History: December Issue ,Volume Two (Volume 2) by Agha Humayun Amin, Michael Harold, Prof Max R Terman and

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Who discovered America? Manager's Choice

Gail GreenPrincipal at Gail Green InteriorsTop Contributor

So, Who Did Discover America? | History Todayhistorytoday.com For more than a century an army of scholars, enthusiasts and outright eccentrics has delved into the question of who discovered America. Some of the claims are truly exotic, with fanciful reportage on ancient Phoenicians in Rhode Island or Chinese... Unlike Comment (228) Share Follow Reply Privately 2 months ago Manager's Choice (undo) Close Discussion Comments You, Radu Beleca and 13 others like this 228 comments Jump to most recent comment

Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH The information in the referenced article is seriously good stuff. There is another detail that adds a bit of flair to the process of the European "discovery" of the Western Hemisphere. Columbus was from Genoa, and Cabot war from Venice. These two maritime giants of the time had just been cut off by the Muslim conquest of Constantinople from the lucrative trade that passed through Constantinople from routes using the Black Sea and the Silk Road. Both Venice and Genoa had maritime empires that reached as far as the Crimea form which the Black Plague was imported.

Since the Venetians and Genoese had routine trading connections with England, Ireland, Norway and Iceland, there was no doubt in any seaman's opinion that there was land out west, As mentioned in the article, the computations of the Earths circumference had been developed even unto the Hellenic times. The problem with the caluclations was that they were made close to the equator where the earth bulges out because of the Earth's spin making the bulge look like a much smaller planet. Both Cabot and Columbus were trained sailors and navigators.Both "knew" that China was just over the horizon. It is amazing the Columbus continued sailing west past the point where China and Japan were calculated to be. Like (6) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Shannon Selin, Gail Green and 4 others like this

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Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin. I, as an American Indian, have complained loud and often that it is NOT possible to discover something that is already inhabited! North and South America are as old as Europe and were already inhabited by millions of people who had developed their own languages, their own cultures, built their own centers of trade, etc., etc. It gets absolutely tiresome to have to repeat and repeat this. Columbus and the "others" came upon something that was new to them which they immediately began to destroy - but the Western Hemisphere was already occupied by people who lived in harmony with the wildlife and nature from the beginning of time. We need to find a new word to describe what the wanderers found since "discover" is way over used and really tiresome. Like (12) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Gabrielle Sutherland, Shannon Selin and 10 others like this

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Shannon Shannon Selin Writer, Author of Napoleon in America

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Fascinating! Like (1) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Greg :) Foutz likes this

Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH The American Indians did not spring from the earth on the day of creation. They came from somewhere else, and often continued moving until the Treaties tied them down. The White Eyes also came from somewhere else and like those before them conquered and destroyed. In Mexico the Aztecs established their capitol at Tenochtitlan aka Mexico City, and are rumored to have come from somewhere to the north (Arizona?Texas?). Of all the ancient (post renaissance natives) civilization, the Aztecs deserved what they got, and they got it from Indian allies of Cortez.

Then came the sickness. There is a balance in nature. Columbus brought Smallpox to the New World and Syphilis to the Old Like (2) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Tony D., Allan L. C. like this

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Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin. Gordon Fowkes - Say what you will. We know who we are and we know our ancestry. The Europeans know they came from Europe and want the indigenous people of this country to be "immigrants" to justify their theft and then destruction. Like (3) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Peter A., Allan L. C. and 1 other like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Gordon, while it's true that everyone comes from 'somewhere' when we study History, there is a protocol and certain terminology that we follow. Obviously Mexico City, Arizona, Texas are modern terms and have nothing to do with the indigenous peoples of the Americas. When we use 'the Americas" we're talking about continents, not political entities, so we need to be careful that we keep that in mind. The term "the Americas" does not imply ownership, discovery, invention, etc. It is terminology to enhance discussion. Indigenous is different than autocthonous, and the verdict on autocthonous peoples for the Americas is up for debate, as it is for most regions and continents. The Indigenous people groups, however are well known for the Americas, as is their various histories. Your denial of their claim to history does not negate it. In any discussion on the topic, it is SO important to use correct terminology lest we perpetuate the oppression of the past. There are rules about this. The rules are such that as people who are a part of the oppressor group, we do not get to speak for the oppressed. This is so basic, that we shouldn't have to repeat this rule, but unfortunately we have to repeat it over and over. Why is there so much anger? (which leads to misconceptions on both sides). Because SO MANY other rules go on from there, but we cannot even speak about more advanced rules of civility because the most basic rule of all is ignored. Those people groups who move into a new territory and conquer it then claim it are conquerors. Yes, this has happened throughout history, but this means conquerors are conquerors with EVERYTHING that brings. It does not justify conqueror behavior. Claiming that "I'm a conqueror and that's allowed because there have always been conquerors," does not make it allowable, nor does it "make ok" the very real pain of the victims. The experience of the conquered is not something that can be described, narrated, or verified by those who conquered. Can a rapist speak for the rape victim? (Sadly, this is what often happens.) Saying it didn't happen does not negate its having happened, nor silence their voices. It actually just emphasizes the nature of conquerors as bullies. The kind of history from the viewpoint of the conqueror went "out of style" a VERY long time ago, and people who cling to the idea of "I am the conqueror, and I will tell you what YOUR history is....." well that just makes no sense at all, does it? I think it's ok for us as American historians to face our history squarely and hope to learn from it instead of perpetuating it. Like (6) Reply privately

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Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin. Gabrielle Sutherland - thank you for your reply to Gordon. I think the most important statements you wrote was, "The indigenous people/groups, however, are well known to the Americas, as is their various histories. Your denial of their claim to history does not negate it." American Indians have not ever sanctioned the Bering Strait "theory" as our histories although slightly different for each tribe, have the common vein of "having always been here." We all know that the conquerors get to write history and explains why the American Indians were left out of history books for so long. Our ownership of the land stood in the way of what the majority considered "progress." The treaties were not a mutual agreement, they were FORCED on the tribes but the lands which were once thought worthless and only fit for the tribe's are now looked at with greedy eyes. Thank you again, for your well thought out reply. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Tony D., Antonio Calabria like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer This is important! How could I not speak up? The idea that "Nature" is somehow responsible for the exchange of smallpox and syphilis --when we consider how the conquerors contracted gonorrhea (it was not syphillis) and took it back with them to Europe, I don't see how we can stay silent in the face of such a statement. To compare that to the decimation of the people of the Americas due to Smallpox. . . hmmmmm. Nature? That statement alone, makes me want to mourn. No. Let's acknowledge that conquering also includes rape, then and now. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Allan L. C., Antonio Calabria like this

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Protocols, and dogmatic terminologies do not a history make. History is history only when the history agrees with evidence of sufficient reliability (usually reproducible), and then only after it has been poked and prodded. Even then, it is just someone's opinion like the rest of science. Syphilis aka the Spanish Pox for having been spread through Europe by Spanish troops during the Religious Wars. Gonorrhea was know as early as 1256 as "a burning disease". The "Columbian" theory of the introduction of Syphilis into Europe by Spanish returning with Columbus is considered more protocolish and correctified.

Whether Small Pox was the western disease that devastated the Western Hemisphere and Oceania as late as the Kingdom of Hawai'i is the usual interpretation. But as there were so few survivors (10% or less) until natural immunization built a defense. The usual bearer of these pandemonium were the missionaries and priests, along with sailors on shore leave. The normal course of events in any civilization of any era includes rape, pillage and plunder as a statistical norm. The modern industrialized world has channeled some of said energies into less overtly violent behaviors, leaving the urban poor and the poor and organized crime to continue these traditions. The Romans channeled these normal violent behaviors into the displaced participation of the mob at the coliseums of the day. The mass media and netted world provides ample opportunity to participate in the surges of emotion and of destruction on line. The simple neurological - psychological fact that the body reacts in imagined action the same way it does in action for real. This phenomenon is being put to use in sports, training and in education to imagine the action and do it as if practiced for real. The political claim of revenge due to past injustice is pure Transactional Analysis to play the doctrinal roles of victim, rescuer and prosecutor (Karpman's Drama Triangle). The political hackerdom of today is forever creating villains and victims in order to role play for real, the rescuer and/or the protector/persecutor. Posing history in terms of the Drama Triangle(s) is propaganda not history. IMHO Like (2) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Richard Rankin, Martin Dipo Zimmermann like this

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Kern Kern Philgence Historian 1. I have a bit of pet peeve with people who claim Columbus did not discover America. If you come upon something that you previously did not know existed, then you have discovered it. We need to be more precise with our language. Christopher Columbus quite obviously was not the first to discover America not even the first documented European to land in America, but he did discover it nonetheless. 2. Now as for the exotic (according to the article) pre-Columbian discoveries I do not know why it is so far-fetched to believe that people crossed the oceans before Columbus. In fact, I find it hard to believe that no one made a transoceanic voyage to or from America until the end of the 15th century. Historian, Dr. Van Sertima taught that Africans crossed the Atlantic centuries before Columbus riding ocean currents from West Africa. In fact, he said indigenous Americans also sailed to West Africa also using ocean currents. He taught that the European explorers (including Columbus) recorded seeing Black people (who they did not import) in the Caribbean and in Central America. Is it true? I cant say that I am 100% sure but I am sure that it is 100% plausible. We should not continue to marginalize these pre-Columbian claims as being exotic. I think that there is more legitimacy to many of these paradigm-altering claims than the scholarly community is ready to admit. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago TJ S., Gordon Fowkes like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Kern, I think that you would find that in the social sciences, no one feels like the world of exploration is "exotic". This includes MUCH more than is presented in this article. The history of immigration, exploration, etc., is a robust study and involves more than History. It's not so much a mystery as that article makes it sound. One of the more recent contributions that has helped us in the last decade is satellite imagery, and it continues to get better. It's incredible what we've learned. On the protest over the word "discovery." Perhaps if we think about the idea of who "Discovered" England? Or who "discovered" the British Isles? Maybe we could think about who "discovered" Greece, or "discovered" Italy? Each of those are bounded by some water, at least, but what if we asked who "discovered" Germany? and in all these, named one person who is of a completely different origin than those who are still part of the fabric of that place,

who are known as indigenous. What if we said that about Czechoslovakia or Poland? It is likely the case that from the conquerors' viewpoint, it is a great discovery to find a place that is new to them, seemingly just waiting to be inhabited. When we "do" history, however, we know that it was not "discovered" in that moment. Like (4) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Donna M., Gordon Fowkes and 2 others like this

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Wim Wim van den Hoonaard Assistent-medewerker Archieven en Collecties bij Archief Eemland

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Sometimes I discover something else! Like Reply privately Delete 2 months ago

Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin. Columbus was LOST! He "stumbled" upon the Caribbean Islands and then proceeded to rape, pillage, plunder, kidnap, enslave and viewed the indigenous people as "servants." Like (4) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Kern Philgence, Gabrielle Sutherland and 2 others like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer When we study the Americas, we pretty much begin with post Ice Age Neolithic people groups and migration patterns--just like the other continents on the planet. To pretend that nothing existed or happened until Europeans knew about it is ethnocentric. To strongly identify with the people group who were the conquerors that became the elite of the current reality, and then pretend that the current reality comes straight from one person is normal. It's about belief in a Creation Myth. Plato called such foundation stories necessary, and labeled them "The Noble Lie." He writes about the importance of linking it to the same kind of ideology that feeds religion. To focus on the United States of America as if that encompasses the history of a region, or is an entity is silly. We don't look at any government or political system as if all of history existed as some sort of experiment to "end" in one final political system. This is just one more political system and one more government in history whose difference is that we happen to be living in it/with it today, currently. It seems different because we are IN it. Hard borders are man-made constructs brought about by wars and/or treaties following wars. Political systems and governments come and go throughout

History. The USA is part of the history of part of North America. The process of how the USA came into being is equally part of the history, which means the wars that brought it into being are very much a part of the history. . . just like other political systems and governments in all the other regions in the world that we study . . . along with their wars, and changes in governments and political systems throughout time. Indeed, when we study those wars and conflicts we study the people who fought and WHY they fought. And of course we study the people groups who were there before. . . and before that. . .and before that. We are interested in more than conquering, thank heavens! We are interested in trade and commerce, art & architecture, roads, maritime experimentation, science, religion, medicine, household practices, family life, animal husbandry, agriculture & innovation, sports, entertainment, food & recipes, textiles, hierarchy & stratification of society, gender roles, jobs/work, moral & ethical codes, writing/literature/poetry/music, gods & religion, numismatics, weapons, hunting, criminal justice, magic. And more. Like (5) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Laurence Wyche, Kern Philgence and 3 others like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer To be clear: everything I mentioned in the final paragraph above is what we study in the very rich history of the Americas before any Europeans arrived on the scene. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Allan L. C. likes this

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Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin. Vine Deloria, Jr., author of "Custer Died for Your Sins." wrote that if you want to know the history of the Indian people - ask them! Then give their information the same respect and weight as you would an answer from a non-Indian. We have our stories that were passed down from generation to generation but because we had an oral history, our information is too often considered unreliable. Someone once said to me that there are no ancient archeological sites which leads one to believe that we are 'immigrants' - I said, "how do you know what was destroyed or plowed under in the rush to settle this country?" Like I said before, American Indian tribe's have their histories, their cultures, their languages and have always been here. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Allan L. C., Gabrielle Sutherland like this

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH he old tradition of studying History starting with the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and England was buried decades ago. For better or worse. What we make up in breadth, we lose in depth. Like (1) Reply privately

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Michael J Michael J Moylan Consultants to Community Associations and Math Education Curriculum Development Time and place determine what is real. We will never know the truth. All cultures make up what is fact. There is more than one side of the story. Culture wants all to believe one side of facts. That does not make one story true It is about events which we do not Know to be true. It is about events we do not know about. But we claim that we do. Like Reply privately Delete 2 months ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH I would like to believe that there is history that is backed up with facts, but the harder I look the cracks and bubbles start to show. My father, an eminent surface chemist, had the annoying habit of saying all science winds up as someone's opinion. He was referrig to what people like to call "the hard sciences" which history is not. Nor is my specialty, political ad military science. My current avocation has to do with the history of the Crusade Era with the Knights Templar as a subject of specialization as part of my duties in the Order. I am fortunate to have related experiences with the subject of war and politics which helps me sort out certainties of dubious certainty. Historical references along with many scholarly works spend space on discounting or counting the opinions of others. Item: The shield walls used by the Vikings and later the Crusades is not possible with a center grip of the heavy shield. Smaller shields with a forearm grip and the much smaller buckler are used offensively with the sword. ' Item: Galleys and Long Ships were rowed with the oarsmen using a full or partial standing motion. Using the back would break the back of either type at speed. Item: The strongest grip on a weapon is one in which the ring and pinky finger have the grip with the base of the thumb as leverage. The forefinger and thumb grip is a good way to lose the weapon. Item: The instinctive wrapping of the wrist for fighting is to defend against accidental or on purpose activation of acupoints that set up the rest of the body for a follow up. The backs of the hands are often protected by pieces of hard material to prevent a strike that would open the hand. Those haven't been posted, as I am still doing the artwork and research for: http://templarmilitaris.blogspot.com/ Like (1) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Richard Rankin likes this

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Gordon

Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH OBTW: The above conclusions are in opposition to some widely held opinions. Not facts. As a general rule, my methods and sources would bore people to tears, so I rely on the reader to prove or disprove for thier own use the utility of what I write. The world is not such a certainty as one would like. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Martin Dipo Zimmermann, Richard Rankin like this

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis. There is a bay on the coast of Brazil called "The Bay of Jars" littered with Roman amphora. From Asia to Europe it is a simple and unsurprising fact that long distance commerce was more common than previously thought. The third largest language family the world, derived from a Taiwanese aboriginal language is spoken from Hawaii to new Zealand to Madagascar (1500 miles away and 400 miles off the coast of Africa). Like (2) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Kern Philgence, Gabrielle Sutherland like this

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis.

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History is written by the victors. Recent genetic studies shows more than that: 1 out of every 200 men is descended from Genghis Khan. Like Reply privately Delete 2 months ago

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer I agree with you on language. Comparing the dialects in Italy and tracing backwards is an unspeakable help for me in my work, in determining migration patterns, religious worship, and making sense of the maps the people of each period drew of their understanding. Real languages bumping up against each other and intermingling and evolving into "Italian." It's a real thing--not something made up by people in each place and then somehow magically becoming "Italian." We can read them all if we work at one end or another and move through them in time, and we recognize the Phoenician alphabet when it is brought in and assimilated with the previous alphabet, then see the evolution of the language becoming a modern one. Again, not made up or imagined brand new, but very real over time, along with the cultural sharing that comes with ongoing migration and living that is the real and actual way that humans live. I also like what you write about the amphorae Richard. Art & commerce are a fantastic tool for studying history. It's one of the ways we learned of the connection between Ancient China and the Indus Valley, for instance (before the days of satellite imagery which can details roads we cannot see from the ground). The presence --in India--of metalware made in China of a particular sort, accumulating in increasing amounts allows us to trace these patterns. In the same way, when we find jewelry along trade routes throughout Mesopotamia made from carnelian stones that come from only one grotto in northern India: that, too reveals important information. Not only about origin, but the tools used over time, the trading patterns with exchange gifts and purchases,

the kinds of transport necessary (for different trade items), and a variety of societal information. For instance Egyptian traders used seals with trading insignia, which we can find on different trading routes throughout the Ancient World help us. The seals were attached to bindings via a bracket to wrap bundles. These insignia allow us to research commerce and alliances. WE know about them from documents linked to other artifacts which link to locations and events. We can also link them to bronze ingots used as currency. When we look at the pottery that is used to transport fish, salt, oil, we not only learn about food and the power of food, but also about the progress of each society in manufacturing. Slow fire vs. High Fire Pottery and the type of glaze tells us an incredible amount, because there is so much of it in the world. This also tells us a lot about alliances as we see who is sharing information. We look at art, and see where it travels from the original materials, and this tells us so many things, it's difficult to list. All of these pieces fit together with many other pieces to fit into the ongoing puzzle. No one person/historian gathers all of it, right? It takes a long time to become an expert, say in textiles, or fossilized bugs, or amphora, or ancient spices, or..whatever it is we each are expert at. But when we put it all together, it's an amazing, ongoing tapestry of real lives. In this sense, 'real' history isn't about the victors. We don't really work on the stories of individuals in History, because that's "story." History is definitely not story. The word History comes from Historia. Biography is literature, and as such, it's a piece of evidence, as is poetry and song or other art. Chronicles of Kings are the kind of writing that people with large egos leave, thinking --mistakenly--that they can influence history or decide what people in history will choose to study. We can look all around us, and especially at politicians--to see PR machines attempting to "write" history in advance, but it just doesn't work that way. Statistically, it is most likely that people in the future won't even notice us. Like (5) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Antonio Calabria, Gail Green and 3 others like this

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis. Family/Language Reflex(es) PoS/Gram. Gloss Source(s) English English: Agni prop.n god of fire, guardian of humanity (Hinduism) AHD gelignite n (type of) dynamite AHD/W7 igneous adj fiery, re: fire/heat AHD/W7 ignimbrite n volcanic rock: welded tuff material AHD ignite vb to subject to fire/intense heat AHD/W7 ignitron n single-anode rectifier using mercury vapor AHD Italic Latin: igneus adj igneous, glowing W7 ignio, ignire, ignivi, ignitum vb to ignite W7 ignis, ignis n.masc fire LRC Baltic Lithuanian: ugns n.fem fire LRC Indic Sanskrit: Agni prop.n Agni W2I agni n fire W7 Like (1) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Gordon Fowkes likes this

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Keith Keith Borgholthaus Sales Associate at Game Center Woot Chinghis!

I think the biggest mistake we make when imagining Columbus, and his work is not seeing the lines drawn during his time. All of the maps, and known exploration did not show a giant continent, or knowledge of what might happen if you went West. Scholars of the time understood the earth was round, but it was one thing to say there was something beyond the maps, and another to sail that way. There was a line of known space drawn out by everyone of the time, because that was how far exploration, and knowledge went out. Even though Vikings had found the new world, the people exploring at this time barely knew it, or knew how to understand it. I know plenty of people in the Pacific who don't know much about the Atlantic. If you described Scotland to my friends, they would assume you are talking about Guam. The people of Europe were the same way, past a certain point was outside of their knowledge. So even though many others could have found the lands, or even had trade with it, the Europeans would have taken it as some fantastical story. Columbus supported the idea of going West, beyond what the maps showed. He made the best estimates he could, but it was the equivalent of me telling the king of France in the 18th century that I could make him float on a balloon. There was evidence it worked, but it took a completely different thought process to get onto the platform above the fire. In the same way, the investors, and many people he spoke to understood that there would be something past the point of known exploration, but no one knew what it was. In the Pacific, we have slowly been admitting that there was contact between Pacific Islanders and the Americas. My own studies show similar cultural traits like pointing with the lips instead of a hand. There is a lot of unknown knowledge on the subject, so I can only guess that there was some form of contact within the last 1,000 years. We get into all sorts of problems because the way history is viewed today, history did not begin until the Europeans settled. Like the maps and knowledge that Columbus had to use, seeing the history past the 'point when history began' is treacherous and unknown. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 2 months ago Allan L. C., Gail Green like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer POV, yes. Keith...it's great to see you! Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH The artistic patterns on some pottery found in extant as well as much older locations along the Pacific coast resemble some of those I found in Japan both in museums and current use. There are a couple of tantalizing possibilites from that, given that there is such similarity; The Northern Pacific currents support a drift of water craft with goods or people from the connected Japan-North Pacific-California with maybe a ride on the Equatorial Counter Current. The would apply only as far south as Northern Columbia. Some of the artifacts in the Gold Museum in Bogota give a sense of deja vu of patterns seen in Asia. This thesis aka hunch but short of IMHO, suggests that any traffic to British Columbia and Columbia property would have had to face the South Equatorial that run from West to East. This suggests also that any trade was one way suggesting accident. On the other hand, there was a very large number of Japanese sailors and samurai serving with the Spanish and Portuguese until the Tokogawa Shoganate forbad the Japanese to return to Japan on pain of execution, and the execution of any who helped them, and any who defended those who helped. It seems that there was a quarter million of the Japanese Christians , predominantly male left to theri own devices with a Spanish nudge. Like Reply privately

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Tom Tom Bender Construction-props-fx-weapons (firearms) at Film and Television Industry This issue is still up for grabs. Recent studies have found that the Native Americans of the Northwest have Russian DNA. Their may be way too many ego's out there that will never admit that they may have been wrong. Sort of like Al 'man bear pig' Gore and his climate change cult. I believe Vaclav Klaus called them the green commies. Others just call Al's cult , watermelons - green on the outside and commie red on the inside. The issue of who really discovered North America may never be answered. Too many want that for themselves. Maybe it was the Chinese ? They were very advanced ? Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH One cannot have Russian DNA in America prior to the creation of Russians who were a mix between Swedes and Slavs which takes place around the 9th Century AD. Then in the 13th Century, the Mongols penned the Russians in place until Ivan the Terrible. The American in the Northwest that have Russian DNA is due to the fact that the Russians reached Alaska and the West Coast beginning in 1648. The US boiught Alaska during our Civil War which included some established Russian villages along the California coast. Like (3) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Martin Dipo Zimmermann, Richard Rankin and 1 other like this

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis. Gordon Fawkes, being an historian, has caught an example of what is often called "the Historian's Fallacy". That is using ideas and terminology (and now genetics) outside of the valid temporal boundary. I find his "You can't have Russian DNA before there were Russians." amusing. In other situations an historian must question the use of the term "Hinduism" since it was coined in the 19th century by the Englishmen with limited understanding of the culture. The concept of "Religion" itself did not appear until the 12 century in the European Christian context. Thus an historian must be cautious when using such terminology and ideas when discussing Assyrian culture which antedates them. Like (4) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gabrielle Sutherland, Gordon Fowkes and 2 others like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Tom, I think an important point regarding any continent is that none of them are "discovered" except in the sense that someone(s) might come home to his own society and tell his people he discovered something new. If someone(s) comes to a new place and stays there, then it is not discovery, but migration. Every continent in the world has/had indigenous/autocthonous people groups already living there from the time of Greater Pangea and afterwards. Autocthonous people groups are indigenous who have never migrated, and indigenous might have migrated or colonized at one time. For all intents and purposes they are the only known inhabitants. This does not mean they "discovered" the continent either, because indigenous groups still came from that area but have moved around as they evolved in the Neolithic period. This can be through sailing or walking to a new settlement a very short distance to a visible, known place due to the need for more space. This typically happens when tribes expand and the younger generations travel in a group to establish/settle in a sister village. In this sense, we wouldn't say who 'discovered' the Americas, because people, who over a great period of time--longer than we designate ourselves as "people"-- had already been living there , and had differentiated themselves into different tribes with distinct and separate languages, laws, ethical codes, trading patterns, spiritual / religious expression, (btw, Richard, the word and concept of Religious/Religion has existed since ancient times--although it is true that the word 'Hinduism' is problematic), and cultures that are individually identifiable. Can we say who saw it first--and does that matter in a competitive way? Who saw it and stayed there? I guess we know that answer, right? I think we WILL know who came to Americas shores at different times and in different ways and when. The easiest answer will be through satellite imagery. When I first started teaching, and when we came to Sumeria, I would have my class read Gilgamesh. The irony of the narrator claiming the "Great Walls" of Uruk as their lugal's greatest of achievement was one of our talking points, leading into the importance of walls for defense of the ziggurat. We also only had a vague idea of where Uruk was, and some wondered if it even existed? Now, our approach is completely different because not only can we place Uruk on the map, but we know it's size, we see its great walls, we can chart the trade routes leading in and out, and much more. What we've been able to construct with the "mystery" of Harappa and Mohojendaru is amazing. It's simply no longer a mystery. When we teach in the classroom, we don't have to just lecture on this--we use smart rooms where we link directly to the moving satellite images and students get to see this in real time, and we can link to scientists if we want with whom they can ask questions about how that works and what it means. It won't be long till many of the questions that we've asked in history will be answered by physical, material means. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Fox Fox Andrew BJU Press Printing Division at Bob Jones University I guess it is not so much a question of who discovered America, but who published it to the civilized world. If we use a strict definition of discovered to mean chanced upon the land mass, then the American Indians discovered this land after migration over the Bering Straits from Asia. Columbus was not far wrong in describing the native Americans as "Indians." These peoples were disconnected from the rest of the known world, and the country they lived on was virtually unknown to everyone in the Western world until around the time of the Vikings. The first documented discovery we see by a civilized European is Columbus in 1492, when he sought the westward passage to India. But even then, it is highly probable that the Vikings were in Canada before Columbus. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Laurence Laurence Wyche

Chair of Unlikely History, University for Sale

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"Civilized world"? Would you care to define that term? Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Antonio Calabria, Gabrielle Sutherland like this

Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis.

