Presentation in Narrative

Presentation last night in History of Narrative went well, so says professor and a few students. The topic was "cosmic narrative: ancient human migration." Started with a 20 minute video I purchased off the Web; chose this because 1) it would take up time, but more importantly 2) would best review the science of the theories and demonstrate how scientists "tell" their theory in narrative form. It was a good choice to do this -- the seminar participants were interested and I was able to use much of the narration to support my later claims.

Followed with about 15-20 minutes of my own discussion interspersed with some slide presentations. With video, presentation, and follow-up discussion, my portion of the evening took approximately one-and-a-half hours, and I was able to hold my own and Dr. Wood's reaction was definitely positive. Unfortunately, he then commandeered the remaining time and let it devolve into his own very uninteresting lecture on the nature of minerals and basic elements in the universe. Unnecessary, and unrelated to the course. Several students were disappointed with the last half hour or more.

I feel I can turn this presentation easily into a paper, with a much faster turn-around than my Virgil.

Notes:

Evidence
Artifacts, geologic allowances; primarily genographic analysis

Character – tension between self and other
Self – ancestors meaning “us” – blood, genes, appearances
Other – not human/ not homo sapiens. These are not creatures that we can wholly relate to.
But narrative does not require complete relation. Ramayana deals with gods and demons. Myth = gods and heroes. Faulkner – demons within us.

The story that scientists weave for us – the non-scientist – is of families with purpose migrating from home to new worlds; these “folks” have character, have purpose, have drive, though of course, this is all conjecture. We don't really know what would have compelled anyone to migrate anywhere; we use parallelism and induction to presume our needs/drives are similar to individuals and communities hundreds of thousands of years ago on a – really – different planet.

Motion/Direction/Tension
Within the narrative is this presumed drive to migrate – the anthropologists want us to believe that drive is because of food, social pressure, or even accidental (moving down the beach). The populations of these creatures would have been so small, that “political” pressure would have been minimal – we're not talking of societies of tens of thousands, or thousands, perhaps not even of hundreds of humanoids. We're talking tens, and groups of tens. If the motion, then is climatological or due to needs of food and supply, then the question is man vs nature. If the tension is more noble, however, one of quest and discovery, then the question is man vs himself – one addressing knowables and unknowables. The current narrative could then be framed in either form – a climatological crisis drove our ancestors from their homeland, just as we are faced with climatological crises today. Possible political ramifications.
If the drive is exploration, however, then the ones writing/telling this narrative could be attributing the same “brave exploratory” characteristics that the scientists themselves attribute to themselves and each other [these anthropologists are often portrayed as patient explorers – the quiet side of Indiana Jones].

Setting
1.How does setting affect meaning, if?

Meaning
The meaning is an explanation of origin. Humans are driven [wired?] to ask questions of “what then?” – Turtles, all the way down. Myth and religion attempt to explain origins of matter and mankind. Science, though it follows material empiricism as its method, still seeks meaning. As a worldview, anthropology and life sciences seek the meaning of existence in the artifacts of technology and the ___ of the cell. But meaning here lacks the valuation of myth and religion; whereas the latter value humans has having some relationship – theogenetic or theosocial – with the divine, to elevate, if not the soul, at least the thoughts of the community, towards the other worlds; science lacks this valuation, lacks the relationship with other worlds, and firmly establishes life – current, ancient – with the hard, dirty materiality that it works with – fossilized bones, arrowheads, organelles within the cells. Still, some scientists will use this uniqueness to again elevate the human condition to one of scarcity, therefore rarity, therefore divine.

“Look – our family started on one continent and successfully walked tens of thousands of miles to colonize entire continents, and did so with minimal assistance from technology, and [apparently] no help from the gods. We are all therefore related, we are all therefore tied together.” These presupposes, however, that extremely distant genetic relationship implies emotional or social ties, or even any ties that matter. But the narrative is there – morphology = sociology.

ZZZ

What are mythological explanations of migration (national origins)?
(Powerpoint – Blackfoot, Hebrew, Chariots of the Gods)

How does modern culture accept/use/reflect the narrative
There are two competing theories of ancient migration – multiregional and recent African. The recent African is the one in consensus currently and is referred to during this presentation. Within the two theories, however, the scientific community is largely firm. This requires the acceptance of other common scientific theory – biological evolution, continental drift, for example.

Popular media, including MSNBC, National Geographic, and local museums repeat and endorse the migration story as the continuing explanation of all things from science. The source is science, the story is humans within the scientific framework – though we have no dialog, no images, no oral history, we have narrative – character, setting, conflict or tension, purpose and drive/plot, even some resolution. But it is a narrative without design, or author.

Popular culture seems to ignore the narrative – there are few novels or films about this migration. Perhaps an exception is Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Marie Auel (1980) or Quest for Fire by French author Rosny (1911) which address conflicts between sapiens and neandertals.

Religiously conservative American culture tends to reject ancient human migration because, like biological evolution, it contradicts the traditional ex nihilo view of the biblical narrative. Note, though, that the scientists incorporate the biblical characters of Eve, and Adam as mother and father persona.