Subject: (urth) The problem of Cthulhu

From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:11:24 +0000

On  0, don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com> scribbled:
> I promise that this has to do with Wolfe. Honest. I
> should be doing other things, but this has been
> aggravating my brain, so forgive me if it rambles.
>
> I dig Lovecraft. I abso-frickin love the mythos and I
> enjoy reading what other writers do with it, but so
> often they fail miserably. This is ironic because HP
> Lovecraft was not a great stylist at all. That said,
> even Borges wrote that his own attempt at writing a
> Lovecraftian story was inferior to the real thing. So
> . . . Lovecraft was a lousy writer, but he had a
> fantastic idea and he understood it completely. What
> makes the Great Old Ones so terrifying is that they
> are completely alien, unknowable, invincible, and
> malevolent.  The only reason that they haven't wiped
> us out is that they are prevented by other equally
> unknowable forces who, while not actively malevolent,
> regard us as nothing particularly special. We are
> alone, unloved, helpless, and our only salvation is
> that we are by and large disregarded. That's scary
> stuff.
>      Enter August Derleth, who took over Lovecraft's
> legacy. All of a sudden the Great Old Ones are
> elementals of some sort. There's still some good stuff
> in Derleth; the Necronomicon, weird disappearances,
> madness, and a damned entertaining love story between
> two of the frog people that serve Cthulhu, but
> suddenly the forces of evil are knowable. We can
> contain them in our head and they just aren't as
> primally fear inducing.
>      Recently, I've been reading Brian Lumley's Titus
> Crow series, which directly involves the Cthulhu
> mythos. Not good. Not good at all. Lumley's a better
> writer than Lovecraft, better than Derleth too, but
> not only are the Cthulhu deities knowable, they have
> supervillian motivations. And not just that, they can
> be fought, with technology apparently. Cthulhu is now
> essentially a giant alien psychic squid. Lumley's
> Lovecraft fails for me for the same reason the various
> versions of the Necronomicon fail. They explain away
> all the mystery, and thus all the horror.
>      Now, some writer's get it right. Neil Gaiman's  A
> Study in Emerald is brilliant. It involves Sherlock
> Holmes, the Great Old Ones and a twist that is just
> incredible. And it's creepy as hell.
> And Wolfe. While they're not technically the Great Old
> Ones, Erebus, Abaia, Scylla, and the Mother, are all
> obvious analogs. Their motivations are largely
> unknowable, their nature is unknown, and for that
> reason they are majestic and terrifying. Wolfe
> understands Lovecraft, and it leads to some pretty
> creepy scenes throughout the BoTNS and several in the
> Short Sun books as well. I think no one will ever
> truly be able to explain Erebus and the rest, because
> they are meant to be unexplainable. They simply are.
> Btw, has Wolfe ever written a straight up Lovecraftian
> tale?
>
> thanks for your time
> Don

In the same vein, one of the few writers I've found who does Lovecraftiana well is strangely enough, Charles Stross.. His blend of geeky humor, Sci-fi, and the Cthulhu mythos somehow works out.
--
gwern
SAO Reno Compsec JICS Computer Terrorism Firewalls Secure Internet Connections RSP
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From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:38:37 +0000

thanks for your time
Don

The Evangelists: a Lesser Apocrypha                                                                        http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=178109961

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From: JBarach at aol.com <jbarach at aol.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:50:23 +0000

In a message dated 6/19/2007 1:40:21 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
kingwukong at yahoo.com writes:

"Lord of the Land" in _Starwater Strains_ is a  deliberately Lovecraftian 
tale, which is also published in _Cthulhu 2000_  and reprinted in_Lovecraft's 
Legacy_.
 
John

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From: Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:50:54 +0000

I haven't read "A Study in Emerald," though as a fan of both Holmes and
Lovecraft, I really should. Everyone says it's incredible. I have, however,
read Gaiman's comic Cthulhu autobiography, which I think is available
somewhere on his website. It's a minor work, certainly, but I remember
laughing out loud when I read it.

http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/shortstories/chulthhustory

-Matt

On 6/19/07, don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The Evangelists: a Lesser
> Apocrypha
> http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=178109961
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
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From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:09:48 +0000

--- Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Lovecraft, I really should. Everyone says it's
> incredible.

