The million year prehistory of Cricket — the fast bowlers got fed

The researchers don’t say it, but this is obviously the beginnings of cricket. (David says “baseball”).

Archaeologists found lots of round rocks like this that are around 70,000 – 1.8 million years old in a cave in South Africa. They thought they might be tools, but now reckon that they were used as a weapon for hunting. With models (yeah, yeah) these are apparently the ideal size and weight to score maximum high speed damage at 20-30m distance given the mechanics of a human arm. So before spears, people probably throw rocks overhand to hunt. We are the only animals that can do this —  which might explain why a million years later people are still so enthused about cricket (and baseball).

Maybe the South Africans have an unfair advantage playing the game so much longer than everyone else. (David doesn’t think much of my theory, but cricket suddenly makes a lot more sense to me now).

Snippets from the press release:

Tool or weapon? Research throws light on stone artifacts’ use as ancient projectiles

Tool or weapon? Research throws light on stone artifacts’ use as ancient projectiles”Our study suggests that the throwing of stones played a key role in the evolution of hunting,” said Bingham, a professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and an author on the study. “We don’t think that throwing is the sole, or even primary, function of these spheroids, but these results show that this function is an option that warrants reconsidering as a potential use for this long-lived, multipurpose tool.”

… the researchers used computational models to analyze 55 ball-shaped stone objects from the South African site, finding that 81 percent of the stones were the optimal size, weight and shape for hitting such a target at a 25-meter distance. The stones are about the size of tennis balls but much heavier.

The team also simulated the projectile motions the spheroids would undergo if thrown by an expert, as well as estimated the probability of these projectiles causing damage to a medium-sized prey such as an impala.

Research on biomechanics and perception, particularly vision, shows that the human shoulder joint and perceptual abilities are uniquely specialized for throwing objects aimed at a particular target at a distance of 20 to 30 meters, Bingham said. The stones, which predate thrown spears, likely served as projectile weapons for hunting and defense since they were found to perform best as hunting weapons when thrown overhand, he added.

“Humans are the only animals — the only primates even — with that talent,” Bingham said. “We can throw something to hit something else — like a quarterback throwing to the running back all the way down the field. That’s how in large measure we survived the ice ages. The available food was largely on hoof, or it was ‘mega-fauna,’ such as a mammoth. You don’t want to get close to them.

“The ability to throw great distances was not a small thing,” Bingham said. “It was how we got lunch.”

REFERENCE:

Andrew D. Wilson, Qin Zhu, Lawrence Barham, Ian Stanistreet, Geoffrey P. Bingham. A Dynamical Analysis of the Suitability of Prehistoric Spheroids from the Cave of Hearths as Thrown ProjectilesScientific Reports, 2016; 6: 30614 DOI: 10.1038/srep30614

9.5 out of 10 based on 40 ratings

137 comments to The million year prehistory of Cricket — the fast bowlers got fed

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    Ozwitch

    They look like bolas. Two or three in a sling and that’s a very effective weapon. I think I remember reading that bolas were contemporary with the sling and pebble, so they could project them a fair way.

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    • #

      Nope, I wrote about this a while ago: http://australianimage.com.au/wordpress/index.php/hammertime/. Now what was the next most important tool? It’s something that could not have eventuated without a hammer.

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      • #
        Ozwitch

        Well, I can’t see from that article that there is any proof these stones are ‘hammers’ apart from the fact that someone in the British Museum said that they were, which is no more than the speculation we are all doing here. Using round stones as hammers would be painful on the hands from the jarring effect. The fact that the hammer evolved into the object it is today proves that you need the weighty end to be away from the palm with a handle for leverage. Even Homo Erectus would have worked out that round stones hurt the hand.

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        • #

          But of course. From rudimentary implements come refinements. That was just one example I offered and, while researching the history of hammers, found that there is quite a lot of evidence to indicate that round stones did form part of the early history of hammers. The circular object fits the hand nicely and served its purpose until early man started to make things and needed to refine the hammer. Remember also that hammers aren’t just tools used to hit nails.

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          • #
            Ozwitch

            Still don’t buy it, sorry. To peck a stone to a sphere takes a lot of time, skill and effort, and for what? Something that is harder to use for its purpose than a rock or irregular stone with just a few bits hacked out to make it a better fit in the hand and to hit the object with a more focused point.

            The hammer stones I’ve seen in museums and read about online were usually irregular, with a tapering point. Some had been rounded to a degree but they certainly weren’t spherical. It’s too inefficient. These look like weapons to me.

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            • #

              You have to look at it from a development point of view. The very early uses for hammers would have been to crack nuts, pound roots and break bones of animals that early man found dead (not hunted). Round(ish) stones would have been preferred over irregular stones and with use would have become more and more rounded and more comfortable for cracking nuts etc. That would have led to deliberately manufacturing round stones from the outset.

              Yes, maybe they were even used as weapons against other tribes, but they would have been useless as an effective and efficient hunting tool for anything large. But as human ingenuity developed, they would have started to figure out ways to hunt and bring down game in effective, efficient and somewhat safe ways, hence the development of spears. And then when game was brought down, it had to be skinned and cut up, hence the development of rudimentary knives, the latter not possible without hammers ie knapping (something I haven’t posted yet).

              Once that started, humans were on a roll and the hammer began to evolve into more purposeful shapes and sizes, as well as materials. Handles were attached to hammers and from there followed axes and the like. And maybe then they were able to produce cricket bats and use the round stones as cricket balls, somewhat like the South American Indians used to do: http://peachstatearchaeologicalsociety.org/index.php/22-game-stones.

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              • #
                Ozwitch

                I am looking at it from a development point of view, it’s just that I disagree with you, especially your reasoning regarding how these stones were used over time. Don’t talk in condescending fashion, it doesn’t help your cause. Most of what you are saying is pure speculation, which is fine, but don’t dress it up as fact.
                Actually a round stone or two or three is a very effective weapon when launched from a sling or bola. It can bring down a medium-sized animal at a range of about 50 yards.

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      • #
        Akatsukami

        The nail?

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    • #
      Geoff

      The equation is

      Blunt Criteria = ln {E/(W**1/3 TD)}

      where E is the kinetic energy (1/2MV2) of the projectile on impact in joules, M is the projectile mass in kilograms, V is the impact velocity in meters per second, W is the effective mass of the individual in kilograms, T is the thickness of the body wall being hit, in centimetres and D is the effective projectile diameter in centimeters. This ratio is a measure of the amount of energy delivered expressed in terms of the body’s ability to absorb that energy, and it allows us to directly evaluate the likelihood of an impact causing damage.

      May be useful for working out cricket ball damage in about 10,000 years. Or not……..

      They made no allowance for climate change on the ball’s budget. No smoke stacks 50,000 years ago so breathing on a rock had no round off error caused by humans. Surely this is worth investigating?

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    • #
      Dennis

      David and Goliath?

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  • #
    Peter C

    “Humans are the only animals — the only primates even — with that talent,” Bingham said.

    Well maybe not!
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36914884

    The first south african cricket team may have taken lessons from the elephant. Also who taught the English to bowl bodyline?

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    • #
      Bulldust

      Who starting the stone tampering caper?