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When asked what he thought of western civilization Mahatma Gandhi replied "I think it would be a good idea." Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Peter A. likes this

Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis. Gabrielle, before I disagree on the religion I'd like to make a point on language. Dictionaries and grammars are informative not normative. They describe the activity of language at a specific time or time frame. The meaning is the use (Wittgenstein). There is no such thing as ostensive definition. That the concept of religion antedates the existence of the term is a contradiction. The meaning of the word has varied over time within the English language. That terms existed in other languages existed which were used in similar contexts may be true but there is no exactitude in translation. To say that two words are cognate does not imply any equivalence of meaning of any kind. So perhaps there was a Greek word used in a similar way, the cultural milieu in which it was used differed completely and made it's "meaning" ("the meaning is the use") different. Depending on the this linguistic context, there was no differentiation between what we would call "religious" and other cultural behavior. In modern English, in American culture, if we look at various religious traditions we find that what constitutes "religious" activity and what "sectarian" we find a great deal of difference of opinion. As a linguist or anthropologist or cab driver one attempts to find terminology and a "realm of discourse" within we which can discuss the matter. Equivalence in meaning even in the same language is nearly impossible to find or demonstrate. What allows us to communicate is what we accept as a correct operation within our realm and utilize further operations to clarify any uncertainties. We allow a great deal of flexibility in ordinary discourse not permitted in scientific discourse. Each realm has its rules but I have wandered off. My point is still that in history caution must be exercised when assigning something to a category when the concepts defining the category antedate the subject of discussion. Can you identify for me and for all cultures, the point at which what we call religion was identified by that culture as being different in a specific way from the rest of their activities. An example would be to see the propitiation of the god of fishing as no longer part of fishing but part of the same class of activities as propitiation of, well, as an example, the word "vermin" is derived from the name of Verminus, the Roman god of stomach worms in cattle. So, when did the propitiation of that god move from the activity of farming and into the same part of daily life as fishing. Like (3) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Laurence Wyche, Gordon Fowkes and 1 other like this

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Superb. More paragraphing please

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis. As an aside, Gabrielle, it was my understanding that the prevailing theory regarding the Indus Valley script is that it is Proto-Dravidian in some sense. Almost all the script fragments known are on seals and seem to be names because of that fact (they are inscribed on seals) and because they frequently contain the names of specific celestial objects as Dravidian names often do. They are inscribed right to left but this might be a function of being intended as seals. Thus we have actual no actual text and there may be none, only scripted names for the purpose of identifying the ownership of goods and possibly quantities. There my have been no written language. Any details, updates or corrections anyone? Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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John John Francis Seeking my next adventure; no geographic limitations, open to danger-zone positions Interesting article and, for the posts that I took the time to read, equally interesting comments. My contribution to this topic stems from a DNA analysis I had conducted a year ago. First off, I stem from lineages that have been in the Americas for 400 years (British Isles and Western Europe), 500 years (Spanish, North African, and Middle Eastern), and ~20,000 years (Native American). What I found surprising about the results of my DNA test was the presence of East Asian DNA in my genetic make up. While the legitimacy of these types of test, and their precision, may be debated, I, for the sake of argument, will assume these findings to be true. That said, after a few years of documented research, I have arrived at the only logical explanation as to how the presence of this East Asian DNA made its way into my bloodline: pre-Columbian gene flow between East Asia and the Americas. While it may be possible that what is interpreted as East Asian genetic make up is actually remnants left over from the initial crossing into the Americas, it is more probable that this was a reintroduction of East Asian DNA that had separately evolved in isolation. I cannot speak for the legitimacy of the science, nor could I theorize as to the time period this may have occurred; however, I do find the increasing knowledge regarding the science of genetic study a valuable input for future analysis of such topics proposed by this thread. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin. Fox Andrew - You might think Columbus was "civilized" but I bet if the people he murdered, enslaved, kidnapped, plundered, destroyed, do not think so. Furthermore, the only reason he called us "Indians" is because he thought he was in India - he was LOST - we are not Indians - we are "the people" who have always been here. Like (4) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gabrielle Sutherland, Laurence Wyche and 2 others like this

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH One must not leave out the Mongolian Blue Spot which appears at birth and may disappear by puberty. It appears in children of those who lived in the path of the Mongol hordes including the Hun all the way from Chalons to Japan. Pockets of Blue Spots also have been found in Switzerland in other mountainous regions where a wink and a smile smote the Monogl soul to stay awhile longer. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH As the barbarity of the parties concerned vis a vis Columbus and Cortez it must be said that the Europeans enslaved many of those natives who had not changed sites propitiously (durable DNA exchanges). Many of these enslaved died of exhaustion and imported diseases. By comparison, the Maya and Aztec used their slaves for interesting leather goods and a protein supplement. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Allan L. C. likes this

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Peter Peter Altomare Independent Research Professional The first humans were most likely those who came from Asia over the Bering land bridge. I would guess they qualify as discoverers of the Americas. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Allan L. C. likes this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Richard, What you are describing is not what historians do, and is a silly point. It is not what I meant. You are speaking in anthropological terminology , and if you were to write about a god of fishing, and if a historian cared... Certainly any historian would understand your terminology . We often read anthropological, classical, linguistical, sociological, archaeological works. We do not write in that vein, ourselves, however. It is often the case that anthropologists protest the historian's terminology, but that does not mean that an historian ought to become an anthropologist. Since this is an history site it is appropriate to use the terminology of history. It is normal for an anthropologist to deal with one site and maybe only one site for his/her entire career. If an historian did that, it wouldn't make sense. We

compare and contrast over time. We analyze across cultures, or over time. What we really do is ask a big question. WHen we're researching a specific culture, and let's say we are looking at religious expression: while we are in that particular culture or society, we will be using the appropriate terminology that is pertinent for that culture. We are probably not using terminology, but using the language of that people, or at the least, are in the language group. The terminology that you seem to want to parse, is not an issue when we are involved with one particular culture, because we are in the context of THAT group, or people, or society or civilization. Historians don't study the past and make reports, though. We study History. We are looking for answers to a question(s), and new information we find in research is helping us with that question. We are following a trail and looking at a red thread. The language, traditions, patterns,terminology will change as we move through time, over regions, and whatever it is that we are looking at. If we are utilizing anecdotes, scientific data, graphs, or maybe just the existence of Apollo and a sub category of whether Apollo is the primary god or the secondary god.that might be all we are lo oking for, but as we do, we also absorb the context, the author/narrator of the text, and the Q status. When we write, it is necessary to write to OUR audience, and when we do, we use the Historian's terminology. It must needs be understandable to the modern audience, and also incorporate or encompass our subject. In history it is the case that we call what we have been discussing, and what I mentioned: Religious or Spiritual expression. It's just the way it is. The reason we call it this is because WE call is this. Because we are the writers. In the body of the text, if we are responsible and thorough--if that is part of our message, then we mention specific, pertinent, relevant words. Many publishers do not want foreign language in articles, especially ancient languages that require special characters that are unfamiliar and cause readers to stop reading. Like (3) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Antonio Calabria, Richard Rankin and 1 other like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer As far as deciding whether or not a group of people practice "religion" as we know it: As a historian, there are standards. If we are dealing with a civilization, one of the qualifiers for [what is] civilization is an organized, codified religion. This means all 4 River valley Civilizations qualify as having an organized religion with laws, a recognized religious structures, and it is describable. All 4 are different, but known. Religions before them also are well known along with their deities and the hierarchy of the gods, the rituals, celebrations, etc. Some of them are revealed religions and some are more legal/ethical in nature. This has nothing to do with us and does not need to . When we discuss [what is] normative we do not refer to language but to specific behavior for a designated people group. When a behavior is "normative" it is not recognized as separate from or outside of normal behavior patterns. Just because a behavior is normative for a people --therefore not mentioned--does not mean that we don't mention it. In fact, quite the reverse! IT is one of the most difficult aspects of the historians "job" to discover these aspects of any society because they are so invisible. If we are to understand the people who came before us, we need to know what is most normative. Remember, we looking for the "red threads" that run throughout all history, or portions of it. We need to answer the questions big and small that make history leap from the pages and help us understand humanity. This is something very different than what anthropologists do, sociologists do, etc. This is a good thing. It's good for each of us to do our part. Philosophers describe religious practice or spiritual practice as the metaphysical. Historians describe it as the supernatural. The discussion is a fluid line because the lines between [ what is] considered magic; religious; science can blur over the course of a single generation of a given society. How do humans traverse this line and how do groups explain it to themselves? Is there communication between humans and a supernatural presence? Are there laws? Is it about heaven or is it chthonic? There is no constant condition in history, except that humans find ways to deal with the unknown, and when it is codified or organized into a communal expression or a societal experience that is regular, hierarchical or believes as 'real' or 'true' we can study it and understand them better. Like (3) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Antonio Calabria, Richard Rankin and 1 other like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer

This doesn't only occur in civilization. When we study society, we look at the pillars of society: family, community, religion, education, government. We know at what point in the agricultural cycle we will find all the pillars present and what the social stratification will be. Religion does not have to have any specific form to qualify as "religion" That's an ethnocentric conceit. Shamanism counts, and so does Animism. Mysticism occurs in many forms. Gods can walk the earth, but they can also ignore human beings altogether. Sometimes prayers matter; sometimes they operate as wishes, and sometimes people have to be just as sneaky as their gods. Often, people have to follow formulas exactly. The Mesopotamian priestly class had a codified structure and practiced a ritual that was much older than Ishtar, All eligible people entered as initiates. It doesn't matter what word was used or not used. What matters is this was a religious ritual, and it is recognizable as such. To describe it with one word would only describe the one ritual in a society that had 3 competing religious groups.so we would have to come up with other words.using an ancient language with characters that linkedIn doesn't recognize. Then we would not be able to do any "Histor y" work because we could not ask any historical questions.silly . We actually have an example of this process in Ancient Rome during the Kingdom and Republic periods. Romans were fascinated with the Etruscan religion (cultus), because Romans took a very logical approach to religion, and looked at the gods as separate from natural phenomenon they could explainespecially in the sky. The Etruscans possessed an entire body of religious written works that had been revealed to them via their Supreme God Voltumna, and their prayers were set as precise formulas. They also saw the movement in the heavens as predictive. The Romans didnt believe the Etruscan religion could be True, but they also couldnt let go of the comparisons, and the what ifs? Two civilizations, two separate languages, and they circle each other. Its fascinating to us, too. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Antonio Calabria, Richard Rankin like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer As far as Columbus and the Bering Strait, etc. The First People in any group on any continent is always the same and always named the same thing all over the planet: The People. The Bering Strait is not a contender for first place because There would be people before the migration period from Greater Pangea. It helps to know our Earth's history, which is what we study when we study World History. It always begins with Pangea! I was looking at a description of Chicago's Columbian Celebration and at what it said: When Columbus LANDED. Yes, that's what he did. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Allan L. C., Richard Rankin like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Richard, as far as the proto Dravidian script and seals. I would agree with you, but provisionally, because I've met with a couple different Indian scholars. I don't have the correct titles for them in English,but there is really nothing that can be said that they would agree with. I think it's in the nature of the Upanishads that we cannot receive clear answers, and Dravidian studies are too political for agreement. I think one of the reasons is the Sita legends, but that's too easily said, and leaves too much unsaid. It also makes me sound like I'm saying the obvious and I don't mean it that way. I guess it makes sense, when we see how unwilling we are in the US to admit to an entire People Group existing as The People before Europeans landed. We can hardly point fingers at India for not having a consistent story for the people who came before Ram--and we're a baby country; it should be easy for us to "remember"!! Like (2)

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer In History, when we say "Civilized" it means "Lives in a city" or "Lives behind walls." it is vs. "Barbarian" which means "Lives in the wild or wilderness" or "Lives outside the walls." This is something different than the colloquialism of "to act civilized" but we are careful not to use colloquialisms. It is generally considered throughout time that there are pros and cons for both conditions. To be civilized is to give up one's freedom in many respects, but one gains security (as an example). Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Richard Rankin likes this

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Peter Peter Altomare Independent Research Professional Gabrielle, Pangea existed before mammals evolved much less humans. Therefore, Pangea is not an option at all. It broke up hundreds of millions of years back. The Bering land bridge is the most likely per modern geology. When we talk about Homo Sapiens, we should know that no more than about 250,000 years of DNA evidence is present for the existence of our species. I think that the evidence for humans in the Americas goes back at most for less than 40,000 years even if you accept pre-Clovis arrival dates. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis. Gabrielle, you are quite fascinating and I would enjoy discussing a number of topics with you, perhaps in another forum including a theory I have been testing with a couple historians and population geneticists regarding a relationship between impure drinking water, two mutant alleles in the human genome prevalent in East Asia, the timing of the "Dark Ages", the Age of Reason and the Enlightment in Europe. To dismiss someone's "point" as "silly" is simply an announcement of your termination of discussion on a particular topic out of hand without bothering to even give a justification much less evidence of some sort and a bit of effort at using reason to formulate a counter argument. This usually occurs when someone has "reached the end of their rope" and cannot proceed with disagreement lacking additional material for debate but which would not seem to be the case except perhaps that my "point" or "what [I] am describing" lies outside the baileywick of history and that domain constrains the discussion. I'm not sure what I said that constitutes and should have been the first part of a refutation of some sort. Of course I am not clear and correct at all points and that is a good portion of why engage in these discussions. I must respond that your statements are either goofy or zany. Sorry for all the wind and I do appreciate coming across someone such as yourself when you are not being gonzo.

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis. * "For a civilization, one of the qualifiers is an organized, codified religion" * "Civilizations qualify as having an organized religion with laws, a recognized structures, and it is describable, some of them are revealed religions and some are more legal/ethical in nature" Who decides this stuff? Maybe religion is what the largest, meanest bunch of guys in town say it is. If after you croak, they toss some of your stuff in the hole with you, is that religious behavior? I like you Gaby, but I better end this now. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gordon Fowkes likes this

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis. The Indus Valley script dates from 2600 BCE, some symbols possibly earlier and ends with the collapse of the civilization circa 1800 BCE. The earliest Upanishads date from around the 6th century BCE in the pre-Buddhist era and possibly contemporaneous with the Buddha by recent archaeological evidence still being evaluated. The script appears to be: 1. Limited to seals. 2. (The work of Rao seeming to show) The use limited to names in accord with the seals being used in commerce and not as a writing system. The Indus Valley Civilization and the Upanishads I see as completely unrelated. You are quite right in that while there is certainly reason to debate the significance of evidence there is a fair amount of contention based on political issues unrelated to the matter in fact. The collapse caused by environmental changes is unrelated to any later incursions by central Asian peoples. When I compare the Vedas and the Upanishads and then with religious/philosophical in Gangetic Plain during what Karen Armstrong calls the Axial Age - in this region, the Upanishads, Buddhism, Jainism and other trends seem to have caused changes from the Vedas to Vedanta that indicate fundamental changes in perspective. Incidentally, I consider anyone who has not read the Upanishads to be functionally illiterate. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gordon Fowkes likes this

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis. Please note facts and reasoning with your points of disagreement, ignoring the growing body of evidence that I am an "idiot", a "moron" and developing various brain disorders. When presented with a space for text after my name when filling out forms, I have begun to insert the word "Syndrome". Like Reply privately

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Per Per Hollander Working on a book about Fritz and Camilla Hollander Coming back to the original title of the discussion to "Who first had regular contacts with the Americas' it is interesting to see that nobody mentions the Vikings in this connection. They were definitely about 500 years earlier than Columbus or his colleagues. Their contacts are know and continued for about three hundred years. Their colonies in Greenland (by the way also part of the Americas according to many) travelled to Canada for timber for their needs. Their try to build colonies in Canada was unsuccessful because of resistance of the native population but the timber cuttingexpiditions continued until about the time of the Black Plague and the Little Ice Age during the fourteen hundreds. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer you're right Peter. Thank you for correcting me. But, lands and seas and rivers were different during the first great migrations, THe breaking up of Pangea did not happen all at once, or all in a moment, and when we talk about people groups and how they traveled, we are not talking about just one thing. We are talking about being on land already, about transhumance, and about lands and seas that were much different than they are now. T o talk about migration at later dates is later migration patterns for different reasons. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Per, if you look above you will see that several people talked about the Vikings, and in detail. Richard, I think it would be quite rewarding to team teach with you! We dome from two different backgrounds, and it would be extremely valuable for students to see what different approaches bring to the table. I sat as an honors fellow and regularly taught a interdisciplinary course that mixed the social sciences in studying the ancient world for the first 2 semesters, then moved through the Middle Ages the next two. For some of our sessions I would come to the class--this is 150 students--as Demeter, (then later Bona Matre) in toga and a wheat crown, hand out loaves of bread and talk to the students about how "is" is. First semester, my great friend John (chair of the classics dept) interrupted as Bacchus, also in toga, holding grapes and acting tipsy: "Well, helloooo, Aunt Demeter!" and then proceed to upset everything I was trying to do, and rally the students to help him do so. It was GREAT fun! Since they were reading the Euthyphro, and learning the context, it helped them to see the difference between understanding and enjoying the language, vs. understanding what it's like to study a society at war, changes in government, the Golden Age being in the past. . .blah blah blah. The second semester my friend John came as Alexander and treated me abominably, enabling us to teach even more --mainly the differences between a classical world vs. the Hellenistic ..Plato vs. Aristotle, and women in this "new" world. Lydia, the sociologist professor in the group, would stand on the side, talking "in-group/outgroup" language" and we'd tell her to stop talking about things from the future that didn't matter to us or that we'd never thought about, and she would ignore us and just talk to the students about being from the "future" looking at the past, using sociological tools to do so. I don't know if this makes sense to describe it, but it worked very well to portray it this way, and was also fun. Like (1) Reply privately Delete

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer I think I understand what you're saying in regards to progression in studying the Indus Valley, and moving through the subcontinent, Richard. When I teach it, it's important to show what comes first, then second, then next. etc. To sit down and discuss it all at once or as a whole with a peer as we are, though, is to recognize the complexity of this subject and acknowledge that once we know the entire sequence of events, and if we are speaking of the entirety, then it is appropriate to speak of the reality of all aspects being of consequence now, in modern day for the Indian scholar and religious practitioner. One example: I sat with one Master. He was typical: very old but hard to tell exactly how old. Serious, but he had the little gleam in his eye that made him look like he might laugh at any moment, especially when one of us asked a question. Did the potential laughter look like it was because we were actually funny, or ridiculous? Hard to say. Just like the original Upanishads.the teacher makes all the difference because interpreta tion is everything. I thought I had a good understanding, and when he started teaching, I was confused: he was not talking about anything I'd read (and I was ready for ANYTHING!) I,m sure I looked confused. He asked me a question, and I answered as best I could. He sent me through a recitation. I answered. He said good. He nodded. I nodded. He went on. I asked a question that basically asked him what he was saying and he said "yes." I asked again, and he nodded. So of course, I remained silent and opened my mind to the lesson. He taught straight from his school, and it was just as has been described throughout time. I sat with another master at another time, and it was pretty much like the first, but his approach was completely different, and so were his teachings. That's what I meant about it depends on the school, which has been true from the beginning. This means that the vedas will be different, depending on how the sutras have been taught. I once asked a philosopher friend of mine how she works the sutras into the philosophy when she teaches Indian philosophy and she says she doesn't worry about sutras, or even think about it. She just looks at Hinduism as "being" and teaching terminology definitionally for understanding. She trains with a yogini in India for 2 months every summer, and I asked, "What about the Yoga sutra" and she said what she always says to me: "You historians!" I guess I'm thinking aloud, about how living history or the practice of history comes together when we are drawing upon the history or aspects of it, understanding how various parts of Indian history and culture have come together to form the whole, and how they are still relevant when we speak of the religious entity that is India. When we try to understand the contemporary Journey that activates the complexity of dharmic choice, and attempt to act in the capacity of advisor to an organization or group, we need to understand what an Indian is wrestling with internally or bringing along as a frame of reference as opposed to someone from another culture. This helps us in the role of consultant to understand what is being said (or not said) when participants come to the table. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Allan L. C., Gail Green like this

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Peter Peter Altomare Independent Research Professional Gabrielle: You lost me. I like history, I like understanding in a factual material way why and how we got here and maybe some possibilities of where we are going. You seem to have a different world view which makes no sense to me. This is from someone who thinks that anthropology, sociology and economics have large unscientific components, and are often illogical, and are used for ulterior purposes. My comment was anchored in known scientific facts. Per: I agree with you- the Vikings traveled and settled far. I am really interested in your thoughts and understanding of what happened to the Greenland settlements- what caused their failure? Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis.

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I will post a thesis under "History" that I hope you will look at. I need to finish another project at the moment. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gabrielle Sutherland likes this

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Hi Peter. One of the problems with a forum like this is we really only have the capacity to comment, so we often get tied up in knots making these short explanations that just don't say it all. The Vikings didn't stay in the western hemisphere, and it makes sense that they didn't. Theirs was not a settling or building-from-scratch type of society. We might look at the Americas and think about the abundance of timber and foodstuffs as the resources available which could = power, but they do not show any pattern of needing either. They were raiders (i viking) for half the year and farmers the other half. Greenland does not offer much in the way of farming, so then we look at how their society gains power, because all societies do. Power comes from resources and the ability to access/utilize them. This means power can come from God(s) in that the ideology that a people's god(s) allows them to think in certain ways or has taught them to think in ways that mean they are smarter or more efficient than other people, or that allows them to be more efficient at winning. As a silly example: A wolverine god would probably empower his people as more ferocious hunters and killers than a domesticated, bunny rabbit god. Water power is essential, but it is more complicated than that because water power helps travel, thirst, farming, irrigation, sailing, shipping, borders, brick making, etc. People power can be as simple as population, but it can also mean alliances or a hereditary warrior class, health, or specific aspects of the people. Geography = power, but what is it for Greenland? As far as why I talk about the different disciplines: Historians often need charts and data. We don't do statistics. Sociologists work on teams as part of their normal course of work because different members of the team do different pieces of the data and positioning. When an historian needs the data, he/she will have to work with a sociologist teams if it doesn't exist. Sociologists are specifically trained to do the -1/1/+1 work that is necessary for accuracy. Anthropologists work on painstaking details in one arena. THis is something different than what an historian does. Let's use the palace at Knossos as an example. When writing about Minoans, or even comparing regions of the Mediterranean or shipping in the Iron Age and Bronze Age..if an historian wants to utilize details of the palace at Knossos, it is likely that he or she will be reading an anthropologist or archaeologist's work. It cannot be a historian's work because we do not have any history for much of what we wish we had; what we have is the Greek version of Minoan life. For anecdotal information, the historian does not use literature, but begins there. Literature is not History. What the writer in history was doing while he wrote, or the reasons underlying his reason for writingor the social structure and context surrounding his writing: that's interesting for history, and gives the histori an anecdotal information. An example of this is Machiavelli. Not only he is misquoted repeatedly, but the fact that he wrote what we in modern day call The Prince, is not History, nor is quoting from it History. His work is Literature. What is History, is knowing the reason for his writing (cover letter and resume for a job), and knowing the context of that. Knowing his circle of friends and how he fit in is essential. Knowing that his other works identify his reputation and how others knew him--and how they understood themselves as a group of humanists. Understanding these pieces is to understand what is History and why we need to wear different hats. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Peter

Peter Altomare Independent Research Professional Gabrielle: If you are saying that all knowledge is the context and prism to see reality and its apprehendable parts, maybe we're on the same page I guess. Maybe. I'm still not sure I grasp your vision. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH OBTW. The last shipment of timber from Vinland to Iceland was 1492 give or take according to a source I forget when or where I read it. Nevertheless, both Columbus and Chabot had traded with Iceland and/or the Scandinavians whose knowledge of the existence of "Vinland" was more than just rumor. It just didn't work out econimcal for the Norse. If they had stuck it our for few more decades, then history might have had a few differne twists. Then again there was Quetzalcoatl Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gail Green likes this

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Barry L. Barry L. Moore Headache Preventative in Most Fields

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Do a search for "Heavener Oklahoma Runestone". Been there, photographed it. It wasn't in 1492, Columbus. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Peter, I very much doubt you would grasp my vision on here :) I would agree with the statement you made though. I think my argument in this thread has been that this is a History Forum, and whether or not one is a professional Historian, it is still important to know the difference between [what is] history; sociology; anthropology; archaeology; etc., and that it is important to understand that MANY are those [scholars] who have gone before. The practice of coming after is referred to standing on the shoulders of giants. Part of being a scholar--professional or amateur or somewhere in-between--is acknowledging the debt. The idea of not needing to follow rules or protocols or ignoring how history works just makes a person look foolish. History, by its nature, is built on a foundation. New rooms, or windows and decorations in old rooms, or even new floors added on top of previous rooms still require the foundation. We can refurbish and shore up the walls, or redecorate, but the foundation remains, and we don't do away with what has gone before. Philosophy and Literature work the same way, which is why these 3 are cardinal. My vehemence has also been directed towards the ridiculousness of anyone interested in history not recognizing that no one can discover someone else.

