Don't we have one or more Native Americans on this forum?

I've always been intrigued by the distance between the Apache who speak an Athabaskan language and why they're are so distant from the Athabaskan language speakers in Northern Canada and Alaska.
There must be an interesting story as to how they came to where they are located today...well at least I would find it interesting, other people may not.

 

That is really hard to track, since with a very few exceptions, the entire Pre-Columbian history of Indians is known only from oral history. None of them had as of yet discovered "literacy", so that is all that is left to us.

And no, that does not mean they were ignorant. Much of pre-history is based largely on population density. it is only when a culture gets to the point that they need a system of recording things that literacy was developed. We see that in China, in Egypt, in Israel-Judea, in every culture on the planet. In the Americas the population had never really reached that level.

In North America, we only saw that in the Aztecs, and at the very tail end of the Mississipian culture, which did not last long enough to make that leap. Such a leap into literacy may have save that culture, or it may have come to late, we will never really know. But with no real records left, all we have are legends and folk tales. Which ironically is what we had from the Proto-Israelites, which we know as "The Bible".

Folk tales and legends as told from generation to generation from a non-literate culture, that survived long enough to become literate and eventually write down those stories. We know that what we have in those books is really just oral tradition that was written down centuries later. Just the way the number 7 and 40 repeat over and over as measurements of time (40 days, 40 years, etc) is proof of that.

And remember, what we saw later is largely the remnants of the formerly shattered Mississipian Culture. When that collapsed, a new wave of migrations started through most of North America.

To give an idea, I already mentioned the Iroquois Nation. Many are not aware that the Cherokee (which ranged from North and South Carolina to Tennessee and Georgia) are also part of the Iroquois Family. Genetically and linguistically they are the same, but separated at somewhere around 500 CE. Their own folklore says they were from the Great Lakes region, and left "long ago". Odds are there was some kind of internal struggle, and what we know as the Cherokee Nation were either outcasts or refugees that fled South in roughly the time of King Arthur.

Odds are, with the Apache it was something similar. A group in what is now Canada came into conflict with the leaders of their own era, and left. Either in exile, or to avoid sanctions. They moved South until they found an area that nobody else was claiming at the time. One advantage of Pre-Columbian America is that there was lots of places that a group of people could go to that nobody else wanted.

Which once again is similar to what we saw roughly 1,000-2,000 years earlier in Europe. One group pushes against another, which pushes against another. In short, at the time the Europeans arrived in the Americas, they were going through their own version of the "Barbarian Era", where groups pushed out groups, which pushed even more groups into conflicts with others.

If the Europeans had arrived there even 100 years later, they likely would have found things completely different. From all evidence, the Pre-Columbian societies were about to enter the Chalcolithic era ("Copper Age"), and would have quickly entered the Bronze Age. The Wheel had been invented, but had yet to make the jump from toy to tool. And continent spanning trade networks had already formed. As well as early writing systems, more unified currency, and advanced political systems.

If somebody other than Columbus had arrived in 1592, things would have been very different. Aztec Writing would probably have gained hold in many parts of North America. Precious Metals would have started to replace shells and beans. The Mississipian Culture would still have been gone, but the Iroquois and Algonquian nations would have risen to take their place and controlled most of the area East of the Rocky Mountains.

In a way they had arrived at the perfect time (for them). The Mississipian Culture was already on the way out, and the Aztec Nation was being consumed by essentially a "Death Cult", which had it preying on all of their neighbors, and left them vulnerable to exploitation and aggression from those they had been preying on.

One thing I always tell people, is that I consider myself to be an analyst. I simply look at raw date, and try to find patterns in what has happened in the past. The Americas at the time of Columbus landing mirror what we saw in Europe at about the time of the fall of the Roman Republic. It took eons longer to get there, but because of the smaller geographic area it would have passed from there much faster than we saw in Europe.

We do know that the Aztecs had invented the wheel. And that a great many Pre-Columbian cultures had been using Copper for centuries. The Aztecs were even starting to use bronze, but it had yet to make the leap from jewelry to tools.