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    • #

      The English bodyline tour could be a case of reverting to instinct. That is attacking the opposition. Alternatively it could be an example of human adaptability to changed circumstances. The Australian team of Don Bradman were far superior to the England team. The bodyline tactics helped neutralize that threat. In war that might be valid, but in sport such tactics are simply not cricket.
      There are analogies in the climate wars. On any sort of fair play conventions climate alarmism would have long ago been dead in the water. But the alarmists resort to much worse than bodyline tactics. For instance
      – Malcolm Roberts against 6 climate alarmists.
      – The prejudiced opinions of climate believers at the Conversation or The Guardian, with blocking of contrary comments.
      – So-called scientists looking for verification of their ideas in consensus opinions, and ignoring real world evidence.

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      • #
        Steve of Cornubia

        Kevin, as far as I can tell (I know very little about cricket), the incident you’re referring to happened more than eighty years ago.

        Have you considered counselling?

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Some insults are multigenerational.

          The French still feel hurt and angry over the fact that Henry V cheated at Agincourt, by refusing to let his knights charge into the wall of wooden spikes dug in by the French the night before. Instead, he further cheated by using his long-bow archers to fire into the French army, behind their wall of spikes, when they could only reply with the shorter-ranged cross-bow.

          This is why the French objected to Great Britain joining the Common Market, and why they are even more annoyed, at Great Britain, for voting to leave the European Union.

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      • #

        Okay, three days, so I suppose I can stray away from the main topic ….. a little, because it still concerns a fast bowler, in this case, Harold Larwood, the much maligned secondary villain in all this, and unfairly maligned in my opinion, speaking as a fellow fast bowler in my youth, and now a cricket history buff, also from my youth, as I just loved the history of the game.

        That Bodyline Series brought out the best in everyone, and in some cases, not really the best.

        Bodyline was hatched by Douglas Jardine, Percy Fender, and (hey, not me, he said) ‘Plum’ Warner, the Tour Manager for the MCC.

        Jardine was ‘the boss’, and Yorkshireman coal miner’s son Larwood, was doing exactly what Jardine told him to do, with much deference to Jardine.

        Okay, there’s the worst of it out of the way, so what was the best of it all.

        Larwood batted like a typical bowler, nine ten jack, to use the parlance, and had a Test Average not over 20, mainly due to a lot of not outs.

        Fifth Test, Sydney, and Jardine sent Larwood in as nightwatchmen, ordered to by Jardine, and Larwood detested that decision as he had just spent all day bowling 30 plus overs. Fuming, he made it to Stumps. The next morning, Larwood batted well, and approaching his Ton, he actually thought that this was his chance to get the ‘glittering prize’.

        Off spinner Phil Lee, in the second of his only two tests was bowling, and Larwood hit the ball to the on side. He thought he was safe though, as the only fielder there was the 50 year old slow medium sort of leggie, (like a left handed Warnie, only a little quicker through the air) ‘Dainty’ Ironmonger, who, incidentally was the second oldest Australian on debut at 46 years old, only two weeks or so younger than Don Blackie.

        Dainty couldn’t run a tap and couldn’t catch rain in a bucket.

        Larwood even said to himself, lucky it’s only Dainty.

        Dainty sprinted to the ball faster than anyone had ever seen him run, and held a great catch below his knees to dismiss Larwood for 98. Ever the villain at the time, the crowd rose to a man, and cheered him loudly from the field, which touched Larwood, because he was so used to being the supposed detested bowler in all this.

        Larwood later became a respected name among Australians.

        Later, when asked about the new crop of Windies pace men, Roberts, Holding, Marshall et al, he commented that compared to them he was just a medium pacer.

        Ahh! It’s such a wonderful game.

        Tony.

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        • #
          doubtingdave

          Tony shame on you , how could you !! how could you refer to my all time Nottinghamshire hero HAROLD LARWOOD as a Yorkie !!! with the rivalry both on the cricket field and in the local pit towns and villages between Notts and Yorkshire , that comment could cause you a few problems in these parts . Seriously though , if your ever in Nottinghamshire give me a call and i’ll take you on a short walk from my place through Robin Hood country to Larwoods village , Nuncargate , where you can enjoy a jar or to of real ale in the local pub , the Cricketers Arms , with its walls covered in memorabilia of the career of Larwood and his fast bowling partner in crime Bill Vose . Larwood worked down the local Annesley colliery at the age of 14 handling a team of pit ponies . All the best

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          • #

            doubtingdave,

            Thanks for this, and no aspersions meant here, but I can see how I worded it probably a little ambiguously really.

            Harold Larwood’s father was (originally) the Yorkshireman coal miner, or was mentioned as such in one of my numerous volumes on Cricket. Harold, as a teenager, played the game in the same First Eleven at Nuncargate with his Dad too, so how good is that?

            Tony.

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            • #
              doubtingdave

              Thanks Tony , I will have to look more into the history of Harolds dad by asking a few local old timers that knew the family , I was hoping to post you a link to the history of Bill Vose and his duals with the great Don Bradman , but my lack of skills with a new laptop loaded with Windows 10 that I am struggling to copy and paste on , have defeated me , grrr

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    • #
      Mark

      What did they use for pads and protector ? Couldnt see any furure generations if one of those jagged off a good length into the goolies.

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  • #
    MudCrab

    One of the interesting bits of trivia I read once was during WW1 the average Tommy could out throw their German counterparts in grenade duels despite the fact the Mills bomb was somewhat heavier than the average German stick grenade. This was put down to the fact coming from a nation of cricket types, many British already had pretty good throwing arms.

    The so called ‘Baseball’ grenade developed in the US was apparently designed that way for similar reasons – US boys know how to throw a baseball.

    What I did find interesting was that in the linked article the rocks are described as being about the same size as a tennis ball, which is of course about the same size as a cricket ball, as a lacrosse ball, as a baseball and, I think, a field hockey ball. The question of course is why did all these balls ‘evolve’ to be that size?

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    • #
      Another Ian

      Mudcrab

      Do you have any distances that they could throw those grenades?

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      • #
        MudCrab

        You want me to get off my bum and walk to my bookcase?!? 😛

        Hang on…

        (music plays…)

        Right, must buy books with better indexes.

        I am largely drawing from Through German Eyes by Christopher Duffy. Subtitled The British & The Somme 1916, this is basically a book about how the 1916 British performed based on period German accounts. So, having re-read the passages I was thinking about, Glen Michel, I will concede that the grenade/cricket theory is a perception held by some people at the time rather than something that has been definitively proven.

        So anyway, the German perception at the time was that the British had ‘Sportsidiotismus’, which my basic German skills translates as sports mad I believe. The perception was that while they should be able to out throw the British as their own grenades were lighter, in practice these British, raised since birth on cricket balls, could out throw them. This problem was further compounded in their belief, by the lower state of training the newer German recruits had as well as the more generous issue of grenades the British gave to their units.