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That only the indigenous get to claim first rights. That supposing the position of conqueror is not 'doing' history; it is taking and claiming the role of conqueror. ugh. Like (3) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Michael J Moylan, Gordon Fowkes and 1 other like this

Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH I studied history, particularly military history before I enlisted. I found that a careful study of history as a practical guide depended upon a certain acceptance of uncertainty, bad information, and downright deception. One illustration of the uncertainty principle was made clear on the fate of the Union Commander on the left flank (opposite Longstreet) at Second Bull Run. Longstreet swept right over his division and he was relieved of command and it took yearrs after the war to restore the General's honor by his widow. In military intelligence the intelligence one presents to the commander and staff is often the best available at the time. Later, the past shifts and one notes and moves on. Most "scholarly" work these days is like reading a treatise on which of my kids took the cookies. And about as mature. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Michael J Michael J Moylan Consultants to Community Associations and Math Education Curriculum Development To prove who was where first is next to impossible. We can guess we can document certain findings. That gives us an approximate age and time. How can we determine who mingled with whom and when? We can say this is what we know but again that does not mean that there were not other groups before that time that we do not know about. G talks about civilizations and the requirements that are needed to qualify. So it would be fair to say their would be artifacts that support a period in time when they existed in a land. It is hard to document small groups of nomads or call them explorers who were there before. We surmise the Vikings made it to North America's shores and were repelled what we do not know nor can we prove that others may have explored these shores long before them. So were the native Americans the first. We think so but we can not say with all certainty that is fact. Some have a oral tradition of their history but we will never know how that history while it was passed down may have changed among it's own people. We just do not know. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Conclusive proof of the isolation of the American Indians and Hawai'ians is their lack of resistence to Asian diseases transmitted by way ot the Silk Road through the Crimea on Italian ships to Europe

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Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gabrielle Sutherland likes this

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer We actually do follow nomad groups MJM. We chart their graves and grave goods. We name their societies and cultures by periods according to their tools and their level of technology or metal working. We also draw upon archaeology and anthropology in looking at bone structure. As an example, we can tell from bone wear, of someone worked with birds, or stored the cooking pot, planted seeds, and for how long, or also held a baby on a hip, or in a front pack while she worked. We know if they herded or chased reindeer, and the answer to that question tells us much. We know if their dogs were domesticated and the artwork they left behind also tells us a great deal. The smaller the group gets, in some ways it's even easier because then we are looking at campsites and discarded camp sites last forever. Horse trails do too. We might call them by a designated name, not knowing what they called themselves, but we know the migration trails, the trade routes, the mixing, fighting, allying. I think it's an insult when professionals have to study to fly airplanes, qualify to jump by registering a certain number of hours, drive war machinery, memorize all sort of commands, salute each other according to awards and medals they wear on their chests, and train for war, and claim to study history to help with that as if they know things, and then tell professional historians that there is no way a professional historian who studied for decades, qualified with awards and degrees, trained and only gained certification by passing specific tests--can know anything, simply because the amateur doesn't know the answer or never trained for it. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Antonio Calabria likes this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer We actually do follow nomad groups MJM. We chart their graves and grave goods. We name their societies and cultures by periods according to their tools and their level of technology or metal working. We also draw upon archaeology and anthropology in looking at bone structure. As an example, we can tell from bone wear, of someone worked with birds, or stored the cooking pot, planted seeds, and for how long, or also held a baby on a hip, or in a front pack while she worked. We know if they herded or chased reindeer, and the answer to that question tells us much. We know if their dogs were domesticated and the artwork they left behind also tells us a great deal. The smaller the group gets, in some ways it's even easier because then we are looking at campsites and discarded camp sites last forever. Horse trails do too. We might call them by a designated name, not knowing what they called themselves, but we know the migration trails, the trade routes, the mixing, fighting, allying. I think it's an insult when professionals have to study to fly airplanes, qualify to jump by registering a certain number of hours, drive war machinery, memorize all sort of commands, salute each other according to awards and medals they wear on their chests, and train for war, and claim to study history to help with that as if they know things, and then tell professional historians that there is no way a professional historian who studied for decades, qualified with awards and degrees, trained and only gained certification by passing specific tests--can know anything, simply because the amateur doesn't know the answer or never trained for it. Especially when the answers are often so easy, we can --and do-- teach some of them to today's undergraduate history majors. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Antonio Calabria likes this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Richard, The definition of what is history, what is a civilization, what are the pillars of society, etc. None of these are zany. They are simply definitions that we learn in basic History 101 or Sociology 101. It's part of attending college and getting the degree. Basic definitions are essential. The only aspect of civilization in the definition upon which there is disagreement is whether or not a writing system must exist. Well articulated arguments exist on both sides. To be fair to the current situation in the scholastic arena, I inform my students of the debate, so they can decide which way they would decide--once they are informed of the reasons for and against. It is not the case, however, that a person can simply decide for all of history simply because he thinks it's 'zany." Orhe can, but he would be inventing his own language, not understandable to historians or to an historical audience. Why is one of the reasons, why, for instance, we see such awful presentations of history on tv, in commercial bookstores, and in our schools, and very few seem to know the difference! Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis. Polynesians, including Hawaiians, are descended, genetically and linguistically, from one of the aboriginal clans of Taiwan. Their language is a member of the third largest linguistic group (in terms of the number of languages) in the world. From Hawaii to Madagascar, 1500 miles from Taiwan yet only 400 miles from Africa. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gordon Fowkes likes this

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis.

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I was being facetious at that point. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis.

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I was being facetious at that point. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer As far as the individual in the past and where he or she might have been. . . unless he/she left a record, then he/ahw is not part of history. Unless we know about him/her, history does not recognize that individual as existing. That person really doesn't matter as an individual to history. That person matters as an individual because every person has inherent value, but that's not what history is about. history is not the same thing as the past If that individual wrote a biography or a diary, then those words might or might not be relevant to an historian--depending on if the diary has any significance to what the historian is researching or studying; if what the individual wrote matches the experiences of others; if it can be verified, if the life or events in the person's life had any impact on the world around him. Biographies/diaries are literature or less than, and their value comes from what can be culled from their pages. An artifact or piece of evidence that is used to provide answers to the questions of history is only as good as what it reveals. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Academicians study what other academicians write and often go look at the physical evidence in the light of what other academicias have seen. That's called peer review. Unless the academician has exposure to experience outside the walls of academia or out of the range of the ivory towers on campus, the extent is likewise limited by the lack of extra curricular life. A century ago, Eugenics was science. Two centurie ago, bleeding to balance the four humours of the body was science. Marx is still called the first scientific historian within the bursting radius of Marxism sub rosa on campus. Marx so distorted history by disassociating the communes from commerce and re-established the role of the scribes (see Eric Hoffer the UC professor and longshoreman) in the ancient role of the autocratic priests and war kings of ancient civilization before Greece. It normally takes an academic to import extra curricular life for it to be recognized. And there are a few. But not enought to Override History 101. Polysci by comparison has too many former politicians out of office for the moment to let Political Science ossify. Sociology per se is ossified, except for anthropoligal and archeology which as to contend with physical proof. Military Science as taught in military schools (Academies and Schools Systems) are principally for trade craft but absent the connections to off post life and culture, even that of real and presumed allies and enemies. I try to fill the void and, of course, makes me a target for Campus v Camp. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Peter A. likes this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Gordon, what you write bout above is true for every sector of professional life. It's true among the different disciplines of any campus, between departments in a corporation--much less between competing corporations and across the business or scientific world. It is part of the process of capitalism, but it was just as much an essential ingredient to the functioning of previous systems too. The idea that "Knowledge is Power" is often erroneously turned upside down by those who are selfish by nature or whose personality is skewed ...into thinking that they will actually gain power if they are the only ones with knowledge. Philosophers from the time of the pre-socratics have known and taught that nothing if further from the truth, and it also not valid. But personalities and character defects get in the way: mostly hubris. Marx was a philosopher, not a historian. Marxist historians don't practice Marx's philosophy, and the way historians DO history, it's very easy to get around the problems with his philosophy coming from a specific, pre-industrialist context. African Diaspora historians often utilize Marxist History methodology because it's the only way to process what is happening in Africa TODAY and be able to ask the right questions about Africa's history. Some of the history about the early joint stock companies in the jockeying for position between England and Spain can only be explained using Marxist History methodology....in order to uncover what we need to know. It's easy for a back seat driver to make comments and make up his own terminology, but that back seat driver wouldn't even KNOW there was something to comment about without the Marxist historian who did the ground work. Much of the history of the Crusades and the Mediterranean requires following the money, and following the money often requires using Marxist Historical methodology because the records require different investigative processes depending on the time, the generation, the region, whose in charge, etc. You can point fingers at academics, just like any group of people can complain about professionals that frustrate them, but even so, without them they wouldn't have the benefit of the "services" they uncover. As one of the wonderful men who have served our country, I would think you would know that. So many of us feel so grateful for people who have willingly put their lives on the line for our country, for "the world", for the sake of the future, for families, for other citizens they don't even know...... and we also know that there are people who DON'T feel grateful and don't appreciate what you do. There are people who criticize and act as backstreet drivers as if they understand your jobs, your orders, the intricacies and nature of what it is you are required to do. Unfortunately, the bad behavior of a few sheds an unfavorable light on all. Given that fact, I would think that you would understand that it is normal behavior for people everywhere, and that it is frustrating when assumptions are made about a group, a profession, a vocation due to the bad behavior of a few. All academics know who are the few "sell-outs" who use their grad students to do the research and even the writing. We know who are incestuous: pretty much just look in the "peer review journals." We know this. We know which are the VERY FEW ivory towers, and how they are funded. At my previous university there was one position that was completely funded by a family for their son, and he still maintained a full teaching load. He didn't publish, but he was very likable. So what if he made a LOT of money and had a giant office? His family paid for it! If you think about the idea of an ivory tower, you very quickly realize how unlikely it is that there are not many schools that can afford such a thing. Do the math. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Laurence Wyche, Gordon Fowkes like this

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Michelle Michelle Borckardt Director of Family Services at Waco Habitat for Humanity

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This is so interesting! Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gabrielle Sutherland likes this


Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer continued . . . At the university level, not only are all professors required to maintain a research level (which means HANDS ON) but the schools offer grants and an entire department for finding grants. Since professors are required to publish, this can't happen without research, and research can't happen without actual on-site presence. Depending on the area of specialty, that means one has to GO "there." To publish, one needs verifiable documentation, which has to include both a primary and secondary bibliography, first-hand data, anecdotes, interviews, archival records. None of these are attainable by quoting from other scholars (like you see in the academic journals). Every academic department has different requirements to stay hired, be promoted, or receive tenure, although tenure is reducing in overall percentage in order to save money because lecturers--even permanent lecturers--can have a higher teaching load. The requirements for science departments is about receiving grants for research. Some departments accept journal articles (like poli sci and sociology) which makes sense for their type of work. History typically does not, unless it can be proved that it is an article that is part of a larger work. Historians also have to present at least twice a year at recognized conferences, which means being selected by a committee first. Being selected means contributing to the overall body of academic knowledge for original research. It's not always about 'serious' monotonous stuff. As an example of a conference paper: I was part of a group once who presented on humor. It was SO MUCH fun to discover from each other how different groups found laughter amidst ongoing life. I primarily work with Franciscans, and I showed how the Franciscan brothers wove slapstick comedy into some of their songs and poems, and how they performed them. Some of their routines resemble the "Amelia Bedelia" stye--if you know about that, where they lightly poke fun at Francis and it's hilarious. They have an oh-so-serious-Francis given instructions, and then the brother on the receiving end follows his instructions according to Francis' EXACT words, which of course ends in complete chaos! It's too funny. To read it without knowing the 14th ce. Umbrian dialect, or the Latin diacriticals is to miss the humor, but once they are pointed out--then it's obvious. This sounds like just fun, but it's more than that. Research like this is the product of years of work, and it also provides important pieces of the puzzle for others' research. It also has nothing to do with anything mentioned above by you, Gordon. It's just one of the myriad of ways that historians know their subject(s). It's like that phrase "it's all in the flick of the wrist." I don't need you to tell me how you do your job or how you attained the rank you hold in order to believe that you qualify or that you know what you're doing. Someone who knows you in that professional arena said to me "Gordon is one of those guys whose got your back." I believe him simply because he is in THAT world with you, so I believe that he knows. I'm not going to make a judgment about the world in which you are a professional and I am not. Yes, I will complain about those in your profession who DO NOT behave like professionals, but because of those bad people--who are mostly male-- who are bad men that I have witnessed and experienced personally in my work through work in the no-prof arena--and happen to be in your profession, I am not going to claim that all men and women in your profession are like that, are trained like that, are paid to be like that, etc. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer To claim that academics --of all other people-- are somehow divorced from reality, life, and extra-curricular life is very strange. Do you have an idea that our professions and jobs are different than everyone else in the world? We're in a separate category? We don't get paid to do a job and then go home to families, a spouse, children, grand-children? I just got home last night from a week at Disney World with my son and his family (hence only posting at night) and had a great time! My grandchildren are like magnets, and it's fairly difficult to avoid being drawn to them ALL the time! I'm sure many of you on this forum are the same way! On the other hand, my 20-something daughter who lives here in the same city missed me and I missed her! That's part of real life. I'm 50-something, and --believe it or not--I've actually lived a "real" life. My friends in academia have also lived "real" lives. Maybe we've lived more than some because according to our specialty we travel a lot, from the time we're are 20 years old--not as tourists, but as people who live with those we want to understand. Because of our work, we often get involved in the issues of our region, usually through non-proft work. I have spent a large part of my life in genocide work, and done most of it on site. This is where I have seen the atrocities (I don't use this word lightly) committed by military professionals (I know the meaning of that word, too) from the United States. Again, I do not judge every military professional by what I have witnessed AND experienced myself. I think it would be wise for you to do the same, especially as this is an History Forum and not a Military Forum. There is LOTS of complaining, blaming,

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and finger pointing on the Military Forums sponsored by the same owner as this forum--with no moderating; you could do it there, and I'm sure most of the people who read would enjoy it and agree with you :) Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Gabriel, your comment on sell outs is apt and astute. In my study of the Crusade Era, I was surprised some what at the continued influence what is called the "commune" as an active and pervasive political, social and economic actor throughout the Middle Ages (500-1500) give or take. And which continued in various forms ever since. The communes were the driving force in the economic expansion from about the Ninth Century as best as fragmentary records exist can tell. Lorenzo the Magnificent's power was in the Commune, not of hereditary succession. The Italian communes were the technological and financial foundation of higher finance, as protected "globally" (Iceland - Gibraltar - Istanbul - Crimea). Both Christopher Columbus and Chabot were from the Maritime establishments of Genoa and Venice respectively (or the other way around). The role of the Feudal super structure over the Commune commercial and agricultural revolutions more associated with private enterprise is the success story of Western History before the gun drill, gun deck and ship rigged sailing vessels dominated the waves until the Confederate Navy sank the US Merchant Marine. Marx steals the word "communist" to apply to the frustrated third sons sent to the priest hood cum feudal academia, the last remaining institution of feudalism still in operation. It was in the universities derived from church institutions and secularized that account for most of hard science which properly used went to improve the commune. The real communists were traders, artisans, business and manufacturing and still are but left with the insulting epithet that they are bourgeoisie as if they had stolen the value of unleavened creativity of the benches and work tables of the employed. The gradual separation of urban centers from Feudal restriction was due to buying off the useless but heavily armed. In Italy and some parts of the wool trade from Brittany to Riga, the commercial communes (including the Hansa and the Fuggers) advanced human kind from the era of pillage and plunder of war chiefs, to a modern technological society. It is virtually impossible to see the importance of the communes with Marx and his theft of the name and discredit of the commercial. Under the Law of the Inverse Attribution Reflex (L'IAR) aka Brag-Blame Switcheroo common in the emotional and social game systems for social dominance and approbation, Communism is not about the Commune (least important brag) but about protecting the stupid helpless (the Masses) with the from the Evil Bastard who manipulates the Masses to feed the Voracious Villains (The Vanguard of the Proletariat vs the Thieving Commercial). As it so happens to be, the Vanguard becomes the Apparatchik. I learned the dynamics of said theory from personal first hand experience cross checked with un-polluted original sources and contrasted with the emotional and stifling oppression by the modern equivalent of all knowing priests and scribe masquerading as intellectuals, scholars, and their violent counterparts. One cannot see the Middle Ages for what they were through Marxist inverted binoculars. OBTW, Gabriel, nothing personal, as your endeavors to enlighten the ignorant is altruistic. OBTW, also: In the Military you are what your personnel file says your are in accordance as seen from the psychotic irrelevancy algorithm used in military personnel agencies whose predecessors in the Rassenampt, Inquisition, Star Chamber, and the events planners for Mayan and Aztec Blood Sacrifice to improve the fertility index and annual rainfall. The records consist of assignments, schools, and report cards. Medals for bravery, achievement, or exposure do not count. The Medals are a form of public resume to achieve social status with other military personnel. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Peter Peter Altomare

Independent Research Professional Who discovered the Americas? A little off track here? Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Kafa's castle? One of my favorite people in history, Marsilius of Padua said (in 1324) , "The number of the stupid is infinite." and. . he wasn't talking about regular people. He wrote this in his book Defensor Pacis, writing about the need to take the Papacy out of politics. And the people IN politics, out, too! I think we agree, Gordon. In my time in Italy, I've found the commune to be still very much a commune, although recent changes in the economy (EU) has severed a lot of "the ties that bind" simply because the differences that make Italy, "Italy" can't hold on. It makes me sad. Agreed on Marx. What he writes is not usable, but Marxist history is something different. It's just an approach. I'm not a fan, but when it's done well, I can appreciate it. Same with Hegelian history: again, I'm not a fan, but when it's done well . . .I can appreciate it. As a philosophy--I like what some of the younger Hegelian Philosophers are doing, but they have come a LONG way! I totally agree with you on the University system. If Bologna and Perugia had won in the University wars had one instead of Paris and Oxford, we might be looking at a different world. But OHMYGOSH, that would require a trillion other things to have happened too, so there's no way to say. I prefer the world that allows for the religion of Italy instead of France, and blood over property, but both are fraught with greed, avarice, hubris, etc., so it likely would have made no difference at all. And I don't believe in "what ifs?" so there is no use saying anything. oh, btw, on the crusades and commerce--I think the Stupor Mundi is often overlooked as more than pivotal in the equation. He already had contracts and agreements with the so-called enemy, making the Med. a road rather than a battlefield, and for that great accomplishment he was excommunicated, his children were imprisoned for life, and well....we know the end of the story. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Peter, the drift in the argument follows a logical extension of the argument of who says so regarding the history of the Americas to that of any history for the fundamentals of research and analysis are the same for any period. Plus, it's a silly question of no significance save of interest into who would be the first to explore and/or exploit any expansion of human activity on the globe. The difference between the Americas and other Western conquests, was that there was no commercial or conquest reasons to go there until Columbus combined Greed and God to convince Queen Isabella of his new Joint Venture to get to China. All the physical evidence (Viking contact) and navigational prowess (measuring the size of the earth as if it were perfectly roung longitudinal when the proof was latitudinal). The earth bulges slightly due to centripetal forces making a N-S calculatoin smaller than an E_W calculation. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Peter, if we were at a dinner party hosted by the lovely Gail, then I would imagine our conversation would be much like it has been here. By now, our dinner party would have gone well past the cocktails, the appetizers, the meal, and perhaps we're holding our dessert plates and moving around the different rooms, talking to each other. Or maybe only those of us who are enjoying ourselves are still here. Thankfully Gail has opened her doors, and as the gracious hostess that she is, allowed the different conversations to go where they may. I'm so glad she hasn't cracked the whip and forced people to repeat themselves over and over since we do have the ability to back and re-read what has already been said, because then I'm pretty sure everyone would just thank her and go home. The evidence seems clear that as long as someone responds, there is interest. If you want to go back several "days" --just re-ask the question and see if anyone responds. It may be that we've already covered that ground and one thing led to another, to another, to another, and we're all enjoying ourselves? Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer I was thinking the other day--then forgot amidst the juggling and joy of grandkids--about the significance of mercatur maps and the naming of the Americas, and wondering how much that has to do with the emphasis on Columbus? I don't know the answer to this, but it would be an interesting question [to me]. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH

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Amerigo Vespucci discovered that the New World wasn't in China, hence the naming of this New World America by his backers stuck. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Yes of course. What I'm asking is something else. My question is about the giant leap forward w/ mercatur maps. Much of what is chosen as significant in History qua History is often surrounded by or next to a leap forward in technology, weaponry, invention, etc. and

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looking at THAT gives us "real" answers. Following that trail with mercatur maps in the study of European history has proven valuable, and I wonder where that same trail has led for the Americas, esp. given that we even have the naming of continents involved. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Michael J Michael J Moylan Consultants to Community Associations and Math Education Curriculum Development Sorry for the delay it Christmas Holiday and a huge revenue week for those of us in the vacation rental realm. To balance family work and my post is always a interesting event. So I go way back on G's post. Which I caused a stir I did not say that historians do not know about nomads what I said is we do not know about all of them. Yes some leave foot prints in the sand. That is not always true. Gordon my friend knows that many of us that march on know we make efforts to leave no trace behind. Not that the nomads were concerned about this but their were others who wiped out what they did not want to be known. Part of the Greek thing and the Gods. That was history it was written. What of that written history is true or myth. Can we prove it? I never questioned my dear friend the field you follow My point was we can never be sure on some events in time. One of the reasons I no longer do the honor the badge is I knew it was false. Those of us in the field did not get what we deserved it went to the REMFS.. So it is with the study of history. I have said this before and I will say this again I am a student not a historian. So let me try this again with a fear I just dig a bigger hole. There are things we do not know. There are things we think we know however it may not be fact. We cannot at all times be sure what is and is not fact. OK so we know where camps were what we can not say they were the only ones. We can study bones or fire pits what we can not say they are the only ones. Oral history of the ancients. There is physical evidence these folks were there. We have evidence of that, however we do not always know if it was the same story from day one. We have evidence that proves some of it to be true but we do not know what was omitted. Southwest America has a great story. Hell G you wanted to dress me in a skirt so I could spend time to hear the stories . My point is we claim history is what we know . You have made the point that historians are good at that. Get it My point is what do we not know? I am the student you are my teacher but I do not have to agree with you. Last time I checked it is what learning is always about. Question convention learn from you mistakes then move on. I can tell you I have moved thru lands where ever effort was to leave no trace behind. Does it work? Only time will tell. So to the key question you discovered? Who was the first person or group who walked this land.

Was it discovered? I guess the question where did man begin? Why could it not be that all of these places had some sort of intelligent being from day one . This planet has been blasted by space objects. We had big beast that roamed the earth. We can guess when they died so how much rock do we blow up to prove what really happen .

Life is a travel in time thank God for those who travel in the past. They teach us what they know. That is my point it is what we do not know that drives us to learn more and question those who tell us they know. So who discovered I say no one. Why ? Because we did not know we were the first ones we were the nomads the lookers for a more fertile place to live. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer The more you write, the more I believe that time in a skirt would do you the world of good, MJM. Here's what I think you don't understand about History--that it is separate from the past. History happened in the past, but it's not the same thing. If no one has ever asked the question or wondered about a certain subject; or if a record of or evidence of a certain thing was not left behind: it is NOT History. It is only history when someone reaches backwards in time to uncover it, and it is brought forward or out into the light of day to be examined. Whatever has been uncovered, also has to hold up to scrutiny. It has to matter. History is about following a trail. You referred to those who don't leave a trail. Obviously this has been the goal of many groups throughout time. In doing the work of history, however, we wouldn't know to look for someone like this unless we were looking backwards, which means that we already know they exist. This is not the same thing as being a village in real time, being attacked. If we are studying Ancient China, for example, and are going to follow the trail to find out who the "Horse People" are, then we already know they exist, so we can begin to figure out how they appeared "out of nowhere." The secret raiders in history are not secret to us, in the future.The nomads are not invisible to us either, because we know they attacked. We know what comes after, and after that. Even more so, we have other disciplines and modern technology to draw upon. If no one has asked the question about "them" (whomever) then it does not matter. If it doesn't matter and has never mattered, then it's not history. Similar to Laurence's statement, Ed Car says of What is History: "Our answer, consciously or unconsciously, reflects our own position in time, and forms part of our answer to the broader question, what view we take of the society in which we live." Again, it's not the same as "what is the past." That's why it's also not "What is true/True or truth/Truth." To answer your comment about gods and myth, H. Broch, eminent historian and classicist wrote: "For myth is the first emanation of the Logos in the human mind, in the human language; and never could the human mind or its language have conceived the Logos, had not the conception been already formed in the myth. Myth is the archetype of every phenomenal cognition of which the human mind is capable." I fully agree with him. Personally, I've traced writings, songs and ideas of specific gods to the 7th ce. BCE. Apollo is among them and looks like, sounds like and teaches the same things he teaches and says what he says in the 2nd ce. BCE. He's the same as in the myths. Ra is his counterpart in Egypt and he has the same personality and requirements of his people. This is probably a good thing (the continuity) since he/they controls the movement of the sun, which is why his mother called him "Great". Whatever we want to call her: Ishtar, Istarte, Ashtarte, Bona Matre, Ceres, Demeter, Isis, etc., she is older than Apollo, and she stays the same, as do her rituals and requirements. This is a good thing since it is through her that the Earth receives abundance. These are just a couple of these gods. There are many more that remain the same, and for those who do not, what is that point? I dont' know what kind of answer you are looking for, but historians don't "go" to the past and look around for something. Historians ask a question, find the trail, then follow it backwards. Historians don't "do" dinosaurs or geological studies, so the blasting away of the Earth is not the issue. Historians look at the relationships of and the lives of human beings. To say "we don't know" due to our personal knowledge is to speak for our self--so it would be appropriate to say "I don't know" and not "we" or "we can never know." Lastly, not everyone who has lived on the Earth were nomads or migrants. I think that's the point here. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Laurence Wyche, Gordon Fowkes like this

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Peter Peter Altomare Independent Research Professional This discussion has turned tangential to the original question. There is a set of disputes regarding when and how the Americas were "discovered" and how humans spread out and settled the Americas and their impact. That has not really been addressed here. As for the nature of "History", what is it? It is a completely contextual process of integrating all our collective experiences- cultural, intellectual, scientific, economic and so forth to understand and grasp reality. I happily confess to being a materialist, not an idealist. I also confess to seeing "History" as the point at which we can understand our place in a probably multi-universe cosmos (see a history of physics, Newton to Ed Witten and others). Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Philip Philip Carroll Reading, Writing, History, Self-employed Top Contributor So, Columbus discovered America, and all of the people here in it. However, Columbus was a 15th Century European, when Europe was totally provincial and arrogant in its way; which makes him a nobody; a bigger nobody than Hitler, or Christ. And we are totally provincial and arrogant in a different, 21st century way. And so, we are too politically stifled to come out and admit what we know? Columbus discovered America. That is easy enough to say, and to know its limitations, and its meaning. So, merry christmas, happy holidays, coexist, say a prayer for the Indian boy and girl, ten thousand or so years ago, whose most beautiful poetry ever known to man or womankind was lost in a lost language to a conqueror. And say a prayer, or imagine a poem to ourselves, for the loss, leaving us wandering from a Eurocentric nightmare into the dawn of a new year. Happy new year. Coexist. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Peter A. likes this

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Barry L. Barry L. Moore Headache Preventative in Most Fields

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Y'all might consider that America was first discovered by the Monolith, ala Kubrick's "2001", and the altered simian race they created has since devolved. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Peter A., Gordon Fowkes like this

Philip

Philip Carroll Reading, Writing, History, Self-employed Top Contributor The Monolith is like the Moonies discovered America. Hare hare, krishna krishna. And Peter Fonda discovered America, Jack Nicholson, sleazy rider, et al. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Barry L. Barry L. Moore Headache Preventative in Most Fields And, Mr. Carroll, you might discover that I have a very odd sense of humor. One supposes we can't all be simians, though, at least those of us who can read, write, and be self-employed. ;^) Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gail Green likes this

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Peter Peter Altomare Independent Research Professional Who "discovered America" ? So much to consider and no real discussion of the question. Just thoughts on my part- does anyone really care about the question? Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH

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It was a loaded question with the correct answer pre-coded Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Joseph M Joseph M Crews, PhD Registered Architect / Project Manager

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Plenty of people have discovered America. Columbus was paid to find a route to Asia, and when he didn't he had to sell Ferdinand and Isabella on what he found instead. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Brian Brian Litster MLIS Curriculum Developer at Graduation Alliance I would agree, which group of people discovered America. There were many groups wandering around who discovered America. Should it be based on who brought it to the knowledge of the "known world", i.e., where large populations of people lived? Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Ian L. likes this

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis.

