Quite so, GAD.  My point exactly.

I just finished reading a fantastic book “1491” by Charles Mann. It’s the best guess, given the evidence we have today, at what the people on the two western continents were living like in pre-Columbian times.  Of course there’s a lot of conjecture going on because the evidence is so scanty, but what has been discovered in the last 20 years paints an extraordinary picture of what life might have been like then.

It seems that the Nazca lines in Peru and Bolivia are often presented as some sort of evidence of ancient alien visitations, but Mann offers evidence that these marvelous earthworks were indeed done by humans.  They have discovered canals, causeways, artificial lakes, and the mound-built outlines of animals covering hundreds of meters in size located from Peru and Bolivia all the way through the heart of the Amazon river valley and it’s Andean tributaries. These were not discovered before because of the rainforest jungle that now covers this huge area of land. New technologies allow archaeologists to survey the lay of the land under the canopy of the forest and a more and more fantastic world is being revealed.

Imagine millions and millions of humans living along the great river systems of South America. Civilizations that turned jungle into fields (maize and manioc and melons and beans and tomatoes, etc) twinned with a cultivated gardens of varieties of fruit (papaya, pineapple, etc.)and nut (cashews, brazilnut, etc.) orchards. Imagine large scale irrigation. Imagine huge excavated ponds that take advantage of the annual floods to hold fish for the rest of the year. Imagine living on the mounds of earth that were built from the excavations and how they would offer protection from the floods.

Then in the 16th century up to 80% of these populations were decimated by diseases and eventually the wild jungle reclaimed all of this territory except for the occasional pocket of hunters/gatherers who managed to eke out a living in the rainforest.  (Mann believes that the Amazonians entirely disappeared and that new populations of more primitive peoples - like the Yanomami -  migrated into the Amazonian regions after the 16th century.)  The Nazca plains were abandoned many centuries before the arrival of Europeans, but what remains on these windswept plateaus is the evidence of similar cultures that once thrived in those regions when the landscape was still agriculturally productive.  Evidence of huge swaths of terraced fields on the slopes of the Eastern Andes show that agriculture and aquaculture were practiced there just as they are on the Eastern slopes of the Himalayas in China and Tibet.

Yup, Canzen. It’s amazing. All the more so for having nothing to do with aliens. Aliens can be fun. As I said to GAD:

Rob: Oh, I dunno. I’ve been known to enjoy a bit of probing. Not by ETs, though. All good solid straight and gay homo sapien males. As far as I know… But…

Yeeeks! Now you’ve got me worried. Maybe that night in the dark field with that beautiful lovely human looking male I picked up while driving between Melbourne and Sydney who just sort of disappeared after we’d finished was an alien. (This was before AIDS and so I wasn’t carrying condoms) He was so beautiful, so perfect in every way. He glowed. He smelled, tasted and felt incredible. Irresistible. I have never forgotten him.  But it was eerie the way he just appeared on the road out of nowhere, suddenly glowing like an angel in my headlights and then just vanished after pleasuring me in the field. I looked over my shoulder after we were both done to say, “Gosh, that was great…” But, POOF!  He’d disaparated. I know he was real because… Well, no need to go into sloppy and slippery post-coital deatils. The question is, have I been impregnated with the mysterious force of alien sperm? Am I an incubator for extraterrestrial intelligent life?

Should I change my drag name to Ms Pam Spermia?

Well, if they all fuck like him I’ll go with that.

Anyway, nothing ugly has ripped its way out of my chest yet so I assume they are beautiful benevolent fuckers who mean us no harm. They are the sort of aliens I dream about. Happy to have his babies. Hope he comes back for seconds. Not least because my warp drive needs looking at. I’m hopeless with mechanical things. I need an ordinary man for that. Alien males like him will do just fine.

Yes, aliens can be fun, However, reality is much mo reinteresting.

can zen - 27 December 2011 01:11 PM

I just finished reading a fantastic book “1491” by Charles Mann. It’s the best guess, given the evidence we have today, at what the people on the two western continents were living like in pre-Columbian times.  Of course there’s a lot of conjecture going on because the evidence is so scanty, but what has been discovered in the last 20 years paints an extraordinary picture of what life might have been like then.

