World Prehistory: Anthropology 1030
Social Sciences
Reflection
I returned to school after leaving an unfulfilling career and was searching for something new to explore. After taking and enjoying previous anthropology courses, I was considering pursuing this subject even further. Before I took this course, I was very excited about the subject of archaeology. I thought that it would be an active and engaging subject and I was anticipating that the study of ancient prehistory may provide me with insights into the human condition and what it means to be a person. I thought that the study of archaeology might be interesting, relevant and maybe even fun.
Now that this course is over I am no longer excited about archaeology. My assumptions and understandings have changed. At times throughout the course I found the subject to be confusing and overwhelming. I was frustrated much of the time as I attempted to memorize more material than I felt I could handle. At times it was dull and tedious. The content seemed randomized, like I was trying to order a deck of cards that had been shuffled. I could intuitively feel that there were patterns, but each week I failed to uncover them, each week feeling stupider and stupider.
The assignments activities and readings were influential to this process. The tone of the book felt dry and disinterested and I imagined that the authors didn’t actually care about what they were describing. Each week I dreaded reading the assigned chapters because they tended to make me feel dull and indifferent as well. The textbook was very large with each chapter covering a vast scope of both time and place but often giving very little detail or relevance for me to hold on to. It was like trying to understand a town or city by speeding through it on a bullet train. Through the window, I caught flashes and glimpses of sights that I thought looked fascinating, but just as soon as I noticed them they were then gone, and I found myself speeding onward through some other town. The lectures mirrored the structure of the textbook with text-heavy power-point presentations that only reinforced my feelings of being lost.
The writing assignments and lab reflections left me feeling mentally drained and physically exhausted. The textbook promised controversial subjects that should lend themselves well to an argumentative essay style, but after delving into each, I often found it difficult to locate any clear argument but instead just ambiguity. I was required to use academic sources limited to the SLCC library database, and as I combed through the library search results, often for hours, I felt inundated with articles that were mostly unrelated to my chosen topic, used lofty and superfluous vocabulary that I could not understand, and rarely seemed to take an opinion on anything. It was very frustrating. I chose and abandoned several topics with many false starts for my papers. As each deadline came within hours, I'd finally pick a topic at random and just write whether I was interested in it or not.
And, all of this ambiguity then reflected into my own writing. I attempted and failed to artificially superimpose argument into topics where I found little to none. I tried and failed to make research that had very little to do with my paper somehow seem related to my subject. The writing assignments made me feel like I was trapped back in English class, its focus directed on judging my ability to communicate according to a mandated academic style, and less on me learning anything new. I felt dumb, lost, and hopeless.
I will approach archaeology differently in the future. I am now beginning to think of it is a discipline intended for an academic elite who are more diligent and intelligent than me. I simply lack the stamina for this subject and don’t intend to study it anymore.
Now that this course is over I am no longer excited about archaeology. My assumptions and understandings have changed. At times throughout the course I found the subject to be confusing and overwhelming. I was frustrated much of the time as I attempted to memorize more material than I felt I could handle. At times it was dull and tedious. The content seemed randomized, like I was trying to order a deck of cards that had been shuffled. I could intuitively feel that there were patterns, but each week I failed to uncover them, each week feeling stupider and stupider.
The assignments activities and readings were influential to this process. The tone of the book felt dry and disinterested and I imagined that the authors didn’t actually care about what they were describing. Each week I dreaded reading the assigned chapters because they tended to make me feel dull and indifferent as well. The textbook was very large with each chapter covering a vast scope of both time and place but often giving very little detail or relevance for me to hold on to. It was like trying to understand a town or city by speeding through it on a bullet train. Through the window, I caught flashes and glimpses of sights that I thought looked fascinating, but just as soon as I noticed them they were then gone, and I found myself speeding onward through some other town. The lectures mirrored the structure of the textbook with text-heavy power-point presentations that only reinforced my feelings of being lost.
The writing assignments and lab reflections left me feeling mentally drained and physically exhausted. The textbook promised controversial subjects that should lend themselves well to an argumentative essay style, but after delving into each, I often found it difficult to locate any clear argument but instead just ambiguity. I was required to use academic sources limited to the SLCC library database, and as I combed through the library search results, often for hours, I felt inundated with articles that were mostly unrelated to my chosen topic, used lofty and superfluous vocabulary that I could not understand, and rarely seemed to take an opinion on anything. It was very frustrating. I chose and abandoned several topics with many false starts for my papers. As each deadline came within hours, I'd finally pick a topic at random and just write whether I was interested in it or not.
And, all of this ambiguity then reflected into my own writing. I attempted and failed to artificially superimpose argument into topics where I found little to none. I tried and failed to make research that had very little to do with my paper somehow seem related to my subject. The writing assignments made me feel like I was trapped back in English class, its focus directed on judging my ability to communicate according to a mandated academic style, and less on me learning anything new. I felt dumb, lost, and hopeless.
I will approach archaeology differently in the future. I am now beginning to think of it is a discipline intended for an academic elite who are more diligent and intelligent than me. I simply lack the stamina for this subject and don’t intend to study it anymore.
Coursework
Controversy Paper 1: Who were the Denisovans?
Who were the Denisovans?
Jonathen Green
In 2008 Russian archeologists found several types of hominin remains preserved within the soil of a cave called the Denisova Cave. These remains have significantly changed the way that we think about archaic people.
