Is civilization artificial?

It just seems that we've only been at it for such a relatively short period of our history, and we never seem to get it right. They all fail sooner or later, and it seems we fall back to our old barbaric ways, more or less, every time.

I wonder if we will ever get past this need to try victimize one another. We seem to understand that it is counterproductive, but we do it anyways. I don't think we will ever be able to get past this until we develop telepathy or empathy or some such, and can feel the pain we inflict on others as if it we were doing it to ourselves. Though in some cases, I doubt that will even be an effective deterrent.

Unfortunate.

I think civilization is natural for humans, but so are the barbaric ways. For the most part I think when viewed from a distance humans are getting "better" but obviously we're not nearly where I'd like us to be yet. We will probably never get there but I expect we will keep striving to be more than we are now.

its in our nature...

there is something inherent in our nature to form ourselves into groups, tribes, gangs. Once we do this, the "other groups" become the enemy, and competition begins. When a particular group wins and dominates the others, it starts a nation. that goes on until another nation dominates instead.

i agree. it really does seem very hard for us to get past this basic wiring in our heads.

Pete2

Competing is in our nature. Even born losers compete at some level. Operating within a team is a more efficient way to win. A nation is a massive team.

All animals that form societies have outcasts. Also, I think it's inherent in animals that form large, very organized, and cooperative societies to go to war. IIRC, ants also have been know to wage war. Technology just allows us to do it on a larger scale.

and i wonder if, in the not so distant future, man will have been nothing more than a failed biology experiment, similar to the dinosaurs. except we will cause our own extinction.

Humans are communicable disease of planets.

Society is artificial to a point. Look at the ever changing rules on what is and isn't "correct". Laws are all basically artificial. If there is a true natural law, it doesn't need to be enumerated, we would know it instinctively. If you look hard enough, there are no natural taboos; in some society everything "bad, evil, Bozo no-no" has been practiced. I stand firm on this, if someone wants to try and find some "natural law/taboo" that's never been broken, have at it. Hints, don't try to argue that any type of murder, cannibalism or incest are naturally taboo, you lose on the point that all have been practiced by past cultures some ritually and religiously.

The larger the group/society, the more rules you have. Never underestimate the power of stupid in large groups. Therefor, the need for rules. It gets interesting when rules change from group to group (e.g. driving laws, England v. the US), reinforcing the idea of artificial rules. Who is right? Does that make the other wrong?

As to competition, the Naked Survivors people prove that the smallest of groups - 2 - has competition to be top dog.

To me, this video contains everything you ever need to know about civilization:

Rhett & Link's Redneck Camping Guide

This pretty much sums up the human race, as I see it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUvLZeDgU-c

Civilization is predicated on Plumbing. This pretty much sums up the civilized and urbanised human race, as I see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bje_8Y7KUfM

Without plumbing there is no civilization only barbarism as the Romans found out when they failed 3 times to conquer the Caledonians and Picts in Northern Britain from the 1st to the 3rd Century AD.

so ... your theory is that the Romans got all grimey, couldn't wash, and their girlfriends refused to give them sex?? so they gave up on Northern Britain.

I wish I'd read more history books written by you Am Fear - I might have stayed awake in high school history classes :-)

Pete2

.... well, maybe past a certain size, waste management becomes an issue. But a tribe of a few dozen? Would you call any sort of tribal society (or even a dispersed agrarian society, a la mideival Europe) uncivilized? Remember, their version of plumbing was a chamber pot.

I would call them conquered, or maybe even vanquished.

For the most part, they were a defeated race of slaves. Only with the advent of the guilds and the merchant class did they really start to become civilized.

People are not civilized if they are considered chattel, they are just subdued, like sheep.

Sheep, that sounds like a familiar moniker.

OK - so now you are getting to the structure inside the group or nation. if you look at small tribes or groups - they often work off the "strong leader" principle. so a strong leader governs them - an alpha dog or alpha female - and the rest establish a pecking order in that group. it also means that the profits from their activities get divided by the pecking order, with the dominant people getting the best rewards. so there is a subservience in that structure, and some people are subdued. but at the same time, there is also a kind of "Darwinian evolution" where the strong members have to establish their dominance through superior fighting and food-gathering. This is not so bad, because it establishes genetic patterns where the strong genes get passed down successive generations. The group becomes stronger over time, because it keeps adapting successfully to its environment. Hence there is an interconnection between human genetics and group structures - to give the best chance of survival.

There are a lot of pathological things that can go wrong with the dominant-subservient group structure. The group needs intelligent, skilled fighters and hunters in order for everyone to survive. But if people dominate because of pathological personalities, that is potentially a big problem. The group will eventually fail or break up because the leaders are not fulfilling the basic needs for survival.

Pete2

So based on your premise, our current civilization should be dominated by strong, virile members who are natural fighters and respectable leaders.

Sorry, but our current version is anything but. In fact, I would say our current civilization is the antithesis of your model. I believe all of the pathologies you allude to are in full function today.

So it is with all civilizations. Without solving the why that this occurs, suffice it to say that it is as constant as the heavens that every civilization of our world history failed for essentially the same reason, that being a complete perversion of the natural order of things social.

The theory of civilization is sound. It is the practicality of the thing that falls apart in application, every single time. It should work; maybe it even does for a time, but eventually it falls apart and regresses back to something barbaric.