It's a masterpiece of short fiction. Gaiman's all over
the place in terms of quality, but this is a prime
example of why he's so highly regarded. His other
Cthulhu tale is Only the End of the World Again, which
uses Larry Talbot, the wolfman, and is also a
continuation of, and tribute to, Harlan Ellison's
Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans. Oh yeah, and
Shoggoth's Old Peculiar, which is pretty funny. Both
of these are in Smoke and Mirrors.

Don

       
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From: Matthew Keeley <matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:23:11 +0000

Don,

Thanks for the advice. I've been meaning to read some Gaiman this summer,
and you've given me a good idea of where to start. I have a copy of Smoke
and Mirrors at home; I might even be able to get to those stories tonight.
Thanks,

-Matt

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From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:34:57 +0000

I have, however,

That was really funny stuff. Thanks for the link.

Don

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 23:05:50 +0000

don doggett writes:
>  What
> malevolent.  

The GOO are simply a modern analog of the Greek Titans or the Norse Jotuns 

Or to put it another way, these pre-human forces of Chaos would in their day 
have been thought of much as we today think of the Great Old Ones - horrors 
with nothing quaint or anachronistic in their makeup. 

(((
I'm an Odinist, and I continually have to remind myself and my 
co-religionists that archaism is not correct. 

Vikings, for example, (to pick a set of folk frequently and wrongly thought 
of as typifying Odinism), should be thought of as pirates using the highest 
tech weapons and transport; not quaint guys in helmets.   Because that is 
what they were. 

Think helecopter gunships and privately owned tanks not wooden ships.
))) 

Wolfe repeatedly follows his masters Lewis and Tolkien in Christianising 
pagan myth in multiple levels of narrative analogy. 

His fantasies and science fictions have characters who can represent Odin or 
Achilles in one layer, and Christ in a higher layer (Silk > Odin > is an 
obvious example) 

Erebus etc thus represent the classical Titans / Jotuns / GOO within the 
frame of the urth books.   They are a theme, not simply from Lovecraft, but 
also from pagan religion/myth/cosmology 

Maybe a Christian would tell me what the "Christian layer" analog is.  The 
Devil, I suppose: but that doesn't seem quite right. 

http://www.thenightland.co.uk 

01273-488272 / 0777-214-9545

---

From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 23:38:39 +0000

> The GOO are simply a modern analog of the Greek Titans or the Norse Jotuns

I'm not sure if this is strictly accurate. Also, the titans and the
jotunsn are not analagous. The titans are more analagous with the Vanir.
The jotuns are, I can't think of a Greek equivalent, but the Indian
equivalent would be the Rakshasas probably.

The Aesir and the Vanir are two interrelated clans of gods. There was a
war in the past, and a peace treaty (this tradition of a war in the deep
past is found all over).

It gets a little complicated, because the aesir and the vanir are all
related to the jotuns, in fact they are racially identical, they split off
at some time in the past.

I think that all of this is related to various species of humans who were
around in the deep past. There were (especially) surviving populations of
neanderthals and such in Scandanavia when the aryan types got there.

.

.

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 00:40:04 +0000

> pagan myth in multiple levels of narrative analogy. 

Yes, but he also incorporates various SF tropes,
especially pulpy ones, like Burroughs, Lovecraft, and
Howard. Abaia is ridiculously Cthulhuesque in that he
invades dreams, lives at the bottom of the ocean,
works solely through minions, and will one day "awake"
to dominate the world.

> also from pagan religion/myth/cosmology 

Sure. But I was only speaking of the Lovecraftian
aspect, which I believe is strongly there.
 
> Devil, I suppose: but that doesn't seem quite right.

The Christian layer is the same as the pagan. Several
of the Christian apologists of late antiquity, rather
than deny the existence of such beings relegated them
to the position of demons who men worshipped in error.
Also many Roman Christians incorporated rituals
associated with the worship of Horus, with Apollo, and
with Mithras. True paganism (meaning of the Greek and
Roman world) and Catholic Christianity are
indistinguishable in a lot of strange and interesting
ways, especially holidays and rituals. Imo of course

Don

       
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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 01:58:28 +0000

> neanderthals and such in Scandanavia when the aryan types got there.

