3 ms·

It would be compatible with the food, etc. still found in the houses, if it was a "scorched earth" type defense then you want to leave the aggressor nothing tha

It would be compatible with the food, etc. still found in the houses, if it was a "scorched earth" type defense then you want to leave the aggressor nothing that they could use, so anything you cannot carry would get burned. That would require rather large-scale warfare to be common, though, and it doesn't sound like they think that was the case yet. Of course, another possibility was disease. They didn't know why the disease was happening, so they burned everything except the people. It may even have worked sometimes, depending on the disease. I'm probably only thinking of this because I'm reading it in the middle of a pandemic, though.

runarberg 6y ago
They mention the theory of disease in the Wikipedia article but dismiss it on grounds that the fires were so destructive it seems illogical they were used as a cure. > Fumigation: Another theory posits that the fires were used for sanitary reasons to smoke or fumigate a building, in order to get rid of pests, disease, insects, and/or witches. However, the evidence does not support this viewpoint. All of the structures within these settlements were completely burned and destroyed. Because the damage from the fire was almost total for the entire settlement, it would be illogical if fumigation was the only intent.[2][3]
- rossdavidh 6y ago
  I think of fumigation as meaning "get rid of pests", as opposed to getting rid of a disease (although obviously the two could be related). But given the fact that they probably didn't have a great understanding of how disease happened, I wouldn't bet too much on our intuition regarding their intuition, in any case.
  - runarberg 6y ago
    The article lists: “pests, disease, insects, and/or witches”. So I think they’ve considered that already.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  > All of the structures within these settlements were completely burned and destroyed This is only a paradox is the burning was meant to rid the structures of something while remaining usable - something specific to fumigation. Maybe the structures, and some of their contents, needed to be destroyed due to some unknown contaminating negative (black magic/spirits, insects/pests, disease) - maybe even the whole settlement?

runarberg 6y ago

They mention the theory of disease in the Wikipedia article but dismiss it on grounds that the fires were so destructive it seems illogical they were used as a cure. > Fumigation: Another theory posits that the fires were used for sanitary reasons to smoke or fumigate a building, in order to get rid of pests, disease, insects, and/or witches. However, the evidence does not support this viewpoint. All of the structures within these settlements were completely burned and destroyed. Because the damage from the fire was almost total for the entire settlement, it would be illogical if fumigation was the only intent.[2][3]

rossdavidh 6y ago
I think of fumigation as meaning "get rid of pests", as opposed to getting rid of a disease (although obviously the two could be related). But given the fact that they probably didn't have a great understanding of how disease happened, I wouldn't bet too much on our intuition regarding their intuition, in any case.
- runarberg 6y ago
  The article lists: “pests, disease, insects, and/or witches”. So I think they’ve considered that already.
Chris2048 6y ago
> All of the structures within these settlements were completely burned and destroyed This is only a paradox is the burning was meant to rid the structures of something while remaining usable - something specific to fumigation. Maybe the structures, and some of their contents, needed to be destroyed due to some unknown contaminating negative (black magic/spirits, insects/pests, disease) - maybe even the whole settlement?