BTW, I do not consider tribal structures as civilized. Barbarians were tribal long before civilizations came along. To get to civilization requires at least three fundamentals; infrastructure, centralized government, and structured commerce. A common language and a currency would be additional characteristics, but not necessarily fundamental.
In civilization, you don't need a strong leader, just a lot of willing followers.

Perhaps therein lies the cypher.

I respectfully suggest that you are using the wrong terms for the discussion: the question is more precisely stated, " Is organization artificial?" The answer is, clearly not. Single celled creatures organized into multi-cellular creatures by the natural process of evolution, salted with some chaos theory determinants. Animals organize into herds, colonies, hives, et alia, without artificial help. Humans organize in a lot of ways, and those organizations have pathologies, life cycles, and histories, analyzed at great length in sociology and org dynamics texts. Civilizations are organizations of organizations, and are no more likely to be immortal than any other work of nature.

Definition of terms would help here. What precisely do you mean by "civilization" as well as "artificial" (as opposed to - what - natural?).

We can follow the increase in complexity of social organization from fairly basic Homo erectus beginnings right up to the IRS tax code, which is fairly complex....Human society has changed and adapted, often quickly, to meet differing circumstances. It's a good bet that this will continue.

well said. Adaptation, both genetic and social, seems to be part of the natural order, as is catastrophic failure to adapt to a changing environment, as in the fall of the Roman Empire, or the dinosaur extermination.

The Barbarians were certainly civilized. They had commerce, an infrastructure, governance, currency, etc, etc, etc.

Their problem was that they lost to the Romans, and the winners write the history books.

"So based on your premise, our current civilization should be dominated by strong, virile members who are natural fighters and respectable leaders.

Sorry, but our current version is anything but. In fact, I would say our current civilization is the antithesis of your model. I believe all of the pathologies you allude to are in full function today. "

I would agree that we've got a problem today. I wouldn't go so far as to say our leaders need to be strong, virile fighters - although maybe that helps. But I would say that our leaders definitely need to address the real problems facing the group and take care of them. real needs of the group must be satisfied - real problems have to get solved. it is dysfunctional when leaders somehow believe they exist for their own purposes. if you look at the old "primitive" group structure - they did indeed require strong virile leaders. why? because ineffective leaders got knocked off by younger ones who were more effective. there was no way to "buy" leadership. you either delivered the goods or you didnt.

Pete2

I think that the Romans Centurions had other things to worry about trying to keep their heads attached to the their torso's especially in this gore fest of a movie. They certainly liked their plumbing and hot baths though, but they didn't really have time to build them to keep the chilly weather at bay when operating in FOBs down range.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHGKsIkGRF4

Looks like there was even a Roman SERE school as well as they run away, run away live to fight another day over the Scottish Cairngorms much like Bears Grylls action man figures.

Most Empires like to consider themselves as civilizations who then consider their enemies who they subjugate or invade to expand the Empire as Barbarians or sub humans especially when things aren't going so well even in Tacitus's day.

And now for the boring factual historical Archeology bit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D69ljCIx9uI

So as I defined it, civilization would consist of three conditions, infrastructure, centralized government, and structured commerce. This goes beyond simple organization, and while some barbarians may have approached civilized society, none of them quite made it.

From a scientific perspective, then, we have been civilized for a far shorter period in human history than barbaric.

Interestingly, I think civilization was a result of moving from a nomadic hunter gatherer culture to agricultural models. In this way, it became easier for individuals to amass a regular surplus of food stores and exchange them for other items of value, thus creating a form of wealth, and eventually a powerbase. This allowed for the provisioning of standing armies used for both invasion and conquest as well as for defense.

The structuring of classes develops in civilizations, resulting in eventual oppression. Physical attributes are insignificant for effective leadership, being usurped by politics and guile. In this way, I consider civilization to be artificial in how it deals with the true nature of man. Yes, we adapt, we become smarter, but without a reliable means of validating intent, we are stuck having to choose leadership based on intangible traits that have little to do with real ability. Over time, this flaw becomes increasingly dominant, until we have what the Romans finally ended up in, or where we are now in our own downward spiral.

Guys, why reinvent the wheel? These questions have been thought carefully already. By many learned people. In many different ways. Sure, I know we're just having fun, pushing our amateurish pet theories, punctuated by funny Youtube videos. But isn't it also fun to see what the experts might have to say?

What Is a civilization, anyway?

There's plenty of oppression in unstructured societies/groups, too. Civilization is just the shadow cast by human nature. The good parts of humans are magnified along with the bad.

"So as I defined it, civilization would consist of three conditions, infrastructure, centralized government, and structured commerce. This goes beyond simple organization, and while some barbarians may have approached civilized society, none of them quite made it."

OK Benjammin ... here's your challenge for today. I'm going to pick two societies. you tell me if they were "civilizations". the first is the Mongol society under Genghis Khan. No need to explain that they grew numerous and powerful - dominating a large part of Asia and some of Europe. The second is the Comanche society of Native Americans in the early USA. At one time, due to superior horsemanship skills, the Comanches extended their influence across the southern Great Plains, all the way down into Mexico, and eastwards across large parts of Texas. In their heyday nobody could beat them - no-one could equal their speed and fighting methods on horses.

