re: #610 engineer dog

pre 60 thousand bc - modern humans in africa and levant, neanderthals in europe, some homo erectus elsewhere

45 thousand - 10 thousand bc - humans all over old world. paleolithic technology

10 thousand - 6 thousand mesolithic era in europe. stone tools, no agriculture, but ice age big game gone. technological innovations include bow and arrow and domestication of the dog

6 thousand - 3500 bc - agriculture spreads through europe from the southeast to the northwest

4000 - 1000 bronze age spreads through europe

1000 - 0 bc - iron age

I have to cover some of this with the sixth-graders for Social Studies. Wasn’t clear if the C-M were homo sapiens sapiens or no. Apparently, yes.

I also do religion with these guys, and I am sorely tempted to draw them a connection between the Ice Age and the expulsion from Eden, but

a. am not sure I can explain my idea to them and
b. am afraid Father B. will have a nervous breakdown

In other news, the seventh graders did lousy on their big Religion test on ‘true and truth’. I should have suggested that Mr. W. add ‘truthiness’ as a category.