Posted on 04/17/2020 9:05:19 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
An international team found that during this period, crops were being cultivated in a remote location in what is now northern Bolivia.
The scientists believe that the humans who lived here were planting squash, cassava and maize.
The inhabitants also created thousands of artificial islands in the forest.
The end of the last ice age, around 12,000 years ago, saw a sustained rise in global temperatures... Researchers have previously unearthed evidence that crops were domesticated at four important locations around the world.
So China saw the cultivation of rice, while in the Middle East it was grains, in Central America and Mexico it was maize, while potatoes and quinoa emerged in the Andes.
Now scientists say that the Llanos de Moxos region of southwestern Amazonia should be seen as a fifth key region.
The area is a savannah but is dotted with raised areas of land now covered with trees...
The area floods for part of the year but these "forest islands" remain above the waters...
The researchers examined some 30 of these islands for evidence of crop planting.
They discovered tiny fragments of silica called phytoliths, described as tiny pieces of glass that form inside the cells of plants...
The researchers were able to identify evidence of manioc (cassava, yuca) that were grown 10,350 years ago. Squash appears 10,250 years ago, and maize more recently - just 6,850 years ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/annaroosevelt/index
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/terrapreta/index
One early view about antiquity of humans in the Americas was about 1000 BC, with some of the (still) puzzling monumental construction attributed to a poorly-understood and poorly-articulated collection of "Old World" civs, such as the Phoenicians. The Viking presence before Columbus is now of course documented in archaeology, but their numbers were apparently too small to move the needle when looking at what passes for Native American DNA; either they didn't intermarry, which is likely, and eventually returned to Europe, or whatever genetic heritage they left vanished through luck of the draw and give or take the vanishing of entire tribes post-Great Migration (that's the relevant geographic area).
During the 1920s (if memory serves) the antiquity got a major bump backwards into time with the discovery of stone-age technology families, the oldest (then) known being Clovis (named for the place of first discovery). This was widely doubted, and not accepted until the 1950s after the radiocarbon method was discovered and verified (and somewhat increased) the age of the Clovis period.
Hidebound as the academic community is (always and everywhere), the higher date rotted into what I call Clovis-First-and-Only, a rubbish idea that humans knew nothing about boats, a weird claim to make considering the maritime hunting and fishing that goes on to this day on both sides of the Bering Strait. Also, the dates on sites like Cactus Hill and Dillehay's site in South America don't fit the CFAO narrative.
The temperature would be right.
I've seen that before, the "we've always been here" idea. I won't be surprised if earlier ancestors' fossils show up in New World contexts, just as they're showing up in various nooks and crannies around the world. When the continental shelf is more systematically explored, it will also be no surprise when the remmants of humans settlements are found, even extensive ones, even towns, cities, and seaports.
I agree. Especially if the Clovis Comet theory proves to be true.
No telling how much damage that even would have caused.
Plant domestication is merely a process of human selection of consecutively larger or more desirable seeds or fruit.
I read a study that showed a complete domestication of a Mideast wild wheat field in 200 years (i.e. converting to human-selected grain that yielded larger seeds and kept them in the pod for predictable harvest). I think the study was predicated upon sedentary population, which would be possible in the tropical savannas of Bolivia.
So my question is why wouldn’t these plants have been domesticated and farmed? I suspect so much more of that was going on around the world. I’d even consider North American Indians management of oak forests as a form of farming. Here for a review of Indian management of western Oak forests: https://directives.sc.egov.usda.gov/OpenNonWebContent.aspx?content=25907.wba
I obviously have a LOT more to learn about the American ancestors that were here. Very interesting though. The whole Aztec situation I find very intriguing. It seems by their cruelty and violence they held many other native groups in their thrall. So much so that some of those groups aided Cortez in the final destruction of the Aztec society. I have heard estimates of up to 40 million could have lived in the central Mexican area.
A whole lot of DNA R1 and I genes in the Indian tribes of North East US and Canada, usually blamed on the French. I think the Natives would have better taste.
Yeah, Cortez and company wouldn't have prevailed if they hadn't become community organizers -- the Aztecs were the enemy of all their neighbors.
Thx.
Y-chromosome clades really get around town.
Hey, good idea:
Flood, Fire, and Famine
in the History of Civilization
by Richard Firestone,
Allen West, and
Simon Warwick-Smith
Oh Lord I hate that term “community organizer”. LOL. Wasn’t that O bummer’s “profession” before politics?
The other terms for "community organizer" in the here and now are "bully" and "gangster". Oh, and "liar" and "demagogue". I did include that in there for fun, glad someone noticed!
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