So my two examples are "breakout" societies who took a quantum leap in speed of transportation and competitive ability. they really didn't develop a lot of infrastructure themselves ... they just captured land and cities from other people. so do these societies qualify as civilizations??

Pete2

The problem with civilization is that you need an agreed upon definition.

-- Does it depend on population size (2? 2 million?)?
--Certain style of living (migratory, stable, agrarian...)?
--Certain attributes (eg, infrastructure)?
--Does it depend on a certain level of self-awareness (how many animals live in schools, pods, herds, etc ... why are they not civilized?)?
--development of a certain set of behaviors/cultures/traditions?

I don't think it's necessarily "artificial," as it seems to be a byproduct of people associating with each other. Past a critical size, people realize the need to cooperate, maintain order, etc, and a group mentality emerges. And since most people tend to want attention, one wonders if any given couple could constitute it's own civilization.

At best, the Mongols and the Comanche were Chiefdoms. They were LARGE Chiefdoms, but never achieved a civilization status.

For all the more esoteric and nebulous definitions cited in the link posted earlier, you can still boil all that down to the same three criteria I use.

Barbaric does not mean stupid either. There were lots of uncivilized societies led by very intelligent people. For whatever reasons, they just never advanced (could mean evolved) their culture. Neither the Comanche nor the Mongols were known for their agricultural developments, though I am sure they had some modicum of it going. Agriculture seems to be the "seed" for civilization to properly develop. Land development precluded seasonal migration. Irrigation provided adequate crop water and roads to move produce and livestock were required to get agriculture beyond the subsistence level. Structured commerce established suitable trade practices and security to make going to market a profitable effort worth the risk of transport. This wealth could buy protection from barbarians, who would just take from the farmers what they needed otherwise. A person who could organize a protection force could enforce rules that favor farmers and inhibit the barbarian from raiding, or looting. Such a person would be able to collect a fee from the farmers for this enforcement.

Infrastructure, centralized government, and structured commerce. These are what drive a society into civilization.

??? Not sure about the Comanche, but the Mongols were excellent administrators. They set up the most efficient postal system the world had seen. When they realized they needed written records to govern their vast empire, they threw together a committee and invented a writing system. They also had pragmatic priorities, promoting science, medicine, engineering, technology -- areas that the established elite of the "civilized" kingdoms they conquered often neglected because these were regarded as lowly crafts. Unlike the "civilized" peoples they conquered, the Mongols did not kill or burn people at the stake just for believing in a different god. They enforced religious tolerance, and even encouraged interfaith dialogues. Pax Mongolica wasn't a pax for nothing.

"Infrastructure, centralized government, and commerce"? Yeah, the Mongols had all those.

The killing and burning they reserved for war, and they did that very well, too. That's how they got their reputation.

i was thinking about this myself. in the end, does it matter whether we call a group as "chiefdom", a "society", or a "civilization"? if they had a profound effect on human history - then all that matters is that they did have an influence. The Mongols certainly did have a significant effect. Personally, I think the Comanches would have also had a major effect if they had been able to grow their society for a few hundred years more - but they were interrupted by the arrival of the white civilization.

anyway Benjammin. i'm getting the impression that we will see some sort of new cult coming out of Alaska in a few years. And when someone goes up there to investigate - they will find "B E N J A M M I N" painted on the walls of some cave. Hahahaha!

Pete2

Hmm, maybe I can wrap this thread up with a quote,

"One of the most dangerous errors is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of the planet is salt water. Land looms large in our imagination and civilization in history books, only because sea and savagery are to us less interesting." - C.S. Lewis

I pulled that from another website, but it is properly credited to the author, so no copyright issue.

I imagine that quote as recited by Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Regardless of how we define a group, civilizations remain forever a temporary condition. Not one has withstood the test of time. I think the biggest reason for this is because they allow the worst excesses of human nature to proliferate and dominate. It is not for simple survival that civilizations carry out unspeakable acts of violence, but simply to feed the beast within us, that insatiable thing that will eventually consume us entirely.

"You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them screwing each other over for a percentage." Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in Aliens

benjammin ... love those two quotes. I remember the line by Sigourney Weaver, but I have not seen the one by C S Lewis before. Point well taken.

Pete2

Yet civilization always returns. One falls but the light is never permanently extinguished. I doubt it ever will be until humans become extinct. It's our nature to form complex societies.

Incredible quotes... I loved the Alien(s) movies, and I loved that line from the movies.. I really like the Sir Anthony Hopkins quote, I hadn't ever heard that before. Guess I need to broaden my reading beyond Microsoft technical manuals someday.....

Civilization is a crux for our future. Through this regurgitation cycle of civilization we will either destroy ourselves, or we will evolve ourselves. The latter being the less likely outcome, I can't see it materializing without us developing an empathetic or telepathic capability. Until we can directly sense how our actions affect others, we will never be able to overcome as a race this self destructive nature. We are doomed to repeat this failure until one of the two outcomes occurs.

"we will either destroy ourselves, or we will evolve ourselves"

I agree with you 100%.
based on what I can see from the scientific predictions, there is a time coming when we will face a dreadful climax - which should lead to the either/or outcome in your quote. that step in our evolution is going to be a very painful one. but it is outside of my lifetime, though possibly not outside of the lifetime of our grandchildren.

Pete2

I think civilization is in no way artificial. It is just a question of the level of organization. I believe that technology is not all that influential. Societies will always find a way to conquer either the elements for their betterment or others with whatever they have available or can fashion.

