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Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
51–60 of 71 posts
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#52I do wish the historians/reporters for this article were more accurate in their use of "decimation". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army)#Curren... The 1491 book put the death rates at around 1 in 20 surviving - ie 19 out of every 20 people dying from disease etc.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10691974 and marked it off-topic.
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#53Following _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 devel…
Terra preta is formed naturally by falling fruits, leaves and branches that get composted on the soil. There's a agriculture method called agroforestry that make use of this concept, it's very promising for organic farms: https://vimeo.com/146953911
I know a couple of people here who have "dry bathrooms" (or banheiro seco) that is just a bucket to collect the poo, when you poo you cover it with dry leaves or grinded wood (they are the source of carbon, and stop the bad smell), when the bucket fills up they take it to an area outside far from the house where it will compost, naturally kill the pathogens (because of the heat it produces) and became terra-preta, much better solution than to send it down stream, easier to decentralize and the end result is the best product you could have.
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#54Supposedly 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?
No it's not. The little ice-age is a well documented period of time of below average temperatures at the end/after the medival ages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
There's still a lot of speculation going on, what caused it, because the explanation for the "Big" ice ages (the periodic tilting of the Earth's axis reaching a position that gives to a colder climate) doesn't fit. So there are a lot of possible explanations.
From archeological evidence we know that in the timeframe before the little ice-age begain large parts of the North American population fell victim to disease and/or famine, so one proposed model is, that the regrowth of forrests on (fertile) ground left unmanaged by the decreasing population sucked out a lot of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#55Earlier 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?
Cherokee Tragedy: The Ridge Family and the Decimation of a People by Thurman Wilkins
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#56I 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...
I don't have my copy handy to check for sure, but I think this is a full chapter out of 1491.
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#57Earlier 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?
I actually got into history through visual sources and maps, like Colin McEvedy's "Penguin Atlas of Medieval History." But the history books that I remember really changing my life include Simon Schama's "The Embarrassment of Riches" (a fantastic history of the rise and fall of the Dutch empire), Alfred Crosby's "Ecological Imperialism" (similar to 1491, but more wide-ranging), and Fernand Braudel's Civilization and Capitalism series (the best history books of the 20th century, in my view).
I also remember loving John Brewer's "The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the 18th Century" and Mario Biagioli's "Galileo Courtier." Also "Mad Blood Stirring" by Edward Muir, which tackles the question of why 16th century Italian street life was so incredibly violent.
Edit: seems apropos to mention that a couple friends of mine are about to launch a site for historians to curate lists of their favorite books on key topics, called Backlist: http://backlist.cc
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#58With a little digging you can trace back the development of the consenus surrounding this issue over the past 25 years or so, which would probably be worth an article on its own.
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#59Why 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 didn't detect that overtone at all.
Re: Amazon rainforest was home to millions of people before European arrival
#60Following _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 devel…
For anyone who hasn't read it, do yourselves a favour: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302... that's the original cover story for The Atlantic. Few longforms have hit me as hard as this one did.