to bring the country to life.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-gularabulu-by-paddy-roe-25320">The case for Gularabulu by Paddy Roe</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This Goolarabooloo society is thus more expansive than small tribal or language groupings. One could call it a cultural confederacy, a bit like the European Union. That concept was invented, after seeing the horrors that paranoid nationalism produced, to consolidate peace after the great European wars. </p>
<p>Perhaps it was with the same motive of keeping the peace that the Goolarabooloo ancestors came up with this unifying structure that made people come together to vitalise the country they loved with the gift of new young life: boys who would gain important knowledge as they turned into men. </p>
<p>Without this expansive and inclusive philosophy, internecine warfare may have been more common. Life would indeed have been less civilised.</p>
<h2>Indigenous foundations</h2>
<p>As the oversize aircraft of late modernity circles, looking for a place to land, Indigenous Australian civilisations are still there in their places. They have always known the overriding importance of caring for their own territories. They are willing to negotiate once again, and this time the stakes are on a planetary scale. But more locally, how can we reconcile Australia’s Indigenous heritage – our civilisational foundation, as I have argued – with the economic story that has brought huge benefits, but is now hitting a wall? </p>
<p>If we reinstall confidence in our public institutions, granting them their own dignity and autonomous power and not making them compete quite so much, then we will have perpetuated the plurality of ways of being in the world that many see as the basis for civilised life. These institutions reform themselves as a matter of course. Today they need more urgent reform to be adequate for the future crises of the Anthropocene, and each can incorporate the knowledge of the first civilisations in very useful ways.</p>
<p>It is the essence of scientific knowledge to be testable and reliable over time, but there is more than one way of assuring this. Steve Salisbury, a palaeontologist from the University of Queensland, can produce a rebooted palaeontology that treats Indigenous people as colleagues and values mythological accounts of dinosaurs as knowledge that complements the discipline, not as mere belief. In the aesthetic field, we have already seen the revolution in painting that was the movement originating in Papunya. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262339/original/file-20190306-48417-16feghj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262339/original/file-20190306-48417-16feghj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262339/original/file-20190306-48417-16feghj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262339/original/file-20190306-48417-16feghj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262339/original/file-20190306-48417-16feghj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262339/original/file-20190306-48417-16feghj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262339/original/file-20190306-48417-16feghj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262339/original/file-20190306-48417-16feghj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People examine a painting in the exhibition, Papunya Painting: Out of the Australian Desert at the National Art Museum of China in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Karen Fielding/National Museum of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Art critic Robert Hughes called it the last great art movement of the 20th century, and it continues to inspire other art forms. It also created a valuable industry, spinning off into other economic benefits. Each major institution can thus be reset with the Indigenous foundations in place. Mabo was such a moment for Australian law.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-the-mens-painting-room-at-papunya-transformed-australian-art-79909">Friday essay: how the Men's Painting Room at Papunya transformed Australian art</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In this way, the somewhat difficult concept of civilisation can be recuperated, not by rising to the defence of unlimited scientific and economic progress, nor by taking Enlightenment values as given, but by specifying how the institutions that negotiate such values can be reformed. I clearly don’t mean “reform” in the euphemistic sense used by conservatives bent on actually dismantling these institutions or selling them off. They are happy to see one set – economic institutions – as “naturally” dominating all the others.</p>
<p>One must be careful not to let the concept of “civilisation” be too easily returned to cultural or racial categories (as in “Islamic” or “Jewish” civilisation) that lead to Samuel Huntington-like clashes. Instead, the focus here is more usefully on the collective value of public institutions as defenders of civil behaviour and common resources, including the resources usually called “natural”.</p>
<p>Paddy Roe had a beautiful way of expressing the sovereignty of his Goolarabooloo country. He invited everyone in. He was delighted to teach people, show them places and sing the songs. He set up one of the first Indigenous heritage trails, the Lurujarri Trail, which his descendants have run for 30 years. It has invited hundreds of people to walk a songline along the beach north of Broome. As they walk they get a feeling for country (the local word for this is “liyan”) that may even be transformative for them, a bit like the curiously named “naturalisation” ceremonies that initiate the new citizens of a nation.</p>
<p>It is a curious name because the usual ceremony is simply about giving a person a new legal status. But I’d like to appropriate the term to drive home my conclusion. Naturalisation is not about getting closer to the nature of a country. No one is “close to nature”. No, not Indigenous people, even if wilderness advocates like to think so. We are all negotiating our way through the inevitable entanglements of nature and culture. </p>
<p>So to avoid the pitfalls of a notion of civilisation as forever transcending and dominating nature, with the pious hope of leaving barbarous instincts behind, we might have to take the ecological step of imagining future Australian citizens being “re-naturalised” in particular “countries”, a process in which the natural and the civilised are no longer in opposition. The controls of the modernist airliner have now been recalibrated. In order to land we shall have to be refitted, realistically, to the scale of what each territory is capable of sustaining.</p>
<p>With the Anthropocene, says Bruno Latour, we have made the “rather distressing discovery that humans have become a geological force”, one that is capable of destroying our planetary home. But he goes on to say it could become “an index of an entirely different composition: that of a possible civilisation”. This is a new kind of civilisation that he calls “earthbound”, meaning both tied to territory and heading towards it. </p>
<p>As Australia continues its work-in-progress that I have attempted to call our “hybrid civilisation”, we can weave into its composition the knowledge of country, and the love of country, that makes us all its privileged custodians.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112682/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Muecke receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>
It’s time for a more reasonable, hybrid definition of civilisation that incorporates our Indigenous heritage.
Stephen Muecke, Chair professor, University of Adelaide
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/47275
2018-08-27T05:42:50Z
2018-08-27T05:42:50Z
Australian archaeologists dropped the term ‘Stone Age’ decades ago, and so should you
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233621/original/file-20180827-149487-1oc22mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The use of stone tools is evidence of technnological sophistication.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/iurii </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Stone Age” is a term often used to refer to early periods in human cultural evolution, when deliberately manufactured sharp stone flakes were the main cutting tool.</p>
<p>But it’s also used to describe cultures that are seen as “backward” or “primitive”. Is this usage relevant, or even accurate?</p>
<h2>How a technology was forgotten - and rediscovered</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14464">earliest stone tools</a> we know of date to 3.3 million years ago, made by unknown human ancestors in Africa. </p>
<p>Stone working was a key technology as hominins spread throughout the world, and remained so until the Iron Age, which began about 3,000 years ago. After that, their use started to decline in some parts of the world.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-teenager-the-first-known-person-with-parents-of-two-different-species-101965">Ancient teenager the first known person with parents of two different species</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>By the Medieval period, from around 500 to 1400CE, knowledge of stone working was almost completely lost in Europe. </p>
<p>Flint arrow and spear points were often found lying in fields. People thought they were weapons used in the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+12%3A7-17&version=KJV">War in Heaven</a> - the Biblical tale of when the angels ousted Lucifer - or were made by <a href="https://ericwedwards.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/elf-shot/">elves and fairies</a>.</p>
<p>It was only in the early 1700s that European people realised that stone tools - frequently found in association with extinct animal bones - might be the work of earlier humans. </p>
<p>A French missionary made a crucial leap. In 1724, <a href="http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/lafitau_joseph_francois_3E.html">Joseph-Francois Lafitau</a> noticed that <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/iroquois/">Iroquois people</a> in Canada used stone tools similar to those found at European archaeological sites. From this observation, he suggested that contemporary cultures could be used as an analogy for the past.</p>
<h2>Unnatural selection</h2>
<p>More than 100 years later, in 1859, Charles Darwin published <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Darwin/On-the-Origin-of-Species">On the Origin of Species</a>. He proposed that animal species changed over time through <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/darwins-influence-on-modern-thought/">natural selection</a>, sometimes called “<a href="https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/340400.html">survival of the fittest</a>”.</p>
<p>Applied to human societies, Darwin’s theory gave rise to a <a href="https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/post-darwin-social-darwinism-degeneration-eugenics">race-based notion of “progress”</a> - with the white, Christian male at the pinnacle of human evolution.</p>
<p>American anthropologist Lewis Morgan, in his 1877 book <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/45950/45950-h/45950-h.htm">Ancient Society</a>, argued that all human populations passed through the stages of “Savagery, through Barbarism to Civilization”. Stone tool technology, he argued, was a feature of savagery. </p>
<p>The stage was set to construct Indigenous people as living representatives of the past who had never evolved. This was no longer an analogy, but a judgement.</p>
<p>In the 19th and 20th centuries, these ideas were put to sinister use as European nations expanded their colonies in Indigenous lands. </p>
<p>Placing Indigenous people lower on the evolutionary ladder justified genocide, land theft and forced conversion to Christianity - all in the name of “civilisation”. The use of stone tools thus became a liability.</p>
<h2>Stone tools vs agriculture</h2>
<p>In Australia, “Stone Age” was seen not as a technology practised by Aboriginal people, but rather as the essence of what they were. </p>
<p>“Stone Age” people were assumed to have no system of land tenure. For that, you needed to improve the land through agriculture - for example by vegetation clearing, cultivation and animal husbandry. </p>
<p>An example of this concept occurs in the science fiction <a href="http://www.andyweirauthor.com/books/the-martian-movie-tie-in-tr">novel</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/">blockbuster movie</a> The Martian. Astronaut Mark Watney, abandoned on Mars, grows potatoes to keep himself alive, leading him to <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/quotes/qt2641008">say</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially colonised it. So, technically, I colonised Mars.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In recent years, it’s been recognised that what the European invaders saw on arrival in Australia was a landscape curated by thousands of years of land management, rather than a wilderness.</p>
<p>Ironically, the use of stone tools to grind seeds or grain was once held to be a hallmark of early agriculture. But archaeologists have shown that Aboriginal people (most likely women) <a href="https://theconversation.com/buried-tools-and-pigments-tell-a-new-history-of-humans-in-australia-for-65-000-years-81021">used this technology thousands of years</a> before people in Europe or the Middle East.</p>
<h2>The most successful technology in human history</h2>
<p>By the 1960s archaeologists and anthropologists had moved away from the idea of “progress”, influenced by the work of the German-American anthropologist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Franz-Boas">Franz Boas</a>. </p>
<p>Instead of being ranked in a hierarchy of evolution, human cultures were seen as internally coherent social and political systems. Indigenous worldviews were no more or less “advanced” than Western ones. </p>
<p>But old ideas die hard, especially when they support contemporary political structures. The view that Aboriginal people are living in the Stone Age is still held by some people in Australia today.</p>
<p>It resurfaces whenever Aboriginal people are thought to be gaining too much political traction, as these tweets demonstrate: </p>
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<p>Contrary to popular belief, stone tool technology is not simple. It is highly skilled, requiring knowledge of geomorphology, geology, fracture mechanics and the thermal properties of stone. </p>
<p>Thousands of archaeologists studying stone tools can only approximate the complexity of a science that enabled Aboriginal people to survive and thrive through some of the most challenging environmental changes in human history.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Dwn8xluhysw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">These artefacts, manufactured from glass, required an extraordinary amount of skill and were also valued for their aesthetic qualities.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stone tools are still being made and used, and not just by Indigenous people. In 1975 the archaeologist <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=LfYirloa_rUC&lpg=PA187&ots=ghq7cYY--Z&dq=%22Don%20Crabtree%22%20surgery%20obsidian%20blades&pg=PA187#v=onepage&q=%22Don%20Crabtree%22%20surgery%20obsidian%20blades&f=false">Don Crabtree underwent surgery with obsidian scalpels</a> he had manufactured himself. </p>
<p>Obsidian blades cause less tissue damage than surgical steel knives, and the wounds heal more quickly. Surgeons <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/02/health/surgery-scalpels-obsidian/index.html">still use</a> them.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-bling-makes-us-human-101094">How 'bling' makes us human</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Stone working is one of the most successful technologies used by humans and their ancestors - from 3.3 million years ago to the present day. </p>
<p>Aboriginal cultures do not represent ancient societies. It is naive to assume that they are not also the product of thousands years of adaptation and innovation, which is ongoing. They are no more living representatives of the past than any other contemporary society.</p>
<p>Archaeologists in Australia abandoned the term “Stone Age” decades ago. So should you.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47275/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alice Gorman is a member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.</span></em></p>
Stone working is one of the most successful technologies used by humans, from 3.3 million years ago to the present day. So don’t think its “primitive”.