In regards to Benjammin's statement about extinction vs evolution of the human species, I am not too sure where I stand. I guess I would have to make an intellectual assent to being either a nihilist or an optimist.

Another question is that of the carrying capacity of the planet. What is it? I have heard 12 billion.

My $.02; possibly less.

YMMV

Can I suggest that you watch the BBC TV series ' The Ascent of Man '

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10fWml7Qu7Y (1 of 13 episodes) Yep, TV programs used to be like this before civilization ascended, peaked and declined in to X-Factor territory !

Then watch a short documentary film about the presenter Dr Jacob Bronowski (his secret life) who died shortly after being interviewed by Michael Parkinson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCfJstzPyZQ

It may answer the question 'Is civilization artificial?'

It has also been suggested that the fall of the Roman Empire was due in no small part to their plumbing and the intellectual retardation toxic effects of the lead construction. Could there be something similar happening today?

IMHO:
Civilization is finite and time-limited. All works of man are finite and time-limited. Long-term survival is pretty much reserved for astronomical items, and all of those came from a beginning, (big bang or word), and will result in an end (entropy or armageddon), that has nothing to do with human artifact. Civilization is what humans do to amuse themselves in the meantime: it probably shouldn't be taken quite so seriously.

Participants in a relationship often see the ending of the relationship as a big deal: true in adolescent love affairs and the fall of empires. Life goes on, or doesn't. No big deal.

YMMV.

"It has also been suggested that the fall of the Roman Empire was due in no small part to their plumbing and the intellectual retardation toxic effects of the lead construction. Could there be something similar happening today? "

absolutely.
Internet gossip is dumbing down the entire global population :-)

Pete2

Where do I sign up?!

Oh I could run with that one. But would be better to advocate simply to pursue those aspects of civilization that amplify our better qualities, and avoid those that do the opposite.

Through civilization, we isolate ourselves from nature, separate ourselves from what is real, while we attempt to mold reality to fit our own notions. There has to be a better way to go about it, but we seem to keep coming back to the same old ways of doing things.

We know what good is, we just choose to go the other way a lot.

"Through civilization, we isolate ourselves from nature, separate ourselves from what is real, while we attempt to mold reality to fit our own notions"

It is a bit ironic that the Native American societies, who I consider to be some of the most "in touch" with nature, did not fare well when they came in contact with our predominant "white persons" civilization. Whatever our current civilization is ... it tends to be very intolerant of peaceful coexistence with Planet Earth and is rather exploitive in nature.

But anyway, setting those thoughts aside, I sense that you are trying to piece together what is happening to the world today? My observation is that the human race is "fracturing and dividing" across many different lines. I beleive the basic cause is due to stress. It is interesting to me that these "lines of division" do not just separate people on obvious belief systems, such as Democrats vs. Republicans, Jews vs. Christians vs. Muslims, or rich vs. poor. YES, arguments between all those groups do exist. But i have noticed a lot of fighting and bickering WTHIN these groups - there are inner divides forming. So it seems more like civilization is "breaking up" along many different lines.

Pete2

If you haven't already done so, a recommended read is "Guns, Germs,and Steel" for an explanation of why Europeans prevailed. Introduced diseases like measles and smallpox killed far more Native Americans than bullets did...

Don't be too sure that all NA societies were all that much in touch with nature. Archeological research shows many situations where localized overuse of resources caused disruptions and collapse, or at least adjustments in lifestyle. The Aztec Empire, you will recall, had a thing about human sacrifice - at the time of European contact, somewhere between 80,000 and 20,000 were sacrificed to dedicate one temple in 1487.

After all, our society would be considered pretty touchy-feely if all you cited were Muir, Thoreau, and Rachel Carson. We all have the problem of forecasting the long-term consequences of apparently innocuous measures.

Archeologists (and hikermor will know more about this than I do) state that the population of the Americas could have been as high as 100,000,000 at the time when Europe was being ravaged by the plague! The plunder of the Americas was probably the worst genocide humanity has ever seen. Fully 95% of all the native peoples died.

I kind of wonder, philosophically, if humans are or even could be cut off from "nature". When a beaver dams a river, is he cutting himself off from nature or expressing the nature of a beaver? Is our civilization and technology someone foreign and alien to the world or simply or version of what it is to be a beaver? Or an ant? When a bird builds a 500 lb nest, is that alien?

It's very surprising to read a claim of 100M in the Americas before the Europeans came -- I'm a technologist, not an anthropologist, but weren't the natives all at a Stone Age level of technology?

100M is on the high side of estimates of pre-Contact population levels, and metal working was not yet in vogue. Groups like the Aztecs were working copper and precious metals, but stone tools were generally in use elsewhere. That doesn't mean that groups weren't highly developed.

The Mayas were adept astronomers, with a calendar even more accurate than our own,and along with a mathematical system that included the concept of zero and writing, together with monumental architecture. Similar systems were in use throughout Mexico,Central America, and much of South America.

There were large cities in many areas, including some in the United States, like Cahokia,near St.Louis. In many cases,disease spread in advance of Europeans making the first contact with many groups, and population levels were already declining.

Agriculture was well developed throughout the Americas. Native American groups first domesticated maize, and tomatoes, among others - plants that were readily adopted by Europeans.

