Homo erectus crossed the Indus, Ganges, and Irrawaddy

An interesting news item (Zach Zorich, Palaeolithic Tools, Archaeology, January/February 2011), but why the surprise that H. erectus/ergaster could cross 40 miles of open sea to reach Crete?

When I was little, my family often went camping and many times my brother and I made use of a drift log to reach islands out in a lake, or to cross a river. As a young field biologist working in remote wilderness in northern Canada, we often lashed a few logs together to make a raft to cross rivers; the photo is an example. It seems obvious that Homo erectus , who clearly had the tool-using skills, would have done so.

Much earlier than the Crete crossing, H. erectus evidently crossed Mab el Mandeb at the mouth of the Red Sea (although it was probably narrower then), and reached the islands of Java and Sumatra (but the Sunda Shelf may have been exposed). Regardless of these uncertain sea crossings, they must have also crossed the Indus, Ganges, and Irrawaddy Rivers to reach Java, and the Mekong River to reach China, in addition to countless smaller, though still daunting, rivers. These crossings imply technology for river/sea transport, not only of people (including infants and toddlers who could hardly have straddled a floating log, for example) but also of tools and supplies.

Crossing to Crete is another matter: 40 miles is a long way. But I feel certain that if any homonids from H. erectus on could see land across the water, they could reach it.

China's and Burma's Forests and Canadian Forest Investments

The white-handed gibbon is extinct in China and this is one of the reasons why:

Since cutting natural forest has been illegal in China since 1998 (the Natural Forest Protection Ban), the country has embarked on a massive aforestation program. This is where the alleged Yunnan timber holdings of a certain Canadian-Chinese investment company come in. But “...the allocation of land for economic land concessions (including plantations) often raises questions about how local communities have been engaged, processes for free and prior informed consent, and long-term benefits for these communities.” EU Baseline Study 1, China: Overview of forest governance, markets and Trade. European Union, June 2011). Seems like a poor, or at least unethical, basis for investment to me.

China only produces about 70 m3/year from a forest base of some 8% of the country, and most of its domestic production now is from plantations of poplar, Chinese fir and Masson pine, mainly for plywood and paper. For furniture wood and lumber, it needs to import wood. The above-mentioned EU report discretely notes, “several of the countries which are major suppliers to China’s forest products industry ...[provide] illegally sourced wood materials” and “documentation of source of origin at district levels of Chinese timber still poses some difficulties ...”. In 2005, China imported more than 1.5 million cubic metres of Burmese timber worth an estimated US$350 million. Almost all of these imports were illegal; China closed the Burmese border to logs in 2006, resulting in huge inventories of logs at the border and putting many Chinese out of work (China Blocks Timber Imports From Burma [Myanmar]: www.illegal-logging.info). Ah, but then they put through highway 14 from Kunming to Mandalay. I have read, but can’t quote any stats, that illegal logging has since increased in Myanmar again, which is now nearly depleted of forest, with the logs flowing into Yunnan. So my guess is that is anyone wants to know where the missing forest land of this Canadian-Chinese forest company is, they might look towards Myanmar for the answer. And if some investors think Chinese forest companies, or Canadian ones with Chinese operations, have overstated their timber holdings, I can guess why.

My interest in this is the rare and endangered species that live in these forests. In the last couple of years, two species of gibbon have been extirpated from China and virtually all species that depend mature forest have either disappeared or are relegated to remnant “protected” forest patches where they are still hunted for meat and other products. Vietnam, Laos and Burma are huge sources of trade in illegally harvested or captured species, and are (especially Vietnam) major conduits for animals sources in other SE Asian countries, China is the main market, and Yunnan is the main port of entry. The disappearance of forests and native wildlife from Yunnan and neighbouring countries should be reason enough for anyone not to invest in companies like this.