The Denisova cave is located in the Altai Mountains of south-central Siberia, in modern-day Russia near the border of Kazakhstan and Mongolia. This is a place that is very far away from our African origins and is also very far north of the Indian Ocean’s climate-tempering coastline.
The remains included a wide variety of artifacts. They found stone and bone tools and ornamentation which, because of their sophistication, have always been attributed to fully modern humans. They found a Neanderthal toe bone that contained Neanderthal DNA. They also found two teeth and a finger bone that do not match either type. They named this third mysterious creature, the Denisovan. These artifacts suggest that several different kinds of people had all inhabited this same shelter; modern humans, Neanderthals, and the Denisovans (although not necessarily at the same time).
The question as to who the Denisovans were has been difficult and controversial. Some had thought that they were a late form of the Asian hominin Homo erectus, while others had thought that they were their own unique species entirely. (Scarre 2013)
Since the writing of our textbook was in 2013, there has been even more analysis of the DNA of the Denisovan fossils as well as additional Neanderthal fossils. This evidence has changed the nature of the debate entirely. For this reason, the specifics of the “controversy” have changed considerably since 2013. After much searching, I was unable to find any academic sources claiming that the Denisovans are definitively either a unique species or represent Homo erectus. That argument has appeared to go extinct and has since been replaced by other questions.
In rare cases, we can extract and analyze DNA that is recovered from ancient remains. This ancient DNA can show the genetic interrelationships of hominins. When we extracted and analyzed DNA from the Siberian fossils, we discovered that the “ancient DNA analysis have shown that modern humans interbred with the Neanderthals and with the Siberian group, the Denisovans”. (Scarre 2013:35)
In her article, Meet the Denisovans, Harvard anthropologist Bridget Alex describes many of the new implications we have discovered from the DNA analysis. It shows us that the Denisovans are a “distinct branch of the Homo family tree, whose members mated with both Neanderthals and modern humans during the past 100,000 years.” (Alex 2016:64)
She also describes how these different types of peoples (sapiens, neanderthalensis, Denisovans, and even erectus) could have begun to diverge and look anatomically different from one another:
“For some period after that initial dispersal, the human groups — now divided geographically — were evolving into distinct species. Had they stayed separated longer, they would have naturally accumulated too many genetic differences to mate successfully.
But before this complete speciation could occur, the three human lineages crossed paths and chromosomes: There were numerous episodes of interbreeding between the groups. Denisovans also harbor a small amount of especially exotic DNA, probably from breeding with "super-archaic" humans that split from the others over 1 million years ago. That's right around the time that an earlier form of human, Homo erectus, settled in Asia. It's possible this Asian Homo erectus stuck around and was the super-archaic species that mated with Denisovans when they reached the East.” (Alex 2016:64)
Among the most important discoveries, is the discovery of the remains of Denisovan DNA (and also neanderthal DNA) in modern populations living today. It is also important to recognize that these modern populations are found a very, very long way away from Siberia, in Australasia.
We have found Denisovan DNA ”in our current gene pool. As a result of ancient interbreeding, people living today on islands of Southeast Asia and Oceania have genomes with up to 6 percent Denisovan DNA. Some mainland East Asians also show a trace — less than 1 percent — but no Denisovan ancestry has been detected in populations currently living close to the cave. This suggests that Denisovans moved about Asia, surviving in environments from the mountains of Siberia to the tropics of Australasia.” (Alex 2016:66)
Although Alex does an eloquent job of describing the information that we have recently discovered, she does skip over the most profound implication of all. That is, everything we used to think about hominin taxonomy is blatantly wrong.
We used to dig up hominin bones and attempt to classify them based mostly on their morphology. For example, if a bone is of a certain size, shape, and thickness, then it is a Neanderthal, and if another one is smaller and of a different shape then it is a pre-modern sapiens. We then classified the Neanderthal into their own dedicated species and the sapiens into theirs. Before the 2010 results were fully considered we were likely to attempt the same with the Denisovans. But if the definition of speciation is indeed when a population has diverged enough to no longer reproduce with viable offspring, then why then do we find Neanderthal DNA and Denisovan DNA in our modern sapiens societies? Therefore, while it is possible that modern humans have since speciated (although I personally doubt it), they certainly didn’t at the times when these fossils were living.
In his paper, Denisovans, Melanesians, Europeans, and Neanderthals: The Confusion of DNA Assumptions and the Biological Species Concept, Niccolo Caldararo makes this point perfectly clear: “to say there was mating between Europeans and Denisovans or Neandertals not only implies that the individuals involved were members of the same species, according to the Biological Species Concept, but that they also produced viable offspring. But those individuals involved are hardly the same people as today’s Europeans, or Melanesians, given thousands of years of environmental selection, migrations, invasions, disease selection, and war. It does suggest long periods of hybridization between widely spread populations whether we call them Homo sapiens neanderthalensis or Homo heidelbergensis or Homo sapiens denisova or altai or Archaic Homo or Homo sapiens.” (Caldararo 2016:85)
The DNA evidence shows that all three types, and possibly one or even two others, were capable of, and did, interbreed. Therefore, they were not (yet) separate species and our taxonomy needs to be revised considerably.
To the question, “who were the Denisovans?” I’ve come to realize that the answer is simple. They were us and we were them. But, the far more interesting question that this research has revealed, isn’t “who were they?” it is “who are we?”