What was lacking were wild precursors of any critters suitable for domestication like the horse (alpacas and llamas were rather palid substitutes), very unfortunate when Cortez came calling. At first the Aztecs did not realize that the horse and rider were separate entities, although they learned fast.

The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, was larger and cleaner than any city in Spain, according to the comments recorded in journals kept by the Spanish themselves.

And yet human sacrifice was common, and justified by the internal logic of their religious system - so who is "civilized" and who is "barbaric"? If you ask me, we are all just dreadfully, and unpredictably, human....

I am not a college professor, nor have I played one on TV. I have stayed at Holiday Inn a couple of times, however...

phaedrus - I have never seen a claim that the Native Amnerican population was 100 million. i did see one idea - more of a conjecture - that the Native American population was significantly higher before European cilization arrived. However, it wasn't right before white people came. it was many centuries before. and i think the anthropologists beleived that many Indians died at that earlier time because of some sort of epidemic. it will probably take a long time for people to work out if these theories are true. maybe we will never know.

Pete2

Let's just say that the data for the basis of population estimates is pretty crappy, and that many estimates are basically wild speculation. Much more work is needed.

The numbers are interesting, but not quite as important I think as the reasons why these civilizations, like all the rest, failed. I find it interesting that some of the early American civs knew for quite a while they were going to end. Were they smart enough to know they were doomed, but not smart enough to be able to do anything about it?

Sounds familiar.

I'm not defending the claims of 100 million but they have been put forth by reputable scientists. Certainly 35-50 million is quite plausible and puts the population of the Americas at levels slightly above that of Europe. Also recall that at the peak levels of mortality nearly half of Europe died of the Black Plague.

I thought that the theory that Native American populations were much higher at one time is very fascinating. Incidentally, it's possible that the Black Plague crossed the Atlantic somehow. That plague was certainly virulent enough to kill so many Indians. Or maybe it was the other way around, and the plague originated in the Americas and somehow traveled to Europe?

I was just looking at old designs of Irish ships a week ago - a new experience for me. They were not much bigger than rowboats, and the original covering on the hull was animal skin. But the old sailors from Ireland sailed them quite a long way out into the Atlantic. Julius Ceasar is quoted as having observed these Irish ships when he went to England. It seems plausible that similar ships belonged to people from Iceland. And therefore, some kind of contact between the ancient Americas and Europe cannot be ruled out.

Pete2

I -

Indeed there was contact around 1000 AD by Vikings, sailing in their extremely seaworthy long boats. Settlements of theirs have been found and dated at the site of L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. Other possible sites are under study.

There may have been contact along the Pacific Coast as well. One archaeologist has suggested that one of the earliest cultures to make pottery in Peru may have had contact with adrift Japanese fisherman, who were making pottery at the time.

Scandinavian and Scottish lore talks about selkies, strange creatures who may have been Inuit straying far from home in their skin kayaks.

Other contacts have been proposed. There undoubtedly was contact, but it was inconsequential for the most part until 1492. I am unaware of any evidence of the Black Plague in North America prehistorically, although it is present today in rodent populations in the western US at least. Anyone have more information?

let's consider this a little bit. it bears thinking about. let's imagine that maybe 50 million Native Americans were living in the USA at some earlier time before 1492. and let's also guess that whatever wiped them out was not the Black Plague. that would leave some other virulent disease as a possible cause. A conceivable explanation is some form of a 'flu virus which was a completely different strain from anything the people had seen before. Or an outbreak of a European 'flu virus carried by travelers on small ships from Iceland or Scandinavia.

But if it wasn't a 'flu virus - that means that some other virulent disease existed on the historical US continent that wiped out millions of people. and not inconceivably, remnants from that virus could still exist in archeological artefacts buried with those people today.

Pete2

Sounds like the premise of an Indiana Jones zombie movie! Let's throw some Nazis and North Koreans in there just to make it interesting… Say, Jones is on one of his archeological trips away from the lusty busty college girls at Oxford. (Hikermor can attest to how any spare moment an archeologist has is taken up with a hot girl/guy in his/her lap.) It just so happens both the Nazis and the North Koreans are looking for the well-preserved body of Montezuma XII, precisely to weaponize the dormant virus. Indy gets into much intrigue and action, while rescuing hot maidens along the way, some of whom, predictably, die for him.

Who wants to continue with writing the script?

It's no mystery- it was contact with Europeans.

Laugh all you want
But if Hikermore comes down with green spots and a cough
i am calling the Hotline !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

where the heck is my isolation suit, anyway?

Pete2

This is news to me - an overall population peak decimated by some mysterious disease "many centuries" before European contact. True, there is good evidence for population fluctuations in different areas over time. For instance, it looks like populations declined in southern California 6000 years ago or so, but this seems to correlate with unfavorable climate conditions, rather than a postulated epidemic of some sort.

Is there any more information on this notion?

Remember, population estimates are very tricky. Just because you don't find evidence of people doesn't mean that they weren't there.....

If you read the accounts from the De Soto march through North America and the descriptions of the populations, then compare that with the next major European movement through the area (which was almost 200 years later) there was a major drop in population between the European accounts. There are recorded stories from Native Americans relating tales of widespread disease and large population losses. These also describe what appears to be small pox. De Soto's Spaniards carried other diseases as well.

Horses also came from the De Soto expedition, and by the time more Europeans came to the area, horses were already a critical part of many of the cultures. Just another indicator of the amount of time that passed.