Alice Gorman, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/91942
2018-02-19T15:09:49Z
2018-02-19T15:09:49Z
Civilisations: BBC reboot of Kenneth Clark’s 1960s classic is more diverse – but is it less challenging?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206925/original/file-20180219-76003-19vhp12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Aphrodite of Menophantos, Praxiteles (4th century BCE). Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome, Italy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bbcpictures.co.uk/image/15304714?collection=15304714+15304585+15304556+15304399+15304278&back=L2ltYWdlL2NhbXBhaWduLzk5NzU4MzQvMTA%3D">Nutopia/BBC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty years after Kenneth Clark’s cultural landmark was first broadcast, BBC2 has set a date for the launch of its new flagship series, Civilisations – an updated and re-imagined series of nine hour-long documentaries exploring the visual culture of various civilisations across the globe. Episode one hits UK screens on March 1. It takes no leap of imagination to think that the series will be a huge earner of overseas revenue for the BBC. </p>
<p>Kenneth Clark’s original series Civilisation, which first aired in 1969, was a watershed moment in broadcasting history. It was a step-change in quality for a start – the channel’s educational mission had previously produced arts programmes that followed an undynamic lecture format, without the advantages of colour images. </p>
<p>These days, David Attenborough – BBC2’s controller at the time – modestly plays down his role, implying that Civilisation was, like snooker, just another convenient foil for <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/10/makers-bbcs-civilisations-havebanned-gimmicks-forbidden-re-enactments/">promoting colour broadcasts</a>. In fact, three transformative factors combined in Clark’s Civilisation. As already mentioned, the dramatic use of full colour, luxuriant locations and the creative direction of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/oct/28/broadcasting.bbc">great Michael Gill</a> allowed the programme to foreground the fantastic imagery and free itself from the shackles of a text. </p>
<p>Many at the BBC felt Clark was too stiff and pompous, and apparently he was coached into an easier manner before the camera. But this overlooks Clark’s remarkable knowledge and abilities. His success as the director of the National Gallery came through negotiating with problematic trustees, balancing gentle persuasion with respect. If he charmed trustees, why couldn’t he also beguile television audiences? </p>
<p>But the fact remains that the 64-year-old Clark was, even then, an elderly, white, privileged man who sometimes gave the impression that he was “talking down” to a mass audience. So, how – five decades later – does the new BBC series, Civilisations, compare with this cultural landmark?</p>
<h2>Reflecting contemporary cultural needs</h2>
<p>For a start, the presenting team is consciously more diverse. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/civilisations/beard">Mary Beard’s</a> strong female voice provides an important corrective — among other things — placing women artists back into the frame. It should be remembered that an important contribution was made to Civilisation by Anne Turner, one of the three directors responsible for the programme’s success. But we were still consciously hearing about culture from a man – and an elderly patrician at that.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206624/original/file-20180215-131021-1uwbpbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206624/original/file-20180215-131021-1uwbpbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206624/original/file-20180215-131021-1uwbpbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206624/original/file-20180215-131021-1uwbpbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206624/original/file-20180215-131021-1uwbpbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206624/original/file-20180215-131021-1uwbpbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206624/original/file-20180215-131021-1uwbpbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Presentation team: David Olusoga, Mary Beard and Simon Schama (2018) (C) BBC.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a Nigerian-British scholar, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/civilisations/olusoga">David Olusoga</a> not only represents Black British population, but symbolically the council house of his youth is deployed to counteract Clark’s castle. But the team is dominated by <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/civilisations/schama">Simon Schama</a> – who has a bigger share of screen time than the other two put together. And, at 73 and as a university professor to boot, he is arguably even more elitist and an even older white male than Clark.</p>
<p>Attenborough <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/07/new-bbc-civilisations-ask-whether-britains-culture-built-looting/">argues that</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Society has changed. We have an international society, a multi-ethnic society. You can’t just do it in the way we did it.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Changing times</h2>
<p>So how much has changed, and how effective will the tactics of Civilisations be in addressing these developments? Where Clark engaged his middle-class audience with his Eurocentric personal vision, the new series has extended the definition of civilisation to take in a global perspective. The Classical and Renaissance universalism of Civilisation is thus replaced by the relativism of Civilisations.</p>
<p>In 1969, Clark did not shrink from referencing the Cold War. He compared the terror of the Viking ship with that of a nuclear submarine in his universalist account of human psychology. Meanwhile, the civic disturbances of the Paris student riots in the late 1960s have been replaced by anti-capitalism and pro-democracy protests in recent years across the world showing that issues of political discontent continue unabated. Schama, meanwhile, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/07/civilisations-new-bbc-series-goes-to-the-heart-of-human-creativity">talks of</a> the “raw power, the swagger of money, brutal poverty and hard reckonings” in the modern age.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206990/original/file-20180219-116351-r72mjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206990/original/file-20180219-116351-r72mjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206990/original/file-20180219-116351-r72mjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206990/original/file-20180219-116351-r72mjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206990/original/file-20180219-116351-r72mjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206990/original/file-20180219-116351-r72mjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206990/original/file-20180219-116351-r72mjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kara Walker’s Rift of the Medusa (2017).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bbcpictures.co.uk/image/15307915?collection=15328633+15327623+15327584+15326973+15326947+15326327+15326389+15326428+15307555+15304556+15328656+15327610+15327545+15326415+15307542+15307915&back=L3NlYXJjaC9zaW1wbGU%2Fc2VhcmNoJTVCZ2xvYmFsJTVEPUNpdmlsaXNhdGlvbnMmYW1wO3NlYXJjaCU1QnN1Ym1pdCU1RD1TZWFyY2g%3D">BBC/Nutopia/KaraWalker</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other ills of modern society might be included: celebrity cults, body-image obsessions, commercialisation, ideological bankruptcy, terrorism and the threat of nuclear conflict between the US and North Korea – some new, and some uncomfortably similar to those of the 1960s. The <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/civilisations">intention of Civilisations</a> is to hold art up as a mirror for understanding our religions, identities and humanity. Grand as such ambitions are, they are also somewhat curtailed compared with Clark’s.</p>
<p>While Clark also chronicled his civilisation’s weaknesses, he additionally issued a call to arms, for people to do and be better. Will a similar challenge be issued in 2018?</p>
<p>Olusoga’s reflections on the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/04/civilisation-revisited-kenneth-clark-television-landmark-series-art">legacy</a> of Civilisation are reassuring – but his contention that Civilisations is not a remake, though literally correct is not so in spirit. Clark’s Renaissance standpoint was arguably flawed, but without considering remedial action something important may be lost – the aspiration to inspire individuals to improve the world around them.</p>
<h2>Brave new world?</h2>
<p>The new Civilisations inevitably brings new content – such as the work of the German neo-expressionist Anselm Kiefer or the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5360485/BBCs-rap-remake-Civilisation-series.html">performance poetry</a> of hip-hop artist Akala’s The Ruins of Empires. The challenges recognised by Beard and Olusoga over engaging modern audiences who possess greater visual literacy but shorter attention spans can paradoxically be seen as a byproduct of the successes of broadcasters such as Clark.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/waoEyjE_dtU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Clark outlined, in the late 1960s, what he saw as an existential crisis for individuals and their wider community. Civilisation, he insisted, happened at “a good moment to look at some of the ways in which man has shown himself to be an intelligent, creative, orderly and compassionate animal”. Thankfully, the shocking honesty of Clark’s conclusions in the final episode — that the culture produced by the capitalist system that he termed “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waoEyjE_dtU">heroic materialism</a> … isn’t enough” — invigorated his audiences rather than caused despondency.</p>
<p>So, 50 years on from Clark’s magnum opus, BBC2’s Civilisations may offer a more nuanced opportunity to understand the creativity of men and women in a broader sphere and a more inclusive manner. But let us hope it shows us what we can do at our best. Our challenging times surely need inspiration — as much as did Clark’s, in fact — if we are to self-reflect and improve.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91942/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Potter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Five decades on from the original series our idea of what makes civilisation has broadened.