Canada, Expo 2012, and the Republic of Korea

Barbara Yaffe (“Snubbing Expo 2012 shows Ottawa's skewed international spending priorities”, The Vancouver Sun, August 26) and similar views expressed elsewhere in the Globe and Mail make a good point, but South Korea’s Expo 2012 is not just about trade. We can learn from the Koreans. During many scientific missions there in the last decade, our hosts proudly toured their international guests through a variety of cultural and industrial gems in the country’s crown. These were not only in the big cities of Seoul and Pusan, but in towns all the way to the tip of the peninsula. On one offshore island we saw, for example, an international photography show, an international cello competition, and the two biggest shipyard in the world. Every village mayor and regional governor had something to show off that was well worth seeing; and the receptions following these events were a lesson in civic and national pride. Somehow, the Koreans manage to lead the world in arts and technology while maintaining their cultural roots: in every valley is a beautiful Buddhist temple, beside every byway a shrine, on every mountaintop a monastery. Besides being amazed and awed by the country’s arts and technology, I learned this: In the Korean national psyche is the feeling that there is nothing they cannot achieve. If they can imagine it, they believe they can do it. This is a country that, for centuries under the alternate heels of Japan’s military and China’s political hegemony, has finally thrown off the yoke of oppression and become one of the most vigorous and productive democracies in the world. Canada should recognize that, for the cost of participating in the expo, we would gain far more than an increase in trade

Red-crowned crane population improving

I read in the news (September 16, 2011) that Japan is sending some Japanese Cranes to Taiwan in thanks for help after the earthquake and tsunami. In 1994 Japanese colleagues from a research institute in Kushiro took me fishing at Nakashibetsu River, to the onsen (hotsprings resort) at Akan National Park, and to see the cranes along the Kushiro River. At that time there were about 600 tancho (Japanese, or red-crowned cranes, Grus japonica) in the world, and we saw about 60, or 10% of the whole world population. Now there about 900, a 50% increase since 1994. In 2006 I saw a few in the estuary of the Yellow River, China.

I posted photos of this and other crane species at https://picasaweb.google.com/113664418404513429838/Cranes#

Palestine, Israel and Canada

Saturday, September 19, 2011 - Since 1947 when the United Nations offered statehood to Palestine, everyone who cares to read about it has known that a two-state solution is the only way out of the Palestine-Israeli conflict, the single most dangerous, divisive and persistent threat to world security—save for a coterie of ultra-conservative Israelis who, unfortunately, control enough votes in the Knesset to topple any government that tries to implement it. In four years of working in Jordan, from Cabinet Ministers’ boardrooms to Bedouin tents, I never heard anyone say anything bad about Jews or Israelis, only about the Israeli Government’s policies. People who haven’t spent much time in the Middle East, including some Canadian politicians, do not know how close Israel and Palestine are to peace and how easily in can be achieved. The Palestine leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has taken a bold step to break a deadly impasse by asking for statehood recognition from the United Nations. Canada should get on the bus instead of standing in front of it.

Testosterone campaign by drug companies raises concerns

Re: Testosterone campaign by drug companies raises concerns (Carly Weeks, Globe and Mail, Sept. 22, L6).

Men’s testosterone normally falls when they get married or otherwise partnered, and falls again when their babies are born (see References, below). Scientists interpret this as a natural switch from mate-seeking to parenting. At the same time, other hormones that are associated with love, trust, contentment and satisfaction in relationships increase. Evolutionary biologists view these normal changes as associated with pair-bonding, monogamy, and paternal care of young that developed millions of years ago in our proto-human ancestors. Men who, through biological or physical accident, have no or poorly functioning testes, may need supplemental testosterone, but the rest of us don’t. Drug companies know this and should be honest with consumers instead of trying to invent an illness where none exists.

References

KUZAWA, C. W., L. T. GETTLER, M. N. MULLER, T. W. MCDADE, AND A. B. FERANIL. 2009. Fatherhood, pairbonding and testosterone in the Philippines, Hormones and behavior 56:429-435.

