Mauricio Porte

As you may or not remember, I'm writing a novel in which each chapter's characters are a more recent species. Therefore plausibility is very important to me even if it's a work of fiction, I'd rather propose things that are more probable to have happened that things that are more spectacular let's say. Anyways maybe you'd appreciate these timelines that I've been making and using: https://www.dropbox.com/s/o0krnpl8pnpz9z1/Especies%20vs%20Tiempo.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/uzek2g6roat00uo/Especies%20vs%20Lugar.jpg?dl=0 I'm also thinking on making another in which I compare species to technology/tools PD: the red lines in the first chart indicate when each story takes place, the cyan and blue bands indicate interglacial/glacial periods respectively

by the way I wrote 0.07myr BP when I meant 0.7myr BP; but I don't think it'll make much difference since we're talking about a H. erectus and not heidelbergensis or another more recent hominid.

Great, thank you very much your answer gave me precisely what I needed.

Now I'd like to move the discussion on fire use by hominds further from its earliest incarnations: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/85193-early-use-of-fire-by-hominds/to a time where fire creation and use had become commonplace. Let's say we're a H. erectus specimen living around the fertile crescent region of the Middle East circa .7myr BP. We would living in a sort of tropical climate, with cool grasslands and sparse woodlands. Now the question becomes: which of the various methods of starting fires would be tmost likely to be in use? I'd like to think of flint and iron since stone tools had been used and struck for so much time by then, that I find it simple to imagine the transition, but I get the doubt as to where iron could be found. Friction methods don't convince me as much though, since now I'd have to think as to how this distinct technique (friction vs. percussive) could've developed.

Think about this: Before there were no "transitional fossils" in human evolution. So Lucy (Australopithecus Afarensis) was discovered. Now creationists say ok well now we have two missing links, one between Lucy and apes, another between Lucy and humans. So Turkana Boy was discovered (Homo Ergaster). Now creationists say well now we have three missing links, one between Lucy and apes, another between Lucy and Turkana Boy, and lastly, one between Turkana Boy and Humans. The list goes on and on: of course there are transitional fossils in human evolution, but more importantly all fossils are transitional between one species and another, no species has ever given birth to another species, changes happen gradually and incrementally over time and it is only when you look at the broad scope of time that you can observe the changes. In order to find all "transitional fossils" in human evolution we would have to dig up all of the hominids ever born in a specific descendant line, which is preposterous, since take into account that one could dig up a fossil and identify it as a species that formed part of our evolution, but that doesn't mean that that particual homind actually is part of our descendant line. He is most likely to share common ancestors but not common descendants.

My informed speculation (and the one I'm using for practical purposes) is that since females during this stage in human evolution now had to take more care for their kids from birth through younghood than most species out there, and this meant energy and resources. So through the mechanism of sexual selection, loyalty in a man would become a desired trait. Percieving loyalty cannot really be accurate or reliable, but I'm guessing it could've happened a substancial number of times. As for the name I'm not bothering still with that concept. Example: in this story in particular the male character is Ergaster whereas the female character is Turkana (I even talk about Turkana's son as Turkana's boy. Sort of like an easter egg for anthropologists and paleontologists. They are not known as those names in their society though. In an earlier story dealing with austrolopitecines the names of 3 characters came from actions they established during the first act in a dispute, so their names are practically adjectives. And I'll later first introduce the concept of naming in hominids societies first relating from jewlery and colors in the form of the many pendants that hominids fabricated. But of course, when I get to that part of the book more threads and debates will already be in place in this forum. PS: I like the idea of her watching them go, but I'll weigh more alternatives first since I'd have to rewrite the whole 1st Act, which starts with great pace and energy and focuses on Ergaster hunting a gazelle with the use of persistance hunting. I've thought of that idea, but set much after, in Pythagorean society, with Pythagoras himself being a secondary or tertiary character. That story would end up in the invasion of Croton by Sybaris and the alleged criticism of communal life vs freedom.

I think I can see that. The thing is I'm trying to convey the idea that during this time in human evolution is when the concept of the family and the roles of a woman and man first started taking place. So my female character had hunted in the past among others but is now pregnant and now has a new role (which she doesn't neccesarily despise) but still, hunting was a part of her life and she can miss it or daydream about it. But how can I explain these ideas without flat out telling it like if it were an essay; and without language or dialogue?