But some evidence exists (although exact dating is hard to tell) that they were starting to truly enter a "Bronze Age" at the time that Columbus arrived. And with the trade network already in place, it would have been a short transition from the Paleolithic-Copper Age to the Bronze Age in the Americas.

The Europeans would still have "out-gunned" them, but not as much as they had in our history. But that would still not have mattered, since far more of the inhabitants died of disease than all other causes combined. once again, a simple matter of population density.

The earliest plagues came from China (which was more densely populated than Europe), and the pattern was repeated later in the Americas. The less dense a population is, the more vulnerable it is to outside diseases. This is known as "Virgin-Soil epidemic". And ironically, it goes both ways.

The Europeans brought to the Americas Chicken Pox, Small pox, and many other diseases which wiped out over 75% of the population. And the Americas gave back something of their own. Syphilis.

Largely a benign disease which caused rashes, when it hit the more resistant Europeans it mutated to a much more aggressive disease. Thanks to some Spanish and French sailors fornicating with North American natives they contracted a disease which still affects us to this day. Because it was only in Europe with it's higher population density that it could mutate from what it started as to what we know now.

Not unlike HIV. We now know it was first "detected" in the 1920's. And in the 1960's it was growing more common, known as the "thin disease". But it took 30-40 years to kill, and was not a major problem. But once it came in contact with more "robust" European carriers with stronger immune systems (developed over thousands of years of open sewers and multiple plagues) it became stronger and mutated into the HIV we know today.

And yes, I am also a student of disease vectors and how they act upon cultures. One book I recommend to many is The Hot Zone, by Richard Preston. It is about Ebola, but also touches on other similar diseases. Another is a book I read from Dr. William Close. The father of actress Glenn Close, he was directly involved with some of the earliest outbreaks of Ebola Congo as well as what we know now as HIV.

I bet that most are not even aware that much of what is known today about the spread and commonality of HIV that is know today is because of the father of a famous actress. I remember reading his book, and not realizing until the very end that Dr. Close was the father of an actress (he mentioned it as an aside that his "child" was named Glenn). He very much wanted to ensure he was known for his own merits, not because his daughter was an actress.

 

I don't see any culture as more or less intelligent than another today or in the past, every culture is equal how they they develop/direct and use their intelligence depends very much on their geographic/environmental circumstances and needs. Polynesians were master of the seas because that was essential to their existence, the Inuit directed their intelligence to surviving an unbelievably harsh environment neither had time or opportunity or even need to develop literacy. I disagree with the requirement population density for literacy to take place, none of those early civilizations were that densely populated, what they had was stability derived from agriculture and permanent settlements, which allowed individual specialization of trades, they were no longer generalists.

agreed development time is a definite factor but again so is need, many civilizations had no requirement for literacy they did fine as they were.

Oral tradition is can be very accurate as it is with the Inuit as it's critical to their survival in a mega harsh environment...others probably had that tradition as well but I can see that information being easily corrupted by hostile upheaval brought on by warfare with neighbours causing mass deaths of key society members, forced migration and other consequences. The Inuit have been pretty much been left alone by other indigenous cultures and even europeans, extreme environment has it's benefits too.

looking at a linguistic map that was my thought as well...but maybe that's too obvious an assumption... maybe the Athabaskan culture was completely from the arctic to the SW USA and what we see is not a north to south movement but an east west or west east movement of tribes that forced a separation? ...I'm just speculating here I don't know the answer...without literacy and only potentially wonky oral tradition how will we know.

the wheel may never ever made the jump from toy to tool if the they other means that work as well there would be no need... and most obvious answer the Americas didn't have the suitable beasts of burden to make it work or in the Andes where they had pack animals the rugged terrain wasn't practical for wheeled transport.

this is another need thing, they had the technology to metal work but natural items worked as well and were simpler to develop so the incentive to have more complex tools hadn't appeared...as my surgeon buddy pointed out to me obsidian cutting blades are as sharp as any steel blade he uses, so if obsidian is easy to locate and knapping a blade is far easier and quicker than forging steel where is the incentive for metallurgy? ...the spanish conquered the indigenous peoples not because of their better blades but with firepower(and disease)...enemy firepower supplied incentive/need to progress but it was too late

in my reading into genetics and finding the surprising lack of genetic diversity among Americas Indigenous people I would think that would only add to their susceptibility and lethality of new diseases that would devastate the continents.