*snicker* This is literally the premise of _The Thirteenth 
Warrior_/_Eaters of the Dead_.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

---

From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 03:22:05 +0000

>> I think that all of this is related to various species of humans who
>> were around in the deep past. There were (especially) surviving
populations
>> of neanderthals and such in Scandanavia when the aryan types got there.

> Warrior_/_Eaters of the Dead_.

Yes it is.

Why should that be amusing? The idea is not original with me or with
Michael Crichton (that book was by Michael Crichton, I believe).

What does Snorre Sturluson mean when he says that such and such a family
was 'half-troll'? I'd say that the description of Egil Skallagrimson's
skeletal remains (at the very end if "Egil's Saga") is suggestive to say
the least.

There's lots of other stuff.

.

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 06:22:31 +0000

--- brunians at brunians.org wrote:

> Michael Crichton (that book was by Michael Crichton,

It was by Michael Crichton and it's a great historical
novel/ forgery. If anyone else had written it, or if
he had used a pseudonym it would be much more highly
praised than it is.
As for deep history, I have no informed opinion on it,
other than it makes for interesting historical fiction
(meaning the genre)

Don

 
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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 07:31:17 +0000

brunians at brunians.org writes: 

> I'm not sure if this is strictly accurate. 

The actual literary progression in HPL's writing was 1) pseudo-Dunsanaica, 
with "the little gods of Earth" a close analog of the neo-greek Gods of 
Pegana  2) intrusion in the neo-Dunsanies of the Other gods or Outer Gods as 
powerful external enemies of these gods  3) equation of these Outer gods 
with the GOO, Cthulhu etc. 

So I think the linkage is pretty firm. 

Also, the titans and the
> The jotuns are, I can't think of a Greek equivalent,

Typhon maybe.  The Titans are supposed to have been the previous generation 
of gods, but as you mention below the norse gods are descended from the 
jotuns, where is the difference? 

> but the Indian

Another IE derived mythology 

> at some time in the past.

And we all have Deep ONe blood / are the leavings of the Antarctic GOO's 
laboratories. 

It all fits - except that HPL was discarding the archaic elements and 
remythologising things on contemporary lines. Or in a nutshell: 

LOVECRAFT WAS RIGHT

---

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 07:34:55 +0000

> aspect, which I believe is strongly there.

Well HPL pops up in PEACE, as I recall, (though not named) and bits of the 
fake-but-becoming-real Necronomicon are read, so Wolfe is obviously a fan.

---

From: Batrinque at aol.com <batrinque at aol.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 10:19:23 +0000

In a message dated 6/20/2007 2:22:46 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
kingwukong at yahoo.com writes:

I agree.  It is much the fashion to automatically sneer at Crichton  and 
dismiss those novels of his which are actually quite good.  

Bruce  Trinque
Amston, CT

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From: Batrinque at aol.com <batrinque at aol.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 10:21:10 +0000

In a message dated 6/19/2007 11:22:30 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
brunians at brunians.org writes:

was  'half-troll'?

An interesting line of thought ... especially if you connect it with the  
recent "Beowulf & Grendel" movie that was filmed in Iceland.  

Bruce  Trinque
Amston, CT

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From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:03:18 +0000

> recent "Beowulf & Grendel" movie that was filmed in Iceland.

I probably do, if it's about what I guess it's about.

.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:35:44 +0000

brunians at brunians.org wrote:
> Why should that be amusing?

Because of the dual meaning of Aryan (notional fair-skinned race vs. 
Indo-European root culture). The movie opens with Ibn Faldan, an exiled 
Persian, being sent to Scandanaavia, and there are *still* proto-humans 
  there, ages after the blondes have taken up residence.

---

From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:12:13 +0000

>>>> populations of neanderthals and such in Scandanavia when the aryan
>>>> types got there.

> Indo-European root culture).

You see, the first one never occurs to me. It's based on several mistaken
notions.

