Hopefully it's acceptable the Garden of Eden is a metaphor because that's the foundation for this bit. If that's unacceptable, you probably won't like it much although it's hardly heresy.
The general thinking has been Man arose about one hundred and twenty thousand years ago in Africa and then radiated out from there to populate the world. That works for the existing perception of the Garden of Eden as well. Based on what we know of how people moved about the Earth, the Garden of Eden is logically required to be in Africa.
But ... there's a wee problem because there were Cro-Magnons (i.e. modern Man) in China tens of thousands of years before previously thought. This challenges the general thinking with the idea maybe modern Man arose in multiple places at once. Keep in mind Homo erectus, our next-closest ancestor, was not confined to Africa and he wandered as well. That gives credence to the idea modern Man could have developed in multiple places at once but the simple solution is more easily defensible.
The basis for the current thinking regarding the origin of modern Man in China is a set of teeth found in cave and which have lost so much of the radioactive isotype of carbon that they cannot be dated reliably that way. Therefore, everything around the teeth in the cave was dated and this is what placed the teeth at 80,000 to 100,000 years ago. This is what gives the idea of a second Garden of Eden because, based on the existing thinking regarding modern Man's migration patterns, those teeth got there tens of thousands of years too early.
Disclaimer: as always, there is no interest in discrediting the idea of the Garden of Eden any more than it was with Stanley Kubrick when he gave the scientific image of the 'Garden of Eden' with his scene featuring the hairy proto-humans at the start of the movie.
Just as with the Biblical telling of the Garden of Eden, Kubrick's version in "2001" only works if you take it as metaphor. Kubrick uses apes which are not much more than overgrown chimpanzees to represent modern Man. That's not accurate because the first of modern Men were little different from we.
The earliest modern Men would not have been any more covered head-to-foot like shaggy beasts because we aren't today. The teeth of the earliest modern Men are nearly identical to ours today. They were probably in better shape too because they didn't eat at McDonald's and did not drink soda pop.
Kubrick's version is accurate if he meant to tell it about proto-chimpanzees because we know modern chimps are carnivores and they are well-organized when they hunt. The kind of revelation seen when Kubrick's proto-chimp realized a bone can be used as a weapon is easily believable about chimps. They're much more dangerous than people realize.
Kubrick had a secondary point in showing the revelation from tool use resulted in, first, the weapon being used for hunting and, second, for war and, thus, there's the demonstration of the naturally war-like man.
However, it doesn't necessarily follow as a lion is gifted with much more powerful natural talents for killing than we but it only uses them to serve its needs, to feed itself or to defend his family if it's necessary.
Perhaps if you are gifted naturally with such weapons then you are are gifted with the wisdom to use them properly. Mankind obviously does not have that wisdom so perhaps it's your explanation that we did not have powerful weapons gifted to us but rather we acquired them and, thus, have no idea how to use them wisely.
But some of us do. It's from watching lions.
The general thinking has been Man arose about one hundred and twenty thousand years ago in Africa and then radiated out from there to populate the world. That works for the existing perception of the Garden of Eden as well. Based on what we know of how people moved about the Earth, the Garden of Eden is logically required to be in Africa.
But ... there's a wee problem because there were Cro-Magnons (i.e. modern Man) in China tens of thousands of years before previously thought. This challenges the general thinking with the idea maybe modern Man arose in multiple places at once. Keep in mind Homo erectus, our next-closest ancestor, was not confined to Africa and he wandered as well. That gives credence to the idea modern Man could have developed in multiple places at once but the simple solution is more easily defensible.
The basis for the current thinking regarding the origin of modern Man in China is a set of teeth found in cave and which have lost so much of the radioactive isotype of carbon that they cannot be dated reliably that way. Therefore, everything around the teeth in the cave was dated and this is what placed the teeth at 80,000 to 100,000 years ago. This is what gives the idea of a second Garden of Eden because, based on the existing thinking regarding modern Man's migration patterns, those teeth got there tens of thousands of years too early.
Disclaimer: as always, there is no interest in discrediting the idea of the Garden of Eden any more than it was with Stanley Kubrick when he gave the scientific image of the 'Garden of Eden' with his scene featuring the hairy proto-humans at the start of the movie.
Just as with the Biblical telling of the Garden of Eden, Kubrick's version in "2001" only works if you take it as metaphor. Kubrick uses apes which are not much more than overgrown chimpanzees to represent modern Man. That's not accurate because the first of modern Men were little different from we.
The earliest modern Men would not have been any more covered head-to-foot like shaggy beasts because we aren't today. The teeth of the earliest modern Men are nearly identical to ours today. They were probably in better shape too because they didn't eat at McDonald's and did not drink soda pop.
Kubrick's version is accurate if he meant to tell it about proto-chimpanzees because we know modern chimps are carnivores and they are well-organized when they hunt. The kind of revelation seen when Kubrick's proto-chimp realized a bone can be used as a weapon is easily believable about chimps. They're much more dangerous than people realize.
Kubrick had a secondary point in showing the revelation from tool use resulted in, first, the weapon being used for hunting and, second, for war and, thus, there's the demonstration of the naturally war-like man.
However, it doesn't necessarily follow as a lion is gifted with much more powerful natural talents for killing than we but it only uses them to serve its needs, to feed itself or to defend his family if it's necessary.
Perhaps if you are gifted naturally with such weapons then you are are gifted with the wisdom to use them properly. Mankind obviously does not have that wisdom so perhaps it's your explanation that we did not have powerful weapons gifted to us but rather we acquired them and, thus, have no idea how to use them wisely.
But some of us do. It's from watching lions.
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