How did past peoples understand birth?

[Xanadu84]

Humans have always known that sex will lead to a child. They have been taught by there parents. This history goes back to before we were humans. The moment a creature evolves to reproduce sexually, with a child that needs care or defense, they instinctively know. They evolve to.

It'd have to be the other way round. A species has to start protecting its young before its young can depend on protection, otherwise you don't get more generations.

In humans, the knowledge that sex leads to babies isn't instinctual, it has to be taught like everything else. It's rare that people don't know about sex nowdays, but it can occasionally happen.

But evolution is gradual. Have a young child that needs to develop after birth, the mother is more surviveable, and the child is more adaptable.That outweighs the disadvantage of some babies dying becuse they are weaker. Then, some of the species evolves to protect there weak offspring, and thats a huge evolutionary advantage, strongly selected for. This allows subsequent generations to be weaker, but develop more. Eventually, it is a strong instinct. Then, as humans develop Memetic systems, and knowledge of how children are born can be passed through knowledge, there is less pressure to have the cause of childbirth be instinctual. As for if we still know instinctually, well, not a lot of data on that

 

[Thaluikhain]

Not necessarily. It was only after the human brain had evolved so much that made pregnancy 9 months, and caused children to only be able to walk after a relatively very long time after birth, compared to other animals, that the idea of motherhood and fatherhood popped up.

Well, in that ideas didn't pop up until long after that, yes.

Not al species are as protective of their young as we are. Especially if you have dozens if not hundreds of offspring at once.

True, but a number of creatures are. They protect their young, without really understanding the reasons why. Lions, for example, go one step further, when a lion takes over a pride by defeating teh previous lion, he will kill or drive away all the existing cubs that would compete with his own.

That sort of instintual behavious would have to be in place before human children could be vulnerable. I know I'm playing fast and loose with evolutionary processes, but you can't have dependant young without protective parents, or you don't get another generation. You can have protetitve parents without the young being so dependant, though, and be able to pass genes along.

 

[Bluntman1138]

My problem is I can;t get over there not being a specific point by which it was taught knowledge. Oh well, fair enough

Just as the Wheel, the Mastery of Fire, and Bread... There are some things mankind will never have a straight answer about.

But in all 4 instances (including conception) we know the knowledge at least pre-dates Ancient Eygpt. (on something more than a instincual basis) As blood lineages started being recorded, nd more than just instinct was in play when it came to wives.

 

[DracoSuave]

It would have been more obvious because people wouldn't have been having sex just for enjoyment until relatively recently

Ha.

Haha.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Sorry, but that's just...So so wrong.

I know, I mean, fuck, I've seen dogs fuck crabgrass for no fucking reason.

 

[Thaluikhain]

My problem is I can;t get over there not being a specific point by which it was taught knowledge. Oh well, fair enough

Just as the Wheel, the Mastery of Fire, and Bread... There are some things mankind will never have a straight answer about.

But in all 4 instances (including conception) we know the knowledge at least pre-dates Ancient Eygpt. (on something more than a instincual basis) As blood lineages started being recorded, nd more than just instinct was in play when it came to wives.

Actually, fire could possibly be pinned down...or at least when knowledge of fire was widespread. That sort of thing leaves evidence...there's a certain element of pseudo-historians, though, who scrabble for any alternative explanation as to why large scale fires happened to pop up in their nation's pre-history just when humans coincidently arrived.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

People have a genetic predisposition to want to have sex. Its engrained in our DNA; hell, it's in EVERY animal's DNA. Plus, it just makes sense, you know? What other natural, obvious act can humans do that involves swapping that much genetic material?

Heck, earliest man could have learned it from watching animals go at it. I'm pretty sure thats how most little kids with pets learn >__>

 

[Vykrel]

its instinctive. all animals learn on their own. what you are asking can be applied to all creatures, not just humans.

no person or animal just one day realized, "Hey, we can make another one of us if we do this weird thing together."

 

[Bluntman1138]

Actually, fire could possibly be pinned down...or at least when knowledge of fire was widespread. That sort of thing leaves evidence...there's a certain element of pseudo-historians, though, who scrabble for any alternative explanation as to why large scale fires happened to pop up in their nation's pre-history just when humans coincidently arrived.

Well, he knowledge of fire after mastered. I am more talking about when humans stopped fearing fire, should have not used the phrase "mastery of fire". We will never really know when and where the first humans started going towards fire.

Evolution hard wires in most animals, "Fire Bad". But we will never know when and where, and who was the first "human" in our evolutionary process that walked toward fire, instead of away.

 

[Kargathia]

So, if I understand this correctly you're wondering how people first noticed a pattern between occurrences 9 months apart?

Pretty simple answer I'd think. The internet wasn't invented yet, so not like they had anything better to do than try and figure out whether it was a coincidence that virgins didn't have babies.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Actually, fire could possibly be pinned down...or at least when knowledge of fire was widespread. That sort of thing leaves evidence...there's a certain element of pseudo-historians, though, who scrabble for any alternative explanation as to why large scale fires happened to pop up in their nation's pre-history just when humans coincidently arrived.

