Daikaijuzine

Honored Silvertip:

With due reverence for the deserved reputation of the honored Professor Upenlock, I nevertheless feel required to post a protest about the uncritical and noncognitive acceptance of his analysis (Vol 36, #5) of the linguistic properties of residual artifact tracings found exterior to artificial hive structures of a commercial (?) nature at his East Forest diggings.

The distinguished Professor Upenlock has based the substance of his derivations upon a presumptive hypothesis that the pre-ursinoids possessed hemispherical brain dominance patterns similar to those of present ursinoids.

To offer such a hypothesis without a scintilla of cross-verifiable scientific evidence should at least invite some skeptical commentary, and this I will attempt to provide in this brief epistle.

One cites any cultural/physiological similarities at great risk when evaluating a species which aridified three continents, particularly when that species also orchestrated a planetary ecological spasm the magnitude of which we can only estimate, and poorly at that.

Since it is not the purpose of this correspondent to provide a complete, scholarly, statistically, and semantically based refutation, I will only cite one of Professor Upenlock’s own cases, although a number are susceptible to the argument for reverse cerebral hemispherical dominance or cultural tracings inversion by the pre-ursinoids (this term is indeed also misleading, as I will discuss later).

Upenlock cites a ceramic-backed tracing found in vitrified clay exterior to a preserved structure (his location 12 U).  The presence of ceramic containers caused him to conclude that the structure had been an artificial hive containing a commercial(?) comestible establishment.  Disregarding the obvious paradox of how the pre-ursinoid hive culture could possibly have supported such commercial establishments, other variables should also be evaluated with some skepticism.

The tracing has the imprint “ZEBRA PIZZA,” according to Upenlock.  He infers from the position of the ceramic letters that the tracing referred to the proper name of the individual operating the establishment.

A dubious proposition indeed!  Given the remains of a species which built enormous hives across much of the surface of the planet, yet left few artifacts, the idea of commercial food establishments is rank beartale.  To stretch the argument even further and state that the tracing refers to an individual name is absurd.  One must consider that the pre-ursinoid culture (I cannot bear the thought of calling it a civilization) obviously operated on a mass basis with little concern for individual privacy, space, or identity.

Upenlock’s colleague Downstruck offers an alternative hypothesis (Vol. 36, #7) and asserts that the tracing was some sort of clan totem and that the section of the tracing (“ZEBRA”) is symbolic for a pre-ecollapse animal.  He cites a small ceramic quadruped found inside the hive structure as proof.

I submit that both these otherwise distinguished scholars have ignored the question of perspective, both physical and cognitive, and succumbed to ursinoid cultural bias.

Since the tracing was not attached to the structure, one cannot say with any certainty from which side it was to be viewed.  If the image were reversed… viewed from the obverse, as it were… the tracing would read “ASSIP ARBRES” or possibly “ASSIS ARBRES.”

Fragmentary remains from the Ornian Plateau indicate that the pre-ursinoid word(?), concept(?) “assis” refers to being seated.  Likewise, the word/concept for trees is “arbres” or “arbes.”

Whether the Upenlock/Downstruck digging uncovered a commercial establishment or not, the term “sitting trees” certainly would apply more to a woodworking establishment than to a commercial comestible hive.   Yet Uppenlock dismisses the vitrified wood and sawdust as irrelevant, totally disregarding the importance of trees in the pre-ursinoid culture.

The work of Longclaw and Silverpelt has definitely established that the pre-ursinoids were silval consumers and virtually denuded entire continents, which action led inevitably to the ecollapse and their demise.  This was further documented by Tailshort in his precise exploration of pre-ursinoid climatic and vegetative interactions.

A second hypothesis, equally ignored by Upenlock, is that the pre-ursinoids may have been reverse hemispherically dominated and thus perceived  the tracing from right to left.

In which case, the meaningless term “ZEBRA PIZZA” becomes “ASSIS ARBES.”

Thus, out of three possible interpretations, two have logical linguistic bases, whereas Upenlock’s “solution” merely attempts to assign an arbitrary cultural meaning rather than applying what little we do know to the few meaningful remains.  Even on a purely statistical basis, a wood oriented hive occupies two-thirds of the probabilities.  Thus, Upenlock’s hypothesis stands only one chance in three of being correct… even on the basis of his own presumptions.

