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> When European settlers and explorers first encountered the Native peoples of the Americas, they sought to force the fact of the Native people’s existence into
by maxbond 4y ago
> When European settlers and explorers first encountered the Native peoples of the Americas, they sought to force the fact of the Native people’s existence into a Biblical worldview. The First Peoples, who built the impressive earthworks, monuments, temples and pyramids throughout the Americas, were recast as members of a lost tribe of Israelites, Irish sailors, or possibly Vikings, for the ideological convenience of settlers.
> The pretence that the first peoples of the Americas were a different race than Native Americans – a view known today as the Myth of the Moundbuilders – became extremely popular in the 18th and 19th centuries.
I'm always struck by how there's nothing new under the sun. This is basically the same conspiracy theory as Ancient Aliens, with different aesthetics for different centuries.
- eesmith 4y agoMinor nit: not all of the Norse settlers of Vinland were Christian.
- stevehawk 4y agoI toured those mounds near St Louis.. it's absolutely amazing. Especially since none of my childhood public education made a single effort to state their existence, let alone go into just how much of a society existed before we (Europeans) showed up.
- mbg721 4y agoCahokia is shockingly big, and the idea of multiple successive societies of mound-builders is sort of ignored or taken for granted; the concept of American Indians who wouldn't fit into a John Wayne movie doesn't cross Americans' minds.
- prpl 4y agoOn that point, can you name even 1 pre-columbian films that doesn’t involve a white person? Here is a relevant wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_set_in_pre-Columbian_America https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_set_in_pre-Co...
- mbg721 4y agoI don't know many movies set in pre-Columbian America at all. The idea that this was once the largest city in North America north of Mexico and it's as unknown as it is even to people who live nearby is crazy to me.
- mrexroad 4y agoOne tragedy, on top of the mountain of others, is that their histories were passed down orally. Much of that has been destroyed. One thing that struck me when I read about The Great Flood of 1862 [0], was that the Native Americans recognized the weather patterns for a series of atmospheric rivers and warned the settlers to relocate to the hills. (Tl;Dr: Central Valley ca was under water for months, Sacramento was abandoned) IIRC, it wasn’t until the 1990s that we had the ability to detect/”recognize” atmospheric rivers with satellites and finally gave them a name. [edit: added link] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862
- throwayyy479087 4y agoI’m Hacker News’ resident chud, but this is an actual issue. Natives exist only in relation to colonization. Prey, Apocalypto, and other well-made movies about first peoples ALWAYS include a white guy. Prey was egregious, could have easily only been about natives. Maybe Atanarjuat doesn’t?
- adolph 4y agoIt is odd that Apocalypto included conquistadors as contact was very late in the story of the Maya: Meanwhile, the two remaining Raiders chase Jaguar Paw towards the coast, where all three are astonished at the sight of Spanish conquistadors making their way to the shore. As the two Raiders are confounded by the Spanish ships and begin walking towards the coast, Jaguar Paw uses the distraction to flee and return to his village. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypto Although much reduced, a significant Maya presence remained into the Postclassic period after the abandonment of the major Classic period cities; the population was particularly concentrated near permanent water sources.[78] Unlike during previous cycles of contraction in the Maya region, abandoned lands were not quickly resettled in the Postclassic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization#Postclassic_period_(c._950%E2%80%931539_AD) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization#Postclassic_...
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago> concept of American Indians who wouldn't fit into a John Wayne movie doesn't cross Americans' minds “Dances With Wolves”, nominated for 12 Academy awards and won 7. Guess you missed that one.
- mbg721 4y agoI actually haven't seen it, you're right, but my understanding is that it's about the Sioux in the American Western frontier, which is more in line with media stereotypes than, for instance, the Iroquois in New York or Seminoles in Florida.
- pookah 4y agoComanche were the stereotype. The memory of the Comanche empire would have been fresh in the minds of Americans (and Mexicans) in the classical hollywood era. Comanche held territory from Kansas all the way to Mexico. They literally destroyed Northern Mexico. Europeans have no idea how intense life was for anybody that had to live in and around that tribe. And this was in the 1870's (not the 1400's).
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoWith all due respect, perhaps you should see a seminal film before making sweeping judgements of American film portrayal of Native Americas? I'm not sure what your reference to the Iroquois and Seminoles has to do with it. Certain tribes are in American awareness more than others. That happened pre-TV and modern-day media. I don't think you get to decide who Kevin Costner writes films about, but you could write your own.