References
Alex, Bridget. 2016 Meet the Denisovans. Discover, Vol. 37, Issue 10 p64-66, http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.libprox1.slcc.edu/eds/detail/detail?vid=6&sid=d0d5ee3a-e743-4a93-af30-ed2354008bc8%40sessionmgr4010&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=118708594&db=f6h
accessed September 24, 2018
Caldararo, Niccolo. 2016 Denisovans, Melanesians, Europeans, and Neandertals: The Confusion of DNA Assumptions and the Biological Species Concept. Journal of Molecular evolution 78-87, http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.libprox1.slcc.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=9&sid=d0d5ee3a-e743-4a93-af30-ed2354008bc8%40sessionmgr4010 accessed on September 24, 2018
Scarre, Chris. 2013 The Human Past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies. Third Edition. Pgs 35, 120-121, 125 Thames & Hudson Ltd, London.
Jonathen Green
In 2008 Russian archeologists found several types of hominin remains preserved within the soil of a cave called the Denisova Cave. These remains have significantly changed the way that we think about archaic people.
The Denisova cave is located in the Altai Mountains of south-central Siberia, in modern-day Russia near the border of Kazakhstan and Mongolia. This is a place that is very far away from our African origins and is also very far north of the Indian Ocean’s climate-tempering coastline.
The remains included a wide variety of artifacts. They found stone and bone tools and ornamentation which, because of their sophistication, have always been attributed to fully modern humans. They found a Neanderthal toe bone that contained Neanderthal DNA. They also found two teeth and a finger bone that do not match either type. They named this third mysterious creature, the Denisovan. These artifacts suggest that several different kinds of people had all inhabited this same shelter; modern humans, Neanderthals, and the Denisovans (although not necessarily at the same time).
The question as to who the Denisovans were has been difficult and controversial. Some had thought that they were a late form of the Asian hominin Homo erectus, while others had thought that they were their own unique species entirely. (Scarre 2013)
Since the writing of our textbook was in 2013, there has been even more analysis of the DNA of the Denisovan fossils as well as additional Neanderthal fossils. This evidence has changed the nature of the debate entirely. For this reason, the specifics of the “controversy” have changed considerably since 2013. After much searching, I was unable to find any academic sources claiming that the Denisovans are definitively either a unique species or represent Homo erectus. That argument has appeared to go extinct and has since been replaced by other questions.
In rare cases, we can extract and analyze DNA that is recovered from ancient remains. This ancient DNA can show the genetic interrelationships of hominins. When we extracted and analyzed DNA from the Siberian fossils, we discovered that the “ancient DNA analysis have shown that modern humans interbred with the Neanderthals and with the Siberian group, the Denisovans”. (Scarre 2013:35)
In her article, Meet the Denisovans, Harvard anthropologist Bridget Alex describes many of the new implications we have discovered from the DNA analysis. It shows us that the Denisovans are a “distinct branch of the Homo family tree, whose members mated with both Neanderthals and modern humans during the past 100,000 years.” (Alex 2016:64)
She also describes how these different types of peoples (sapiens, neanderthalensis, Denisovans, and even erectus) could have begun to diverge and look anatomically different from one another:
“For some period after that initial dispersal, the human groups — now divided geographically — were evolving into distinct species. Had they stayed separated longer, they would have naturally accumulated too many genetic differences to mate successfully.
But before this complete speciation could occur, the three human lineages crossed paths and chromosomes: There were numerous episodes of interbreeding between the groups. Denisovans also harbor a small amount of especially exotic DNA, probably from breeding with "super-archaic" humans that split from the others over 1 million years ago. That's right around the time that an earlier form of human, Homo erectus, settled in Asia. It's possible this Asian Homo erectus stuck around and was the super-archaic species that mated with Denisovans when they reached the East.” (Alex 2016:64)
Among the most important discoveries, is the discovery of the remains of Denisovan DNA (and also neanderthal DNA) in modern populations living today. It is also important to recognize that these modern populations are found a very, very long way away from Siberia, in Australasia.
We have found Denisovan DNA ”in our current gene pool. As a result of ancient interbreeding, people living today on islands of Southeast Asia and Oceania have genomes with up to 6 percent Denisovan DNA. Some mainland East Asians also show a trace — less than 1 percent — but no Denisovan ancestry has been detected in populations currently living close to the cave. This suggests that Denisovans moved about Asia, surviving in environments from the mountains of Siberia to the tropics of Australasia.” (Alex 2016:66)
Although Alex does an eloquent job of describing the information that we have recently discovered, she does skip over the most profound implication of all. That is, everything we used to think about hominin taxonomy is blatantly wrong.
We used to dig up hominin bones and attempt to classify them based mostly on their morphology. For example, if a bone is of a certain size, shape, and thickness, then it is a Neanderthal, and if another one is smaller and of a different shape then it is a pre-modern sapiens. We then classified the Neanderthal into their own dedicated species and the sapiens into theirs. Before the 2010 results were fully considered we were likely to attempt the same with the Denisovans. But if the definition of speciation is indeed when a population has diverged enough to no longer reproduce with viable offspring, then why then do we find Neanderthal DNA and Denisovan DNA in our modern sapiens societies? Therefore, while it is possible that modern humans have since speciated (although I personally doubt it), they certainly didn’t at the times when these fossils were living.