GETTLER, L. T., T. W. MCDADE, A. B. FERANIL, AND C. W. KUZAWA. 2011. Longitudinal evidence that fatherhood decreases testosterone in human males, Proceedings of the National Acadademy of Sciences (USA) Published online before print September 12, 2011

FERNANDEZ-DUQUE, E., C. R. VALEGGIA, AND S. P. MENDOZA. 2009. The biology of paternal care in human and nonhuman primates, Annual Review of Anthropology 38:115-130

Odd colour morphs in leaf monkeys

Madura De Silva and colleagues and I recently, independently, published papers on odd colour morphs in leaf monkeys. They documented a white phase of the Sri Lankan langur Semnopithecus vetulus (they are usually grey) and I documented a red phase of silvered lutung (or leaf monkey), Trachypithecus cristatus. (see references at end of post).

This is most interesting and it doesn’t happen very often. Unlike other taxa such as birds, which often have different color morphs, primates rarely do. I suppose this is because in mammals, when there is a mutation that causes a colour morph, either natural selection or sexual selection quickly eliminates it. One can imagine, for example, that a white morph of S. vetulus might be more visible to eagles, and so predation pressures might eliminate them. But De Silva's photos and mine also show that some white S. vetulus and red T. cristatus have babies, and so negative sexual selection must not be much of a factor. It is even possible that sexual selection could be a positive force, meaning that white potential mates are attractive because of their differences. As we say, “Variety is the spice of life!”.

In the case of the red T. cristatus, since they were documented some 70 years ago and still persist, indeed seem to have spread far upriver, one can speculate that there must be something about their environment that either doesn’t discriminate against red ones (for example, lack of avian predators), or actually encourages them. The only big eagle we saw was the Crested Serpent-eagle, and I presume that this is a snake/lizard specialist. Large snakes and wild cats of all sizes up to Clouded Leopard are present in Kinabatangan River habitat of T. cristatus, but I don’t know anything about their colour vision. It might be that red is just as invisible to these predators as black, maybe even more so. The black ones were certainly more visible to me, everywhere I have seen them (several places in Borneo and also in Peninsular Malaysia). Also, since there is a red species of leaf monkey, Presbytis rubicunda, that lives in the same area, there is obviously no environmental factor that would negatively affect T. cristatus.
About S. vetulus: it would be interesting to know how long they have persisted. Since De Silva et al mentioned a pale specimen from 1923, it seems possible that some variation was present 90 years ago, and may have increased in proportion and also in whiteness since then. If predation is a factor in coat color, would it be reasonable to speculate that since 1923, predation pressure might have slackened? Perhaps some of the langur predators have declined in the region where the white morphs persist?

References

SILVA, M. A. D., N. C. HAPUARACHCHI, AND P. A. R. KRISHANTHA. 2011. A new colour morph of Southern purple faced leaf langur (Semnopithecus vetulus vetulus) from the rain forests of southwestern Sri Lanka. Wildlife Conservation Society – Galle: 16.

HARDING, L. E. 2011. Red morph of silvered lutung (Trachypithecus cristatus) rediscovered in Borneo, Malaysia, Taprobanica 3:47-48.

Goitered Gazelles Still Live in the Middle East

An article in the local newspaper about the Goitered Gazelles, referring to a paper in PNAS (Proc. National Academy of Sciences) by Bar-Oz, G., Zeder, M., and Hole, F. (April 2011), suggested that this species was “extirpated...in northern Levant”. Not quite true. Here's a photo of one that I took in 2002.

There still are a few Gazella subguttarosa in Jordan and adjacent parts of Syria and Saudi Arabia. I had reliable reports of a few along the Syrian-Jordanian border near Iraq, and also along the SE border of Jordan with Saudi Arabia—maybe a few dozen in the former location and no more than a handful in the latter. And there are Dorcas gazelles, perhaps 100 or so, along the border with Israel in Wadi Araba, south of the Dead Sea. The reason these few remnants of former widespread species persist is that these border areas are heavily defended and land-mined. The Bedouins know better than to try to graze their livestock there; consequently, the habitat is the best in the country. And no one hunts there, except the Badia Patrol (a camel-mounted border patrol force), who occasionally serve gazelle to their guests as a special treat.