        It is feasible at least. British policy, especially in the early war years, was to have dedicated bombers trained to throw these things. (Bombs, not grenades as the Grenadier Guards got snooty and demanded only THEY were allowed to throw grenades. Snobs.) There is a saying ‘Once the pin is removed, Mister Grenade is no longer your friend’. The early bombs/grenades were even less user friendly, and having specialist users was one way to limit the amount of troops blowing themselves to bits. It is not too much of a stretch to believe that some, at least, soldiers selected to become bombers were picked because they already had very good throwing arms. On the other hand it is not too much of a stretch to believe some were selected because they were already a bit nuts. 😀

        As for distance? Second Lt. Tom Adlam won a VC while throwing some about 100m, apparently a skill picked up from pre-war cricket. A Second Lt. J. Wightman apparently did something very similar a few days later. Apparently.

        Sources listed for this section mostly come from the Bavarian Kriegarchiv, Munich.

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        • #

          My hypothesis: I have to throw a bigger bombs further to hurt me less when it goes off.

          Those readers who’ve thrown live grenades will understand.

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Those readers who have thrown live grenades will also remember the smell associated with a short throw. But perhaps I am getting a bit to gross.

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        • #
          Glen Michel

          The colloquial term used was “bombing” I gather.German troops were given plenty of stielhandgranate,which,because of the leverage,gave them an advantage of distance.Also, It is said that they could not be returned as easy as a Mills bomb.German grenades relied on blast to stun rather than the British fragmentation types.Could also be used as a potato masher when disarmed.

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        • #
          Binny

          Stick grenade throw only. Round grenade throw, plus 10-25%? roll.

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      • #
        richard ilfeld

        60 feet 6 inches, by rule.
        :<)

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    • #
      Glen Michel

      Myth.

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    • #
      James Murphy

      Mudcrab – I would have thought the obvious answer is that balls just happen to be ‘hand’ sized because it’s convenient to hold, and throw? Of course one could “chicken and egg” argument, and say that the stones shaped our evolution – those who could hold, and throw stones better than others had an advantage, thus leading to offspring which were also adept, and adapted to effective stone throwing…

      Then again, this could well be the fermented barley and hops talking…

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      • #
        MudCrab

        Yeah that is the first impressions answer and does make sense for sports where you are handling the ball a respectable amount (cricket and baseball for example) but that doesn’t really explain how the ‘non hand’ type sports (lacrosse and tennis) ended up with balls that size.

        Probably over thinking it 😛

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    • #
      Analitik

      Probably aerodynamics was a key factor – the stick configuration will have a very large drag coefficient, especially when spinning along the long axis with the arming pull cord flapping around. Coupled with the lower weight, the stick grenade would lose velocity very rapidly.

      Also, the stick configuration would make it more likely that the grenade was thrown directly along a low trajectory at the target. The heavy Mills bomb (due to the cast iron fragmentation casing) needed to be lobbed and this would make it much more likely that these would take a higher arc.

      Lastly, the low fragmentation property of the stick grenade (offensive) vs that of the Mills bomb (defensive) would also lend to the user wanting to have the Mills bomb explode further away from the user (see comment #3.1.1.1 by Bernd Felsche)

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  • #
    Robber

    Who hasn’t thrown a stone at a target, or competed to see how far a stone can be thrown into the water, or skimmed a flat stone across the water? So we progressed from stones to spears to arrows cannon balls to cricket. Ahh, civilization.

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    • #
      Bulldust

      No fish were killed in this throw:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0_hEvNOqGM

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    • #
      RobK

      Recalling my childhood, killing anything with a suitably sized rock, larger than a rabbit becomes very difficult. Pigeons and chickens, no problem. Snakes and goannas, no problem.

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    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      Been There Before …

      Banjo Paterson

      There came a stranger to Walgett town,
      To Walgett town when the sun was low,
      And he carried a thirst that was worth a crown,
      Yet how to quench it he did not know;
      But he thought he might take those yokels down,
      The guileless yokels of Walgett town.

      They made him a bet in a private bar,
      In a private bar when the talk was high,
      And they bet him some pounds no matter how far
      He could pelt a stone, yet he could not shy
      A stone right over the river so brown,
      The Darling river at Walgett town.

      He knew that the river from bank to bank
      Was fifty yards, and he smiled a smile
      As he trundled down, but his hopes they sank
      For there wasn’t a stone within fifty mile;
      For the saltbush plain and the open down
      Produce no quarries in Walgett town.

      The yokels laughed at his hopes o’erthrown,
      And he stood awhile like a man in a dream;
      Then out of his pocket he fetched a stone,
      And pelted it over the silent stream —
      He had been there before: he had wandered down
      On a previous visit to Walgett town.

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  • #
    Stoned Lank

    The rounded stones are likely located close to where they formed – probably by chemical alteration called spheroidal weathering caused by moisture perculating along relatively close spaced joint sets which intersect at a relatively high angle.

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  • #
    TdeF

    So cricket evolved from a lethal weapon? Obviously so did the javelin at the Olympics and the pentathalon has a military basis.
    However it would be hard to imagine an enemy frightened of a line of discus throwers or shot putters. Pole vaulting is clearly a
    means of escape, if you have a pole.

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    • #
      MudCrab

      My understanding is that shot put evolved from bored artillery men showing off to each other. I vaguely remember a primary school teacher trying to tell us that the shot put method was how they used to load a smooth bore muzzle loader (spoiler? no), but I still stick to the showing off theory.

      Pole vaulting was apparently how you used to get around quickly in reclaimed land in the low countries. Need to cross a water filled drainage ditch? Take a run up with that long pole you are carrying and vault across.

      (As a side note when the British were fighting in the same sort of area late in WW2 they discovered that with a decent run up you could jump these ditches in a tank. All perfectly safe, provided of course the driver remembered to disengage the clutch the moment the tank was airborne and before they hit the ground on the other side. If he didn’t? Well hilarity ensued.)

      Still have no idea what discus was really about, and that is after googling it. Best I can work out it was ‘reinvented’ by some Germans in the 19th century.

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    • #

      Somebody’s internalised too much of the HHGTTG

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    • #
      Annie

      See my comment 15.1.1 re the discus.
      I have a small copy of a statue of ‘Discovolos’…the ‘Discus Thrower’. Not sure of the date of the original but a lot longer ago than the 19th century.

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  • #
    Yonniestone

    Even back then Yonnies were the pinnacle of human achievement. 🙂

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  • #
    William

    Of course, this raises the issue of the fact that you need leather balls to play rugby.
    Obviously, the scrum evolved from prehistoric mating practices.
    The tackle clearly was a development from the ritual of landing a Saturday night date.
    I could go on……….

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  • #

    Naah!

    This can’t be right.

    Cricket is a batsman’s game.

    Hmm! How many jokes can I think of here.

    The first Warnie rolled it down, and the target animal thought to itself ….. Nahh, that’ll miss me.

    Ha ha ….. clunk.

    Jeff Thomson – Target animal, struth, where did that come from?

    Tony.

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    • #
      Glen Michel

      Of course we have WG Grace(DR) refusing to walk after being bowled.”My dear fellow,they have come to watch me bat-not to watch you bowl”.Followed by upper class British snort.

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    • #

      This is about throwing, not bowling. (Cue Muralitharan cracks.)

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      Yonniestone

      Could be onto something there Tony, bowlers did evolve into having a flipper………

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      Sceptical Sam

      Some notables from Brian Johnston (Commentator):

      “The bowler’s Holding, the batsman’s Willey”, The Oval, 1976.

