Oldest High-Altitude Settlements Discovered

Oct. 1, 2010 — Researchers have unearthed the remains of about six camps, including fragments of stone tools and food, in an area near the town of Kokoda. Te settlements are at about 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) and believed to be the oldest evidence of our human ancestors, Homo sapiens, inhabiting a high-altitude environment.

The world’s oldest known high-altitude human settlements, dating back up to 49,000 years, have been found sealed in volcanic ash in Papua New Guinea mountains, archaeologists said Friday.

Researchers have unearthed the remains of about six camps, including fragments of stone tools and food, in an area near the town of Kokoda, said an archaeologist on the team, Andrew Fairbairn.

“What we’ve got there are basically a series of campsites, that’s what they look like anyway. The remains of fires, stone tools, that kind of thing, on ridgetops,” the University of Queensland academic told AFP. “It’s not like a village or anything like that, they are these campsite areas that have been repeatedly used.”

Fairbairn said the settlements are at about 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) and believed to be the oldest evidence of our human ancestors, Homo sapiens, inhabiting a high-altitude environment.

“For Homo sapiens, this is the earliest for us, for modern humans,” he said. “The nearest after this is round about 30,000 years ago in Tibet, and there’s some in the Ethiopian highlands at around about the same type of age.”

Fairbairn said he had been shocked to discover the age of the finds, using radio carbon dating, because this suggested humans had been living in the cold, wet and inhospitable highlands at the height of the last Ice Age.

“We didn’t expect to find anything of that early age,” he said.

The findings, published in the journal Science, suggest that the prehistoric highlanders of Papua New Guinea’s Ivane Valley in the Owen Stanley Range Mountain made stone tools, hunted small animals and ate yams and nuts.

But why they chose to dwell in the harsh conditions of the highlands, where temperatures would have dipped below freezing, rather than remain in the warmer coastal areas, remains a mystery.

“Papua New Guinea’s mountains have long held surprises for the scientific community and here is another one — maybe they were the home of Homo sapiens‘ earliest mountaineers,” Fairbairn said.

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Gregory Isaacs brings back tons of memories from my childhood to my teen years and adulthood too. He carried me through some very hard times in my life and some very memorable ones too. Long Live the Ka and Ba of the Cooler Ruler!!!!

‘Night Nurse’ reggae singer Gregory Isaacs died in London this morning (2510.10) from cancer.

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Toot, Lonely Lover or simply Cool Ruler are just some of the nick names of the rude boy of reggae. Born in Fletchers land Kingston Jamaica on the 15th July 1950, Gregory Anthony Isaacs was the first son of Lester Isaacs and Enid Murrary.

Gregory started out as an electrician and cabinet maker. His career in music remained his ambition. He was inspired by singers such as Sam Cooke, Percy Sledge, Delroy Wilson, Alton Ellis and Ken Boothe. Gregory began his recording career in the late sixties with “Another Heartache” for singer/producer Winston Sinclair. Although the record was not successful he was not discouraged and in 1969 he formed a group called The Concords with Penro Bramwell. They recorded a few 45s “Buttoo”, “I Need Your Loving” and “Don’t Let Me Suffer” for producer Rupie Edwards. Success did not follow so Gregory Isaacs decided to move on his career as a solo artist. He went on to record for Prince Buster entitled “Dancing Floor”. Still not content he decided to start his own label, assisted by his friend Errol Dunkley, around 1973 and that was the beginning of the legendary African Museum record label, until this day producing classics. in 1974 Gregory recorded “Love Is Overdue” for Alvin “GG” Ranglin at Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle Studio which was a major success. In 1975 he sold over 42,000 copies of the album “In Person”. Gregory continued to record for a number of producers as well as maintaining his own African Museum label. He produced Mr. Isaacs in 1976-77 and “Extra Classic” in 1977.