A good starting point for understanding how strange the material is is
realizing that Sanskrit is not like other languages. It is fixed. It is a
literary language (though there is and tends to be a community of several
thousand people who are raised as native speakers), and the when you go to
learn it, the very first thing you do is learn to make the 50 or so sounds
that are associated with the Sanskrit letters (which can be written, by
the way with any arbitrary set of symbols).

Thus, the language is not subject to phoneme drift as a natural language
is. In other words, no one knows how old it is. 19th and 20th century
scholars used to say it dates back 3500 years or so: the only thing we
know about this number is that it is wrong. It could be 5,000 years old,
it could be 50,000 years old.

>                         The movie opens with Ibn Faldan, an exiled

Yes, this is what the sagas say also. I think you will get in trouble
thinking of neanderthals as proto-humans. They are as human as you if not
more so. They were skilled engineers, among other things, and also your
ancestors if you are even part-European.

.

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 15:41:48 +0000

I think you
> will get in trouble

I think that much of this is still up for debate,
especially the interbreeding part, but the fact that
there is a debate still validates your argument as
tenable, and elevates it beyond snickering at, imo. I
mean, thirty years ago, we used to think the dinosaurs
died out completely (other than crocodiles and sharks
and such) Now, it's generally accepted that their
descendants are flying outside our window every day.
But don't worry, we'll kill 'em eventually.

Don

 
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From: Michael Straight <mfstraight at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:31:22 +0000

On 6/19/07, don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com> wrote:

> True paganism (meaning of the Greek and

G.K. Chesterton liked to point out that the only modern tradition that
could genuinely trace its roots back to Greek and Roman paganism was
Christianity.

Rostrum

---

From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 21:49:10 +0000

>>  I think you will get in trouble thinking of neanderthals as
>> proto-humans. They are as human as you if not more so. They
>> were skilled engineers, among other things, and also your

> I think that much of this is still up for debate,

Some of us are on one side or another of that debate.

> especially the interbreeding part,

Look around you, especially if you have Polynesian, Norwegian or
Australian aboriginal neighbors (that's 'European' in a very broad sense:
everyone here knows that native Australians are born brown-haired or even
blonde).

>                                    but the fact that
> tenable, and elevates it beyond snickering at, imo.

Thank you.

>                                                     I

The black ones are smart.

They'll be here after we're gone.

.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:03:11 +0000

> ancestors if you are even part-European.

If the neandethals were human, why is there a distinction made?

---

From: Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:07:02 +0000

Hi all. Long time lurker, first time poster.

Neanderthals were not "human," in the sense of being homo sapiens.  
They were another species, human-like, but not human.

Here's a wiki link... sorry, it's the best I could do on short  
notice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

Lane

---

From: Batrinque at aol.com <batrinque at aol.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:12:00 +0000

In a message dated 6/20/2007 9:07:33 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
lhaygood at gmail.com writes:

Here's a wiki link... sorry, it's the best I could do on  short  
notice. _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal) 

To date, no DNA evidence exists of any genetic contribution to presentday  
humans.   

Bruce  Trinque
Amston, CT

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From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:14:14 +0000

> They were another species, human-like, but not human.

There are several opinions floating around about this. Mine happens to be
in the minority this decade. It's still correct, as everyone reading this
after 2050 or so is aware.

.

---

From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:15:03 +0000

> To date, no DNA evidence exists of any genetic contribution to presentday

Maltese teeth.

.

---

From: Batrinque at aol.com <batrinque at aol.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:21:01 +0000

In a message dated 6/20/2007 9:15:12 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
brunians at brunians.org writes:

Maltese  teeth.

Is there DNA evidence there?  

Bruce  Trinque
41?37'52"N    72?22'29"W

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From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:25:57 +0000

> Maltese teeth.

I figured I'd expand (though of course everyone knows what I am talking
about, here, right?).

Some Neanderthal skulls got funny teeth. Supposedly unique to the seperate
species that didn't interbreed. Except a bunch of Maltese people have
teeth like this. How'd that happen?

There's all sorts of bogosity in paleoanthropology. Did you know there are
a bunch of these academic scientists who seriously maintain that human
beings didn't have speech before 70,000 years ago or so? They were every
way identical to us, they just couldn't talk, poor things.