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I know who discovered America! Americans! Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Eddie Eddie Manuel Grantham University: Online United States History Professor

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The Native Americans crossed the Bering Strait and come to America. When you think of it the Native Americans are Asians. What does that tell you! Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Stef Denys KTJ likes this

Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Columbus only sailed the ocean blue to a place he "knew" was already there according to a seriously incorrect estimate of the size of the earth. When he got "there" he didn't know that here wasn't the real there. So the "discovery" of America went to Amerigo Vespucci who discovered that "there" was a totally knew "there".

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The significance of Vespucci and Columbus was that they were from rival Italian maritime empires (Venice and Genoa) who had lost thier cookie jar in the Black Sea when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1542. And in addition, the Mameluks destroyed any fortifications of some ports and the ports themselves in order to ensure that the Silks and Spices went through Cairo and Alexandria. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Stef Denys KTJ likes this

Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis.

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There is some debate about what constitutes an Asian. Is everyone East of Istanbul Asian? Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Joseph M Joseph M Crews, PhD Registered Architect / Project Manager Brian - The Scandinavians (to include the Orkney Islanders) knew about the New World for a long time before Columbus, but they simply didn't share the information with the rest of the world. (The same is probably true of many other cultures.) The Scandinavian colonies in Greenland died out about the same time that Columbus started his journey. The difference with Columbus, was that the Spanish Crown had the economic incentive to exploit his "discovery." Like (3) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago John Francis, Gordon Fowkes and 1 other like this

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Stef Stef Denys KTJ Company Owner at Phoenix Consultancy Flanders let's face the facts, the American continent did have inhabitants before the Europeans arrived. so to talk about a discovery has a flair of arrogance. Recent DNA analysis has proven that the first inhabitants made it over a land or ice bridge from Asia. Next fact that pops up is North African Pottery in Brazil, predating Roman times, and mais, tobacco and cocain traces in Egyptian mummies, Then a long period of archeological silence till the Vikings pop up in the 8th and 9th century. Even if there were no permanent settlements prior to Portugese and Spanish conquests other than viking, the continent was visited by Transatlantic people. It was, in my opinion, a well kept secret. A merchant will not reveal his source out of fear the competition will take over his business. A lot remains to be discovered , but a lot already was, but is being shunned by academics, for not having to rewrite their so called factual history which has been disproven by evidence and facts, thus the academic elite are corrupting science and history as such. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Michael Michael Box Pointbreak Adventure Store Fribourg, Switzerland. manager. I've read how the Chinese were already out and about discovering many places we call the west today. And I do believe that the Vikings were already on North American soil well before any one else. Let's not forget that the remans of a Western man was found on the Columbus River between Oregon and Washington that dated around 25,000 years old.. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin.

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There are a large number of American Tribe's that dispute the Bering Strait THEORY!! And, that is just what it is - a THEORY! Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Michael B., Gabrielle Sutherland like this

Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Pythagoras (570-495 BC) developed the Pythagorean Theorum, still used today. But it is only a Theory. Einstein's Theory of Relavity is also just a THEORY, so the inhabitants of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were duped by someone else's THEORY that it was all done in a Hollywood Studio controlled by Liberals and Democrats. On the other hand, some theories was expounded falsely as "Laws" such as: Avogadro's law states that, "equal volumes of all gases, at the same temperature and pressure, have the same number of molecules".For a given mass of an ideal gas, the volume and amount (moles) of the gas are directly proportional if the temperature and pressure are constant Worse, a theorist named Newton wrote a bunch of Laws that are really just Theories in the same vein as Einstein and Pythagorus: Newton's law of universal gravitation which are dependant upon the use of the number zero (0) which was an Islamic import smuggled into France to "sap and indemnify the purity and essece of our bodily fluids". (Ripper in Dr Strangelove"). The roots of Sharia are embedded in the body academic. Since President Obama became the tool of Islam, Liberalism, Bilderberg, Trilateral, and the Big Banks, it is clear that the Ode to Horst Vessel's sacrifice in the battles against Reaction (High Finance) and the Red Front fits nicely in the anti-theory theory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWizLfM1L3E Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Stef Stef Denys KTJ Company Owner at Phoenix Consultancy Flanders

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http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2014/01/searching-amazons-hidden-civilizations Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Richard Rankin, Gabrielle Sutherland like this

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Donna, you are in good company in your exasperation. Those who follow the human condition, who participate in a community with living traditions, who interact with people as if they are indeed individuals with lives of inherent value and unique stories to offer to the world, and who listen to what others say without oneupmanship, or falling back on what they learned in elementary school as if that has value in the adult world are those who are mature and welcome in adult conversations. People who understand this at the interpersonal, ordinary level in the present, bring that to the study of History (Shockingly: the topic of THIS forum) As we know, the current proposition in Historical studies of all kinds is the idea that History is about PEOPLE leading real lives. This means we read each primary source as an individual primary source coming from A single person who is a product of AN environment and context, which does not derive from us. We did not invent it, and that person in history did not live for us or for our benefit. We do not get to say--in our language--what that person felt or wanted. We do not put their lives into OUR models or our weird opinions of dysfunctional existence in order to prove something. That is not what History does. If we want to rant and rave, then we can blog all we want and attract a following in the normal way.....but we cannot call black, white and then INSIST others agree. History encompasses the desire is to uncover and understand the what and the how. We already know the when. Maybe, we can help the person from a previous time speak to the "why." Multiple voices will have multiple "whys". We don't get to tell the people in the past uncover OUR TIME. It doesn't work that way. It is fallacious, ridiculous, and obnoxious. We do not get to speak for others in our contemporary and personal life lest we lose our families and friends. We do not speak for others in modern life, lest we be labeled an idiot, intrusive, oppressive, and abusive. We do not get to speak for others in the past, lest we be labeled an idiot, uneducated, uninformed, intrusive, oppressive, prejudiced, and abusive. If we are not Indigenous American, then we DO NOT get to speak for the Indigenous American. Men do not get to speak for women. White people or those in the majority do not get to speak for people of color or those who are oppressed. Why is that? Because we do not know how, and because we have no idea what to say. To speak for the oppressed is to continue the oppression. Since we know better, it is to reveal ourselves as idiots, uneducated, uncaring, abusive and what the ancient Greeks called "unhuman" (not a member of the community). In history, we don't get to say we are "doing" history if we continue to oppress. The days of being "oppressors" in history are over. The continued insistence by the many on this forum that this is proper history, is embarrassing. You only reveal yourself as an oppressor and an abuser. You don't convince anyone who actually participates in the practice of history, that it's OK to be an oppressor or an abuser in the past or in the present--you are just amping up the power on your NEON identification: oppressor. No one --but another oppressor-- will agree with you. It is NEVER OK to be an oppressor. To continue to protest that we can speak for the oppressed is merely to reveal ourselves as oppressors and abusers. To reveal our selves as abusers and not "get it" is very strange. It is LONG past time and we probably should just. shut. up. If you find yourself in the scary position of being in the category of oppressor: just be quiet. Listen for awhile. It might feel good to finally "get it." If you don't "get it." At least you will stop abusing other people, and that would be a nice relief. Like (3) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Laurence Wyche, Gordon Fowkes and 1 other like this

Barry L. Barry L. Moore Headache Preventative in Most Fields In keeping with the spirit of the thread, have a look at the following book: "In Plain Sight: Old World Records In Ancient America", by Gloria Farley. There's a wealth of information in it, collected over a lifetime, on who "perhaps" discovered America. Evidence, not theories. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Stef, that's an interesting report. Do you know anything more about it? I notice the only detractor listed is not bashing the study, but just a criticism that supports the logical notion that different parts of the Amazon basin utilize different agricultural practices. Obviously, it's early days, and I wonder if there are comparison studies. This is pretty cool. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis.

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Stef, is there any indication of genetic difference? Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis. Interesting Stef. As a young man I spent a good deal of time in South America and the surrounding islands. I spent two years on an island off the coast of Venezuela with no potable water, i.e. the proverbial desert island with only desalinated seawater. I had crates of books shipped in and engaged in a race to see who would devour them first; me or the insects. There I learned Papiamentu, a creole derived from African, Portuguese, Spanish, English, Dutch and the native languages. Saber and concur had been transformed from "knowing" and "being acquainted with", to "concerning oneself with". Using the English-derived word "ting"(thing), I frequently heard the saying "Me no sa, me no sa, me no ting conez.", which roughly translated means " don't know, I don't know, I don't care." Spelling in Papiamentu is not standardized and written roughly uses English phonetics. Also, the Andes and the Amazon Basin,. On the Eastern Slopes I could watch the weather coming up from the Amazon Basin: one could look down the slopes and see rain coming up. It's jungle further up on the Eastern slopes because the weather comes up from the Amazon. The western coast is desert. There it never rains and plants grow only in fog banks with the morning mist. There I picked up some Quechua. The word for mountain "picchu" as in

Machu Picchu is remarkably similar to "pihchay" - "to chew coca". It's speculated that the lump in a man's cheek when chewing coca resembles a mountain. I am one of the few to have taken an overnight steamship trip at 12,000 feet across Lake Titicaca in the British built steamer Ollanta. The international airport in La Paz Bolivia, "El Alto", sits at 14,000 feet looking down on La Paz. Up above La Paz on the mountain Ilimani is a complete Eastern Airlines DC-9 with passengers and crew sans black box. Until just before I left in 1983 an arms dealer by the name of Klaus Altmann previously under the protection of Bolivia's dictators was arrested by a sudden democratic government after 151 revolutions in 150 years. He had been living in protection there since the Second World War when he was SS-Hauptsturmfhrer Klaus Barbie, a member of the Gestapo known as "the Butcher of Lyon". He was returned to France to be tried for war crimes after 40 years as an employee of the CIA. He claimed to have directed the assassination of Che Guevara . But I digress. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gordon Fowkes, Gabrielle Sutherland like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer This report/study is exciting. I've been thinking about it for the last couple hours....and how much more we understand as we begin to learn about all the many "other" people groups on continents and figure out how they communicated with each other, what they traded, built, etc. I'm thinking about the different sailing patterns between China and India vs. land routes, and how long it took us to even know we COULD study such a thing as one example. Also, about the movement of say, just Bantu on the African continent, and how complex that is, and how much more we need to know and how people and geography go together in order to understand. It's mind boggling. What we have yet to learn about the Americas is crazy! I would LOVE to hear more digression, Richard. It's sounds like a wonderful experience. btw, my favorite word in Latin = "res" Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gordon Fowkes likes this

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Implied within the word "discover" one presumes that something is discovered when it is reported to others. Otherwise, just going there and staying does not provide the place left with a new discovered place to go to. Or not.

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In a message dated 1/8/2014 1:28:02 P.M. Central Standard Time, Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago


Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH History is as historians say it is. Historians are who historians claim they are. All without a tangential reference to something tactile or physical for which no definition exists.

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In a message dated 1/8/2014 1:27:42 P.M. Central Standard Time, Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Peter Peter Hogan -This discussion has been marvelous, sometimes painful, occassionally leaving me in the dust, but ultimately quite enlightening (from an histrorical and psychological perspective). As a student of history and biology, I've come to accept certain accounts as more reasonable than others. I had a teacher in high school who always said, "Define your terms." It seems appropriate here, as well. It was certainly no one from the European continent who "first discovered" America. Credit for that 9I belive) goes to the Asians, who crossed the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska long before recorded history began (accounts differ as to when exactly...Clovis and all that). So we might more appropriately ask who visited America from Europe, and who colonized America. The answers to those questions would seem to include Irish monks (much less plausibly, but I'm half Irish, so I'm tossing them in) and Vikings in the first instance, and Spanish and later other Europeans in the second. Some might accuse me of being squeamish, or disingenuous, in not using the word "invaded" to describe what the Spanish did. And that's true for the English settlers of North America, as well. While the woodland peoples of the northeast Atlantic coast and interior (today's New England) may not have had a sense of a polity that controlled and claimed sovereignty over territory, the Powhatans of the mid-Atlantic and Chesapeake region most certainly did. Many Republicans in Congress today, could they be transported back in time to advise the Powhatan rulers in the early 1600s, would surely have advised them that they needed a stronger immigration policy. A fascinating question to me, going back to the "who discovered" issue, is who had the staying power and why. Those Asians did. The Spanish and others did. Why not the Scandinavians? Those Irish monks (sorry, again) may truly have had no interest. For me, Jared Diamond makes the best case as to why. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago John Francis likes this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Diamond's book is interesting. It's a popular read, and his website is better than his book. As far as "History" goes...he's not an historian and doesn't use historical methodology. He is a scientist, so many of his conclusions are based on scientific thoughts --which is completely valid, BUT, what he presents is a book on Science, not history. He throws in the "GUns and the Steel" but he uses the same methods for investigating "Germs" as he does for the Guns and the Steel, and it is not a valid presentation because he treets the subject as a compartmentalized, universal subject. That works for high school history, wherein we MIGHT look at history as a universal subject (thank heavens my high school history teachers did not do this, but offered me REAL history)

with topics categorized under umbrellas in order to meet the needs of a PBS series or the curriculum designed by state governments for testing purposes. "REAL" history doesn't happen according to universal strictures, guidelines, or umbrellas. "Guns" and "Steel" are modern terms that allow someone to present a series of lectures, but don't give an overall understanding of what people did --- it offers a timeline. As long as we continue to think of robotic style timelines of History we will be stuck in a false sense of that first 'style' of "'doing" history that I mentioned on another thread: What is History? The reason this is a problem is that we don't live that way. Or, if we do, it's a sad statement on life. Or.....if people in the future look back on us and the way we are teaching History and discussing history, then get confused and think that this is how we think of "life"--how sad is that? Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Over the recent Holidays I visited my oldest son and his family. One of my lovely "Gramma" duties was to keep Scott (the toddler) with me on the sidelines while the others engaged in activities for taller people. Besides the fun of one-on-one time with Scott, I enjoyed meeting a variety of people. One of these was a young German woman who had recently finished her internship in Cultural Anthropology, who was on her way to report to a professor then resume her [first] job at a non-prof in Germany. What she told me is relevant to this discussion. She spoke of African children she worked with who, due to colonization and "Empire-thinking" are taught from a young age in school that they are "French." They have no concept of their heritage, of their environment, centuries of actual history, or any valid identity. The schism between who/what they are as people negotiating in a real world is a tragedy that we recognize very well. We disclaim the colonialism by Europe of Africa, deny the ongoing destruction to Africa by American history and the current cultural rape by commercialism due to Disney et al. As always, I was encouraged to speak with a young scholar engaged in the world, who is actively knowing and doing something worthwhile. This gives me hope--not only that she had good teachers who cared enough to reach her, but also that she listened, and then went and discovered for herself. I have had numerous--more than I can count--students who have done the same. They have answered the call: instead of sitting still or placing their heads in the sand, they have dropped former plans to enter the rat race, but instead gone out into the world to seek solutions to the human condition. She and I continued to talk. She told me about the job she began this year, where she teaches school children about their heritage as "Germans" which is not a universal, collective entity. Germans came from all sorts of places now and from "the beginning" whenever that was. There is beauty and wealth in acknowledging the depth of what IS a people. It is more than knowing the difference between Bavarian and Bohemian. It is recognizing that what was reported by EMPIRE as "barbarians" in some sort of monolithic umbrella description in order to justify "Empire"...and learn they were actually different tribes with their own histories, traditions, names, values, mores, ideas, and contributions to the future. More importantly, when they "first" lived in what would become Germany, they considered themselves PEOPLE just like other People. They did not live to serve a storyline for some other group of people in an unknown future. THEIR descendants mattered, and their descendants deserve to know about them. In actuality, the DNA of everyone is mixed up together in various ways, and "Germany" will be richer for acknowledging the entire gene pool. In the Americas, we will be richer when we acknowledge who was here when others arrived and LISTEN to their story as valid and real. Conquering / dominating does not negate the reality that came before or change it. When we teach about Alexander the Great, the way we explain Cosmopolitanism is to reveal the travel experience. It's not so important that he and his soldiers went and conquered people. What's important (because it is what allowed us to know about it), is that people traveled back and forth in increasing numbers, talking to and about each other. Men brought presents home to their wives or mothers, and then others wanted something similar. Relationships based on business and friendship resulted, which necessitated cultural sharing. It became normal over time. Goods don't travel by themselves; people transport them for a wide range of reasons, and those reasons are the stuff of history. Knowing 'how' it happened is important to each group of people, wherever they are, in order to understand who they are. We are not who or what we are without understanding all the others who live around us. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Laurence Wyche likes this

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Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin. One of the reasons that "us indigenous" people may sound hostile is because we were left out of the USA history books for so long. We did not fit into this country's idea of "progress" and were considered "obstacles" instead of "people" who needed to be dealt with in a honorable manner. I think, initially, the idea of treaties was considered the answer but as more and more immigrants moved here, it didn't take long for the increase in immigrants numbers over ruled the idea of diplomacy and honor to just become "conquest" and justifying the theft of land and resources while a "do what we say or die" philosophy took over completely. As noted Indian comedian, Charles Hill said, "the idea of an Indian comedian may be new, but us Indians didn't think white people were funny either." Like (3) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Laurence Wyche, Gabrielle Sutherland and 1 other like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer wow--the interplay between comedy and tragedy, right? One of the best contemporary news items--as far as "civilization" goes seems to be that the only piece of monumental art/architecture being undertaken in the USA is the Sioux carving in South Dakota. Thinking like a historian, I would say this is good news and indicative of the future, but that means nothing since historian's tools don't really look at the future. What are your thoughts on it, Donna? Perhaps the biggest problem with textbooks is this idea that they can teach anything, rather than provide a tertiary tool for a teacher to utilize. The Pearson debacle in NY ought to be an indicator to this reality, but instead the "answer" is to throw more money at Pearson et al., rather than to re-think the model. I shake my head--along with everyone else--at this idea that including snippets from primary sources does anything unless there is actual knowledge linked to critical thinking being taught in the classroom, along with the desire to know and understand. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Mike Mertaliya likes this

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH The point that seems to arise as if a fantasm restoring the Aztecs to full power and restore the sacred human sacrifices meted out to prisoners of war, and as those who lost the life lottery. Curiously, the human sacrifices don't make it into Diego Garcia's murals that one finds in Mexico City or Queretaro. One of the reasons the Aztecs fell was that the native "Mexican" tribes under Aztec control revolted and made up the bulk of Cortez's Army. When the sickness hit and wiped out millions, the natives noticed that the Spanish did not get the sicknesses (immune) so the logical step was for Mexican women to mingle with the Spanish and the Spanish gene pool on a map fits the description for biological warfare. One tribute king near Mexico arranged for his daughter to many the emperor. After some time, he heard nothing from her and requested the Aztec what happened. The Aztec showed up at the father's residence wearing her skin. The Catholic priests burned all trace of that evil culture which deny's the present from vomiting over the past. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Stef Denys KTJ, Mike Mertaliya like this

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Mike Mike Mertaliya Vice President at Nextime Conservation Corporation (NCC) Yes sir Gordon Fowkes, you present excellent facts. Additionally the Aztecs were not completely ancient either. Such a murderous civilization could not persist for several thousand years. It is thought that the Aztec empire started around 1200 A.D and ended around 1521. Actually the Aztec were a primitive race and did not build many of the temples and Pyramids, such as Xochicalco and Teotihuacn. Might I add, in my humble opinion, the Spanish, although very brutal as well, rescued the people from their horrible plight. Like (3) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gordon Fowkes, Stef Denys KTJ and 1 other like this

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Stef Stef Denys KTJ Company Owner at Phoenix Consultancy Flanders

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http://westerndigs.org/11000-year-old-seafaring-indian-sites-discovered-on-california-island/ Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago John Francis likes this

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer There is no distinct cultural group in the history of the world that did not practice human sacrifice. There is no religious practice that does not derive--at its roots--from the same.The Christ mythology (true/True or not is seeped in blood sacrifice), and everywhere catholic missionaries arrived and met with sacrificial practiced, synchronization was made easier due to the catholic tradition of ritualized drinking blood. Those to whom this matters due to their own tender Christian feelings, probably do not want to tread into this territory. This mentioning is ethnocentric, an inaccurate use of history and has no bearing on this discussion Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Mike Mertaliya likes this

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Stef Stef Denys KTJ Company Owner at Phoenix Consultancy Flanders http://westerndigs.org/oldest-human-footprints-in-north-america-identified/

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH The Spanish were horrified by the scale of the mass human sacrifices and given that the standard of torture under the Inquisition operant at the time, goes to a matter of degree beyond the range of normal barbaric standards of the Eurasian and African continents. The degree to which the Papacy dealt with this issues was to authorize the complete destruction of Aztec writings. There are many behaviors found universally that are hard to figure what the original functions were. Running and chasing games like Rugby, Basket Ball, Soccer and hide and seek suggest hunting behavior. Cricket and Baseball are hitting and seeking. American Football resembles the Phalanx. Play often has a grisly past. The American High school and its equivalents elsewhere are a summation and replication of the structures and activities of ancient civilizations. Battles in primitive society required cheerleaders and champions,, upgraded to Fertile Crescent standards involves marching bands, and even the contest for King and Queen of the Ball. It is true that human sacrifice including voluntary is found at the base of many civilizations. The Holy Eucharist is a vestigal remain of an ancient tradition going even before Abraham. I find it amusing that the Christian faith worships an execution. What if Jesus had been hanged by the neck until dead? That is why my own faith looks for the Real Jesus and His Teachings obscured by dogma written after he died. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Philip Carroll likes this

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Laurence Laurence Wyche Chair of Unlikely History, University for Sale 'The Real Jesus and His Teachings obscured by dogma written after he died'. A very interesting statement, Gordon, but not for discussion here. Perhaps you could add some links to help explain this. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gabrielle Sutherland likes this

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Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin. Since none of you were "there" to see what the Aztecs truly did - it would be more believable if you changed your wording to "The Spanish wrote this" or "the Spanish wrote that" - since the Spanish did write to their own advantage and a lot of what they wrote was to dehumanize the very people they were murdering. I tend to think that if there was any human sacrifices going on - it was "begun" by the Spanish to either intimidate or murder the indigenous people they encountered. Also, none of the indigenous cultures of North or South America needed "rescuing" from any of the European invaders.