In his paper, Denisovans, Melanesians, Europeans, and Neanderthals: The Confusion of DNA Assumptions and the Biological Species Concept, Niccolo Caldararo makes this point perfectly clear: “to say there was mating between Europeans and Denisovans or Neandertals not only implies that the individuals involved were members of the same species, according to the Biological Species Concept, but that they also produced viable offspring. But those individuals involved are hardly the same people as today’s Europeans, or Melanesians, given thousands of years of environmental selection, migrations, invasions, disease selection, and war. It does suggest long periods of hybridization between widely spread populations whether we call them Homo sapiens neanderthalensis or Homo heidelbergensis or Homo sapiens denisova or altai or Archaic Homo or Homo sapiens.” (Caldararo 2016:85)
The DNA evidence shows that all three types, and possibly one or even two others, were capable of, and did, interbreed. Therefore, they were not (yet) separate species and our taxonomy needs to be revised considerably.
To the question, “who were the Denisovans?” I’ve come to realize that the answer is simple. They were us and we were them. But, the far more interesting question that this research has revealed, isn’t “who were they?” it is “who are we?”
References
Alex, Bridget. 2016 Meet the Denisovans. Discover, Vol. 37, Issue 10 p64-66, http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.libprox1.slcc.edu/eds/detail/detail?vid=6&sid=d0d5ee3a-e743-4a93-af30-ed2354008bc8%40sessionmgr4010&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=118708594&db=f6h
accessed September 24, 2018
Caldararo, Niccolo. 2016 Denisovans, Melanesians, Europeans, and Neandertals: The Confusion of DNA Assumptions and the Biological Species Concept. Journal of Molecular evolution 78-87, http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.libprox1.slcc.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=9&sid=d0d5ee3a-e743-4a93-af30-ed2354008bc8%40sessionmgr4010 accessed on September 24, 2018
Scarre, Chris. 2013 The Human Past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies. Third Edition. Pgs 35, 120-121, 125 Thames & Hudson Ltd, London.
Controversy Paper 2: Did the Polynesian People "Discover" America?
Did the Polynesian People “Discover” America?
Jonathen Green
The indigenous people of the South Pacific were truly prolific explorers and mariners. Polynesian cultures had explored and settled the entire Pacific region by at least 300 years before Columbus’ famous voyage where he drastically underestimated the size of the planet, plunged into the Atlantic Ocean past the point of no return and, to his quite lucky fortune, accidentally stumbled into the Caribbean where he then mistakenly claimed he had reached the shores of India.
Before European contact in 1595, the people of the Pacific had crossed enormous spans of open ocean and settled half of the planet. Later, during his three voyages between 1768 and 1780, it seems that practically everywhere the legendary Captain Cook explored, had already been discovered and populated with Polynesian people. They lived in Australasia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. They had successfully sailed east to the most remote places on planet earth such as Hawaii and Easter Island, but they also sailed west, covering the entire Indian Ocean and settling on the African island of Madagascar. The extent of their exploration is so gigantic that it covers nearly half the globe. I failed to fit the full scale of their confirmed explorations on Google Maps. (Scarre 2013)
Although the Polynesians nautical conquests of the Pacific have been understood since the times of Captain Cook, recently there is now a new debate in anthropology. It considers the possibility of pre-Columbian contact between Polynesians and Native Americans. It asks the question, did Asian people “discover” America before Columbus did?
The idea of pre-Columbian contact was proposed in the late 1950’s by a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer called Thor Heyerdahl. After noting similarities between Peruvian and Polynesian cultures, legends, and origin stories, Heyerdahl theorized that the neolithic people of South America had managed to travel westward on rafts through Polynesia, and eventually settled in New Zealand. His ideas were widely rejected by the scientific community as being nothing more than crackpot science. (Harris 2013)
Since then, however, new evidence has now emerged that could support the possibility of pre-Columbian contact.
The “bottle gourd” (Lagenaria siceraria), was a crucially important agricultural crop species to prehistoric people all over the world. Its seeds and pulp could be eaten as a mash, but more importantly is that when it is dried and hardened it can be crafted and carved into excellent containers, utensils, and other utilitarian objects that are still in use today. It is one of the oldest and first crops to ever be domesticated by humans. Archaeological evidence suggests that it was first domesticated in Africa 11,000 years ago. They were then being grown in the Americas by at least 9,900 years ago, and also in China and Japan by about 7,000 years ago.
According to archaeological and linguistic evidence, the bottle gourd was likely present in Polynesia before about 1,200 A.D. The origin of the bottle gourd in Polynesia has been a mystery. Some have suggested that it came to Polynesia through contact and exchange with South Americas. However, one of the gourds most beneficial attributes is that it floats, and this attribute can also explain its wide distribution. It is possible that the gourd and its seeds were simply carried by ocean currents and floated all over the planet.