There is evidence that a culture was in existence across North America that disappeared. Clovis point technology was predominant primarily in Eastern North America, though the first point was found in Clovis NM. Far more Clovis points have been found in the East than anywhere else, and they stop appearing at about the same time across the continent, and after that Folsom point technology takes its place. Clovis technology is also more similar to ancient European technology than to anything else. There is approximately 2,000 years (of more) between when Clovis points were used and when Folsom points were used. There are many theories about this, and I don't know enough about it to speak authoritatively, but it is an interesting point. Maybe the first cultures present in North America were from Europe, they died out and were replaced by migrations from Asia.

The initial peopling of the Americas, when, by whom, and how, has been controversial (to put it mildly) for many years, starting back in the 1920s with the discovery of the first association of human artifacts, Folsom points, with extinct Pleistocene bison, at Folsom, NM. The notion that Clovis has a European origin is a minority opinion in an area of research that is rife with dissenting concepts and theories. There is mounting evidence, including DNA work, that Clovis was not the first and that the first humans probably entered North America through the Bering land bridge. Wikipedia has a good summary that doesn't take sides: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_culture

We do know from the records of the first English colonists that the Americas resembled a vast abandoned park. Millions of acres of forest had been burned to create grasslands and there was evidence of a lot denser population in the past. We know too that in the lower portion of N America and in Central/South America there were cities whos size rivalled or surpassed any city in Europe.

It seems that the aboriginals of the Americas were ill equipped to deal with foreign diseases. Remember that Europeans had a much more diverse ethnic population and had contact with Africa, Asia and Asia Minor. Even so plagues of the day killed half their population. The native Americans suffered far worse mortality once their "virginal" immune systems were faced with new bacteria.

Not sure how we got to Clovis Culture… But do you think Pacal the Great was an ancient pilot of alien rockets?

Man! Talk about thread drift! Pacal has steered us far off course.....

Hikermor - I did see an article some time in the last couple of years giving a theory that at one time in ancient America the population of Native Americans was substantially higher than previously thought. I do not know whether this idea is widely accepted, and I also don't know if it was predominantly in the East, or some other part of the country. But the article seemed to imply a much larger Indian population, and then for some reason many people died. I wish I'd had the time to read it in more detail.

Montanero points out an interesting fact - that we do know there were Indian populations much earlier in time who were wiped out, and some of their societies were quite sophisticated. so it does seem to be true that we don't know everything about the centuries before europeans arrived on the continent.

as for Pacal the Great - he's not on my radar (or rocketship). don't know the guy. i'll look him up some time.

Pete2

That is absolutely true. Due to a lot of work,and a lot of good fortune, we know much more than we did, but basically we are just perceiving how much we don't know.

Absolutely Hikermor. The more we learn, the more we learn that we don't know. All theories are controversial at first, and they all need good hard evidence to prove them.

It is not clear that there ever was a course involved. The initial post was ambiguous in terminology and theme, and subsequent attempts at clarification, including my own contributions, resulted in pyramiding obfuscation. All good fun fun, of course, and confirmation of Wittgenstein's assertion that many important question cannot be answered, and moreover cannot be asked due to semantic confusion.

OTOH, the baseline assumption of this site is that civilization is an unreliable provider of survival needs in the short term, and in the longer term, and that individuals should equip themselves to cope with that fact. Artificiality is not the issue, reliability is, and civilization lacks reliability.

Yes, if not artificial, certainly unreliable.

A great introduction to the evidence of widespread pre-Columbian civilizations in North Central and South America is 1491 by Charles C. Mann.

You can also Google/Bing 1491 and read up on the general topic, as a popular science author Mann has been published everywhere including Science and The Atlantic Monthly. Its not Mann's theory at stake, he reports in an accessible way on the findings of numerous archaeologists anthropologists and other scientific types. Most of the science has been distilled down to what they can agree to, which is fascinating. 1491 is full of revelations and insights, which like most good science is bound and intended to be revised by additional good science to come. Check it out, you'll love it.

I think the current theory on the diseases that decimated most of the American societies at first contact with Euros was that it was mostly smallpox, although it included almost anything the early Euros brought along even those they didn't understand - diphtheria, typhus, influenza and smallpox and other pox were all detected at epidemic levels in early 1500s Hispaniola and elsewhere in the Americas. Records documented extreme fatalities among natives, wiping them out. Remember also, the Euros brought new animal species that carried diseases with little if any resistance among natives. They didn't have any immune resistance, so they were wiped out by things the Euros were mostly immune to and lived with for generations. Diseases spread far in advance of the march of the De Soto and the explorations of others. This accounts for the largely vacant park-like atmosphere early North American settlers and explorers observed in the early 1600s but which was quite grown over by the time of greater settlement.

The debate of how many natives and civilizations occupied the Americas goes on, last I heard as many as 90 to 115 million, which would out pace Europe by a bit, although this number continues to be revised and debated. At least 25-30 million in the Mexican highlands, that's a lock. In general though, with additional discoveries of advanced societies in South and Central America, the range of estimates goes up, not down. Fascinating stuff!

