1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

by Charles C. Mann

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1,895 ratings, 4.06 average rating, 513 reviews (more data...)

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published

October 10th 2006 (first published 2005) by Vintage

binding

Paperback, 560 pages

url

http://www.charlesmann.org/Excerpt-1.htm

setting

The United States

isbn

1400032059 (isbn13: 9781400032051)

description

1491 is not so much the story of a year, as of what that year stands for: the long-debated (and often-dismissed) question of what human civilization i...more

[close] 1491 is not so much the story of a year, as of what that year stands for: the long-debated (and often-dismissed) question of what human civilization in the Americas was like before the Europeans crashed the party. The history books most Americans were (and still are) raised on describe the continents before Columbus as a vast, underused territory, sparsely populated by primitives whose cultures would inevitably bow before the advanced technologies of the Europeans. For decades, though, among the archaeologists, anthropologists, paleolinguists, and others whose discoveries Charles C. Mann brings together in 1491, different stories have been emerging. Among the revelations: the first Americans may not have come over the Bering land bridge around 12,000 B.C. but by boat along the Pacific coast 10 or even 20 thousand years earlier; the Americas were a far more urban, more populated, and more technologically advanced region than generally assumed; and the Indians, rather than living in static harmony with nature, radically engineered the landscape across the continents, to the point that even "timeless" natural features like the Amazon rainforest can be seen as products of human intervention.

Mann is well aware that much of the history he relates is necessarily speculative, the product of pot-shard interpretation and precise scientific measurements that often end up being radically revised in later decades. But the most compelling of his eye-opening revisionist stories are among the best-founded: the stories of early American-European contact. To many of those who were there, the earliest encounters felt more like a meeting of equals than one of natural domination. And those who came later and found an emptied landscape that seemed ripe for the taking, Mann argues convincingly, encountered not the natural and unchanging state of the native American, but the evidence of a sudden calamity: the ravages of what was likely the greatest epidemic in human history, the smallpox and other diseases introduced inadvertently by Europeans to a population without immunity, which swept through the Americas faster than the explorers who brought it, and left behind for their discovery a land that held only a shadow of the thriving cultures that it had sustained for centuries before. --Tom Nissley

<p align="center"> A 1491 Timeline

<table cellpadding="4" border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="4"> <tr valign="top" align="left"> <td width="20%">Europe and Asia

<td width="10%">Dates <td width="70%">The Americas

<td width="10%">25000-35000 B.C. <td width="70%">Time of paleo-Indian migration to Americas from Siberia, according to genetic evidence. Groups likely traveled across the Pacific in boats.

<tr valign="top" align="left"> <td width="20%">Wheat and barley grown from wild ancestors in Sumer.

<td width="10%">5000 <td width="70%">In what many scientists regard as humankind's first and greatest feat of genetic engineering, Indians in southern Mexico systematically breed maize (corn) from dissimilar ancestor species.

<tr valign="top" align="left"> <td width="20%">First cities established in Sumer.

<td width="10%">3000 <td width="70%">The Americas' first urban complex, in coastal Peru, of at least 30 closely packed cities, each centered around large pyramid-like structures

<tr valign="top" align="left"> <td width="20%">Great Pyramid at Giza

<td width="10%">32 <td width="70%">First clear evidence of Olmec use of zero--an invention, widely described as the most important mathematical discovery ever made, which did not occur in Eurasia until about 600 A.D., in India (zero was not introduced to Europe until the 1200s and not widely used until the 1700s)

<td width="10%">800-840 A.D. <td width="70%">Sudden collapse of most central Maya cities in the face of severe drought and lengthy war

<tr valign="top" align="left"> <td width="20%">Vikings briefly establish first European settlements in North America.