But the entire foundation of Professor Upenlock’s dissertation rests upon an even more interrogative assumption — that the “pre-ursinoids” were indeed “pre-ursinoids.”

While an epistle of protest is scarcely the vehicle for an extensive and documented revision of long-accepted truisms and professional cliches, and here I only note that a more expansive and intensive extension of what follows will be published in the third period succeeding, I am impelled to question, albeit briefly, the basic “pre-ursinoid” hypothesis.

According to Upenlock, Downstruck, and even Silverclaw, the curved character tracings symbolize sibilants, whereas the straight or crossed tracings tend toward gutturals.

H. Tipgray, in his critically acclaimed PALEONTOLOGY OR PRE-HISTORY, noted that the fragmentary and fossilized remains at both the dry mountain sites and the East forest diggings presuppose a jaw structure designed primarily for sibilants, rather than the more balanced ursinoid jaw.

In addition, a historic survey of ursinoid dialects (Vol. 27, #3) indicates that only in the last 1,000 years has the sibilant played more than a minor role… yet Upenlock’s own research states that the “pre-ursinoids” used sibilants extensively.

In a discovery almost bypassed in critical ursinology (NOTES, Vol. 13), the ursinoid remnants discovered on the Ornian Plateau have been stage isotope-dated by the Society to a period predating the stage-dates of both the East Forest and dry mountain site “pre-ursinoid” remains.

The work of the late Professor Hidebound in his analysis of early ursinoid myths, particularly “The Monkey King” and “The Wall of Flame,” should also be called to the attention of both the serious ursinologist and the eclectic theorist.  Since this study has been confined to dissemination primarily among mythologists, one should note the following:

In all the stories dealing with the ecollapse and pre-ecollapse periods, the ape or monkey rules the world by destroying.  This sovereign is so pre-occupied with self-importance that in his attempts to burn his enemies out of the last remaining forest he sets himself on fire.  The other apes rush to his assistance and in turn are scorched (thus… the source of the great hairless ape).  While all the simians are so spreading the fire from one to another in non-cognitive attempts to escape their pyrogenic demise, the Great Bear steps from the sky to assume dominance over and domicile in the Palace of the Monkey King.

In “The Wall of Flame,” a similar theme is recited.  All the animals are mute except the monkeys.  But the ennui-struck monkey king momentarily forsakes his play with fire to teach the Prince of Bears to speak.  The Prince of Bears warns of fire-play, and the simian sovereign is so enraged that he attempts to flame the Ursinoid Prince.  Again, the carelessness of the simians results in their being scorched, and the Prince of Bears parades to puissance.

While this general mythologic pattern varies minutely from forest to forest and clan to clan, one notable exception is the folk story cited by Hidebound’s disciple Shortclaw.

Herein, the monkeys are a feeble group, sustained only by their magic.  Unfortunately, the monkey magic, or monkey-business, as it is termed in the older versions, was grounded in deciduous trees.  But the thoughtless simians were as non-cognitive as ever and continued their deforestation to the last leaf, at which point their magic disappeared.  Then the Great Bear perorated and hastened the unrepentant simians into desert caves.  When the trees regenerated, the Great Bear prohibited silvaculture by the simians and instead bequeathed the forests to the ursinoids.

This vast store of lore, legend, and verifiable scientific observation, however, is blithely ignored by Upenlock in his efforts to assign the so-called “pre-ursinoids” that convenient slot as our predecessors.

Conveniently discarded, also, is the concurrent evolutionary theory of Professor Hairthick, suggesting that simian and true pre-ursinoid cultures existed simultaneously, albeit briefly, in either a pre-ecollapse or short post-ecollapse period.

And in closing, one should always cite C. Curvedclaw, with her amusing notion that the hive-dwelling simians were no more than mammalian social insects occupying an ecological void in planetary development prior to the evolution of individual mammalian intelligence.

But whatever is cited, I submit that the Honored Professor Upenlock should re-evaluate his terminology of the inhabitants of the dry mountain and East Forest sites as “pre-ursinoids.”