If You wanna Celebrate Columbus Day next year...It's alright.

Science Daily ^ | 1/02/02 | Unknown

[scouse]

Before Columbus Arrived In New World

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The health of indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere was on a downward trajectory long before Columbus set foot in the Americas, researchers say.

The rise of agriculture is partly to blame, said Richard Steckel, a professor of economics and anthropology at Ohio State University. The demands of tending domestic crops encouraged people to settle in larger communities, where disease was more easily spread.

The rise of towns and cities during industrialization took a serious toll on health, but new evidence establishes a very long trail of poor health that followed the collective pre-Columbian efforts in creating modern civilization, Steckel said. He co-edited a book that looks at health trends in the Western Hemisphere throughout the last seven millennia.

According to some archeologists, the urban revolution began long before Europeans settled the Americas. Sophisticated cities flourished and expanded throughout North and South America once people mastered agriculture. Researchers believe that indigenous people began domesticating crops more than 5,000 years ago.

Just a tidbit from address posted.

[scouse]

Just because the byline reads Columbus, Ohio, it doesn't mean it's not true.

[RWG]

What were these guys doing? No written language, no wheel, no nothing except tobacco and peyote.

[Restorer]

No written language, no wheel, no nothing except tobacco and peyote.

Many Mexican and Central American groups had writing before the white man showed up, although the Spanish destroyed almost all examples. A major reason they had no wheel is that without large domestic animals to provide traction, the wheel doesn't have a lot of value.

[Cicero]

Is it a "sophisticated" city when the primary architectural feature is a pyramid where they take captives to have their hearts cut out?

[scouse]

I sincerely hope you are not maligning the Las Vegas Strip. :^))

[NeoCaveman]

Just because the byline reads Columbus, Ohio, it doesn't mean it's not true.

More credible than Floriduh.... or Michigan.

[Clara Lou]

You're dwelling on one aspect. When the Spaniards arrived, the Aztec capital was cleaner than any European city ever dreamed of being. The streets were paved, there was no stench of roadside sewage. There was a zoo. The Spaniards marveled at the city and then later destroyed it.

[NeoCaveman]

The streets were paved, there was no stench of roadside sewage. There was a zoo.

And human sacrifice too.

[Clara Lou]

Ummm, that issue was previously addressed.

[NeoCaveman]

Nice nonrebuttal rebuttal.

[secretagent]

It doesn't let Christopher off the hook for enslaving and killing the Taino Indians.

[Clara Lou]

Why would I rebut what's true?

[Welsh Rabbit]

When the Spaniards arrived, the Aztec capital was cleaner than any European city ever dreamed of being.

That's not saying a lot....

[Clara Lou]

That's not saying a lot....
Well, that's true.

[Cicero]

Yes, but it's a pretty big blot on their civilization. The same can be said of the Carthaginians. They were more businesslike than the Romans, but it's not nice to sacrifice your firstborn sons.

[Clara Lou]

"Amen" to that.

[lizma]

The demands of tending domestic crops encouraged people to settle in larger communities, where disease was more easily spread.

Well yeah, of coarse. Are they trying to say life expectancy went down? Hard pressed that earlier man didn't way the plusses and minuses and found this way of life more rewarding. It beat getting stepped on by a mastodon.

Archeologist tend to underestimate the abilities of our ancestors.

[lizma]

Romans left their unwanted imperfect infants on hillsides to die.
Doubt we could name a blotless civilization.
We elected clintoon TWICE!

[Bosco]

There are a few things that central Ohio does well, and one of them is pointy-headed academics who study Agriculture.

As a '95 OSU Business school grad, I can tell you the Ag department is top shelf. Add to it that the academics are loathe to say anything bad about indigenous peoples, so this must be true.

As long as we're on the subject...

How about those Buckeyes?

[Arthur McGowan]

There's no such word as "alright."