An Interdisciplinary Approach to Paleo-ontological Ecology of the PNW: Part Two

 

 

 

The Very First Hominin

 

            

  

 

GIGANTOPITHECUS

 

Gigantopithecus is an extinct genus of ape from roughly 2 million to 100,000 years ago during the Early to Middle Pleistocene of southern China, although other identifications have also been made in Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, and unfortuantely, carbon-14 analysis is only effective for bones up to about 45,000 years old; there are no effective techniques for dating bones that do not retain enough carbon to be dated using this method. Additionally, not all bones collected have been dated, because analysis costs hundreds of dollars per sample, as explained in this National Park information. 

The Park info also tells us that the location around the Steppes region is mirrored across the Bering into the rough, wild lands of the Nearctic in North America in an area termed the Mammoth Steppe, a complex biome that changed over time and across the region. This resulted in a mosaic-like ecosystem that varied in response to a constantly changing climate (recall also that multi-biome map from part 1). During the Pleistocene, the climate changed much more dramatically than it has during the last 10,000 years, the period known as the Holocene, a remarkably stable climatic period compared to the preceding million years or so. The unstable climate of the Pleistocene caused rapid changes in the plant communities and thus forage for megafaunal herbivores. Abundance and distributions of these animals would have varied in response to the changes. Being large, the megafauna would have been able to move across the landscape tracking favorable patches of habitat both seasonally and over longer time scales.

Looking at cave painting locations, we can see where ice-age beings spent their time, traveling with the melting ice of the Pleistocene, starting at our most recent find of the oldest dated painting to this day in Indonesia. The cave has been trying to reclaim this work for over 49,000 years, but we don't know how long between the work and the reclaiming process began.

 The article also suggests "This was a complete ecosystem of megafauna with herbivores and the predators that consumed them. Like most ecosystems, there were many more herbivores than carnivores. The giant short-faced bears may have mostly scavenged already-dead herbivores, but brown bears, lions, and wolves undoubtedly hunted and killed their prey. Radiocarbon dates suggest the lions may have specialized in hunting horses." The preference for these fast running animals is reflected in the sheer number of horses painted in caves outweighs all other animals depicted in cave paintings. There are many "schools of the art as well, some artist critics noting that some of the artworks display perspective not seen in western art until the fifteenth century.

 This author may not be far off, as a great many animals used the Nearctic biome as their new home once the ice bridge melted. There are lots of unanswered questions as to why and how most have disappeared, but we know for a fact not all have. We know about the animals that are easier to see, claiming nothing else officially exists until one day modern science is faced with their existence, left to examine why the real struggle of scientific hubris fostered our ignorance. So what if a small cloister of intelligent animals watched humans eventually blossom and grow, saw their petty little ways, and rejected technology for a life in harmony with nature? Is it uncomfortable because they don't pay taxes? Or submit to rule of law? Don't like being harassed, photographed, angry at loss of land and food resources, maybe feeling the heat of global warming... ?

 The dodo and thylacine may have gone down as myth or heresay, without the very few extant videos and photos in poor condition. There is no scientific weight given to eyewitnesses or legend, no matter the persons swearing it. Evidence accepted thus far as proof of existence has had dramatic recent breakthroughs, including the acknowlegement of a species of giant eel from Loch Ness, by simple DNA collected in a manner science is terming E-DNA, or Environmental DNA (very exciting! but again shall not be explained here). In an article from the journal PLOS Biology it is predicted that more than 80 percent of species on Earth are still awaiting discovery; and at some point, we used to ascribe to myth the platypus, the narwhal, the gorilla, the giant squid, the Vietnamese "gill" deer, and the rhinocerous. Before 1938, the coelacanth was last seen in fossils with the dinosaurs, 65 mya, and we have seen them live now many times, and caught almost 10, with experts and special equipment. And then there is this highly respected, trustworthy, meritorious and honorable fighter ace in the RAF during WWII, going on to hold several high positions and missions, who happened to snap this authenticated photo of what appears to be a titanoboa, missing from the fossils since the Paleocene, which is some millions of years more recent than when the coelacanth was last found:

 

How are we absolutely, positively, 100% certain that there is NO CHANCE that even with millions of years of pith and sapiens overlap and mix, that one or more pith cultures could have possibly migrated from their established habitat in the Paleo-arctic of the Steppes area, swivel-hip gliding their way across land and ice bridges, following their favorite food to a similar environment called the Nearctic -- and may just have the right family sizes to thrive in the most wild and humanly uninhabitable of places, tending their flocks in ways that were ancient before we sapiens began to thrive in pockets of warm, fuzzy places. Wouldn't we have seen things, heard stories, had evidence by now?