In 2005, Jordan got $161 million in a suit against Iraq for environmental damages caused by the 1990 Gulf War, the funds to be dedicated for restoration of 7.1 million hectares of arid and semi-arid rangeland. The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature has some of the money to rejuvenate its captive breeding program (it was successful for Arabian oryx, but decidedly not for gazelles) and to establish a new, large nature reserve near the last known goitered gazelle population area.

Bedouin Tribes of Jordan Rise to Power

Photo: A meeting of the southern Shaykhs, March 2006

February 10, 2011 - The short note on page A11 (“Jordanian tribes criticize the queen”, Globe and Mail, February 10, 2011) understated the significance of the tribes’ criticism of Queen Rania. It was not just the breaking of a taboo, but signaled a shift in geopolitics that could have much wider implications. At its heart, the joint statement, allegedly by the sheikhs of 36 tribes, was not about the Queen per se, but about land and power. His Majesty King Abdullah II was quick to angrily deny the accusations, to point out that the authors of the “joint statement” were not tribal leaders, just members of the 36 tribes, and to threaten the reporter with legal action. Nevertheless, the fact that such a statement could be written and published signals some kind of change, or at least the threat of it.

Since the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan shares dynastic ties with Iraq’s tribes (the former King Faisal was also a Hashemite), this issue extends far beyond Jordan’s borders. How far was shown during the first Gulf War. When Saddam Hussein’s army attacked Kuwait, Kuwaiti pastoralists had to flee with their livestock, but where? They could not legally cross into Saudi Arabia or Iraq, and Saddam had made it mandatory on pain of death for all adult males of Kuwait to join the Iraq army. But Kuwaiti Bedouins had tribal connection in Jordan, and the Iraq and Saudi tribes gave them safe passage as they walked across the 1000 km of desert. Although it was also illegal for them to enter Jordan, in 1990-1991 about 6000 Kuwaiti families brought 1.4 million sheep, goats and camels across the border. They followed ancient camel routes and watered at oases known only to the Bedouins, travelled at night, and hid in wadis during the day. When they arrived in Jordan, the local tribes, who were already squabbling among themselves over grazing rights, made room for the newcomers and their flocks.

Jordan is the eye in the storm of the Middle East. Like Canada, Jordan is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government; the main difference is that in Jordan, the King can prorogue Parliament, while in Canada the Prime Minister has that power. Jordan is the closest Arab country to a democracy, the most open socially, the most peaceful, the most religiously pluralistic, and the most lawful. Jordan and Egypt are the only Arab states formally at peace with Israel. Too often, news about the Middle East that mentions “tribes” contains “lawless” in the same sentence. It’s true in Jordan that tribal law is strong and exists alongside government law, but that does not make it lawless. Tribal leaders in Jordan are struggling to adapt their laws and customs to the 21st century. The nomadic lifestyle is disappearing, leaving an economic and social vacuum.

Jordan and the other Arab states are governed by two parallel systems: constitutional laws and tribal laws and customs. These two systems come together in the person of King Abdullah II. All the tribes owe allegiance to the King, who in turn ensures the tribes’ financial and political security. But this is a two-edged sword: The tribes are more cognizant of their ancestral territories than modern country borders and often take their flocks into Syria, Iraq, or Saudi Arabia in search of pasture. Although illegal without export/import permits and fees, the authorities condone it. If the tribes’ loyalty to the King were to be somehow sundered, there would be nothing keeping them from offering their loyalty to other emirs.