To attempt to answer the question of the bottle gourd, in 2006 scientists tested the genetics of Polynesian plants. The genetic data they found showed that Polynesian bottle gourds had a dual origin. They have a hybrid ancestry from both the Asian bottle gourd as well as the South American bottle gourd. However, because they only tested modern plants, they could not rule out the possibility that this hybridization might have occurred as a result of modern exchanges. They hoped to test more ancient specimens in the future to clarify further. (Clark et al. 2006)
Another intriguing crop was the American Sweet Potato. It was domesticated in Peru about 8,000 years ago. It was also an important staple in both the South American Indian people’s lives, and also the Polynesian people’s lives, but unlike gourds, sweet potatoes don’t float and required people in order to spread from South America to Polynesia. Skeptics used to argue that the sweet potato must have been first exported to Asia by the Spanish and Portuguese, but genetic evidence from samples of sweet potatoes show up in much earlier Polynesian archeological sites including one from the Cook Islands that is dated at about 1000 A.D. These samples show that it is very likely that the American Sweet Potato was transported from South America to Polynesia, by people, before European contact. (Lawler, 2010)
Lastly, some of the most compelling evidence for pre-Columbian contact between the Polynesian people and the South American people comes from human genetics. In October 2014, immunologist Erik Thorsby and his team of scientists analyzed the DNA of the Rapa Nui people from Easter Island. They found that 27 Rapa Nui people living on the island shared about 8% of their genes with Native American people. The genetic testing indicates that the mixing of the two genomes most likely occurred between 1300 A.D. and 1500 A.D. (Lawler, 2014)
As for the question, “Did the Polynesian people “discover” America before Columbus?” I’m not one-hundred percent positive either way. However, with so much evidence coming forward to support the theory, and the impressive ingenuity and skill of the Polynesian sailing people, I think that the question is certainly no longer crackpot science. I think the question is profound and worthy of exploration and experimentation. Much more research is warranted and I hope that with more details in the future we can find the answer.
References
Clark, Andrew C.; Burtenshaw, Michael K.; McLenachan, Patricia A.; Erickson, David L.; Penny, David. 2006. Reconstructing the Origins and Dispersal of the
Polynesian Bottle Gourd (Lagenaria siceraria). Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 23, Issue 5. 1 May 2006, Pages 893–900, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msj092. Accessed November 5, 2018.
Harris, E. Lynn 2013. Thor Heyerdahl. Biography. Salem Press Biographical
Encyclopedia. https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=88802222&site=eds-live. Accessed November 5, 2018.
Lawler, Andrew 2010. Beyond Kon-Tiki: Did Polynesians Sail to South
America? Science. 6/11/2010, Vol. 328 Issue 5984, page 1345. https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.40656049&site=eds-live. Accessed November 5, 2018.
Lawler Andrew. 2014. Epic pre-Columbian voyage suggested by genes. Science. 2014;346(6208):406. https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=99127725&site=eds-live. Accessed November 5, 2018.
Scarre, Chris. 2013 The Human Past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies. Third Edition. Pgs 275-300. Thames & Hudson Ltd, London.
Jonathen Green
The indigenous people of the South Pacific were truly prolific explorers and mariners. Polynesian cultures had explored and settled the entire Pacific region by at least 300 years before Columbus’ famous voyage where he drastically underestimated the size of the planet, plunged into the Atlantic Ocean past the point of no return and, to his quite lucky fortune, accidentally stumbled into the Caribbean where he then mistakenly claimed he had reached the shores of India.
Before European contact in 1595, the people of the Pacific had crossed enormous spans of open ocean and settled half of the planet. Later, during his three voyages between 1768 and 1780, it seems that practically everywhere the legendary Captain Cook explored, had already been discovered and populated with Polynesian people. They lived in Australasia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. They had successfully sailed east to the most remote places on planet earth such as Hawaii and Easter Island, but they also sailed west, covering the entire Indian Ocean and settling on the African island of Madagascar. The extent of their exploration is so gigantic that it covers nearly half the globe. I failed to fit the full scale of their confirmed explorations on Google Maps. (Scarre 2013)
Although the Polynesians nautical conquests of the Pacific have been understood since the times of Captain Cook, recently there is now a new debate in anthropology. It considers the possibility of pre-Columbian contact between Polynesians and Native Americans. It asks the question, did Asian people “discover” America before Columbus did?
The idea of pre-Columbian contact was proposed in the late 1950’s by a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer called Thor Heyerdahl. After noting similarities between Peruvian and Polynesian cultures, legends, and origin stories, Heyerdahl theorized that the neolithic people of South America had managed to travel westward on rafts through Polynesia, and eventually settled in New Zealand. His ideas were widely rejected by the scientific community as being nothing more than crackpot science. (Harris 2013)
Since then, however, new evidence has now emerged that could support the possibility of pre-Columbian contact.
The “bottle gourd” (Lagenaria siceraria), was a crucially important agricultural crop species to prehistoric people all over the world. Its seeds and pulp could be eaten as a mash, but more importantly is that when it is dried and hardened it can be crafted and carved into excellent containers, utensils, and other utilitarian objects that are still in use today. It is one of the oldest and first crops to ever be domesticated by humans. Archaeological evidence suggests that it was first domesticated in Africa 11,000 years ago. They were then being grown in the Americas by at least 9,900 years ago, and also in China and Japan by about 7,000 years ago.
According to archaeological and linguistic evidence, the bottle gourd was likely present in Polynesia before about 1,200 A.D. The origin of the bottle gourd in Polynesia has been a mystery. Some have suggested that it came to Polynesia through contact and exchange with South Americas. However, one of the gourds most beneficial attributes is that it floats, and this attribute can also explain its wide distribution. It is possible that the gourd and its seeds were simply carried by ocean currents and floated all over the planet.
