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The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago

smithsonianmag.com

111–120 of 145 posts

Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago

#111

Recommend sources for human culture/civilization history from 10,000 B.C. to 5,000 B.C.? Most of the top search results and Wikipedia entries tap out on cultures prior to ~5,000-~3,000 B.C. Of course there are stand alone pages such as Neolithic_founder_crops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture Chalocolithic Period https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcolithic

I enjoyed 'After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 BC' by Steven Mithen https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674019997

I read that too. Loved it. An unexpected gem!

Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago

#112
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: downvoting this without a response is pretty much against the guidelines, I am hardly distracting from the conversation here, and the downvote is not a "disagree" button. I put in a lot of effort to showing you why you have a shallow understanding of the topic; I'm open to being wrong. Xenophobia and racism are completely separate concepts, although xenophobia does underly racism. It's entirely possible to cons…

Why is the Gates Foundation a foreign "charity"? What does that mean / what do the quotes imply? I didn't downvote, but I'm not really following what you're saying.

Nothing really semantic I guess, it's just papering over the processes that keep poor places poor and delaying these people from acquiring real equity and protection from the west.

Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not race. Ethnicity and race are distinct concepts.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

What does that have to do with this conversation? Agreeing on the meaning of words is necessary for basic discourse. It's not like distinguishing race and ethnicity is a redefinition during the course of conversation.

If you don't accept the distinction of course you're going to be blind to dependent concepts. That's just a basic failure of communication.

Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The work of archaeologists is absolutely not in proportion to the amount of surviving documents. Most of my digs have been in places and periods with few to no written records, for example. As for the comment about Europeans, I was talking about modern academics (particularly of the early through late 20th century). The leading archaeologists of that period primarily came from European and American traditions. I have…

Wonderful to see an archeologist here!

Former, unfortunately. I work in tech nowadays.

Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago

#115
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the popular imagination? The Romans were conquering barbaric tribes that aren't worth talking about in detail, I think. There was plenty of interaction, but the thing about those insignificant barbaric tribes is that they aren't worth conquering either.

And there's a simple rule that's obvious even in a superficial read of de bello gallico: don't cultivate wheat and the legions won't bother you.

It's my impression the Gallic Wars were more about building Julius Caesar's personality cult than anything else. Enriching his soldiers so they'd be loyal to him and winning the respect of Roman pyblic (hence the self-aggrandizing book written in Latin, not Greek.)

Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago

#116
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, this is just childish equivocation. A lot of words that are considered offensive also have (or used to have) other, innocuous meanings. What you're doing is like a child saying "Nah-uh, this word just means happy !" A word is offensive in polite society because a population of people finds it hurtful, or because another population of people uses it in an intentionally hurtful way. Usually it's both. Innocent wo…

This is just the euphamism treadmill in action. The name for an outgroup becomes a slur over time because it refers to an outgroup.

The treadmill stops when you actually change public attitudes. African American/Black have been the main terms in American language for 50 years now, with some back and forth between the two, but no further replacement.

Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago

#117
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say this is accurate. Well, some might use it that way, but as a kid this is the word we were taught for black folk with no harm intended, it's also the name used in the bible--I believe it's originally from the bible.

The Troubling Resurgence of Racial Slurs Like ‘Shvartze’ and ‘Kushi’[1] Hasidic singer slurs Obama at Jerusalem concert[2] Terra incognita: Israel’s k-word: Can Holon teach us a lesson in racism?[3] https://forward.com/opinion/361625/michael-twitty-black-jewi... https://www.timesofisrael.com/hasidic-singer-slurs-obama-at-... https://www.jpost.com/opinion/columnists/terra-incognita-isr...

From your first article:

>“Kushi,” or Kushite, became one of several Hebrew vernacular terms for “African” or “a black.” On its own — like shvartze, which is Yiddish — the term is not inherently offensive or derogatory, in the same way the word for “European,” in West African languages, is not at face value an epithet, but merely an implication of outsider status.

>Context, context context. When flashpoints emerge, these words take on a life far beyond being descriptors.

Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago

#118

Recommend sources for human culture/civilization history from 10,000 B.C. to 5,000 B.C.? Most of the top search results and Wikipedia entries tap out on cultures prior to ~5,000-~3,000 B.C. Of course there are stand alone pages such as Neolithic_founder_crops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture Chalocolithic Period https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcolithic

I enjoyed 'After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 BC' by Steven Mithen https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674019997

[deleted]

Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago

#119

Recommend sources for human culture/civilization history from 10,000 B.C. to 5,000 B.C.? Most of the top search results and Wikipedia entries tap out on cultures prior to ~5,000-~3,000 B.C. Of course there are stand alone pages such as Neolithic_founder_crops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture Chalocolithic Period https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcolithic

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Re: The Kush civilization flourished in Sudan nearly 5K years ago

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the popular imagination, there was nothing except Greece, Rome and Egypt until this side of 1 AD. Really? The Romans are known for their expansionism. Who were they conquering? Who was everybody fighting against in 300 ?

Barbarians! Tribes! People in some way not civilized! (This was, in fairness, largely how the Romans represented it to themselves, regardless of how true it was, so it's maybe not surprising.)

The Romans were well aware that Carthage, Greece, and Persia were great civilizations.
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