Anchovies and the fall of Empires .

Anchovies and the Fall of Empires.
Andre Willers
2 Jul 2011

"Civilizations simply forgot civilization .":

Synopsis :
Domoic acid (a powerful neurotoxin causing loss of short term memory) is concentrated in anchovies during periods of environmental degradation . This gets into the human food chain via sauces such as Roman Garum and South-East Asian fish sauces such as nuoc mam .
This caused hippocampus damage , resulting in memory loss . Poor impulse control results . Essentially , infantilism .
Nero was not mad . He just forgot .

Discussion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domoic_acid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchovy

1.Why eat it in the first place ?
Fish sauces were and are vital to supply essential omega fatty acids . These are really essential for brain development . Inland communities in history went through extraordinary convolutions to obtain them .

Anchovies are especially favoured because of the snout contains a unique rostral organ, believed to be sensory in nature . It is a bioelectric organ , harbouring some unique biochemicals , lusted after by predatory brains .

This organ enables anchovies to flourish in troubled waters , where pollution due to mud or chemicals is high . Another organism shares this ecological niche , namely some phytoplankton like red algae . These produce domoic acid as a biochemical weapon .

Anchovies have evolved defences , which means they concentrate it (so does some other species like shellfish) .

2.The Cycle :
When the waters are clear , nothing much happens .
But when the human land-empire becomes more successful , more land is cultivated . The pollution of the coasts increases drastically around landlocked seas like the Med or complicated island and canal nets of southeast asia .

Anchovies first explode in numbers , then humans , then pollution in a feedback loop .
At some stage phytoplankton production of domoic acid kicks in (presumably a quorum mechanism to inhibit high densities of anchovies that eat plankton.)
A forgetty poison .

3.This works equally well on Humans .
Fish sauces , which were essential to human health , suddenly became actively deletrious , causing loss of short term memory . You need short term memory to get to long term memory in a purely biochemical sense .

Civilizations simply forgot civilization .

This why you no longer get Garum . It became a poison .

It would start with the top levels of societies , those who could afford the best Garum or Nuoc Mam , and work its way down . Note that the barbarians in the interior , or fishing communities on the Atlantic would be little affected .

5.The end of Rome and Angkor Wat .
Forgotten .

Not even a whimper . Just a "What?"

I suspect the same in Meso-america or Polynesia . Everywhere where they just walk away .

6.Bronze-age civilization ? (circa 3400 years ago)
A possibility . If they kept eating anchovies after the volcanic turbitity , severe memory loss would result . Especially since the memory systems at the time were mainly verbal , not written down . This might have stimulated the evolution of written systems .

7.End of the Ice Age (about 10 000 years ago)
Massive floods and turbidity would have polluted seas (North Sea , Bay of Biscay , Med , Sediment Floods from North America .
The last is interesting . The light , freshwater floods after the breaking of the ice-dams on North-America was supposed to stop the Gulf stream .
It did not . The heavy , cold , finely-ground sediment swept in suspension along the seafloor to turn the west coast of Europe into a murk . Algal blooms resulted . Fish like anchovies bloomed . Humans ate them and turned into forgetties . There was little symbological language . The referents were forgotten .

There were high human civilizations . They simply forgot them .
All we have left are rocks with symbols like spirals , circles , etc . The referents are forgotten .

8.Domoic Acid and the Immune System .
The secondary level of the Immune System is a Short-term memory system .
I do not know if domoic acid interferes with this , but have a horrible feeling that it does .

Evolutionary systems tend to be very conservative . Higher level short term memory systems will tend to follow from older memory systems . So something affecting the hippocampus will also affect the immune system . In other words , domoic acid will degrade immune systems . This means more plagues .
Note the Roman plagues .A Perfect Storm scenario
And things like HIV in our times .

(Note the feedback between West-African fishery turbidity due to massive netfishing and bush-meat . Some anchovies from the turbid , polluted areas still made it through , degrading immune systems and exposing them to new infectious agents .)

9.And our Civilization ?
I'm afraid the same thing is happening .
The system has learned to some extent , in as much that fish sauces are not as prevalent . But nutritional supplements are . And fish-oil supplements are not tested for domoic acid .
In any case , Gaia has more of these feedback loops up her sleeve .

Have you noticed how more infantile the better-fed elements of the society are ?
That is because their memory is going .

Memory-loss begets infantilism .

10. Gaia likes a flashy big spender
(since She owns the only Casino in town)
She might even comp you a few extra million years in cushy comfort .
Gaia does not see spreading high-energy molecules like plastics or oil around as pollution. These are opportunities ,

The alert reader will have noticed that most of the plastics in ocean gyres are being broken down by bacteria . Oils spills (like Gulf of Mexico) has vanished . We are still awaiting ripple effects .

11.Humans and Gaia
Humans are supposed to be the conscious component of Gaia .
Cutting down on pollution can be far more dangerous than the pollution itself .
Systems will protect themselves , even if it destroys themselves .

Humans need to start really worrying if they cut down on pollution without understanding what they are doing .

Having trouble with your memory ?
Pizza with extra anchovies , anyone ?

andre