#Ice Age megafauna

[arthurdrakoni]

A Different Flesh is an alternate history novel that asks what it means to be human. This is my review.

A Different Flesh by Harry Turtledove is an alternate history novel that imagines a world where Ice Age megafauna, and Homo Erectus, never died out. This is my review.

So, I’ve got a review of an alternate history novel I think people around here might enjoy. It does include some, albeit a bit might, speculative evolution elements.

A Different Flesh by Harry Turtledove is a collection of short stories set in the same universe. In the world of A Different Flesh, the ancestors of the Native Americans never crossed the Bering land bridge during the Ice Age. However, Homo Erectus did cross into the Americas. Thus, when the Europeans discover the Americas, they don't find any Native American civilizations, but they do find tribes of Homo Erectus, whom they refer to as sims. Also, the Ice Age megafauna of the Americas never went extinct, so the Europeans also discover a land full of woolly mammoths, sabertooth cats, giant ground sloths, and giant armadillos among other things.

The stories follow the history of the Federated Commonwealths of America, this world's equivalent of the United States of America. Before the start of each story, the mood is set with an excerpt from a book about the history of the FCA. It also provides great details about the history of this world that don't quite make it into the stories. The excerpts also chronicle the relationship between humans and sims.

Harry Turtledove says that he got the idea for this series when he read an article by the late great paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. Gould pondered what might have happened if John Smith and the Jamestown colonists had discovered Australopithecus rather than Native Americans in Virginia. Gould concluded that it would not have ended well for Australopithecus. Turtledove certainly seems to have come to the same conclusion. One thing I think he did well was that, though he wrote the sims as sympathetic, he never made them too anthropomorphized. You can definitely see similarities between humans and sims, as is to be expected, but at the same time sims clearly act and think differently than humans.

I can safely say that this book was worth the wait. I loved the structure of this book being seven short story set in different eras of this alternate worlds. I wish there were more books that employed that sort of structure. I’m a sucker for prehistoric animals, and I’m a sucker for books about alternate colonizations of the Americas. As such, A Different Flesh was like a match made in heaven for me.

In terms of speculative evolution, things are a bit light admittedly. The Ice Age megafauna aren’t too dissimilar to the ones in our world. Although, the presence of an obvious “missing link” does lead to the theory of evolution being developed in the 1660s rather than the 1860s.

The depiction of Homo Erectus also shows some age. They’re shown as incapable to human speech, but they are capable of learning sign language. At the time the book was written, 1988, this was the prevailing view among paleontologists, but I believe subsequent findings suggest that Homo Erectus was indeed capable or verbal speech of a sort.

Still, it is a very entertaining novel exploring the history of an alternate America, and the relationship between humans and sims. It also asks the question what does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be sentient? The sims represent a moral grey area; more intelligent than an animal, but not quite at human levels. So, where do they fit in human society? What rights should they have? All very interesting and thought provoking stuff.

Have you read A Different Flesh? If so, what did you think?

Link to the full review on my blog: https://drakoniandgriffalco.blogspot.com/2019/04/book-review-different-flesh-by-harry.html?m=0

[the-nebula-sys]

Who else is mourning the loss of the aurochsen

[incognito-princess]

I'm going to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science tomorrow to see the Snowmass Ice Age Megafauna find!!

[palaeosinensis]

"Lord of Meadows" faux woodblock/linocut style art of a Megaloceros. My printmaking knowledge is much smaller than other mediums; I'm not sure what size this would need to be carved at or if I'd be better off screenprinting such a thing.

[thesilicontribesman]

Woolly Rhinoceros Teeth, Cliffe Castle, Keighley, Yorkshire

[zooophagous]

It's honestly kind of amazing how well the human body can adapt to weather even without fur. I straight up didn't even wear a jacket out today because it's too warm for one and it's literally 22 degrees (F) out. There's ice on the ground and I'm in a thin tee shirt and slippers.