      “There’s Neil Harvey standing at leg slip with his legs wide apart, waiting for a tickle”, Headingly, 1961

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    • #
      Belfast

      Group of pigs. Stone hits. LBW.
      John Pig. What are you doing, Graham. Get up.
      Graham. Can’t, something wrong with me leg.

      It’s there in the cave paintings somewhere.

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  • #
    PeterD

    Lucy hunting mammoths by throwing rocks at 50 paces? In Hanna-Barbera cartoons maybe.

    Why are these not gastroliths, food processing rocks from the intestines of dinosaurs?

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  • #
    AndyG55

    Also explains why the men did the hunting 🙂

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVxEUe9OUZU

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      Pat Frank

      Actually, it explains that women didn’t do the hunting; at least early-on when only stones were available. Had they done, evolution would have given women shoulder structures and throwing skills like men.

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  • #
    Manfred

    The million year prehistory of Cricket — the fast bowlers got fed (!)

    Jo, there’s an exclamation mark missing! I encountered the perfect article about this. The UN risk mongers should pay attention. The collectivist risk of UN defined ‘climate change’ versus the perceived risk of the individual risk taker, prepared to tolerate greater risk’. But I digress, for cricket is the subject du jour.

    Can a cricket ball influence societal change? Exemplifying societal dichotomy in the tolerance of risk.

    McGrath MC. Australas Med J. 2014; 7(12): 518–521.

    The physical risk was dubiously demonstrated by the professional social commentator Piers Morgan who took up arms as an amateur batsman when he took to the batting crease against Brett Lee, a recently retired (2012) Australian professional fast bowler; in this orchestrated exchange, television commentators observed with apparent delight the physical harm (actual and potential) that the rank amateur Morgan was exposed to while facing Lee. This delight in potential harm is familiar to many cricket viewers: cricket fielders are known to sledge batsmen to remind them of the physical harm they are exposed to from bowlers, with Australian cricket captain Michael Clarke recently exposed as telling a batsman to “Get ready for a broken f***** arm” when facing fast bowler Mitchell Johnson.

    The more things change, the more they remain the same.

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    el gordo

    ‘That’s how in large measure we survived the ice ages. The available food was largely on hoof…’

    I’ll pay that.

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    Owen Morgan

    I suppose that using a rock from a sling took a lot more skill. Ancient Macedonian and Roman armies couldn’t just recruit slingshot experts from Italy, or Macedon; they had to find them elsewhere, often in Thrace. I’m not aware that the Thracians invented cricket, but you can really wind up (in a friendly way, of course) an American, by pointing out that the British invented baseball. There are references to it dating from the eighteenth century. Actually, I can’t pretend to be a fan, since my one and (thankfully) only experience of baseball consisted of two teams desperately failing to score (in the end, somebody did score one point, so they finally unlocked the gates and let the spectators out). I believe that there is a professional baseball league in Britain, but I don’t understand how you can make a living from performing a sport which nobody wants to watch. The name of the old Derby County football stadium was “The Baseball Ground”. Come to think of it, the last time I saw Derby play, I’m not entirely sure which sport they were attempting.

    If you really want to annoy somebody, though, point out to somebody Scottish that proportionately more Scots than English play cricket. It’s true and it almost makes sense. After all, “bad light stopped play” doesn’t work very well in a place where summer light keeps going to ten o’clock. On the other hand, there is that “rain stopped play” thing, which works at least three hundred and sixty-seven days out of any year.

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      Graeme No.3

      Owen:
      In Xenophon (not the Senator) there is a reference to the slingers using flat stones which out-ranged the attackers bows and penetrated into the archers body. Some considerable skill involved to keep it from spinning. A round stone in a sling would be easier to master and the extra velocity from slinging would improve the amount of prey caught.
      Or perhaps these were the first things handy when a hungry leopard needed discouragement.

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        ROM

        Graeme No3 @ 15.1

        My thinking also re the possibility of sling weapons.
        The sling, and maybe that includes the financial “sling”, is about the oldest method around of getting the biggest bang , literally, for a buck from a decent sized yonnie.
        [ Couldn’t resist using that old time bit of vernacular [ for obvious reasons 🙂 ] which was common amongst the primary grade kids when I went to school. ]

        As slings if they even existed back a million years ago although we repeatedly underestimate both the levels of cumulative intelligence and the accumulation of knowledge over centuries and thousands of years in the so called primitive peoples, would have been made from organic materials like animal’s sinews and plant fibres and so would likely have disintegrated within decades particularly if those fibres had been highly stressed whilst being used as a sling.

        Again from my youth; My father in the 1960’s was a member of the board of the Lutheran run Finke Fiver Mission centred on Hermannsberg WNW of Alice Springs.
        The last of the Western Desert tribal people, the Arrernte or Aranda were coming in from the Desert to the Mission stations in the late 1950’s early 1960’s.`
        The young men and kids from those aboriginal tribes were dead shots with a stone and could often nail a fast moving small animal at 20 paces with a good throw.

        The size of the presumed and assumed “throwing stones” in the paper [ Nature; A Dynamical Analysis of the Suitability of Prehistoric Spheroids from the Cave of Hearths as Thrown Projectiles ] seem quite large but there is a possible reason for this also.
        The information following refers to the pre modern human physique of some many tens and hundreds of thousands of years later than the archeological site where the stones have been found but is probably closer to the physiques of those ancient pre modern humans than that of today’s humans,

        Ref; Australian Museum;

        HOW HAVE WE CHANGED SINCE OUR SPECIES FIRST APPEARED?
        [ quoted ]

        Overview

        Smaller bodies
        We are now generally shorter, lighter and smaller boned than our ancestors were 100,000 years ago. The decrease has been gradual but has been most noticeable in the last 10,000 years. However, there has been some slight reversal to this trend in the last few centuries as the average height has started to increase.

        The factors that affect body size are complex. They involve interactions between genetics, environment and lifestyle practices such as diet and technology.

        Average height of Homo sapiens over the last 40,000 years
        This information is based on the average heights of European males because better statistics exist for this population, but the general trend is worldwide.

        40,000 years ago: European males – 183 cm (6 feet).
        Cro-Magnon people were the first modern humans (Homo sapiens) to inhabit Europe.
        These hunter-gatherers lived a physically demanding lifestyle that would have required greater body strength than the average human today.
        Their recent African ancestry may have also affected their height, as tall, long-limbed builds are useful adaptations to the warmer African climate.

        10,000 years ago: European males – 162.5cm (5 ft 4 inches).
        A dramatic reduction in the size of humans occurred at this time.
        Many scientists think that this reduction was influenced by global climatic change and the adoption of agriculture.
        Agricultural communities suffered from malnutrition as a result of failed crops and a more restricted diet. Furthermore, a close association with domestic livestock introduced new diseases into human populations.

        600 years ago: European males – 165 cm (5 ft 5 inches).
        Poor diet and health were the main causes for the shorter stature at this time.

        Today: European males – 175 cm (5ft 9 inches).
        There has been an increase in height over the last few hundred years. In part, this increase is due to improved diet and health care.
        There may also be a genetic link as industrial expansion and urbanisation has brought together genetically isolated people and reduced the impacts of inbreeding due to a greater mixing of populations and their genes.