Matthew Potter, Reader and Associate Professor in Art and Design History, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/90331
2018-01-25T21:20:28Z
2018-01-25T21:20:28Z
A question of honour: how the 19th century can teach us to civilise today’s international conflicts
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203048/original/file-20180123-182948-eiav23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Afghanistan national police officer helps a U.S. Army lieutenant, June 14, 2007. Can honour be restored in today's international conflicts?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/648159135">Michael Bracken/US Army/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Historians and social scientists <a href="http://blog.discoursesofsuffering.org/2015/02/the-civilizing-process-and-the-decline-of-violence/">have been debating for decades</a> whether the world as we know it is the product of a long transformation in social mores geared towards restraint and the avoidance of violence.</p>
<p>At first glance there may be little evidence for the existence of such a “civilising process”: as the victims of European imperialism discovered to their detriment, “civilisation” and the corresponding justifications for colonial expansion have often not been an antidote but rather the source of bloodshed.</p>
<p>The ethnic and geopolitical causes of today’s violent conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and Asia still bear the scars of empire. Moreover, according to a controversial <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Clash-of-Civilizations-and-the-Remaking-of-World-Order/Samuel-P-Huntington/9781451628975">1996 book</a> by the late Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, the religious and cultural antagonisms playing out in Islamist terrorism, the persecution of Rohingyas in Myanmar and Christian fundamentalism point to the emergence of a new “clash of civilisations”.</p>
<p>If “civilised warfare” is therefore in the eyes of some a pleonasm or, worse, a contradiction in terms because civilisation means conflict, what relevance does the term have for the improvement of the human condition?</p>
<h2>The politics of shaming</h2>
<p>The answer is important because the belief in the existence of universal values forms the bedrock of international humanitarian law. While the collective will to prevent unjust wars and to reduce war-related suffering has proved remarkably resilient in some respects – note NATO and UN diplomats’ penchant for invoking the <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_102716.htm?selectedLocale=en">general will of the “civilised world”</a> in aid of their missions – it has lost force in other areas.</p>
<p>For instance, the valorisation of human rights in debates about modern warfare contrasts sharply with a declining respect for the personal dignity of adversaries. US President Donald Trump’s denigration of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2017/sep/23/trump-little-rocket-man-kim-jong-un-video">“little rocket man”</a> may just be the tip of the iceberg.</p>
<p>In a <em>Le Monde</em> commentary published after the November 2015 Paris attacks, the historian Pascal Ory tellingly defined the enemy’s loss of face as a prime objective of terrorism, the <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/attaques-a-paris/article/2015/11/15/pour-l-hsitorien-pascal-ory-le-terrorisme-est-la-guerre-de-notre-temps_4810535_4809495.html">“war of our days”</a>. How pervasive modern societies’ preoccupation with shaming has become is also evocatively illustrated by an <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/25/politics/fbi-crime-report-2016-homicide-rate/index.html">8% spike in the US homicide rate over the last two years</a>, which social scientists have linked to a heightened concern for the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/08/income-inequality-murder-homicide-rates">protection of individual status</a>.</p>
<h2>A question of tact</h2>
<p>The above examples make clear, first, that progress in the containment of violence is not linear and, second, that however subjective a person’s sense of self may be, tact must remain at the centre of international conflict management.</p>
<p>For inspiration on how to be firm yet respectful towards antagonists, it pays to look to the past. Take the case of the <a href="https://books.google.fr/books?id=t0WvnpSQlbsC&pg=PA7&redir_esc=y">revolutionary wars (1792-1802)</a> that broke out in the wake of the French Revolution of 1789.</p>
<p>Although the French National Convention ideologised what was arguably the <a href="https://www.hmhco.com/shop/books/The-First-Total-War/9780618919819">“first total war”</a> by styling its cause a struggle of liberty against despotism and issued <a href="https://books.google.fr/books?id=yGtjeBABMKkC&pg=PA397">orders</a> to military commanders in May 1794 to kill all British prisoners of war, soldiers on the ground for the most part continued to adhere to the principle of reciprocity.</p>
<p>This included giving captured officers the option to give their word of honour to abstain from further fighting for the duration of the campaign in return for privileges that were designed to ease conditions of captivity. Paroled enemies were thus frequently allowed to return home until properly exchanged or allowed freedom of movement in their assigned places of confinement.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203047/original/file-20180123-182948-t7a0r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203047/original/file-20180123-182948-t7a0r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203047/original/file-20180123-182948-t7a0r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203047/original/file-20180123-182948-t7a0r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203047/original/file-20180123-182948-t7a0r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203047/original/file-20180123-182948-t7a0r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203047/original/file-20180123-182948-t7a0r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Napoleon Bonaparte decorates a soldier from the Russian army with the Croix of Légion d'honneur (July 9 1807).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Debret_-_Napol%C3%A9on_d%C3%A9core_%C3%A0_Tilsitt_un_soldat_de_l%27arm%C3%A9e_russe_de_la_croix_de_la_L%C3%A9gion_d%27honneur_(9_juillet_1807).jpg">Jean-Baptiste Debret/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even if soldiers’ “parole d’honneur” was made subject to a growing set of restrictions, the custom nevertheless survived well into the darkest days of World War I and was moreover extended to captives who did not belong to the elite ranks of the officer corps, a topic I am <a href="http://www.paris-iea.fr/en/fellows/jasper-heinzen-2">currently researching</a>. In short, the longevity of “parole d'honneur” showcases well possibilities that exist for adversaries to reward each other’s personal integrity, regardless of their political differences.</p>
<h2>The innate right to honour</h2>
<p>To be clear, the solution to contemporary crises is not to accord murderous dictators and racist presidents the benefits of 19th-century civility. Rather, what the past can teach us is to recognise and, where possible, build on that which the anthropologist Frank Henderson Stewart calls <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo3622763.html">the innate “right” of all human beings</a> to be taken seriously. The polarisation of public opinion on many global issues ranging from the war on terror to Trump and Brexit make it all too easy for stakeholders in these debates to deny their detractors that dignity, as justice, morality and logic seem a priori to sit on one side.</p>
<p>Perhaps more than ever, the advice of the great 18th-century proponent of civilised warfare, Swiss philosopher <a href="http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/vattel-the-law-of-nations-lf-ed">Emer de Vattel</a>, applies that the settlement of disputes instead requires “methods which do not leave behind a legacy of hatred and bitterness’. Vattel intuitively grasped that alertness to the dignity of all parties is integral to the achievement of a positive outcome. Nothing displays the ethical superiority of one’s values better than to treat a foe with the respect due another human being.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194148/original/file-20171110-29364-1vw6o0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194148/original/file-20171110-29364-1vw6o0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194148/original/file-20171110-29364-1vw6o0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194148/original/file-20171110-29364-1vw6o0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194148/original/file-20171110-29364-1vw6o0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194148/original/file-20171110-29364-1vw6o0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194148/original/file-20171110-29364-1vw6o0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
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<p><em>Jasper Heinzen is pursuing a project on honour and warfare at the Paris Institute for Advanced Studies. The network of the four institutes of RFIEA has welcomed more than 500 researchers from around the world since 2007. Discover their work on the site <a href="http://fellows.rfiea.fr/">Fellows</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90331/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jasper Heinzen a reçu des financements d'EURIAS, Marie Curie Actions et la British Academy . </span></em></p>
Nothing displays the ethical superiority of one’s values better than to treat a foe with the respect due another human being.
Jasper Heinzen, Maitre de conferences en histoire de l'Europe moderne, Université de York, Fellow 2018 - IEA de Paris, Institut d'études avancées de Paris (IEA) – RFIEA
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/87750
2017-11-20T19:14:53Z
2017-11-20T19:14:53Z
The concept of ‘Western civilisation’ is past its use-by date in university humanities departments
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195395/original/file-20171120-18547-xffej5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Ottoman empire facilitated the movement of ideas and people across Europe and Asia. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Istambul_observatory_in_1577.jpg&oldid=257105281">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A number of NSW and ACT <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/universities-line-up-for-new-3-billion-ramsey-centre-for-western-civilisation-20171113-gzk22r.html">universities are vying for the opportunity</a> to access funding from the <a href="http://www.ramsaycentre.org/">Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation</a>, which aims to “revive” liberal arts and the humanities in university education in Australia. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195393/original/file-20171120-18561-11vyw1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195393/original/file-20171120-18561-11vyw1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195393/original/file-20171120-18561-11vyw1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195393/original/file-20171120-18561-11vyw1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195393/original/file-20171120-18561-11vyw1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195393/original/file-20171120-18561-11vyw1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195393/original/file-20171120-18561-11vyw1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195393/original/file-20171120-18561-11vyw1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Howard: launched the Ramsay Centre on Monday.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dean Lewins/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The centre, launched on Monday by former prime minister John Howard, has the support of former Labor leader Kim Beazley, and former prime minister Tony Abbott.
The centre defines “Western civilisation” through classical studies, including ancient Greek and Rome, the European renaissance and enlightenment, modernism, and Christian thought and philosophy. It seeks to put European cultural production at its heart. </p>
<p>The idea is to reform the current Bachelor of Arts degree in Australia by reinforcing the traditional western foundations of it. The centre will partner with universities to create the degree, and offer scholarships.</p>
<p>The announcement is a welcome endorsement of humanities disciplines such as literature, history, philosophy and classics. Yet the shaping of a Bachelor of Arts curriculum around Western European concepts of knowledge should be viewed very carefully.</p>
<p>The concept of “civilisation”, and particularly “western civilisation”, rose to prominence in universities after World War II. However it quickly became outmoded. The Ramsay Centre announcement suggests a return to retrograde understandings of the arts at a time when we should be expanding our sense of the humanities to include the increasing number of students from diverse backgrounds.</p>
<p>For example, in 2016 nearly half of all preschool children in NSW came from <a href="https://www.cese.nsw.gov.au/publications-filter/schools-language-diversity-in-nsw-2016">language backgrounds other than English</a>. Universities will eventually need to cater to these students as they make their way through the education system. </p>
<h2>A hierarchical view</h2>
<p>The “civilisation” model of history, which suggests peoples and empires existed separately from one another, and rose or fell over time, is now viewed as deeply flawed. The problem with this view of peoples and cultures as civilisations is that it is hierarchical, with some civilisations viewed as superior to others. </p>
<p>Such hierarchies of thought tend to inscribe inequalities between groups and peoples. The model is challenged by <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1963/10/17/in-a-nutshell/">leading international scholars of world history</a>. </p>
<p>Western civilisation is a concept partly based on the belief that the world can be divided neatly into west and east, for example, the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome, and those of Asia and Islam. However this denies centuries of complex systems of trade, communication and cultural exchange between different peoples.</p>
<p>For instance, the 19th-century Ottoman empire, which included parts of western Asia, Africa, and eastern Europe, was seen as an eastern civilisation. But in fact, it was never separate from the west: its peoples and cultures interacted with western European peoples and cultures.</p>
<p>Immediately after WWII, it was important for historians to reassert the dominance of western nations because it allowed the Anglo-American victors of war to tell their story as having a longer history. This history tended to be written inside elite institutions, including English universities. These imperial universities were not yet very open places, and non-European students from colonial backgrounds (and many women) only rarely gained entry.</p>
<h2>Towards a world history</h2>
<p>Historians started criticising the civilisation model of history in the 1950s. Instead they proposed a <a href="http://www.thewha.org/about-wha/what-is-world-history/">“world history”</a>. Instead of viewing the past history of the world through competing civilisations, world history views societies and peoples as intersecting groups.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195347/original/file-20171120-18533-xf41tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195347/original/file-20171120-18533-xf41tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195347/original/file-20171120-18533-xf41tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195347/original/file-20171120-18533-xf41tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195347/original/file-20171120-18533-xf41tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195347/original/file-20171120-18533-xf41tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1257&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195347/original/file-20171120-18533-xf41tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1257&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195347/original/file-20171120-18533-xf41tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1257&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p>For example, historian William H. McNeill saw the world as highly integrated place of communication, cultural, social and political connections, characterised by the spread of intellectual ideas and commodities over time, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXkR6AyQRqM">a challenge to the idea of the preeminence of the west</a>. His book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46725.Plagues_and_Peoples">Plagues and Peoples</a> (1976) explained this integration through the spread of disease. Eric Hobsbawm, a towering figure in British history, wrote about about the importance of a seeing our world as a global village in his <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/a-global-memoir-of-a-short-century/155761.article">many works</a>. </p>
<p>One of the most exciting books in world history was written by Janet Abu-Lughod, who wrote about the world system before European dominance. This pre-modern economic, cultural and trade system extended across Eurasia in the 13th century, and suggested a network prior to the modern system, which arose in the 17th century.</p>
<p>In other words, peoples, as well as things, have always been on the move, and have always turned up in surprising ways as being connected with each other. The history of Australia and its peoples is no different. Our connections with the global world through its peoples make us a richer nation.</p>
<h2>Mobile Australians</h2>
<p>Australia’s students are increasingly diverse. According to the <a href="https://www.cese.nsw.gov.au/publications-filter/schools-language-diversity-in-nsw-2016">Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation</a>, in state secondary schools in NSW, a third of students come from non-English speaking backgrounds. The number of students speaking Arabic, for example, is climbing steadily: it was at 35,735 in 2016. The group includes refugees, new arrivals, and international students here by virtue of their families’ mobility. </p>
<p>The proportion of Indigenous students is also growing. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students currently make up <a href="https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/aec/media/documents/Annual-Report-2015.pdf">6.8% of all NSW state school enrolments</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195396/original/file-20171120-18574-koafiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195396/original/file-20171120-18574-koafiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195396/original/file-20171120-18574-koafiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195396/original/file-20171120-18574-koafiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195396/original/file-20171120-18574-koafiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195396/original/file-20171120-18574-koafiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195396/original/file-20171120-18574-koafiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195396/original/file-20171120-18574-koafiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Local Darwin school children and some Parramatta Eels players at a NRL Indigenous youth summit in Darwin last year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Neda Vanovac/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>University education for these students should extend our collective sense of history, and universities must avoid narrowing the liberal arts to an old-fashioned view of a world with borders. These borders tend to be reinforced through the focused study of specific peoples and places, such as western civilisation.</p>
<p>Universities should embrace the multiple languages, literature, histories and perspectives of a broad array of cultures and peoples, a task made more pressing by our changing demographic. We need to teach students to relate to our neighbours near and far, and to celebrate difference and diversity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87750/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catharine Coleborne has received research funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand's Marsden Fund (Social Sciences panel). </span></em></p>
The new Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation aims to ‘revive’ liberal arts and the humanities. Yet the ‘civilisation’ model of history is now viewed as deeply flawed.