I too was of the belief that Syphilis originated in the Americas but reading more on the subject I found that it's still very much in dispute among the experts.

 

Warren's a liar and a thief.

 

and you're a waste of time and ignored

 

I never said a thing about intelligence. A culture gaining literacy and other things like math are only as the need arises. Much like many other developments, like metallurgy, currency, and government more advanced than a clan leader. When a culture is hunter-gatherer, there is no need for any of that.

But the members were just as intelligent as we are today, they simply never needed those skills so they never developed them.

Things like math and literacy first developed to keep track of inventory. Person XXX sent YYY bushels of ZZZ grain to AAA warehouse. When centralized governments were established, they had to keep track of who owed the government what, and how much of the inventory was available. Later on the systems grew more sophisticated until writing as we know it was developed over centuries. But none had even advanced to even the primitive base 60 symbolic system of the Sumerians, or the system the Romans used.

Once again, because there was no need for it. And that need only develops when the population advances to the point that a centralized government needs such records. The same with coins. Barter is perfectly fine, until the items exchanged starts to become more difficult (or the government wants a cut of it). It is the need for standardization that makes a government develop coinage.

Numbers are even more fascinating. Most Indian cultures had the equivalent of tally sticks, but that was about it. 1 mark for each item owed to another. for 12 items, 12 notches.

If a culture only numbers a few thousand individuals, none of that is needed to survive. The closest to needing any of this was the Aztecs, and within another century or two they would have developed coins. They were already using cacao beans as an ad-hoc currency. The "cacao standard" as currency was even used in areas until the mid-19th century.

And they were the "rising stars" of American culture in Pre-Columbian times. They had only moved to the region about 200 years previous to the Conquest, and had only existed as an Empire for 100 years. But they had developed (or adapted) a writing system, as well as a symbolic number system. Dots for each number up to 20, a flag for each iteration of 20, a tree for each iteration of 400, etc.

They had already started to use copper tools, and had invented the wheel.

Actually, oral tradition can be highly accurate, but it also generally uses shortcuts in the passing along of information from generation to generation. The Old Testament is full of things like this.

The flood lasted for 40 days and 40 nights. The Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years. The Israelite spies explored Canaan for 40 days. Eli, David, Saul, Solomon, and many other kings ruled for 40 years. Goliath challenged the Israelite host for 40 days before David accepted the challenge. Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai getting instructions from God.

This was a cultural shorthand. In the culture, 40 was a sufficient amount of time for something to happen.

We also see 7 happening quite often, which is "God's number". God rested on the 7th day after creating the universe. Anybody who harms Cain shall be avenged "sevenfold". Noah is ordered to bring 7 pairs of each clean animal. Sacrifices at the altar were followed by the priest sprinkling the animals blood 7 times. The Menorah has 7 candles, Jericho's walls fell on the seventh day, after 7 priests with 7 trumpets marched around the walls 7 times.

These are typical examples of oral tradition shorthand. After a hundred years or so of being oral tradition, the fact that a ruler was in power for 43 years and the following ruler was in power for 38 years no longer mattered. Both simply became 40, as in the Jewish culture that was a sufficient number of years to rule.

Here are some interesting facts about the wheel.

It is a late-Neolithic invention. Generally being discovered by each culture right as they develop early metallurgy. In Asia-Africa-Europe, it seems to have been developed at around 5000 BCE. And it is about 50-50 as to why a culture developed it. Half the time it seems to have been for transport, but the other half it was developed for potters and not for transportation at all.

And almost universally they were pulled by animals. Interestingly enough, the even simpler wheelbarrow was not developed until around 100 CE.