        Smaller brains;
        For the last two million years there has been a trend toward a bigger brain that has affected many species in our family tree.
        This trend has seen a reversal in our own species and our brains are now the smallest they have been at any time in the past 100,000 years.
        Most of this decrease occurred in the last 6,000 years.
        In part, this is related to a decrease in body size that also occurred during this period, however, other factors are probably also involved.

        Our brains now average about 100-150 cubic centimetres less than when our species first appeared.

        100,000 years ago: average brain size: 1500cc

        12,000 years ago: average brain size: 1450cc

        Today: average brain size: 1350cc

        Intelligence is not necessarily and is only approximately connected to brain size.

        In fact not so long ago it was suggested that the modern man’s intelligence levels might have fallen somewhat from those of a couple of centuries ago when so many advances in technology, science, law, social structures, philosophy, medicine and human advacement everywhere made such giant strides leading to the world we live in today.

        We often hear the term, “bird brained” meaning somebody of an apparent low and somewhat addled level of intelligence which they display quite frequently .

        The reality is that a very recent bit of research has shown that birds have double the number of neurons per gram of brain than do human brains.

        Neurons being the electro chemical connectors that are the internet of the brain connecting all its highly specialised cells together into the network that we describe as the Brain, the center of our consciousness.
        So birds in fact have a higher potential level of intelligence than their brain size would possibly have indicated under the now dated thinking previous to this research.

        Anybody with a pet parrot would be well aware that they are often very intelligent birds and damn destructive little so and so’s if my cockatiel is a sample.
        Although not being the smartest cockatiel on this planet, he has fallen in love with cat and follows the cat around the house singing sweet little cockatiel love songs at 5 centimetres distance to our couldn’t care less, very laid back moggie who rarely gives a damn, with reservations, about that annoying cockatiel who has become very adept at leaving very fast just before the very odd and occasional paw swipe is launched.

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        • #
          Dean from Ohio

          My daughter’s cockatiel fell in love with our Aussie dog. He would perch right above her and sing to her. She was patient, as Aussies are, and he loved it.

          30

      • #
        Annie

        There’s your link with the discus! I seem to remember, from the far-off days of my youth, when I threw a discus, that the angle of throw plus the method of producing spin were very important in achieving a good distance.

        30

    • #
      Dean from Ohio

      Shakespeare is much better when you read him in the original Klingon!

      10

  • #
    RoHa

    Let us not forget that cricket is the second most popular sport in the world, after football. (Real football, not Irish football, or Aussie rules, or that other one with the full baby armour.) Children play cricket in the street in Morocco. The urge to play cricket is obviously genetically based.

    40

  • #
    handjive

    Though no rocks were thrown, mammoths did die …

    Woolly mammoth extinction accurately dated on Alaskan island

    St. Paul Island, Alaska, is famous for its late-surviving population of woolly mammoth.

    While the Minoan culture on Crete was just beginning, woolly mammoths were disappearing from St. Paul Island, Alaska, according to an international team of scientists who
    have dated this extinction to 5,600 years ago.

    The island, which formed between 14,700 and 13,500 years ago rapidly shrank until 9,000 years ago and continued slowly shrinking until 6,000 years ago and now is only
    42 square miles in area.
    While large animals like mammoths became extinct on the continents about 12,000 years ago due to climate change and habitat restructuring, the process
    was different on the island.

    The shrinking of the island concentrated the mammoths in a smaller area and diminished available water.
    Pollen from the lake cores indicate that the area around the lake was denuded of vegetation by the mammoths.
    Like elephants today, when the water became cloudy and turgid, the mammoths probably dug holes nearby to obtain cleaner water.
    Both of these things increased erosion in the area and helped fill in the lake, decreasing the available water even more.

    After the extinction of the mammoths, the cores show that erosion stopped and vegetation returned to the area. In essence, the mammoths contributed to their own demise.

    The researchers note that this research “highlights freshwater limitation as an overlooked extinction driver and underscores the vulnerability of small island
    populations to environmental change, even in the absence of human influence.
    . . .
    Note: Text was copied/pasted from pasthorizonsprdotcom website which always triggers comment into moderation.

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      theRealUniverse

      We must assume that 12000 years ago the Mammoths farted too much and all that extra Methane heated up the planet and they demised … looks like a few got an extra 5000 years out of it 😉

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    theRealUniverse

    Cant Chimpanzees throw rocks too?

    20

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Yes and poo, in fact the fist use of pellets in a firearm were made from hardened rabbit poo, this is the basis for the aptly named Scattergun……..

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Urban myth!

        Scatterguns use a shotgun charge, but with the added benefit of having an oversized barrel, so that the shot (the small pellets of lead in the charge) scatter widely when they leave the barrel. They are often used for crowd control, because the pellets hurt like hell, but there is minimal risk killing someone with a scatter gun, unless they are standing very close, and directly infront of the weapon.

        Scatterguns are direct decendents from the blunderbus, which worked on the same principle, but fired miscellaneous bits of junk metal.

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        • #
          ROM

          From a Kiwi friend I have known for a long time and who worked for us for a few years.

          Apparently many years ago a skull was found or dug up of a British or Colonial [ Australian ] soldier dating from the Maori wars in NZ from 1845 to 1872.

          The Maoris apparently took to using British fire arms whenever they had the opportunity to get their hands onto any.

          I don’t know what they did for gunpowder but this particular skull had a bullet hole in it and inside of the skull was a small round pebble of a size usually used to load a muzzle loading gun with similar sized lead ball shot.
          Apparently it was quite common for the Maori warriors to use stone pebbles in any muzzle loading firearms they could get their hands on as they didn’t have the technology to make the lead ball shot for the muzzle loading guns.

          The now rare “shot towers”, those high chimney type brick tower construction which when up close to 50 metres height were built high for the production of large lead shot with lower height towers only able to produce smaller lead shot balls due to the shorter fall.

          Shot was made by tipping molten lead through a perforated copper pan or mesh from which the each small slug of lead from the perforations in the pan, in its fall down the height of the tower became spherical in shape due to the surface tension and the cooling and contracting of the surface of the slug of lead as it rapidly cooled in its long fall.
          It was quenched and cooled very rapidly when it dropped into a pool of water at the bottom of the shot tower.

          And so the muzzle loading guns got their lead ball shot.

          As they couldn’t produce lead or lead shot the Maori warriors made do with the small round stone pebbles found in most running streams in stony country for ball ammunition for their “liberated” British muzzle loaders.

          There were / are so many darn Kiwis working over here at one time that Australia was known as the “West Island ” a few years back.

          They were and still are the best shearers in the world and quite a lot of them are working today in the Australian sheep and wool shearing industry.

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  • #
    Ted O'Brien.

    Overhand? Here in the east we call it overarm or roundarm. The underarm event involved a couple of middle earther’s, playing, from memory, in the south.

    But, seriously. Does it really take a university education to know that boys throw stones? And that if breakfast and lunch, or even defence, depend on the stone being thrown accurately the boy will collect stones ideal for the purpose, and, if they are scarce, recover them for reuse?