In the following year he signed a deal with Virgin and recorded two albums for their “Frontline” label, “Cool Ruler” in 1978 and “Soon Forward” in 1979. When his contract wih Virgin expired, UK-based label Charisma wasted no time in signing him up. For this record company he produced the classic albums “Lonely Lover” in 1980 and “More Gregory” in 1980. In 1982 Island Records made an undiclosed offer that Gregory Isaacs could not refuse. Gregory opted for a short term contract. He then demonstrated his unique talent and produced the album “Night Nurse”, which was a huge international success. In 1984 by mutual agreement he left Island Records and recorded for a friend and producer Tads “Green Back” Dawkins and produced two fine albums, “Easy” around September 1984 and “All I Have Is Love, Love, Love” in May 1986. In those mid-eighties he was beset by personal and legal problems and was even jailed in Kingston’s General Penitentiary. After being released from prison he served his fans with a new album entitled “Out Deh”. Due to these problems – including financial problems – Gregory was willing to record for anyone and everyone who was prepared to pay him.

In the second half of the eighties he was the most high prolific reggae artist recording for produces like King Jammy, Bobby Digital, Steely & Clevie, Redman, Sly & Robbie, Gussie Clarke, King Tubby, among others. Despite rumours about Gregory Isaacs’ rude boy lifestyle and the near destruction of his unique talents with the help of cocaine he is still recording and still creating hit tracks to this day. With a musical career spans over three decades by now and having delivered a trailer load of reggae classics – singles as well as albums – his legendary status and reputation in the reggae business are truly second to none.

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Gregory has left outta babylon.!!! R.I.P.

The Transition from Columbus Day to Indian Resistance Day

By Franz J. T. Lee

The oligarchic “opposition” and its national mass media have no respect for anything: currently, Radio Caracas TV (RCTV) is preparing commercials for its mind-controlled adherents to celebrate “Día de la Raza” (Colombus Day) next Tuesday — October 12, 2004.

This big lie, this hoax … about the ‘discovery’ of America by Christopher Columbus, still infects the minds of millions in Latin America.

Although the name of this public holiday has officially been changed to the ‘Dia de la Resistencia Indigena’ by the Bolivarian Government, the mass media continues their mind control, indoctrination and manipulation — with a trans-historic European Mental Holocaust launched against the peoples of the Americas and elsewhere.

Columbus was not among the first to know that the earth was round … the ancient Mediterranean peoples already had this knowledge. He did not ‘discover’ America … already centuries before, the Africans had fleets that crossed the Atlantic and they had a vivid, healthy, trans-cultural intercourse with the American indigenous peoples. Their artefacts and traces of their ancient cultures can be found all over Central America.

* Based on their maritime knowledge and astronomic maps, Columbus organized his own infamous travels … and he knew exactly where he was sailing. In fact, in his own diary he confirmed the African presence in America.

What the oligarchic Latin American ruling classes are still celebrating these days is the beginning of the Conquest … of the pillage and genocide, that their forefathers had disseminated in the ‘New World.’

Columbus himself confirmed the capitalist aims of his voyages: “to sum up the great profits of this voyage, I am able to promise, for a trifling assistance from your Majesties, any quantity of gold, drugs, cotton, mastic, aloe, and as many slaves for maritime service as your Majesties may stand in need of.”

In this way, he launched the “Bermuda Triangle” of the World Market, the international division of labor, that would eventually blood-suck the whole continent … especially Central and South America.

In reality, Governor Columbus had discovered nothing … on the contrary, he was the first to introduce a European, feudalist, absolutist ‘government’ in the Western Hemisphere, accompanied by brutal institutions of slavery.

Fray Bartolome de las Casas documented the horrors perpetrated by him … for example, gambling to see who had the remarkable quality of perfectly cutting a slave in half with one stroke of the sword. This is the kind of atrocity, that the Venezuelan opposition is still celebrating till this day. In this way, Columbus’ government was the first to institute an active onslaught of brutality against the native peoples.

Now, what are the masters of this world really celebrating on Columbus Day … in fact, on the first Labor Day of the Americas?

* On a world scale, have over 5 billion obsolete manual labor slaves really something to be joyful about?
* Are we celebrating our discovery by Europeans to be massacred thereafter?
* To be told that we are inferior races?
* Are we celebrating the victories of alienated labor and capital in the Americas?