Where do they get these ideas?

The species is a million years old and for 990,000 of those years we were
sort of half-smart animals scraping out a living. Then, all of a sudden,
ten thousand years ago, something happened, and now we're flying in space.

Two kinds of people who didn't look any different than hottentots and
swedes hung out around each other for tens of thousands of years, with
interbreedable genomes, and none of them had children.

People want to believe these kinds of things, they can. I'll pass.

.

---

From: Batrinque at aol.com <batrinque at aol.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:31:24 +0000

In a message dated 6/20/2007 9:26:32 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
brunians at brunians.org writes:

teeth like this. 

I wonder if there has been any genetic testing of native Maltese to  
determine whether there is any interesting DNA floating around. 

Bruce  Trinque
41?37'52"N   72?22'29"W

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From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:39:43 +0000

> Some  Neanderthal skulls got funny teeth. Supposedly unique to the
> seperate species that didn't interbreed. Except a bunch of Maltese
> people  have teeth like this.

> determine whether there is any interesting DNA floating around.

Dunno. The debate is mostly academics swearing at each other and
denigrating each other's evidence, as near as I can tell.

I don't engage too much in the debate. I got my ideas, they're not
currently well-accepted, I believe that they will be pretty soon (though
possibly not within my lifetime).

To me, the question is basically whether Plato, Snorre Sturluson and the
Mahabharata are more or less reliable than a bunch of twentieth and early
twenty-first century theoreticians. That's a no-brainer.

.

---

From: Ranjit Bhatnagar <ranjit at moonmilk.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:46:08 +0000

I'm sorry, but every time I read the subject line "The problem of
Cthulhu" I think of the famous song from that classic musical.

    How do you solve a problem like Cthulhu?
    How do you catch a shoggoth and pin it down?
    How do you find a word that means Cthulhu?
    A gibbering figment!  Ia ia fthagn!

---

From: Batrinque at aol.com <batrinque at aol.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:46:27 +0000

In a message dated 6/20/2007 9:40:01 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
brunians at brunians.org writes:

The  debate is mostly academics swearing at each other and
denigrating each  other's evidence, as near as I can tell.

The problem, of course, with arguing on the basis of skull shape and such  is 
that it is rather too easy for subjectivity to creep in.   It would  be nice 
to have something firmer in hand.  

Bruce  Trinque
Amston, CT

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From: Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 02:21:05 +0000

> twenty-first century theoreticians. That's a no-brainer.

  I think I may love you.

---

From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 02:28:13 +0000

>> To me, the question is basically whether Plato, Snorre Sturluson
>> and the Mahabharata are more or less reliable than a bunch of twentieth
and
>> early twenty-first century theoreticians. That's a no-brainer.

>    I think I may love you.

You're sweet. But agape, or philia, please, not eros.

.

---

From: David Duffy <david.duffy at qimr.edu.au>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 02:47:48 +0000

> twenty-first century theoreticians. That's a no-brainer.

The problem is that the scanty mitochondrial DNA evidence says they did 
not contribute to any modern human populations.  It seems not impossible 
to me that they could have interbred.  I don't know whether hobbits could 
interbreed with humans either, even though they may have coexisted more 
recently than Neandertals.

Slightly in the spirit of the subject line, has anyone else read Jeffrey 
E. Barlough's channelling of HPL and Dickens?

David Duffy.

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 03:18:26 +0000

>     A gibbering figment!  Ia ia fthagn!

Well, there is "A Shoggoth on the Roof..."

http://www.yog-sothoth.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=74

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
http://www.danehyoakes.com
Soon, where Toon Town once stood will be a string of gas stations,
inexpensive motels, restaurants that serve rapidly prepared food. Tire
salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards
reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful.

---

From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 03:26:19 +0000

>> Mahabharata are more or less reliable than a bunch of twentieth and

> not contribute to any modern human populations.

Remember African Eve? Don't hear too much about her anymore.

The reason you don't is because after they presented their paper, someone
went over their evidence and pointed out that it was messed up: that it is
true that they could trace each sample to their posited African Eve, or
they could work the same sample a slightly different way and come up with
other Eves, both in and out of Africa.