The Inca did have the llama, and if they had developed the wheel they could have pulled carts. But like the Aztecs, they simply strapped their goods to the animal itself (as the Aztecs bore loads on their own backs without carts).

However, almost all Pre-Columbian cultures used the travois. Most were pulled by men or dogs, and once the horse was introduced they became a main carrier of the travois.

And another early form of transport was the dog sled. Developed at around 10,000 BCE, it came about shortly after the migration ended. 5-10+ dogs could pull quite a bit of weight across the snow.

And there were other beasts of burden available. The Laplanders domesticated the reindeer as a sled animal. This was done by at least 200 BCE, and the Americas have the close cousin to the reindeer. The caribou. But for some reason they were never domesticated over here as they were in Asia and Europe.

When a culture is hunter-gatherer, everybody has to make their own tools. There is little need for specialization.

It is only when a culture becomes stationary that such needs start to develop. When a farmer now lives and works in a specific area year after year and no longer has the time or resources to make their own tools that the tool maker (smith) develops. When you are a hunter, you have plenty of time while waiting for an animal to come within range to do some knapping to make more tools. When you have to plant, maintain and harvest a crop you have much less time so pay others to do it for you.

And this is when metallurgy develops. Yes, obsidian is sharp, but it does wear out. Metal tools have the advantage of lasting much longer than their wood, bone and stone versions.

In the Aztec culture, copper and early bronze was the new rage in tools at the time of the conquest. Copper axes had already become a common trade item, and bronze. But interestingly enough, the Aztecs had only started to make their own in the decade or so prior to that.

The real development of Pre-Columbian metallurgy were the Tarascan People, to the North and West of the Aztecs. They were the equivalent of "Damascus Steel" in the region. They had been using lost-wax casting since at least 650 CE, and were exporting copper axes since around 1350 CE. In the mid-1400's they introduced bronze to the region, commonly used for needles, axes, and other tools.

And their copper and bronze weapons are often considered the main reason why the Aztecs were never able to conquer them.

Most tribes were essentially extended family groups. They introduced just enough new members (battle captives or purchased brides) to keep inbreeding from being a problem, as well as most marriages being to extended cousins and not direct family. But this tended to keep the genetic diversity small.

But they were not all universally the same. One of the most interesting is the Mandan. They are a Great Plains tribe, and is where Lewis & Clark met Sacagawea, a captive Shoshone woman held by the Mandan. The Mandan were quite striking, as blue eyes were the most common color, and they typically had blonde or red hair.

 

and i never implied they were ignorant, so it's the same thing we agree...the level of technical development is not indicative of intelligence there's just different knowledge, one culture may develop advanced math another travels vast expanses of ocean both require equal intelligence ...our society today doesn't give enough credit to our ancestors for the knowledge that was required to survive... take us out of our modern environment and into our ancestors time/environment and most of us would be dead in less than a month.

Incas were also familiar with the wheel, wheeled carts weren't suitable for narrow rugged mountain roads that llamas had no problem with , a Llama is superior to a cart...Aztecs had large slave culture that they could use for beasts of burden and human beasts of burden were more multi functional too than animals.

Zebra's are close cousins of the horse but Zebras not suitable for domestication, very nasty disposition(they bite a lot). Caribou may have been the same. Also we can't forget need, if their lifestyle doesn't require it there is no incentive to do so.

obsidian was plentiful and easy to shape if it dulls you knap it again or throw it away... I did the same with saw blades, I could sharpen them again like my father did but they were cheap so I'd just buy a new one.

 

But did you make the saw blade?

It takes a skilled knapper many hours to make basic stone tools. And they may be hours into making one when it fractures wrong and the entire thing is ruined.

A farmer simply does not have that kind of time. And blacksmiths never developed in nomadic cultures, unless they had already been a stationary culture that was forced to return to being nomads.

