Official pre columbian history can and should be scrutinized by those in the fields of study. The conundrum with assuming that if a pre columbian burial or artifact is found in a a given location does not mean that it belonged to the last known group to reside there. People groups are constantly moving and changing hands. In the past 3 decades much evidence has surfaced that negates what we originally thought of people movements of the Americas. The orthodoxy is reluctant to move forward with anything that questions their life's work.
They're not really concerned about how or why the artifacts ended up where they did, just that they're there. That's the part I find to be annoying. Do we halt construction on something because we dug up the Siberian-American equivalent of a land fill? Nah. Dig it up, sell it to some museum, and continue on. We don't need to keep every pottery fragment or arrowhead we find.
I'm just trying to say that it is irresponsible and illogical to assume whoever lived there last that it's remnants of their ancestors. We're learning more every year but the fact we have a treaty that forces anthropologists and archaeologists to return human remains to an arbitrary tribe for muh reasons. Before deep analysis can be made on the remains. It stifles learning.
While it may be illogical, there's really no other way to go about it besides leaving the bodies where they lay and sticking a sign up.
Human remains are one thing, but we're talking more about material artifacts since they'd be more likely to travel longer distances. You dig up a site with human remains and you find various totems, weapons, pottery pieces, etc. Sure, there's a chance that none of those items were crafted by the people they were found next to, but that ultimately doesn't matter outside the realms of academia.
I study archaeology, you'd be really surprised how useful an ancient landfill can be in determining a people's lifestyle and even who might have occupied the territory at the time. It's even useful for studying the history of American settlers gradually moving west. You're right about being concerned about hindering construction and not everything being super important, but people throughout the world often find really important sites when working with construction projects.
Oh for sure, I'm not saying they're entirely unimportant, just that a sense of priority should be maintained between preserving and studying the old and making way for the new.
It would be nice to have remains/artifacts/burial/habitation sites dug and studied by professionals in the field -- anything that can tell us more just adds to our knowledge and gives us a greater understanding of cultures, their history, and evolution.
I think they are now calling into question the date of first arrival into the Americas, are they not?
My husband is a history major/social studies teacher by profession -- going on digs was something we both enjoyed doing. You really start to try and get a grasp of what people's lives were really like -- who held that pottery shard? what did they use it for? were their lives easy and happy or hard and sad? I think it connects us to others. Perhaps digs will be on our bucket list once the kids are out of the house....if such things will be allowed.
Because it's such a contested subject I'm not going to bother writing an essay. Yes many places especially along the east coast but some places as far as colorado have shown evidence of cultures that are not mongoloid in origin. All kinds of artifacts have been found dredged up along the eastern seaboard that are inconsistent with the siberian land bridge hypothesis.
I do know that there have been further DNA studies that suggest the presence of proto-Indo-European steppe hunter/gatherers that also show up in modern European groups. Current studies suggest they come from areas around and northeast of the Caucasus Mts. One of the things I've always believed is that Europe, Asia, and North Africa cannot be described as totally separate groupings -- genetically or culturally -- just because there have been so many migrations back and forth for so long through those regions. It stands to reason that Indians would carry genetic signatures related to those groups, but they could have come across the Beringian land bridge. The Atlantic colonization route has been an intriguing theory to date, but "European" DNA wouldn't have to be present only from that source imo.
Official pre columbian history can and should be scrutinized by those in the fields of study. The conundrum with assuming that if a pre columbian burial or artifact is found in a a given location does not mean that it belonged to the last known group to reside there. People groups are constantly moving and changing hands. In the past 3 decades much evidence has surfaced that negates what we originally thought of people movements of the Americas. The orthodoxy is reluctant to move forward with anything that questions their life's work.
They're not really concerned about how or why the artifacts ended up where they did, just that they're there. That's the part I find to be annoying. Do we halt construction on something because we dug up the Siberian-American equivalent of a land fill? Nah. Dig it up, sell it to some museum, and continue on. We don't need to keep every pottery fragment or arrowhead we find.
Stop that! My prized collection of mcdonalds burger wrappers will be in the smithsonian one day!
I'm just trying to say that it is irresponsible and illogical to assume whoever lived there last that it's remnants of their ancestors. We're learning more every year but the fact we have a treaty that forces anthropologists and archaeologists to return human remains to an arbitrary tribe for muh reasons. Before deep analysis can be made on the remains. It stifles learning.
Insert Kennewick Man rant here.
While it may be illogical, there's really no other way to go about it besides leaving the bodies where they lay and sticking a sign up.
Human remains are one thing, but we're talking more about material artifacts since they'd be more likely to travel longer distances. You dig up a site with human remains and you find various totems, weapons, pottery pieces, etc. Sure, there's a chance that none of those items were crafted by the people they were found next to, but that ultimately doesn't matter outside the realms of academia.
I'm simply saying these things must and should be studied.
I study archaeology, you'd be really surprised how useful an ancient landfill can be in determining a people's lifestyle and even who might have occupied the territory at the time. It's even useful for studying the history of American settlers gradually moving west. You're right about being concerned about hindering construction and not everything being super important, but people throughout the world often find really important sites when working with construction projects.
Oh for sure, I'm not saying they're entirely unimportant, just that a sense of priority should be maintained between preserving and studying the old and making way for the new.
It would be nice to have remains/artifacts/burial/habitation sites dug and studied by professionals in the field -- anything that can tell us more just adds to our knowledge and gives us a greater understanding of cultures, their history, and evolution.
I think they are now calling into question the date of first arrival into the Americas, are they not?
My husband is a history major/social studies teacher by profession -- going on digs was something we both enjoyed doing. You really start to try and get a grasp of what people's lives were really like -- who held that pottery shard? what did they use it for? were their lives easy and happy or hard and sad? I think it connects us to others. Perhaps digs will be on our bucket list once the kids are out of the house....if such things will be allowed.
Because it's such a contested subject I'm not going to bother writing an essay. Yes many places especially along the east coast but some places as far as colorado have shown evidence of cultures that are not mongoloid in origin. All kinds of artifacts have been found dredged up along the eastern seaboard that are inconsistent with the siberian land bridge hypothesis.
I do know that there have been further DNA studies that suggest the presence of proto-Indo-European steppe hunter/gatherers that also show up in modern European groups. Current studies suggest they come from areas around and northeast of the Caucasus Mts. One of the things I've always believed is that Europe, Asia, and North Africa cannot be described as totally separate groupings -- genetically or culturally -- just because there have been so many migrations back and forth for so long through those regions. It stands to reason that Indians would carry genetic signatures related to those groups, but they could have come across the Beringian land bridge. The Atlantic colonization route has been an intriguing theory to date, but "European" DNA wouldn't have to be present only from that source imo.