War, What Is It Good For? [Precolumbian massacres]

Archaeology mag, Beyond Stone & Bone 'blog ^ | November 14, 2008 | Heather Pringle

[SunkenCiv]

For decades, researchers working in the Americas were in a state of denial about the prevalence of ancient warfare. They viewed the Maya largely as peaceful astronomer-priests, the prehistoric Pueblo people as tranquility-loving architects, and Great Plains bison-hunters as harmonious societies who only engaged in warfare after the arrival of the Europeans.

I think many archaeologists were reacting at the time -- consciously or unconsciously -- to the old stereotypes of Native Americans as bloodthirsty savages. By the 1990s, however, the evidence of prehistoric warfare across the Americas was simply too great to ignore -- from the slaughter at the 13th century pueblo of Sand Canyon in Colorado, to the massive body count at the South Dakota site of Crow Creek. There archaeologists unearthed a mass grave lined with the skeletons of more than 500 individuals -- men, women and children -- massacred, maimed and scalped during a deadly raid in the early 14th century. Ancient Native Americans clearly had their own history of violence.

[chuckles]

I did some reports on the Karankawa Indians in Texas back in high school. It seems the mean ole white man tried to convert them to human beings and was rewarded by being eaten. They would be ok for a little while, but they always went back to their culture. It finally got so bad, they had an order come down from someone to exterminate them.

I guess it depends on which side you are on, but trying to live with wild animals always gets you fleas. Some day, I predict soon, an order will come from somewhere that Muslims are a lower life form and needs to be exterminated. Who is evil, us or them? Survival is in our DNA whether we are Indian or white. I've been taught all my life that is evolution. If we allow ourselves to be massacred, then are we not the weaker and deserve to be wiped out? The only answer to this age old question is Christ, and He's not here yet.

[Larry Lucido]

Newfreep, you are now on our “list”!

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks!

[Claud]

For decades, researchers working in the Americas were in a state of denial about the prevalence of ancient warfare. They viewed the Maya largely as peaceful astronomer-priests, the prehistoric Pueblo people as tranquility-loving architects, and Great Plains bison-hunters as harmonious societies who only engaged in warfare after the arrival of the Europeans.

Really? What researchers were those? I'm in the field, and I've have a tough time believing any serious American archaeologist or historian would be that utterly irresponsible.

It is well known that the war-torture-cannibalism complex of the Iroquois for instance dates hundreds of years earlier than Columbus. Heck, even the legends of the Iroquois themselves say that the League was founded to stop the bloody recriminatory wars among the 5 nations. Cusick's legendary history of the Five Nations is filled with wars as well.

[SunkenCiv]

Not sure who Heather Pringle — the author of the excerpt I posted — had in mind.

[Claud]

I’m sure people think that way (I’ve known a few), I just question that they are respected scholars in the field. ;)

[Old Student]

“This is interesting because I distinctly remember reading or being taught that the French introduced the concept of scalping in order to pay bounty on white settlers, whereas the Indians prefered ‘counting coup’. Hmm...”

I learned it as the British introducing scalping, as a continuation of their actions against the “other” tribal society they had encountered, the Irish, before they got to North America. Hmmm... indeed.

[SunkenCiv]

Hey, if it helps, I have no respect for them, whomever they are. ;’) Ya wanna join GGG?

[SunkenCiv]

That "Indians didn't scalp" BS was invented in recent decades, probably during the 1960s and 1970s, when a lot of phony history was invented, like the baloney Chief Seattle speech. Scalping was learned by Euros from the tribes, not vice versa, which isn't to say that absolutely every tribe in the Americas practiced it.

The First Americans:
In Pursuit of Archaeology's Greatest Mystery
by J.M. Adovasio and Jake Page

Eleven years ago, a mine operator expanding his gravel quarry near the shore of Lake Erie encountered a large late Woodland ossuary in which a number of Native Americans had been collectively interred. I was called in as a consultant by the mine owner and the state of Pennsylvania, and I immediately contacted the cultural affairs officer of the closest resident Native American group, the Seneca Nation, in nearby New York. I inquired whether the tribe was interested in these remains and whether it would like to send an observer to the planned excavations. In return I was asked about the circumstances of the mass burial and was ultimately told in no uncertain terms, "Senecas don't practice secondary burial in mass graves. These remains you discovered are probably Erie. We killed those guys, and we don't want their bones." They did allow that if we insisted, they would take them for reburial, but they did not object to their study, asking ony that proper and respectful protocols be observed. Similarly, in a more recent case, the Senecas asked for the return of remains found in a solitary disturbed burial in a house construction project, but only after they had been fully studied. [p 252]

[chesley]

In fact, it seems to take such a degree to think otherwise.

The pity of people educated beyond their abilities

[Claud]

LOL...yeah sure, sign me up! I’m a GGG lurker anyway.

[chesley]

I don't know what the “serious” researchers have been saying, but I've read plenty of popular articles over the years about the peaceful red man.

I've also read where reports of this tribe, or that, being cannibals was the result of those lying Europeans trying to dehumanize the rightful possessors of the land in order to justify taking it away from them.

But then you have to ask yourself why they felt the need to justify the conflict that way. They already knew they had the true religion (which in fact they did) and a superior technology,so what other justification did they think they needed? This is backwards projection by PC woosies.

[chesley]

Could have been independent developments, do ya think? After all, it's not like it's a huge intellectual proble to figure out how to scalp someone.

[Claud]

Eleven years ago, a mine operator expanding his gravel quarry near the shore of Lake Erie encountered a large late Woodland ossuary in which a number of Native Americans had been collectively interred. I was called in as a consultant by the mine owner and the state of Pennsylvania, and I immediately contacted the cultural affairs officer of the closest resident Native American group, the Seneca Nation, in nearby New York. I inquired whether the tribe was interested in these remains and whether it would like to send an observer to the planned excavations. In return I was asked about the circumstances of the mass burial and was ultimately told in no uncertain terms, "Senecas don't practice secondary burial in mass graves. These remains you discovered are probably Erie. We killed those guys, and we don't want their bones." They did allow that if we insisted, they would take them for reburial, but they did not object to their study, asking ony that proper and respectful protocols be observed. Similarly, in a more recent case, the Senecas asked for the return of remains found in a solitary disturbed burial in a house construction project, but only after they had been fully studied. [p 252

Hm! Which Erie site was this, does it say? Because I've been trying to pinpoint the "last stand" of the Erie against the Iroquois, but none of the traditionally described sites that I'm aware of had any evidence of warfare. We know from history that the Erie made their last stand in a fort some days away from their homeland where they were massacred--and that the Iroquois remained in Erie country a few months burying their war dead. I wonder if there's any connection with the site described above.

If so, there may have been some Seneca in that mass grave after all!

[SunkenCiv]

Apart from the fact that scalping was discernable in Precolumbian death assemblages. :’)

[Grizzled Bear]

My charming nephew, whose idols are Cornell West & Noam Chomsky, is certain that all evil in the world has been caused by the white man.

I knew an Australian exchange student whose dream was to find "a remote place where the bigotry of white man has never existed." He was the epitome of the self loathing hypocrite. In almost the same breath, he expressed his disgust concerning Australian Aborigines.

[SunkenCiv]

It doesn’t say. Book’s worth reading though. :’)

[sodpoodle]

I think it has something to do with government handing out grants for useless information. Money for minutiae.

[chesley]

As good as hypotheses as any, IMO :)

[chesley]

Maybe it was Leif Erickson that introduced scalpinh. It HAD to be whitie.