The people living in the Americas were only starting to leave the Neolithic age and ending their nomad ways when the Europeans arrived. And in reality they had been at that point for thousands of years in South America, but either disease or unrest kept resetting them back to square one over and over again. Which ironically is also what happened to the Mississippian Culture. One thing that always puzzled me was how every time an American culture was ready to make that next technological and societal leap, things always seemed to fall apart.

 

I suspected but didn't know it was a quick procedure so I looked it up... amazing what you can find on Youtube...a scalpel sharp obsidian blade in 13 minutes and I'm sure the guy doing it doesn't have the skill or efficiency an experienced Aztec knapper



infinitely quicker than forging and sharpening and no forge equipment required...a striker and piece of obsidian and skills that would be passed from teacher to student, it could be done wherever, whenever needed and no forge equipment to drag along

that goes back to my comment on upheaval of oral traditions, this happened frequently in elsewhere too, disease, natural disaster or more commonly violence with neighbours would set advanced neolithic societies back to square one repeatedly over the millenniums....with neolithic settlements come trade specialization and free time for scientific thought and technical development, it also made it vulnerable to societal collapse should that structure be shattered...whereas a culture where that specialization hasn't occurred to a great extent as with pastoralist societies they have an ability to recover because most members are generalists, the population can be scattered by war but each segment can survive on it's own. How advanced would our scientific knowledge be today if the Greek societies and their scientific knowledge of physics and math hadn't been lost.

We're in that position today, how good are your forge or knapping skills, can you track and kill dinner with weapons made from raw materials, build a shelter, start a fire, recognize all the raw food resources? Our highly technical specialized society today is only a pandemic, environmental disaster or nuclear war away from being set back hundreds of years.

 

Yea, a knife.

Try an arrowhead, or an axe. Then see how long it lasts in actual use. A tool is of little use in a more advanced societ if it has to be replaced 2 or 3 times a day. Yes, with obsidian you only need to knap off some more flakes, and it is sharp again. But you can only do that so many times and then you have to make an entirely new one.

And that is the very point. As people became specialized (farmers), they had less time to spend making tools. Somebody who is a hunter will spend many hours making arrow heads, finding and shaping the perfect shaft, finding the perfect feathers for fletching and then making the glue and string needed to turn them into an arrow. And they know that the lifespan of that arrow is limited.

The same with a farmer. Is it better to constantly be repairing your stone tools over and over again and then remaking it every few days because it can no longer be flaked, or to just buy one of a more advanced substance that needs less time and maintenance?

If what you claim is correct, then we should all just forget about the Copper, Bronze, Iron, and Steel ages. You can replace an obsidian knife in a few minutes, so just give up all of the advancements of the last several thousand years.

And yea, I have tried my hand at making obsidian and flint arrowheads. It is not that easy, you are seeing the absolutely best case scenario there, where everything works right. Most of the time they spent many hours in making a single arrowhead. And averaged 3 or 4 failures for each success. An unseen fracture in the material or a slightly off-center blow and you have to throw away what you were working on and start all over again.

A basic knife is simple, obsidian wants to flake into razor sharp flakes, it is a very brittle substance. But arrowheads? Axe head? That is much more complex.

And requires much more than just the stone itself. There is the sinew or other lashing used to attach it to the hasp. The finding of a hasp and matching it to the stone. Most of the time (unless it was a disposable item) there was some kind of glue involved. Remember, we are talking about much more advanced tools than a simple stone knife, used to flay the skin off of a kill.

Specialization requires more specialization. As people become specialized, they need more specialists to keep them working.

Notice that today, few if any could manage to "live off the land"? Our ancestors did it with no problem, knowing how to kill and butcher a kill, and what plants are edible and how to prepare it all. But most of us are specialists, we could no more safely dress wild game than our ancestors could change the oil in a car.

You think making stone and wood tools is easy? Make a functional bow and arrow. Or a stone hoe with a wood handle and a rawhide lashing. Can you even make rawhide?