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Keith Keith Borgholthaus Sales Associate at Game Center I once saw that a woman was researching Aztec pictures and history next to me at a computer lab. I asked her about it, and mentioned that I enjoyed studying Native American culture. "I'm not Native American," said the woman, "I'm Aztec." In a similar vein, a comedian I enjoy tells the story of when his sister -who was adopted from Africa- was asked to speak her language to the class. She spoke in the best French she knew, and the teacher kept asking her for her 'real' language. A friend from Togo tells the story of sitting at a fire as his elders explained their culture to him. It was in French. It gets even more stranger when we deal with my friend Ken, who was born and raised South African. He cheered the release of Madiba, and will go on long lectures about how amazing his country is. Ken speaks Afrikaans just as easily as he speaks English. It's true, when he was born, his color meant he was treated very differently than others, but that has changed a great deal, and continues to change. There is a weird process in our minds, and I am only just now starting to realize it exists, that takes a human being and places them as 'normal' or 'other'. To win wars, we often have to use this process to promote killing of the enemy. It also works within intercultural times. I have been asked several times about tee pees in the Navajo Rez. The reality is that it is a stereotype that comes from the Sioux. The otherfication -I also call it zombification- happens to anyone. It has a stereotype built up for a group, and then that this stereotype is negative. It also allows the writer to take a culture, and apply the stereotypes en mass to whole peoples. For example, the Polynesians 'did not exist' until they were 'discovered'. There is plenty of archaeological, spoken historical evidence that disproves this, but every history book I find marks the Polynesians as unfound. It gets even weirder, Polynesian is a made up word. The Pacific islands has many different groups, and the Polynesians are the ones marked 'most white'. So a poly gets more respectful treatment than a Melanesian. Back to the Aztecs. Within Hispanic culture, an Aztec is more 'civilized' than any other tribal group. There were other tribes like this who the Spanish Conquistadors thought of very highly. In fact, the Aztecs tend to get more respect than any other tribe I know of in Mexico. You don't see Guateni or Golatl signs on coins in Mexico. (I think I misspelled the name of the tribes, so please forgive that). This entire discussion is not about Columbus, or even the settlements of the immigrant groups that arrived in the Americas. If you study the histories, you find out that most of the settlements lost, and lost often, to the native tribes. The immigrants tried to fill voids in whatever group they could. Eventually this meant holding a dominance over a tribe, and an area. The way we tell the story today of Columbus, and even the conquistadors is that of dominance happening right at first. The white settlers arrived, and were praised as gods. We know this because Spanish missionaries asked dominated tribes about it after the fact. As the tribes begin to find their cultures again, which is something to be praised, there are questions that need to be asked. How do you talk about the cultural dominance that happened? How do you include the people who descended from those dominant groups? How do you take your old cultural ways, and adapt them to today? It's not an easy thing, and has a lot of thorny issues ahead. I can tell you this, I know a lot of people who don't get business degrees because they are brown. That is literally their explanation. My friends do not think they will be allowed to be businessmen because of the color of their skin. I bring this up, because I think the questions being asked isn't, "how does Columbus fit into history?" and more on how do we include the other groups? Like (3) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Mike Mertaliya, Gabrielle Sutherland and 1 other like this

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Among MANY examples, but one that would be most accessible to Gordon and others on this forum is Suetonius who uses formulaic language to denounce enemies of Rome.When we (Classicists or Latinists or other Scholars of Ancient literature) read various works that come after Suetonius we recognize his voice for many centuries, as various authorities write of their horror. I can think of any "evil" group that doesn't drink blood in some fashion or another. Killing babies or doing something abominable with babies is usually on the list; weird sex acts is usual part of the list, and pigs, goats, and chicken are interchangeable. The swearing of oaths, the use of altars, the description of the dancing, the way the arms of the p riests are positioned.it's formulaic language. We are very used to formulaic language, and it's not just for the sacrifice of virgins, of enemies, of other people's gods, of children, for good weather, etc. We also know how to recognize formulaic language for various legal documents, entreaties for weather, blessings for crops, traveling songs, beer drinking refrainsOH MY! the list is so long. In the ancient world, these formulas were not meant to be hidden, but were used on purpose partly because there wasn't a printing press, and partly because of the power of words, and for other reasons too. The use of these words is meant to carry the full force of everyone who has ever said them before and to carry that particular weight. Whose formula one uses matters, and scholars or learned people are expected to know. If you read E.D. Hirsch, a modern scholar, he bemoans the fact that somewhere in the 20th century, educated people forgot this same practice, and we no longer have this great arsenal of known literary works in the codex of our minds. AT LEAST many don't. THose of us who have studied the classics and qualified before committees DO. We would not have passed our boards if we did not. When we read these litanies expressed by the Spanish--as Donna adroitly mentions above--we know that they mean. It's the very same process as Gilgamesh claiming that Humbaba is a demon, right before Gilgamesh kills Humbaba and carries off the Cedars of Lebanon from another sovereign king's ;territory. Good thing Humbaba "happens" to be a demon, huh? Or why it's "ok" for Rama to hide behind a tree and shoot an arrow at the Monkey king--even though it's against dharmic law to do so..because TECHnICALLY it's not illegal to hide behind a tree when you're hunting, and since it's a MONKEY he's shooting, dharma doesn't apply! It is very simple to make a case for what the "Spanish" were horrified by when we consider their Christian apostle who appeared on a white stallion which a giant sword in the sky above them when they--as Jesus' followers--decimated the Moors in battle, largely due to their heavenly super hero. It was Spanish Inquisitors who tortured and burned their fellows and throughout Spain --I've handled and read the documents myself--the townspeople complained about the Inquisition--not because people were being tortured, but because they were disturbed at how noisy the torture chambers were, and petitioned the court, to please move the chambers further out in the country so they would not have to be disturbed by the screaming or see the bloom running in the gutters. So, please, let's not profess a false piety. Let's read Plato's Euthyphro and ask the GREAT question that Socrates posed before either culture started mucking about, when Socrates asked Euthyphro about the nature of Piety and what the Gods ask of us. Is it Holy because God says so, or does God say so because it's Holy? Has any culture been able to successfully answer this.to this day? Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Laurence Wyche, Mike Mertaliya like this

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Mike Mike Mertaliya Vice President at Nextime Conservation Corporation (NCC) We know this from the architectural digs of the areas. Bone fragments have been found, detailing the brutal murder of countless young children, men and women over an extended period of time. Archaeological sites have provided physical evidence of human sacrifice using knives and weapons made of obsidian long before the Spanish arrived. This is one of many known facts confirming the accounts of the friars. The extant sources tell in detail how the Aztecs sacrificed human victims during their eighteen festivities. One direct translation of their writings says " Life is because of the gods; with their sacrifice they gave us life.... They produce our sustenance... which nourishes life" . They used words like "nextlahualli ", which means debt payment by human sacrifice. We know from their translations that they sacrificed humans to their Aztec god Acolnahuacatl.

Additionally it should be noted that the Spanish and their friars could not translate the ancient writing. This writing was translated long after that. Doesn't it seem strange that the Mayans ruled until 1200 AD and that the Aztecs ruled after 1200 AD? There is substantial evidence showing the wandering of Asian people to the Americas many thousands of years before that. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Philip Carroll likes this

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Richard Richard Rankin Data storage, retrieval and analysis.

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Gordon, the Catholic Church in Spain was burning people at the stake left and right at the time weren't they? Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Mike Mertaliya, Gabrielle Sutherland like this

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Mike, most comments and posts are not moderated. The exceptions are when someone is a brand new member and has no connections otherwise to the group, or when a person has broken the rules of the group, been warned and then placed on "moderate". It doesn't take very long to get off the "newbie" status. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer As far as dominant groups in the Americas, there are many groups that we don't typically recognize; they are just not as well known. The Mayans are fairly constant, but there were groups that dominated contemporaneously--like the Toltecs, for instance, and the Olmecs coincide with the Mixtecs but also precede them. We're talking about contents with a northern and southern hemisphere, so to limit the discussion to JUST a couple groups, and to only the this COlumbian-ish time period speaks to a very narrow time frame. It is true that epigraphy is an ongoing work with new discoveries all the time, but Bartolomeo de las Casas would probably object to the statement that there was nothing known by the Jesuits from the early records. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Mike Mertaliya likes this

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH The Most Catholic of Majesties, Ferdinand and Isabella on the successful completion of the Reconquista, voided all the kumbaya provisions of five hundred years of compromise. All Jews were extradicted or worse. The Muslims had to convert, die, or be enslaved if they couldn't move fast enough. For years those who had "converted" were watched by those who should be minding their own business, for any signs of lapse. One of these was scrounging in the suspects garbage to see if the wrong kind of grease was used to cook meat in (I forget which was which). Spanish intolerance begins at that point in time even after centuries of war characterized by considerably more tolerance than is found most anywhere else. To add to the ferocity, Luther posted his 95 Theses in 1517 and the Counter Reformation started in 1545 at the Councils of Trent. The temper of the Spanish towards heretics, pagans, blasphemers, Protestants, Muslims, and Jews that starts with the Fall of Granada continues in the New World. Given the barbarity of the Aztec (as seen by other Mexicans at the time), there might have been a Pre_1492 difference treatment towards the Aztec. Maybe. It should be remembered that Pizarro's conquest of the Inca was not followed by the barbarism that the Spanish doled out to the Aztec, the Dutch, and the English "pirates". The Inca custom of reverence to deceased emperors (preserved, fed, and carried about in revential parades as if still alive), was respected by the Spanish. The early Christian missionaries to the pagans in barbarian Europe often hijacked the local rituals and ceremonies with a Christian interpretation. Or maybe it was the other way around and the Spanish were conquered under the hat. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Richard Rankin likes this

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Mike Mike Mertaliya Vice President at Nextime Conservation Corporation (NCC) The funny thing is there are Chinese maps of the entire world from the 1400's. One more link... :) http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/chinese-explorer-may-have-discovered-america-before-columbus--according-to-new-book-201051307.html Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Mike Mike Mertaliya Vice President at Nextime Conservation Corporation (NCC) Normally I do not like posting sites which I have not thoroughly scrutinized, however this site is interesting and posts many great facts. The first people to discover America may never be known, but more data is showing that it was not Indians, or even Vikings, for that matter.(q) This article suggests they also came by boat, possibly from Asia. http://westerndigs.org/11000-year-old-seafaring-indian-sites-discovered-on-california-island/ Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Mike Mike Mertaliya Vice President at Nextime Conservation Corporation (NCC) Thank you Gabrielle, as I sincerely want to contribute in a positive form. A little about me: I've lived in 7 countries, for extended periods of time (years). I've been to 37+ countries for weeks or more. I speak 7+ languages, reading and writing them as well as knowing the origin of the words. I've volunteered on some major excavations (digs). Some artifacts of extreme value and significance have been carefully examined in my hands. I'm a scientist, interested in everything I can possibly comprehend and more. Culture and history are a part of my soul and it is very easy for me to blend into any environment. (No, I don't wear a leather hat, and do not carry a whip). I feel this format can be very education, as it gives alternative viewpoints to long held concepts that may or not be accurate. So with saying all this boring stuff: I greet you all with a warm smile. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gabrielle Sutherland likes this

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Barry L. Barry L. Moore Headache Preventative in Most Fields And, Mr. Fowkes, Christopher Columbus was allegedly an Italian Jew. Explain that one. A "smart" guy, sent across the ocean, by authorities who founded the Spanish Inquisition. Must have been the monetary incentive. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Keith Keith Borgholthaus Sales Associate at Game Center Or his biggest funders were not the country, but private fellow Conversos. I read the theory on a Jewish history blog. I really doubt I could find it again. Leather Fedoras are difficult to keep anyway. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gabrielle Sutherland likes this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Welcome Mike! You have probably already discovered a fellow linguist in Richard. I have several languages, but use them for translation and tools whereas you'll see Richard using them on here as a linguist. Keith is very much a material history guy with on-site experience as well, and I've spent a lot of my time in crypts, tombs, tunnels, jungles, and old cathedrals. I look forward to your discussions!!! I agree on the whip-- but a hat's a pretty handy piece of equipment. . . . Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Mike Mertaliya likes this

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH I doubt the Jew part of Columbus, but he most certainly was an Italian from Genoa, and the Genoa is the important part. A few years before the Fall of Constantinople in 1452 choked the essential trade routs the Genoa and Venice used to their bases and ports they could use like the Crimea and Trebizond. Genoa, Pisa and Venice were atthe time huges thalassocracies (islands and hardened ports) stretching from England through Gibraltar to Cairo and the Crimea that carred the trade from the Silk Road and Spice routes in exchange for textiles and raw materials, In addition to the sea routes, Italian bankers, artisans and traders handled the export-import business by land as well. Since a lot of money was involved, the competition between Venice and Genoa was ferocious (Fourth Crusade). The competition for new routes was absolutely necessary. Columbus and his rival from Venice, Chabot were both aware of the Vinland findings but needed funding to find what they knew had to be there. In 1492, the competition between Genoa and Venice was taken over by Spain and England who did not have to contend with Meditteranen maritime squabbles to get to the New World. The fates of Genoa and Venice waned thereafter. Amerigo Vespucci, whose name America wears, was an Italian Banker with the Medici banks in Florence sent to Spain to do an audit, and found that America was not a part of Asia. The gold of South America that flooded into Spain put Spain as the most powerful military state in Europe, and used that power to dominate European politics and war for well over a Century. See Charles V of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Mike Mertaliya likes this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer As far as Christian torturing of other Christians, the first Christians burned in Marseilles in 1318. Pope Innocent III declared the Inquisition and the Dominicans were his right hand, although it reached its fullest expression in Spain. The Albigensian Crusade was an exercise in territorial expansion as France doubled her size through the ability to seize the land of declared heretics These are just a few dates and examples to point out that 1. 1492 is not significant in this respect 2. Christianity as a religious expression is no better or worse than any other; it is equally prone to the designs of evil men as any other system possessing

power and authority. It is fallacious to point to one group of people as more or less "evil" in order to justify wrong behavior. To "do" history is to be strong enough to stand in front of the Mirror of True Seeing and remain standing. To offer excuses for the actions of our ancestors; to blame God-- or give "God said we are better / you are worse is a very old excuse for wrong action. It has never justified it. It didn't justify Euthyphro's behavior in his dialogue with Socrates. It did not justify the terrorist attack on 9/11. It did not justify Cortez's behavior. God is never justification for oppression or wrong behavior, and it is WEAK to hide behind God instead of recognizing and claiming one's ancestor's actions as what they were. To claim "right action" for the conquistadores simply because the were Christian is fallacious. Being religious does not mean we close our eyes when we study and research! I am a Christian, and I have been my entire life. I would be embarrassed to think that my God is so weak that He needs me--a puny human being -- to explain His actions or to cover up His dealings! I also don't expect God to cover up or applaud wrong action any more than I expected my earthly parents to not hold me accountable for my actions.... Nor do I, as a parent believe that I can give my children an incorrect teaching and thus give them a free pass on correct behavior without it being noticed somehow "in the heavens" simply because they are "Christian" Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Barry L. Barry L. Moore Headache Preventative in Most Fields Yet? The Spanish lost their empire. So did France, under Napoleon. So did England, during 2 wars with the Americans. The Americans, however, proceeded to wipe out the existing population, either by smallpox, or by the destruction of the natural inhabitants' source of food. And now? We invented fission weapons, by virtue of stealth from the Nazis. And now? We want to have the Iranians "hands-off" to said invention. Gordon? History, hundreds of years old, or perhaps, within this century, is always the same. It's the new golden rule: "He who has the gold, makes the rules". Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Peter A. likes this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer

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Barry, u just gave me a headache! Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Peter Peter Altomare Independent Research Professional

Gabrielle: Theology and mysticism and "process" seem to be your world view though you deny it. It isn't mine. Mine is facts and science and real History. But, whatever makes you feel good. Barry: perhaps the British Empire was more than than generally realized, finally ended by Churchill's "fatal embrace" of the United States? What would the course of events have been if Chamberlain been succeeded by Halifax for instance in 1940? It has been thought that Halifax would have ignored continuing the war and would have sought an agreement with Germany due to a Eurocentric, traditional view of the world. Or was it just the material demand of economics and political power that shaped attitudes that would have injected the US into the central role in the world at that time anyway? Just a thought. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Tony D. likes this

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Laurence Laurence Wyche Chair of Unlikely History, University for Sale Lord Halifax would almost certainly have sued for peace with Germany. After the war the time of land empires was over. Britain realised that its Empire was a huge drain on resources and could not withdraw fast enough. The time of monetary hegemony had arrived. Britain had long exercised this too, but after the two world wars was in severe debt. The USA was the inheritor of this position, unchallenged until recently. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Tony D., Mike Mertaliya like this

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Peter Peter Altomare Independent Research Professional Laurence: Just a thought - a drama about the changing of the guard you talk about at Bretton Wood New Hampshire in 1944? (History in literary form)? I just find Churchill's role in WW2 rather interesting, then the transition following, 1945-51 with Attlee and Labor. Seeing Suez in 1956, it took a while for the changes to sink in apparently. I like your idea of "monetary hegemony" it may be a good take on the modern era if you would like to spin that out a bit. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Laurence Wyche, Mike Mertaliya like this

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Philip

Philip Carroll Reading, Writing, History, Self-employed Top Contributor Dear Gail:As a multi-generational American, on both my mother's side and father's side, whose family trees I know no further back than to my grandparents, except for a 1920's genealogical essay on my father's mother's mother's side's pioneer in-breeding (2nd and 3rd cousin stuff) in the mid-19th Century N.Carolina, I probably share, as do most multi-generational Americans, some Native American and some Afro-American DNA. Yet, I hold myself out as a white American, which means I self-identify with the oppressors. My wife, who is a native born Filipino, from Aklan Province on Panay Island, will not teach me or our son Filipino, because her attitude is why should she teach us Tagalog, which was imposed on the Aklanese by the oppressors who speak Tagalog on Luzon Island (e.g. Manila), when she can speak Aklanese with her multitudinous hometown friends and family in the States, and Aklanese is so esoteric to speak that she and her siblings always oppressed her father when she was young for his poor Aklanese accent because he was from the bordering province of Capiz on Panay Island which spoke Ilongo (I think). Whereas my wife's father and mother both had simple, 2-syllable Spanish surnames, she is not Spanish. She is Malay, oppressors of the original inhabitants of Panay Island, the Negritos. The Malays, of course, in turn were oppressed by the Spanish, who, upon conquest of Panay, made the inhabitants assume Spanish surnames, because the Malay surnames were too many syllables, and with the accents on the wrong syllables. My wife has a lot of friends. As fate would have it, there happen to have been no neighborhood children as natural playmates for our son where we live when he was a child. I have few to no friends (and few to no "likes" on Linkedin, I wonder why). So, except for our son's best friend, our churchmates the Nigerian couple's kid from a mile away, his playmates were mostly all Filipino. The Nigerian kid's dad actually was one of my two only friends, a rockribbed Republican "I am no descendant of slaves" Clinton-bashing pro-Pope Catholic, almost as hard core single-issue Catholic Republican as my wife and her in-laws and friends. I assured my princely Nigerian friend "You may not be a descendant of slaves, but your son is, because you were born black in Africa, where just about everybody is black, and your son was born black in America, where just about everybody is white." And if he does not believe this, I assured my friend, his son will do himself a favor to believe it if he every studies the non-existence of historical truth in a liberal arts college in America. ... continued... Like (4) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gordon Fowkes, Mike Mertaliya and 2 others like this

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Philip Philip Carroll Reading, Writing, History, Self-employed Top Contributor ... continued... In any event, my son made the mistake of self-identifying as a Filipino in grade school, and his classmates mocked him for it unmercifully. Much as I always told him, he would do himself a favor to self-identify as an American, which he does now that he is in college, and which seems to work very well. When I was in college, my older brothers had friends, and one of our friends was a black woman, of mixed parentage, a brilliant, big university level teacher's assistant who for lack of promotion went to an Ivy League law school when she was 50. She had a story of sitting at a sidewalk table in New York, in the 1950's, with an entourage around a famous black author, who shut her up when she spoke, telling her he does not need some white looking woman speaking to him. It appears to have been a dual motive oppression, based on both the racial and gender aspects of her DNA. Do we dismiss the racially oppressive basis, because the non-black DNA was of a racially oppressive culture to the black author, and criticize the black author only for the gender basis of his oppression, or not criticize him at all? I do remember a black professor, in the late 1980's, asserting that racially oppressed peoples can not be racists themselves. Although self-identifying as a white American male from what I somewhat blindly understand to be the majority of my ancestral DNA, may I self-identify, from time to time, as Amerindian, or as Black, based on what certainly must be some percentage of my DNA? What if the white looking black woman had been a male of mixed Asian-Black parentage, and the famous author told him he does not need some Asiatic (in lieu of a more obnoxious epithet) talking to him: Would that have made the famous black author an oppressor, and the Asian-Black the oppressed?. Also, if the oppressors may not speak for the oppressed, may the oppressed speak for the oppressors? What do we do with mixed oppressions, in which the oppressed are also oppressors, and the oppressors are also oppressed? Thank you. Phil Like (4) Reply privately

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Delete 1 month ago Gordon Fowkes, Mike Mertaliya and 2 others like this

Mike Mike Mertaliya Vice President at Nextime Conservation Corporation (NCC) Phillip, You wrote an amazing post! I doubt I will ever find time to write that much in one sitting. Personally I see your opinion clearly, and agree with you. Having lived in so many countries; I have the highest respect for all races, yet it is very clear that racism is abundant in the USA and other parts of the world as well. The cultural aspects are just the tip of the iceberg. In America racism indubitably comes from all sides. It is a basic, primitive instinct for "birds of a feather to stick together". However humans have the remark-ability of speech and abstract thought, which can overcome that mortal racial instinct. Education is key to that goal. For a real example: Getto-Rap is terrible setback to ending racism. To bring this back to implications of the discovery of America: it is a known fact that natives were widespread here at least from long before the 1400's, to the 1800's and beyond, when other nations overran them. Perhaps those natives overran other civilizations in the past as well. In hindsight it was wrong. All of our forefathers were racists, all of them, again back to that basic and primitive instinct. Surely there were a few that did not approve, yet nothing successfully or honestly was done until the 1800's to stop them. Just as the great people of Germany did nothing to stop Hitler until the world intervened. The world is far from ending racism, it may unfortunately, and in fact endure forever. When people stop being "frogs in a box" and travelling more, blending in more, then things will slowly begin to change. But it can, and that's a starting point. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Philip Carroll likes this

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Laurence Laurence Wyche Chair of Unlikely History, University for Sale Monetary Hegemony. Well, it goes like this. The world's currencies are linked to gold. You have all the Gold. You're in charge. When Britain tried to get a loan from America right after WWII the condition imposed, that Britain float the pound on the market, was disastrous, and quickly withdrawn. Being a hegemon had to be learned. Britain was an old hand , for example, having fought much of the Napoleonic wars by paying other countries to fight France. America soon caught up, and Marshall aid, although presented as non-political, was the first step in paying other countries to oppose the Soviets. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Peter A. likes this

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Gordon

Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Oppression is a normally occurring event in daily life, depending on which role on wishes to play. Oppression of the self by others real or imagined is used as grounds to oppress someone else. Likewise, the oppression of others is taken as an entitlement to "rescue" the "oppressed" who being inferior people as oppressed people are, further oppression is necessary to rescue the oppression of others on your turn of rescued In studying history and/or current events, I borrow heavily from Transactional Analysis (TA) as it relates to "Games People Play" and Dr Stephen Karpmann's Drama Triangle. The standard TA Drama Triangle is designed primarily for individual therapy. Mine isn't about therapy of any kind. It changes the dynamic from three roles to two (Hero-Villain) as the hopped up version. TA posits a prosecutor-rescuer-victim triad, which I modified to a multi triangle approach each having a version of protector and nurturing the young (Mother-Father-Child). The Heroic version (Hero-Nurse-Infant) defends the Infant against the Villains (Murderous, Manipulative, and Mad). Collectively these comprise the "Psychological" aspects of F4F as "Roles". The ultimate focus of Role playing is driven by the fundamental need for a group to survive day to day and generation to generation (feed and breed, Dinner and a Date, etc) To ensure that the various role players compete or cooperate is governed by what I call "Rules" which albeit arbitrary as any system would be, this one is shorter and uses only a pair of hands to remember. The Rules come in two batches: Social Status (Face, Fate, Fame, Fortune) and the Physical World (Time, Distance, Ground, Body). Beyond the Rules, there is the Technology of supporting ones Role in accordance with the Rules. These include techniques, skills, hardware, theories that enhance the chances of the user. http://crossedculture.blogspot.com/2012/03/crossed-culture-and-holocaust.html Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Mike Mertaliya likes this

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Peter Peter Altomare Independent Research Professional Laurence: What are your thoughts about the economic and monetary position of China at the present time? On a historical note, it is interesting to remember the nearly simultaneous devaluation of the Pound and the "end of east of Suez" in 1964/65. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Who has the knife gets the gold is the other Golden Rule

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In a message dated 1/10/2014 10:22:16 P.M. Central Standard Time, Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago


Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer

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Brilliant, Phillip! Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Philip Carroll likes this

Peter Peter Altomare Independent Research Professional Phillip: The plasticity of the human mind never ceases to amaze us all. The social constructs and the moral, ethical and intellectual arguments used to underpin them make it clear that truth, justice and our shared humanity are subject to that same plasticity when we let the primitive portions of our brains govern our conduct and thought. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Mike Mertaliya likes this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer "Depending on which role one wishes to play... " Gordon, since you propose a situation where one choose the role of oppressor or oppressed, please imagine a scenario in which you make this same statement before an audience of women and people of color. Then, please imagine a scene similar to that in the movie "300" when the Queen is able to turn the tables on her oppressor/rapist and she chooses to stab him while quoting back to him the same words he tossed at her earlier...... As the women rush the platform upon which you stand and turn you upside down. As with one voice they can say to you what you just said... Something along the lines of how you had just chosen to be oppressed and now it was your "turn" because after all, it's so normal! Only an oppressor would call oppression"normal" and also state that people CHOOSE to be oppressed! This is the same argument that keeps alive the male fantasy arguments that rape victims ask for it And money = superiority And color of skin equates to inherent value. Children starving in refugee camps did not CHOOSE their oppression.-- as one example. Taco Bell finally chose to pay tomatoe farmers in Central and S. America for every bushel, but only after churches stopped investing pension funds in their stock. Do we as conscious and conscientious people pay attention to church politics and let our leaders know how we feel about human life? Or do we just complain about other people who are less fortunate as if we know anything about the ordinary particulars of their situation based on revenue driven "news" reports? A soldier who chooses to obey orders chooses to obey them. The leaders and rulers who make decisions that cause suffering have chosen to oppress. That in no way means that those they kill, subdue, starve, rape, conquer, etc CHOSE the result.