Related to this is the whole theory, when were the Americas first settled. Most scientists feel that it was by the Clovis people about ~12,000 years ago. Recent discoveries in caves in Oregon however have pushed that back to at least 13,000 (and additional archaeological evidence in Chile etc), an important difference as it would point to a source other than the land bridge that wasn't there for entry across what's now Canada. So natives came from someplace else, TBD. As is its function, science resists new evidence and supports the Clovis findings until they are superseded. There should be no holy cows in science, although predictably there will be scientists who can't keep from protecting a lifetime of theory and work - their life's work. I think we'll see a whole new theory of American population in 20 years or so, created by folks looking for evidence in places we never thought of.

1491 is one of the better books of I've ever read - its right up there with revelations about plate tectonics in the 1970-80s (who knew) and hot blooded dinosaurs around the same time. It goes to show you never knew everything about what went on before or what goes on around you.

"Clovis first" is the traditional story about population of the Americas,but there is mounting good evidence for earlier people, and more and more archeologists are agreeing that there are pre-Clovis groups. As to how they got here, the route that is gaining favor is across the Bering land bridge and down the west coast. It helps this notion that so far the earliest human remains currently come from Santa Rosa Island, within Channel Islands National Park. This material dates from 13,000 BP (before present). Being on an island, it is clear that the group possessed some sort of water craft, which strengthens the left coast migration hypothesis.

We are a long way from consensus on how folks got here, to put it mildly. At least we have more data than we did fifty years ago. I think it is fair to say that archeological research has demonstrated that pre-Columbian groups were considerably more sophisticated than they were thought to be 100 years ago or so, about the time that reasonably scientific archaeology began to be practiced.

wow. that's pretty interesting stuff. i just found out a week ago that there used to be a completely unique Native American tribe that inhabited the outermost Channel Island called San Nicolas. They were removed a couple of centuries ago from their island when Russian seamen (whalers or fur fishers) used force to try to gain the island territory. White people moved the Indians thinking it would protect them. Apparently this Indian tribe had its own unique language and culture. But sadly, the culture and language were completely lost after they were transported to the mainland ... I think they all died. Something about the mainland environment did not work for them.

I am not sure I am coming to the conclusion - necessarily - that these Indians in the Channel Islands came from ancestors who traveled across the Bering land bridge. Maybe the Channel Is. indians were the descendants of a completely separate migration pattern that came from some other direction in the ocean ... Hawaii, Mexico, Colombia? This is not to say that some Indians in N. America did not come from the far north - just goes to show how much we dont know. but i am starting to understand why you are spending so much time on the CA islands :-)

Pete2

And the question of alien presence in pre-Columbian America continues! Why is is that the Mayans had advanced astronomy, mathematics, and even aerospace engineering, and yet they were defenseless against germs? Is it like the War of the Worlds? Why didn't their alien overlords protect them? Why weren't they able to activate the crystal skulls in time?

More evidence of Pacal's space flight:



http://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/2012/02/pacal-votan-tomb-lid-ancient-aliens.html

To boldly go where no artificial civilization has gone before!

Merge that one with the TV thread. Look at how many things the got completely wrong making the model from the picture. biggest one is both hands are clearly in front of the cross shape not on either side so its in the background. The shape around looks like a window, I would bet its a sacrificial alter rather than a space ship, the way the hands are bent at the wrists suggest they are bound.

I have been to Chichen Itza (even to the top of the Launchpad ) , Uxmal etc, the Mayans had not even mastered the architectural arch unlike somewhere like Durham Cathedral. (much much more impressive)

The Mayans just couldn't get enough headless corpses then playing basketball with the folks heads.

Imagining that the Mayans had aerospace and space flight capability probably says more about our own civilization than the Mayan one.

No doubt all those corpses around the Mayan pyramids did not make a positive contribution to their health care system. That might have something to do with the germs problem.

BTW Bingley - we are also very susceptibled to bacteria and viruses today. We happen to have the CDC in Atlanta and a bunch of medical researchers with electron microscopes - but still we are very vulnerable. It's too soon to conclude that we will not see another outbreak of some horrendous illness. The world today is a very crowded place.

Pete2

A flying… SPACE altar??? No, sir, that is just too much. I can believe aliens landed on earth and gave spaceship piloting lessons an earthly monarch of an isolated empire. It's utterly believable -- behold the crystal skulls! But I draw the line at your fanciful imagination, my good sir! Our little grey overlords are too evolved and advanced as to need human sacrifice

What if we are just one big petri dish experiment for some alien race? Discuss.

That makes the original question in this thread much more interesting, doesn't it?

San Nicolas is the furthest out, and the relatively most isolated of the eight Channel Islands, but they had regular contact with the other islands and with the mainland. The Chumash and Tongva had very efficient watercraft, much admired by the Spaniards who first contacted them. The inhabitants of San Nicolas Island were quite similar to the groups around them.

In general,mainland life did not work for most the islanders who came to the mainland - Nicolenos, Chumash, or Tongva. It - quite depressing to read the mission death and baptismal records - many islanders died with no children, the population shrinking to about an estimated 10% of its former level in roughly one hundred years.

Juana Maria, the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, died after a mere six weeks on the mainland in Santa Barbara. This is the lady made famous in the book, Island of the Blue Dolphin.

I don't think the question of alien presence in pre-Columbian America continues. Frankly, it has been convincingly and overwhelmingly refuted, basically for lack of any tangible evidence. Fanciful interpretation of a Mayan carving does not qualify..