Well, he knowledge of fire after mastered. I am more talking about when humans stopped fearing fire, should have not used the phrase "mastery of fire". We will never really know when and where the first humans started going towards fire.

Evolution hard wires in most animals, "Fire Bad". But we will never know when and where, and who was the first "human" in our evolutionary process that walked toward fire, instead of away.

Oh, right, I see.

Though, we'd never get a solid answer even if we did know, if you see what I mean. Presumably it didn't happen overnight, there's no one person you could say was the first to stop being X amount of afraid, or at least, not without lots of arguments from other people wanting answers to that.

Look at the arguments we have trying to define the first example of X in the present day.

 

[bdcjacko]

Hold on, you mean to tell me sex is related to pregnancy!?!? Well if that isn't the earnest thing.

 

[uzo]

Has anyone read "Clan of the Cave Bear" ?

Great story. Film is rubbish, but novel is fantastic.

A young human girl is rescued by a tribe of Neanderthals. Their inital plan is to leave her, but she had been attacked by some kind of lion - leaving deep symmetrical cuts on her thigh. The lion was a powerful spirit, by their reckoning, and they reason that the gods/spirits/whatever had sent her to them to look after .. despite her humanity.

They tolerate her for the most part. As she matures, they describe her as having long, flowing blonde hair. Bright blue eyes. Firm breasts and an ample rear. Plus being ridiculously tall (remember, they're Neanderthals - 5'6" is tall for them).

One of the characters laments that, despite all her intelligence and wit, she is SO DAMN UGLY she will never find a mate.

Now, for these Neanderthals, they have never quite understood procreation. Males could mate with any female at pretty much any time. You might have a wife, for example, but she could be commanded by any other male to ... shall we say, surrender herself?

And this happened, frequently.

They believed that you had a spirit inside yourself, a totem. This totem would war with other totems around it (your own spirit would fight another). When the women's totem fought with a man's, she would be wounded - hence, menstruation. It would be wounded and the blood would flow.

When a man's totem had won a battle easily, a woman's totem was simply dead. Dead things don't bleed. His powerful totem had won, and it was at this time that she would become with child.

Ayla, the human child, possessed of intelligence miles ahead of even the brightest Neanderthal, started to ponder. She had noticed cause and effect - she noticed that the females mated regularly were the ones more likely to become pregnant. Eventually, the brute of the tribe took an interest in her (most definitely not romantic - he did it because he frankly enjoyed rape) and, after a while, she fell pregnant. One of the key scenes of the story is that a Neanderthal female had had a seriously messed up baby. Ayla figured out that the female was, although 'bonded' with one male, had been 'servicing' another - her brother.



Look, the point of what I'm trying to say is thus: primitive peoples were primitive, not stupid. Generation upon generation upon generation of pregnancies .. daughters becoming mothers becoming grandmothers ... they would have seen this. They would have known that when their male comes for them, it means 'this'. When she stops bleeding, it means 'this'. When her belly swells, it means 'this'. When the pain comes, and the birth begins, it means 'this'.


Give your ancestors some goddamn credit.

NB: I find evolutionary biology frightfully interesting. Don't get me started.

EDIT: Uh oh you got me started. Once humanity developed reliable forms of communication - something beyond monkey squeals and grunts - probably the first thing they talked about was sex. The second thing was probably how to kill the neighbouring group of humans. So they could have more sex.

EDIT EDIT: Something I'd just like to throw in for the hell of it - Caesarians are being performed with growing frequency. Babies are being born bigger and bigger. I wonder ... are we allwoing this to continue too far? Should Caesarians be restricted to only life-and-death situations BY LAW? Developed countries are likely to soon evolve into a species that cannot physically give birth to themselves without extreme medical intervention. As a closet nutjob survivalist, it freaks the shit out of me. Imagine a world where even 10% of women die in childbirth, let alone 50% due to gargantuan babies.

 

[Beliyal]

snip

Always wanted to read that book, but never got a chance as I want to take some time to read the whole series. I heard that, while still being fiction, it very accurately portrays that fascinating and, relatively short, period of the coexistence of us and Neanderthals.

Modern humans almost certainly knew that sex = babies. How they knew? We can't know for sure, but reproduction is what kept our species alive for thousands of years so we can assume it comes naturally, just as knowing that "that feeling in your stomach" means you're hungry. There were maybe times when we couldn't draw the connection, but that's unlikely in my opinion. We were either only animals with instincts or we were already intelligent beings that had social structure and some knowledge about the world around us that we shared with the next generation.

As to pregnancies not ending in birth all the time; well, that's true, but there are also natural changes in a woman's body when she's fertile. We don't notice it anymore (not to the extent of ancient people probably), but when a woman is fertile, she appears more attractive; her breasts swell, the hormones make her willing to search for a mate, I think there are some natural feromones as well. All in all, when a woman is fertile (ready to get pregnant), she attracts the opposite sex in order to mate. It is more likely that women had more sex when they were fertile, and less in other times of the month. So it is possible that the lack of pregnancy after sex was seen as something extraordinary and not pregnancy itself.

