November 20, 2006

What were the Americas like before Columbus arrived? According to 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, a recent book (itself an expanded version of the Atlantic article in the first link), they had a much bigger Native American population than the standard story tells us, they had been populated for way longer than the 12,000 years the standard story holds is the case, and those people had developed cultures that were way more advanced than the standard story says. Here is an interview with the author, Charles C. Mann. Here is a review of the book.
posted by HawthorneWingo 17 years ago
  • That pre-columbian civilizations in America were quite advanced isn't much news; from social organization to agricultural development; mathematics, art, astronomy, architecture, usually applied to agriculture sustainment and political expansion. The maya empire had flourished, expanded all the way from the south of Mexico to Central America and then collapsed (from social/political strife, disease or ecological disaster, it's not know), leaving a legacy of incredible archaelogical remains brimming with their knowledge, a long time before europeans arrived. A sustained development accord with nature was the basis of many cultures, even when their settlements began to get huge: the heart of the Aztec empire was already a sprawling, thriving city that left the invading soldiers slack-jawed with the level of commerce and sophistication of services and resource distributon they found, compared to what they knew from Spain or Italy. Of course, there was the looming problem of the conquest politics of the empire, the warring between regions, the tributes and enslaved prisoners; that became the downfall of that culture. As for the claims of this author about the great areas being actively designed and cultivated (the Amazon, an orchard?), I find interesting if farfetched.
  • Fascinating. Years ago, I read books on meso-american archaeology that mentioned pottery counts putting the populations of some cities at over a million way back in the 14th century, so in some ways not a shock, but as flagpole says, the idea of the Amazon as a stewarded forest is astounding. Off to finish reading the interview.
  • Very interesting. Thanks, HW. It was kind of a Homer Simpson-ish "d'oh!" moment for me. There is a bit of Simpsons dialogue for every moment of life.
  • Because smallpox was not endemic in the Americas, colonials, too, had not acquired any immunity... Surely they or their forebears brought it with them, along with the disease?
  • Buffalo as an infestation? Prairies as a plantation of grass? Well, OK, why not; certainly, as hypotheses these are fun to consider. (And besides, I enjoy SF.) But truthfully, this all sounds too much like another attempt by a guilt-ridden modern to romanticize the existence of the misnamed 'Indians'. That people lived in the Americas for far longer than was first assumed is unquestionable. But that fact in and of itself is not a sufficient base upon which to construct such a tower of suppositions, however intriguing, and present them as if they were fact. Further, once we accept that Native American cultures were capable of a complexity hitherto denied them, we need also to accept that they were as capable of making disastrous mistakes and misjudgments as any other peoples have been. And this is why Mann's is basically a romantic and wishful and therefore suspect position. This sounds like a fascinating read; and I'm going to have to buy this book. So, many thanks, Hawthorne, for bringing it to my attention.
  • I'm reading the book now, and it's very interesting. One of his points is that contemporary Western accounts of first encounters with native peoples was more accurate than later accounts, which were attempts to justify the Westerners' actions. the misnamed 'Indians'. He addresses this in the book. The dozens of people he talked to all prefer the term "Indian" to "Native American." He also makes an interesting point about how the societies are described. European cultures from the period are usually described as kingdoms with kings, while Indian societies that are at least as large and advanced are described as tribes with chiefs. Further, once we accept that Native American cultures were capable of a complexity hitherto denied them, we need also to accept that they were as capable of making disastrous mistakes and misjudgments as any other peoples have been. Mann makes this point several times in the book.
  • Interviews with NPR, PBS, and Time. Full text of the Atlantic article; his web site has a PDF of the "almost-final version." Excerpt from the book.
  • He addresses this in the book. The dozens of people he talked to all prefer the term "Indian" to "Native American." He also makes an interesting point about how the societies are described. European cultures from the period are usually described as kingdoms with kings, while Indian societies that are at least as large and advanced are described as tribes with chiefs. I can vouch for this. "American Indian" if you want to get PC about it. But "Native American" has fallen into disfavor.