A lot of these theories start with a fairly racist premise - these folks were so primitive that the only way they could have done what they did was with outside assistance. On the contrary, you can demonstrate a long record (thousands of years) leading to their achievements. At the time they were ravaged by introduced diseases, neither they nor anyone else had an inkling of the germ theory of disease.

That discussion could get very theological -- pass.

I agree, racism is the core of most "ancient astronaut" foolishness. Remember that until the Eiffle Tower was built the Great Pyramid was the tallest human-made structure on Earth! People looked at the marvels of antiquity and just assumed that since modern people would have trouble duplicating them that the ancients couldn't have created them. Which is hogwash, of course. Many ancient cultures had some very advanced knowledge of specific areas. For example, after the fall of Rome the secret of making concrete was lost for about 1000 years!

It's interesting that for all their knowledge in some areas, the aboriginal peoples of the Americas never really learned to work iron or create steel. Essentially they remained stone/bronze age. I've heard it suggested that this could be explained by the "Beast of Burden Theory". It postulates that without horses early Americans didn't have the power/means to mine and work iron. I dunno, it could be. Horses died out in the Americas tens of thousands of years before humans arrived here and weren't reintroduced until the Spanish first came to the "New World." Certainly it wasn't for lack of intelligence, nor a lack of need. The natives were quick to understand the usefulness of steel once they were introduced to it.

I know these outrageous alien theories pretty well -- they are a hobby of mine. My take is that they are a sort of science-like mythology that substitutes space aliens for the gods that we can no longer believe in in our modern technological age. The claim is not that "Mayans were so primitive that they couldn't have accomplished all they supposedly had done without alien help, but we white men did it all by ourselves," but that all of humanity is, in origin and in development, the work of aliens. We were created by aliens (sometimes the idea of "after their own image" pops up), and technological leaps and feats, especially in ancient times, were the result of alien intervention. But modern times are no exception -- some theorize that Einstein had alien help. What are we talking about here? Look closely: this is what we used to call divine inspiration in the Age of Religion.

This is just a brief paragraph on a rather complex matter, about which my thoughts have not settled. As for racism, certainly as an institution it influences our culture at every level, so I can imagine more subtle ways that conspiracy theorists may fall under its sway especially when theorizing about a people that has been largely understood through colonial eyes. I do think that some theorists invent tales precisely to knock down the imperialist narrative, though these tales might have been co-opted already. Attributing "wisdom" to the ancients (Mayan or not) that we moderns have lost, is something akin to the idea of the "noble savage," which is a way for empire justify its conquest while bemoaning a certain loss of innocence.

Interestingly enough, a native American coworker of mine (a highly educated guy with a graduate degree in economics) was explaining what some of the tribes believed. This fella was pretty highly ranked in his own tribe, the son of a chieftain of some sort that traced his lineage back about 500 years. At any rate, he explained to me that many native religions held that the Gods came from the heavens and created humanity as a slave race. Apparently this is a pretty common native belief.

The loss of isolated societies, like the Nicoleno Indians from the Channel Islands, is a reminder that "civilizations" ... or small versions of them ... can disappear. Parts of mankind can go extinct. Knowledge gets lost, cultures disappear. It's sad when a whole group of people are completely gone - but it does happen.

Pete2

Alien intervention in Homo Sapien genetics is certainly in the realm of Science fiction. Check out the 1967 film 'Quatermass and the pit'

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Quatermass-And-The-Pit-Blu-ray/dp/B00525QJYO

A more disturbing aspect is the transition from Homo Sapien to Homo Urbanus. Today for example I came across these in the supermarket;

http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/asda-comp...atoes_800g.html

Pre peeled Maris Piper Potatoes! Wrapped in a Cellophane Nitrogen purged atmosphere.

Barbarianism with knives or civilization with spoons?

Since you guys seem so into American archeology, let me share something I noticed in today's news:

Native American European ancestry

For alien lovers, check out Mission to Mars, a more recent sci-fi film that concludes with a theory of humanity's origin.

Interesting - not that the skeletal material is from
Siberia, not North America, so it most likely represents the population that was poised to enter North America.

It is fairly certain that the very earliest human remains in North America are somewhat different from both Siberian and North American populations. It is certainly worthwhile to have more data to work with.

It is also gratifying that they were able to find DNA in material this old. We tried mightily to find DNA in the Arlington Springs bones from Santa Rosa Island, but it had all leached away...

Bingley ... about the aliens and the crystal skulls - I suggest you talk to Fox Mulder and get his opinion. All I can tell you is this. If you've walking at night and you see a strange glow on the horizon, don't assume it's just a kids' soccer game. You should definitely go and investigate. You might want to pack a ham sandwich - because this could take a while :-)

Pete2

sorry i did not plow thru all the posts here but Jared Diamond's new book "the world until yesterday" would be a good read for those with an interest in tradition societies.
the round up is that nothing in life of hunter-gathers that still exist can tell us about prehistory.

I usually bring some lube. You never know when they might run out.

Re: the crystal skull, I was vastly disappointed in the last Indiana Jones movie. Aliens is just not the right kind of story for this series.

true. they went downhill when they went "alien". it was far too cliche. it basically showed that their plot fell apart. that can only happen if they try to "put a plot together on the fly", as opposed to having someone write a proper story from beginning to end. when that happens, it's a dead giveaway that the producer was just after money.

Pete2