The difference here is that I actually have a good idea how much work these tasks take. Time to make a Neolithic arrow? 4-6 hours each. A bow? 40-80 hours each. Bow strings? 6-8 hours each. Making quality tools (not a basic flake knife) was labor intensive. That is why once humans started to settle down in fixed locations, specialists started to do only one task. A few grew food, a few others prepared material. A few others turned that material into shoes or clothing. Others made tools. yet others converted the raw plant material into flour, or threshed grain ready for consumption. And others would start to take excesses from one location to another which did not have enough. And yet others grew up to support those other new trades. From providing raw materials so the craftsman could spend less time acquiring it themselves, to people who made things largely only for the craftsmen themselves (like the makers of charcoal).

If stone was as simple as you are implying, we would still be Neolithic, as there would have been no advantage to use copper, let alone bronze, iron, or steel.

 

Near where I live is an ancient Indigenous Australian weapons "factory" napping the native chert. This they were using like disposables. Nap it, use it, throw it away

BTW i have hugely enjoyed reading this thread!!

 

it comes down to this old cliche "necessity is the mother of invention"... until there is a need there little reason to progress...there are still hunter gatherer societies who function as hunter gatherers have since the very beginning and they do just fine, they have no necessity to change...

here's something contradictory about Hunter gatherers and free time, when you look at their free not devoted to survival HG's spend fewer hrs working than Neolthic farmers did and much less than we do today, they work an average of 6 hrs per day...even with all that free time have they felt no necessity to forge metal and they've done very well since the beginning of humanities time... the difference between them and the neolithic peoples is they're more generalists in skills, where a Neolithic man may specialize in tool making looking for improvements HG's don't have the need to spend more time on improvements, their technology is sufficient for their survival...modern man is more than a little arrogant with our accomplishments in dismissing lithic tools/technolgy...

 

yeah it's been a useful exchange of opinions and knowledge...

 

That is because nomadic peoples do not have homes. What you are missing is that they are constantly moving, rarely spending more than 1-3 months in any one location before packing up and moving again. Most of the time to follow game, but also because of the seasons, or to go after-avoid a neighboring group of nomads.

And most had ranges of 50-150 miles. That means walking for 3-10 days to move from one location to another. That is time that is doing little other than the most basic hunting and harvesting off of the land, most of the daylight hours are spent in transit.

And like most cultures of limited technology, they were primarily active when the sun was up. No real lighting, just campfires at most. So when the sun goes down pretty much everything comes to a stop until the next morning.

Such people do not have the ability to become specialists. Everything they owned was on their backs, with a travois being the most advanced item they had to help in this task. And if you had kids, that cuts down even more what you can carry if you also have to carry a child.

Advanced things like metallurgy (other than jewelry) was of no survival ability to such a culture. Even in the 19th century the Plains Indians had learned how to smelt and use iron tools. But guess what, there were no Indian blacksmiths. It was simply easier to trade for any such items they needed rather than take the effort to make them for themselves.

In fact, one of the rather advanced things of Pre-Columbian America is their trade networks. Most are not even aware that there was a continental wide network of traders working from Canada to Mexico. Pacific and Caribbean shells have been found in the Great Lakes region. Ojibwa pipestone from Minnesota has been found in Cherokee sites (Carolinas), Lakota (Dakotas), and at Pueblo Indian ruins. And many of the items they appear to have dealt in is raw materials more than finished products. Obsidian is not easily found everywhere, but that appears to be one of the items commonly traded. Pipestone, tobacco, and grain were also common trade items, as were turquois, shells, and chert, flint, and sandstone.

One interesting thing about the trade, is that few finished products seem to have been traded. Beads from one tribe may be found in another hundreds of miles away, but they are incorporated into their own work. You might find an arrowhead in the Dakotas made with obsidian from Oregon, but it is made in the Lakota style. Minnesota pipestone might be found in a Pueblo ruin in Arizona, but it is carved in their own style, it is not an Ojibwa pipe.

And I am not dismissing Neolithic tools, far from it in fact. They were highly specialized, and very well crafted. Some of them are true works of art. But they are a primitive sort of tool, that is simply a fact and not "arrogance". Just like a Model T is a primitive sort of car.