During prehistory, fertility was extremely important to all cultures, and since domestication of animals, it was almost certainly known that you get pregnant by having sex (man-influenced genetic manipulation of both animals and plants was not invented recently; it was present since the first domestication. People wanted a strong male to mate with a strong female to produce strong offspring, thus, they must have known, long before that, that sex is what makes babies). After the emergence of civilization, it was already all known. There were some problems with how long pregnancy lasts (even the Romans didn't quite nail it down to specifically nine months, but then again, some other civilizations (like the Mayas) did), as well as with what happens during pregnancy and what determines the gender of the baby (blaming a woman for not "bearing a son" was common up until a few hundred years ago, maybe even more in some places).

It may not seem like that, but reproduction is a vital part of the existence, just as eating, drinking or sleeping. I don't think there was a period where people couldn't connect sex with pregnancy (although they probably believed that pregnancy can occur by other means too; virtually all cultures had stories about virgin births and women getting pregnant by various beings, inanimate objects or natural occurrences, although maybe they knew that's just a story or something reserved only for gods and supernatural beings).

 

[WolfThomas]

Interestingly enough in prehistoric times, periods were very rare. Puberty was later due to nutritional factors and sexual intercourse was engaged in earlier. So as soon as a women started ovulationg she was likely to become pregnant. Then she was pregnant and then breastfed which has an affect on the cycle. The she'd have more babies in a cycle until she died or hit menopause.

EDIT EDIT: Something I'd just like to throw in for the hell of it - Caesarians are being performed with growing frequency. Babies are being born bigger and bigger. I wonder ... are we allwoing this to continue too far? Should Caesarians be restricted to only life-and-death situations BY LAW? Developed countries are likely to soon evolve into a species that cannot physically give birth to themselves without extreme medical intervention. As a closet nutjob survivalist, it freaks the shit out of me. Imagine a world where even 10% of women die in childbirth, let alone 50% due to gargantuan babies.

Well it's not exactly that babies are getting bigger like it's an evolution or genetics things, there's a few elements at play, conditions like diabetes and general stuff like obesity increase the chances of macrosomia and they're increasing in prevalence. But also in the past people still had big babies, but what happened was if if it caused a problem then the baby and/or mum would end up dying, caesareans and other forms of assisted delivery reduced that.

For most hospital caesearans are only performed if there's medical indications, unfortunately these are on the rise as I mentioned before. Also it's preferable to schedule a caesarean for 2pm if there's even the slightest chance of a problem then wait till 4am to have to do it because somethings gone wrong.

 

[robot slipper]

Weird to think that with all the technology we have today, we can know about pregnancy when it is only a few weeks along. Back in the "long ago" you might think "hmm haven't had a period for a while" and then a few months later you feel something kicking you from the inside.

My great-grandmother was so ignorant of the procedure of childbirth (because in those days that sort of thing was not spoken about), that when she was in labour she actually asked the midwife "where does the baby come out?". The midwife's deadpan response was "The same place it got in".

 

[Esotera]

It would have been more obvious because people wouldn't have been having sex just for enjoyment until relatively recently, so pregnancy would have been more likely because they'd mostly just do it at the times their hormones told them to.

This can't be true. The ancient Egyptians had primitive condoms (intestines of various animals), so it's been around for thousand of years. And that completely ignores the fact that people have unprotected recreational sex all the time. And the fact that sex is a fun experience & has been for much longer than human civilisation.

 

[Thaluikhain]

EDIT EDIT: Something I'd just like to throw in for the hell of it - Caesarians are being performed with growing frequency. Babies are being born bigger and bigger. I wonder ... are we allwoing this to continue too far? Should Caesarians be restricted to only life-and-death situations BY LAW? Developed countries are likely to soon evolve into a species that cannot physically give birth to themselves without extreme medical intervention. As a closet nutjob survivalist, it freaks the shit out of me. Imagine a world where even 10% of women die in childbirth, let alone 50% due to gargantuan babies.

No, that's not how evolution works. Assuming Caesarians would become the norm, it'd only help the survival of those babies who you'd allow Caesarians for as being medically justifiable anyway.

And, developed cuntries aren't about to evolve into a seperate species outside of soft science fiction or hardcore racial purification ideologies. Evolution works incredibly slowly in almost all cases.

 

[affinsaff]

Ahhh! Now I'd say thats my answer there to be honest, the fact that 'the pure, holy virgin' never had kids. I guess then that doubles to boys becoming fathers.
Thanks a buntch for solving my one of my life conundrums

 

[imnot]

eh, im more worried about the guy who milked cows first, seriosuly what the hell dude?
I mean we know milk tastes good now but was it really neccisary to go mess with cows!

OT: instinct, as others have said.

 

[Darius Brogan]

As has been stated a few times thus far, it was more or less instinctive.