GRASS SEEDS

​​Celiac Disease

The regular cooking of food, along with the formation of tribes and other modern behaviors, has enabled Homo sapiens to occupy almost every ecosystem on the face of the Earth, and when nothing else could be found to eat, it seemed that grass seeds could be cooked and eaten.  Unfortunately, many people, when they started cooking and eating grass seeds, became sick and died.

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Hominins, like their ape forebears, had seldom eaten grass seeds, and even when they had eaten grass, they most likely avoided eating the seeds, which were generally protected by bristly pods.  Grass seeds contain special proteins, called glutens, that are found nowhere else on Earth,  and some people were not able to completely metabolize them.  Protein fragments that remained after incomplete metabolization made some people sick, and reduced their viability.  Since this ability to safely metabolize grass seeds was associated with certain genes and gene combinations, genes that contributed to their disability were steadily eliminated among people who regularly ate cooked grass seeds --among the genes that were gradually eliminated from these populations were the HLA-DQ2 and HLA-DQ8 haplotypes.

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But why do grass seeds contain glutens?  Glutens are complex proteins that constitute tiny cages that can sequester liquids and dissolved solids (and occasionally gasses) inside them.  As the ground warms in late spring and the earth quickly dries after a late spring rain, (as is common in the northern Mesopotamia and Anatolia) the water which is released from the tiny cages helps the seeds to sprout.

The Younger Dryas, the comet and the aftermath

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The Younger Dryas was the most recent (the youngest, in a geological sense) of three episodes of cooling that interrupted the warming trend that followed the Last Glacial Maximum.  (The Last Glacial Maximum occurred about 20,000 years ago.)  Volcanism might have played a major part in causing the Younger Dryas, but this episode had a dramatic start, about 12,975 years ago, when a comet shredded into tiny fragments in the Earth's atmosphere and pieces of it smashed into the Earth.

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The dense cloud of tiny fragments from the comet hung in the atmosphere and the stratosphere for many years, and at first virtually none of the sun's light reached ground level.  Gradually, some of the larger particles fell out, leaving a thick haze, but by that time most of the smaller plant life like grasses were dead.  Even the leaves of trees were turning yellow and falling to the ground, and many herbivores were starving to death.

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People who at that time lived by hunting the animals that lived on grasses had seen the fireworks in the sky and knew that the cataclysm had hit them from the sky, and when the air had cleared to the point where they could make out the stars at night they took careful note of the positions of the galaxies.  Two thousand years later their descendants built a series of underground temple/observatory/cloisters (mostly covered by timbers) in southern Anatolia, at the top of a small mountain.  The purpose of these underground constructions was to commemorate the event and to observe the heavens, and to try to discern what the movements of stars and planets meant, particularly with regard to the disaster that had caused grass-eating herbivores to desert the land.

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The ring of monumental constructions were clustered near the highest point on a hill or small mountain that is known to the Turks as Gobekli Tepe, or "Potbellied Hill".  As each temple or observatory was built, the previous one was filled in, and more dirt was piled on top, possibly to prevent occupation of the old site by another team of observers.  In other words, those who operated the new site considered that they still the owners of the site.  This was akin to villagers continuing to claim ownership of a village site after they had abandoned it.

Filling in and covering over the monuments created a mound where the old monument had been.  The total of the filled-in constructions formed a circular mound with a depression in its center which looked like a navel on top of the mountain, and that was the origin of the name, "Gobekli Tepe".

Near this circular mound, archaeologists found the remains of a large cistern and a water collection system for channeling rainwater into it.  hisallowed priestly astronomers to cook meals of processed grass seeds.  This enabled the astronomers to permanently reside at the site, most likely in underground chambers that surrounded the central part of the monument.  Residing underground would accustom the observers' eyes to darkness, so that they could make more accurate observations of the sky.  There is some evidence that the priest/observers may have venerated the skulls of astronomers who had died.  Seed gatherers and other servants may have lived in rectangular structurers that were external to the underground temple.

