Posted on 04/03/2002 2:41:45 PM PST by blam
1491
Before it became the New World, the Western Hemisphere was vastly more populous and sophisticated than has been thought—an altogether more salubrious place to live at the time than, say, Europe. New evidence of both the extent of the population and its agricultural advancement leads to a remarkable conjecture: the Amazon rain forest may be largely a human artifact
by Charles C. Mann
(click on the url to read the rest of the article)(Good Read)
Everything I have read on the subject seems to suggest that the trans continental traffic was in abeyance for a thousand years or thereabouts, plenty of time for new diseases to become ingrained in a population, or for new forms of old diseases that might have devastating effects on a population suddenly exposed, maybe measles and smallpox.
that's trans oceanic.
We do know that herpetic viruses were common in Europe at the time of the Greeks, so those viruses very likely made it to South America via the Phonecians. It is unlikely that the South Americans were totally unfamiliar with this viral family.
If there had been an incidence of, for example, a newly mutated smallpox in the Western world in the thousand years between the fall of the Carthaginian empire and the first contact by Columbus, then it would likely have been a nasty plague followed by a recovery in population of those who had or been selected for their genetic capability to develop resistance. Else it would be difficult to explain the difference between the 25% losses in Medieval Europe vs the much higher dieoff posited in South America after Columbus because any prior contact would have brought the same plague had the virus existed earlier. The problem with that theory is that I don't know of any record anywhere in the literature after the fall of the Roman Empire and prior to 1491 of such a plague in Europe.
The only other explanation is that there is some genetic difference between Europeans and South American Asiatic Amerindians (if that's who they were) that made the latter more susceptible to the disease. But there are complications to that theory too!
I happen to know some Chilean Indians who hail from the Southern end of the continent (they're Messianic Jews). Interestingly, they're ethnically white folks! They bear no resemblance to either the Amerindians or the negroid Olmecs in either skull shape, cheeks, eyes, etc. She says she has a lot of relatives like her, some with red hair (her kids both do).
So, there are several possibilities. We may never know, which certainly makes for an interesting world.
Depends on what you mean by 'exploited'. The Amazon is an extremely rich and valuable resource, not something that I'd clear-cut just to thumb my nose at the greenies.
The incidence of red-hair in Libya is the same as it is in Ireland
Check this out:
Historical Review: Megadrought And MegaDeath In 16th Century Mexico
Yet another example of how complex this can get.
If you look at the records left by the first explorers and artists who recorded America's indigenes (all the way through George Caitlin in the 1800s) you see a pretty multiethnic/multiracial bunch of Indians.
Study of ancient Berber writing systems suggests some connection with Nordic populations. And Berbers are definitely NOT Arabs. Arabized but not Arabs.
I have read Mann's book "1491." Those who think of the Indians as having lived simply and in harmony with the environment will find little to cheer about. It should be required reading in our schools.
If you read Mann's book, "1491," you will see that he presents evidence of that genetic difference. He claims that the Siberian immigrants to the Americas constituted a very small gene pool. He traces a lack of genetic resistance to smallpox right back to Siberia. Russian conquest of Kamchatka may have resulted in a 90% mortality rate for the population of that peninsula due to smallpox.
That's my understanding of North American Indians as well. Tom Bonnicksen's book about forest archaeology, America's Ancient Forests," covers quite a bit of that story.
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>>the Amazon rain forest may be largely a human artifact<<
Baloney! It was aliens.
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Whew. That was a long read. Thanks for the link, very interesting stuff.
LOL. This one was posted seven years ago.
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Interesting read, although I still haven’t seen convincing evidence the Western Hemisphere was occupied by more than perhaps 100,000 in its entirety prior to the western colonization.
If it was a civilization of nearly billions, they had a knack of being preoccupied building structures visible from the sky, which they were unable to observe, while ignoring the basics of sanitation, family, and social structure to endure more than several generations.
I wonder if those who claim to be scientists in the field of anthropology have ever sincerely raised crops, ran a ranch to feed other animals or humans, or ever have worked without modern day implements to generate adequate resources to construct the artifacts and ruins directly observable today?
Which is more absurd, such massive civilizations disappear with nothing more than a trace, or such rigorous science can be so shaken and reversed within a generation without any evidence?
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