Chapter 1 Paleolithic Era

5/10/17 So many things to think about when reading chapter 1. The first amazing thing to me is to try and fathom the length of time we spent in this evolutionary stage. I have never though about how long we lived in the "Stone Age". I was also surprised to realize that what I remember from previous history classes many years ago, part of that being that I remember being taught that Paleo Man lived mostly on meat and that the gathering portion was far less than what we are now learning. What triggered someone to say hey, I can force the quantities of grains I am eating to grow so that I don't have to struggle to find them. How on earth did someone come up with the idea of "farming". Or how did they become pastoralists, what triggered them to say; hey I can take these animals and make them breed for me so that I don't have to chase them down and hunt them in order to have a meat source. What sort of leaps did we make to figure out the making of cheese, was it possible that an accident led to people thinking ok I can do this. It is no different than the technological innovations we see today, but, recognizing that this is what makes "humans" the superior species, allowing us to out compete other species, and possibly lead to our own doom eventually. I was additionally very surprised to read that there have been at least 5 major extinction events. I had no idea beyond the event 65m years ago that destroyed the dinosaurs that the earth has gone through multiple events that have wiped out various species of both plant and animal life, allowing different species to be more successful and come to the forefront. It really makes you realize that to some degree our success has truly been a combination of luck and individuals who could make rapid adaptive changes to adjust to new environments. Although I did not spend a lot of time reading the insert stories I did spend some time on reading the different dream time stories from the Aborigines of Australia and found the similarities to the Genesis and flood stories to be a little un-nerving. I had known about the Gilgamesh epic and the fact that the Noah story is similar and that it is possible that it is another telling of the same story. Then to read the stories and especially that of Yhi makes one wonder if the oral traditions that were in place during the Paleolithic time carry around the world.