To attempt to answer the question of the bottle gourd, in 2006 scientists tested the genetics of Polynesian plants. The genetic data they found showed that Polynesian bottle gourds had a dual origin. They have a hybrid ancestry from both the Asian bottle gourd as well as the South American bottle gourd. However, because they only tested modern plants, they could not rule out the possibility that this hybridization might have occurred as a result of modern exchanges. They hoped to test more ancient specimens in the future to clarify further. (Clark et al. 2006)
Another intriguing crop was the American Sweet Potato. It was domesticated in Peru about 8,000 years ago. It was also an important staple in both the South American Indian people’s lives, and also the Polynesian people’s lives, but unlike gourds, sweet potatoes don’t float and required people in order to spread from South America to Polynesia. Skeptics used to argue that the sweet potato must have been first exported to Asia by the Spanish and Portuguese, but genetic evidence from samples of sweet potatoes show up in much earlier Polynesian archeological sites including one from the Cook Islands that is dated at about 1000 A.D. These samples show that it is very likely that the American Sweet Potato was transported from South America to Polynesia, by people, before European contact. (Lawler, 2010)
Lastly, some of the most compelling evidence for pre-Columbian contact between the Polynesian people and the South American people comes from human genetics. In October 2014, immunologist Erik Thorsby and his team of scientists analyzed the DNA of the Rapa Nui people from Easter Island. They found that 27 Rapa Nui people living on the island shared about 8% of their genes with Native American people. The genetic testing indicates that the mixing of the two genomes most likely occurred between 1300 A.D. and 1500 A.D. (Lawler, 2014)
As for the question, “Did the Polynesian people “discover” America before Columbus?” I’m not one-hundred percent positive either way. However, with so much evidence coming forward to support the theory, and the impressive ingenuity and skill of the Polynesian sailing people, I think that the question is certainly no longer crackpot science. I think the question is profound and worthy of exploration and experimentation. Much more research is warranted and I hope that with more details in the future we can find the answer.
References
Clark, Andrew C.; Burtenshaw, Michael K.; McLenachan, Patricia A.; Erickson, David L.; Penny, David. 2006. Reconstructing the Origins and Dispersal of the
Polynesian Bottle Gourd (Lagenaria siceraria). Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 23, Issue 5. 1 May 2006, Pages 893–900, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msj092. Accessed November 5, 2018.
Harris, E. Lynn 2013. Thor Heyerdahl. Biography. Salem Press Biographical
Encyclopedia. https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=88802222&site=eds-live. Accessed November 5, 2018.
Lawler, Andrew 2010. Beyond Kon-Tiki: Did Polynesians Sail to South
America? Science. 6/11/2010, Vol. 328 Issue 5984, page 1345. https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.40656049&site=eds-live. Accessed November 5, 2018.
Lawler Andrew. 2014. Epic pre-Columbian voyage suggested by genes. Science. 2014;346(6208):406. https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=99127725&site=eds-live. Accessed November 5, 2018.
Scarre, Chris. 2013 The Human Past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies. Third Edition. Pgs 275-300. Thames & Hudson Ltd, London.
Controversy Paper 3: The Hidden People
The Hidden People
Jonathen Green
In our textbook the authors describe ancient historical accounts about a group of people who are described as “the Celts.” They are said to have occupied Europe and terrorized the ancient Greek and Roman people for centuries. However, the archeological record for a single and unified identity of a “Celtic people” is much less clear and there is not really any direct evidence to support the notion of a single Celtic ethnicity.(Scarre, 2013)
Even their name, “the Celts” is complicated. It was a word believed to be derived from the Greek word “Keltoi” that was first used by ancient Greek writers to describe the indigenous people of Europe but who were not Mediterranean but lived north of the Alps in Western and Central Europe, the Iberian peninsula, and the British Isles. (Scarre, 2013)
But, the etymology of the word “Keltoi” is quite unclear. with vast speculation from linguists all over the internet. I found some linguists suggest that the word itself may actually be of even more ancient “Celtic” origin and therefore its original ancient meaning may have been lost to history entirely. I also found many other suggestions ranging from many disparate possibilities including “the others, the strange, the painted, the pale ones, the tall/strong giants, the impalers” and my personal favorite, “the hidden people.” Certainly the word couldn’t have meant all of these things. Unfortunately today as far as I can tell, “Keltoi” is simply an old Greek word that translates directly to “the Celts.”
Although their history is obscure, there were indeed indigenous people north of Italy and Greece who occupied an enormous amount of territory. In the 5th century B.C. they were said by Herodotus to occupy “the source of the river Danube” which is traditionally thought to be where the Brigach and Breg streams converge at Donaueschingen, a town in the Black Forest of modern Southwest Germany and the Greek people of the colony Masalia, which is now the city Marseille a port city in the south of France, described contact with celtic people to their north (modern France) and in the 6th century BC to Celtic people occupying the Iberian peninsula (modern Spain).(Scarre, 2013)
Roman writers referred to them as the Gauls. They were militarily sophisticated enough to successfully sack Rome in 390 BC. and then later in 279 BC they sacked the the Greek city of Delphi which is now in modern Turkey.(Scarre, 2013)
Later, Caesar’s Gallic wars took him all over Europe in his quest to exterminate the Celts. He chased them across the English channel to Scotland, and also deep into Eastern Europe.
