How did people work out that sex can = baby???

[TweeBee]

Just pondering this with DH and thought some wise MNers might know.
So presumably in early human history, not everyone who had unprotected sex became pregnant, like now. However the earliest sign of pregnancy is missing a period which would be maybe 2 weeks after sex during a fertile period and how aware were early humans of the regularities of the menstrual cycle? I'm guessing it was perhaps less regular due to variable nutritional intake etc.
And then it's say 8-9 months after sex you may have a baby.
So how did people work out that you can't have a baby without sex but you don't always get a baby from sex?
Does anyone know?

They have the guidance of humans though? A farmer is hardly going to try and feed an animal something poisonous, the animals will have smelt and tasted which plants are safe to eat based on what the human gives them.

Plus too if mum dies, baby animals in the wild usually die. They don’t survive unless a human rescues them and hand rears them (and teaches them).

I always assumed it was somewhat instinct driven in the times of very early hominid development.

I do love the idea however of early man looking at his erect phallus and trying out different holes and the thought of what if I just put this here… et voila babies.

I have found my people it seems! I come out with this kind of stuff all the time and end up getting weird looks.

I have always found it fascinating that we are so widespread across the earth, but generally have come up with the same ideas; breads, crops, money... I know some of this is to do with shifting around but the world is a big place!

Glass. How on earth did someone come up with glass?

I assume witnessed natural glass being made so figured out the raw ingredients at least

@Discovereads that's true for mammals yes but thousands of animals are abandoned by their parents at the point of 'birth'
Sea turtles lay their eggs in the sand and head back to sea. Their hatchlings know to head to sea. It's instinct. Nobody taught them that.
Ditto most reptiles do not raise their young they look after themselves. Insects too. They are driven by instinct to the right food source. Not taught.

That’s a good point. I was focussed on mammals because that’s what we are.

Colours is another one that I go down the rabbit hole on.

So I know that they sky is blue, the sea is blue, the edge of my paddling pool is blue.

But is my blue the same as yours? Or is what I recognise as blue because it's been associated to objects that are blue actually what you perceive as red?

There’s a really good book on the history of fabric (The Golden Thread - Kassia St Clair) and there’s a story in that about the discovery of silk.
According to legend a Chinese Empress was sitting under a mulberry tree, when a silkworm cocoon fell from the tree – silkworms’ primary food source – into her tea, where it dissolved to reveal the shimmering silk thread.

I've found my people

Great thread

The first person to eat a raw whelk must have been pretty desperate.

Wow, that’s lovely, I wonder though if it’s like our Prometheus myth for discovering fire? Pure myth or grain if truth?

Possibly shipwrecked?

Im shipwrecked and all there are are these damn oysters and now im so horny!!
Ooh, thank god the apple pie washed up ashore

I’ve wondered about the person who did the first fart. Did everyone find it funny or did they worry that the person was malfunctioning?! Presumably it was some while before humans knew exactly why the body produces smelly, noisy gas.

One suspects some people have not made the connection!

That was upthread, apparently Cavemen thought it was due to not soaking your kidney beans long enough. Hence the ancient song ‘beans beans good for your heart but oh they do make you fart’ 😂

I’ve been asking this exact question for years now. It makes perfect sense in my head but my family all think I’m crazy.
I’m going to tell them I’ve found the other person in the world who has had this thought!

No, it's the control and starting fire ourselves we've done for 7,000 years:

"The third stage, in which humans began to use and control fire on a regular and widespread basis, may have started only 7,000 years ago."

I addressed the* *earliest use of fire by humans being a naturally occurring one about 1.5 million years ago:

"The first stage of human interaction with fire, perhaps as early as 1.5 million years ago in Africa, is likely to have been opportunistic. Fire may have simply been conserved by adding fuel, such as dung that is slow burning."

You clearly didn't read the Time link. The above are two different examples of human interaction with fire. As I said, it took an extremely long time for humans to regularly start and control fire.

Re food, this article is interesting. I remember reading it at the time.

www.bbc.com/news/business-48859333.amp

I agree. I remember positing this qn to my family in my in my 20s and being dismissed as thinking too hard

Great thread!

I have a whole family full of adhd and autistic weirdos like me. These sorts of conversations are common and lively amongst us!