Bedouin society is organized in a traditional family-clan-tribal hierarchy. Each evening, the clan chiefs get together with the sheikh and decide the affairs of the tribe. One of the routine decisions is: Which bright young men and women will be sent to Amman for education? The tribal elders know that they need representatives among the business leaders and politicians of the country. in 2002, I was out on the trackless desert, meeting with Bedouin elders wearing their flowing robes and headdresses in a tent that appeared to reek of poverty, when the chief’s son arrived in a brand new SUV. Individual families might not have money, but the tribe has money.

Much of their cash flow comes from the well-armed Badia (“Desert”) Force, whose members, recruited from the Bedouin tribes since the country was created, patrol the kingdom’s borders on camels. As well, many or most members of the army are Bedouin. Therefore, the tribes are linked to power not only through tribal loyalties, but through the military.

The Bedouin traditions are strong and their culture persists. They comprise about 40% of the country’s population. Outside of the cities, about 98% of the people identify themselves as “Bedu,” (French Bedouin: “people of the desert”) and identify with one of the 40 or so Jordanian tribes. Almost all have at least a few sheep or goats, while those better off still count their wealth in camels. More than 60% are semi-nomadic, spending at least a season away from their homes in search of pasture, and 5%–10% are fully nomadic, with no permanent homes. They have a deep attachment to the land and all whom I talked to in four years of working with them professed to love the lifestyle.

The tribes’ joint statement is itself historic. They live in villages mostly deserted in summer as they wander with their flocks in search of grass across vast stretches of desert, and some of the tribes are traditional enemies. In 2006, to plan a country-wide rangeland restoration project, I helped organize two meetings, one with the sheikhs of all the northern tribes of Jordan, and one with all the southern sheikhs. During the meetings, the enmity between certain of the sheikhs was palpable. My boss, a member of the Higher Council for Science and Technology, commented, during the obligate feast that followed, “this is a historic meeting, you know. Some of these sheikhs have never met each other and never have they all met together.”

The joint statement came at a moment when the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia had fallen and there were demonstrations in half a dozen other Arab and North African countries. To forestall foment in Jordan, the King had already announced constitutional and other reforms, and soon after he charged Parliament with implementing them.

Their beef with Queen Rania—whose family is from Palestine—is more about her humanitarian support for Palestinians in Jordan than with her alleged lavish lifestyle. One of the ways that the King has sought tribes’ loyalty is apportioning seats in Parliament partly by land, rather than by population, with the result that the tribes’ representatives currently control parliament. This gives them not only the usual perks and power of politicians, but more important to them, the power to regulate affairs critical to their communities, such as land and water rights. But between 2005 and 2010 the Queen's office has helped many Palestinians obtain Jordanian citizenship (the Joint Statement gave a number that the subsequent Royal statement said was wrong); as well (or as a result), Palestinian businessmen are gaining an increasing share of the economy. Jordanian tribes feel threatened, not only by the Palestinians, but since 2003 by the huge influx of Iraqi refugees and other immigrants. If the tribes were to lose faith with the Jordanian monarch, the political consequences in the Middle East would be enormous.