- ijidak 4y agoWow! As an American that feels somewhat knowledgeable about Native American history, I can't believe I've never heard of this!?!? Sadly, the effect of past racisms and prejudices still distort what has become common knowledge today.
- wardedVibe 4y agoYou might want to read 1491.
- mason55 4y agoThat’s interesting. Where I grew up in central Ohio, we had a whole year of “Ohio history” in, I think, 4th grade. We spent a ton of time on the Ohio mound builders and even took a class trip to see the mounds. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_Mound https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_Mound
- mbg721 4y agoSerpent Mound and Sunwatch are the big show-stoppers, but lots of Ohioans have mounds practically in their backyards. My dad used to joke that the Adena and Hopewell had some mounds for burial, and some for religious rituals, but the one near our house was where they threw their empty beer bottles.
- throwayyy479087 4y agoThere’s oyster cairns all over NYs coastal and riparian plains. Not protected or anything, you can go and poke around
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoMaine, too.
- mrexroad 4y ago> “[…] archaeologists believe that the mound's creation could have been influenced by two different astronomical events: the light from the supernova that created the Crab Nebula in the year 1054 CE […] The light of the supernova would have been visible for two weeks after it first reached earth, which could even be seen in broad day light.“ I can’t even begin to imagine how humans would have interpreted such an event.
- thaumasiotes 4y agoHistorical records from the year 1054 are available (and are of course the reason we date the nebula to "1054" rather than "the eleventh century"). You can just go see what people of the time thought. Wikipedia doesn't quote the records associated with 1054, but does quote the record of a supernova in the year 185: > In the 2nd year of the epoch Zhongping [中平], the 10th month, on the day Guihai [癸亥] [December 7, Year 185], a 'guest star' appeared in the middle of the Southern Gate [南門] [an asterism consisting of ε Centauri and α Centauri], The size was half a bamboo mat. It displayed various colors, both pleasing and otherwise. It gradually lessened. In the 6th month of the succeeding year it disappeared. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_185 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_185 ) What people thought appears to have been "sometimes there are new stars, but they go away again".
- rayiner 4y agoWhere did you go to elementary school? In Virginia we spent enormous amounts of time (way too long) covering Native American history.
- Avshalom 4y ago[flagged]
- jcranmer 4y agoI wouldn't say we spent too long covering it, but having grown up near rayiner but a decade or so after from them, we covered it several times. It was the first unit of 6th and 11th grade US history, as well as 4th grade state history, and tangentially covered in 5th grade world history.
- moloch-hai 4y agoIn Hawaii I mostly got Laplanders, year after year. I guess they are Sami now?
- throwayyy479087 4y agoSame. Any time someone complains about X not being taught in school, it’s important to remember that it likely is taught and they likely didn’t pay attention. Hell, we made atlatls in middle school
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hedgehog 4y agoFor whatever reason there's a consistent tendency for people of every era I've read about to think they are the smartest and most advanced that have walked the earth, topping a long arc of progress. The more I read about history the more obvious it is that over and over we've gained and then lost significant bodies of knowledge about civil engineering, surveying, agriculture, navigation, mathematics, etc. Pretty amazing.
- WalterBright 4y agoI watch a lot of ancient history shows on PBS, etc. There are many groaners in there about "sophisticated astronomy", like when some ancients managed to point a building at the summer solstice. Another groaner is bleating about "advanced engineering" when talking about a large mound or pile of rocks. One of the dumbest was the claim that the close fits of rocks in South America "so tight a knife won't fit in the cracks" must have been done by space alien technology. This silliness persisted until an archaeologist showed how to make such a joint in about half an hour by banging and rubbing rocks together. What the ancients did do very well with, however, was manipulating the natural world to their benefit. I.e. making gardens, cultivating plants, managing livestock, etc. Edit: for those who are wondering, the altitude and azimuth of the sun at the solstice can be accurately determined simply by erecting a vertical pointed stick, and having a bit of patience. That's it.
- ummonk 4y agoHave any examples? My general summary of technological / scientific / engineering history would be that people in past eras who thought they were more advanced than anyone prior were largely correct.