The continued presence of evil in the world does not make evil 'normal" It only means that evil exists. When someone states that wrong action or evil is normal then we look at that person with dismay because that person has just made a particular statement about his/her viewpoint of the world (evil is normal) and about his/her acceptance of it. I do not accept evil as normal or normative although I acknowledge its existence . This is an onn going, longstanding discussion over the millennia and I stand with Socrates, Plato, Augustine, Confucius, Francis, and others on the subject of "the existence of evil" which is a well known trope. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Tony D. likes this

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Philip Philip Carroll Reading, Writing, History, Self-employed Top Contributor

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Thank you, Gabrielle. I meant Gabrielle, not Gail. I have a cousin named Gail. Gabrielle. Again, thank you, Gabrielle. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Barry L. Barry L. Moore Headache Preventative in Most Fields Fine, Gabrielle, I give lots of people headaches. Philip? I grew up in South Dallas, not an exclusively "white boy" dominion. A white bread Baptist church, where they actually took a vote as to whether to admit "those of other color". Laurence? "After the war the time of land empires was over. Britain realised that its Empire was a huge drain on resources and could not withdraw fast enough." Tell that to the U.S. government, and make sure it sticks. Peter? "Perhaps the British Empire was more than than generally realized, finally ended by Churchill's "fatal embrace" of the United States?" Well, judging by the Southern U.S.'s history of disliking "carpetbaggers", I'd say Britain was at the top or so of the list, even after the U.S. UnCivil War. After all, we originally didn't want the British here in the first place, and probably didn't want to send anyone over to Europe to engage in what was clearly a "European" war. You Brits has several occasions to "take out" Hitler. While I dread the results, if you'd wanted Hitler "taken out, why didn't you do it yourselves. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Peter Peter Altomare Independent Research Professional

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Barry: The keeping of an empire was an interesting issue for Britain at the time. Churchill famously said that he hadn't become Prime Minister to preside over the dissolution of the British Empire, yet he was the very one that set, for various reasons, that dissolution into final motion by seeking and making an alliance with the US. This finished the British Empire, exhausting its resources as a result of WW2. Austerity and rationing remained in place in Britain until 1952. The independence of India in 1947 was the first major installment of that dissolution. I don't get the relevance of the the likes and dislikes of the SE US to the issue. The people that counted in the US succession to dominant world power were the former so-called "eastern establishment". They demanded US participation in WW1 and WW2 for profit and power. The US "informal empire" that fully came into being following WW2 has certainly damaged our Constitution and representative republic. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Tony D. likes this

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Barry, I was referring to your tagline, and as for Dallas: Oh. my. gosh. I lived in Texas for 13 years, and the entire state is a "good ol' boy's" white man's domain. Nothing else.When white men start whining about their privilege in states like Texas, we have to wonder what they're REALLY complaining about! Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Tony D. likes this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer When we talk about privilege and oppression, it's not a personal challenge to anyone, and that's what I love about Phillip's post. Well, it's one of MANY things I love about his post. I hope you have a blog, Phillip? None of us can avoid our situation or station: we were born into it. One of the reasons we study History is to face our humanity, and who/what we are is part of the human condition. When we insist that others come into our worldview when we study them, then we learn nothing, because we are practicing something that is unreal. To study the Americas from a viewpoint that says the Americas were "discovered" by Columbus is to continue the oppression: i.e. the idea that the Americas did not exist until White European conquerors decided it existed. It's not a personal attack on anyone to state the obvious. It's part of becoming human to recognize and acknowledge that others have value in time and place. We learn this as part of our journey in becoming a better human being. When I went to Asia for two years and lived in a little village so small it's name was "village," I took my three children with me. When I went to the Mangrove jungle in Brazil, i took my daughter. These are just two examples, for I've done the same in other places. When I travel, I do not go as a tourist, but stay as much as possible as a person who lives and works there. Why? Because I wanted my children to know and understand that people all over the world live in a wide variety of ways and are still like us in the ways that are most important: in family structures that worry each day about eating, working, laughing, loving, kissing, arguing and making up afterwards, finding time to play, making friends, telling stories to each other at the end of the day, and staying safe and warm and dry. . . . It's not so much about THEM, but about how to be a human being who understands that this is a shared experience in the world and each of us --on every continent-- does it in our own way. IF we expect everyone else to do it the same way and the way WE do it--we're going to forever be ignorant and frustrated. There is nothing I can do about my birth. I am white and was born in privilege. That means that my ancestors oppressed the ancestors of those who have less in modern day. They suffer now because of what my ancestors did to theirs. My mother's side of the family were plantation owners, and I do have African blood running in my veins. This does not make me "equal" to African Americans. It means that one or several of my great great grandfathers abused their station. It makes me sad for the women who had no choice in how their bodies would be claimed by others or recognized as part of a larger family structure. None of those women are part of the heritage or legacy that I enjoy. Similarly, their descendants do not participate in the estate of my father of which I am the executor, nor are their names even known. That's a truth, and while I did not directly cause it, I am a benefactor. That makes me

accountable, if for nothing else than to look in the Mirror of True Seeing and acknowledge it. At the same time, because I'm a woman, I have the "men" in the family to deal with. I might be the executor of my father's estate, but "the Uncles" effectively run my life in that regard, and I might as well be a little girl in mary janes and a pinafore. In that same sense, how many meetings have I been in--despite my qualifications and degrees--where some man has treated me as 'less than' and the other men in the room have neither noticed nor cared? My non-profit exists because of what men in our society do to women, regularly. So, as a woman, I am constantly reminded where I 'fit' in the hierarchy of human beings. However....my daughter--who is an MSW-- lectures me/teaches me how to be a better human being as she instructs me on new ways of thinking about gender issues and human interaction.. . Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Philip Carroll, Laurence Wyche like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer continued . . . I don't always understand what my daughter is talking about when she first broaches a subject, or even why she is "lecturing" me. Most recently, I had a breakthrough, and the best way I can describe it is that for about a year, I practiced what she said as if it were a "rule" even though I didn't understand it. I trust her knowledge, and I didn't want to alienate people in the community or be ignorant. Finally, watching a lecture she recommended I "got it." WOW! It was one of those wonderful 'light bulb' moments, and it made sense. It was still about self determination and how people view themselves--which I thought I understood, but I understood it from a historian's perspective, and not from a social worker's mantra and the new dimensions we see in modern day with gender specific language and what that means in everyday life. It's made a tremendous difference in the way that I interact and interview. Nothing had changed in others, what had changed was my understanding. It means that I can be more effective in applying the History I do to my work in the Non-Profit ventures, because I can better relate the past to the present. I can ask better questions of the past. It won't change History; it will help me ask more relevant questions. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Philip Carroll likes this

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH People choose to play the Dramatic (Game) roles of victims, rescuers, and/or persecutor/prosecutor rules in accordance with the Rules of their culture when there is a choice. The concept of oppression is not as precise, psychologically as the defined roles of the drama triangle by Transactional Analysis (including my variant). Oppression is a term favored by Game Players except the Prosecutor Role who generally characterizes him or herself as a Protector of some other victim(s). Thus the Nazi portrayed themselves as Protector of the German people from the Villains (Jews, Reactionaries, and Reds) each portrayed as Murderous, Manipulative and Mad (the Dark Side of the Family). Oppression is a term favored by those who wish to play the Rescuer Role which Rescues are another form of Oppression by demeaning the victime as stupid, defective, and needing of Heroic Salvation. The role of the Vanguard of the Proletariat was defined as the Rescuer of the "Masses" which term removes any sense of volition the Proletariat might have. Oppression is a term favored by those who wish to play Victim, This is the Tea Party's theme about being oppressed by Gay Marriage, Liberals in Government, Sharia, and/or the Banks who use paper instead of gold.

While Transactional Analysis has devolved in a Therapy Game in which the Psychologist plays Rescuer, other works by Eric Berne (founder of TA) deals with the "Structure and Dynamics of Groups" This goes into greater detail of group dynamics which I have found useful in analyzing game playing within the context of Social Status and the interaction with the Physical Environment. In short, the term "oppression" is a buzz word, with more buzz (connotation) than meaning (denotative) claiming victim status. Oppression can be treated as a "cold prickly" buzz word, which the Rescuer collects a "warm fuzzy" Stamp and a "Angry" Stamp as a Protector of the Oppressed, Defender of the Weak etc. The collection of various Stamps into a Political Agenda can be analyzed with the Arcane Science of Buzziology. A collection of Buzzes (Buzz Clusters) can be collectively reinforce any one of the Heroic Roles, or the Villainy Roles or a Balance of a selection from both. A balanced example is readily found in Nazi Propaganda which characterized the Jew as a Villain which is inferior (Mad) and superior (Murderous) when they portrayed Jews as both High Finance and Communist. The Reds characterized the threat to the Proletariat as from a Manipulative Capitalist who was Murderous and stupid enough to be able to be decoded by the Heroic Rescuer-Protector Vanguard of the Proletariat. The term "oppression" is laden with too many buzzes to be objectively used. An objective analysis of the plight of those termed "oppressed" would lack the sound and fury of buzziology, and be dull, dry and statistically mind numbing. When one feels the blood start to boil, the question may be whether is someone else's game, or an internal one. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Philip Carroll, John Francis like this

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Michael J Michael J Moylan Consultants to Community Associations and Math Education Curriculum Development I will continue to just listen To many buzz words and a discussion I do not want to play with but I am more than willing to arrange a dinner to listen to the main players go at it. So I feed you these lines you have all said no names you will notice White mans domain Oppression is a term favored by those who wish to play the Rescuer Role At the same time, because I'm a woman, I have the "men" in the family to deal with I grew up in South Dallas, not an exclusively "white boy" dominion. A white bread Baptist church, where they actually took a vote as to whether to admit "those of other color". To rich for my blood The crazy Ukie I live with would tell you all off This would be my wifes comment a 2nd generation full blooded Ukie spy (joke) not part of your former post (Full disclosure) It is not where we come from it is who we are. That is the blue collar boy in me he heinz 57 because we can't prove all I am other than an American the believes in a dream. So please continue sorry about the interruption Pax Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gordon Fowkes likes this

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Gordon

Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Transactonal Analysis (TA) the study of transactions between two or more people, real and imagined. It is not really about what goes on in any one mind, despite the therapists that try. Basic TA goes to the structure of roles between two persons and the dynamics of stimulus-response between one set of father, mother and child vs the other set (The offficial distinction is between Parent (Nurture-Protect), Adult (facts) and Child (emotion, OK-NonOK). Claude Steiner adds the structure of Games and Scripts (a set series of games) while Dr Karpmann adds the Drama Triangle of the competition between Heroes and Villains. The comparison of which roles are most useful in military, political, economic, or social psychology is the simple fact that facts are of minor importance unless accentuated by a buzz factor. Therefore, in the most utilitarian variant, I leave reasn out of emotional conflict as relatively insignificant. Facts and reason are slaves to the emotions. I borrowed the concept of Rules from Dr Professor Burgess of the University of Colorado's Beyond Intractability program. The selection of a short compilation (F4F) that could be dramatized for ease of learning, teaching and using cultural data with regard to the mission at hand. The conditions in which F4F was designed for use was in the face to face environment absent the manual of how bad guys operate. The central thesis is that all life is oriented to living day to day and generation to generation. Those that do not follow the rules die or die off. Rule changing is a human speciality except for flies and roaches whose rules are omnipotent. F4F does not pretend to replace any other system of social, political, military and/or economic discipline or study. In fact, it depends on extant data for expeditious resolution of the interaction in the transaction. http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/ While F4F is often dismissed for being too simple, consider the fact that the US Government went to war on Iraq with no interest nor knowledge of the Iraqi people (all segments) which a few questions about who gets laid and paid, how, when, where and why. The disbandment of the Iraqi government and military under the most stupid on all conquests (according to Fahreed) has destabilized the region, created new enemies, and dismissed it friends. or those who might have helped. Body language comes under "Body" in which showing the soles of the feet is like mooning the Pope. Bush just shrugged it off, and US troops flew over Muslim land with their feet hanging out of the chopper. US to the rescue with peanut butter and milk product, the latter going to lactose intolerant people. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer My real question is why Gordon and MJM and a few others are even on this forum except to upset others and to be disruptive. This is a History Forum, which means historical methodology will be discussed, and History terminology will be used. To deride it or object to it/ call it names is pointless, because calling black, white doesn't make it so. It just makes the person doing the "calling" look idiotic or ignorant. If you don't know about history and it appears that you hate those that practice it, then why are you here? The problem with calling Historical terminology used by historians: "buzz words" on a HISTORY forum ought to be obvious. If we were on a forum of a topic other than history it would apt to call Historical Terminology "jargon", which is correct terminology, and alerts the speaker to define his or her terms. The reason for this is because disciplines typically use the SAME WORDS (like oppression) in slightly different ways. This does not make those terms "buzz words" because the terminology actually means something very specific to each discipline. In order to communicate we necessarily use WORDS. We choose the words that best describe the topic and which have been used over many centuries that come under very specific topics. In this way, when scholars speak to each other, we not only understand and become alerted to the topic under discussion, but we instantly call up in our memory the hundreds of other articles and books in our memories that are supposed to be considered when this topic comes up. That's part of having a PhD: the thousands of articles and books in our memory banks. I give you, MJM the respect you rightly deserve as a professional, in considering that you know your profession. Why don't you, give professional scholars--including historians on the HISTORY FORUM the respect we deserve that when we speak we actually know our profession, too? If you do not think "History" is a discipline, or you don't respect historians, then I question why you are here? Gordon appears to have a tremendous disdain not just for historians, but for other human beings, at least in the way he presents himself through his copy-and-paste posts. One person on this thread has been brave enough to present herself as an indigenous American, and as such she should be at the head of the table and treated with respect by everyone else here. How has she been treated by either of you? Ignored by you, and slammed by Gordon.

This is not human behavior, and it's not the way historians behave. If you peruse the thread, you will see that every historian on this thread has behaved similarly: with respect toward Donna, and with similar language. My understanding of all professional behavior is that we find each discipline and profession acting and speaking in a similar way for a reason. For Gordon to consistently and continually respond not as a person, but with a troll's blog with modern military opinion that has nothing to do with the thread is disruptive and rude. To then equate anything Gordon says as having to do with other people's posts, simply because he--or his computer program-actively responds to each post as if he is communicating is being tricked into the troll's distraction OR agreeing with a troll, OR being in collusion with the troll. Why do this? The term "buzz words" applies to journalism and works when we are looking at sound bytes and PR. This does not apply to a forum discussion and definitely does not apply to this discussion. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Donna M., Laurence Wyche like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer continued.... We are on a forum, and our desire is to communicate about something in which we have an interest. I receive emails here on LinkedIn every day from people who tell me they came to this forum to talk about History FOR ENJOYMENT, and not to get bashed and argued with. Why is it that the most common form of communication here is from the distractors, the disruptors, etc.? I love the threads where I can ask questions, talk, have fun, and communicate. Instead I spend most of my time "moderating" trolls. Again, an "anecdote," which is a piece of evidence, which is written as an example of a point is not "buzz words." It is a part of a human being told to a group of other human beings. It is real. Other human beings who shoot it down with formulaic language focused on repetitive, military constructs--or some other pulpit or soap box-- that falls under the "Sammy-has-a-hammer-in-his-hand-and-everything-he-sees-is-a-nail" but never ONCE a real, human anecdote involving himself.... alerts every historian to a red flag. It should alert every intelligent read to a red flag. This is not how human beings talk to each other. This is not how human beings communicate in writing. This is not how human b eings respond to actual comments: by repeating their own blog. The troll who engages in this kind of behavior is counting on the fact that people reading the thread will have forgotten what was written in the previous post due to the timing of threads and the random factor of reading emails. I urge the participants in this forum and this thread to envision this discussionand othersas a real discussion among friends and acquaintances in order to weed out the disruptors and have a genuine discussion. This is a HISTORY Forum, and when Historians use Historical terminology, less educated people look foolish to call it "buzz words". Quoting people out of context and twisting their real stories as if they were contrived by a spin doctor for an agenda is simply wrong, and it reeks of military jargon, so perhaps we can call it a halt. The most common complaint I receive (daily) in this forum is the number of military-intelligence people on here with agendas and the negative aspect of that spilling into every thread. Please let's stop it now. Speak for yourself and speak to the topic, or don't speak. There are forums for you to speak on that topic. Go there and do your military-intelligence thing. Let's do the history-thing on this forum. It would be good for you, Gordon especially, to write real words as if you are real person instead of copy-and-paste repetition from your military blog. Repetitive formulaic posts are never considered "real" in historical terms or by historians, so why would you even want to be posting here except to disrupt? Those of you who STILL desire to emphasize the negative...please do it somewhere else where it is welcome. It would be great if all of the people who like bellicose behavior and the reason for coming to LinkedIn is to engage in negative, nasty, belligerent, non-scholastic communication went to the same place. Then you might be happy doing what you do. Please consider this a first warning, and I will moderate from here on out, those who don't stick to the topic--in a general way-- and who are not kind and considerate. Thank you, Gabrielle Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Addendum regarding Self Determination: In History and historical methodology, there are typically four types of "evidence" used in research. The first and most oft utilized is the anecdote. The anecdote is best when it comes from a first-person account detailing an actual experience in that person's own dialect. Because I'm an historian, when I tell a story about myself, I am very careful to write as I speak, because I'm trained to do so for one thing, and also because I know that if MY diaries or exchanges happen to survive the centuries, they will only be as valuable as they are authentic. If I were to clean them up so that they sounded formal, they would become [not] anecdotal, but rather autobiographical, and therefore suspect. If I were to write them as a lesson or lecture, than they would not be an anecdote, but something else, and would require footnotes. Please note: this is a History forum, and not a military forum, a military intelligence operations forum, or even a specific discipline within history forum. This forum is also not a forum of any particular methodology of History: annalistic, marxist, numismatics, cultural, etc., This forum is not private, and therefore no one should be expected to receive a personal blog from one person as a standard response to every thread. As a forum with different threads in a public setting, standard etiquette applies. (Etiquette means "the ticket to society.") This means we respond to each other as human beings in publicso, for instance when someone takes something out of context as has been done repeatedly hereit is disruptive and on other forums that person is called out for troll-like behavior. To take words out of context and call them "buzz words" and then attack them is inappropriate when they are part of a whole. In the academic arena--of which History is automatically a part, "buzz words" do not apply. (See my note on "jargon.") We strive to avoid jargon and professional scholars are taught to be alert for the use of jargon when in the presence of multiple disciplines or nonprofessionals. What continually amazes me on LinkedIn is how in the mundane world, common parlance is for someone to say "did that make sense?" and the interlocutor says something like "Well, kind of, but I'm used to hearing that word--let's say "oppression" in THIS way: ____, so what did you mean?" and then the two people enter a side discussion of the difference in how the word is used and they either understand each other or agree on using a different word. I thought I had stressed that by offering several instances of the way "self determination" is used in scholarship, not just in History, but in Sociology, Gender Studies, Genocide Studies, Political Science, and in REAL, ORDINARY (Historians use the words "Real" and "Ordinary" to mean something along the lines of "every day life", rather than using the word "real" as "true," and "ordinary" as "less than". ) existence. Self Determination is the primary focus of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and a standard use of language internationally relevant for the topic which we are discussing. It is a crucial and foundational phrase for modern human beings to understand for this discussion. What is "self determination" and what does it mean to live in a world where this is recognized as a natural, inherent, self-evident human right? Self determination means that I and WE speak for myself/ourselves and YOU and/or THEY do not. It means we respect each other. It means we live in a world where this is considered human and normative, and the reason we have placed these words into law and international declarations is because we also, sadly, recognize the many [others] who do not give respect to human life, or acknowledge the need to do so. These are human ways of communicating and I am glad to be able to participate in these kinds of discussion with those who are equally able and capable of doing so. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Gabrielle, I am not slamming or ignoring your posts from either a personal or professional status. I have "liked" your posts when I feel it is appropriate. I expect inquiry instead of blanket condemnation absent examination of the relevance of a very simple and useful tool in the study of any aspect of life on this planet the record of which is called history, and associated disciplines like archeology, anthropology, social anthropology all of which are used in historical analyses.

I should take umbrage at the slurs and insults hurled at my studies or my person, but I am too old to get up enough energy to get angry. My cardiologists would disapprove. Nevertheless, the original question was about who discovered America, and methinks I have answered objectively various forms of what discovery means and who might have met them. In short, the definition of who got there first and who "discovered"America first: The Indians (North & South), the Vikings, the Chinese, Columbus, and/or Amerigo Vespucci.

I must admit to an impish fault of mine to toss in facts that don't fit the prejudice in hopes of dissolving the underlying cognitive dissonance that keeps inconsistencies at bay. My "cuts and pastes" and links to relevant sites occur because the study of any aspect of life and living goes to the heart of the strategy of a group to survive day to day and generation to generation. Those strategies include high emotion and drama. The failure of the US to bother to take a look at the strategies of those in the Middle East as reflected in their longest of histories is at the core of the murder and mayhem visited once again on that blood soaked field of history. The key to an effective study of events past and present is to understand how the various strategies for group and individual survival are structured and how they are played out. It is germane in the study of who discovered America past the first beach landings would best be served by sorting out whose strategy did what and what happened in the inevitable drama of competing strategies. Perhaps the fate of the 39 men left in Hispaniola at La Navidad by Columbus on or about Christmas 1492 were found to have been killed, eaten and skinned despite assurances of protection.on his return on November 22, 1493 is relevant. The institution of slavery was, universally legitimate booty, but the manner in which the Indians were treated in America by Columbus initiated changes in Catholic and Spanish law restricting that institution. These issues most certainly call for a study of comparative cultures and value systems. At present there is no single discipline that does that sort of analysis although there are an abundance of tools available. Mine is just a handful. And it is not judgemental. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Peter Peter Altomare Independent Research Professional Gabrielle: We clearly have a disagreement about what history is. I am dismayed by your apparent dismissal and distaste for a different positions from your own. The meaning and uses of history are greater and more contextual than you will seem to allow or acknowledge. (Re: your Jared Diamond comment for example). We have a legitimate difference here, and rather than trying to censor the argument, we should in a civil fashion embrace a free and open discussion- I thought that was one purpose for this site. What say you? And all others here? Thanks Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Peter, if you want to go to the thread marked "What is history?" you are welcome to do so. That is not the topic under discussion here. My declaration of what is appropriate is spoken to those who are engaging in inappropriate behavior, and I will stand by the moderation. If you don't like it, that's fine. Historical methodology and terminology is not decided by the mob or armchair historians. Methodology and terminology is what it is. Pointless posts about recognized, standard historical terminology is not what we're going to do here. Cultural history is not practiced by every historian, but modern

historians DO practice Cultural History, and this methodology draws upon previous methodologies as needed. The practices and the methodologies are well laid out and known. It is not up to other disciplines or professions to decide what those are. Many people on here, including you, mistake historical evidence for History. One piece of evidence does not = "History." It just means that we have a piece of evidence that needs to be added to our arsenal of knowledge and analyzed using not ONLY historical methodology, but often other disciplines as well. Using your example: What I said about Jared Diamond is accurate: he is not a historian. His work can and does provide evidence for an historian, but it is not the work of an historian. This not an opinion, it's just the way it is. Historians don't imagine that steel builds buildings, for instance, but rather that the process and emergence, then use of steel is something of significance that is more complex and quite different--involving people--than the involuntary transference of germs, which includes the study of germs. This is NOT a slight against Diamond. His work is engaging, and most of us have read it and even refer to some pieces of his web site or perhaps his book when talking to freshman-level students. His book is written in a way that is easily adaptable to a visual web site--what does that tell you? Nothing in history is that simple, right? What you will find, is that POPULAR History, like Diamond's, is not very interesting to Historians, especially when it isn't written by a historian following historical methodology. It can be like watching 300, Braveheart, or Rob Roy: somewhat frustrating or even tortuous! Popular History might be a good way for someone who didn't know about a subject previously to become interested, but it doesn't satisfy the true seeker. I will not censor true differences of opinion, as long as they are civil, AND they are about History. I will not tolerate fallacies--please look that up as you have been prone to their use--and we will observe historical terminology. If someone does not know historical terminology, we will remind the person, but no longer tolerate the idea that words can mean anything that anyone wants at any time. Words have meaning and structure. Terminology is at the heart of any discipline or subject and we know what the subject matter is on this forum and what is expected. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Laurence Wyche likes this

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Philip Philip Carroll Reading, Writing, History, Self-employed Top Contributor I think the bone of contention here is the recurring question, who were the worst oppressors of the commoner native Americans: the Spaniards, or the Aztecs. Obviously, if you believe the history, the Aztecs were by far the worst oppressors, whatever that has to do with who discovered America. It begins to get out of hand when somebody says the history of the Aztecs is so horrendous that I do not have to believe it, it is so ridiculously horrendous it must have been fabricated. To follow this logic, in another 500 years perhaps we can say the same about the Nazi Holocaust, it is so ridiculously horrendous it must have been made up. Then, we become wrapped up in historiography. I can accept that, except for extreme situations, such as the Aztecs, and the Nazis, which it is not unreasonable to put in the category of pure evil, the oppressors can not speak for the civilizational needs of those they oppress; the oppressors can not speak for the need to civilize in their own oppressive image those primitives that they oppress. However, so far as I am concerned, the oppressors can speak for those they oppress, certainly in the case of describing their culture, for example, in the new historiography, taking their oral histories. Yet, the bottom line is that the argument about the Spaniards and the Aztecs is a distraction to the question, who discovered America: neither are representative of the native Americans. The Aztec civilization was a latter day highly architecturally advanced oppressive aristocratic pagan theocracy heavily into human sacrifice of the most painful sort. This is not the woodlands culture of the more northern native Americans whose earlier civilizations and whose very languages have been lost to history, if for no other reason, perhaps, than that they were peaceful wood-based as opposed to stone-based cultures, great poets, I like to believe, in my attribution of a holy grail within the northern woodland societies, for which no one today is better placed than any others by way of DNA (unless perhaps also by selfidentity) to speak for these lost peace loving native American civilizations of many centuries before the Spaniards and the Aztecs. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Most people in the Western world now go to college and gain a degree. Most people under 30 speak to each other in terms of studies, majors, and disciplines. In fact, it is quite common to talk to each other and introduce ourselves and each other in terms of "majors" without being a scholar. It's part of the social codex of modern life. I speak as I do now, not as a scholar myself, but as a westerner. In Liberation Theology as well as Cultural Studies of all kinds: History, Anthropology, Sociology, Gender Studies, and Interdisciplinary Studies, the answer to these questions would be that only those who are oppressed can speak to the nature of the experience, and there is typically only one answer as to "the most" oppressive, or anything that is "the worst" or even "the best." For each person or people group to whom any experience is experienced it is 100% for that person and that people group. Experiences do not compare because we have no ability to compare them. We cannot BE them. I only know mine. You only know yours. As a polite person I am required to believe you about your experience, in the absence of valid evidence to the contrary. The usual example is: how do we compare childbirth to kidney stones, especially given the face that every single person's experience of either/both is different, albeit excruciating? The primary reason that the Great Thinkers give for studying History is to better understand the Human Condition. In this way, the reason we acknowledge each time period's experience from the perspective of those who lived it in context, and then look in our own Mirror of True Seeing, is so that WE do not become oppressors. If we can understand that, then we do not fall into the trap expressed by Voltaire: "History does not repeat itself: Mankind always does." Gail posted this same thread on another forum, and almost instantly the people on that forum collectively pointed out that the word "discovered" was a ridiculous term and didn't apply, and they agreed to throw it out the window and discuss it in a way that made more sense, using terminology that allowed for real conversation. Then they didn't have to fight each other over the "right" to conquer and abuse the indigenous Americans. They didn't fight over the "right" to be first.....while losing the thread. Sadly, in this forum, a few people thought it was worth fighting others for the European claim for the right of discovery and conquering; revealing their very own modern way of looking at the world. This is what we learn when we study History. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Donna M., Gail Green like this

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Peter Peter Altomare Independent Research Professional Gabrielle: I'm just going to agree to disagree. I'll leave you to your academic sandbox. Thank you for your reply. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH I got my BA in Political Science in 1962 after which I served in Germany, Vietnam, Japan, Capitol Hill and City Hall retiring in 1996, the rest of the time I fritter my time away in my golden years with less gold than years in international cutural, economic, social, military and religious activities. I left age

Thirty, forty four yeas ago. Non Nobis Domine Non Nobis Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Peter A. likes this

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Perhaps we should explore the historical records for examples of peace loving warrior cultures.