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Within one of these monuments archaeologists found a pillar, known as the "Vulture Stone", on which had been recorded the positions of the constellations as they had been observed soon after the comet had struck.  This stone tells us when, within about a hundred and fifty years, the comet had struck the Earth.

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Grass-seed consumption

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Climate change also played a part in both the scarcity of grass-eating herbivores and a switch to a sedentary, seed-gathering lifestyle in which people started to domesticate grazing animals and gather grass seeds that were processed and then cooked into mush.  The climate changes included extreme seasonality in which extremely dry seasons alternated with wet seasons, lightning strikes during dry seasons that started massive wildfires that swept through dry grass.  Heavy rains that followed in the wake of these wildfires then eroded the topsoil on hills and slopes, sweeping it into valleys where it was deposited in deep layers of topsoil.

All of this resulted in eroded hills where grasses barely grew and moist valley where grasses grew abundantly.  Human populations that crowded into these valleys, and so did grass-eating herbivores, and the juxtaposition encouraged people to round up the animals instead of killing them.  Grasses grew abundantly in these river valleys, and crowded out other plants; so order to conserve the precious herbivores, people began to supplement their diets with processed and cooked grass seeds.  Gathering of the best seeds and seasonal spillage of seeds on the ground subsequently led to the evolution of domesticated grasses, so this was the genesis of farming.

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Since the gathering of plant foods was women's work, men spent their time chipping stone vessels out of solid stone for storing, cooking and serving grass seeds.  We tend to think that the Neolithic, or "New Stone Age", was a time when people made new kinds of tools (such as composite tools) in order to make or construct new kinds of things (such as structures), but  I think the period is better characterized as one in which time hung heavy on men's hands; their primary function had been taken away from them, first by a massive die-off of the animals that they hunted and then by the domestication of animals.  Even after wild animal populations recovered, men were often more useful for guarding domesticated animals and stores of grass seeds than for hunting wild animals and bringing back the carcasses.  Moreover women, rather than men, often cared for the domesticated animals.

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Even as the Younger Dryas waned, human populations burgeoned because grass seeds were so rich in energy; shortage of energy foods had always been the limiting factor in the growth of human populations

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The chipping of storage and cooking vessels out of stone was not enough to keep men busy, nor did they like to do it, so they often spent their time trying to solve the riddle of what had befallen them.  Men with time on their hands sat in groups at night to watch the sky and report what they saw; those who were very good at this then became professional astronomers, and were paid to watch the sky every night and analyze what they saw; other men were paid by the community to build observatories, based on various designs, to help the astronomers do their work.  Their work was to discover the cause of what had happened.

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Women were no longer dependent on men.  Indeed, men were dependent on women, because men refused to do the women's work of gathering, processing and cooking grass seeds.  Moreover, men lost their main remaining usefulness when women started to make pottery.  Women ruled their households, and women in the village communities ruled the men, rather than the reverse.

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The idealized art of the earliest farming communities often feature women with one arm draped across the back of a man, as she owned him.  The men simply folded their hands in front of them; they had nothing to do.

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Self-domestication and farming

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Humans were already super-competitive among the medium-sized species of the Earth when increased consumption of grass seeds and other farm products led to even higher population densities among them.  This, in turn, led to further intensification of self-domestication.

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High population density and stable societies had prompted modern qualities of mind to emerge, especially along the southern coast of Africa and in other refugia, and the same high population densities had caused these same populations to be strongly affected by self-domestication.

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One result of self-domestication was that juvenile characteristics such as playfulness tended to be retained into adulthood, and this playfulness is an aspect of the modern mind.  Another result of self-domestication was a longer period of immaturity early in life, which prompted more extensive brain remodeling during that period.  This also helped to drive the emergence of the modern mind.  Thus, we can see that self-domestication and the modern mind were (and are) deeply entangled with each other.

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The Great Sphynx

Many modern people thought that the Great Sphynx of Egypt was a product of Egyptian Civilization, but then it was pointed out that the Sphynx shows signs of having been subject to heavy rainfall over the course of thousands of years, whereas Egypt has been very dry since before the first dynasty of Egypt was established.  This means that the immense rock carving in northern Egypt predated Egyptian civilization by thousands of years.

