Crazy ideas about archaeology
Today I learned that there are new "teachings" going around the racist bigots - I had to reply to comments on one letter to the editor in the paper because there was just too much bullshit about my discipline (and more found later).
Here's the new teachings:
(1)There were two migrations to this country, one from Europe and one from Asia (possible but need more evidence of European migration - but then Europe wasn't anything but a physical region back then and the cultures were radically different from today). (2)They immediately started warring with each other (forget the natural impulse to marry "new blood" and to make friends, especially in terrain that is, shall we say, not the safest in the world).
(3)The first ones, the Clovis people (wonder where they came from?... like Europe?) were driven out and moved back to England, Wales, Asia, Norway, and a few other places. (4)Yep, "the Europeans were coming back to reclaim what was theirs in the first place". Never mind that most archaeologists now accept that Clovis was not the first, and there is evidence that we've been here for many thousands of years BEFORE Clovis - and that intermarrying is natural.
(5)There were waves of invaders, starting with the "Mayan" (Maya), which became the Creeks, which became the Cherokee, which became the Seminole... and so on. Yep, instead of different tribes, they just "mutated" from one tribe to another. Never mind intermarrying, international (we are all separate nations, after all... not just tribes) treaties, trade, etc..
(6)We were violent - implied more violent than Europeans or Africans or Asians (from the evidence in the archaeological record, the inverse was true), and this land was pretty much up for grabs when the whites came.
(7)We didn't have laws, so we don't have any room or reason to say anything about immigration today. (Never mind that we had codified systems of laws, international treaties, etc.)
There was a lot more pure bullshit, but I don't remember it all. I'm a bit nauseated right now. I've run into some crazy stuff in the past, but this just about takes the cake... and the thrust of the argument was that the theft of our land was justified and legal (for instance, my people were never "paid" for the land taken from us... although we WERE offered 10 cents an acre for it about 28 years ago - and then blocked from federal recognition because we couldn't sell the graves of our ancestors or the land the Creator gave to us (our reasons) - and that we should just shut our mouths when the important people - the "whites", talk about important issues like "illegal immigrants".
I think we have a new topic for our online class "Fantastic Archaeology"... new pseudoscience being taught to bigots, to justify the abuse heaped on Native Americans even today.
I had to answer it... because as we've learned, if you don't counter false propaganda, it just keeps spreading like some sort of disease. Archaeologists and anthropologists are finally starting to realize that we have to get out of the "ivory tower" to counter the lies being spread through this nation (something I've been advocating since I returned to school!).
Here's the new teachings:
(1)There were two migrations to this country, one from Europe and one from Asia (possible but need more evidence of European migration - but then Europe wasn't anything but a physical region back then and the cultures were radically different from today). (2)They immediately started warring with each other (forget the natural impulse to marry "new blood" and to make friends, especially in terrain that is, shall we say, not the safest in the world).
(3)The first ones, the Clovis people (wonder where they came from?... like Europe?) were driven out and moved back to England, Wales, Asia, Norway, and a few other places. (4)Yep, "the Europeans were coming back to reclaim what was theirs in the first place". Never mind that most archaeologists now accept that Clovis was not the first, and there is evidence that we've been here for many thousands of years BEFORE Clovis - and that intermarrying is natural.
(5)There were waves of invaders, starting with the "Mayan" (Maya), which became the Creeks, which became the Cherokee, which became the Seminole... and so on. Yep, instead of different tribes, they just "mutated" from one tribe to another. Never mind intermarrying, international (we are all separate nations, after all... not just tribes) treaties, trade, etc..
(6)We were violent - implied more violent than Europeans or Africans or Asians (from the evidence in the archaeological record, the inverse was true), and this land was pretty much up for grabs when the whites came.
(7)We didn't have laws, so we don't have any room or reason to say anything about immigration today. (Never mind that we had codified systems of laws, international treaties, etc.)
There was a lot more pure bullshit, but I don't remember it all. I'm a bit nauseated right now. I've run into some crazy stuff in the past, but this just about takes the cake... and the thrust of the argument was that the theft of our land was justified and legal (for instance, my people were never "paid" for the land taken from us... although we WERE offered 10 cents an acre for it about 28 years ago - and then blocked from federal recognition because we couldn't sell the graves of our ancestors or the land the Creator gave to us (our reasons) - and that we should just shut our mouths when the important people - the "whites", talk about important issues like "illegal immigrants".
I think we have a new topic for our online class "Fantastic Archaeology"... new pseudoscience being taught to bigots, to justify the abuse heaped on Native Americans even today.
I had to answer it... because as we've learned, if you don't counter false propaganda, it just keeps spreading like some sort of disease. Archaeologists and anthropologists are finally starting to realize that we have to get out of the "ivory tower" to counter the lies being spread through this nation (something I've been advocating since I returned to school!).