4 ms·

1491 (2002)

50 points by primroot 11y ago

mlinksva 11y ago
An article so good it was expanded into a book. In contrast with most books which never have been more than articles. :) The book was reviewed thousands of times but here's mine http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2005/12/28/1491/ http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2005/12/28/1491/ Or there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_Americas_Before_Columbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_A... and about the followup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1493:_Uncovering_the_New_World_Columbus_Created https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1493:_Uncovering_the_New_World...
- b_emery 11y ago
  The article is pretty old. Do the books, or other articles address the criticisms? eg: " "I have seen no evidence that large numbers of people ever lived in the Beni," says Betty J. Meggers, of the Smithsonian Institution. "Claiming otherwise is just wishful thinking." Similar criticisms apply to many of the new scholarly claims about Indians, according to Dean R. Snow, an anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University. The problem is that "you can make the meager evidence from the ethnohistorical record tell you anything you want," he says. "It's really easy to kid yourself."" I just wonder how it's viewed by experts in the field, now.
  - mlinksva 11y ago
    It's been a very long time since I read the first book, afraid I recall few details. The second book probably not as it covers the biological effects of the 'great exchange' and IIRC doesn't retread the 1491 material. But I had those sorts of questions while reading, and generally do about books. I wish all were continually revised, or at least the articles on English Wikipedia about them would point out obsolete and incorrect claims.
  - mkozlows 11y ago
    The book is a fairly evenhanded account of where the controversies are, what positions are held, and what the major points of evidence are.
- Gravityloss 11y ago
  Thank you so much! Mind boggling. (I think I have lost the capability to enjoy reading long-winded books or stories.)
stevecalifornia 11y ago
There are a lot of first hand accounts from the first Spaniards in the New World. I've read them and they are fascinating. They also provide a direct look at the peoples they encountered. Cabeza de Vaca provided a very interesting account. Marooned, he wandered the New World alone for many years. He often found groups of people living in incredible squalor and constant warfare-- barely able to feed themselves. He ended up surviving, in part, because he acted as a middle-man between tribes who needed to trade with each other but were constantly at war. Cortes found fairly advanced civilizations with amazing infrastructure that also suffered from warfare, slavery and ridiculous amounts of human sacrifices. There is also a lot of evidence in the DNA of Native Americans that tell how and when they migrated here. The point I am making is that Native Americans were and are Native Americans. They had good things and bad things going for them. This article (and book) seems pre-occupied with trying to tell you that everything we've learned up to this point is entirely wrong and that the New World was a utopia before the filthy Europeans arrived. It wasn't, and there is a ton of evidence to support that. It just was what it was. To be honest, I feel like this is trying to re-focus history with a politically correct slant-- which is what bothers me.
- meatysnapper 11y ago
  There is of course the theory that the reason the Spaniards found it so easy to whoop dat Aztec was because of the hostility caused by so much human sacrifice.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > There is of course the theory that the reason the Spaniards found it so easy to whoop dat Aztec was because of the hostility caused by so much human sacrifice. The Aztecs weren't unique in the practice of human sacrifice. It seems a lot more likely that resent of the Aztec Empire by its peripheries in general was the reason than human sacrifice specifically, the former exacerbated by general discontent resulting from the wave of disease the region was facing -- as a result of European contact with the Caribbean islands and trade between the islands and the mainland.
walterbell 11y ago
PBS has a good documentary called "Cracking the Maya Code", https://youtube.com/watch?v=H5ppfC6y-5s https://youtube.com/watch?v=H5ppfC6y-5s, about deciphering of Mayan glyphs, centuries after most books were burnt. Much credit goes to Linda Schele, an art teacher who made breakthroughs in decoding the glyphs, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Schele https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Schele There's a longer version of the documentary called "Breaking the Maya Code", including interview clips with Schele, http://www.nightfirefilms.org/breakingthemayacode/interviews/ScheleTRANSCRIPT.pdf http://www.nightfirefilms.org/breakingthemayacode/interviews... "The Maya use story.. The advantage to me of stories, like what the Maya used, and the painting onto the patterns of the stars and the Milky Way of images of these great narratives, is you don’t have to be a Ph.D. to understand it. You could be a child and understand it and learn it through stories. In our world, to access that, you either have to be one of the scientists who creates the legend of the Big Bang, or you have to be one of the scientific writers who act as translators for the people in our world."
jvm 11y ago
Fascinating excerpt from the book by Tyler Cowen: > the modern species [of maize] had to have been consciously developed by a small group of breeders who hunted through teosinte strands for plants with desired traits…"To get corn out of teosinte is so — you couldn't get a grant to do that now, because it would sound so crazy…Somebody who did that today would get a Nobel Prize!" http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/08/1491.html#sthash.wNlmQJ0Z.dpuf http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/08/149...
- soperj 11y ago
  Makes you wonder what else is out there just waiting to be selected...
hyperion2010 11y ago
One of the best articles I have read on the state of NA civilization pre colonization. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/native-intelligence-109314481/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/native-intelligence-10... The short version is that Europeans really did not have any idea about the civilization they were replacing, and by the time they really arrived European diseases had killed most of the population, leading to the myth that the continent was empty. Can't really do justice with a summary.
animefan 11y ago
There are fascinating parallels between this debate and the debate on the size, economic development and political cohesion of the Palestinian population before the establishment of modern day Israel.

