CHAPTER 5 RESPONSE

QUESTION 1:

RCD is when the scientists take small fragments from bones that are fossilized in the ground and measure the carbon that is in them. Over time the carbon decays nd becomes a completelty different form of carbon. Scientists know the exact time that it takes for the carbon to change so using the ratio carbon 14/ carbon 12 they can find out how long ago that thing was alive.

There are some problems to RCD though. The new ways of radio carbon dating are gettting different results from the earlier ways. There is also a chance that certain animals found the fragment of bone or seed and tried to eat it which would cause the carbon in the seed or bone to change which could throw off the date. Theres also some situations where there is not enough carbon in the bone but there is a plant near the skeleton so the scientists take the carbon from the plant because it was probably near the skeleton at around the same time but there is always a chance that the plant was there after the body was long gone.

QUESTION 2:

INDIAN WRITING ASSIGNMENT

We hadn't expected to fight and eventually be killed that day. We Indians tend to take people for their word and when he said we would be given no harm we let our guard down. It was a very confusing day and everything happened so fast.

We weren't prepared for battle but we had prayed to our god and king for protection. For many of us our gods let us and our king down but others felt it was the gods way of letting us to their eternal kingdom. When the strange invaders approached us they spoke in a weird language. They gave us a small book which the king examined. The strange man tried to touch our grateful king and was hit. He is lucky that was all that happened to him. The king threw down the book which somehow provoked the invaders into attacking us.

They were on top of us in an instant we knew not what to do so we formed our ritualistic formation. This is a special way of praying to our gods for protection in which you all jump into a pile creating a mound. The warriors came and struck us down any way as we waited for our gods. Many did not fight yet they still killed. the survivors in the field below us also did not fight and were still killed and many ran. The invaders captured and killed our king.

GEOGRAPHY QUESTION

I think that the geography of the Moriori island had a big impact on them. The island was not big at all which lead to a small population of people that all lived near each other. They didn't have the space to have wars between different tribes which is why they were so peaceful. They were forced to go to a hunter-gatherer society because the islands soil could not grow their native crops. The animals they hunted were so easy to kill they didn't have to develop advanced weaponry. This all lead to their extinction because they wouldn't fight, they had no weapons, and they had a very small population.

NEANDERTHALS

I think the Neanderthals went extinct because of a few different reasons. I would think the main reason would be a huge war because the species with the better weapons survived and that shows to me that they killed the other species. The only problem with the war idea is the Neanderthals went extinct over 2000 years and i feel that is a long time for war. I also am not sure that the protohumans even thought about war. I wouldn't think that they thought about killing other species unless they were territorial and they killed on instinct if other beings entered their lands. Maybe the Neanderthals started the war when they saw the new strangers entering their territories. That still wouldn't explain a 2000 year war to me so I don't feel that the war (if there was one) started right when the 2 species met.

Maybe the 2 species worked together for most of the 2,000 years and some argument led to war near the end of the Neanderthals existence. I also think that a huge number of Neanderthals died off because of foreign diseases. There had to have been diseases that were unusual to Neanderthal territory and without a built up immune system I think it would have killed many.

There also is a chance that the societies bred together and the Neanderthals genes were not as strong as the other species and the new babies were not in the Neanderthal species anymore. I don't think that could have played to big of a part in the extinction though. What I think happened is the 2 species tried to live together but over the years diseases killed off a lot of the Neanderthals and eventually their was an argument that led to a war which ended in extinction for the Neanderthals.