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51 votes
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There’s a vanishing resource we’re not talking about - humans are losing our cultural diversity even faster than we’re destroying the planet
27 votes -
Many prehistoric handprints show a finger missing. Canadian scientists say evidence shows digits may have been ritually removed to appease deities or aid social cohesion.
26 votes -
When did humans start settling down? In Israel, new discoveries at one of the world’s oldest villages are upending the debate about when we stopped wandering
21 votes -
Ancient Sahul's submerged landscapes reveal a mosaic of human habitation
17 votes -
David Graeber has died
16 votes -
How modern life is transforming the human skeleton
16 votes -
What does the word 'civilized' mean to you? Can it be used to compare and contrast societies and cultures?
Do you believe that some cultures/societies are more 'civilized' than others? What is your definition of 'civilized' / what does it mean to be 'civilized'? ~ If you've studied history and/or...
Do you believe that some cultures/societies are more 'civilized' than others? What is your definition of 'civilized' / what does it mean to be 'civilized'?
~
If you've studied history and/or anthropology then surely you've heard many uses of the term "savages" to describe groups of people that were considered to be less 'civilized' than whomever was writing that piece.
I was also just reading a book that described in detail some of the really horrible war crimes committed by both sides in the Sri Lankan civil war including but not limited to: raging mobs burning people alive, murder and rape of civilians, use of child soldiers, suicide bombers, etc. Please note that in no way am I considering the people of Sri Lanka as 'uncivilized', just using an example of what seems to be 'uncivilized' behavior.An initial thought that I had was "huh, I'm glad I don't currently live somewhere where I could be burned alive based on my ethnicity/religion/beliefs by a rage fueled mob of people", but then the history of the western world came to mind - some of those exact same thing happened less than 100 years ago to many non-white groups of people in America, including some things even worse (read: human slavery). From here came a flood of other thoughts poking holes in whatever my initial definition of 'civilized' was. Plenty of things in present-day United States could be considered uncivilized. Yet one could make an argument that a more 'civilized' civilization might be one that allows many personal freedoms.
So, I want to ask all of you what you think of the concept of being 'civilized'. Is it a colonialistic-type term used to promote a higher sense of placement in the world that should be abolished. Does it have any merit in its use? If so, what do you think makes a civilized group of people and does one exist?
16 votes -
Four days trapped at sea with crypto’s nouveau riche
16 votes -
Ancient girl's parents were two different human species
16 votes -
Two waves of mass death hit prehistoric Denmark, with farmers wiping out hunter-gatherers and pastoralists later wiping out the farmers, genetic study reveals
15 votes -
New species of ancient human discovered in Philippines cave
15 votes -
Big gods came after the rise of civilisations, not before, finds study using huge historical database
15 votes -
Why humans have evolved to drink milk
15 votes -
Hey, that's our stuff: Masaai tribespeople tackle Oxford's Pitt Rivers museum
14 votes -
Why don’t westerners eat off one plate?
14 votes -
Why Runa Indigenous people find 'natural parenting' troubling
13 votes -
Is today a special day in your culture? Can you tell us about it?
The internet is a very diverse place but sometimes with the "default" north american skew, it may not seem like it. If your culture or people or faith group or spiritual practice is celebrating...
The internet is a very diverse place but sometimes with the "default" north american skew, it may not seem like it.
If your culture or people or faith group or spiritual practice is celebrating something today or soon, would you care to share?
Many of us used to have smaller groups on another site to celebrate things together or hold rememberances, and perhaps tildes being a together kind of community can celebrate and learn together instead of segregating into silos.
Some suggestions:
- today's date please
- what cultures and groups celebrate or commemorate this day or period?
- what is the celebration's origins and purpose?
- how does one celebrate?
- how has it changed over the years or stayed the same?
- is it reoccurring and on what calendar system?
Looking forward to learning more from other traditions and groups!
13 votes -
Human history gets a rewrite
13 votes -
Dogs have been our best friends for at least 23,000 years
13 votes -
Who invented the wheel? And how did they do it?
13 votes -
"Humans were not centre stage": How ancient cave art puts us in our place
13 votes -
Memetics—A growth industry in US Military operations
13 votes -
Swedish researcher Svante Pääbo has won this year's Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his research into how human beings evolved
12 votes -
Coffee: The muslim drink
12 votes -
Mysteries of Neolithic Europe
11 votes -
The Skeleton Lake - Genetic analysis of human remains found in the Himalayas has raised baffling questions about who these people were and why they were there
11 votes -
The most popular songs today are sadder than they were fifty years ago: can cultural evolution explain this negative turn?
11 votes -
When adventurers crave “untouched” places and “authentic” peoples, it’s the locals who ultimately pay
11 votes -
The unraveling of America
10 votes -
Ancient bow-and-arrow technology dating back some 48,000 years has been discovered in a Sri Lankan cave, making it the oldest evidence of archery to be found in this part of the world
10 votes -
Why we buy weird things in times of crisis
10 votes -
Why do humans kiss each other when most animals don't?
10 votes -
Psychohistory
9 votes -
The Anthropocene Explosion - Essay by Koert van Mensvoort (2014)
9 votes -
Ancient Beat - A weekly newsletter about developments in the study of the ancient world
9 votes -
Searching for Maura
9 votes -
Mutiny on the sex raft: How a 70s science project descended into violent chaos
9 votes -
'Ghost' DNA from unknown ancestors found in West Africans
9 votes -
The hidden resilience of “food desert” neighborhoods
9 votes -
When we first made tools
9 votes -
North Sentinel Island: Uncontacted tribes’ ‘right to be left alone’ doesn’t gel with broader human rights
9 votes -
A discovery among the mummies reveals a sick, sad truth. Parasitic worms plagued these ancient Egyptian Pharaohs.
8 votes -
Modern Viking music: Tragedy of a misunderstood art
8 votes -
Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn't drink milk
8 votes -
Promethean beasts - Far from being hardwired to flee fire, some animals use it to their own ends, helping us understand our own pyrocognition
8 votes -
Africa’s biggest collection of ancient human footprints has been found
8 votes -
A chance encounter in an Ethiopian goat pen has yielded a one-of-a-kind fossil: the nearly complete skull of a human ancestor that died some 3.8 million years ago
8 votes -
Remembering the forgotten Chinese railroad workers
8 votes -
Did our species evolve in subdivided populations across Africa, and why does it matter?
8 votes