Speakeasy forum: Idyllic America Before White Guys Showed Up

"The skin belonged to a man who lived and died in South America "probably in the Afro-Ecuadorian population." The genes reveal the victim's ancestors were from West Africa, but his DNA profile matches that of modern populations from Ecuador with African admixture."

What the presence of West African genes means, James, is that the shrunken head was post-Columbus i.e. Post-Columbian, probably 17th century or later, and thus isn't from the pre-Columbian period which appears to be what you would need to justify your argument.

And white folks arrival in North America accidentally destroyed a host of civilizations of great vibrance and complexity. There's a Documentary called 400 Nations, which is a rough guess at the number of separate cultures which arose in North America following the last Ice Age, and before the beginning of the 16th Century.

The point isn't that all was sweetness and light before we arrived, its that our arrival, and our diseases wiped out more than 90% of the original inhabitants who were managing their cultures in no worse way than European cultures with their endless wars of religion. 90% is the conservative number. The population of North, Central and South America dropped from at least 30 million to fewer than 3 million in a space of 30 years. Great and remarkable cultures were wiped out, not by intention, but by the accident of imported disease. Of course the actions of Colonial powers like Spain Portugal and England weren't benign by any means, but their cruelties pale beside the genocide of disease, though that was entirely uninitentional.

Of course the native North Americans had an unintentional small revenge. They introduced siphyllis into the European population.

Rob

ttell him he was wrong about Syphilis.

There are a dozen of STDs, only 2 of which were of fatal consideration to Europeans before the age of AIDS. Gonnorhea which was known in Antiquity, and Syphilis which began to be recognized in the 16th Century in Spain following the "discovery" of America. Syphilis used to be noted as the Native American's revenge. I will however admit that I haven't even thought of the issue until yesterday, and new research may have changed the old assumptions.

Rob

we can easily and openly blame native Americans for syphilis but we won't blame gay people for AIDS, even though it also is "acquired".

both groups could control the disease spread through monogamy and monogany.

find whatever you want on the internet!

http://www.news-medical.net/health/Syphilis-History.aspx

Syphilis History
inShare.0By Dr Ananya Mandal, MD

History has suggested that syphilis is a disease of early times. The disease might have been prevalent among the indigenous peoples of the Americas before Europeans travelled to and from the New World.

"Pre-Columbian theory"
The "pre-Columbian theory" holds that syphilis was present in Europe before the discovery of the Americas by Europeans. The disease is described by Hippocrates in Classical Greece in its venereal/tertiary form.

There are other suspected syphilis findings for pre-contact Europe, including at a 13-14th century Augustinian friary in the north eastern English port of Kingston upon Hull. This city's maritime history, with its continual arrival of sailors from distant places, is thought to have been a key factor in the transmission of syphilis.

The "French disease"
Some historians believe that the disease first made its appearance in the French troops besieging Naples and Italians called it morbus gallicus ('French disease'). On the other hand the French preferred to call it the 'Neapolitan disease' or a disease from the Naples.

it isn't siphyllis, it is syphilis

Yeah!.....That's the ticket