Independence of South Sudan

January 11, 2011 - In our euphoria over the emerging independence of South Sudan, we should not forget that European countries caused Sudan’s grief to begin with; and that southern Sudan has many natural resources besides oil that, if well managed, can help the people recover. The roots of this crisis are in the Ottoman, French, Belgian and British colonial enslavement in the 19th Century, and in misguided international aid efforts that began in the 1960s. Prior to these western interventions, the northern nomads moved their flocks with the seasons in a relationship with their dry environment that had been stable for at least five millennia. They herded sheep and goats and used camels for transport, since their semi-desert environment would not support the cattle and farming economy of the southern tribes, who lived in a moister environment of grassland and shrub forest. The colonial masters forced southern farmers to move north and to settle around water sources that had formerly been the seasonal domain of the nomads. Their livestock overgrazed the land around these oases forcing the nomads into more marginal environments. After independence in 1956, mis-guided aid agencies drilled wells to ease poverty and encourage farming, further disrupting the pastoral patterns and causing large-scale desertification and loss of wildlife habitat. This resulted in repeated famines in various parts of the Sahel since 1968. The famines of 1973–1975 and 1984 were especially severe and burned into our minds the plight of starving people in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Biafra (now returned to Nigeria) and other Sahelian countries. Climate change that began to be felt in the 1980s made it worse. The connection with climate change has been known for more than two decades and was discovered by Canadian wildlife biologists. But Southern Sudan still has its grasslands, shrub forests, swamplands and water sources to support the tribal societies that are still largely intact. After the peace treaty in 2005, wildlife biologists re-discovered massive wildlife migrations rivalling anything anywhere else in the world, including over 753,000 white-eared kobs, over 278,600 Mongalla gazelles and 155,460 tiang antelopes, even a few elephants—together more than 1.2 million big game animals. This is an ecotourism gold mine that, if well managed, would help the people rebuild their lives and societies

Canada's Failures in Middle East Policy

Photo: Al Hussein Mosque, in the souk, Amman

January 28, 2011 - In all the commentary following Canada's recent Middle East debacles, the failure to secure a UN Security Council seat and our military getting kicked out of the United Arab Emirates, commentators and politicians have failed to find the causes. It is not just our policies and actions that arouse enmity, but also official government statements, especially those of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Now, with demonstrations spreading through Arab capitols, we should take closer cognizance of the Middle East view of Canada. Make no mistake, Canada’s position is known on the Arab street, and it matters.

Working in Jordan in 2002, before the latest Gulf War, through 2006, I had a chance to hear and feel the changing attitude of Jordanians towards Canada. From what I read in the newspapers, Jordanians’ view of Canada is representative of the Gulf States generally. In 2002, on the street, seeing my Canadian flag bag tag, people called out a friendly “Hey Canadi!” I learned enough Arabic to introduce myself and always added, “...from Canada.” This never failed to start a conversation.
I was close enough to the seat of power to have a UN security badge that identified me as a representative of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. I regularly met with government Ministers, and among my close colleagues was a member of the royal family. In 2002, wherever I went, whether in the boardrooms of Amman, the souks of date-palm shaded villages, or sitting on colourful carpets in Bedouins’ goathair tents far out on the desert, they asked me the same thing: “Will America attack us?”
America, of course, had already attacked Afghanistan, and in 2002 was sabre-rattling against Iraq. “Us” meant Arabs; Muslims. Jordan’s monarch is a Hashemite, as was the former King Faisal of Iraq. The countries’ Bedouin tribes are blood relatives, their history is intertwined, and their ruling elites are Sunni Muslims. Canada was well-known, even to the tea-boys and street vendors, as a country of peace, a counter-point to our aggressive neighbour, America.

In 2002, I lived in a hotel a long mile from our office. I enjoyed the walk, picking up some fruit, dates and nuts for lunch each day on the way to work, and falafels or a shwarma on the way back in the evening, stopping along the way to look at wares in the shops and chat with the police who guarded every villa and government office. That fall, the terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi was indicted for the murder of an American diplomat in Amman, but I felt safe: I’m Canadian.

Sadly, our reputation had changed for the worse by 2003 and has gone downhill ever since. The first big drop from grace was when we sent troops to Afghanistan, prompting Osama bin Laden to put Canada on the list of countries, the citizens of which should be killed in the name of God. Bin Laden’s enmity with America-supported Gulf State dictators resonates with mainstream Arabs, even though most decry his methods and abhor violence. In 2002, my environmental work took me and my Jordani colleagues—ecologists—all over Jordan, right up to the Syrian, Iraqi, Saudi, and Israeli borders. We drove out alone in a rented 4x4, wherever and whenever we wanted. In 2003, with the Iraq war raging, we never went anywhere without armed guards that, outside of Amman, consisted of two soldiers in a pickup truck with a .50 calibre machine gun in the back. We needed permits and an itinerary approved by two Ministries, who sent an advance emissary to all the Bedouin tribes saying that the strangers were not to be molested. We stopped at each military command posts to have a de rigueur tea with the commandant to explain our scientific mission, even though he had been briefed.

