You omitted the shibboleth (and mythical construct, and outrageous lie) - the right side of history. Anyone spouting that is as fraudulent a speaker as a televangelist (and no doubt shares that unshakeable belief in their own righteousness).
I would suggest that Islam picked up it's historicity from Judaism. There is a reasonable case to be made that Islam is a heretical sect of Judaism and follows the idea throughout the Qur'an of the narrative in the Old Testament with many additions and historical inaccuracy.
Judaism has a strong historical sense, but writing “secular” histories was not a notable Jewish pattern. Josephus was behaving as a literate Roman rather than as a religious figure, for instance.
In Islam, the sequences of hadith transmission are like genealogies but with an evidentiary twist. The tradition of Islamic historians looks more Graeco-Roman than Jewish. That is especially so with someone like ibn Khaldun, who infers patterns from history.
With the exception of the occasional imbecile, everybody has a sense of identity - to allow ourselves the opportunity to imagine ourselves as being something other then what we really are. The moral identity is as fickle as any other kind, ultimately.
I was a little confused by this: "That Aboriginal societies were marked by gerontocratic polygyny—young women were allocated as wives to old men, which served to pass information about a dangerous environment, and complex foraging techniques, across generations—may help explain this startling pattern of more female woundings."
Are you saying the men were more familiar with the risks and hazards in their jungle and/or desert environment because of their role in hunting, and thus educated their young wives about them? Why wouldn't that information have been conveyed by older women to the younger ones even before "marriage". I end up with an image of older men beating their wives for their "stupidity" in not learning these valuable lessons? Or as a means to "convince" the young women that they were going to "marry" an old man whether they wanted to or not? Where are the young men in this scenario? [Last thought: active warfare between tribes left the population of eligible younger men diminished so only the young men who survived to become older were more prevalent?]
The pattern seems more intergenerational. Young women married old men, their widows married young men, their widowers married young women. I am sure there was training by older men and women of younger men and women, but this marriage structure seemed structured to both suppress fertility somewhat and to ensure strong patterns of information transmission via who you spent a lot of time with.
Huummm. A suppression of fertility seems to be a cultural solution for a harsh environment - why have excess children that you can't feed? But still somewhat counter to biological evolutionary drives or expectations?
Several decades ago, during grad school, someone mentioned that in contrast to the usual image that primitive people had a shortish life span of around 35-45 years, the Australian aborigines often lived to around 70. Any truth to this viewpoint?
Oh yes. Indeed, lots of foragers make it to around 70. Average life spans are very misleading, due to high rates of infant and child mortality.
What is selected for is successful fertility. There is evIdence that foragers generated sufficient population growth to be a periodic problem for resource limits.
You omitted the shibboleth (and mythical construct, and outrageous lie) - the right side of history. Anyone spouting that is as fraudulent a speaker as a televangelist (and no doubt shares that unshakeable belief in their own righteousness).
The contingency of history should have got more of a guernsy in the post.
I would suggest that Islam picked up it's historicity from Judaism. There is a reasonable case to be made that Islam is a heretical sect of Judaism and follows the idea throughout the Qur'an of the narrative in the Old Testament with many additions and historical inaccuracy.
Judaism has a strong historical sense, but writing “secular” histories was not a notable Jewish pattern. Josephus was behaving as a literate Roman rather than as a religious figure, for instance.
In Islam, the sequences of hadith transmission are like genealogies but with an evidentiary twist. The tradition of Islamic historians looks more Graeco-Roman than Jewish. That is especially so with someone like ibn Khaldun, who infers patterns from history.
With the exception of the occasional imbecile, everybody has a sense of identity - to allow ourselves the opportunity to imagine ourselves as being something other then what we really are. The moral identity is as fickle as any other kind, ultimately.
Lovely essay. It reminds me of Popper's The Poverty of Historicism, a book worth rereading from time to time.
This is very good.
I was a little confused by this: "That Aboriginal societies were marked by gerontocratic polygyny—young women were allocated as wives to old men, which served to pass information about a dangerous environment, and complex foraging techniques, across generations—may help explain this startling pattern of more female woundings."
Are you saying the men were more familiar with the risks and hazards in their jungle and/or desert environment because of their role in hunting, and thus educated their young wives about them? Why wouldn't that information have been conveyed by older women to the younger ones even before "marriage". I end up with an image of older men beating their wives for their "stupidity" in not learning these valuable lessons? Or as a means to "convince" the young women that they were going to "marry" an old man whether they wanted to or not? Where are the young men in this scenario? [Last thought: active warfare between tribes left the population of eligible younger men diminished so only the young men who survived to become older were more prevalent?]
What am I missing? :-)
The pattern seems more intergenerational. Young women married old men, their widows married young men, their widowers married young women. I am sure there was training by older men and women of younger men and women, but this marriage structure seemed structured to both suppress fertility somewhat and to ensure strong patterns of information transmission via who you spent a lot of time with.
Huummm. A suppression of fertility seems to be a cultural solution for a harsh environment - why have excess children that you can't feed? But still somewhat counter to biological evolutionary drives or expectations?
Several decades ago, during grad school, someone mentioned that in contrast to the usual image that primitive people had a shortish life span of around 35-45 years, the Australian aborigines often lived to around 70. Any truth to this viewpoint?
Oh yes. Indeed, lots of foragers make it to around 70. Average life spans are very misleading, due to high rates of infant and child mortality.
What is selected for is successful fertility. There is evIdence that foragers generated sufficient population growth to be a periodic problem for resource limits.