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    • #
      Bulldust

      Might not take a university education, but throw climate change into the research title and it will earn you university-level government funding.

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  • #
    Geoffrey Williams

    Makes sense to me… It’s clear;
    Humanity on this planet got off to a rocky start!
    GeoffW

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    Here is a picture of using rocks about that sise to grind grain. Wonder how old the rocks would date?
    http://footage.framepool.com/en/shot/777937416-grinding-stone-pounding-procedure-grain-mali

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    thingodonta

    Of those animals with partly free arms, chimps throw like most people’s other hand, they tend to hurl roundarm rather than cock. Kangaroos, bears and racoons which all use their hands a bit, (and presumably T Rex with its’ short arms), can’t throw at all. Makes one wonder just a bit, like intelligence, why it hasn’t evolved more often.

    I suppose if a bear could throw, it might get too lazy and obese, just like humans seem to be getting.

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    Gary in Erko

    The giant merino is on a pedestal in Goulburn. Dunno though how its fossilised droppings got to Africa. Watch Attenborough next week.

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  • #
    graphicconception

    … when thrown overhand, he added.
    “Humans are the only animals — the only primates even — with that talent,” Bingham said.

    I feel more research may be required.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keWi7gDOlQs

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    Ruairi

    Costa Rica has huge spheres of stone,
    As to why they exist, is not known,
    Perhaps they were rolled,
    In some strange game of old,
    Or by great massive giants were thrown,

    100

  • #
    tom0mason

    The avowed skeptic in me ponders that this research is packed to the hilt with supposition and conjecture.
    To which I turn to Mark Twain for a little advice, explanation, and some humor about how these researchers thinking processes may work —

    Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.

    I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts.

    I’ve come loaded with statistics, for I’ve noticed that a man can’t prove anything without statistics. No man can.

    There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

    Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.

    Mark Twain

    Others might say that these researchers’ ideas are just a load of balls, I believe that they are close to the truth but these are obviously prehistoric golf balls.
    Maybe these orb were used like marbles and gave rise to an early game of ‘rock and roll’.

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    Pat Frank

    Thrown stones offer the advantage of killing from a distance. Humans are the only mammalian predator able to do this. With stones, humans no longer needed to physically confront dangerous animals, including one another. It’s likely that throwing stones was our first step into this advantage.

    Paul Bingham (probably no relation to Geoffrey Bingham) has developed an evolutionary theory of human cultural development based on the ability to kill from a distance. He and Anthropologist Joanne Souza have written a book Death at a Distance describing this theory.

    Killing at a distance allowed humans to cull cheaters from their tribes. Some big guy steals and hogs a kill, benefiting at the expense of others. So some other men get a few stones and pound that guy into mush.

    The advantage is obvious. First, no need to engage in a personal fight. Second two men throwing stones at one have a 4x advantage of victory. Each of two is half as likely to get hit as the one, and the one is twice as likely to get hit by the two.

    The most stunning result, though, is the process of culling cheaters and enforcing social cooperation allowed by dealing death at a distance promoted human social values. That is killing for social good is how a civil culture fed back into our genes. The humane values that we possess have their roots in this mechanism.

    Further, strength alone is not enough to make stone-throwing effective. So a bigger stronger man need not have an advantage. Even a middle-sized man can throw a stone accurately and with seriously damaging force.
    Bingham’s original papers about this are worth reading: “Human uniqueness: A general theory” in 1999 Quarterly Review of Biology, here and especially “Human evolution and human history: A complete theory” in 2000 Evolutionary Anthropology here.

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    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      You don’t have to kill. Throwing stones can effectively ward off predators, too, and cause them to fear the thrower.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    You need only remember the biblical tale of David and Goliath — whether true or not is immaterial — and you’ll realize that the sling as a weapon was known thousands of years ago. I would think the invention of it would be fairly obvious when there was a need for defensive weaponry or a way to hunt for your dinner that could reach beyond arm’s length. I would also think that it couldn’t have been the most accurate of weapons and would take more than ordinary skill to use effectively.

    With the physics of the human body and what would occur when a rock is let loose from a sling all quite well known by now, modeling would be fairly easy and would tell us something useful. After all we have mastered mechanics well enough to design sophisticated machinery with fast moving parts, even robots that can assemble a whole automobile, a job once done by humans. Which is not to say these stones are proven to have had any particular use. Maybe they were used in some game, though that seems doubtful.

    Cricket anyone?

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    • #
      el gordo

      ‘Caches of sling ammunition have been found at the sites of Iron Age hill forts of Europe; some 22,000 sling stones were found at Maiden Castle, Dorset. It is proposed that Iron Age hill forts of Europe were designed to maximise the effective defense of slingers.’

      wiki

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        I have some fond memories of Maiden Hill Castle.

        It seems we have gone from slingers to swingers. 😉

        10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Not having more than a curiosity interest in archeology I’ve never gone into the subject very deeply. But I can see what a problem certain kinds of things you would find while digging in ancient ruins would pose, quite a guessing game until you start examining possibilities and maybe never resolved with any certainty like the exact meaning of Stonehenge or the statues on Easter Island. Though I suppose that one find, once explained reasonably, helps to explain similar things found elsewhere.

    It seems to be that way in geology as well, a subject I did study and can still remember a lot of it. Absent evidence of folding, for instance, the higher layer of sediment is assumed to be the earlier unless carbon dating says otherwise. So that, once settled makes future work easier — a trivial example but it illustrates my point.

    The one thing that puzzles and at the same time amazes me about archeology is how you can learn the written language of a long gone civilization with any certainty from the evidence left behind. It seems too bad they didn’t think to label the throwing stones as what they were including pictures of how they were used. 😉

    I wonder how future generations, perhaps thousands of years in our future will see us through the lense of our collapsed, ruined cities and our landfills. Hopefully better than some see us right now. What will they think of what’s left of a steam locomotive, an automobile or an airplane should they stumble one one or all the subway tunnels of which there must be many thousands of miles for them to ponder?

    The future archeologist certainly will have his work cut out for him.

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    EyesWideOpen

    Maybe we should go back to throwing stones, because we are going back to windmills anyway?

    Perhaps the joy we feel for Cricket is just a Freudian urge to return to the jungle in an Alpha and Omega technological cycle. Al Gore can be the Lord of the Flies, and Leonardo Dicaprio can be the heir apparent … if they can both give up their private jets first.

    10

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    • #
    • #
      ROM

      Dennis @ #31

      OK. We are now entering the other end of the scale from that of just throwing rocks

      My summation of that article;

      From Brainy quote

      Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.

      Peter Drucker

      ———-
      You will a hear and read a great deal more from the renewables and greens and other renewable energy pushers and pimps in the near future as they try to convince every one that all the increasingly obvious and increasingly recognised renewable energy problems of intermittency, unpredictability, almost nom emmissions savings over the complete system including fossil fueled back up generators of at least 80% of the installed renewable capacity and their inefficiencies due to intermittent and highly varying generation loadings along with renewable energy’s ultimately unsolvable problems in nearly every department that will be claimed to be overcome with batteries, smart Grids and etc and etc.

      The list of Renewable energy problems in our totally energy dependent industrialized society is long.

