Resonant Reading (Wednesday, April 15)-The Ancient Tribes—Hawks

An exploration of ideas, feelings, and our life experiences, using a different short reading as our springboard each time. The sessions are on Saturdays, 4-5, and on Wednesdays, 12-1. All are wide open and you are welcome to come twice a week or once in a while.

The participants over the years have found that the approach we take, and the respectful, affectionate community of inquirers in which we read and converse, are as important as the reading itself. While many small groups begin with a check-in, with a session only an hour long, Resonant Reading jumps right in to the conversation. Those who are frequently in the group get to know each other very well this way, and those who are new will soon find they are among friends.

Facilitators use a light hand, posting the reading in the chat and calling on whoever’s Zoom hand is up. Suggestions for readings* come from group members, who also take turns facilitating, if they want to try that role.

The reading for this session: Wednesday, April 15th

John Hawks has studied the way human biology has changed over the last 10,000 years.

Hawks: “The first peoples fascinate us, which is natural because they are us—ancestors of everybody today. But we’ve come to realize that, when we look at their skulls, their faces, they’re not our faces. We’ve changed. The obvious question is why?”

Narrator: Hawks believes that humans are acutely responsive to changes in lifestyle. Once we stopped hunting and gathering, we started eating different foods. That alone was enough to change the shape of our skulls. And, living in cities, our brains aren’t having to work so hard; we rely on the intelligence of others.

Hawks: “It may be surprising, but, when we started to settle down, our skulls not only changed in shape; they began to shrink. Presumably, our brains shrank as well. The first peoples, they lived in very tiny groups. Anything that they wanted to make, they had to know how to make it. Any food that they needed to find, they needed to know where it was in their environment. The knowledge accumulated over generations; they had to have it all right here.”

Narrator: Living by their wits, these pioneers opened up a new world. Whether they came by sea or by land, we now know they arrived at least 2,000 years earlier than previously thought and populated the Americas at breakneck speed.

—John Hawks, University of Wisconson–Madison from PBS The Ancient Tribes That Settled the Americas

Questions? Drop an e-mail to resonant-reading+owner@uucpa.org.