Catharine Coleborne, Dean of Arts/Head of School Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/83001
2017-11-02T10:28:40Z
2017-11-02T10:28:40Z
Wanting revenge is only natural – here’s why
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191840/original/file-20171025-25497-1dyko2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rainer Fuhrmann/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In this twilight <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/halloween-7672">period of Halloween</a> and the Day of the Dead, and with Bonfire Night imminent, the scary and the weird invade our streets and people gather to watch horror revenge tales at home or the cinema. Revenge in fiction can be shocking, but it often embeds a moral message. There is heroic revenge, a staple of the American movie world, in which the determined hero or anti-hero acts against an evil protagonist (the law being ineffective or absent). And there is righteous revenge, as in tales of women who exact bloody retribution on abusing men, a denouement that can bring cheers from an audience. Oppressors and bullies, goes the sentiment, often deserve what they get. </p>
<p>But beyond fiction, taming such revenge is, arguably, one of the most vexed questions of civilisation. Revenge may not always be the noblest of motives, but there are times when it can be defended, a message often occluded by sensationalist news reports: “Jilted wife joins forces with mistress to strip husband and smash a chair over his head in humiliating street revenge” reads <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4217642/wife-mistress-video-attack-strip-cheating-husband-revenge-china/%E2%80%8B">one recent headline</a>; “Mother of fourth grader threw a BRICK at teacher’s face then beat her after she confiscated her 10-year-old daughter’s cellphone” goes <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5002628/Teacher-beating-mother-admits-throwing-brick-woman.html">another</a>. </p>
<p>As I explore in <a href="http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781780238401&m=41&dc=993">my new book</a>, by sensationalising and deprecating the idea of revenge itself, we may forget that some forms of revenge can work well and serve a crucial purpose.</p>
<p>Revenge systems have been around for a very long time, with our primate cousins leading the way. Chimpanzees and macaques will <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo5530704.html">freely inflict punishments</a> on strangers and rule breakers and, with their excellent memories, <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2119677-chimps-beat-up-murder-and-then-cannibalise-their-former-tyrant/">cannily postpone retaliation</a> until a suitable opportunity arises. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191842/original/file-20171025-25544-6z672v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191842/original/file-20171025-25544-6z672v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191842/original/file-20171025-25544-6z672v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191842/original/file-20171025-25544-6z672v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191842/original/file-20171025-25544-6z672v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191842/original/file-20171025-25544-6z672v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191842/original/file-20171025-25544-6z672v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fighting macaques.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rudnev/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Revenge has also been vital to human tribes for protecting food sources, territory and social order: the threat of swift retaliation for cheating, stealing, bullying or killing can be an effective deterrent. Stripped of its pejorative association, revenge can simply be seen as quintessential justice for the avenger. It’s about responding to harm with harm: “getting even”, “tit for tat”, an “eye for an eye” – you’re someone not to be trifled with.</p>
<p>Revenge restores the balance and reclaims status. It can be instant, fuelled by rage, or deferred, a dish served cold. For abuse sufferers, revenge can sometimes feel like the only way out – for example, Virginian housewife Lorena Bobbitt in the 1990s. After years of infidelity and sexual abuse from her husband, she grabbed a kitchen knife and sliced off her drunken husband’s penis (the member was subsequently reattached). The jury sympathised with her poetic reckoning, and she went on to publicly champion the rights of abused women. But not all penis-severers <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/22/us/lorena-bobbitt-acquitted-in-mutilation-of-husband.html?pagewanted=all">have been received so charitably</a>. This is evidence, <a href="https://www.oecd.org/dev/development-gender/BrochureSIGI2015-web.pdf">some say</a>, of misogyny in justice systems.</p>
<p>Revenge is especially tough to dislodge when ingrained in the identity of a group, like street gangs committed to the violent protection of their territory, spoils or “respect”, and families entrenched in patriarchal honour, prepared to turn savagely on their own. </p>
<p>But, in daily interactions, revenge also has a softer face, like the airline check-in clerk who, after a string of abuse from a customer, politely wishes him a good flight and then quietly redirects his bags elsewhere. Or the offensive diner whose credit card is “inexplicably rejected I’m afraid, sir” – or whose soup is spiced with spittle. Covert revenge – service sabotage – salvages a little self-respect in a world where customers are prepared to exploit their “kingly” status.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191844/original/file-20171025-25497-jmhm2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191844/original/file-20171025-25497-jmhm2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191844/original/file-20171025-25497-jmhm2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191844/original/file-20171025-25497-jmhm2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191844/original/file-20171025-25497-jmhm2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191844/original/file-20171025-25497-jmhm2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191844/original/file-20171025-25497-jmhm2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mentally gearing up for some spit revenge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In complex societies, free-wheeling revenge undermines a ruler’s control; it’s wild justice. A basic given for civic order is that the state appropriates revenge. Justice is codified. Punishment is the state’s prerogative, revenge by another name. This will suppress vigilantism – up to a point. People will be inclined to seek extrajudicial means when they believe the justice system is skewed against them because of their ethnicity, status, skin colour or gender. </p>
<p>In India, for example, rape cases can last for years, or <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/rape-cases-double-molestation-up-4-times-in-delhi/article5298622.ece">never come to court</a>, the police more disposed to blame the victim rather than arrest the perpetrator. In 2004, this came to a head with particular symbolic significance in a village courtroom. Some 200 incensed women <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/16/india.gender">attacked and killed</a> a serial rapist who was there on trial. The women’s trust in the legal system was zero, and their anger boiled over when the man publicly threatened them in court. He had terrorised the low caste community with impunity for years, buying off the local police. </p>
<p>A few years later, the women of Kerala followed suit. A furious group of them delivered vigilante justice to two local rapists, tying them naked to railings and beating them, before handing them over to the police. And in South America, hundreds of cases of citizen’s revenge have been documented. Recently, residents of Teleta del Volcán in Mexico <a href="https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/book/taking-justice-their-own-hands">beat a woman and four men</a>, tied them to poles and threatened to burn them alive. These victims were members of a syndicate that included former and current police officers that, allegedly, specialised in extortion and kidnapping.</p>
<p>Here we witness desperate acts by desperate people who know they are not being protected by the state. They have reached a tipping point – and who can blame them?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83001/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Fineman has received funding from the ESRC.</span></em></p>
Humans aren’t alone in wanting to take revenge – some animals like to get their own back too.
