Why is it this article has the vague overtone of "so we can go ahead and chop it all down, right?" on it? I think it's the "pristine myth" language. Just reeks of let-us-clear-cut-it mentality.
Totally agree, I got that feeling from it too.
Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
41–50 of 71 posts
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#42I recall reading about this some in the book 1491, which is quite interesting, and talks about how the Americas were prior to Columbus. http://amzn.to/1HQYgSY
There was a great, long-form piece of journalism about this, which I read not that long ago, after saving it for a long time on Pocket, I tried to find it again but failed in my googling, but it was probably by the author of that book, ah found it this time:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302...
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#43 Supposedly when Europeans (the later arrivals not Vikings) showed up and disease spread killing many First Nations/Native Americans it caused a dramatic environmental shift.
As forests took over the former areas where the first peoples of the Americas lived trees sucked up a lot of CO2 causing the mini ice age in Europe.
Interesting if true, yet of course very sad as well but if true that pretty incredible to think of such a connection.
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#44Following _1491_: home to millions of people, the jungle mostly consisting of fruit-bearing trees (the modern Amazonian tribes are living in overgrown orchards), and in possession of miraculous sanitation/fertilizer technology.
Everyone should know about terra preta. It turns out it wasn't a soil-enrichment technique, it was sanitation with a side effect of soil enrichment -- and could be very applicable in the developing world (and the developed world!) today. An experiment in Germany -- look up the paper "Terra Preta Sanitation" -- showed that a slightly modified method of terra-preta production can sanitize human waste to well within First World standards.
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#45Why is it this article has the vague overtone of "so we can go ahead and chop it all down, right?" on it? I think it's the "pristine myth" language. Just reeks of let-us-clear-cut-it mentality.
I don't get that at all. I got the "how presumptuous of Europeans to think that they brought civilization to the area, it was already there and if anything they may have set back the pace of progress."
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thirded. It took me years to become interested in history, and books like this are what finally broke through.
I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I too wasn't interested in history at all until I read this book: The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power ( http://www.amazon.com/Prize-Epic-Quest-Money-Power/dp/143911... ) Which was a fascinating history from the rise of oil in modern times uptil the first Gulf War. I would love recommendations on other history books that got people turned onto history?
The Prize is my second favorite book of history/non-fiction ever. My favorite is "The Power Broker" which has a similar sort of style and scale. Highly recommended.
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#47Supposedly when Europeans (the later arrivals not Vikings) showed up and disease spread killing many First Nations/Native Americans it caused a dramatic environmental shift. As forests took over the former areas where the first peoples of the Americas lived trees sucked up a lot of CO2 causing the mini ice age in Europe. Interesting if true, yet of course very sad as well but if true that pretty incredible to think o…
That must be a joke?
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#48While it's probably in the millions, all projected numbers are extremely rough and work by calculating the percentage likely to have die died in the disease that swept the continent. DO NOT VIEW THEM AS PRECISE OR ACCURATE.
However, the evidence seems pretty convincing that the vast majority of the indigenous people died in the centuries following spanish contact.
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Basically malaria was unknown in the Americas before western explorers brought it over. From there it became very prevalent in some places such as the Amazon and essentially made mass agriculture impossible there. Then pretty much everyone starved. There were also things like smallpox that devastated people everywhere in the Americas but those were more a one time thing, people were able to rebuild after they passed.
Isn't a devastating, long-term drought a recent and popular theory as well, decimating many Central and South American tribes such as the Mayans and the Aztec? [1] http://science.time.com/2012/11/09/mayans/
I believe the drought predated contact by ~7-800 years. Definitely explains the decline of the Mayans, but not really relevant to discussing the effects of Columbian contact.
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Basically malaria was unknown in the Americas before western explorers brought it over. From there it became very prevalent in some places such as the Amazon and essentially made mass agriculture impossible there. Then pretty much everyone starved. There were also things like smallpox that devastated people everywhere in the Americas but those were more a one time thing, people were able to rebuild after they passed.
Isn't a devastating, long-term drought a recent and popular theory as well, decimating many Central and South American tribes such as the Mayans and the Aztec? [1] http://science.time.com/2012/11/09/mayans/
The Aztec were destroyed by the spanish, particularly Hernán Cortés.