What Happened To Clovis Culture
Introduction Humanity has experienced major cycles of change in response to environmental turmoil during of the many millennia since the first humans first stepped out of Africa and spread globally. The archeology remains sketchy, and this astrologer is not an authority in his offering the below version of history. Yet, there is certainly solid data for North America, and that major shift bringing the dawn of civilization is instructive during this time of turmoil.
Ancient Spear Point Archeologists have only recently begun to understand roots of modern man in North America. Although evidence of man in the Americas stretches back to possibly 30,000 years, Clovis Culture, with its large distinctively-shaped fluted stone spear point for killing mega fauna, is a marking point. It ended abruptly 12,000 years ago. Clovis Culture disappeared because the climate chilled rapidly, although there is no consensus yet as to exactly why this happened. An asteroid or comet is the likely explanation, for there was some kind of event shocking the climate -- first stimulating an abrupt hemispheric temperature drop to glacial conditions, followed by the hemispheric cooling lasting millennia. This theory also explains why the the mega fauna died off. The mammoths, short-faced bears, giant elk, saber toothed tigers... vanished because their linked traits of slow population growth and great longevity made them vulnerable to abrupt climate change. They couldn't adapt quickly enough to survive. The popular theory that scattered tribes of primitive man hunted them all to extinction over the vastness of North America falls on a lack proof and fails the test of common sense. Using that rationale, mega fauna survivors like the elephant, hippopotamus, moose, Kodiak bears.... would also be long gone.
A Lighter Faster Point When Clovis Man disappeared, some likely died, but survivors escaped, moving to Central America, or to pockets of safety in Florida. And when the climate and land became hospitable again thousands of years later, they moved back to repopulate all of North America. There's a 3,000 year gap in the archeological record. No solid archeological definitive evidence has been found until the 9000 year old Folson Complex (points) -- 6,000 BCE. This new lighter and faster point was designed for the smaller game we know today. With this better hunting point for the environment, used in spears and arrows, mankind invented agriculture, with its attendant domestication of animals Thus began the march of civilization in North America. The dawn of time was rising.
Turmoil Brought Change With just a little imagination, you can envision how the ancient Clovis Culture tribes moaned and groaned about the cold and consequent depravations -- being forced to shift their camps, no longer having the mega fauna's great bounties of meat, needing warmer clothes and tighter shelters, experiencing cold-induced illnesses... It must have been rough beyond their historical knowledge and experience. After all, the entire continent was becoming uninhabitable, in perhaps only a decade. There is evidence Europe and Asia similarly suffered, and even the southern (warmer) continents of Africa, Australia and South America must have undergone disruptive climate changes, like drought, dust storms....
Change Is Forced Upon Life The Clovis Culture tribes were forced to change by a sudden chilling of the earth -- a Big Blizzard of its age. Most recently, the Celestial Wheel has labeled this winter's economic travails as The Big Blizzard Of 2009. So, as suggested in the February 11, 2009 Commentary, Changing The Way We Live,
This is not a prediction for a repeat of the Clovis Culture's destruction, but rather a provocative analogy. Expanding upon this concept, the manifold forces of climate change, pollution, oil shortages, nuclear and biological weapons, terrorism, over-population, resource depletion and war are analogous to the harms of the post Clovis Culture glacial climate. We need to replace our old, outdated heavy economy with one that is lighter and faster. Too, didn't we just have an alert, a benign but obvious-if-you're-paying-attention wake-up call? In mid February, satellites and submarines collided and at least 6 major meteorites blazed across the sky (See the February 16, 2009 Celestial Wheel Commentary.) Again, in calculating the odds of unusual but connected events. the numbers are multiplied. So a billion times a billion times a billion: 1,000,000,000 X 1,000,000,000 X 1,000,000,000 = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 If there are any mathematicians subscribers, do you know what that number would be called, or if it even has a name? This must be greater than all the grains of sand in the oceans, or even number of stars in the universe! This is a long narrative with a short point -- we have to respond to turmoil by changing -- to both survive and prosper, and prosper is used here to describe not just material wealth but the overall quality of life. It doesn't matter if rich and paranoid* Republicans have $10,000,000 (Ten million) if food is so short that a loaf of bread costs $1,000,000 -- again all the zeroes are mind boggling. (*The U.S. chart holds amazing wealth, but also a mystical paranoia. See the August 7, 2008 Commentary, U.S. Psychology.)
