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Traces of Lost Society Found in 'Pristine' Cloud Forest (nationalgeographic.com)
Deep in Ecuador's lush Quijos Valley, a society thrived -- and then disappeared. But a lake preserved its story. From a report: In the 1850s, a team of botanists venturing into the cloud forest in the Quijos Valley of eastern Ecuador hacked their way through vegetation so thick they could barely make their way forward. This, they thought, was the heart of the pristine forest, a place where people had never gone. But they were very wrong. Indigenous Quijo groups had developed sophisticated agricultural settlements across the region, settlements that had been decimated with the arrival of Spanish explorers in the 1500s. In their absence, the forest sprung back. This process of societal collapse and forest reclamation is described in a new study published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
The Quijos Valley lies in one of the most biodiverse cloud forests in the world, along a pre-Columbian trade route that linked the rich Amazonian lowlands with the high Andes. Thousands of people lived there centuries before the Spanish arrived, farming maize, squash, beans, and even passionfruit in poor soil of the valley floor. The study's researchers found a tiny lake in the valley and dug down into the silt at the bottom, pulling up a plug of sediment that had built up over the last 1000 years -- and found evidence of human occupation going back to the very oldest part of the core. In the oldest layers, scientists found tiny pieces of pollen -- swept from the valley and the surrounding forest into the lake by wind -- from maize and other plants that only grow in open, airy conditions, which told them that humans were cultivating plants on the valley floor. They also found plenty of charcoal bits, indications that people had lit fires nearby.
The Quijos Valley lies in one of the most biodiverse cloud forests in the world, along a pre-Columbian trade route that linked the rich Amazonian lowlands with the high Andes. Thousands of people lived there centuries before the Spanish arrived, farming maize, squash, beans, and even passionfruit in poor soil of the valley floor. The study's researchers found a tiny lake in the valley and dug down into the silt at the bottom, pulling up a plug of sediment that had built up over the last 1000 years -- and found evidence of human occupation going back to the very oldest part of the core. In the oldest layers, scientists found tiny pieces of pollen -- swept from the valley and the surrounding forest into the lake by wind -- from maize and other plants that only grow in open, airy conditions, which told them that humans were cultivating plants on the valley floor. They also found plenty of charcoal bits, indications that people had lit fires nearby.
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I don't think anything digital is meant by "... hacked their way through vegetation so thick they could barely make their way forward."
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Er...what's the "news"?
And who knew that "National Geographic" was still around? That was the yellow-spined magazine college-educated boomers kept stacked in their houses for some reason.
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See my subject: I'd kick YOUR FUCKING ASS for stalking & harassing me you unidentifiable little cowardly cunt - tell me your REAL name, address, & phone # so I can verify it's REALLY you & we can settle this once & for all, fucker...
APK
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This is a far fetch to prove a society existed. I am not saying it is not possible, but this evidence is hardly that. Traces of charcoal and a guess at finding pollen samples at the bottom of a small lake has many obvious problems. There are other ways for both to get there into the sample of a small plug. There is difficulty determining the actual time it took to get there.
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We were promised dinosaurs. With feathers.
Man once again spoils Pristine Mother Earth in his demonic quest for survival and dominance?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Let's be honest, they were annihilated BY the Spanish. The Spanish get a bit too much "forgiveness" or is it just plain forgetfulness, of their history of destruction across the Americas these days. The Spanish owned slaves (African and natives), pretty much created the Atlantic slave trade, they pillaged whole societies for gold and silver to fund a religious war in Europe, they defined the very term "Love Christ or we'll cut you".
One of the most hilarious cases of modern historical blindness are the groups in California that demand we return California to Mexico. Because we "stole" it from them. As if it just fell into their possession and wasn't stolen itself. Then there's the groups of African Mexicans descended from Mexico's slaves who didn't get officially recognized until 2016, even though they routinely would get deported because Mexicans didn't believe they existed.
Why is this on /.??
We're like stink on shit. We're everywhere and you can't get rid of us.
>In their absence, the forest sprung back.
The past tense of "spring" is "sprang." "Sprung" requires the other half of passive voice, which is missing from the quote - "has" or a suitable variation thereon.
I think the use of passive voice is to indicate that there was significant decimation by Spanish-borne diseases rather than than actual extermination by the conquistadors.
Let's be honest, they were annihilated BY the Spanish.