[avanii]

A second Beast of Basalt, taking inspiration from columnar basalt like before, but also the phenomenon of flood basalt. The tail is composed of a'a lava, and makes that clinkery, glassy sound when it gets swung! I painted this with acrylic inks.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

I am finally--finally--able to take a real break for the next few days. Last winter, my six week break I take from teaching in December and January was spent writing The Everyday Naturalist (I was working on the history of taxonomy chapter exactly a year ago!) While it was totally worth it, by the time the first draft of the manuscript was done, I was well into the winter semester and really hadn't had any downtime.

This year I have been desperately trying to get caught up from the move, two trips to Missouri, and several other things that were good things but that ate a lot of time. I literally was finishing my last end of year tasks a couple hours before midnight last night after spending the past couple weeks in a marathon work session.

But they're done, and I am taking the rest of the week and weekend off other than a few absolutely necessary tasks. I'm limiting my people time so I can let my introvert self recover, and I am actually taking time to read. Believe it or not, I am normally so busy it takes me months to finish one book, a little bit at a time. But I want to change that, and I'm starting by aiming to finish this one this week.

[syoemei]

sorry im tired boss i stayed up late reading about the evolution of moose

[pleistocene-pride]

Happy Ice Age Week: Castoroides better known as the giant beaver, is an extinct genus of beaver that lived throughout North America during the Pleistocene to early holocene some 2.1 million to 11,000 years ago. The first remains of castoroides known to science were consisting of a skull was unearthed from a peat bog near Nashport Ohio in 1837 during the digging of the Ohio Canal. These remains would be formally described by American geologist John Wells Foster in 1838, who named the animal castoroides meaning “beaver like” in latin. Since then hundreds of castoroides specimens have been found from Alaska and Canada on down to Florida, being especially concentrated around the midwestern United States in states near the Great Lakes, particularly Illinois and Indiana. Today two species are considered valid: C. ohioensis & C. dilophidus. Reaching some 6 to 7.5ft (1.8 to 2.3m) in length and 170 to 275lbs (77 to 125kgs) in weight, Casteroides was the largest known rodent in North America during the Pleistocene and the largest known beaver. The hind feet of the giant beaver were much larger than in modern beavers, while the hind legs were shorter. The tail was longer and may not have been paddle-shaped as in modern beavers. The shape of Castoroides large incisors would have made it much less effective at cutting down trees than living beavers, meaning that they likely didn’t build damns and lodges in the same manner. In life castoroides would have been heavily reliant on lakes and wetlands where it would both avoid predators and feed upon primarily aquatic plants. Remains of the giant beaver, along with human artifacts and the remains of other megafauna from several sites shows that there were some interactions between Paleo-Indians and Casteroides. Many native tribes such as the Innu, Mississaugas, Algonquin, & Anishinaabe all feature giant beavers in their traditional mythology, which many believe is evidence of there ancestors interaction with Castoroides.

Art used can be found at the following links:

[woodsfae]

I did not pet the fluffy cows. But I did sing to them, and some of them even seemed to notice.

[littlebeasties-art]

My favorite extinct megafauna 🌿

[cyallowitz]

Questions 3: Ice Age Animals

Google Image Search Right before Holiday Break here, so things are busy.  Figure it would be fun to try some Ice Age questions . . . Yeah, I’m not really sure where I’m going with this either.  Consider it an end of the year adventure? Which Ice Age animal would you like to have as a pet? Do you think Ice Age animals should be used more in non-Earth genres? What you think about the possibility…

[hylianengineer]

Trying to watch documentaries about your field of study is so frustrating. Yes I know we have a common ancestor with chimpanzees; why did you take ten minutes to explain that?! Everyone knows that! Right? Right!? Of course chimps are built for climbing but tell me why! Are you gonna talk about their shoulder joints or aren’t you? Yes, yes, the hand-feet, we’ve all seen them. Shoulder joints are way more interesting. Shut up about the hand-feet.

[palaeosinensis]

Two cave art inspired Megaloceros bucks creating their own thunder in the grass. This is a subsection of something bigger I was trying, but this is lovely on its own.

The noise and swirling faint patterns are anti-AI measures and are not present on the actual art print.

[troythecatfish]