      The list of solutions that don’t work as advertised, don’t work as claimed, just don’t work, will never work! is very, very much longer.
      ———
      Re “Smart Grids” from the “Energy Matters” blog;

      How smart is a smart grid?

      ———-

      On driverless cars;

      Why Driverless Cars Will Screech to a Halt

      It’s clear that Uber and some of the other companies are professional carnival barkers engaged in an amazingly brash self-driving con. The media eats this stuff up. Left out of the reportage often are some of the other companies developing these technologies that are a bit more honest about the prospects for success. Bradley Stertz, corporate communications manager for Audi, says a fully automated vehicle with no driver is still 20 or 30 years away. “To have the car understand every single possibility is a massive challenge,” he says.

      ————

      Similar with batteries ; Looks real good;
      So does the “Mona Lisa” ;
      But it is about as practical and useful and damn near as expensive as the” Mona Lisa” and ultimately about as useful for any practical purpose!

      Battery based energy storage compared to energy requirements over a period of days is truly pathetic and nowhere on the screen for the foreseeable future.
      Unless the total as in TOTAL resources of a national economy somewhere was devoted entirely to building batteries to run that economy so it could build more batteries to replace the batteries that will invariably fail after 5 or 10 years.

      I could go on but all of these “Predictions on the Future” are worth what you pay for them and definitely nothing more.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      I look forward to reading comments on this climate change future prediction

      It was obviously a slow news day, and the editor had column-inches to fill around the advertising in order to keep the advertising revenue rolling in, and thus his proprietor happy.

      Who cares if it is bollocks, or not? It is all about getting the punter to look at the page, and notice the advertisements.

      If you want a light, but fun, read, try and lay your hands on the book, “True Facts,” by Bob Jones.

      10

  • #
    thingodonta

    Throwing definitely is one thing humans are very good at.

    When I was a kid we used to throw sticks and stones at tennis balls stuck high in trees, it was surprising how good we were at it at such a young age and how easy it was to dislodge them. If you were starving on the savannah, dislodging a birds nest or monkey high in the tree might just have saved you.

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    • #
      el gordo

      Survival of the fittest and smartest. The use of fire as a tool was developed by homo erectus, which meant they could camp out on the savannah at night without too much concern from predators. It was also a step up in eating habits.

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    pat

    as much as i love cricket, this seems more urgent. there was a Rolfe version in the Sunday Mail, but i could not find a link online. it has been expanded:

    23 Aug: news.com.au: John Rolfe: EXCLUSIVE: Wind farm subsidies rise, hitting consumers’ power bills
    THE market price of the subsidy households end up paying to wind farms has surged by up to 270 per cent in just two years.
    A grab-bag of green schemes is expected to add between $90 and $190 to power bills in 2016-17 depending on where consumers live, according to the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC). Within this, the price of providing a leg-up to large wind, solar and hydro setups was put at $29 to $44 — a charge that had and would rise by 23 per cent a year…
    The market price of LGCs has “gone through the roof”, said Matt Harris, head of climate change and renewables consulting at Frontier Economics, which the AEMC uses for its modelling…
    The increase in the prices of LGCs and wholesale electricity have driven shares in the stockmarket-listed wind power generator Infigen 440 per cent higher in the past year…READ ALL
    http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/wind-farm-subsidies-rise-hitting-consumers-power-bills/news-story/77cce60e5bb37814d24d95c92a1f3e08

    10

  • #
    pat

    pure propaganda:

    PDF: 28 pages: Aug 2016: NextGenClimate: THE PRICE TAG OF BEING YOUNG
    Climate Change and Millennials’ Economic Future
    Authors NEXTGEN CLIMATE & DEMOS…
    P4: KEY FINDINGS
    Without action on climate change, the millennial generation as a whole will lose nearly $8.8 trillion in lifetime income…
    P24: IV. WINNING ON CLIMATE: YOUNG VOTERS
    We must transition to a 100 percent clean energy economy in order to avoid the devastating economic impacts of climate change detailed in this report…
    https://nextgenclimate.global.ssl.fastly.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/NGC-Report-The-Price-Tag-of-Being-Young-2016-0820-single-pages-1-1.pdf

    a bit of fun, tho it’s noted snow came to Alberta around the same time last year:

    VIDEO: 22 Aug: WeatherNetwork: Daniel Martins: Summer snow rude awakening for these Canadians. See photos
    As summer churns to an end with late August appearing on the horizon, it has started snowing in Canada…
    https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/snow-in-august-heres-where-in-canada/71378/

    10

  • #
    pat

    21 Aug: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: Health warning over plan to use hospital generators to avoid blackouts
    National Grid’s drive for hospitals to help keep the UK’s lights on by using their back-up diesel generators is “highly questionable” because it will cause air pollution right in the vicinity of patients, a think-tank has warned.
    The energy utility is encouraging NHS sites to sign up for schemes where they will be paid to use their back-up generators for electricity routinely, not just in the event of an emergency power cut.
    ***National Grid argues that making greater use of these existing generators represents a cost-effective way of helping to meet peak UK power demand as the country builds more intermittent wind and solar, instead of building new power plants that would sit dormant much of the time…
    Diesel generators emit significant amounts of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter which can be “extremely damaging to health”, it (think tank Policy Exchange) warns…
    ***The environment department is considering new emissions regulations to target diesel, which are also likely to affect existing generators…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/08/21/health-warning-over-plan-to-use-hospital-generators-to-avoid-bla/

    on the other hand, former BBC CAGW propagandist, Richard Black, is sure the renewable energy revolution is already here:

    22 Aug: ClimateChangeNews: RICHARD BLACK: Electric Avenue: UK energy mix faces seismic shift
    The idea renewables are not competitive with fossil fuels and nuclear power has lost all basis in fact: it’s time to wake up to the energy revolution
    Stereotypically, enthusiasm for renewable energy is the domain of tree-hugging greenies who know and care little for niceties such as keeping the lights on so long as the sanctity of Mother Earth remains unviolated. Real men do not do renewables.
    It’s amazing how long stereotypes persist past the point where they have lost all basis in fact.
    Energy academics and investment banks have understood for years that renewables-based systems are becoming the logic-based choice, given not only climate change but also simply cost…
    Now, the Institute of Directors – Britain’s ultimate bosses’ club, whose walls ooze vintage cognac and where even the canapés come in pinstripe – has come out in favour of renewables…
    Oh, and three-quarters of IoD members also back measures to reduce carbon emissions…
    Firstly, although wind turbines and solar panels cost more to install, once up and running they provide virtually free electricity because there are no fuel costs…READ ON
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/08/22/electric-avenue-the-uk-case-for-renewables-is-compelling/

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    Analitik

    Hillary Clinton on blood thinner Warfarin due to chronic blood clots – should Democrat Vice Presidential nominee, Tim Kaine, be scrutinized more closely?

    http://www.wnd.com/2016/02/doctor-hillary-taking-rat-poison-for-blood-clots/

    The points about Warfarin side effects – confusion, dizziness, unusual tiredness, shortness of breath – are also worrying even if Hillary is monitored closely enough that she would not die from them.

    https://www.drugs.com/sfx/warfarin-side-effects.html

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    pat

    BBC/Fox not in the mood to argue!