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In a message dated 1/13/2014 7:25:21 P.M. Central Standard Time, Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Perhaps a reference to the historically correct terminology would be useful to us in the trenches

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In a message dated 1/13/2014 6:57:07 P.M. Central Standard Time, Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Philip Philip Carroll Reading, Writing, History, Self-employed Top Contributor

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What is the Mirror of True Seeing. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Peter A. likes this


Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer I mentioned that age and situation on purpose Gordon, because you and Peter above throw "academia" and "ivory tower" epithets out as if they mean something, and that needs to be corrected. Yes, I'm a scholar by profession, but the idea of the "ivory tower" is just an idea. No such thing exists anymore as that 'position' --which probably never existed in the way you try to make it sound like--has gone the way of many other entitlement positions in our modern day. University life cannot support the ivory tower, and even endowed chairs come with a workload attached that resembles other professorial positions. Thomas Aquinas lived in an ivory tower. Wizards in stories live in ivory towers. Who else does? Professors have to research and write, and research means that scholars have to get out "there" and research. Academia is not removed from real life because academics are real people who live in neighborhoods, attend church and civic activities, shop at stores, drive cars on real roads, have families, children and grandchildren, interact with friends over time, have opinions about a wide range of topics, engage in hobbies and dabble in extra-curricular activities, eat their favorite foods, worry about the state of the universe, save their money, just like everyone else. We meet our girlfriends for lunch, write letters and emails to family and friends, think about fashion or not, and make appts for doctors, dentists, and enjoyable things like vacations if we can afford it. We are HUMAN. We have lives and everything that is attached to that. We read the newspapers or online news, and we subscribe to all the different magazines and listen to our choice of music, and like sports or don't. We have individual personalities, and as individual people, everything that goes with that is true of each and every academic and our profession is our profession. Some people are more or less interested in their profession or invested in it as a vocation vs. just what they do each day, or not. It just depends. I talk about history on here, but I have other degrees, and also run a NonProfit Organization. It takes up most of my heart and time. I meet history teachers of all sorts in my various activities, and I don't find a lot of difference between us: whether we are teaching at the university level, researching or writing, teaching high school students, or teaching abroad: we are trained historians who REALLY, REALLY like/love history. We know what we're doing and we're trained professionals. When we meet the 30-somethings and the 20-somethings who are used to talking about being "history majors" or "history minors" or "oh yeah, my room mate was a history major and she was always talking about the Civil War. . ." well, those are the everyday comments we here. We don't turn up our noses--we get excited and ask them what did you like best about that? And typically their eyes light up and they tell us! What they don't do, is argue over terminology and tell us, the person who actually is a historian what it is to be a historian. Kind of like I don't tell a plumber what words he should use to describe his tools or how to fix the pipes, or an airplane pilot how to fly the plane (even though I feel well qualified to talk about my personal experiences on planes) or a surgeon how to perform open heart surgery (although I feel qualified to talk about my experience as a mother of a daughter who had the surgery), or a lawyer how to present a case before the Supreme Court 9although I have a PhD in many areas that touch of law) . . . . it's just common sense. I REALLY REALLY love to learn. I find it's a whole lot easier when I ask questions of professionals who know stuff, instead of arguing with them, and then I also enjoy telling them my stories that intersect with their work, and they appreciate adding my stories to their arsenal of examples and evidence. Just like historians do. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gail Green likes this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer In every culture throughout time, in "the Heroe's Journey" (the version of it in that culture) we find as part of "the Quest" a moment when the 'Hero" must face a Mirror and only the Hero sees what the Hero sees, but whatever it is it is a defining moment that is a make or break situation. I'm being vague, because it's the universal quest so it has to apply to all cultures and all time. In our time, we see it in The Neverending Story and Harry Potter. Winning is simply the ability to see the "truth" about our self and still stand. Paul talks about the same thing in the Bible. It's posed differently in different cultures, but the ability to look in the mirror is REALLY hard. The idea is: can we stand the truth about our True Self. It's a sociological/literature device that we see and track throughout history.

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Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Philip Carroll, Gail Green like this

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer There is no use for historically correct terminology in the trenches. That's the point. History is not about the present. History is not even about the past, so when military professionals write about their OWN work and their OWN experiences in the trenches or otherwise, historians expect to read military language. Historians aren't going to tell Military Professionals what terminology to use in their work; that would be ridiculous and counter-productive. It would also make for mistakes in the field or in training or in their ability to BE the military. . By the same token, it makes no sense for military professionals to demand that historians use military terminology when practicing history or interspersing military verbiage occasionally for students of history in order to ...... confuse? Make it more messy? Make it into [Non] History? Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Philip Carroll likes this

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Philip Philip Carroll Reading, Writing, History, Self-employed Top Contributor No references to historically correct terminology for Gordon please. They will end up in some war game with a lot of words starting with Capital Letters. I am in the middle of an interesting article about bourgeois feminism, American Historical Review, Feb 2007. The 1890's socialist womens leaders evidently denied all feminism as bourgeois. The terminology was resurrected with the New Left in the 1960's and the original collegiate womens studies courses in the 1970's. The phrase marginalized most womens rights movements for about a century, from the 1890's to the 1990's. After Gorbachev allowed the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the Cold War was proclaimed won by the West, and being socialist, rather than being bourgeois, became passe, academia slowly, truculently, stopped talking about bourgeois feminsm. There can be fads in historically correct terminology. All such terminology is not necessarily destined to stay. Viva la Revolution? Viva kay Sr. Santo Nino. Viva. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Peter Peter Altomare Independent Research Professional

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Gabrielle: If I were throwing epithets around you would know it. You can't handle disagreement and argument, you attack and mis-characterize those who disagree. I have to apply history every day, and you don't help. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Philip you make an interesting point. First, a A "fad" would refer to pop culture, and anything academic is part of high culture, right? Feminism, for instance is in its fifth wave. When historian's write about feminism, the correct terminology depends on which time period is being discussed, but historians necessarily take our cues from Gender Studies, because in the different disciplines, obviously, Gender Studies determines the baseline. A personal example From my experience is an assignment or "job" I had as consultant to an national sustainability endeavor. Government, business, and non-profit groups were involved, and the groups represented a wide variety of interests as this is an emerging and important topic. It took awhile, but we discovered that each entity was using the word "scale" and as we did so, we each assumed that everyone else was using the word in the same way. All of our sentences made sense, and we appeared to be communicating, but not really: something was wrong. It took awhile, but we eventually figured out that even though we might even give the same basic definition for the word "scale" we used it in a different way and for a different purpose. "Scale" is crucial to sustainability, so the exercise didn't work until we came up with 7 working definitions for "scale." This worked well, because when we left, the proposals would include 7 different "solutions" each based on the type of entity in attendance, but it wouldn't have happened without that understanding. In this forum, there's a great thread begun by John Yamamoto-Wilson, which includes a similar process. He writes of ideas regarding sado-masochicsm, and it very much has something to do with timing and whether or not terminology is linked to expression and behavior at the time the historian is researching, vs. the time one is writing about it. This is a complicated construct, and difficult to write about. His book looks fantastic. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin. Philip Carroll - As a member of one of the "peace loving American Indian tribe's" - I have often found that non-Indians in writing about American Indians use the language of "superiority" - perhaps it can't be helped since non-Indians do not understand and they won't ever "know" the life of an American Indian. We (Indians) were left out of history for many years, our oral history was too often discounted/disparaged but through all the turmoil, we are still here, still laboring to educate non-Indians - many of whom are determined to hang on to old myths and stereotypes and continue to write those same age old myths and stereotypes in books that are still getting published and considered to be true. It gets tiresome but we continue in our efforts hoping that someday what we have been saying for so many years, will no longer be ridiculed or ignored. You might try reading books written and published by American Indians who are still - faithfully - working to educate non-Indians such as Dr. Joseph Marshall, Dr. Vine Deloria, Jr., Dr. Philip Deloria, N. Scott Momaday - fortunately for us Indians, I could continue with the names of Indian people who have survived academia and put their efforts and hard work to good use but like anything else, you need to start somewhere and these writers are a good start. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Philip Carroll, Gabrielle Sutherland like this

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH if i understand the gist of the drift here is that military history is not history. if so, then how come historians teach history with judgements of the conduct or results of whatever war is under discussion? or, how can historians discuss political events of the past without any education in political science? or the effects of the depression or of trade in the med during the middle ages without an education in economics or navigation? if one puts a certifiable fence around history as a discipline absent substance from other sources and disciplines, it become devoid of meaning or relevance unlike chemistry, or physics which have the advantage of an external reality that other scientists can validate using different data and techniques. if history were a real science, then conclusions about history should be provable by others approaching the same conclusion from different diurections should be abe to verify objectively the truth of said conclusion. fortunately the advances in the sciences and of communication, more detailed and measurable data can be applied in the study of history. a century ago, eugenics was considered a science, but the data eventually did that in as no statistically significant study established the characteristics derived from eugenics as false. anyone can today examine direct sources once removed through modern communication of data and images. additionally, access to other disciplines for comparison and analysis is greater. This weakens the old paradigm of comparing one scholar's view vs another displayed without the original sources. in 1958 I started at the university of california at berkeley when research consisted of a pile of 3x5" cards, the library card index, and piles of books from which one paraphrased the content of appropriate phrases on the 3x5" cards. the cards were then stapled or taped into whatever algorithm lead to a conclusion that could be "proved" by a long bibliography. Then one started to type on a typewriter armed with carbon paper and correcto tape. Peer review was easier as the amount of available resources were in the library on campus. the amount of research that took weeks back then can be done on line in under an hour. in addition, the actual research reports with photos, charts, graphs, etc. since such huge amounts of raw or new information is available, existing disciplines are expanding into multi-discipline research not possible in the days of 3x5 cards. the boundaries between disciplines are becoming ever more blurred and melding into various combinations such as cultural anthropology cum archeology. the questions surrounding the "discovery" of america and the perjorative narrations associated thereto, are subject to examination in unprecedented detail and include multi-discipline discipline. my personal interest is, as my job title suggests, is the crusade era with a focus on the knights templar. the shift in military science to gunpowder left the older arts and sciences of war in the dust and have been forgotten to a large part, a process of rediscovery is underway, some better than others. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin. Gordon Fowkes - You said it might be a good idea to look for peace loving warrior societies - and I think that is a great idea. For non-Indians to educate themselves about the American Indians is really wonderful - you might also try listening to American Indians. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gabrielle Sutherland likes this

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH My exposure to Indian culture came in doses, first in Germany with Indians from the Southwest in my Infantry company, second in Arizona, and third with the Indians of Puget Sound (the Swinomsh near Lacooner WA). Collectively, I recognized the dangers that a physiological intolerance to alcohol has led to some exciting instances, but once one recognizes that these events were not the result of the same kind of malevolence one might take offense to from non-Indians. One of my drivers got drunk after receiving a "dear John" and stole on of our fully armed M113 Armored Personnel Carriers east on highway40 which goes to Fulda and the East German border. The officer of the Guard caught up with the M113, pulled his (empty) pistor and ordered my Indian to pull over, He did, right over the OG's jeep. Tanks from the 14th Cavalry blocked him from going across the border. He didnt remember much of it, and we didn't do much more than Administrative punishment. Another used to drink cognac laced with gunpowder, then take on the entire bar. It usualluy took a half dozen MP's to take him down, small as he was. He was processed for discharge which would take place in a few months, When we put him on detail with the Supply Sergeant, he asked if he could paint the Supply Room. He was a genius in his own native art. We then let him loose with paint and he repainted the Mess Hall beutifully. The Northwest Indians such as the Swinomish have a period of time in the year when they disappear into the Reservations or woods for several weeks. Potlatch is the name that comes to mind. That is behavior that Seattle businessmen understand. The Swinomish have a bridge built by the State across the stream that is the boundaryof their reservation. Every year, the State paints it orange, and a few days later the sun rises on a green bridge. Depending on the degree of assimilation, the tribal culture is powerful. In many tribes, the damage done by well meaning teachers and the Bureau of Indian Affairs has destoyed the inner core of confidence of the affected tribes leaving alcohol and drug abuse epidemic. These experiences are what lead me to develop my cross cultural system. F4F. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Gordon, I wish you read what I've said with open ears. When historians research and write about any culture, we incude Military History. We will do it has HISTORIANS, not as Military personnel. I have never once said that military history is not history. I have many good friends that teach and research military history. I, myself spend a GREAT DEAL of time with military history and have taught entire semesters on just that subject because it is one of my specialties. I am a true lover of military history. There is a tremendous difference between Military History and the History of the Military, just as there is a tremendous difference between historians utilizing military history and the History of the Military. The latter is more akin to Museum Studies which is a branch of History, to be sure, but not the same and doesn't use the same methodologies. If I applied to run a museum, for instance, I would not get the job. A Museum Studies professional would not be able to get a job teaching in a history department. Both are historians, but there is a distinct difference in the training. This is similar to the huge difference between historians' ongoing, daily need to utilize archaeology, but the divide between History and Archaeology. There is an enormous and distinct difference between History and the Military. Most of what you talk about on this forum is either the history of the military which is not Military History, or it is simply Military Talk. Military talk is not History Talk. It is Military Talk and belongs on a Military Forum. It's not "bad" it is simply not History Talk. When historians "do" Military History we do not become Military People, any more than we become Wine Makers if we research Wine, or Weavers if we research textiles. We absolutely read Military talk. We look at maps, and battle plans. We memorize them, in fact. We read specs, regulations, war diaries and journals. We learn the players involved to the minutest detail available. We look at what the politicians said they were going to do, and compare it to what really happened. We look at the weather, too. We look at the geography, and we compare it to what the commanders claimed was the geography, and we compare THAT to topographical maps. We go to the site and we walk it. Fortunately now, we can compare it with satellite imagery and work our way backwards, too. We also compare all of this to what the people in the area wrote about, and we look at the economics and compare the accounts to grocery store lists and storage bins, and we look at the hospital records. We look at how many babies were born 9 months later, and what happened with the crops, and count the damage. We compare crop cycles in the previous harvests to the succeeding harvests. We look at suicides and death rates among soldiers and civilians. All of this is also according to what our personal interests are, too, because we are human beings with vocations.

But, let's be clear. I have reported to officers in the American Military at different installations because of my expertise though, and I've presented at a few embassies too, to a different kind of officer. I'm not there to 'be" a military person, though, am I? I am either there as an Historian or a Political Scientist (because I am both) ...to present a professional assessment of how something best comes together according to what the parameters are that I have been asked to look at. A military historian does not want to write military manuals or conduct military operations. A military historian does not write about military exercises and call it "History." We lecture, research and write about Military History and then we call it--rightly--Military History or simply History because that's what it is. It's still HISTORY, and this Forum is also rightly labeled HISTORY. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Donna M. likes this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Gordon: What you are NOT hearing, is that as a person who is NOT an American Indian, you do not get to speak for the American Indian culture. Every time you do, you identify yourself in a bad light. If you have an anecdote to tell that is respectful, then we will listen. Since you do not, you don't get to say. That's what you didn't learn in the 1960s when you studied Political Science, and what you didn't learn in the American military culture. Please, be quiet and listen to Donna. On this particular thread, she is the person to whom we defer. You have no standing. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Donna M. likes this

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH Donna asked the question to which I responded with information of first hand observation and conversation with tribal officials, The concept of an official "standing" presumes a set of qualifications established by a competant authority to do so. 1. If one were to expand on the standing concept, then only Nazis could judge Nazis, and Jews could judge Jews but not Nazis because they were not Nazis. An Nazi condemnation of Jews is, of course, without standing. 2. The concept of a "historian" with no military experience or training, then also does not have any standing discussing military affairs. 3. If a study of Indian culture by non-indians has no standing, the absence of first hand experience in any subject bars one from any standing on standing on what is understood. One corollary related to F4F is Parkinson's Law of Inverse Relevance which holds that the more a group spends on a subject is inversely related to its importance. This is also called the Law of Triviality (look it up). As a certified Psychological Operations Officer, a slight shift of the aiming point of the Law of Inverse Relevance is the Law of Inverse Attribution which holds that whatever one brags about is his/her weakest virtue. And that which is condemned is the biggest vice of the braggart. This is readily illustrated in advertising such as why one brand of paper towel is more sturdy (least virtue) when cost is the biggest virtue, and you can bet that brand X is sturdier. The Trans-Am Race of the Sixties was a gas mileage contest of gas guzzling cars. I have no earthly idea why Inverse Attribution works, but it does two times out of three, when tempers and emotions flare.

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Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Dan A. likes this

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Gordon, shhhhh. Listen, and you will learn. Yes, only Nazis get to speak to the experience of BEING a Nazi (if anyone wants to know, which most do not). Nazis do not get to speak for Jews, however. In the same way, you do not get to speak for American Indians, so that is why you have no standing. The concept of "standing" is quite specific and has to do with JUSTICE. Iusticia has a long tradition that we track in a very specific road, step-by-step and the United States is a very proud part of that tradition. It is called "The Path of the Law." One of the pieces of that tradition states that "The Universe arcs toward justice." These kinds of statements are held to be "Truisms" or, in other words, not argued. Please just listen. It will be beneficial, I think. You may speak about YOUR OWN, individual experience, but you do not get to speak about the American Indian experience, not even as an observer-which is to speak in defensive mode of your position. There is an entire category of fallacy for that behavior--which is in ex post facto mode. Fallacies are named such as part of "Logic" and the entirety of Logic is thousands of years old, underpinning Communication. Communication is understood as the way human beings use words in order to understand each other in civilization vs. barbarization. It is generally understood that this is part of the Human Project. Barbarians insist on the use of individual force; Civilized individual work together under the umbrella of collaboration and consent. This is very basic. If you have ever spent any time in a courtroom, then you know that if you make an observation about other people, then it has to be qualified in three ways-even if you claim you heard or saw it. The judge has to direct the jury that your observation is only admitted if it is disregarded separate from truth; otherwise it is deemed hearsay. In that process, the lawyer's objections are either sustained or overruled and the attorney asks for instructions, which the judge is required to give for the record. This process is part of the political science world, and not part of the History world--but we study it in History, because we watch the emergence of this over the course of hundreds of years. This is a History Forum, which means we are not talking about your personal, modern experiences-- or marketing, or other modern thoughts of yours, unless they are about HISTORY (and they are not). A Military Historian does not speak of him or herself, and if any historian reports on personal matters, it is problematic, because Historians do not insert themselves into any equation. You are very confused about what is considered expertise. This is why we don't expound on our own theories (like the theories on your blog), because we don't research our selves or our own imaginings. We research HISTORY. If you want to be a philosopher, then you need to look at philosophy forums and see what kind of success you have there. My experience is that philosophers will also expect you to follow philosophical methodologies and rules, too, but at least you will be allowed to follow your personal imaginings-which we do not do in HISTORY. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Donna M. likes this

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Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin.

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Gordon - It is too often that ALL us Indians hear from many non-Indians is stories of the ones who got into trouble of some kind, got drunk and did something terrible, etc., etc. More Indian people than ever are in collleges and universities, attending tribal colleges, teaching and working among the public in many capacities and working hard to dump the "drunken Indian stereotype." And that is exactly what it is - a stereotype. Non-Indian white men between the ages of 20 and 35 have been identified by the FBI as the typical serial killers - but we know they all are not. It is time for educated non-Indian people to acknowledge that myths and stereotypes are just that and that generalization is very damaging. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gabrielle Sutherland likes this

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Thank you Donna. That's beyond awful about the FBI--I didn't know that. I think most of us realize what stereo-typing will do if we allow it to enter our mentality. The best course of action is to not perpetuate it. Certainly, I don't want to be judged by a stereo-type! To what do you attribute the rise in college education? Is it the same set of factors we see in this generation, or something different in North America, or to American Indians and individual communities? Or something else? Is there a difference between males and females? Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin. Gabrielle - Thank you for your kind remarks. The information from the FBI - I'm sure can be verified, probably on their website. As to your question "why" the rise in education among Indian people - I'm not entirely sure but this I do know. Indian people were - now these are my words - were forced to accept and adapt to changes at an extremely speedy rate. By the early 1900's we were still struggling with the horrendous damage that government and Christian boarding schools had done to us. Furthermore, there was no encouragement to go to college in those days and I would venture to say that even as recent as the 1950's and 60's, not very many tribe's had members in colleges and universities throughout the US. I do think that we as a people know that in order for us to compete in the white man's world, we needed to become educated. I, for one, fall into that category of trying to make myself more valuable so I returned to college and I see many Indians both male and female entering higher educational facilities in all fields. The advent of tribal colleges made it easier for Indian people to stay on their reservations while working for a degree and many are continuing on. Indian people are achieving doctorates at higher and higher numbers. So if you see my feathers getting ruffled by some of the comments, this is why. Indian people have not ever been static and in spite of the early efforts to exterminate us, we are still here and are thriving and our numbers are growing. Like (2) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gordon Fowkes, Gabrielle Sutherland like this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer That's exciting, isn't it? I have a question which may only be a personal one or maybe you can answer collectively--I don't know. As part of my Master's Degree, I worked in Public history, and explored various community aspects. One of my professors referred to American Indians as "AmerIndians." Studying with her was to look at Banana Republics, then move forward to Eisenhower and Carter years and policies--and their effects. Her personal focus

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was Argentina, so coffeehouse chats and all that were centered more on S. America, but classroom time was more about political events. What do you think about the term AmerIndian? Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH

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I think I understand the difference between using first hand experience which is germane when one is an academic, and not when not. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin. Gabrielle - The word "Amerindians" is one that I have heard but am not familiar with. It is frustrating because American Indians are called many things and 99.9% of them are wrong. We are called "Indians" which is not correct either - Columbus called us Indians because he thought he was in India and for some ungodly reason, the name has stuck. Most of the tribe's in the US have their own individual names and it generally translates to "people." My tribe, the Lakota were called "Sioux" and that is not our name - we are Lakota people but since the name is often most recognized, I find, even myself, using Sioux interchangeably with Lakota. However, you will find that Lakota is recognized more often. In fact, in one of my presentations I used the name "Sioux" and some in the audience questioned "why" I was using it when they had just returned from the Black Hills and seen and heard the name Lakota being used. One word of caution, just because a probably learned professor may have used the term Amerindian - does not make it correct. As a very nontraditional student returning to college, I often found that I knew more about American Indian history than my professors who did not like being corrected by a student. So, I think that the term Amerindian is just "fluff" and probably does not deserve a great deal of attention. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Mike Mertaliya likes this

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Mike Mike Mertaliya Vice President at Nextime Conservation Corporation (NCC) Yes Donna, The Sioux, Cheyenne, Comanche.. etc are from the plains. On the East coast were the Catawba, Seminole, Chickasaw, Iroquois and more. The only reason they are called "Indians" is because the Europeans mistakenly thought they found another route to India. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle

Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Thanks Donna; that's what I expected, especially since her specific research--and people she lived among were in Argentina, AND her own coursework was several decades previous. It's an interesting prospect to think about living and working among people who think in terms of being "the people." I'm used to researching ancient people who write in that way and very much automatically think in terms of being "the ones" or "the humans" but that's a far-away concept even though I often feel like I know some of them very well. To be part of a culture and community group that still has that sense of self determination is a kind of power I would imagine. It seems to me that tribal identification isn't always clear cut and those of my friends who are American Indian have described themselves in the way you have. It seems complex because of naming by others and I think political alliances, maybe? I also think I know and have met many Lakota. I grew up on both coasts, and my family line comes from Eastport ME. An Indian tribe is attached to the town on what they refer to as a reservation, but the Eastporters pretend is a partner town with no name. To live in Eastport is to either be born there or be from "away" or be an American Indian and thus ignored. It's SLOWLY changing-- but way too slowly. To ask about tribal association is very complicated, and for me, I think more in terms of individuals, but I also want to be aware of the complexities involved. It's very easy to be "blind" and appear condescending without meaning too! It makes sense that naming--when the naming comes from others--can seem like it doesn't really matter or maybe a better way to put it that it feels interchangeable when it's not a self naming. This helps me, at least, in understanding some of the conversations I've had with American Indian friends.

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I work on a joint National Endowment grant (in Eastport) with a schoolteacher friend on the reservation and it's wonderful to work with elementary school children from both schools on the same project because it gives us not double the resources, but two different sets of resources which is great. I don't know if our project (an extensive art program) changes anything in an immediate way, but maybe over the course of time, it changes future perceptions for the kids involved when they become the town leaders? Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Donna M. likes this

Keith Keith Borgholthaus Sales Associate at Game Center You remind me of Yakima WA. It is on the Yakama Reservation, but no one wants to admit it. The only time you have someone say its on the Rez is to do something that is legal on the reservation, and illegal in the state of Washington. Sadly this means casinos. The Conversation reminds me of a book I read for a history class. I found it in a library , and had to detail various academic responses to it, as well my own personal thoughts on it. It was called My Navajo Sister. It is out of print and has all sorts of problems. the wedding ceremony has the items placed incorectly, and the colors are all wrong. On the other hand, the tale as if seen from someone who doesn't understand the culture, and is just trying to live in it is incredibly accurate. To me, that accuracy is what it is like to live in the Navajo reservation without really knowing the culture. The experience and the responses, and thoughts are things I heard all the time from people. In the same way, much of living in another culture has its own culture. THe Polynesian Cultural Center is a great place, and I really wish their was a version of it for the tribes. It is a great way to introduce a culture to a complete, for alack of better word I will use the videogame term, noob. On the other hand, it is also a way to help a culture regain lost things. Many of the songs and dances being shown were lost, or are no longer performed at the island being talked about. Many students at my colege thought they were getting some keen insight when they asked about the dances, or things at the PCC. I honestly don't know how I culd explain to them the meaning of the PCC to the Polynesian. So, I think the conversation right now is about trying to understand, and explain what we have learned, without offending. Like the woman in my Navajo Sister, we have a view, and although not perfectly accurate, it is accurate to our experience and what we learned from it. When I first got to my college, I noticed that all of the different cultures sat next to each other. The Chinese, sat next to the other Chinese, even if they were from a different China. The polynesians sat with other polynesians. I never thought about it, and assumed I sat on my own. So, although I don't think anyone means to do so, I see that man of us are sitting with the groups we recognize. It's all historians in the room, but different views. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gabrielle Sutherland likes this

Wim Wim van den Hoonaard Assistent-medewerker Archieven en Collecties bij Archief Eemland

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Who discovered Russia? Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

Keith Keith Borgholthaus Sales Associate at Game Center What part? It was a slow eastern expansion over several cultures and centuries. Chinghis Kahn, and thats my final answer. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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yefim yefim pargamanik -An interesting point of view - just as the Europeans have discovered for themselves the other parts of the globe previously unknown to them but very well known to the peoples of the region so the Orientals e.g. have discovered Europe for themselves. Not Chinghis Khan who has never been there himself, to call him a discoverer is the same as to claim that America was discovered by los Reyes Catolicos. Subutai and Jebe were the Columbus of the East. About Indians or Amerindians: some tribes in Africa had first foreign to them contacts with the white people who came from Turkey. Naturally, they have called for some time all Europeans Turks and their name for Europe was Turey. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gabrielle Sutherland likes this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer It's generally thought that "The People" moved into what would become Russia as the ice receded and the reindeer went further and further north. There are linguists who believe that humanity was born in Russia. Much of their argument depends on reading within the entire milieu of Black Athena and the various offshoots. Other historians vie for "first people" from the Dacian migration trail, and others look at indigenous India, which might be Dravidian (whatever that means). THESE arguments are similar to those who now write about Mitochondrial Eve, but to explore these avenues requires a secure background in DNA because popular history almost always skews these reports into quickie sound bytes that make each argument sound the same.