In other words, I don't have any problem at all with out understanding of
the DNA evidence, mitochondrial or otherwise, being incomplete or poorly
understood.

I'll believe we are getting sort of a handle on DNA when someone can
splain to me this unfolding trick that you do to get from a fertilized
cell to a human or a crow or whatever.

What I have a problem with is two human populations living side by side ad
engaging in no fuckery.

>                                               It seems not impossible

My position is that they never did die out but bred in with the dominant
population. My evidence is the literally thousands of Norwegians,
Polynesians, Australian natives and others who have obvious neanderthal
characteristics, thick bones, browridges etc.

It wouldn't surprise me if the hobbitses didn't die out either.

.

---

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 06:57:24 +0000

> ten thousand years ago, something happened, and now we're flying in space. 

Could be a mutation. 

Genetic studies claim to show that genes that control the brain are evolving 
fast, and by  fast I mean in historical, not geological, time. 

Bruce Lahn claims that one gene that first appeared in Europe (by mutation, 
in one person) about 4000 BC has now spread to a quarter of the human race. 

It must do something important. 

http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050922/brainevolution.shtml 

That's a startling fact if you like.  If true. 

I like your other ideas but don't much credit the interbreeding thing. 

OTOH Neanderthals as grendels I can swallow. 

 - hartshorn

---

From: matthew at calmeilles.co.uk <matthew at calmeilles.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 07:11:19 +0000

> To date, no DNA evidence exists of any genetic contribution to presentday  

http://genetics.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.0020105.eor

"Using sequence data from the Environmental Genome Project, we find strong evidence for ancient admixture in both a European and a West African population (p ~ 10^{-7}), with contributions to the modern gene pool of at least 5%. While Neanderthals form an obvious archaic source population candidate in Europe, there is not yet a clear source population candidate in West Africa."

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 07:11:26 +0000

> OTOH Neanderthals as grendels I can swallow. 

How about this one? 

 from http://xchar.home.att.net/n2a/medhyp.htm

"The Neanderthals, I propose, disappeared from Europe
and Asia for the same reason that the mammoths
disappeared: we ate them."

I hear they taste like shoggoth.

Don

---

From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 07:16:37 +0000

>> The species is a million years old and for 990,000 of those years we
>> were sort of half-smart animals scraping out a living. Then, all of a
>> sudden,ten thousand years ago, something happened, and now we're flying in
>> space.

> Could be a mutation.

It could be not true.

Being as we have all of these stories about previous cycles of
civilization and advanced technology, I'm going to go with the latter. You
have to do what pleases you.

.

---

From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 08:39:45 +0000

>> To date, no DNA evidence exists of any genetic contribution to
>> presentday humans.

> "Using sequence data from the Environmental Genome Project, we find strong
> evidence for ancient admixture in both a European and a West African
> population (p ~ 10^{-7}), with contributions to the modern gene pool of at
> least 5%. While Neanderthals form an obvious archaic source population
> candidate in Europe, there is not yet a clear source population candidate
> in West Africa."

Dude.

.

---

From: Batrinque at aol.com <batrinque at aol.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 10:28:54 +0000

In a message dated 6/20/2007 11:26:46 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
brunians at brunians.org writes:

And subsequently someone went over the counterarguement and concluded that  
THAT analysis was wrong.  African Eve is alive and well, and so is a later  
African Adam.  Recent African Origin at the moment at least widely accepted  as 
being the best model for present human ancestry.

Bruce  Trinque
Amston, CT

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From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 10:44:37 +0000

> went over their  evidence and pointed out that it was messed up: that it
> is true that they  could trace each sample to their posited African Eve,
> or they could work  the same sample a slightly different way and come up
> with other Eves, both  in and out of Africa.
>
>
> African Adam.  Recent African Origin at the moment at least widely
> accepted  as being the best model for present human ancestry.

... by the people who accept it.

Then there's the others, that don't, that figure that group (A) is
screwing up somehow again.

And here we are.

Like I say: if your theory requires that humans not fuck, your theory is
wrong.