    22 Aug: BBC: Louisiana floods a ‘crisis of climate change’ say Greens
    Dr Stein stood in front of a home gutted by the rains in Denham Springs to deliver her message on global warming.
    “We see the Louisiana flood as further evidence of the global crisis posed by climate change,” the Green Party released in a statement.
    “Until we humans make global sweeping changes to our economic and social systems, we must expect these types of disasters to continue regularly.”…
    http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37160301

    22 Aug: Fox Business: Green Party’s Jill Stein Blames Louisiana Floods on Global Warming
    “We’re seeing flood after flood which is coming in at a level of a so-called a 500 year storm or 1,000 year flood,” Stein told the FOX Business Network. “And when you have a whole bunch of them, and we’ve had some devastating floods recently in West Virginia, in Texas. There was a so-called “rain bomb” over Phoenix recently. When you’re having so many severe storms and floods, you have to say there’s something going on here.”
    However, Stein said it isn’t only flooding that in her opinion is being caused by rising temperatures of the global climate.
    “It’s also the fires in California where we’ve seen 80,000 people who had to evacuate this fire that’s still not contained,” she said. “And we have heatwaves and we have droughts. You’ve got to connect the dots here. This is exactly what is predicted when the climate continues to warm with rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. So fortunately we can fix it.”
    The Green Party presidential nominee said by getting rid of fossil fuels, Americans will be “much healthier.” She also explained how switching to cleaner energy can save money and create more jobs…
    http://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2016/08/22/green-partys-jill-stein-blames-louisiana-floods-on-global-warming.html

    20

  • #
    pat

    man-made but not CAGW for hard-hit Walker, La.

    Youtube: 7mins21secs: 16 Aug: Walker Mayor: Louisiana Flooding event was man-made
    WALKER, LA – The frustrated mayor of Walker, Louisiana said Tuesday that the flooding event in his city was “man-made” and announced plans to file suit against the state of Louisiana and federal government.
    Walker Mayor Rick Ramsey said a six-foot tall concrete barrier that was put along I-12 when the interstate was expanded last year essentially put the city of Walker “into a bowl” because he said the barrier prevents water from draining out of Walker.
    “When the Amite River went up, it hit that wall,” Ramsey said. “We have video evidence that shows the concrete barrier and water lapping over the north shore of the interstate and bone dry on the south of the interstate. They basically built a dam for Walker.”
    The mayor added when the Amite River went up, the floodwater hit that wall and some of the water went toward the Millerville Road area and some went into Walker.
    Ramsey said he imagines many insurance companies will want to join the potential lawsuit because they now face having to pay billions of dollars in claims for what he believes is negligence on the part of the state and federal government.
    “I’ve been begging them for three-and-a-half years to give us more drainage under the interstate,” the mayor said.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lg01G9hDEI

    13 Aug: Weather Channel: The flooding was so bad Friday in Walker, Louisiana, that caskets were unearthed in St. Mark’s Cemetery. Photos posted by the Walker Police Department on Facebook showed at least two bright yellow caskets floating in floodwaters.
    “Virtually every road now in the city has some kind of water problem,” Central, Louisiana, mayor Jr. Shelton told the Baton Rouge Advocate. “We’ve never seen anything like this before.”

    22 Aug: ClimateDepot: Marc Morano: Fact: ‘Louisiana Floods Not Result of Man-Made Climate Change’
    http://www.climatedepot.com/2016/08/22/fact-louisiana-floods-not-result-of-man-made-climate-change/

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  • #
    James Murphy

    It looks like those prehistoric people really had some balls…

    (sorry)

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Sorry for what, being funny? Don’t be silly (or sorry). I cracked up when I read it. So smile and take the credit. 🙂

      20

  • #
    tom0mason

    Ug and Mug as rivals be,
    In a village of prehistory.
    Upon first light Ug to his rival
    Challenged Mug proud and boastful-
    “I can throw this stone so far away
    No-one can further it, I say!”
    To this challenge Mug’s retort –
    “I can beat you at this simple sport!”

    So the villagers set a competition,
    To see whose arm was in better condition.
    Said King Fug “We’ll have a great dinner,
    Where these prizes I shall give the winner.”
    “The victor’s prize is the great grass hut,
    With the mighty throne of old King Mut.”

    The sandy trench was to be the spot
    And next morning time before it was hot.
    Upon the day the village and King await,
    As the umpire did the rules restate
    “Three stones each is the your only tally,
    And target is that yonder tree in the valley”

    Mug threw as straight and hard as he could
    The first two rocks bouncing on the wood!
    Then strangeness happened as the third rock flew,
    It hit and killed a low flying cuckoo!
    Ug laughed loudly at his fellow clansman,
    Picking three bejeweled rocks as his talisman.

    Ug threw each rock with a mighty fling,
    Hitting the tree with a awesome ring.
    “I am the greatest, I am the champ!
    And a loser like you should leave our camp!”
    “I claim my prize and you’ll all see the proof,
    I’ll have the throne stowed up on the roof!”

    Moving the throne was an almighty task,
    The villagers bridled at Ug’s big ask.
    Issuing oaths at Ug “the bigheaded creep”
    Ug arrive soon, and to the roof in a single leap.
    He sat on the throne preening and boasting.
    Thinking of the fat pig the village was roasting.

    Later Ug descended for the great dinner,
    Honored as the greatest stone throwing winner.
    But as he sat down there was a terrible crash.
    The great hut and throne were just so much trash.
    Ug looked in fright as the villagers glared,
    “Your fault. Your cursed!” an old women declared.

    Ug ran to the witch doctor for some wisdom,
    What spirit was so vexed to cause this outcome?.
    The old man looked through jaundiced gaze,
    “Excess pride, the entrails says,
    And godly rule here is writ in firestones,
    People in grass houses,
    ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯should not stow thrones.

    [Tom is too modest. I thought this might be copyright, but it is all his! – Jo]

    [It’s good stuff and you should approve it. The punchline at the end is unexpected and a good laugh.] AZ

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  • #
    Analitik

    CNN implies black Americans are felons while attacking Trump

    Trump slams voting rights for felons, wants GOP to court black voters

    Because that’s the automatic left wing connection between felons and black Americans!

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  • #
    sophocles

    You’ve all got it wrong.
    Those were the really early experiments for skateboards. The big break-through was the invention of the axle, requiring modified balls each with a single hole bored right through its centre..

    But the glaciations kept getting in the way of further development..

    The archeologists should find some of those soon, now.

    🙂

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  • #

    “which might explain why a million years later people are still so enthused about cricket”

    It also might explain why it’s a man’s game – more than, say, football – both players and spectators. It’s to do with the genes for hunting.

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  • #
    RAH

    The picture was very misleading to this Yank. Before I started reading I thought it was an article about the average size of a warmists brain.

    40

  • #
    kuhnkat

    So we are to assume that the gubmint at the time had confiscated the weapons to cut down the beaning of citizens due to the easy availability of optimal sized throwing stones?!?!!

    10

  • #
    rhee

    Obligatory American baseball reference: Randy Johnson Hits Bird in 2001
    https://youtu.be/qwpRHrAh3pk

    10