Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday February 02 2017, @12:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the moved-south-for-the-winter dept.

What caused the rapid disappearance of a vibrant Native American agrarian culture that lived in urban settlements from the Ohio River Valley to the Mississippi River Valley in the two centuries preceding the European settlement of North America? In a new study, researchers from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis reconstructed and analyzed 2,100 years of temperature and precipitation data—and point the finger at climate change.

Employing proxies of prehistoric temperature and precipitation preserved in finely layered lake sediments, somewhat analogous to tree-ring records used to reconstruct drought and temperature, the IUPUI scientists have reported on the dramatic environmental changes that occurred as the Native Americans—known as Mississippians—flourished and then vanished from the Midwestern United States. The researchers theorize that the catastrophic climate change they observed, which doomed food production, was a primary cause of the disappearance.

"Abrupt climate change can impose conditions like drought. If these conditions are severe and sustained, as we have determined that they became for the Mississippians, it is virtually impossible for societies, especially those based on agriculture, to survive," said paleoclimatologist Broxton Bird, corresponding author of the new study. "From the lake records, we saw that the abundant rainfall and consistent good weather—which supported Mississippian society as it grew—changed, making agriculture unsustainable." Bird is an assistant professor of earth sciences in the School of Science at IUPUI.

This failure of their principal food source likely destabilized the sociopolitical system that supported Mississippian society, according to archeologist Jeremy Wilson, a study co-author. He is an associate professor of anthropology in the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI.

Other theories have suggested they exceeded their environment's carrying capacity, or that disease wiped out large numbers of people.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Thursday February 02 2017, @12:44PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday February 02 2017, @12:44PM (#461967) Journal

    The thing is, those complex mound-building societies arose long before the introduction of maize agriculture in North America. The Adena and Hopewell cultures preceded the Mississippians by a long ways. They made do with native plants like marsh elder, ragweed, ground nut, milkweed, etc., and hunted & fished for meat. Some archaeologists have argued that they had a form of permaculture, food forests and such, and that they extensively managed the land with controlled burns and deliberate sowing of food plants. A lot of the plants they ate are now called "-weed" because they grow like weeds. (I recently learned that the pernicious weeds I've been trying to eradicate in my Long Island garden is actually purslane and is one of the tastiest and most nutritious greens you can eat). It's hard to imagine climate change dimming the prospects of fodder like that, short of an ice age or desertification.

    Mound builders, apart from building mounds, built along the major watersheds (Mississippi, Ohio, etc) and maintained an extensive trading network. Archaeologists have found copper from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in mound-builder sites as far south as the now state of Mississippi. Obsidian from Yellowstone was found all over the place. Also the riparian land always gives you access to the water you need, with the fish, waterfowl, and game that go with it.

    So to me climate change aka drought doesn't seem so compelling there, as it would for the collapse of Anasazi societies in the high plateaus of the Southwest.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday February 02 2017, @10:35PM

    by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Thursday February 02 2017, @10:35PM (#462155)

    There is serious speculation that the Little Ice Age was at least partly caused by the rapid reforestation [phys.org] of the Americas due to the sudden die-off of Native Americans after the Europeans arrived, so it is not a stretch to suppose that prior to that the activities of the Native Americans themselves were in fact responsible for causing the localized climate change that led to the decline of the Native American agrarian cultures. The idea that the Native Americans were primitive savages that lived in quiet harmony with the land is a myth.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday February 03 2017, @03:07PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday February 03 2017, @03:07PM (#462399) Journal

      The idea that the Native Americans were primitive savages that lived in quiet harmony with the land is a myth.

      Exactly. I've been doing a lot of research on pre-Columbian Americans for a project, and several of my received ideas about how they lived and why they failed to repel European incursion have been dispelled.

      First, that they were primitive. Their societies were as complex as any out there, based on analyses of their public works (mounds, pyramids, causeways, etc).

      Second, that they had no tradition of scientific inquiry or engineering prowess. The Maya had a very good grasp of mathematics; most people know they invented zero but somehow it never sunk in that Maya were mathematicians on par with anything in the Old World. The Wari in the Andes built irrigation systems and aquaducts that were exceptional feats of engineering, and couldn't have been done with solid mathematics and social organization. Tiwanaku in South America was built of stones so massive that it would be quite difficult to replicate with today's modern machinery.

      Third, they were weaker. The tribes the Pilgrims and other early settlers contacted were stronger, taller, and better fed than they were.

      Fourth, their weapons were so inferior they lost every encounter. After the initial shock of exploding gunpowder, the Indians lost their fear of matchlock weapons because they really weren't more effective than what they had in war clubs, bows & arrows, and atlatls.

      Fifth, Europeans easily defeated Indians wherever they fought them. False--the Spanish tried to conquer North America with their armor and guns, but the Natchez, the last of the Mississippian empire, easily repelled them with their "primitive" weapons. The French and English had an easier time in Canada and New England because 90% of the natives had died of disease, perhaps contracted through contact with Basque fishermen or Vikings in Newfoundland, before they arrived. To put that in perspective, imagine Indians showing up in Europe right after the Black Death had peaked, and then been succeeded by the flu of 1918, and only 1 in 10 people was left; it would have been as much a foregone conclusion as it was in America.

      Sixth, the Indians were peaceful. In fact they fought constantly among themselves.

      Seventh, the Indians had no trade networks or significant economic activity. Archaeologists have found items thousands of miles from where they were sourced. The Mississippi regularly sourced obsidian from Yellowstone and copper from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Inca had enormous twin-hulled trade canoes that ran up and down the western coast of South- and MesoAmerica. The Tainu had trade routes from the coast of Brazil to Florida.

      In short, we've been sitting on the ruins of ancient Rome, China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia this whole time and hardly anyone knows it or cares. It's exceptional.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.