Stephen Fineman, Professor Emeritus in Organization Studies, University of Bath
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/77118
2017-05-17T10:32:27Z
2017-05-17T10:32:27Z
What’s the point of art?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168198/original/file-20170506-19106-3v6ipl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Contemporary sculpture – but why bother?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the great paradoxes of human endeavour is why so much time and effort is spent on creating things and indulging in behaviour with no obvious survival value – behaviour otherwise known as art. </p>
<p>Attempting to shed light on this issue is problematic because first we must define precisely what art is. We can start by looking at how art, or the arts, were practised by early humans during the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Upper-Paleolithic-Period">Upper Palaeolithic period</a>, 40,000 to 12,000 years ago, and immediately thereafter. </p>
<p>This period is a far longer stretch of human history than the “modern” age and so how the arts were practised during it should serve as the starting point for any viable explanation. And while art in the modern world is often exploited as a means of expressing individualism, during most of cultural evolution it was utilised by small hunter-gatherer groups as a means of <a href="https://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/csj/013103/conkey.shtml">articulating social norms</a> among most, if not all, members of a community. </p>
<h2>The arts are special</h2>
<p>Why should individuals engage in a preoccupation that requires significant effort, effort that could be better directed towards more immediately gainful activities, such as the search for food or other vital resources? One clue comes from the fact that art objects have special resonance because they come into being through human agency. This involves considerable emotional investment and, consequently, art acts as a crucial node in the complex web of things that make up a culture. </p>
<p>The time and effort committed to making art suggests such behaviour may be a means of signalling to other members of a group. Paradoxically, the very fact that art remains inscrutable and has little obvious practical value is precisely what makes it important for assessing whether a person making art can be regarded as a trustworthy member of a group. In short, art provided a “costly signal” (altruistic behaviour that indirectly benefits the individual by establishing a reputation) for <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00438243.2017.1281757">monitoring group allegiance</a> and managing a trust network that weeded out freeloaders. </p>
<p>When combined with ritual, which is often the case, art becomes an even more potent symbol. The notion that it can act as a vehicle for costly signalling is bolstered by the fact that art objects were regularly <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1704937?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">destroyed or defaced soon after being produced</a>. This suggests that it was the process of making, rather than the final product, that was most significant.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167888/original/file-20170504-21641-eah8fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167888/original/file-20170504-21641-eah8fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167888/original/file-20170504-21641-eah8fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167888/original/file-20170504-21641-eah8fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167888/original/file-20170504-21641-eah8fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167888/original/file-20170504-21641-eah8fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167888/original/file-20170504-21641-eah8fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Signals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rhinoceros depiction, Chauvet cave (Inocybe: Public domain). Therianthrope with lion and human-like features (JDuckeck: Public Domain). Flute from Germany (José-Manuel Benito Álvarez: Creative Commons Attribution).</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Though evidence of the arts serving this purpose exists before the Upper Palaeolithic, the surviving examples are <a href="http://www.geo.uni-tuebingen.de/fileadmin/website/arbeitsbereich/ufg/urgeschichte_quartaeroekologie/Mitarbeiter/conard/Conard__Wadley_Goodwin_paper_2008.pdf">controversial</a> as they are few and far between. Not so from around 40,000 years ago, when art became much more complex, multifaceted and robust. </p>
<h2>The dawn of art</h2>
<p>Why was this? Part of the answer seems to be that <a href="http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/11423/1/11423.pdf">population rates were on the rise</a> leading to a growth in <a href="http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0q29504g#page-17">trade networks</a>. This in turn meant that goods were regularly exchanged at sites where large numbers of people met at particular times of the year. </p>
<p>In such large temporary assemblies, individuals would not have known each other well, so engaging in making art objects potentially provided a means of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00438243.2017.1281757">facilitating trust</a>. Such “meaningless” behaviour suggests to those involved that if a person is willing to spend time and energy engaging in activities of this type, they are more likely to be reliable. Indeed, despite the time and effort expended communally to attain such an opaque goal, making and doing things together in such a way produces a sense of <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53485734e4b0fffc0dcc64c2/t/56bbaf2760b5e9940ef66a50/1455140648035/the-social-functions-of-group-rituals.pdf">well-being and belonging</a>. Emotional bonding is thereby encouraged that helps offset residual hostility towards unfamiliar others. </p>
<p><a href="http://marom.net.technion.ac.il/files/2016/07/Dunbar-2003.pdf">Research</a> indicates that when populations expand beyond 150-300 individuals, instability ensues, leading to new groups budding-off from the original community. This is thought to be because the human brain is unable to keep track of allegiances when that number is exceeded. Such splintering seems to have been a regular occurrence among <a href="https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/publications/593114">early hunter-gatherers</a>. </p>
<p>Following the Upper Palaeolithic, however, clans began to form settled communities – probably due to the attraction of sites highlighted by art – that expanded beyond this 150-300 limit. Because of this, it was even more vital to have a mechanism for promoting trust among individuals who were unable to keep track of everyone they were living around. Art was well placed to fill this role. </p>
<h2>When the arts settled down</h2>
<p>So, although art began to function as a form of social cement during the Upper Palaeolithic, this “function” became increasingly crucial during the early Neolithic when communities began to live in large stable settlements. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168100/original/file-20170505-21033-1pv8clm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168100/original/file-20170505-21033-1pv8clm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168100/original/file-20170505-21033-1pv8clm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168100/original/file-20170505-21033-1pv8clm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168100/original/file-20170505-21033-1pv8clm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168100/original/file-20170505-21033-1pv8clm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168100/original/file-20170505-21033-1pv8clm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Göbekli Tepe showing ‘temple’ complex and monoliths. Teomancimit: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A transitional phase can be found at the 12,000-year-old site of <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/">Göbekli Tepe</a> (in south-eastern Turkey). Here, dispersed hunter-gatherer groups met to form relatively large, but temporary, communities at auspicious times of the year when they engaged in rituals. This site is believed to have served as a “temple” and consists of huge monoliths with engraved reliefs of animals that required considerable effort to produce. </p>
<p>What is particularly fascinating is that, as a costly signal, monumental art of this kind appeared before the onset of settled agricultural communities. A finding that goes against received wisdom. This suggests that practical innovations, such as the ability to develop crops, were a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKwSg7OyvoE&list=PLlDI-kDyJmSTLcnlEuOYSmZoP6nH6rJbf">spin-off from large gatherings</a> of people who came together to meet and celebrate by indulging in “non-functional” activities. In short, it can be argued that art created civilisation, not the other way round. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168102/original/file-20170505-21033-lb1vae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168102/original/file-20170505-21033-lb1vae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168102/original/file-20170505-21033-lb1vae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168102/original/file-20170505-21033-lb1vae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168102/original/file-20170505-21033-lb1vae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168102/original/file-20170505-21033-lb1vae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168102/original/file-20170505-21033-lb1vae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Artist’s impression of Catalhöyük. Wolfgang Sauber: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International Licence.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The process of forming large settled communities eventually gave rise to one of the first towns – namely, <a href="http://www.catalhoyuk.com">Catalhöyük</a> in southern Turkey. This site dates back 9,000 years and had a resident population of around 5,000. Crucially, the art was seamlessly integrated into the domestic lives of the community. </p>
<p>Moreover, at both Göbekli Tepe and Catalhöyük, the destruction and renewal of art objects occurred on a regular basis. For example, despite the effort expended in constructing the “temples” at Göbekli Tepe, the structures were often <a href="https://tepetelegrams.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/losing-your-head-at-gobekli-tepe/">deliberately back-filled</a>. A costly signal if ever there was one. Similarly, at Catalhöyük wall paintings were <a href="http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1471163/1/Camurcuoglu_compressed.pdf.%20COMPLETE.pdf">regularly whitewashed</a> and repainted and “sculptures” often underwent a process of destruction and renewal. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168104/original/file-20170505-21018-1fm7jgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168104/original/file-20170505-21018-1fm7jgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168104/original/file-20170505-21018-1fm7jgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168104/original/file-20170505-21018-1fm7jgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168104/original/file-20170505-21018-1fm7jgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168104/original/file-20170505-21018-1fm7jgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168104/original/file-20170505-21018-1fm7jgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mock-up of domestic interior of Catalhöyük house illustrating the importance of art to everyday life. Elelicht: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the Neolithic, when more settled communities sprang up, the arts became a convenient means of signalling community allegiance as settlements began to compete with one another. It was a glue that held people together.</p>
<p>Although conserving some of the features that typify ancient arts, modern Western art is now more concerned with the finished product than the process. Yet the arts in the modern world can still be regarded as a costly signal that is exploited as a way of gaining status within a particular social hierarchy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77118/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek Hodgson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Look back into prehistory and it’s all about trusting strangers.
Derek Hodgson, Research Associate, University of York
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/73534
2017-03-07T16:09:27Z
2017-03-07T16:09:27Z
Seven tips for surviving the apocalypse
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159941/original/image-20170308-24187-jorwl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Apocalypse soon?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/background-destroyed-city-after-disaster-130558634?src=download_history">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Billionaires who have made their fortunes in Silicon Valley seem to be worried about the future. So worried in fact, that some of them are <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4190322/Tech-billionaires-building-boltholes-New-Zealand.html">reportedly buying</a> vast estates in places such as New Zealand, as “apocalypse insurance”. Boltholes to head to in the event of doomsday scenarios such as nuclear attack or global political meltdown. </p>
<p>But what about the rest of us? What should the non-billionaires of the world do if we haven’t prepared at all? How do we go about making and doing everything for ourselves once again, and help post-apocalyptic society avoid another Dark Age – and reboot civilisation? As a scientist, this is the thought experiment I chose to explore in my book, <a href="http://the-knowledge.org/en-gb/the-book/">The Knowledge</a>. So here are my seven top tips for getting to grips with a global catastrophe…</p>
<h2>1. Purify water</h2>
<p>Ensuring your drinking water is safe so that you don’t succumb to disease in a post-apocalyptic world will be crucial. Although boiling works perfectly, it uses up a lot of fuel. Iodine tablets could be scavenged from the ruins of camping stores, and bleach (sodium hypochlorite) or even swimming pool chlorine (calcium hypochlorite) can be diluted to chemically disinfect suspect water. But even sunshine can be used to keep you safely hydrated. Solar disinfection is recommended by the <a href="http://www.who.int/en/">World Health Organisation</a> in developing nations. Simply fill plastic bottles and leave in the sun – the UV rays will pass right through the water to kill pathogens in a day or so.</p>
<h2>2. Prevent infection</h2>
<p>Aside from securing safe water, the single most important thing you can do to stay alive in a post-apocalyptic world without antibiotics is to stop yourself picking up infections. Soap is enormously effective at protecting against gastrointestinal and respiratory infections, and can be made by boiling animal fat or plant oil with quicklime (roasted chalk or limestone) and soda. Ethanol is effective at disinfecting wounds, and can be distilled from fermented fruit or grain. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158793/original/image-20170228-13104-1x3rse2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158793/original/image-20170228-13104-1x3rse2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158793/original/image-20170228-13104-1x3rse2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158793/original/image-20170228-13104-1x3rse2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158793/original/image-20170228-13104-1x3rse2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158793/original/image-20170228-13104-1x3rse2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158793/original/image-20170228-13104-1x3rse2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">NZ - where the billionaires seek sanctuary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/farmland-grazing-sheep-mount-cook-on-214318654?src=rVYqsEOm9EB1wui--dr_aQ-1-8">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Generate power</h2>
<p>The power grids could be out of action almost immediately – and electricity isn’t a resource you can really stockpile. You could scavenge mobile diesel generators from roadwork sites, but in the longer term as fuel becomes scarce you’ll need to turn to renewable sources such as wind or solar energy. An alternator scavenged from any abandoned car can generate electricity from improvised water wheels and windmills, which can then be stored in large rechargeable batteries. Better than the 12V car battery, the batteries in golf buggies or mobility scooters are “deep cycle”, designed to provide a steady amount of current over a long period of time, so much better suited for storing your off-grid power supply.</p>
<h2>4. Grow food</h2>
<p>Your post-apocalyptic community will only be able to <a href="http://the-knowledge.org/en-gb/how-to-open-a-can-without-a-can-opener/">dine out on the leftovers</a> of a fallen civilisation for so long. Soon enough the preserved cans of food on abandoned supermarket shelves will have been consumed or gone off. And by the time that happens, you’re going to need to have redeveloped agriculture to avoid starving to death. You’ll need a starter stock of viable seeds. The <a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/food-fisheries-and-agriculture/jordbruk/svalbard-global-seed-vault/id462220/">Global Seed Vault</a> on the Arctic island of Svalbard is a doomsday-proof facility dug deep into a freezing mountainside. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CdTzsbqQyhY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>5. Drive tree-powered cars</h2>
<p>Once all the remaining diesel and petrol fuel has gone you’ll still be able to benefit from mechanisation and vehicles. With a little modification, the internal combustion engine can be run on the flammable gases produced by the <a href="http://the-knowledge.org/en-gb/how-to-make-a-gasifier-stove/">thermal breakdown of wood</a>, a process known as “<a href="https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-area/wyndmoor-pa/eastern-regional-research-center/sustainable-biofuels-and-co-products-research/docs/biomass-pyrolysis-research/what-is-pyrolysis/">pyrolysis</a>”. During the fuel shortages of World War II, there were more than a million wood gasifier cars driving around Europe. The “dry distillation” of wood – heating it without access to oxygen – was used from the 17th century to produce useful substances such as creosote, turpentine, methanol and acetone. </p>
<h2>6. Restart a chemical industry</h2>
<p>The advancement of our civilisation was not just the development of machinery in the industrial revolution, but also owes a great deal to providing vital chemical substances for society. One of the most useful categories of chemical throughout history has been alkalis such as potash (potassium carbonate) and soda (sodium carbonate), used for making everything from soap to glass and paper. Potash is extracted by trickling water through the ashes of a hardwood fire and then evaporating away the water again to leave white crystals. Soda is purified in the same way, but from burned seaweed or coastal plants such as barilla or salicornia. </p>
<h2>7. Be scientific</h2>
<p>Over the longer term, as our post-apocalyptic society recovers and grows, we’ll need to relearn knowledge for ourselves. The greatest invention of them all, what we would want to preserve if all else was lost, is the scientific method. It is only by thinking rationally and critically, observing the natural world and prodding it in particular ways with experiments, that you can have any confidence that your explanatory stories (or hypotheses) are likely to be right. The invention of the knowledge-generation machinery of science in the 16th century is what enabled us to build the modern world. And it is science that you would need to <a href="http://the-knowledge.org/en-gb/the-book/">reboot civilisation</a> again from scratch.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73534/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lewis Dartnell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A handy guide to rebooting human civilisation.