 

deer up a tree, North America

Coming soon: Part 3, The Evidence

Coming Soon: Beyond Krishnamurti - the vocabulary of violence, the language of love

An Interdisciplinary Approach to Paleo-ontological Ecology of the PNW: Part One

 

 

 

The Pacific Northwest is a veritable garden with a rich tepestry of geologic changes, dramatic and varied landscapes, and an intersection of ancient biomes. Many cultures and animals have been a part of this history since it was part of Pangea, a uni-continent that bubbled apart across the globe over the last 2 to 300 million years. Much of what we know, or thought we knew, has largely remained unchanged outside some rare and fortunate chance discoveries, although the last few decades have been illuminating, so we are going to put a succint picture together for this small portion of the planet.

A quick search of continental drift shows us how the tectonic plates have drifted apart and together many times, slowing down about the Triassic period to about where we now sit. Even more recently, particular to our Pacific Northwest area, is the Cascade Episode, where the Juan de Fuca plate met the western edge of the North American plate, diving underneath and buckling the land, eventually forming the Cascades over the last 6 million years or so.  It was during the times of connection and isolation, creating what is known as "the Wallace line" around the world, showing out this tectonic activity by the fauna difference along particular invisible barriers, while also both migrating and evolving on the cusp of the Holocene. It was this line that pointed science to earlier mechanisms at play than simple co-location (see also biogeology for this intriguing phenomenon, which shall not be discussed here).

 

There are ample fossils to indicate the megafauna that inhabited the North American Continent, and that show we sit now on what used to be multiple plates, which is why the continental divide is so different on each side (they used to be halfway around the world from each other) and why the whole biomes are so dispirate. In particular, the PNW contains five different belts! The area boasted large beasts such as sabre-tooth and scimitar-tooth cats, dire wolves (that appear to be genetically related to jackals not wolves), mammoths and mastodons, American Lions, American Hyenas, giant sloths, and a terrifying creature called a short-nosed bear whose fossils were found near tule locations. :arge amounts of prey and huge predators were crossing the Bering, the Cascades were rising, and a new species of ungulate arrived on the fossil scene -- white tail deer. The same we have today, just 5 million years ago.

 

In his book, Deer of the World: Their Evolution, Behavior and Ecology, by Valerius Geist, the author explains that while other modern ungulates here in North America are measured in the tens of thousands of years where the fossil record goes, while there is a sample in Florida of what appears to be our White Tail deer that is 5 million years old, and they have flourished even in places of "ecological havoc" wrought by man. Geist claims these marvels of nature have used their This is a story about an opportunistic way of life, a set of skills well mastered by white-tailed deer,” wrote Geist. “It has virtually evaded evolution, and that is supreme success. After all, evolution is de facto proof of incompetence, of difficulties mastered by only a fraction of the population after all normal means of epigenetic adjustment have failed, and of extinction barely missed. The whitetail was very good at avoiding extinction.”

 

We know someone has been watching now for over 50,000 years

It somehow outran and outlived the 15 predators we know of that were larger than wolves, and left few intermediary fossils since the Paleolithic. The author suggests its numbers were somehow perfectly maintained to have survived to present day. Is it really a singular master of environmental adaptation, remaining alive and unchanged?  While our ancestors were busily adjusting to bipedalism, and changing drastically into dozens of species, which we have tracked and traced over the planet? While 38 of its coexisting fauna succombed to the rigors of the Ice Age and other smaller mini- ice ages since then? Was it, as is claimed, lucky to be "born perfect?" Pulled a blackjack on its first hand at the table? 

Or did it have help?

 

 

 

Part 2 coming soon