Happy New Years

[Galfon]

making it a Happy New Lurk.

[rowan]

Update:

We are now a week into June, a week from the end of Ramadan, two weeks from the start of summer, and a little over three weeks from the halfway stage of the year. Temperatures have already climbed into the thirties and the humidity has kicked in for good measure.

I remain on course in my attempt to become the first human ever to reach the 10,000 post mark on this forum, requiring a further 270, and should achieve this historic milestone some time around the middle of July.

Publishing rights to the story of my journey are currently under negotiation

[Galfon]

Publishing rights to the story of my journey are currently under negotiation

I'm sure this will be as lop-sided as a whale following orchiectomy ..

[rowan]

Meanwhile, I've turned down Hollywood's offer for the movie rights. Throw as many millions at me as they like, I have better moral standards than to work with that sordid industry. Besides, they'd probably come up with an entirely fictional account that has nothing to do with reality - like the Flight 93 TV movie

A large bronze statue at some prominent location would be far more fitting

[morepork]

FFS

[rowan]

I'll be wearing this for the occasion

[Galfon]

There's plenty of room on the D-list..
( in this case, -lusional )

[rowan]

[BBD]

are you available for children's parties?

[rowan]

4 day holiday to mark the end of Ramadan began today. I used to head for the Greek Islands during these short holidays but did that to death and now prefer to just hang out in the 'Bul and save my money. Retirement is but a couple of decades away. Besides, I'm renewing my residence permit at the moment and you cannot leave the country during this process. & if I went to one of the Turkish resorts down south, it would be chok kalabalik - meaning extremely crowded. There's an urban myth that's where the expression chockablock came from, being picked up in the Battle of Gallipoli, but in reality the English term seems to have its origin in the shipping industry.

So I spent much of the day looking at videos on anthropology and ancient migrations. Interesting to note that of all major ethnic groups Australian Aborigines have the least in common with Sub-Saharan Africans. That is because they are considered to have been part of the first major wave of homo sapiens to leave the African continent. They are closely related to the Dravidian-speaking peoples of southern India, the Andaman Islanders, aboriginal South East Asians (of which there are very few remaining on the mainland), and of course Melanesians. Australian Aborigines are also the second most ethnically diverse of the macro-ethnic groups, behind Sub-Saharan Africans. Incidentally, the Khoisan-speaking San peoples (also known as Bushmen) of southern Africa are not related to African Negroes.

Europeans are Sub-Saharan Africans' closest relatives and did not arrive in that part of the world until long after the ancestors of the Aborigines had already arrived in Australia. East Asians (formerly known as Mongoloid) are also quite closely related to Europeans, and did not arrive in South East Asia until long after they had already crossed the Bering Strait (land bridge) into the Americas. Their arrival in South East Asia all but wiped out the Aboriginal communities, while also forming a hybrid race which produced the Polynesians and native Madagascans, among other groups. Meanwhile Inuit Native Americans (formerly known as Eskimoes)would also find their way across to Greenland, encountering Viking settlements centuries before Columbus' voyage to the Americas, interestingly enough - both in Greenland and easternmost Canada.

[rowan]

Interesting to note, also, that the Celtic peoples were spread right across Europe from Spain to Turkey prior to the rise of the Roman Empire, while central Africa was mostly inhabited by Pygmies prior to the great Bantu migrations south and eastward from the Niger delta beginning about 3000 years ago. Another migration that occurred around that time was out of the Caucasus region into southern Asian, creating the Indo-European language family which now includes approximately half the world's population.

[Galfon]

Don't forget the earlier pre-sapiens migrations of erectus and heidelbergensis resulting in archaic Neanderthal and Denisovan peeps ( and possibly 1 other) who were around Eurasia in colder times, for nearly half a million years...not that dumb eh ?.
Modern humans in Europe and Asia have significant dna contribution from these archaic types from interbreeding.

[rowan]

Yes, Europeans are considered to be about 2.5% Neanderthal on average. We had a hell of a job subduing them apparently, but eventually gained the upper hand through our superior weaponry - designed for big game hunting. Meanwhile, Austronesian-speakers and East Asians/Amerindians are believed to carry up to about 5% Denisovan DNA on average. That's according to the popular history book Sapiens by Noah Yuval Harari - which everybody seems to be reading these days. The video series I watched yesterday only made brief mention of that.

Meanwhile, I seem to recall writing on here about all this before, and have probably done so more than once. It's just such a fascinating subject, and now so much information has become available through genetic testing - and easily accessible through the internet. I did all the hard work in my youth, which involved countless trips to the library and many, many hours reading. Perhaps I got a better foundation in the topic that way, and most of the anthropological findings I read about have been backed up by DNA testing. But there are still many things left unexplained, of course.

[rowan]

Interesting episode about the Phoenicians, too, who disappeared but left behind a written alphabet which would be adopted by Greeks and Arabs and even as far afield as India, forming the basis of most modern alphabets in the world this side of the Far East. They also left behind a number of colonies, including Carthage, which invaded parts of Europe, notably under Hannibal, and almost took Rome before being annihilated entirely in the last of the Punic wars.

[morepork]

Don't you have a journal or something other than these boards onto which you can regurgitate these random musings?

[rowan]

Don't forget the earlier pre-sapiens migrations of erectus and heidelbergensis resulting in archaic Neanderthal and Denisovan peeps ( and possibly 1 other) who were around Eurasia in colder times, for nearly half a million years...not that dumb eh ?.
Modern humans in Europe and Asia have significant dna contribution from these archaic types from interbreeding.

During the earlier migrations sea levels were still over a hundred meters below their current levels, making a land bridge of the Bering Strait and a sub-continent of South East Asia. New Guinea was still attached to Australia as well. Much of Austronesian culture developed in what are now completely submerged areas between the islands of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Austronesian peoples were also to be found as far north as Taiwan, and East Asian migration to the island did not in fact begin in earnest until after the Europeans had encountered it.

[Coco]

A large bronze statue at some prominent location would be far more fitting

grand_coney.jpg

Agreed.

[Galfon]

Happy solstice...it's downhill/uphill from hereon in.

[rowan]

Summer begins Seems like we're already about six weeks into it over here, but that's Turkey!

[rowan]

One small step for me, one giant leap forward for forum users everywhere. This is my 10,000th post on the forum

I've arrived at this milestone a few weeks ahead of schedule, in fact, having picked up a tail wind with the FIFA World Cup - a useful distraction from political goings on with the news channels full of angrily shouting men lately (all culminating in the inevitable victory of our glorious leader once again).

No awards, no titles, no photo on the cover of Time Magazine, please. A simple bronze statue at a prominent location will suffice

[rowan]

& just like that, July is upon us!

Who would've thought: 2018 halfway over already

[Galfon]

Meanwhile UK is heading for the hottest summer on record..the lawns and fields already look like '76 and we're getting a hoospipe ban in a few weeks.All we need is a new Drought Minister to normalise things.
Brown is the new Green

[rowan]

It reached 20 degrees?

[Galfon]

Add 5 to give the May Bank hol temp in Hants...(May was hottest on record.)
Add another 12 or so for the peak in Porthmadog, N.Wales in late June..(.hit some fantastic beaches near there just before azzitappens.)
Temperate in global terms, but positively roastamundo for Albionites.

[Galfon]

All the 3's..
Monday hottest day of 2018 so far, with 33.3 deg. in Santon Downham, Suffolk.