.

---

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 13:02:53 +0000

> I hear they taste like shoggoth.

Likely enough.   Genocide is the rule in hominid group interactions, after 
all. 

 - hartshorn

---

From: Recursive Loop <recursive_loop at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 15:42:28 +0000

"The species is a million years old and for 990,000 of those years we were
sort of half-smart animals scraping out a living. Then, all of a sudden,
ten thousand years ago, something happened, and now we're flying in space."

"Brain Wave" by Poul Anderson. We exited this galactic cloud, see...

FPK3

---

From: Tim Walters <walters at doubtfulpalace.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 16:13:33 +0000

> Like I say: if your theory requires that humans not fuck, your theory is

It's a good thing there are no such theories in play, then.

Mutual infertility in no way implies a lack of fucky-wucky.

-- 
Tim Walters | http://doubtfulpalace.com

---

From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:07:19 +0000

> Mutual infertility in no way implies a lack of fucky-wucky.

On the other hand:

.

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:13:11 +0000

> group interactions, after 

Oh, I don't know. I think it's a pretty modern
innovation. It seems that mass acculturation has been
the rule for most of human history. Thus the mongols
in China, the Persian, Parthian, and Roman empires,
blah blee, blah blah. That's one reason I think that
homo s. and homo n. might have interbred. The reason I
don't think that they were lunch is that they appear
to be larger, stronger, as smart as, and as
technologically advanced as the homo sapiens they had
encountered. Maybe disease got them, but I don't think
they were massacred.

Don

      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Luggage? GPS? Comic books? 
Check out fitting gifts for grads at Yahoo! Search
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---

From: Tim Walters <walters at doubtfulpalace.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:16:00 +0000

> On the other hand:

So when a study disagrees with your theory, it's because the archaeologist
is a bumbling idiot who's no match for a meticulous researcher like Plato,
but when it agrees with your theory, it's taken as gospel?

I'm quite open to the idea that Neanderthals interbred with modern humans.
I just don't like your ongoing caricature of the opposing position.

---

From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:31:30 +0000

> but when it agrees with your theory, it's taken as gospel?

I wouldn't say gospel. Gospel is revealed and unquestionable (by the
theory, anyway).

I'd say that if it agrees with my theory I'm more willing to look on it
favorably. Of course it helps that the people over on that side of the
argument have been arguing among themselves over which version of their
story is the correct one (the un-Eving and re-Eving of African Eve that
has been referred to previously).

I've looked into it extensively and I am comfortable with the position I
have chosen.

> I just don't like your ongoing caricature of the opposing position.

You're allowed. There's probably stuff about you I wouldn't like.

.

---

From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:50:41 +0000

Kieran Mullen wrote:
>"The Friendship Light"  is, I believe,  a  Lovecraft mythos story.
>It's in "Innocents Abroad."    You do have to read a bit between the
>lines, though.

Yes, the narrator's friends do sound like a bunch of fun guys, don't they?

---

From: Iorwerth Thomas <iorweththomas at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 22:13:46 +0000

>Yes, the narrator's friends do sound like a bunch of fun guys, don't they?

"The Tree is My Hat" also has Lovecraftian undertones, if I recall 
correctly.

_________________________________________________________________
Win tickets to the sold out Live Earth concert!  http://liveearth.uk.msn.com

---

From: Daniel D Jones <ddjones at riddlemaster.org>
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 11:28:39 +0000

On Wednesday 20 June 2007 21:25, brunians at brunians.org wrote:
> >> presentday

I'm not sure if you're trolling or really believe  what you've posted above, 
but what you wrote matches little or nothing that I've read on the subject.  
They're more like caricatures of actual anthropological positions and 
theories.  This list isn't the place for such discussions, so I'll bow out 
but anyone interested, please take the time to do some Googling and see 
what's actually being said rather than take a second or third hand account of 
it.

---

From: Daniel D Jones <ddjones at riddlemaster.org>
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 11:32:19 +0000

> disappeared: we ate them."

I suspect he's probably more right than he does.  Neanderthals probably DID 
disappear for a reason similar to that of the mammoths.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/ice-age.html