Lewis Dartnell, Professor of Science Communication, University of Westminster
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/68179
2016-11-07T13:48:15Z
2016-11-07T13:48:15Z
Insects can teach us how to create better technologies
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144860/original/image-20161107-4698-18sshic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you put all humans living on the planet into an imaginary tin like sardines, the tin would be 2km long, wide and high. Amazingly, all the ants in the world would fill a similar-sized tin. Yet, despite their huge numbers, insects such as ants manage to thrive without overwhelming the natural world.</p>
<p>Insects are true inventors of technology. They have been using their technologies for over 50m years in perfect ecological balance. By contrast, humans are amateurish technologists from an environmental perspective. Our technologies put the existence of our species and the entire biosphere at risk. By studying the peculiar social world of insects and their technology, we can learn how to live in greater biological harmony with the planet.</p>
<p>One thing humans already share with several species of insects is a practice <a href="http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/an-introduction-to-eusociality-15788128">known as “eusociality”</a>. This is the highest form of social behaviour. It involves a sophisticated division of labour, with different generations working together and different individuals carrying out different jobs, including giving birth and raising children. The most notable eusocialists on the planet are rare species of insects (ants, termites and bees) and <em>Homo sapiens</em>.</p>
<p>Our eusociality is what enabled us – and insects – to develop technology. Members of a eusocial species will identify and carry out the task they are most suited to, whether that’s guarding the nest or seeking out food, while avoiding the tasks of other members. In this way, a group of animals will spontaneously <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/263/1376/1565.">organise itself into a collective</a> we call a “superorganism” that can generate technology.</p>
<p>The first evolutionary form of technology was agriculture, which was actually invented by ants and termites <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/30033817?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">50m years before us</a>. Agriculture can be defined as the technological process of producing food on a large scale. For example, leaf-cutter ants turn the green leaf biomass into food using their impressive gardening skills, formidable technical skills and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leafcutter-Ants-Civilization-Instinct/dp/0393338681/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1478198457&sr=1-1&keywords=the+leafcutter+ants">symbiosis with a fungus</a>. </p>
<p>The human practice of agriculture started 10,000 years ago. It is no more than a copy of the gardening and technical skills developed by insects. But, in our case, the agriculture enabled the creation of the economic surplus. This in turn helped the emergence of written language, literature, mathematics, philosophy, art and eventually science. So the real roots of our technological abilities are in agriculture.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144859/original/image-20161107-4715-113nh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144859/original/image-20161107-4715-113nh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144859/original/image-20161107-4715-113nh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144859/original/image-20161107-4715-113nh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144859/original/image-20161107-4715-113nh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144859/original/image-20161107-4715-113nh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144859/original/image-20161107-4715-113nh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The termite Burj Khalifa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Biological civilisations</h2>
<p>Eusociality and agriculture enabled the social conquest of Earth, first by insects and then by us. The first global civilisation was the civilisation of insects, or the “<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Conquest-Earth-Edward-Wilson/dp/0871403633">Insectocene</a>”. By investigating various forms of the Insectocene, we can learn valuable lessons for our technological future. </p>
<p>The meaning of the term civilisation revolves around cities. The likes of Rome, London and New York have all been seen as the centres of ancient or modern human civilisations. All eusocial insects practising agriculture have their own cities, and you may be surprised to learn that they do not lag behind human cities in their technical sophistication. </p>
<p>Take leaf-cutter ants again. Their metropolises are probably the most intricate structures ever built underground. They have huge gardens at their centres, connected by excellent highways. Other structures scattered around include rubbish collection depots, food distribution centres, army barracks or police stations. There are even funeral <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/The-Leafcutter-Ants/">service stations</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144857/original/image-20161107-4711-y01der.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144857/original/image-20161107-4711-y01der.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144857/original/image-20161107-4711-y01der.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144857/original/image-20161107-4711-y01der.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144857/original/image-20161107-4711-y01der.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144857/original/image-20161107-4711-y01der.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144857/original/image-20161107-4711-y01der.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bee city.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some ant cities are huge. If ants were as big as humans, the settlement of <em>Formica yessensis</em> ants on the island of Hokkaido in Japan would be much <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-393-06704-0/">larger than Tokyo</a>. Similarly, if termites were human-sized, then the height of an average termite mound in Africa would be the same as the tallest human construction, the <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140731-termites-mounds-insects-entomology-science">Burj Khalifa in Dubai</a>. </p>
<p>Other insect cities are examples of aesthetic sophistication. For instance, cities built by honeybees from the material excreted by their bodies are real examples of natural beauty.</p>
<p>We need to start looking at insects as our older and more experienced eusocial relatives. These urbanised animals and their sophisticated social behaviour may contain important clues for making our technological future safer. We should be brave enough to enter their world without fear. </p>
<p>Somewhere in the peculiar social world of insects hides the secret of the ecological balance so absent from our world. We have to find this soon: the secret of how to integrate our technologies with the ecological system inhabited by at least 9m species. Otherwise, it may be too late.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68179/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Predrag Slijepcevic receives funding from EU research sources. </span></em></p>
Insects developed technology long before we did, so perhaps they can show us how to use it without damaging the planet.
Predrag Slijepcevic, Senior Lecturer in Biology, Brunel University London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/51907
2015-12-10T19:10:33Z
2015-12-10T19:10:33Z
Climate and the rise and fall of civilizations: a lesson from the past
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104794/original/image-20151208-3122-qquisk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Floods during warm periods of human history likely inspired the Noah's Ark myth. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Noah's ark image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>2015 will likely be the <a href="https://theconversation.com/2015-to-be-hottest-year-ever-world-meteorological-organization-51310">hottest year</a> on record, beating the previous record set only in 2014. It is also likely to be the first year the global average temperature reaches 1°C above pre-industrial temperatures (measured from 1880-1899). Global warming is raising temperatures, and this year’s <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/temperatures-one-degree-celsius-1.3310733">El Niño</a> has pushed temperatures higher still. </p>
<p>Although 2015 is unusually hot, 1°C symbolically marks the halfway point to 2°C, widely considered to be the threshold of “dangerous” climate change. In fact an additional 0.5-1°C is actually masked by sulphur aerosols which we have added to the atmosphere alongside greenhouse gases. </p>
<p>A temperature level of 1°C (above pre-industrial levels) is similar to or warmer than the peak temperatures of the early Holocene epoch approximately 8,000-7,200 years ago. Studies of the early Holocene provide clues to what was such a world like. </p>
<h2>The climate roller-coaster</h2>
<p>The last ice age (or Last Glacial Maximum) peaked around 26,000 years ago. The earth warmed over the coming millennia, driven by an increase in radiation from the sun due to changes in the earth’s orbit (the Milankovic cycles) amplified by CO₂ released from warming water, which further warmed the atmosphere.</p>
<p>But even as the earth warmed it was interrupted by cooler periods known as “stadials”. These were caused by melt water from <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007PA001457/abstract">melting ice sheets which cool large regions of the ocean</a>. </p>
<p>Marked climate variability and extreme weather events during the early Holocene retarded development of sustainable agriculture.</p>
<p>Sparse human settlements existed about 12,000 - 11,000 years ago. The flourishing of human civilisation from about 10,000 years ago, and in particular from 7,000 years ago, critically depended on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Succeed-Revised-Edition/dp/0143117009">stabilisation of climate conditions</a> which allowed planting and harvesting of seed and growing of crops, facilitating growth of villages and towns and thereby of civilisation.</p>
<p>Peak warming periods early in the Holocene were associated with prevalence of <a href="http://shadow.eas.gatech.edu/%7Ejean/monsoon/Kutzbach%201981.pdf">heavy monsoons and heavy floods</a>, likely reflected by Noah’s ark story.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104787/original/image-20151208-3131-yptqw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104787/original/image-20151208-3131-yptqw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104787/original/image-20151208-3131-yptqw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104787/original/image-20151208-3131-yptqw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104787/original/image-20151208-3131-yptqw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104787/original/image-20151208-3131-yptqw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104787/original/image-20151208-3131-yptqw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104787/original/image-20151208-3131-yptqw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We can’t measure historical temperatures directly, so scientists use oxygen measurements instead. Human civilisation arose in a period of mostly settled climate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/Fundamentals/HoloceneEvents&NorthGRIP02.jpg">Bruce Railback's Geoscience Resources</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Early civilisations</h2>
<p>The climate stabilised about 7,000 – 5,000 years ago. This allowed the flourishing of civilisations along the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus and the Yellow River. </p>
<p>The ancient river valley civilisations cultivation depended on flow and ebb cycles, in turn dependent on seasonal rains and melting snows in the mountain sources of the rivers. These formed the conditions for production of excess food. </p>
<p>When such conditions declined due to droughts or floods, civilisations collapsed. Examples include the decline of the Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Indus civilisations about 4,200 years ago due to <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2189802/Egyptian-kingdom-died-4-200-years-ago-following-mega-drought-caused-climate-change.html">severe drought</a>.</p>
<p>Throughout the Holocene relatively warm periods, such as the Medieval Warm Period (900-1200 AD), and cold periods, such as the Little Ice Age (around 1600 - 1700 AD), led to agricultural crises with consequent hunger, epidemics and wars. A classic account of the consequences of these events is presented in the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Succeed-Revised-Edition/dp/0143117009">Collapse</a> by Jared Diamond.</p>
<p>It’s not just Middle Eastern civilisations. Across the globe and throughout history the rise and fall of civilisations such as the <a href="http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/%7Epeter/site/Papers_files/deMenocal.2001.pdf">Maya</a> in Central America, the Tiwanaku in Peru, and the <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/107/15/6748.full">Khmer Empire</a> in Cambodia, have been determined by the ebb and flow of droughts and floods. </p>
<h2>Changing the game</h2>
<p>Greenhouse gas levels were stable or <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3ACLIM.0000004577.17928.fa">declined</a> between 8,000-6,000 years ago, but then began to rise slowly after 6,000 years ago. According to William Ruddiman at the University of Virginia, this rise in greenhouse gases was due to deforestation, burning and land <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3ACLIM.0000004577.17928.fa">clearing</a> by people. This stopped the decline in greenhouse gases and ultimately prevented the next ice age. If so, human-caused climate change began much earlier than we usually think. </p>
<p>Rise and fall in solar radiation continued to shift the climate. The Medieval Warm Period was driven by an increase in solar radiation, while the Little Ice Age was caused at least in part by a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1468-4004.2002.43509.x/full">decrease</a>. </p>
<p>Now we’ve changed the game again by releasing over 600 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, raising CO₂ concentrations from around 270 parts per million to about 400 parts per million. </p>
<p>One of the consequences of this rise is an <a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v5/n5/full/nclimate2554.html">extraordinary decline</a> in the North Atlantic Ocean Circulation as cold water from melting of Greenland ice enters the sea. This could potentially lead to a collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Ocean Circulation and a short, regional human-caused cold period, or “stadial”, mostly affecting Europe and North America, similar to those that occurred in the early Holocene. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104784/original/image-20151208-3144-1y2ei3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104784/original/image-20151208-3144-1y2ei3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104784/original/image-20151208-3144-1y2ei3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104784/original/image-20151208-3144-1y2ei3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104784/original/image-20151208-3144-1y2ei3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104784/original/image-20151208-3144-1y2ei3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104784/original/image-20151208-3144-1y2ei3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/104784/original/image-20151208-3144-1y2ei3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">CO2 concentrations in November 2015. The blue circle shows an area of reduced CO2 corresponding to cooler sea temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-holds-media-briefing-on-carbon-s-role-in-earth-s-future-climate">NASA</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While this may sound like “global cooling”, a cold period could have deleterious effects on agriculture and is bound to be succeeded by further warming due to the high atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. </p>
<p>The current shift in state of the atmosphere-ocean-ice system signifies a return to conditions such as existed at the early Holocene, which were less favourable for farming. But it doesn’t stop there.</p>
<p>A further rise in CO₂ and temperature would lead to conditions which existed in the Pliocene before 2.6 million years ago, including many metres of <a href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v4/n5/full/ngeo1118.html">sea level rise</a> (around 10-40 metres), posing an existential threat to the future of civilisation.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Andrew will be on hand for an Author Q&A between 2 and 3pm AEST on Friday, December 11, 2015. Post your questions in the comments section below.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Glikson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
2015 will likely be a degree warmer than before people started pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The last time the world was this hot wasn’t great for civilisation.
Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleo-climate scientist, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/6266
2012-04-11T04:27:55Z
2012-04-11T04:27:55Z
The discovery of fire: initial steps toward anthropogenic climate change
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9323/original/vh27hzyn-1333516872.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Humanity's control of fire has led to a vastly changed atmosphere.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason A Samfield</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The evidence for a rapid shift in state of the terrestrial atmosphere-ocean system over the <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf">last two centuries</a> (see figure 1) requires a deep time perspective, beyond events of the day. Tracing the original blueprints of anthropogenic effects on the terrestrial environments takes us back at least a million years to the time when - according to <a href="http://articles.boston.com/2012-04-03/metro/31274028_1_early-humans-modern-humans-spontaneous-combustion">research released this month</a> - the first compelling evidence for human use of fire was found.</p>
<p>Of all life forms which ever existed, only the genus Homo acquired the skill of igniting and transporting fire. This gave Homo not only warmth, cooking and protection from animals, but a high degree of power over nature. Prehistoric hominids burned large parts of the biosphere and, more recently, combusted carbon and hydrocarbons derived from fossil biospheres up to 400 million years old.</p>
<p>The high intelligence underlying human inventions has been variously attributed to a <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/275670/human-evolution/250601/Increasing-brain-size">large brain size</a> (Chimpanzees ~395 grams; <em>Australopithecus apheresis</em> ~430 grams; <em>Homo ergaster</em> ~850 gram; <em>Homo sapiens</em> ~1350 grams) and a high brain/body mass <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-to-body_mass_ratio">ratio</a> (~1/40). </p>
<p><a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_myth_of_the_machine.html?id=CR4OQwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">However</a>, sperm whales brains weigh ~8000 grams and elephant brains over 5000 grams. Mice have a brain/body mass ratio similar to that of humans (1/40) and small birds a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-to-body_mass_ratio">higher brain/body mass ratio</a> (1/12). A more confident parameter of human intelligence is the high ratio of the neocortex (frontal intelligence lobe) to medulla (lower “mammalian” part of the brain stem) <a href="http://www.monkeyknifefight.co.uk/primate-traits-and-trends.html">in the human brain</a> (Lemurs ~10; monkeys and apes 20-50; humans 105). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9318/original/2d92svpm-1333516531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9318/original/2d92svpm-1333516531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9318/original/2d92svpm-1333516531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9318/original/2d92svpm-1333516531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9318/original/2d92svpm-1333516531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9318/original/2d92svpm-1333516531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9318/original/2d92svpm-1333516531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9318/original/2d92svpm-1333516531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
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<p>Theories which try to explain the uniqueness of humans invoke its bipedal nature, <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_myth_of_the_machine.html?id=CR4OQwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">language</a> and the use of stone and bone <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_dawn_of_human_culture.html?id=vbuBVJAC4VMC&redir_esc=y">tools</a>. In these respects, however, pre-<em>Homo sapiens</em> hominids were hardly unique. Many animals are bipedal and some <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_use_by_animals">use tools</a>. Termites design <a href="http://www.termiteweb.com/termite-nest-architecture/">articulate nests</a>, insects have a sophisticated language (such as the <a href="http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/entomology/apiculture/pdfs/1.11%20copy.pdf">bee’s dance</a>), meerkats make special <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meerkat#Vocalization">calls</a>, whales and dolphins <a href="http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/info-books/killer-whale/communication.htm">echo-locate</a> and birds have <a href="http://www.backyardnature.net/birdnavi.htm">navigation systems</a>. </p>
<p>However, Homo’s ability to ignite fire constitutes an exclusive blueprint not shared by any other life form, with far-reaching consequences. This facility was allowed by the potentially flammable terrestrial environment where hominids emerged, inhabiting plant-rich land surfaces surrounded by phytoplankton-rich oceans where photosynthesis produces an oxygen-rich atmosphere and plant decay results in formation of carbon-rich surface deposits and derived peat and coal deposits. </p>
<p>The evolution of land plants in the late Silurian (~420 Ma: vascular plants such as Cooksonia and Baragwanathia) and in the Permian (299–251 Ma: Cycads and Ginkgo) led to the accumulation of carbon as cellulose in trees and grasses, soils and bogs, methane hydrate and methane clathrate.</p>
<p>During tropical greenhouse gas-dominated eras (Silurian-Carboniferous - 443–299 Ma; early Mesozoic - 251–65 Ma) there were extensive fires from lightning, volcanic eruptions and underground peat fires. Diagnostic optical refractive indices allow scientists to estimate fire frequency (see figure 2) from charcoal remains. In the Permian atmospheric oxygen exceeded 30%, a level at which even moist vegetation becomes flammable, as represented in charcoal concentrations <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/5926/481.full.pdf">as high as 70% in coal</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9320/original/d5k7c3cr-1333516587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9320/original/d5k7c3cr-1333516587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9320/original/d5k7c3cr-1333516587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9320/original/d5k7c3cr-1333516587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9320/original/d5k7c3cr-1333516587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9320/original/d5k7c3cr-1333516587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9320/original/d5k7c3cr-1333516587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9320/original/d5k7c3cr-1333516587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>When humans harnessed fire, it elevated the species’ oxygenating capacity by many orders of magnitude as we utilized the solar energy stored in plants. As the use of fire, and subsequently of combustion, have grown, this increased planetary entropy (in physics - a measure of the degree of disorder and chaos of a system) to levels approaching those triggered by the geological events, including those resulting in the <a href="adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005E%26PSL.236..933G%20;%20http://journalofcosmology.com/Extinction103.html">major mass extinctions</a> in geological history. The splitting of the atom achieves yet higher levels of entropy.</p>
<p>Likely the mastery of fire has been driven by necessity. There were abrupt environmental shifts when mean global temperatures varied during glacial-interglacial shifts by about ~5°C and local temperatures by larger amounts. Humans had to find refuge in relatively protected sub-tropical shelters, such as the East African rift valleys. </p>
<p>Early Paleolithic evidence for human-lit fires includes hearths containing charcoal, burnt bones and red clay shards heated to 400°C and higher temperatures. Widespread use of fire in the late Paleolithic is indicated by charred logs, charcoal, reddened areas, carbonised grass stems and plants and wooden implements hardened by fire. </p>
<p>A likely advantage of cooking was the enhanced supply of protein, allowing an <a href="en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wrangham">increase in brain size</a> (<em>Homo ergaster</em> ~850 grams; <em>Homo sapiens</em> ~1350 grams). Over hundreds of thousands of years, gathered during long nights around camp fires, captivated by the flickering life-like dance of the flames, humans developed curiosity, imagination, insights, cravings, fears, premonition, legends, aspiration for immortality and beliefs in deities and gods. Oldest expressions of cultural and spiritual creative minds <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2885663.stm">may date back</a> to 350,000 years ago, although this remains unconfirmed. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9321/original/vwbsn848-1333516606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9321/original/vwbsn848-1333516606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9321/original/vwbsn848-1333516606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9321/original/vwbsn848-1333516606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9321/original/vwbsn848-1333516606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9321/original/vwbsn848-1333516606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9321/original/vwbsn848-1333516606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9321/original/vwbsn848-1333516606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
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<p>As climate conditions stabilized in the early Holocene, around 8000 years ago, agriculture and production of excess food allowed these ideas to be manifested through both the creative and destructive activities of civilizations. </p>
<p>The stabilisation of climate allowed cultivation of crops, enhanced by smelting of metals and crafting of ploughs. Extensive burning and land clearing associated with agriculture, from about 10,000 years ago, culminated with the combustion of fossil fuels. </p>
<p><a href="http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Ruddiman2003.pdf">Bill Ruddiman</a> suggests the rise in CO₂ in the mid-Holocene reflects land clearing, fires and agriculture, defining the onset of an Anthropocene era. He wrote, “A wide array of archaeological, cultural, historical and geologic evidence points to viable explanations tied to anthropogenic changes resulting from early agriculture in Eurasia, including the start of forest clearance by 8000 years ago and of rice irrigation by 5000 years ago.”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9322/original/9gxy3sw6-1333516624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9322/original/9gxy3sw6-1333516624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9322/original/9gxy3sw6-1333516624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9322/original/9gxy3sw6-1333516624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9322/original/9gxy3sw6-1333516624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9322/original/9gxy3sw6-1333516624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=631&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9322/original/9gxy3sw6-1333516624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=631&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/9322/original/9gxy3sw6-1333516624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=631&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>However, <a href="allenpress.com/pdf/ambi-36-08-06_614..621.pdf">other authors</a> define the onset of the Anthropocene at the dawn of the industrial age in the 18th century. They attribute the mid-Holocene rise of greenhouse gases to natural perturbations during the interglacials, for example the 420-405 thousand year old <a href="http://www.climate.unibe.ch/%7Estocker/papers/broecker06eos.pdf">Holsteinian interglacial</a>. According to this definition the Anthropocene is characterized by greenhouse gas emissions levels exceeding those of any earlier geological period (see Figure 3).</p>
