As serendipity would have it, during the past few weeks I have been immersed in arguments about the Upper Paleolithic transition some 45,000 years ago. Something critical and different seems to have occurred about this time, but what that something was is the subject of considerable dispute. Because clear indicators of supernatural belief and ritual [...]
Tags:agency·co-evolution·FOXP2·gradualist·grammar·history·intentionality·intersubjectivity·John Hawks·language·Marvin Harris·Michael Tomasello·Ofer Bar-Josef·ratchet effect·recursion·revolution·Richard Klein·saltational·Upper Paleolithic
When attempting to determine whether something is “natural ” (vis-a-vis yesterday’s post on Catholicism and homosexuality) one good way of investigating the issue is to use the genealogical method. So far as I can tell, there are no hunter-gatherer or pre-Neolithic societies that had taboos against homosexuality. We can therefore trace the history of the [...]
Tags:Assyria·Assyrian Empire·Aztec sacrifice·Babylolian captivity·Catholicism·Christians·demographics·demography·early Christianity·Egyptian captivity·fertility·group size·Hebrews·homosexuality·India's sacred cow·Jewish diaspora·Jews·Judaism·Levant·Lost Tribes of Judah·marriage·Marvin Harris·Mesopotamia·Michael Harner·Mormons·natural law·persecution·pork eating proscription·procreation·prohibition against homosexuality·Ralph Tanner·ritual regulations·same-sex preference·sin of sodomy·slavery·sodomy·taboo·taboos·The Social Ecology of Religion·Vernon Reynolds·warfare