It seems that the Nazca lines in Peru and Bolivia are often presented as some sort of evidence of ancient alien visitations, but Mann offers evidence that these marvelous earthworks were indeed done by humans.  They have discovered canals, causeways, artificial lakes, and the mound-built outlines of animals covering hundreds of meters in size located from Peru and Bolivia all the way through the heart of the Amazon river valley and it’s Andean tributaries. These were not discovered before because of the rainforest jungle that now covers this huge area of land. New technologies allow archaeologists to survey the lay of the land under the canopy of the forest and a more and more fantastic world is being revealed.

Imagine millions and millions of humans living along the great river systems of South America. Civilizations that turned jungle into fields (maize and manioc and melons and beans and tomatoes, etc) twinned with a cultivated gardens of varieties of fruit (papaya, pineapple, etc.)and nut (cashews, brazilnut, etc.) orchards. Imagine large scale irrigation. Imagine huge excavated ponds that take advantage of the annual floods to hold fish for the rest of the year. Imagine living on the mounds of earth that were built from the excavations and how they would offer protection from the floods.

Then in the 16th century up to 80% of these populations were decimated by diseases and eventually the wild jungle reclaimed all of this territory except for the occasional pocket of hunters/gatherers who managed to eke out a living in the rainforest.  (Mann believes that the Amazonians entirely disappeared and that new populations of more primitive peoples - like the Yanomami -  migrated into the Amazonian regions after the 16th century.)  The Nazca plains were abandoned many centuries before the arrival of Europeans, but what remains on these windswept plateaus is the evidence of similar cultures that once thrived in those regions when the landscape was still agriculturally productive.  Evidence of huge swaths of terraced fields on the slopes of the Eastern Andes show that agriculture and aquaculture were practiced there just as they are on the Eastern slopes of the Himalayas in China and Tibet.

That sounds really interesting Can Zen, I love mysterious stuff, or incredible finds, I saw a programme on the BBC where a geologist was mapping Egypt with new Xray type tech, he uncovered many lost temple complexes and such.

Much of our findings of the ancient world and ancient human civilizations seem mysterious to us, but one thing that is always overlooked is that ancient humans had a lot of time on their hands. Other than eating, sleeping and daily chores, there was mucho time to figure out ways of doing things. And they were modern humans with the same intellectual capability as we have, they were just superstitious.

We seem to look for and find apparent mystery when what is really there is just simple human life and daily endeavor.

Avogadro’s number - 28 December 2011 05:52 AM

Much of our findings of the ancient world and ancient human civilizations seem mysterious to us, but one thing that is always overlooked is that ancient humans had a lot of time on their hands. Other than eating, sleeping and daily chores, there was mucho time to figure out ways of doing things. And they were modern humans with the same intellectual capability as we have, they were just superstitious.

We seem to look for and find apparent mystery when what is really there is just simple human life and daily endeavor.

It’s still interesting to work out how they managed to create some of the more complex structures, with simple tools, which methods of engineering and geometrical equations they managed to work with. Also working out the exact purpose these served and why they might have bothered in some instances, outside the needs of daily endeavour.
These might not seem as mysterious to us now but still interesting to those with an interest.

Here’s an interesting article on Pre-Columbian wheels in the Americas.  The complex societies that lived there never made use of the wheel for industrial/agricultural purposes, but had wheels on toys.  Strange.

http://www.precolumbianwheels.com/

Ecurb Noselrub - 28 December 2011 01:19 PM

Here’s an interesting article on Pre-Columbian wheels in the Americas.  The complex societies that lived there never made use of the wheel for industrial/agricultural purposes, but had wheels on toys.  Strange.

http://www.precolumbianwheels.com/

Really interesting, I wonder which of the number of possible reasons it was in this case for the wheel not to develop, unless it did and was later lost.

I sit everyday and marvel at this thing called a computer. I cannot even imagine how it could work. In centuries past I would have thought this was the work of Gods or aliens from space with intelligence and technology light years past our own. But in reality these things are built and understood by millions of people with IQ’s no higher than my own.

The point is a persons ignorance can quickly evolve into a sense of wonder and mystery.

Ecurb Noselrub - 28 December 2011 01:19 PM

Here’s an interesting article on Pre-Columbian wheels in the Americas.  The complex societies that lived there never made use of the wheel for industrial/agricultural purposes, but had wheels on toys.  Strange.

http://www.precolumbianwheels.com/

Mann brings this phenomenon up in “1491” and as the conclusion in the article you linked Bruce, he surmises the same reasons for the wheel never advancing from micro to macro application. THe main reason - no large pack animal available or utilized for dragging large loads, along with many secondary reasons.