4 ms·
Great, but they’re not ‘ancient’, at least by common definitions of what ancient means. They’re relatively recent, historically speaking.
by stakkur 4y ago
Great, but they’re not ‘ancient’, at least by common definitions of what ancient means. They’re relatively recent, historically speaking.
- yesenadam 4y agoThe article says "starting about 1,500 years ago, ancient Amazonians built and lived in densely populated centres". From a quick google, ancient most commonly is defined to mean, until about 500AD or before the fall of Rome (476). But that's in a European history context. It seems that ancient in the context of the Americas is usually applied to anything pre-1492.
- stakkur 4y agoUnderneath all this is a recent phenomenon to recast Central/South American civilizations as 'ancient' and 'comparable' to other non-American civilizations. A lot of this is normal, on the level kind of research, but there's a significant amount of breathless hyperbole about it too. You can usually identify the latter by the language it uses. This article does a lot of that ("Mind blowing!" "Challenges archeaological dogma!" "Mysterious"!), and it repeats something that's very suspect, even amongst conservative historians--it dates civilization in the area to "10,000 years old". Also, much of what's in these kinds of articles is not new, but simply repackaged content.
- yesenadam 4y agoMaybe I was too obscure or something - there's no sign in your reply that you heard my point: that, contrary to what you said, it seems 500AD is "‘ancient’, at least by common definitions of what ancient means."
- stakkur 4y agoMaybe you thought I was trying to respond to your point, instead of adding more information of my own.