Yet even additional historical accounts show that before Roman conquest, the tribes north of the Alps probably did not ever know of themselves by a single name like “Celt” or “Gaul” but instead they may have themselves been several different tribes who had many names. Some of them were recorded such as Celt, Gaul, German, Brittany, Senones, Boii, Scordisci, Pictones, Lemovices, Arverni, Bituriges, Lingories, Aedui, Sequani, and Helvetii, others likely were lost.(Scarre, 2013)
Even Caesar himself differentiated between fighting with many different peoples during his conquests of Gaul in the 1st century BC. For example, he described the people across the English channel as the Brittany, but those of mainland Europe west of the Rhine river as people of Gaul and then those he found east of the Rhine as being the Germans. He used the reporting of their “barbarous ways” as fear-mongering propaganda to secure additional taxation to fund his exploits saying essentially that even the terrible Gauls feared the barbaric Germans of the north-east far more than the Romans feared the, tame-by-comparison, Gauls of the west, and therefore more money was required for Caesar to secure Rome’s protection.(Scarre, 2013)
The artwork that has been traditionally attributed to that of Celtic peoples, called La Tène art, is also confusing. According to our text, it seems to have originated in eastern Germany and from there then spread all over the continent. However, each region created its own unique styles and particular designs and many of them often even emulated mediterranean styles and myths. Therefore this shared art style cannot be evidence of some singular ethnic “Celtic” identity but instead quite the opposite, that multiple interrelated regional groups indeed got and shared ideas and information from each other but then they each chose to put their own particular local twist and flavor into their work; likely to reflect their own localized culture and sense of identity.(Scarre, 2013)
Some Archeologists suggest that some regions such as Brittain didn’t possess “Celtic” art at all but instead came up with their own typical and lesser forms, where as others argue that although they are different they do have continuity from mainland Europe and although unique are no less beautiful. In his article Art of the British Celts, Nadezhda S. Shirokova argues that the La Tène style indeed made it to England when he elaborately describes the sophistication of a beautiful chalice as follows:
"The pattern which is found on the interior surface of the disk consists of a circular band of lyres and inverted palmettes with volutes transforming into tendrils, resembling at the same time a head of a duck whose eyes have not been traced. The pattern also includes shields morphing into grotesque masks. Three pairs of tendrils of a different variety than those in the centre are placed on the periphery. Their static row girdles the composition counterbalancing the illusion of rotary motion in the centre. This elegant ornamental pattern incorporates the most significant achievements of the Waldalgesheim style, being notable for its free composition, the absence of complete symmetry in every detail and the tendency to the “discrete metamorphosis." (Shirokova, 2015)
The origins of Celtic language isn’t any less confusing. According to our text the study of so called Celtic languages didn’t exist until the 1700’s when linguists noticed similarities between languages in Britain and Ireland such as Irish, Manx, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, cornish and Breton and adopted the concept of “Celtic” language as an explanation. (Scarre, 2013)
However, the fact that at least some Celtic languages managed to survive should provide a little insight into who they were. The problem, according to professor Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, is that “Languages change over time, and people move, and how much modern-day Celtic peoples, language and cultures are related to the ancient Celts is an open question.” The celts occupied a vast area over Europe and spoke many different languages. According to historian Flix Muller, “given the size of the language area it is rather unlikely that all the people identified by the Greeks and Romans as Celts would have been able to communicate with each other in the same language.” So therefore, rather than the surviving Celtic languages supporting the idea of a unified Celtic people, they show even more evidence that they were a related, but disparate people. (Jarus, 2014)
After completing this research, I’m less convinced that there was ever one “Celtic” people, but instead I think that that there were more likely many different people with their own unique cultures and customs and languages, who ancient Scholars put under one singular label in an attempt to describe them.
References
Jarus, Owen. 2014. History of the celts. Live Science. Magazine. https://www.livescience.com/44666-history-of-the-celts.html. Accessed 12/3/2018.
Scarre, Chris. 2013. The Human Past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies. Third Edition. Pgs 472-431. Thames & Hudson Ltd, London.
Shirokova, Nadezhda S. 2015 The art of the British Celts. A critical review. Studia Antiqua et Archeologica. 21(2):189-208. https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=119250001&site=eds-live. Accessed December 2, 2018.
Jonathen Green
In our textbook the authors describe ancient historical accounts about a group of people who are described as “the Celts.” They are said to have occupied Europe and terrorized the ancient Greek and Roman people for centuries. However, the archeological record for a single and unified identity of a “Celtic people” is much less clear and there is not really any direct evidence to support the notion of a single Celtic ethnicity.(Scarre, 2013)
Even their name, “the Celts” is complicated. It was a word believed to be derived from the Greek word “Keltoi” that was first used by ancient Greek writers to describe the indigenous people of Europe but who were not Mediterranean but lived north of the Alps in Western and Central Europe, the Iberian peninsula, and the British Isles. (Scarre, 2013)
But, the etymology of the word “Keltoi” is quite unclear. with vast speculation from linguists all over the internet. I found some linguists suggest that the word itself may actually be of even more ancient “Celtic” origin and therefore its original ancient meaning may have been lost to history entirely. I also found many other suggestions ranging from many disparate possibilities including “the others, the strange, the painted, the pale ones, the tall/strong giants, the impalers” and my personal favorite, “the hidden people.” Certainly the word couldn’t have meant all of these things. Unfortunately today as far as I can tell, “Keltoi” is simply an old Greek word that translates directly to “the Celts.”