At least, here in Venezuela, the Bolivarians will be celebrating their victories over golpism, sabotage, racism and fascism, generated by Big Brother and his local lackeys on a global scale.

However, what are slave labor, wage slavery and exploited labor forces all about? Are they really things to celebrate?

Precisely these are the things that Columbus brought to America.

For those who have studied capitalism and imperialism in the Americas, it is no secret at all that the source of metropolitan wealth, of power and of so-called progress is simply exploited physical and/or intellectual human labor-force. It is also amply known that it is labor-force, and not labor in itself, which is the generator of capital, wealth, power and giga-Profits … but at the same time, also of the production of arms of mass destruction, of most horrible and abominable misery and poverty.

Like elsewhere, ever since the days of the ‘Discovery’ here in the Americas, all social problems revolve around the phenomenon of labor … exploited labor force.

Not to take this universal fact into account in Venezuela, Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean is equivalent to not to understand that precisely by means of ruthless economic exploitation of fundamentally physical labor forces, millions of pauperized and dehumanized peoples … also in the diaspora … have already for centuries been heinously plundered, murdered by ruthless, oligarchic elites.

And they will still be pillaged mercilessly for many decades to come; that is, if we do not urgently change this current world order. Many of our indigenous peoples are already rooted out; in Africa, only a handful of BaThwa or San … the so-called ‘Bushmen’ … survived colonial and apartheid conquest.

In Europe, ever since the XII century until today, the process of labor, production, transformed itself progressively into industrial labor and eventually into corporate capital that dominates and determines all current global events, including Bush’ Economic World War.

Today, as a result of the profound crisis of corporate capitalism, the matter is even more grave, grave-like. Consequently, the only way to annihilate the quintessence of current labor production is to transcend its economic exploitation, political domination, social discrimination (racism), fascist militarization and terrorist dehumanization (alienation). This can only be accomplished by global resistance, by world revolution, that transcends toward global emancipation, not of slaves, but of humanity itself.

What happened on the first “Day of the Race” in America … what occurs on earth, in the universe, in the Clouds of Magellan … have nothing whatsoever to do with bourgeois ethics, with religious norms, metaphysical formal-logic, fake human rights, racist absolute evil, fascist infinite justice etc.

Excluding all our authentic, sacred, indigenous beliefs and values, all of them are fantastic inventions of ruling class, megalomaniac, kleptocratic man, that were forcefully implanted into the very soil and soul of the Americas, to serve European colonial and imperialist interests.

We have to nurture our own Science, to cultivate our own Philosophy, and to make our own History.

* However, if we just look around, we’ll notice historic, emancipatory relations all around us. Seek and ye shall find!

Concerning the current transition, the transmutation towards the galactic unseen, beyond the Milky Way … at this very moment, knowingly or unknowingly, the Bolivarian Revolution, objectively, subjectively and transjectively, finds itself in the ALBA, in the Aurora of revolutionary emancipation.

Next Tuesday … October 12 … thanks to Chavez’ revolutionary government, indigenous emancipatory efforts are really something worthwhile to wholeheartedly celebrate!

Franz John Tennyson Lee, Ph. D (University of Frankfurt), Author, Professor Titular & Chairholder of Philosophy and Political Science, University of The Andes, Merida (Venezuela) — http://www.franzjutta.com ; http://www.franz-lee.org ; http://www.geocities.com/juttafranz/publications00001.html

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African Presence in the Americas before Columbus

Traditionally history had been taught from a eurocentric point of view. The reason is the content of education, textbooks, religious teachings and the Bible itself had been controlled for 500 years by Europeans. Sometimes this point of view obscures reality. There were some recent finds which might indicate an error in our translation of history. Sometimes we are so reluctant to change our way of thinking that we need overwhelming evidence, far beyond a reasonable doubt. This article will attempt to lay the foundation for African presence in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus, not as slaves, but as explorers and traders and they were even leaders who helped to build the Olmec civilization. click image

The discussion in this video speaks to a way of life in America where we haphazardly judge people based on the media driven stereotypical propaganda about what a specific race or ethnic group is like, how they live, or they humanity or lack there of based on a racist European centered view of the world and reality. I am sure there are many other countries where this also takes place but America was built on this kind of prejudicial way of thinking about almost all people who are not white.. – Ras~

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

Gil Noble Re-airs an expose on Heroine addiction. This was one that I saw in the early 1980′s when he aired it. It changed my life. I hope for all that watch it here it does the same. Anyone with young children have tem watch it too.

