Posted on 02/23/2009 3:22:34 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Many modern scientists have assumed that no complex civilization could have emerged in so hostile an environment, where the soil is agriculturally poor, mosquitoes transport lethal diseases, and predators lurk amid the forest canopy. The Amazon's brutal conditions have fueled one of the most enduring theories of human development: environmental determinism... Yet in recent years archeologists have begun to find evidence of what Fawcett had always claimed: ancient ruins buried deep in the Amazon, in places ranging from the Bolivian flood plains to the Brazilian forests. These ruins include enormous man-made earth mounds, plazas, geometrically aligned causeways, bridges, elaborately engineered canal systems, and even an apparent astronomical observatory tower made of huge granite rocks... Fawcett also studied the 16th- and 17th-century chronicles of the El Dorado hunters. Even though the conquistadores had not found a golden kingdom, they had reported seeing "cities that glistened in white," with temples, public squares, palisade walls, causeways, and exquisite artifacts... while Fawcett was climbing a desolate mound of earth above the flood plains of the Bolivian Amazon, he noticed something sticking out of the ground. He scooped it into his hand: it was a shard of pottery. He started to scour the soil. Virtually everywhere he scratched, he later wrote, he turned up bits of ancient, brittle pottery. He thought the craftsmanship was as refined as anything from ancient Greece or Rome or China. "Wherever there are 'alturas,' that is high ground above the plains" in the Amazon basin, Fawcett said, "there are artifacts." And that wasn't all: extending between these alturas, there appeared to be some sort of geometrically aligned paths. They looked, he could swear, like "roads" and "causeways."
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
See also Anna Roosevelt (do a search site:freerepublic.com), meanwhile, looks like nothing new on it has been posted in a while:
“El Dorado” discovered in Peruvian Amazon, explorers claim
Agencia EFE | July 27, 2002 | David Blanco Bonilla
Posted on 07/27/2002 3:35:59 PM PDT by HAL9000
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/723394/posts
Lost Inca city “El Dorado” discovered in Peruvian Amazon!
Northern Light | Saturday, July 27, 2002 5:02 PM EST | David Blanco Bonilla
Posted on 07/28/2002 4:05:10 PM PDT by vannrox
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/723732/posts
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Thanks Renfield. |
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· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
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I had assumed that the abundance of terre preta made the concept virtually irrefutable. Somebody made all of that soil.
There was an author, blam might know , that postulated that Malaria and Yellow Fever were imported from Europe and Africa, in my dotage I can’t remember his name.
A very interesting book by Charles Mann, 1491, covered this issue in considerable detail.
He points out, quite accurately, that our history of “native Americans,” largely based on victimology, isn’t really “their” history at all. By extension this applies to “black history,” etc. I have found “black history” books to be remarkably disinterested in what the black man was doing before whitey showed up.
Victim-based history is only about the victimization of “indigenous peoples” by the evil white man. Whitey always has the starring role. It casts the native in the role of object, removing from him the dignity of being an actor in his own play. It is a disservice to both “races.”
Anyway, the Americas had a long and fascinating history before 1491, with Andean civilization apparently rivaling Sumeria and Egypt for antiquity. There was also quite a massive civilization in the Amazon. It collapsed when 90% to 95% of the natives died by 1600 throughout the Americas as a result of the merging of the American and Eurasian/African disease ecosystems. Probably about the same percentage never saw a white man.
Recommend the book.
Deserts come and go, cities get buried in the sand and forgotten. I’d imagine jungle would be the same. Climate change is no recent phenomenon.
His name is blam. Geez.
;’)
Malaria may have been imported from Africa, or from some hot icky spots in southern Asia. I think malaria is native to Africa though, so that’s probably the likely one. Could still be a pretty old import (i.e., Precolumbian), not sure how that could be proved short of finding remains of a human with conclusive evidence of having died of malaria, from a Precolumbian American context.
Yellow Fever has been called “American Plague” sez the wiki-wacky pedia, WHO sez this:
[snip] In Africa there are two distinct genetic types (called topotypes) associated with East and West Africa. South America has two different types, but since 1974 only one has been identified as the cause of disease outbreaks. [end]
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs100/en/
Rainforest Researchers Hit Paydirt (Farming 11K Years Ago in South America)
Smoldered-Earth Policy: Created By Ancient Amazonian Natives, Fertile, Dark Soils
Putting the carbon back: Black is the new green
Farming That Improves the Environment
Malaria and yellow jack are both native to West Africa, with very similar organisms being endemic to various chimps and monkeys. They were unknown in the tropical Americas when Columbus arrived. Their mosquito carriers were apparently brought over as an “unintended consequence” of the slave trade.
I note one reoccurring assumption, that the Amazon basin is today as it was then. This is a terrible assumption of anthropology and archaeology.
For example, when we imagine a place like Egypt, that today is mostly desert, except in the immediate vicinity of the Nile, we automatically assume that it was equally desert several thousand years ago. But what if we are wrong? In truth, a mere 8,000 years ago, North Africa was lush and green. And only very slowly did it become the desert seen today.
So why assume that the Amazon basin has always been a place of lush, if inhospitable, jungle? Fertile farmland can be just as ruined by encroaching jungle as it can by encroaching desert. Eventually, the farmer spends so much time weeding and killing insects that he gives up and leaves.
Things change. Sometimes fast, and sometimes slow.
I have read some estimates that it covers an area of over 7000 square miles. A small farming community could not have done that IMO.
Thanks!
Our knowledge of the New World before 1492 is limited at best.
I wholeheartedly agree.
The African Source Of The Amazon’s Fertlizer
Science News Magazine | 11-18-2006 | Sid Perkins
Posted on 11/18/2006 4:22:58 PM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1740969/posts
Detritus of life abounds in the atmosphere
New Scientist | 3/31/05 | Fred Pearce
Posted on 03/31/2005 2:36:28 PM PST by LibWhacker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1374931/posts
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The Green Sahara, A Desert In Bloom
Science News, ScienceDaily | September 30, 2008 | Christian-Albrechts-Universitaet zu Kiel
Posted on 10/03/2008 11:55:57 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2096856/posts
Drought That Destroyed A Civilisation
The Herald (UK) | 11-11-2003 | Martin Willians
Posted on 11/16/2003 11:05:23 AM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1022897/posts
And why, (pray, tell) should we think “white man” was/is the only intelligent race on the face of the earth, ever?
Kinda like, How can we be the ONLY humans in the vast, galactic universe, where every star is a sun?
But don’t get me started....
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