Like all historical evidence attached to scientific studies, it's also important to check which group is writing the white paper, who is funding it (especially if it's government), who is viewing it and presenting it--because the viewer of art or science changes "it"and becomes part of the construct, what the parameters were, and what the goals were. For instance: if the question and answer were exactly the same, and the ultimate goal is for a product release. Then other tests must be found to validate the research as meaningful apart than commerce. Similarly, the laws surrounding stem cell research, etc. must be known to the historian looking at each study when comparing the results of similar tests in order to compare them. As with any scientific study, the laws regarding copyright also need to be looked at in order to check on release of information and discover the status of the information and the scientists involved. Obviously, this is normal practice when we do history, but we have to remember to use the same tools in the present that would apply in the past, so we are not manipulated by current government policies into rubber-stamping as "valid" something that is a modern product rather than the result of scientific experimentation by utilizing it to somehow then validate history in a way that otherwise cannot be validated using normal methodology ... recognizing that Historical questions are very different than Scientific questions, in order to keep them separate. We also do this, recognizing that the future reader with 'modern' science in his or her grasp (which is always different), will need to understand what the historian wrote at the time she/he wrote given the level of science at his/her disposal. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Philip Philip Carroll Reading, Writing, History, Self-employed Top Contributor The tsars or their immediate aristocratic forbears invented Russia. Ghengis Khan, I think, probably was too internationalist, too intent on riding with the wind with a string of horses in his early years, never to fight no more, forever, [Chief Joseph], and then, in his later years, too wrapped up in the China dreams of his own proto-aristocratic heirs, to have conceived of a cohesive imagined community in nation building terms of a kingly Russia. The French discovered Russia in 1812, and the Germans in 1941-45, and each undiscovered it almost as quickly as they discovered it. The Bolsheviks reinvented Russia in 1917. The western liberal progressive neo-con democractic post-communist spacers thought they reinvented it again in the 1990's, but now, Russia seems to have been re-discovered by the Russian peoples themselves. Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH The Rus were Vikings mostly from Sweden who traded along Russian rivers and ported their ships across narrow stretches of land to reach the Rivers flowing into the Caspian as well as the Black Sea. The Rus expanded by intermarriage with Slavic women who transmitted Slavic culture into the community. Those Rus and some still Viking such as the Varangians became valued fighters in the Byzantine Empire. This might be called the Eastern March while the movement of the converted Vikings called the Normans who picked up French as their primary language in the same manner as having settled down in Normandy. The Normans had an unusually high competence in governance and by connivance and conquest stretched Norman to include Sicily, parts of Northern Africa, parts of Italy and collided with the Byzantines who used Varangians as mercenaries, Since many of those Vikings who lost at Stamford Bridge in 1066 and the Anglo Saxons who lost at Hastings1066 may have crossed elbows in and around the Byzantine Empire. The Mongol Invasions cut the travel on Russian rivers by Rus and were removed from contention by owing obeisance to the Tartar, Turk and Mongol until Ivan the Terrible

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Harald Hardrada, King of Norway has been a commander in the Varangian Guard and had fought the Normans in Greece, returned home and tried to take England and failed. He has been called the Last of the Vikings Like Reply privately Delete 1 month ago

yefim yefim pargamanik --

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Not Ivan the Terrible, but his grandfather Ivan III. Hardrada was also commander in the army of Yaroslav the Wise and married his daughter. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Gordon Fowkes likes this

Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer When we speak of a region or territory, we say "what will be France," "what will be Germany," "What will be Russia," etc. We don't pretend that it suddenly came into existence the moment at which it is given its current name. It is obvious, then, to everyone who is listening or will read what we are saying, that we are talking about a landmass that is currently "Russia" but which has gone through different political namings over the course of History-just like all land masses in the world. All regions have been given a name well after their mythic beginnings from a dominant group, dynasty, God(s), family or something other than the original name by which it was called in its original state of nature, and well after its "Age of Heroes." It might not be the people it is named after, but rather, a group that comes afterwards, looking backwards to a Golden Age. It might be a forced name, or it might be, like the Americas, and be named according to ideology and progress. We are careful to note that we know it was not always "this" or "that" --just as we have to do with the topic on this thread. But we similarly don't pretend that reality doesn't exist and that we have remained in a state of nature (Hobbes) or that we are frozen in some other arbitrarily chosen moment in time. History is a dialogue between the present and other moments in the past.....which means WE are the present, looking, searching, seeking, asking, exploring, learning. To pinpoint one particular time as the exact moment on a timeline is not accurate because there is no exact moment in time that anything in history happens. Too many factors, people, events, decisions, and random chance is/are involved to choose a specific moment. We also already know that something ELSE happened after that....including us! Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago Donna M. likes this

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH

Wiki Controversy persists over whether the Rus were Varangians (Vikings) or Slavs. This uncertainty is due largely to a paucity of contemporary sources. Attempts to address this question instead rely on archaeological evidence, the accounts of foreign observers, legends and literature from centuries later.[18] To some extent the controversy is related to the foundation myths of modern states in the region.[19] According to the "Normanist" view, the Rus' were Scandinavians, while Russian and Ukrainian nationalist historians generally argue that the Rus' were themselves Slavs.[20][21][22] Normanist theories focus on the earliest written source for the East Slavs, the Russian Primary Chronicle,[23] although even this account was not produced until the 12th century.[24] Nationalist accounts have suggested that the Rus' were present before the arrival of the Varangians,[25] noting that only a handful of Scandinavian words can be found in modern Russian and that Scandinavian names in the early chronicles were soon replaced by Slavic names.[26] Nevertheless, archaeological evidence from the area suggests that a Scandinavian population was present during the 10th century at the latest. [27] On balance, it seems likely that the Rus' proper were a small minority of Scandinavians who formed an elite ruling class, while the great majority of their subjects were Slavs.[26] Considering the linguistic arguments mounted by nationalist scholars, if the proto-Rus' were Scandinavians, they must have quickly become nativized, adopting Slavic languages and other cultural practices. Ahmad ibn Fadlan, an Arab traveler during the 10th century, provided one of the earliest written descriptions of the Rus': "They are as tall as a date palm, blond and ruddy, so that they do not need to wear a tunic nor a cloak; rather the men among them wear garments that only cover half of his body and leaves one of his hands free."[28] Liutprand of Cremona, who was twice an envoy to the Byzantine court (949 and 968), identifies the "Russi" with the Norse ("the Russi, whom we call Norsemen by another name")[29] but explains the name as a Greek term referring to their physical traits ("A certain people made up of a part of the Norse, whom the Greeks call [...] the Russi on account of their physical features, we designate as Norsemen because of the location of their origin.").[30] Leo the Deacon, a 10th-century Byzantine historian and chronicler, refers to the Rus' as "Scythians" and notes that they tended to adopt Greek rituals and customs.[31]" EndW Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 month ago yefim pargamanik likes this

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Andr Andr Correia Retired. I was a makteer and later CEO. Now I learn history. You can say or believe that the North America was discovered by the Wikings, or the Portuguese, or the Spanish, but that is not completely correct. North America, as South and Central America continents had already different peoples, with their languages, their cultures. Australia, New Zealand were discovered be the English or the Portuguese, but other men were living there. What really happened was a change of cultures. The stronger (Europe) killed or dominated them. Europe didn't discover the Central and East Asia. They did try, with no success. Even Africa, the origin of Man, was colonized by the Europe and changed in many ways the original languages and cultures of the African countries. So what will happen in future? What will change? Are we going to have a kind of concentration of cultures and power in a World without countries, but Confederations or something similar? Are we going to divide the world in 3 or 4 or 5 big Empires, or Confederations or what? Like Reply privately Delete 5 days ago

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Gordon Gordon Fowkes Grand Historian at Grand Priory of St Joan of Mexico and Latin America, OSMTH The concentration of cultures into 3-5 big empires has already been done, and undone because it cost more to run the colonies and possesssions than they were worth. In 1900 there were the British, French, Russian, Spanish, and Chinese empires ++. By 1920, Russian and Chinese fell off the grid. By 1960 the Soviet empire was the last one standing.

The term "discover" is a matter of perspective. A child discovers his toe or how to open the refrigerator which are discoveries for that child. Columbus and Chabot were both aware of Norse travels from Iceland to the west. Columbus was using calculations of the earth's curve that did not factor in the bulge of the earth along the equator. Given knowledge of something to the West, the caluculations should have placed Columbus near Japan except for the Pacific. The Americas were "discovered" by Amerigo Vespucci because he discovered that the Americas were not a part of East Asia. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 5 days ago Andr C. likes this

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Andr Andr Correia Retired. I was a makteer and later CEO. Now I learn history. When I refer concentration of cultures I mean also a new and determinant culture: POWER. Economic, financial, military concentration. This "concentration" is being made by important changes in our life. We are no more closed in a peace of Land, big or small. We see, we hear, we visit, we make business all around the world. We are speaking and learning a few languages which may allow us to go everywhere and understand each other. A few years ago each country, big or small, had a national currency. Now we have less currencies and in some cases our currency is in a way tied with a more powerful one. The world is changing and the countries are looking for a future where competition, in every area, social, economic, scientific, military, is being more and more important and so looking for more "mass", more "muscle". The people of any country can compare what is going in other countries. People travel, migrate. Workers or scientists leave their countries for many reasons that a "few" years ago were not known. The future will demand much more. The Men always tried to get more. And more and more we have new needs. In the history of our world we have seen all kind of Empires. Now we are building a new kind of Empires. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 1 day ago Peter A. likes this

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Dan Dan Allosso PhD (ABD), History at University of Massachusetts Amherst I started my American Environmental History class this semester with a lecture called American "Prehistory" which began 80,000 years ago with the last African migration (https://vimeo.com/86197456). I follow those people to central Europe, and then say some went east and became Siberians/Beringians/Americans, and some went west and became Europeans. That way, in the second lecture when I talk about the Columbian Exchange, I can call it "Recontact." The students reacted very well to this, partly because it was a new way of thinking about it which they'd never been exposed to before. We had a chance to talk about not only the real first discoverers (the Beringians), but also about the Vikings, the Basques, and other European groups that interacted with the Americas before 1492. Their surprise about a lot of these ideas has prompted me to start a group:http://www.linkedin.com/groups/AmericanEnvironmental-History-6623947?trk=my_groups-b-grp-v and to post my lecture videos on Vimeo. Feel free to check them out, join the group, and discuss! Like Reply privately Delete 18 hours ago

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Donna Donna Maday Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Team - Admin. Dan Allosso - I, as an American Indian, and do not agree or believe what is erroneously still taught in colleges and universities. I believe that we indigenous people - were ALWAYS here. I also do not agree with the Bering Strait THEORY. Vine Deloria, Jr., also an American Indian wrote extensively arguing against the Bering Strait and has caused many to rethink what has always been taught, read and believed. As Vine Deloria said, "the only reason for trying to make us Indians - immigrants - is to justify the theft of our lands and resources and destruction of the people. Maybe the Vikings, Basques and other Europeans who are supposed to have come to this land did come but they didn't stay. Even the Chinese are reported to have visited the West Coast since anchors have been found in the Pacific that are believed to be Chinese made - but they didn't stay if they were here at all. I think that all this conjecture is fine for discussion but someone needs to pay attention to what the American Indians say. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 17 hours ago Gabrielle Sutherland likes this

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer I absolutely agree, Donna. Not only that, but the "Out of Africa" theory has been modified several times since Martin Bernal first wrote Black Athena as a Classicist text which started the theory. It is no longer used in conjunction with migration patterns. As a Classicist argument supporting AfroAsiatic roots in contrapositions against the Greco-Roman theories, it has nothing to do with extended migration theories previous to the Bronze Age, and it is faulty even in that regard. Additionally, it has been refuted at the linguistic, cultural, anthropological and geological levels. Migration patterns of People Groups is not a universal construct. It is particular in time, place, and people group. The study is linked to context; not the other way 'round. "Indigenous People" are a crucial piece of any study of History, and cannot be ignored or excluded from history without a resultant loss of credibility. Text books are almost always out of date at the level of Pre-history, although they are improving. I'm surprised that you are teaching this way, Dan, as it is extremely out of date. Collaboration is the way of the modern business world, and it has long been the model of the world of History. We cannot do what we do without it. It's important for us to present--at the very least--all theories available for students to then apply critical thinking skills to the process. The usual reason given for critical thinking skills is for the issue of religious teachings that test students belief vs. knowledge barriers, especially during that crucial first year at college when they first must come to grips with several paradigm shifts. It's a shame if we add to the ignorance by not providing accurate/authentic paradigms from which to compare and contrast. Like (1) Reply privately Delete 17 hours ago Donna M. likes this

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Dan Dan Allosso PhD (ABD), History at University of Massachusetts Amherst Sorry if I've hit a nerve, Donna. I'm familiar with Vine Deloria Jr's writing. While I think it is powerful and useful in promoting positive Indian identity, I don't think it's detrimental to Indian culture to acknowledge the global scientific consensus that humanity began in Africa. Unless we're going to say that all science is simply an artifact of Eurocentric imperialism -- and then you're left fighting for an Indian genesis in America against a Judeo-Christian genesis in

a middle-eastern Eden. Gabrielle, I think you're confusing collaboration with something else. The "way" I'm teaching is based on the best, most recent, peer-reviewed work of people (archaeologists and anthropologists) who have spent their lives trying to perfect their craft and get at the truth. I've read your final paragraph several times, in an effort to decode what you're trying to get at. Sounds to me like your introduction of "religious teachings" is a clue. As I said earlier, I'm not in the business of trying to accommodate the most recent academic and scientific findings with anyone's religious beliefs. I teach history. Like Reply privately Delete 16 hours ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Ecological History is quite important. We look at the transfer of grasses from contents and land masses and we watch animals over time like rabbits, guinea pigs and the food chain. In the case of Beringia, reindeer would be most important, and that evidence does not exist. The most important modern research is that all artifacts that supporters of the Bering Strait Theory point to cannot be dated any earlier than 12,000 years, nor do they support migration. Artifacts throughout the Americas show dates much older and do not link to those in the northwest. Like Reply privately Delete 13 hours ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer No Don, teaching archaeology and anthropology is not teaching History. We need to teach History to teach history. The Out of Africa thesis does not take into account linguistics, geological evidence, sociology, and a great deal of recent archaeological evidence from around the world from the genre of Ancient History --not ecological history. This is the problem of the academy and its partitioning of studies. Without reading the ancient languages and keeping current with the modern versions of them--collaboration--it is difficult to keep up. You are making assumptions that are dangerous. I spoke of religious inclinations of students. Many students arrive at college (as I stated above) with belief systems intact that have led them to be wary of the kinds of questions they will encounter that first year of school. These belief systems don't only come from home and family, but also from backwards school districts that don't even teach evolution! We, as professors encounter this all the time, and it's our task to allow for the process of critical thinking, NOT to confront them with a truth/Truth construct of either/or, because that would make us tyrants. Instead we, in the western tradition believe in academic freedom and a liberal (the classic not political sense of liberal = freedom) tradition that says our task is to teach them to think and arrive at conclusions according to syllogistic proofs. This will only happen when we give them all the information. We don't TELL them. We teach. Since we are teaching THEORIES, this is extremely important. If we are teaching pre-history, they need to be given correct terminology (which includes indigenous for all continents), and migration patterns traced in other ways--linguistically, for instance, do not match the Out of Africa thesis. Neither do boundary stone evidence which directly matches myth and geographical evidence along with anthropological evidence. So, what I'm saying to you, is we live in a multicultural world, and ALL the evidence is valid. (Valid does not equal true/True.) Like (1) Reply privately Delete 13 hours ago Andr C. likes this

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Dan Allosso PhD (ABD), History at University of Massachusetts Amherst Gabrielle, I'm sure you impress some people with this type of argument. I imagine sometimes you even get their names right. But I'm not hearing anything from you that isn't covered in first-year postmodernism seminars. It's easy to sling BS on the internet, especially if you throw around a lot of jargon. Anyone can claim anything online, like your claim that linguistic data doesn't match DNA data, or Donna's claim that "we were ALWAYS here." The idea that "ALL evidence is valid" is not only incorrect, but leads people to believe that all interpretations are valid. That's not the way paradigms work, in science or history. And your capitalization of the word THEORIES misrepresents the way knowledge is advanced in exactly the same way as the creationist who claims evolution is only a "theory." Like Reply privately Delete 12 hours ago

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Michael J Michael J Moylan Consultants to Community Associations and Math Education Curriculum Development There are many questions about who the when and the where. So give me points that you all say this is not right. I respect Gabrielle so tell me why not step by step. The thing about history all the studies and the dates and G will disagree with me no one can always prove a date is right. We read books we research dates and support discussions but prove the point. It is not about academia it is about truth. G and I have had big fights and I am always called her to task one thing I can say her research is close to the mark. If you have seen my post in other discussions we have argued on some of these points. So make your case sir because you have not. So this we know some make claims that are not true! Ok I would agree with that ? Prove it Do not agree with Donna prove your point to be honest what you say does not match the fact that I have. Where is the history? Show me ! The Europeans did bad things so did the natives in this land but you deny those errors. You tell me it was a European conspiraciy to a degree this is true however long before the Europeans showed up the native culture had a problem and you never talk about this. Why ? to,protect a heritage ? All cultures have faults it is the story about the good the bad and the ugly and not one culture I have studied is beyond that . This I know to be fact We as cultures are not perfect and abuse others. We like to place blame. Then we tire of war and want peace MJM Like (1) Reply privately Delete 12 hours ago Andr C. likes this

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Michael J Moylan Consultants to Community Associations and Math Education Curriculum Development Then we start a war again. We do this over and over again. Evey culture does this to others We think we have it right to tear out hearts to cause the fields to grow Then we meet guys from across the sea who are more evil than us but they claim god is on there side. Same thing we claimed. They in no fault of their own brought a unseen enemy. They did not know with the the evils they had brought a curse a infection a biological event . The nations were dieing but a slower death till the Europeans showed up.

Most of our cultures knows abuse So did the native to the European the greed of wealth. When do we stop this ? Pick a country today why do people need to die? So I work for you and you do not think of me being the angel of death I do work for you and save souls. You do not want to know ! You want me to go away not to remind you what the cost is . I am the Easter lamb. No care small benefits and you take away all my civil rights because I am screwed up after doing what your government told me to do. This is why all sons and daughters should serve then us Vets get a fair shake That you do not owe me answers to my question's. That I die for you because I swore a oath. I saw your son or daughter die the nation owes us a answer. When does it stop. When do we go back to the constitution ? MJM MJM Like Reply privately Delete 11 hours ago

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Gabrielle Gabrielle Sutherland Historian & Writer Don, I see that you looked at my profile, so you saw that I am actually well qualified to speak to these matters with a PhD in the subject and well versed in Ancient History, & not what you implied. You might not agree with my conclusions, but my research is advanced and up-to-date, as I work in this field, and do so regularly. I am indeed able to converse in this area with many years of research in the requisite languages, and on-site travels that accompany this work. Let's be careful with assumptions and the ad hominem remarks. When we present theories to students we use the Aristotelian syllogism, especially in matters of science. Scientific 'proofs" use the theorem which posits A and B therefore C. If the Proof can be backed by Logic, then it is valid. There are MANY valid theories regarding what we call Pre-History. The syllogism has 4 possible answers: valid; invalid; true; not true. Often what we witness on these forums are fallacious arguments, which means that the argument is neither true NOR valid. In the case of the Bering Strait Theory, it is valid, but so are several others. It is absolutely NOT linked to the "Out of Africa" thesis! They are separate theories. In arguments regarding

Pre-History we cannot prove a truth/Truth statement given the lack of evidence. MJM is correct in this. This is what Donna was saying to you, and what I have been saying to you. To be responsible teachers, we do not want to present to our students one argument alone as if it were "truth" when indeed it is one valid argument among many. We also cannot discuss Pre-History whilst ignoring indigenous people less we risk ethnocentrism: the most egregious error of any academic historian. Amateur historians might be forgiven for this bias, but never an academic. The first problem with your contentions, Don, is that History as a subject pre-supposes an indigenous people group. The Bering Strait theory does not account for empirical traces and artifacts (factual, physical evidence) that reveal American indigenous that pre-date the evidence from the Bering Strait. This does not negate the Bering Strait as a land bridge for travel, but it negates it as the primary migration route. One of the reasons for this is its emergence is not old enough. Another is the animal traces don't match nor does the vegetation. Another issue with Berengia is that the land bridge did not last long enough for the kind of sustained migration period that is necessary for migration associated peopling. Another important reason is the lack of evidence from Asia, and a completely different set of parameters in Asia for the migration patterns, settling, animals, etc. MJM: Patterns in Ecological history follow climate patterns, grasses and smaller animals that have been impacted by the "invading" animals, plants, and people groups as they migrate, and the Beringian land bridge has provided that same evidence. The Bering Strait theory is fine if we look at it as a land bridge for some people, so this is not to say that no one traveled across Beringia, but those "invaders" did not travel very far, and thus, their impact was isolated. Donna does not need to prove the existence of indigenous people groups, because the evidence abounds. It is the same evidence that exists on all continents: grave sites contain grave goods or remains, both cremation and inhumation. Carvings (relief and statuary) and various works of art of people that pre-date "history." Boundary stones and highways, pottery, agricultural sites, and herding pattern evidence. Terra forma patterns and eoliths. This isn't anything new; this is the practice of collaborative history in looking at anthropological studies and understanding how to find our ancestors. It diminishes no one living to acknowledge the indigenous. Like Reply privately Delete 10 hours ago

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Dan Dan Allosso PhD (ABD), History at University of Massachusetts Amherst Gabrielle, for the record, my name is Dan. You can't even get that right. As for ad hominem, you trolled my post and attacked the "way" I was teaching, offering your wisdom. In your last post, once again you're warning me against making "the most egregious error of any academic historian." Really, where do you get off? You brought up the "Out of Africa" Black Athena theory, to which I did not refer. I wrote about Siberian/Beringian/Indians and said I had lectured on prehistory using archaeological and anthropological findings. I'm perfectly willing to accept human presence in the Americas before Clovis. If you had watched my lecture video, you'd have noticed I spend a lot of time talking about Monte Verde, which predates any known Clovis site. There was a recent headline about DNA analysis done on remains from a Clovis site, that supports the Beringian migration. I was surprised, because I thought it wasn't news. I suppose, in light of this discussion, it IS news to some people and should be publicized. I don't expect to change your mind, you've clearly built an edifice of pseudo-academic claims around what you choose to believe. But this is a public discussion in a group called History with over 5,000 members. So I feel someone has to stand up to bullies like you. It is incorrect and out of date to continue referring to Beringia as a "land bridge," as if it was some narrow and temporary structure. With sea levels 120 meters below current, Beringia was as wide as Alaska and lasted for several thousand years. About the same duration as recorded history, long enough for people to live there for generations, and not think they were "going" anyplace. It's entirely possible humans made it to the Americas before the Beringians, and in different ways. I think we underestimate the intelligence and resourcefulness of ancient (and indigenous) people. However, DNA analysis to date shows that most of the people who were here when the Europeans arrived had predominantly eurasian ancestors. I think it's telling that you prefer linguistic analysis to DNA. Linguistic analysis is so much more malleable, in the hands of people with agendas. It gave us Indo-European Aryanism in the nineteenth century. "History as a subject presupposes an indigenous people group"? And "the evidence abounds," simply because you say it does? Talk about egregious. Like (1) Reply privately Delete

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2 hours ago Andr C. likes this

Dan Dan Allosso PhD (ABD), History at University of Massachusetts Amherst Since I'm sort-of on a roll and apparently not here to make friends, I have one more small bone to pick. It was said early in the discussion that there was a sort of balance, in which Europe gave the Americas smallpox, and the Americas gave Europe the "great pox," syphilis. I think this is inaccurate. From then to now, syphilis has killed only a small fraction of the number of people that European diseases killed in the Americas. European population was not decreased by 90%. Entire cities were not depopulated. And syphilis did not enable conquest and the wholesale destruction of civilizations in the way European diseases did in the Americas. In his book, The Columbian Exchange, Alfred W. Crosby DID devote a lot of space to syphilis. Perhaps he was seeking a sense of balance. It was 1970 and his argument that disease and not Spanish military/cultural superiority was responsible for events in the Americas was still new and controversial. Crosby sent his manuscript to a dozen editors before someone agreed to publish it. I think for most readers, the chapters on Cortes and Pizarro ring truer. Crosby spent much less ink on syphilis in his followup book, Ecological Imperialism. Like Reply privately Delete 2 hours ago

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