At 07:10 PM 02/24/2000 -0500, you wrote:

>I keep hearing this but I have yet to see a good explanation for the fact
>that our primitive HG ancestors had nothing to show for all this
>hypothesized free time. Depending on when you start the clock, our primitive
>Cro-Magnon ancestors and their ancestors had something like 2,000,000 years
>to do something significant with all that free time. Two million years is a
>very long time and they have almost nothing to show for it.

        Your right that they have nothing to show for it: Us!

> Their neolithic progeny accomplished more in 10 thousand years than they
>did in the 2 million prior!

        Learning is exponential not linear. We had to go through the first 2
million as we did to get where we are.

>Why did they never find time to invent written language?

        Because unspoken communication doesn't require anything more than
emotion/body language?

> Why did they never find time to invent complex musical intruments and
write complex symphonies?

        Because the music in the sounds of nature are more beautiful and they also
reqiure at least a substantial amount of scrap paper?

>Why did they never find time to learn to build complex homes?

        Because they had to follow the food?

> Why did never they find time to learn to paint beautiful masterpieces on
>canvas?

        Because nature provided them with more beauty than any man made creation
ever could?

> In short, why were primitive people so stuck on remaining PRIMITIVE?

        Haven't you ever went primitive camping? Primitive rules! I'm in Heaven.
No brushing my teeth. No shaving. No showering. No washing clothes. Hell, I
don't even have to wipe if I don't want to! That's living the high life!

>Could it be that they were actually quite capable but that before the advent
>of agriculture and animal husbandry people were just too blasted preoccupied
>with the procurement of basic necessities to focus much attention on
>exploring the higher levels of Maslow's hierarchy?

        Could be but how hard could it have been, say to live in North America
where the Buffalo population was probably close to 100 million, to hunt?

>I promise I will scream if anyone here suggests or implies that primitive
>people preferred to remain primitive because of some silly new-age
>philosophy that caused them to believe it would better to live forever in
>caves while subsisting on leaves and bugs and raw squirrel meat.

        I suppose it would really suck to have belonged to the tribe that could
only procure leaves, bugs, and squirrels. You know that squirrels are
probably harder to bring down than an elk, unless you have a car with which
to run them down.

>-gts

        Is it that serious?

Dave