They were annihilated by disease that Spanish accidentally brought over from Europe. I am certain Spanish killed some, but not 19 million people from multiple centralized and established nations that were stable prior to their arrival. The reason Spaniards had such astonishing success in conquests is because natives were in the midst of extremely fatal epidemic.
Spare me your bullshit. The "peaceful" natives of the Americas were constructing literal towers of skulls, adults and infants alike. The Aztec Empire had been farming its neighbors for a century, by pushing them onto marginal land, then challenging the survivors to combat. The slaves they collected from these flower wars fed their cannibalistic cult of genocide.
There is no way to negotiate with a society like that. For the sake of humanity, it must be shattered and blown to the wind. Had they not wallowed in their technological slump, they would have brought forth a reign of terror that would have make Genghis Khan look like a hippie. Thank God that Cortez was able to destroy the Aztec Empire.
I bet it was forcing everyone to use the pre-computer version of systemd that caused their downfall.
I'd say yes and no. The Spanish hit them much harder than they were trying to. The Spanish brought harms (e.g. diseases) that they didn't even realize (at first) that they were bringing.
Even if the Spanish had been nice guys instead of assholes, it still would have been pretty devastating. Then add the assholery on top of that...
And as usual an informative post gets ruined by being used as a vehicle for hyperbolic political BS about fringe groups so others can pile on and whine more about how stupid everyone they disagree with politically is
My father told me once that during World War II, he and some other men in his unit were hacking their way through dense underbrush in New Guinea, thinking they must be the first human beings to ever walk there, when they found a stone pillar with an inscription in English: "This stone marks the intersection of latitude ..." That's when they realized that not only had someone been there before, but it had been surveyed and marked.
Exactly...polishing turds.
I don't think the article really gives them a free pass.
When the Spanish arrived in the 1540s, they wreaked havoc on the indigenous Quijos, killing many and conscripting others to brutal forced labor. The Quijos revolted, but by 1578 most of them had been killed or driven away, and the Spanish eventually retreated out of the valley.
"Possibly one of the worst tragedies in human histories occurred during this period," says Nick Loughlin, the lead author of the study, as millions of indigenous people across the region died after the arrival of European colonizers.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
My completely inept interpretation is that there was a devastating forest fire, precipitated by a years long drought, this created the charcoal. Now that the land is cleared by fire, plants that grow in the open field can now proliferate until the indigenous plant life grows back into a forest.
Why waste energy being angry at people that died many centuries ago? Why mourn for people that died many centuries ago?
Can you change the past?
The main cause behind anihilation from the Spanish was most likely biological and not militar. Spain had awesome infantry and weapons, but 200 men do not win any attriction war. On topic, sites like this should be explored. Graham Hancock is probably one of the top picks for this.
No, they weren't. They were annihilated mostly by deseases.
"forgiveness"?? What are you talking about? So you mean more forgetfulness than with the belgian in Congo or the germans in Namibia or the british with native americans and the Indigenous Australians and the opium wars or the dutch in south africa?
The portuguese were who created the Atlantic slave trade ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade )
The quinto real ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinto_real ) was introduced in 1504. 80% gold and silver produced was reinvested in the Americas. When the british founded the first university in the states, Hardvard, there where already more than 23 in the spanish americas.
How many people of mixed race were in other european conquered territories and how many were in spanish ones?
Anglo-Saxon are probably the most racist and bloodthirsty people from the old continent, that's why they are blaming the spanish "conquistadores" the whole time, to hide their human misery.
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Don't you mean "annihilated"? It surprises me how many people use the word "decimated" without actually knowing what it means.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
You have way too much emotion over events that happened 400 years ago. Spain today is not Spain of then.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The conquistadors also physically killed a lot of the natives. They had better technology and horses along with a moral framework that allowed them to act like total arseholes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Yep, the inventors of the Spanish Inquisition were quite moral, along with so many Europeans of the time. Look at Columbus, chopping the arms of the natives who didn't bring him enough gold (had to pay off his backers).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Why waste energy being angry at people that died many centuries ago? Why mourn for people that died many centuries ago?
Can you change the past?
Be nice if people could learn from the past.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
And as much as this is commonly laid at the feet of old-worlders, let's recognize that fundamentally it was going to happen at SOME time and the fact that new worlders hadn't much gotten past the stone age was ultimately (if you believe Jared Diamond) the reason they hadn't developed stronger general immunities.
-Styopa
You'll find anything in the Cloud these days..