<td width="10%">1000 <td width="70%"><table cellpadding="0" align="left" width="255" cellspacing="0"> <tr><td align="left"> <tr> <td align="left"> Reconstruction of Cahokia, c. 1250 A.D.* Abrupt rise of Cahokia, near modern St. Louis, the largest city north of the Rio Grande. Population estimates vary from at least 15,000 to 100,000. <p> <tr valign="top" align="left"> <td width="20%">Black Death devastates Europe.<p> <td width="10%">1347-1351 <td width="70%"> <p> <tr valign="top" align="left"> <td width="20%"><p> <td width="10%">1398 <td width="70%">Birth of Tlacaélel, the brilliant Mexican strategist behind the Triple Alliance (also known as the Aztec empire), which within decades controls central Mexico, then the most densely settled place on Earth. <p> <tr valign="top" align="left"> <td width="20%">The Encounter: Columbus sails from Europe to the Caribbean.<p> <td width="10%">1492 <td width="70%">The Encounter: Columbus sails from Europe to the Caribbean. <p> <tr valign="top" align="left"> <td width="20%">Syphilis apparently brought to Europe by Columbus's returning crew.<p> <td width="10%">1493 <td width="70%"> <p> <tr valign="top" align="left"> <td width="20%">Ferdinand Magellan departs from Spain on around-the-world voyage.<p> <td width="10%">1519 <td width="70%"><table cellpadding="0" align="left" width="255" cellspacing="0"> <tr><td align="left"> <tr> <td align="left"> Sixteenth-century Mexica drawing of the effects of smallpox** Cortes driven from Tenochtitlán, capital of the Triple Alliance, and then gains victory as smallpox, a European disease never before seen in the Americas, kills at least one of three in the empire. <p> <tr valign="top" align="left"> <td width="20%"><p> <td width="10%">1525-1533 <td width="70%">The smallpox epidemic sweeps into Peru, killing as much as half the population of the Inka empire and opening the door to conquest by Spanish forces led by Pizarro. <p> <tr valign="top" align="left"> <td width="20%"><p> <td width="10%">1617 <td width="70%">Huge areas of New England nearly depopulated by epidemic brought by shipwrecked French sailors. <p> <tr valign="top" align="left"> <td width="20%">English Pilgrims arrive at Patuxet, an Indian village emptied by disease, and survive on stored Indian food, renaming the village Plymouth.<p> <td width="10%">1620 <td width="70%"> <tr> <table cellpadding="4" border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="4"> <tr> <td align="left" width="100%"> *Courtesy Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Collinsville, Ill., painting by Michael Hampshire. **Courtesy Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, N.M. (Bernardino de Sahagún, <I>Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España, 1547-77).

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09/13/07

Brendan rated it:

Read in September, 2007

The survey of current thinking on the population of the americas via that Beringia land bridge and the subsequent summary of the evolutions of early american society is interesting.

But the repeated comparisons between american society and eurasian society are really fraught and often belabored. The comparisons between the two hemisphere's agriculture is fine, but the assertion that Aztec (apparently it's more politically correct to call them Mexica) philosophy was as rich as medieva...more

Like this review? yes (8 people liked it)

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07/27/07

Douglas Hunter rated it:

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: readers of history, ethnohistory, First Nations history

As someone who writes professionally in this area (unabashed plug: watch for God's Mercies, Doubleday Canada, in October 07) I have high praise for this title, a long-overdue assessment of native culture and civilization before (and at) contact with Europeans. I'm still reading it, but I've been impressed so far.[I've now finished, see below.] Anyone who enjoyed it should also consider Elaine Dewar's Bones, which explores the archaeological controversy of how long people have been in the New Wor...more As someone who writes professionally in this area (unabashed plug: watch for God's Mercies, Doubleday Canada, in October 07) I have high praise for this title, a long-overdue assessment of native culture and civilization before (and at) contact with Europeans. I'm still reading it, but I've been impressed so far.[I've now finished, see below.] Anyone who enjoyed it should also consider Elaine Dewar's Bones, which explores the archaeological controversy of how long people have been in the New World. (She wholeheartedly supports the "a really, really long time" camp.)
My only critique of 1491, and it is minor, is that the author I feel overstates the case that Europeans (mainly English) did not enjoy a military superiority over the natives, that their powder weapons were ineffective. This is a rather generous reading of native military capability. The English army did away with the longbow in 1598, and for all their problems, powder weapons were a clear advantage. Frenchman Samuel de Champlain used just three harquebus to devastating effect against the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) in 1609, and in his trade and colonization monopoly, secured in 1612 under the Prince de Condé, the terms specifically forbid anyone to trade powder weapons with the natives, under penalty of a 10,000 livre fine and corporal punishment. One of the key factors in European inability not to immediately conquer or eradicate native populations by force was the sheer lack of firepower. (They also needed them as trade partners.) These commercial ventures (English and French in particular) didn't have the full might of their states behind them in the early contact period. Had England or France made up their mind to truly "conquer" these shores and their peoples, they would have marched through them much like de Soto did in the southeastern US in the mid 16th century, for good or for ill (pretty well for ill). But an idea the author does well to advance is the fact that coastal nations or tribes that made contact with the newcomers often came to decide that they should secure a strategic advantage and enlist the newcomers' aid in fighting their own enemies. It was a complicated time, and 1491 is a worthy overview.
Having now finished, I'll still recommend it. For those interested in precontact cultures north of 49 (as in half of North America) the lack of material about French Canada is a little disappointing. There's nothing about the much-debated vanishing of the Iroquoian-speaking residents of the St. Lawrence (at Hochelaga and Stadacona) who were there in large numbers in palisade villages when Cartier first visited in the 1530s, but had vanished utterly by the time Champlain showed up in 1603. But that's nitpicky, considering the enormous scope of this work. (less)