An adopted 5-year-old from Ithiopia raised $5,000 to give a village in Africa clean water instead of opening gifts for his birthday.

Instead of opening up monster trucks, Play-Doh and new kicks for his fifth birthday, Tariku, who was recently adopted from Ethiopia but now lives in Colorado with his adopted family, agreed to raise money to buy a well for a village in Central African Republic. This idea came to Tariku’s adopted mother, Amy Savage, when the family visited the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC, and the birthday boy started drinking from the dirty fountain when she realized that it was cleaner than most water he drank in his homeland.

Thanks to charity:water, who annually ask those whose birthday falls in September to request friends and family make donations to a charity of their choice instead of gifts, the African boy was able to do something meaningful for his people on his special day. In seven days, Tariku and his parents hit their $5,000 goal!

“We are thinking about celebrating Tariku’s life this same way every year,” said his mother. “I think it would be amazing for him to get to his 18th birthday and look back and see that each year he provided an entire community with clean water.”

Read more about this story here.

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Ate alé mwiono hisumbelo lya manyonyi. (Bembe)
Mti ulio juu ya mlima (mbugani) ni pahali pa mkutano wa ndege. (Swahili)
Un arbre sur la colline dans une savane est une place de rencontre pour les oiseaux. (French)
A tree on a hill in the savannah is a meeting place for birds. (English)

Background, Explanation and Everyday Use

A savannah or savanna (grasslands with some plants and trees) is considered as a place where most animals would like to be. Carnivorous animals such as lion, leopard and cheetah will frequently visit the savannah because this is where they can easily catch their prey. Herbivorous animals such as antelope, buffalo, wildebeest and zebra take it as a gift from the Creator as their only source of fresh grass. Snakes, frogs and flies also dearly recognize the benefit of this place. Besides being their food reserve, most of these animals enjoy the savannah because they can easily see both their enemies and prey from a distance due to the shortness of its vegetation that is comprised mostly with grass. This gives them time to take action quickly.

Birds feel unsafe to rush into these grasslands as they are also targeted by some of the animals mentioned above. They would like a higher place such as a tree on a hill where they can first rest on its branches in order to watch before getting down. When a danger occurs, birds will first rush to a nearby tree to see what exactly is happening. Besides that, both birds and trees are seen as foreigners in the savannah due to their migration habits and their size respectively. According to the Bembe culture a tree belongs to a forest. Birds have developed a strong relationship with trees since they use trees branches to built their nest and lay their eggs. So they must know each other well.

Biblical Parallels

Psalm 1: 3: “They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.”

Matthew 25:34-35: “Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’”

Contemporary Use and Religious Application

In this Bembe proverb a tree can symbolize any person who has settled in a foreign land for a while and birds symbolize visitors from where he or she originated. This proverb is use to advise people like me (a Democratic Republic of the Congo [DRC] citizen living in Kenya) who live in a foreign land not to be selfish and rude to visitors from home, but to be kind enough by helping them with guidance and hospitality, even if it’s something you cannot afford. So do what you can. For example, most visitors from my area in DRC who come to Nairobi, Kenya for business, transit or for medication would feel safe to consult me first in order to get a nice taxi driver, an affordable hotel and or hospital because I am the only one close to them who is familiar with this place. They trust me.

This proverb also reminds us of the priority of promoting ecology, the environment and stewardship of the land. It is used as the June, 2011 proverb on the theme of “Planting Trees” in the 2011 African Proverbs Calendar that has the overall theme of “Climate Change, Ecology and the Environment.”