Although their history is obscure, there were indeed indigenous people north of Italy and Greece who occupied an enormous amount of territory. In the 5th century B.C. they were said by Herodotus to occupy “the source of the river Danube” which is traditionally thought to be where the Brigach and Breg streams converge at Donaueschingen, a town in the Black Forest of modern Southwest Germany and the Greek people of the colony Masalia, which is now the city Marseille a port city in the south of France, described contact with celtic people to their north (modern France) and in the 6th century BC to Celtic people occupying the Iberian peninsula (modern Spain).(Scarre, 2013)
Roman writers referred to them as the Gauls. They were militarily sophisticated enough to successfully sack Rome in 390 BC. and then later in 279 BC they sacked the the Greek city of Delphi which is now in modern Turkey.(Scarre, 2013)
Later, Caesar’s Gallic wars took him all over Europe in his quest to exterminate the Celts. He chased them across the English channel to Scotland, and also deep into Eastern Europe.
Yet even additional historical accounts show that before Roman conquest, the tribes north of the Alps probably did not ever know of themselves by a single name like “Celt” or “Gaul” but instead they may have themselves been several different tribes who had many names. Some of them were recorded such as Celt, Gaul, German, Brittany, Senones, Boii, Scordisci, Pictones, Lemovices, Arverni, Bituriges, Lingories, Aedui, Sequani, and Helvetii, others likely were lost.(Scarre, 2013)
Even Caesar himself differentiated between fighting with many different peoples during his conquests of Gaul in the 1st century BC. For example, he described the people across the English channel as the Brittany, but those of mainland Europe west of the Rhine river as people of Gaul and then those he found east of the Rhine as being the Germans. He used the reporting of their “barbarous ways” as fear-mongering propaganda to secure additional taxation to fund his exploits saying essentially that even the terrible Gauls feared the barbaric Germans of the north-east far more than the Romans feared the, tame-by-comparison, Gauls of the west, and therefore more money was required for Caesar to secure Rome’s protection.(Scarre, 2013)
The artwork that has been traditionally attributed to that of Celtic peoples, called La Tène art, is also confusing. According to our text, it seems to have originated in eastern Germany and from there then spread all over the continent. However, each region created its own unique styles and particular designs and many of them often even emulated mediterranean styles and myths. Therefore this shared art style cannot be evidence of some singular ethnic “Celtic” identity but instead quite the opposite, that multiple interrelated regional groups indeed got and shared ideas and information from each other but then they each chose to put their own particular local twist and flavor into their work; likely to reflect their own localized culture and sense of identity.(Scarre, 2013)
Some Archeologists suggest that some regions such as Brittain didn’t possess “Celtic” art at all but instead came up with their own typical and lesser forms, where as others argue that although they are different they do have continuity from mainland Europe and although unique are no less beautiful. In his article Art of the British Celts, Nadezhda S. Shirokova argues that the La Tène style indeed made it to England when he elaborately describes the sophistication of a beautiful chalice as follows:
"The pattern which is found on the interior surface of the disk consists of a circular band of lyres and inverted palmettes with volutes transforming into tendrils, resembling at the same time a head of a duck whose eyes have not been traced. The pattern also includes shields morphing into grotesque masks. Three pairs of tendrils of a different variety than those in the centre are placed on the periphery. Their static row girdles the composition counterbalancing the illusion of rotary motion in the centre. This elegant ornamental pattern incorporates the most significant achievements of the Waldalgesheim style, being notable for its free composition, the absence of complete symmetry in every detail and the tendency to the “discrete metamorphosis." (Shirokova, 2015)
The origins of Celtic language isn’t any less confusing. According to our text the study of so called Celtic languages didn’t exist until the 1700’s when linguists noticed similarities between languages in Britain and Ireland such as Irish, Manx, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, cornish and Breton and adopted the concept of “Celtic” language as an explanation. (Scarre, 2013)
However, the fact that at least some Celtic languages managed to survive should provide a little insight into who they were. The problem, according to professor Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, is that “Languages change over time, and people move, and how much modern-day Celtic peoples, language and cultures are related to the ancient Celts is an open question.” The celts occupied a vast area over Europe and spoke many different languages. According to historian Flix Muller, “given the size of the language area it is rather unlikely that all the people identified by the Greeks and Romans as Celts would have been able to communicate with each other in the same language.” So therefore, rather than the surviving Celtic languages supporting the idea of a unified Celtic people, they show even more evidence that they were a related, but disparate people. (Jarus, 2014)
After completing this research, I’m less convinced that there was ever one “Celtic” people, but instead I think that that there were more likely many different people with their own unique cultures and customs and languages, who ancient Scholars put under one singular label in an attempt to describe them.
References
Jarus, Owen. 2014. History of the celts. Live Science. Magazine. https://www.livescience.com/44666-history-of-the-celts.html. Accessed 12/3/2018.
Scarre, Chris. 2013. The Human Past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies. Third Edition. Pgs 472-431. Thames & Hudson Ltd, London.
Shirokova, Nadezhda S. 2015 The art of the British Celts. A critical review. Studia Antiqua et Archeologica. 21(2):189-208. https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=119250001&site=eds-live. Accessed December 2, 2018.