Nor Does Going Backward Work So, it's vital to understand that the change which is being forced upon us cannot be ignored. That is being stuck in the past to stop the future, as described in the February 14, 2000 Commentary. It's the old arrowhead that doesn't work any longer.. Going backward doesn't work -- like some fearful Republican survivalists and even more sensitive idealistic New Agers. Regressive is the opposite of progressive. The idea these seemingly polar opposite groups have that they can become farmers and society will abandon money for barter is simply ignorant. It only reflects their lack of personal empowerment -- and again, mystical paranoia. Do these folks, not to mention the rest of us, have the skills to be farmers? Where will the farmland come from for 100,000,000 (all those crazy zeroes again) family farms? And even if we do try to farm, don't farmers need technology too? After all, nobody can make everything by hand needed to run a farm. As to barter, how do you buy a postage stamp -- trade for a button? How to you buy medications at the drugstore -- negotiate with the druggist to trade-out for a massage, or maybe some canned corn? Don't you need technology to can the corn? Too, going back to a wood burning culture causes all kinds of problems, and we can see many of those in places like India -- air pollution, forest depletion, adding greenhouse gases. Instead, we must go forward to survive, just as our Clovis Culture ancestors did. Certainly the God Of Materialism must die, for ithat belief system has been the underlying cause of the challenges we face today. The current economic crisis, plus the above-listed multiple dangers -- climate change, pollution.... all come from worshiping the God Of Materialism. One can make the argument that climate change is also a natural phenomena, likely caused by changes in the Sun, but while is likely true, it's not the whole truth. We will be forced to also deal with a hotter Sun, and our technological wizardry can act by using far-fetched ideas like putting up huge solar panels in space to both reduce the Sun's rays and generate electricity. Hey, why not think outside the box? After all, change is defined as out-of-the-box thinking, not old thinking. If those Clovis spear points were still useful, we would lacing them to sticks of wood to make spears, not letting them get dusty in museums.
The Auto Industry Here's a pretty dramatic example of failure resulting from staying within the (comfortable) box -- the auto industry, both home and abroad. As fossil fueled cars must be replaced, and manufacturers are shifting to electric vehicles. The problem, of course, is the batteries only hold enough juice for a 40 mile range and are very expensive. Still, billions and billions (1,000,000,000 more zeroes!) are being spent going down that road, which remains dead-ended. The auto manufacturers know this, but they are stuck in the old box of a heavy big car carrying its own fuel. Better Place stepped outside this thinking to make the batteries exchangeable at fueling stations. Here's more information Electric Cars and a Smarter Grid. Well, that's pretty cool in solving the mileage issue, but it's also complex and unwieldy. Yet, it is a much better arrowhead. The Aptera builds a whole new box by understanding it's the heavy car itself that is the problem. This electric vehicle solves the entire battery power issue with with elegant simplicity. It gets the equivalent of 100 m.p.g. by making the car lighter and also more streamlined.
Ah, but are you willing to step outside your boxed-in beliefs that small cars are unsafe and that your car must have all the luxuries of a Ritz Calrton Hotel? Isn't it true, if all cars were small, they would be equally safe? Isn't it also true that being as comfortable in your car as in your living room is unnecessary, even inappropriate, and certainly really just fashion? Isn't it true that you truly have to change?
Restoring Shared Economic Values The Celestial Wheel has been alerting to the need for change for several years -- really since its inception in 2002, with concerns about G.W. Bush and his neoconservative buddies destructiveness. Even more fundamental was the analysis of the U.S. chart that revealed this last ten years has been the Second Gilded Age, mirroring the First Gilded Age of the 1880s. Following that nineteenth century period of gluttony, corruption and a purity crusade, came the Financial Panic Of 1893 that kicked off a four year depression, bringing so much suffering that the public rose up to initiate the First Progressive Age -- restoring shared democratic values. Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, was the leader of change then, and he was most certainly a different kind of Republican than that debased party of today. Today, the U.S. has a new leader of change in Obama -- so maybe comparing him to Abraham Lincoln is inaccurate. Too, isn't it really lucky that at the beginning of a depression we have progressive president? In the nineteenth century, the country first suffered the 1890s depression before the public elected Teddy Roosevelt in 1901. (For reference here, see the 2003 The Bush Presidency - Profile & Prediction the 2004 The U.S. Through Its Planetary Cycles Part 1 Part 2 and 2007 Through The Second Gilded Age.
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