I've been reluctant to describe the situation using a passive voice, which is why I resorted to the nightmare scenario. As a story, active voice is much more entertaining and interesting than passive voices.

The more it has been discussed, the more plausbile ehe wildfire scenario seems to me Could you give me some examples so I can investigate this behavior more analytically? Also, wouldn't meat get charred from a wildfire? Would it still be edible?

Agreed.

I'd say without a doubt that early superstitions definitely came from those sort of events, and I know you're joking on this one, but it is kind of a very specific example.

I just thought of another natural occuring fire source: Lava Lakes are also common in the Great Rift Valley, and some of them have been active for hundreds of thousands of years. They don't necesarilly erupt violently during most of their lifespan. Sure lava lakes and volcanos are extremely dangerous, but in contrast to wildfires they can be more passive. Some lava lakes wuldn't even necessitate climbing up the slopes since they had a constant flow. By the time lava is reaching the bottom it is already more viscous and slow-moving since it is already much cooler. Some hominids may encounter lava and out of curiosity poke it with a stick. It might ignite, hell even the site could've became sort of a traditional/religious gathering place for hominids who discovered it such as the Olduvai Gorge or certain caves. Any thoughts?

Sorry I mispoke, I don't mean we control the actual big natural fire in itself, but rather that the opportunity to control fire would first come from the big existing natural fires since they are so common in nature, especially considering where human evolution took form. So throughout the experiences learned from these fires and an opportunistic approach, eventually you get the mindset that being able to create a fire is actually advantegeous since by then fire starts to take a more important role for the species. So yeah probably during this time fire was (in several ocasions) created accidentally, but before they could identify the advantages of creating fires and before they actually tried to start fires as a cultural/technological item, first they should already understand to some extent the concept of fire, which I think more probably comes from the natural world, since wildfires are not uncommon anyways and had being occurring well before fire was even used for the first time.

I am aware that there may be more options and that It is impossible to know for certainty. But I think that by the time humans accidentally learned how to create fire they already had an understanding of how to use fire, which I believe should've come from natural sources and those two are the ones I identified as the most probable of natural fire ocurrances. Toolmaking was an important part of the day by day so accidental fires could be very old indeed, but I think it is more probable that they learned to control big natural fires before they could start and control small fires. I make this assumption because creating small fires has some intention in itself.

Sub-saharan Africa is prone to fires and showers of considerable quantity. If we are to assert that use of fire first came into being by opportunistic means, Which would you think is more likely? a) most of earliest fire management by hominds came from yearly fires that burnt a wide area of grasslands b) most of earliest fire management by hominds came from lightning strikes to trees during storms

This is what I did: I had her daydreaming about a normal day back from hunting with average consecuences and a linear structure. She eventually falls asleep (without the reader knowing it but it's easy to infer) and as she's asleep I can explore the subconcious so I made her fears and desires evident trough simbolism in a nightmare. I don't think that's too far-fetched as the character doens't have to understand at all any of this but the reader can.

I'm attempting to write a set of historical fiction novelettas, set during the Pleistocene in Africa. My goal is (through fiction) to guide the reader through human evolution, which is not only a subject that I find extremely appealing, but the more research I do, the more interesting (to the reader) I see that these stories can become. Simply trying to tell the tale of an ordinary homind struggling to survive can be very interesting. As of this moment I'm writing the 3rd story, which takes place 1.5ma ago in what is nowadays northeast Kenya. My two main characters are homo ergasters: one male and another female. I used the first act to describe interchangingly through ergaster's eyes and a gazelle (for which I'd like to know of a common ancestor that roamed there in that time and place) the concept of persistance hunting. Then I cut to the second act, in which the female homind is pregnant (but the reader is not privy to that information until well into the 2nd act,) I know Ergaster was capable of making more complex sounds than his antecessors, and the fact that he could sweat would free his mouth to make such sounds. But I wouldn't dare to suggest that they had a language, so the grunts and noises my characters make are always followed by gestures and other types of body language. But still, I want to peer into the mind of my female character. She is sitting picking berries, in company of mothers and childs, but her mind wanders of to memories of the time when she used to hunt alongside others. Is this plausible/reasonable? I know they didn't have language so they probably couldn't form complex and abastract ideas in their heads, but surely they could form images of common themes in their heads I'm guessing. Any ideas? PS: I'm not a lazy researcher, any journal articles, peer reviewed articles, etc. that are recommended I will gladly read.