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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.
I know it's a hard battle to win, but surely it's about time that Slashdot did something about this spam.
Surely they have tools for controlling spammers other than moderation.
But then you miss the interesting points which may fly in the face of Slashdot group think, but are valid nonetheless. I read at -1 and apply my own mental filters. I don't need the opinion of the collective to decide that for me.
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And also the first porn that young nerds ever encountered.
I know this is slashdot, but RTFA. It is not just a few samples of pollen and charcoal, it is hundreds of years of pollen and charcoal. And then, right when the Spaniards arrived, there is even heavier charcoal. Then the maize pollen and charcoal disappear and are replaced by grasses and fast growing trees then slower growing trees for 130 years. Then there are traces of people again.
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.
The relative amounts of such things are how you know humans were there. Your statement is like saying finding a human skeleton doesn't indicate a settlement because they could have been a vagrant who washed up from a Peloponnesian shipwreck and was dragged inland by a hungry jaguar. Surely the scientists can tell a puff of wild maize from the layer sustained agriculture would create...
Don't knock Nat Geo, it is one of the best periodicals around. Recall the recent awareness around plastic straws? That was Nat Geo.
The two issues I hold dear are:
1982 - The Chip/Silicon Valley - Awesome article about the coming of the modern microprocessor and the rise of San Jose/Silicon Valley. Interviews with Steve Jobs, Marvin Minsky, and many others:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com...
1969 - Landing on the Moon
BlameBillCosby.com
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.
Most of the interesting-but-unpopular comments end up modded to 0, not to -1. I think the unofficial rule is that *no* comment which actually relates to the topic should be modded to -1, even if the comment is idiotic, abusive, or offensive. (Note that if a comment consists entirely of abuse, e.g. a comment consisting only of the words "You're a moron", then it doesn't contain any material relevant to the topic and qualifies for the -1 rating).
At least, that's the rule I follow when modding, and I get the sense that it's the rule most people follow. Look at the current thread: All but one of the spam comments have been modded to -1; there is not a single "unpopular-but-relevant" comment modded to -1.
I know it's de rigueur for Slashdotters to complain about Slashdot, but I think the current moderation system has worked very well for 20+ years, and I would be hesitant to suggest messing with it. (Can you name a website that has a *better* moderation system?)
That number was made up by a 9-year old boy.
No one has ever been able to validate it, and those that have tried have backed off the claim:
CORRECTION (April 22, 2018, 4:52 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article included an incorrect statistic, attributed to the National Park Service, that Americans throw away 500 million drinking straws a day, or 1.6 a day per person. That figure, which has since been debunked in several publications, originally came from the environmental group Be Straw Free, and does not appear to have been based on serious research. There does not appear to be any reliable figure on how many straws are used per day or per year.
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