The Sphynx was most likely carved during the Green Sahara period. between 14,000 and 5,000 years ago, when heavy rainfall in the region created a lush savanna stretching across Africa.  (The Sahara Desert is there today.)

This Green Sahara period was interrupted by the Younger Dryas, during which grass and other vegetation grew poorly, due to darkened skies, cooler temperatures and reduced rainfall.  This resulted in a scarcity of the herbivores that ate the grass.  This scarcity of animals to hunt might have4 inspired creation of the great stone god with a human face attached to a lion's body, representing the god of the hunt.

The lion's paws might have served as a place where sacrifices were made to this great god, and entreaties could be made for the animals to return to the Sahara.  Indeed, North Africa again turned green, the animals returned, and people forgot about sacrificing to the lion god.

As warmer and wetter conditions returned to North Africa, as well as to the Middle East, nomads came into northern Egypt driving cattle and carrying grass seeds from the Middle East, and the seeds were planted in the Delta region and in the oases of southern Egypt.  The domesticated animals brought by the nomads passed across northern Africa by cultural exchange, and many of the hunter-gatherers of northern Africa started herding cattle about in the Green Sahara.

Unfortunately, the Green Sahara period came to an end, and much of the region turned back into a vast desert.  Grass and water were still available in some parts of North Africa, but the cattle herders were done in by local hunter-gatherers who slaughtered the cattle and drove some of the cattle-herders into extinction and others to retreat to the Sahel, to the south of the desert.

But who did the actual carving of the Great Sphynx?  Could a group endeavor have produced such a beautiful work of art on such a monumental scale, or did a single stone-age Michelangelo devote his life to its production?

Genocide

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The alluvial plain of Mesopotamia is much too big and deep to excavate the whole thing, so there is no practical way to determine archaeologically just how ancient Sumer really was; but grasses most likely were domesticated as early on the alluvial plain as anywhere; conditions were often perfect on this alluvial plain, near some of the earliest Sumerian sites and ideal for the growth of gasses and other crops.  Wherever there was enough rainfall, and along riverbanks, agriculturalists could have easily grown crops there without creating an irrigation system.

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The sowing, reaping, processing and cooking of grass seeds was women' work -- the work of men was hunting.  Moreover, as well-fed human populations increased, and it became necessary to travel long distances to find animals to hunt, domesticated sheep and goats (mostly cared for by women) made it unnecessary for men to do anything at all besides the tedious chore of chipping cooking and serving vessels out of stone.

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Consequently, men began to look for other things to do, such as hunting down and slaughtering the archaic Homo sapiens from the southern swamplands who had formed a habit of stealing crops and domesticated animals from the farming communities.

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The hunters, who used bow-and-arrow killing systems, far outnumbered the women and children who had been stealing the crops and animals.  After the thieves had been wiped out the hunters went after those who tried to hide in the swampland.

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Incidentally, a man living in the United States has been found to be a direct descendant, in the male line of descent, of the archaic Homo sapiens who continued to live in or near the swamplands of southern Mesopotamia after others had populated Africa.  His ancestors may have been among those who survived ​by abandoning the swampland altogether and subsequently avoided all contact with modern humans.  (They may have escaped along the shoreline.)

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Otzi the Ice Man

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Otzi was chased into the Italian Alps and shot inn the back by the very people with whom he had grown up, but why?

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After chasing him into the Alps, the people with whom he had grown up shot him in the back with an arrow, and then carefully buried him in a glacier.  What crime had he committed?

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The most likely explanation is that he had returned to the place of his birth, raped a woman, and then run.  He had probably done this same thing before; but he was growing old, and a younger man took out after him, ran him down, and killed him.  Why had he chosen to live as a hunter, rather than to sit at home and guard a woman's precious store of grass seeds?  Perhaps he was bored?