<p>Since the 18th century, burning fossil fuels and clearing land increased atmospheric carbon content by 237 billion ton carbon (GtC). The present atmospheric carbon concentration is 820 GtC at present, an increase of some ~39% relative to the original level of 590 GtC. Of the additional CO₂, approximately 42% stays in the atmosphere which, together with other greenhouse gases, led to an increase in the atmospheric energy level of ~+3.2 Watt/m2 and of potential mean global temperature by <a href="http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha00110y.html">+2.3 degrees Celsius</a> (see figure 1). Approximately -1.6 Watt/m2, equivalent to -1.1°Celsius, is masked by industrially emitted sulphur aerosols. For more on this, see <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/andrew-glikson-2348">earlier articles</a> in The Conversation.</p>
<p>The significance of human mastery of fire in terms of the consequences of <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/189035/entropy">enhanced entropy</a> has been underestimated. Human respiration dissipates two to ten calories/minute. A camp fire releases more than 100,000 calories/minute, but the output of a 1000 megawatt/hour power plant expends more than 2 billion calories/minute and nuclear fission orders of magnitude higher. This amounts to an increase in entropy on the scale of geological events. </p>
<p>While complexity increases in conurbations, the rise in atmospheric energy and heat due to the release of greenhouse gases associated with exothermic combustion results in a series of extreme weather events (http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/), droughts, floods and storms, degrading natural habitats.</p>
<p>According to Ancient Greek mythology, fire was stolen from the gods by the titan Prometheus, who breathed it into human clay figures. From our modern perspective, this legend and related stories in other traditions acquire a special meaning.</p>
<p>For an intelligent species to be able to explore the solar system planets but fail to protect its own home planet defies explanation. For a biological species to magnify its entropic effect on nature by orders of magnitude, developing cerebral powers which allow it to become the intelligent eyes through which the Universe explores itself, hints at yet unknown natural laws which underlie life, consciousness and complexity. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/6266/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Glikson is Honorary Professor at the Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence, The University of Queensland, and a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University.</span></em></p>
The evidence for a rapid shift in state of the terrestrial atmosphere-ocean system over the last two centuries (see figure 1) requires a deep time perspective, beyond events of the day. Tracing the original…
Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleo-climate scientist, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/4811
2011-12-22T23:23:43Z
2011-12-22T23:23:43Z
This Christmas, remember – manners maketh the man
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/6716/original/fynkkkkk-1324448059.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Across the West this year, civilization will fall, as one by one, Christmas dinners collapse into war by other means.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve McFarland</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a successful civilization every activity becomes a genuine education. All pursuits approach the dream of “motherhood”: citizens are gently and lovingly raised to be more noble, empathetic, playful, forgiving, mindful. </p>
<p>Nowhere more than over Christmas dinner is this idea likely to inspire ridicule. Christmas is a time we reserve for families to gather, and in a carnival of enraging personality traits, suppressed childhood psychoses and newly discovered jealousies, liberate each other from the norms of decent behaviour. Across the West this year, from Glasgow to Hobart, civilization will fall, as one by one, dinner parties collapse into war by other means.</p>
<p>Dinner was just as fallen in past societies. History’s most famous dinner party, the Last Supper, gets off to a heroically unpromising start with the suggestion that one guest will viciously betray the host, who happens to be the most blameless person in the universe.</p>
<p>Socrates spends his time irritating people over supper. And the Symposium ends with everyone getting too drunk and tired to listen.</p>
<h2>Resisting my mother</h2>
<p>Yet, there’s a curious connection between civilization and dinner. To say “civilization” today invokes a shared cultural nightmare: frighteningly elaborate European meals. This is the world we most resist. We picture the proliferation of bizarre forks and social codes; we imagine mean-spirited people critiquing everyone outside their tower.</p>
<p>Our culture’s love of resistance (and resistance to love) trickled down to me as a teenager. I remember meeting my mother’s entirely benign dinner table suggestions with rage at the seeming irrationality of manners. My Jacobin-like triumph, rehearsed in the shower beforehand, was to crown an argument one night with the cry, “This house is a monarchy!”</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/6717/original/d4vgvnhh-1324448357.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/6717/original/d4vgvnhh-1324448357.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6717/original/d4vgvnhh-1324448357.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6717/original/d4vgvnhh-1324448357.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6717/original/d4vgvnhh-1324448357.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6717/original/d4vgvnhh-1324448357.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6717/original/d4vgvnhh-1324448357.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">History’s most famous dinner party got off to a bad start.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joan de Joanes</span></span>
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<p>I was throwing off a thousand years of progress in manners. Tannhäuser’s Courtly Manners, from the high middle ages, first lays down the law of not wiping the nose with the hand. <a href="http://www.borders.com.au/book/a-handbook-on-good-manners-for-children-de-civilitate-morum-puerilium-libellus/1253312/">Erasmus, writing in 1530</a>, recommends never being the first to touch a new dish: an impulse of the vice of greed. </p>
<p>Doubts about the superiority of our modern approach to greed should be put on hold as we rejoice in lessons that do still hit home – “to snort like a seal, gobble like a badger, and complain while eating – these three things are quite improper.”</p>
<h2>Manners shape the brain</h2>
<p>The real potential of a dinner party may have been lost behind historical prejudices. It’s this: that dinner, anywhere, in any culture, can become an arena to practice extremely important human capacities. </p>
<p>If we will it, we can practice generosity of mind, for example, in trying to enter into another person’s real concerns (a test case: maddening relatives on Christmas eve). We learn self-control in pacing our eating. Playfulness in not letting the conversation drag. Forgiveness for mean-spirited comments. The habit of small self-sacrifice, in holding back to give someone the floor with a question (perhaps a shy cousin). We can fight greedy impulses, and treat the glasses and cutlery with some grace, to learn the habits of gentleness.</p>
<p>The big idea here is unfamiliar: manners shape the functioning of our brains. Self-control is a habit of the brain, learnt in the smallest of everyday acts. In very rough terms, it involves the capacity of the executive frontal lobes to inhibit distracting impulses. If we constantly keep our posture and speak with control, then restraint eventually becomes part of normal action. </p>
<p>What’s more, such capacities are transferable. If we learn imaginative generosity over dinner, that virtue becomes available to us in other areas of life. Educating for these capacities across a society is a crucial project. The means of doing so are by the manner in which we undertake everyday activities, such as having dinner.</p>
<h2>How to civilize your Christmas dinner</h2>
<p>But what on earth could it mean to civilize the way we eat? The key transformation is what happens when an activity becomes an art.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/6718/original/rk56gf5c-1324448870.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/6718/original/rk56gf5c-1324448870.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6718/original/rk56gf5c-1324448870.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6718/original/rk56gf5c-1324448870.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6718/original/rk56gf5c-1324448870.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6718/original/rk56gf5c-1324448870.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6718/original/rk56gf5c-1324448870.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian 'Harry' Harris</span></span>
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<p>Dinner as a crude instrumental activity is about getting food in your stomach. The basics are the same anywhere in the world, at any point in history: some sort of food goes in the mouth and down.</p>
<p>But we can be a lot more ambitious. We can have a conversation at the same time, to learn empathy and social courage. We can decorate our knives and forks with whimsical designs, to remind us that playfulness should not be forgotten. And we can link the whole event to some of our grandest epic concerns, as did the original scope of Christmas. </p>
<p>Thus the activity becomes richer; it becomes instrumental to higher goods and long-term goals; it helps train us in a range of virtues. It becomes an art. </p>
<p>This is when we can say an activity has become civilized. And a civilization forms when arts across a society begin to integrate and develop a describable common character.</p>
<p>With reflection and mass local effort, this can spread across a society – from our grandest institutions to our smallest everyday rituals. Even the activity of walking can be integrated with long-term projects and higher things. Henry David Thoreau developed and promoted an <a href="http://www.walden.org/documents/file/Library/Thoreau/writings/Writings1906/05Excursions/Walking.pdf">art of walking</a> as a way to reconnect society with nature.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/6720/original/xk62yzyh-1324450291.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/6720/original/xk62yzyh-1324450291.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6720/original/xk62yzyh-1324450291.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6720/original/xk62yzyh-1324450291.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6720/original/xk62yzyh-1324450291.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6720/original/xk62yzyh-1324450291.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/6720/original/xk62yzyh-1324450291.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mariska Richters</span></span>
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<h2>Master conversationalist defeats master chef</h2>
<p>The civilizing process is infamous, and snortingly mocked, for going far beyond the original activity. The Japanese tea ceremony is no longer efficient at getting tea into the stomach. It is efficient, however, in cultivating patience, gentleness, and tact. </p>
<p>The tie no longer holds together a shirt, but it is the one non-utilitarian whimsy we allow to men. And for a civilized dinner, the first lesson is – conversation trumps food.</p>
<p>Food is, of course, important, but talk is unique to our species, and our triumph. Talk has the potential to reveal and delight, often wasted. What would it mean to prepare for a spontaneous, open-ended, deep, tender, hilarious, sympathetic conversation? Perhaps we need a new show like MasterChef to raise the competition. (Someone please steal this idea.)</p>
<p>Of course, one dinner doesn’t make a citizen. But the habits we need to become excellent participants in our civilization, to be good friends, mothers and fathers – gentleness, forgiveness, self-control, generosity, courage – are learnt nowhere but in the routines of everyday life. Christmas dinner, with all its temptations to indulgence and impatience with infuriating relatives, is a good place to start getting civilized.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/4811/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack Fuller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In a successful civilization every activity becomes a genuine education. All pursuits approach the dream of “motherhood”: citizens are gently and lovingly raised to be more noble, empathetic, playful…
Jack Fuller, D.Phil. Candidate in Ethics, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.