1491 (2002)

50 points by primroot 11y ago

An article so good it was expanded into a book. In contrast with most books which never have been more than articles. :) The book was reviewed thousands of times but here's mine http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2005/12/28/1491/ http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2005/12/28/1491/ Or there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_Americas_Before_Columbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_A... and about the followup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1493:_Uncovering_the_New_World_Columbus_Created https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1493:_Uncovering_the_New_World...

b_emery 11y ago
The article is pretty old. Do the books, or other articles address the criticisms? eg: " "I have seen no evidence that large numbers of people ever lived in the Beni," says Betty J. Meggers, of the Smithsonian Institution. "Claiming otherwise is just wishful thinking." Similar criticisms apply to many of the new scholarly claims about Indians, according to Dean R. Snow, an anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University. The problem is that "you can make the meager evidence from the ethnohistorical record tell you anything you want," he says. "It's really easy to kid yourself."" I just wonder how it's viewed by experts in the field, now.
- mlinksva 11y ago
  It's been a very long time since I read the first book, afraid I recall few details. The second book probably not as it covers the biological effects of the 'great exchange' and IIRC doesn't retread the 1491 material. But I had those sorts of questions while reading, and generally do about books. I wish all were continually revised, or at least the articles on English Wikipedia about them would point out obsolete and incorrect claims.
- mkozlows 11y ago
  The book is a fairly evenhanded account of where the controversies are, what positions are held, and what the major points of evidence are.
Gravityloss 11y ago
Thank you so much! Mind boggling. (I think I have lost the capability to enjoy reading long-winded books or stories.)

stevecalifornia 11y ago

There are a lot of first hand accounts from the first Spaniards in the New World. I've read them and they are fascinating. They also provide a direct look at the peoples they encountered. Cabeza de Vaca provided a very interesting account. Marooned, he wandered the New World alone for many years. He often found groups of people living in incredible squalor and constant warfare-- barely able to feed themselves. He ended up surviving, in part, because he acted as a middle-man between tribes who needed to trade with each other but were constantly at war. Cortes found fairly advanced civilizations with amazing infrastructure that also suffered from warfare, slavery and ridiculous amounts of human sacrifices. There is also a lot of evidence in the DNA of Native Americans that tell how and when they migrated here. The point I am making is that Native Americans were and are Native Americans. They had good things and bad things going for them. This article (and book) seems pre-occupied with trying to tell you that everything we've learned up to this point is entirely wrong and that the New World was a utopia before the filthy Europeans arrived. It wasn't, and there is a ton of evidence to support that. It just was what it was. To be honest, I feel like this is trying to re-focus history with a politically correct slant-- which is what bothers me.

meatysnapper 11y ago
There is of course the theory that the reason the Spaniards found it so easy to whoop dat Aztec was because of the hostility caused by so much human sacrifice.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > There is of course the theory that the reason the Spaniards found it so easy to whoop dat Aztec was because of the hostility caused by so much human sacrifice. The Aztecs weren't unique in the practice of human sacrifice. It seems a lot more likely that resent of the Aztec Empire by its peripheries in general was the reason than human sacrifice specifically, the former exacerbated by general discontent resulting from the wave of disease the region was facing -- as a result of European contact with the Caribbean islands and trade between the islands and the mainland.

walterbell 11y ago

PBS has a good documentary called "Cracking the Maya Code", https://youtube.com/watch?v=H5ppfC6y-5s https://youtube.com/watch?v=H5ppfC6y-5s, about deciphering of Mayan glyphs, centuries after most books were burnt. Much credit goes to Linda Schele, an art teacher who made breakthroughs in decoding the glyphs, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Schele https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Schele There's a longer version of the documentary called "Breaking the Maya Code", including interview clips with Schele, http://www.nightfirefilms.org/breakingthemayacode/interviews/ScheleTRANSCRIPT.pdf http://www.nightfirefilms.org/breakingthemayacode/interviews... "The Maya use story.. The advantage to me of stories, like what the Maya used, and the painting onto the patterns of the stars and the Milky Way of images of these great narratives, is you don’t have to be a Ph.D. to understand it. You could be a child and understand it and learn it through stories. In our world, to access that, you either have to be one of the scientists who creates the legend of the Big Bang, or you have to be one of the scientific writers who act as translators for the people in our world."

jvm 11y ago

Fascinating excerpt from the book by Tyler Cowen: > the modern species [of maize] had to have been consciously developed by a small group of breeders who hunted through teosinte strands for plants with desired traits…"To get corn out of teosinte is so — you couldn't get a grant to do that now, because it would sound so crazy…Somebody who did that today would get a Nobel Prize!" http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/08/1491.html#sthash.wNlmQJ0Z.dpuf http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/08/149...

soperj 11y ago
Makes you wonder what else is out there just waiting to be selected...

hyperion2010 11y ago

One of the best articles I have read on the state of NA civilization pre colonization. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/native-intelligence-109314481/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/native-intelligence-10... The short version is that Europeans really did not have any idea about the civilization they were replacing, and by the time they really arrived European diseases had killed most of the population, leading to the myth that the continent was empty. Can't really do justice with a summary.

animefan 11y ago

There are fascinating parallels between this debate and the debate on the size, economic development and political cohesion of the Palestinian population before the establishment of modern day Israel.