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In any case, he was probably not unique.  His withdrawal from society and his execution seem very natural even to us, and we can see that such events, repeated many times, would remove people with his inclinations from the gene pool.  The result was a new round of self domestication among early farm populations which resulted in women as well as men becoming more docile and immature.  Accompanying these behaviors were new physical characteristics that have been identifies as domestication syndrome.

Stonehenge

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The farmers who pushed into England, where Stonehenge is located, soon outnumbered the hunter-gatherer population on the island.  This was because domesticated grass seeds are such a dependable food source of energy for human populations.  (Shortage of such foods usually limits population growth.)

The very earliest phase of Stonehenge was simply a ditch around the site, probably meant to keep unauthorized people from intruding on the sacred site.  Huge stones were later selected, trimmed to size and shape and moved into place.  The huge standing stones were likely meant to represent bigger-than-life ancestors who watched over the dead and protected them, and each lintel represented a female arm which connected male and female partners.

Interestingly, the elite who paid for previously unemployed or underemployed men to labor on the project maintained a widespread web of family connections which reinforced their power and their control of a large part of the Isle of Britain, and when important members of these families died, their remains would be cremated and transported to Stonehenge for burial.  This indicates that Salisbury Plain, where Stonehenge was located, was considered to be the ancestral home of the elite.  Being buried at Stonehenge had some special meaning for them.

Hundreds of years later, when animal herders arrived from the steppes north of the Black Sea, they probably tried to invade Britain as well, but the Britons fended them off; the Britons, protected by the English Channel, could not easily be surprised by sudden invasions.

But then new invaders arrived still later.  They established trading posts, and they seemed harmless enough.  The Britons not only allowed them to stay, but they joined them by gathering in small communities around the trading posts.  Soon, the English countryside was dotted with new Beaker communities where people spoke the same language as elsewhere in England.  Again, they seemed harmless, because they were Britons (albeit Beaker people).

This opened the floodgates for a crescendo of immigration from the mainland, most of which were not Beaker people but farmers and herdsmen.  These aggressive newcomers were not harmless, and they carried weapons made of bronze; they pushed the local people off their own land and took their place.

After the arrival of these new colonists Stonehenge was no longer considered to be a safe place for the souls of the old elite to repose, and the practice of transporting ashes to Stonehenge was discontinued.  Moreover, the old elite was soon gone, and a new elite took their place.

In light of all of this, why did someone undertake to move the bluestones clear from Wales and plant them at Stonehenge, a couple of hundred years after the Beaker colonists had arrived in Britain?  I can only presume that the colonists were aware of the reverence with which the place was regarded by the indigenous people, and had adopted this reverence as their own.

Merging of peoples and technologies

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In parallel with the early phases of Stonehenge, the growing of grass and other crops was spreading across Eurasia.  Moreover, new fishing technologies were under development, particularly in Island Southeast Asia.  As people moved about, these two technologies came together so that farmers could obtain fish from the fishermen and fishermen could obtain millet and rice seeds, legumes and other agricultural products from farmers.

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Intentional spreading of grass seeds seems to have started in the Middle East and spread from there.  It might have been spread into some parts of Asia, at least, by hunter-gatherers and even sea people who had picked up some knowledge of farming.  The desire of women to start their own gardens could lead to new agricultural developments, based on new agricultural products, in new places.  Agriculture spread west to the Nile Valley and east to the vicinity of the Indus River, and eventually reached the eastern end of the Eurasian landmass.

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As people moved about and came into contact with and merged with others who used different technologies, they expanded their mastery of various technologies.  For instance, people with fishing skills met up with people from Siberia on the Japanese archipelago or in the Kurile Islands and interbred with them, creating a mixed-race people, some of whom moved to the mainland, where they came into contact with and interbred with farmers.  Some of these mixed-race people took up farming while others became fishermen.

Still others returned from the offshore islands to Siberia, interbred with people there.  These people als carried with them a variety of skills, and some of them moved across a land bridge (where the Bering Strait is today) to North America.  The descendants of these people, with ancestry from both Southeast Asia and Siberia, populated both North and South America.