  • Oh, excellent! Glad to hear that, kirkaracha. In the past I've encountered some Native Americans who dislike being called Indians. Seems a moot subject yet I now gather. The English during my childhood invariably called folk from India Indians, and so the New World's indigenous people were distinguished by being called Red Indians. (Much to my nine-year old indignation/outrage when I first was introduced to a member of the Winnebego tribe, since to me back then red meant something approximating crimson or scarlet.) I'm curious - does Mann focus on any one area or group particularly? Or is he quite ecelectic?
  • He focuses more on Central and South America than North America, but he covers everything.
  • He focuses more on Central and South America than North America, but he covers everything. b/c there's more to discuss in C and S America vis a vis the thesis that Indians altered the landscape in remarkable ways.
  • I've always hoped to learn about the North American Mound Builders, but not much was known about them when I was attending schools in the US. And most of what I've seen recently is about the contents of middens, not about those who made the middens. *whinge, snivel*
  • I didn't see it in the article, but what's "far longer" than 12,000 years ago? All of the current debates over pre-Clovis (around 13,500 BP - before 1950) site dating are polemic and currently unaccepted. 1.5K years is just a splash in the bucket when you're talking 12K. b/c there's more to discuss in C and S America vis a vis the thesis that Indians altered the landscape in remarkable ways. Hawthorne that's not entirely true. Take a look at the Mississippi Moundbuilders, Four Corners Pueblo culture, and the Northwest Plateau Pithouse tradition to name a few. Caveat for all of this kind of crap: there's a lot of people out there who excel in these fields who have the occasional crackpot ideas which get blown out of the water by idealists (what this author comes across as), such as Dennis Stanford's hypothesis of a first settlement of North America by upper paleolithic Europeans. While he has been brilliant before, the Stanford-Bradley hypothesis hinges on three things - (one being similarity, one being theory, one being pure speculation) stone tool manufacture style, the Clovis-first theory, and the yet unknown maritime culture of paleolithic Europe - while ignoring occam's razor (meaning DNA, ancestral affinities in dental specimens, known maritime and coastal traditions in Siberia at the last glacial maximum, linguistics research, the phenomenon of parallel invention, and whatever else I forgot). In other words, sifting through all of this shit to find the maize can be tedious sometimes.
  • Blighted Homeland: From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were dug and blasted from Navajo soil, nearly all of it for America's atomic arsenal. Navajos inhaled radioactive dust, drank contaminated water and built homes using rock from the mines and mills. Many of the dangers persist to this day. This four-part series examines the legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo reservation.
  • excellent thread, thanks all! Perhaps the paperback will make it's way onto my book-readin' pile.
  • What were the Americas like before Columbus arrived? Much, much better.
  • Eee-nuff, already!
  • Zzzzzzzz.
  • *Scalps HW in his sleep*
  • Ouch! Hey, give that back!
  • Well, my copy arrived today. Looking forward to reading it this weekend. Peeked at the table of contents. And in consequence I'm going to read it backward, I think, since Appendix A is titled 'Loaded Words'. O who could resist? Not I! And in the first papargraph he galumphs off with Native American and Amerindian, and perhaps tigers, oh my! *rubs hands gleefully*
  • I'm learning tons, reading it, whether it's biased or not. He does a great job of bringing in all kinds of knowledge, from the archaeological to the genetic to the botanical. Off to another pre-sleep dose of ancient American history...
  • *wonders if the paperback should be ordered sooner to get in on this book club*
  • The most hideous enemy of native Americans was not the white man and his weaponry, concludes Alfred Crosby, "but the invisible killers which those men brought in their blood and breath." It is thought that between 75 to 90 percent of all Indian deaths resulted from these killers. Unless you consider disease epidemics to be genocide, the the answer would be 'no'.
  • Disease accounts for the vast majority of the millions killed? Not war, occupation & cruel policy? I haven't heard that before.
  • I've heard that the diseases spread through the land faster than the white men did. That's why nobody really knows how many natives there were - most were dead before any Europeans saw them.
  • Ah, if he only had a heart.
  • And a brain of his own, I think the Grand Wizard of Ozzz gave him that one.