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More cold water on our image of lost tribes in the rainforest living unchanged since the dawn of time. Nearest we can tell, the uncontacted tribes are refugees
by StClaire 10y ago
More cold water on our image of lost tribes in the rainforest living unchanged since the dawn of time.
Nearest we can tell, the uncontacted tribes are refugees from great civilizations who got wiped out by European diseases.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- paxcoder 10y agoThat seems like a stretch to me, maybe expound on what you implied by "more".
- ajross 10y agoWhat? No. This is surely (obviously archaeology has just begun, so nothing firm yet) a Mayan site, as it's smack in the middle of the Mayan homeland. The classic Maya were a big, elaborate urban civilization with recorded writings and easily the best understanding of mathematics among known pre-iron peoples. This has been attested by literally dozens of sites across the past century. We've even translated their written language. The news here isn't the discovery of some new civilation, it's the discovery of a hopefully-undisturbed Mayan site. The others were "abandoned" but still largely plundered, leaving only the big stone monuments undisturbed.
- ivanhoe 10y agoCertainly not all of them, but in certain areas it's quite possible that refugees have been mixing with local population, or even forming new tribes. New research data all indicates that there were some, for that time, huge cities (100+K population) in Amazon basin. It makes sense to presume that when epidemics started at least part of the population managed to escape into surrounding jungle, leaving those cities empty, similar how in Europe many cities have been completely deserted in the time of plague. Obviously, we know so little about this that it's all just a speculation.
- jpatokal 10y agoThis site is in Honduras, not the Amazon.
- mobilefriendly 10y ago>> European diseases Measles was probably from the middle east (first identified in Persia) and smallpox originated in North Africa.
- InitialLastName 10y agoSo, still more European than N/S American?
- technotony 10y agoI'm curious, does anyone know why Americans were killed by 'european' diseases, but not the other way around? Was Europe just lucky there weren't any nasty bugs like that in America or was it statistically likely to be that way due to relative population sizes?
- InitialLastName 10y agoThe most compelling suggestion I've heard (and heard people who know more than me parrot, mostly from Guns, Germs and Steel) is that EurAfricAsians had domesticated and were living closely with animals of varied backgrounds, where the Americas had very few animals suitable for domestication. The close proximity to other species allowed diseases to pass back and forth; those diseases became endemic in the population, leading to higher rates of immunity to the diseases. I've even seen it argued that overall European/Asian/African immune systems were stronger overall due to exposure to these diseases. Additionally, the long east-west band of temperate climates across Europe, Asia, and Africa accommodated trade and travel, where the varied north/south orientation of North and South America (especially the relatively impassable central isthmus) impeded trade. This allowed crops, animals, and diseases to all spread quickly in one and poorly in the other, exposing entire populations to diseases much earlier. Let's not forget that Europe, Asia, and Africa have all had major die-offs in history when new diseases were introduced. They just all got introduced to the Americas at once.