Sex BC (C4? MORE4? 31 MAR 2008)
FCS
then and wonder just why it was there were
three people buried together like that, but nor
was I convinced by the explanations given.
Obviously, language is a given for something
so recent as 26000 years ago.
But it was also nice to have that nagging bit
of information from the end of the Time Team
credits finally resolved in terms of "now where
is it I've seen that name before?".
And having only just managed to chop the
requisite onions and some out-of-season
mushrooms to turn the egg on my face from
not knowing every incarnation of The Stig into
a nice omelette, I'm waiting to be slammed
down by a chorus of arrows slung from ivory
towers when people point out that the Tim
Taylor who produces the C4 3-day eventing
show is NOT actually the Dr Timothy Taylor
who came on as a talking head towards the
end of "Sex BC" and hasn't been played by
a brewery rep, as such, for at least five seasons
now since they rebuilt the wharf at Leeds,
which is an entirely different university altogether.
G DAEB
COPYRIGHT (C) 2008 SIPSTON
--
It's Brains you need!
FCS
> I've seen this one before and it made me think
> then and wonder just why it was there were
> three people buried together like that, but nor
> was I convinced by the explanations given.
There have indeed been developments in DNA
extraction, on top of the computer re-modelling
of features that has formed a staple of such
archaeological shows as "Meet the Ancestors"
but various hypotheses were not considered.
Perhaps she was infertile. Perhaps the men
were brothers, or the man and woman brother
and sister meaning the face-down position of the
second skeleton denotes features which had
been lost--perhaps a simplistic view of genetics
but no more or less than some which get rolled
out in discussion and debate from today's Higher
Education sector.
Perhaps also I am being unfair in assuming that
a programme meant to provoke thought should
do the all the thinking--after all, contemporary
values in broadcasting would imply it was a show
for grown-ups rather than one inclusive of children.
I just didn't see sufficient evidence they had given
thought to all possible meanings of the burials
and were instead coming in at it with suppositions.
The spear through the groin of the man would not
necessarily have caused fatality, and the position
of the knife blade would not necessarily imply rape
or infidelity, as such they could be biosemiological,
telling the stories of these individuals lives, rather
legicosemiological documentation of the causes
of their deaths and the judgments made upon them,
particularly if they were buried by their parents rather
than a tribe.
There is still too much which seems not to have
been considered, albeit I benefitted from a repeat
showing to realise this as I had forgotten the show
had been broadcast in the first place.
If the man on the left as we look down had been
injured and rendered impotent, and the man on the
right was the brother of the woman, the burial looks
to tell a different story.
And, although language is a given, writing is not.