A fascinating new look at America before Columbus

The Charlotte Observer ^ | Aug. 14, 2005 | CHARLES MATTHEWS

[edcoil]

There are many stories of "white man" human bones found to be over 10,000 years old found here. Wonder how all that fits in the mix.

[vladimir998]

There was an article in the Atlantic Monthly (I think) about 3 years ago about the same sort of ideas. It seems that there is evidence that not only were there plenty of people here, but that they dramatically effected the environment. This whole "pristine wilderness" and "noble savage" living "in accordance with nature" idea is just bunk.

[r9etb]

The Indians, we now know, used fire to clear the wilderness and make it easier to hunt game.

This part, at least, is not even remotely new knowledge. I seem to recall a passage from the diary of some early explorer (I think it was Lewis or Clark), wherein he more than once casually remarked on Indians "lighting the prairie on fire" as a kind of signal.

[Martin Tell]

Yes. The Pre-Colombian American Indians were scientific geniuses. That's why they never invented the wheel.

Oh, and all the human sacrifice that went on? The Europeans were just too dumb to grasp that sophisticated surgical procedures were actually being practiced.

Yep. America was literally heaven on Earth before those nasty Euros arrived (sarcasm off).

[Sundog]

Pre-Olmec for sure. Probably came through the NorthWest passage and got into a tangle with Asians on a summer trip over from Korea.

[kalee]

Save for Nov.

[r9etb]

We don't know how many people died from the diseases the Europeans brought; one very controversial estimate puts the death rate as high as 95 percent. Mann points to evidence that in coastal New England, an epidemic -- "probably of viral hepatitis" -- that began in 1616 killed perhaps 90 percent of the population; a smallpox epidemic in 1633 eliminated from a third to a half of the survivors.

An old family story (from the 1840s) told of my G-g-g-g-grandparents traveling through an a large Indian village in California. All of the inhabitants had died of measles, and the village was full of feasting bears. (Yuck.) It would be very difficult to underestimate the effect on Indians of "white man diseases," especially pox diseases. The Chinooks (my ancestors) were reduced by disease from a population of tens of thousands at the time of Lewis and Clark, to a few hundred in the 1850s.

[TexanToTheCore]

bump

[texas_mrs]

bump

[moonman]

'The Olmec and the Maya, Mann writes, "were world pioneers in mathematics and astronomy" -- the Olmec had a more accurate 365-day calendar than their European contemporaries'

Hmmmm? I was taught the Greeks were the pioneers.... ooops, the Mideast Muslims claim it ... ooops, the Chinese ... ooops, Africans ... hell, I'm confused due to every civilization claims credit. So which one is it?

[colorado tanker]

Mostly leftie revisionist claptrap.

[pabianice]

All I need to know about the old west I learned in "Little Big Man." Especially the part about US Army soildiers eating Indian women and children. /sarcasm

[ThomasNast]

Or did they come as early as 30,000 years ago, as some archaeologists and scientists now think?

They arrived before the Earth was even formed. They were clever.

[GaltMeister]

One intersting theory is the "Prince Madoc" legend.

Supposedly Madoc left Wales(?) in 1170, and made 2 trips to the new world, and never returned from the second one. The theory is that his people bred in with the Indians, and brought diseases with them that crept from tribe to tribe and started the killing way back then.

Some say that what was left of the Welshmen became the Mandan Tribe in the dakotas - noted by Lewis and Clark and early explorers and trappers for their blue eyes, fair complexions, and some having blonde hair.

Lots of interesting reading on Madoc out there, check out www.madoc1170.com/ for starters.

[shekkian]

But what we think of as environmental abundance may have been the product of environmental catastrophe, the loss of a key element in the pre-Columbian ecosystem: human beings. When the Europeans arrived, they brought diseases that radically reduced the Indian population. With fewer people hunting for food and clearing the land, animal and plant life ran riot.

Mann tells us that some scientists think the buffalo and passenger pigeon populations didn't explode until after Europeans arrived. Even the "primeval" forest may have been a latecomer.

That's an interesting twist.

[meowmeow]

They're gone
We're still here
Neener Neener Neener

[Adder]

"30,000 years, 112 million people? If so, they were underachievers of historic proportions."

I tend to agree. That would be 112 million skeletons, too.
We barely find any and when we do its hailed as a major event.