- hedgehog 4y agoSure, plenty of historical examples of things that were in wide use and then misunderstood or forgotten. The scale and precision of cities like Angkor Wat or Tikal including canal systems. Large scale systematic fish trapping and fisheries management in many places including the Salish Sea. Controlled burning and cultivation of a variety of crops across the North American plains. The three sisters planting system. Pacific islander open ocean navigation, especially the stick charts. Persian evaporatively cooled architecture (qanat + wind catcher). Progress is uneven and non-linear and it takes a while to figure out we've gone backwards. For example controlled burns had a purpose but at some point in the US we decided to put out every fire. Turns out that causes problems. People decided to seal buildings up super tight with no ventilation for energy efficiency reasons. Turns out that causes problems too (mostly solvable with more technology in this case). Europeans showed up in the Pacific Northwest and thought it was a bunch of savages living in the wilderness. Turns out it was a structured society with large scale systematic agriculture, just not in a way that was easily understood by outsiders of the time. The Kansas Dust Bowl is a whole microcosm of this. The ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese, etc washed their hands but in the US just 150 years ago it was not considered necessary. It's a meandering path.
- Cupertino95014 4y ago> I'm always struck by how there's nothing new under the sun The fact that the 19th century featured provably wrong theories about where the native peoples came from is not suggestive of anything. They thought there was an ether that light traveled through, too. Native peoples' myths are often "we were always here; we sprang from the earth." Well, we all came from Africa, ultimately.
- maxbond 4y agoI think you misunderstand me. I'm not making an argument (ie I'm not claiming this to prove anything), I'm remarking on a pattern that I see recur, and an example in this article that sparked my interest. Not every comment is an argument, and not every discussion needs to be a debate. I think it's interesting that conspiracy theory tropes seem to recur very reliably over time. I have an interest in this topic and when I'm reading about it, I find there's a lot of rhyming. Conspiracism and exploded scientific hypothesis are quite different in nature. They're "wrong" in quite different ways. I recently made a comment addressing this and it might interest you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34186172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34186172 To your last point, origin myths are a claim about religious truth, not scientific truth. You can't meaningfully compare statements from different epistemologies like that.
- Cupertino95014 4y agoI take your point about origin myths and epistemology, but the original article makes repeated points about the First Peoples being left out of the debate. So how would they be left IN? Would the archeological community say to them, respectfully, "Our evidence is that First Peoples arrived from Siberia somewhere between 20,000 - 10,000 BCE. What do you think?" So what would their reaction be? Would it be: 1) We don't know; our myths don't go back that far; you tell US, or 2) You are a colonialist to even talk about this. ??
- maxbond 4y agoI don't have all the answers, and I certainly can't react on behalf behalf of First Peoples (and even if that were my ethnicity, I could of course still only respond on my own behalf, as they are not a monolith), but I think the answer lies somewhere in the tension between archeologists & anthropologists taking native people seriously, native people becoming archaeologists & anthropologists & being respected as colleagues, and having the humility to accept that some peoples feel like we've lost their trust & aren't entitled to the pieces of the puzzle they may have (a legitimate and frankly understandable position).
- WalterBright 4y agoI saw a PBS show some years back that found traces of french DNA in the eastern tribes, along with some similarities of arrowheads with some found in caves in France. The speculation is that some ice age french cavemen crossed the Atlantic ice to get to America.
- LarryMullins 4y agoThis is known as the Solutrean hypothesis. I understand it to be controversial, but it seems like everything about this topic is controversial to somebody.
- sct202 4y agoThat theory has lost a lot of legs in the past few years now that DNA results from ancient North Americans have been sequenced and they don't show any affinity to Europeans, such as Anzick-1 who's body was found in a Clovis burial and Kennewick Man who's skull shape was used as proof by Solutrean Hypothesis supporters. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14625 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14625 If the documentary was older than 2015, it's likely they didn't have this information and would be relying on inferences from the DNA of modern populations, which would be complicated by mixed race people.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- adolph 4y agoSounds like part of Thor Heyerdahl's larger theory of vikings everywhere. Part of the story was folks settling the Pacific from South America, recreated in the Kon-Tiki expedition. Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have reached Polynesia during pre-Columbian times. His aim in mounting the Kon-Tiki expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki_expedition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki_expedition
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- caethan 4y agoPart of the reason why in particular English & French settlers saw the local Indians as incapable of building the things they saw is because by the time they were settling these areas, the local Indians were massively depopulated and really weren't capable of it anymore. This isn't the case in the Spanish settlement regions because the Spanish got there so much earlier and actually saw the complex societies in their heyday. Bernal Diaz exploring and conquering Mexico in 1521 was not dismissive of the locals' construction abilities! Mexico did depopulate - it didn't reach the same population as it had in the early 1500s until the mid-20th century - but the plagues didn't hit until the Spanish saw what was there.