By 2006, when my wife and I had an apartment in Amman, our personal feeling of safety and camaraderie with the locals had largely vanished. We felt eyes staring at us. No one called out “Hey Canadi” in the souks. Being Canadian was no longer a plus.

In August 2005, terrorists had fired a rocket at a US warship in Jordan’s Gulf of Aqaba, missed their target, and hit a ferry, killing one Jordanian. In November, bombs simultaneously ripped through three hotels frequented by foreigners, killing 57. My wife and I daily walked to work and back—our client, a high-level Crown agency Director, repeatedly urged us to take a taxi—past a court house where the trial of the alleged hotel bombers was taking place. The lawyers and others who were chatting outside the building seemed to scowl at us: foreigners, Canadian, American, all the same. The big change, even from 2003 had, I believe, a lot to do with Stephen Harper’s continual pro-Israeli/anti-Palestinian statements, first as Leader of the Opposition, and from early 2006 on, as Prime Minister.

These comments are noticed in the Arab world. We read about them in the Jordanian Times newspaper, and heard them on BBC, Al-Jazeera and Al-Arribiya television news. They don’t make us any friends. They reveal our government as biased against Arabs and Muslims, and our leader as being not well informed on the background and history of the region.

It therefore came as a surprise to me last summer to read that Canada would dare to seek a seat on the UN Security Council, which Gulf States and their allies would surely, and did, defeat. The United Arab Emirates’ expulsion of Canada’s air base, used in the war against Afghanistan, although it caught our bureaucrats and politicians by surprise, was a logical consequence of Canada’s continual acerbic comments about issues important to Arabs. Nor have we learned: just yesterday (January 27), www.thestar.com reported that “The United Arab Emirates’ top diplomat says he’s been ‘insulted’ by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s war of words aimed at his country”.

Demonstrations are spreading through Arab capitols. Even in the Amman neighbourhood where my wife and I once strolled and bought pastries from friendly vendors, 3,000 marched today changing “We want change.” This is a critical time for the region, and it matters what our leaders say. Canada should follow the advice of Walt Disney’s cartoon rabbit Thumper: “If you can’t say somethin’ nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”

An arid thorn-scrub model for invention of clothing

A news item in Archaeology Headlines for January 10 (www.archaeology.org/news/) showing that humans began wearing clothing between 83,000 and 170,000 years ago repeats a common assumption that I think is wrong. The lead scientist on the team, David Reed, was quoted as saying, “I find it surprising that modern humans were tinkering with clothing probably long before they really needed it for survival,” i.e., before they left Africa for the colder climate of Europe. Archaeologist Ian Gilligan at the Australian National University in Canberra, who did not take part in this research, was quoted in the article, saying "It means modern humans probably started wearing clothes on a regular basis to keep warm when they were first exposed to ice age conditions" that began about 130,000 to 180,000 years ago.

Why does no one think about why clothes might have been needed in a hot arid environment where modern humans evolved? These research findings were reported in our local newspaper on the same day as an article about the “Lost Boys of Sudan.” This article quoted a southern Sudanese man of the Dinka tribe, now at Simon Fraser University, describing his long trek at age six with other orphaned boys to a refugee camp after their village had been destroyed by raiders from the north and their parents murdered. They had fled without shoes, but when their feet became bloody, they made sandals from dried antelope skins. If these six-year-olds could invent sandals to enable travel across stony, thorny ground, why would not archaic Homo sapiens do so? Moreover, anyone who has walked through the arid thorn-scrub that characterises much of eastern and southern Africa knows how difficult it is to avoid thorns. After inventing sandals, how long would it be until people began throwing animal skins over their shoulders to ward off thorns?