Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
election? It probably will. Stories will be retold and “trophies” like videos, hard drives, disks
and footage displayed by the media. The benefit of trophies from the hunt is that they help bring
back memories of success and open up discussion. What trophies will be used to remember the
hunt for Bin Laden? Will the photo of President Obama and the inner circle watching the hunt,
with Hilary Clinton with her hand in front of her mouth, be the only one? At least with this type
of hunting the tribe elders directing the hunt back at camp can watch real time what is
happening with the hunt, by using head video cameras or by drones. Books, TV series and
movies will inevitably follow to commemorate the hunt. This will serve the cause of building
the mystique around a great hunter for his abilities.
Apart from rock paintings, some ostrich bead necklaces, there is little left of San Bushmen
art work; art had to be small in a nomadic mobile human group. Like all humans, whether
having paintings on the cave wall, stain glass windows in cathedrals and churches, or paintings
in museums or in our homes, we appear to have a need for art that no other animal does.
Pottery came later to the San Bushmen since they did not store food other than excess water.
The later need by pastoralists to store liquids, like milk, beer and “amasi (fermented milk, a
type of yogurt),” is what required the making of pottery. Hence Southern African pastoralists
produced practical art work, such as small wooden bench like head pillows about 3 inches
high, smoking pipes both for hashish (dagga) and tobacco, snuff boxes, and walking sticks with
large heads to them called knobkerries that were used for hunting or self-defense. The
symmetry and beauty of these sculpted objects can be quite startling and probably has an origin
in the symmetry of perfectly made stone arrow heads made by H. Ergaster. The South African
archeological digs in caves such a Blombos and Kromdraai near the Klasies River suggest that
maybe 125,000 years ago early humans were painting with fairly complex stepwise
scientifically derived paints, using primitive carved calendars, fishing tools, and of course
highly sophisticated stone arrow heads that even now are difficult to replicate. The oldest
spears in Southern Africa go back to 500,000 years. The oldest bone Arrow dating back to
maybe some 60,000 years was found in one of the caves in Zululand by Lucinda Backwell, of
University of Witwatersrand, sister to my cousin-in-law Peter. She also described how one of
the Australopithecus sedibe skeletons of a young biped had both humerus bones broken,
probably from a fall into a pit, and based on her and Lee Berger's analysis, several family
members perished at the same time. The discovery of a family of ancient bipeds is unique. It
would appear that art and the desire to depict our understanding of life and death through art is
a deeply ingrained reflex. In addition we do not naturally take to leadership. This is a more
recent invention of mankind to deal with societies as they become more integrated, more
populous, and hierarchical. Hence, it is not surprising how much time is spent by business
behaviorists trying to understand leadership and debating whether people have innate
leadership abilities or if leadership can be learnt.
Leadership:
But was there clan leadership in hunter-gatherer societies? In the conventional sense
perhaps leadership was not tolerated, however, the prophetic visionary healer fulfilled this
role. As long as they had visions for the hunt and future, and these events occurred reasonably
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