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08/14/07

Jason rated it:

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: everyone

Very well written, a good mixture of factual evidence and narrative. The main take home point here should be known to everyone, especially Americans. There is a reason why there was a period of 128 years between Colombus' landing and a permanent European settlement in North America. Namely, there were millions of Native Americans there who thought Europeans were dirty, amusing creatures who had interesting objects but were not fit for being neighbors. Attempted European settlers were continuousl...more

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01/12/09

Bruce rated it:

(review of isbn 140004006X)

bookshelves: history

Read in January, 2007

Let me start by noting that Mann is a journalist, rather than a historian or cultural anthropologist. This results in a work that is extremely accessible to the non specialist reader and lacking in jargon.

So much of our notions of what North America was like before Europeans arrived are the result of our own impact on the continent. The notion of an empty continent populated by either "noble savages" or aborigines comes from the fact that the population was decimated by...more

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08/01/08

Stefan rated it:

bookshelves: stopped-reading

Read in August, 2008

This book could be good. Unfortunately the author seems determined in every part of his "research" to interject his own opinion without duly backing it up. I stopped reading it somewhere around page 100, where the author makes the comparison between ritual human sacrifice by the Aztecs and executions in European countries. By taking the executions in England for a 100 year period, then adjusting for the size of the English population compared to the estimated possible population of the...more

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02/02/08

Tripp rated it:

Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: Non-specialists

Author Charles Mann's purpose is to debunk three commonly held ideas about the Americas before Columbus: that the continents were sparsely populated, that the social and technical development was limited and that the locals left the environment untouched.

In discussing scholarly debates on these subjects, he convincingly argues that the population, before the decimation of disease, was quite high. The debate is just how many people there were rather than whether the continents were pr...more

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08/23/07

Aili rated it:

Read in August, 2007

So the major thing to note here is that this is a history of the inhabitants of pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere... written by a feature journalist. It has a lot of straight history, but also a lot of information gleaned from non-standard or new techniques, such as archaeology, forensic science, and linguistics. Oh, and actually talking to folks who identify as indigenous -- who are, lots of them, still around.

A fair amount of the material was familiar to me from taking Colonial Lati...more

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04/29/08

Kevin rated it:

(review of other edition)

Read in November, 2007

A semi-engaging analysis of life before the European discovery of the Americas, and extrapolation from newly discovered information on the depth and breadth of native culture and society pre-contact.

I picked up as this is a subject of cursory interest to me, and I indeed learned a lot. The biggest problem I had with the book was that Mann often used a less than engaging style in his narrative. I sometimes felt like I was reading a textbook, and while I may not necessarily mind th...more

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02/27/08

Nick rated it:

Confession: I never finished this, leaving about 50 pages (about 15%)on the table. With non-fiction books that are based around a particular theory I feel like as long as I read enough to internalize the argument and really understand some of the evidence I can stop reading when I get bored. If I missed some revelation on page 420 somebody let me know.

The key takeaway here: American societies were almost certainly older, larger, more technically advanced and more complex than the...more

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07/06/07

Ian rated it:

(review of isbn 140004006X)

Read in January, 2006

recommends it for: anyone

Mann is not a historian, but rather is a journalist. And for that reason, this book does read like a history text (like Guns, Germs, and Steel). But it is exceptionally researched and fantastic.

Mann describes North and South America in a way that traditional textbooks and contemporary rhetoric never acknowledges. He combats the old-fashioned and anti-academic beliefs that pervade our Eurocentric version of world history (summed up in what he calls "Holmberg's Mistake," a re...more

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01/19/07

John G rated it:

Read in December, 2006

A very interesting look at pre-Conquest America, containing some relatively new (and far from established) academic theories. The main thesis of the book is that pre-Columbian American societies were far more advanced and populous than recorded by European colonists/invaders/priests. The successive waves of epidemics brought by European contact decimated the Americas to such an extent that these societies caved into anarchy and ruin, which was seen as their original condition by the new arriva...more

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12/12/07

SF SQRL rated it:

(review of isbn 140004006X)

bookshelves: 100-books-2008, 5-star-books-2008, non-fiction

Read in June, 2008

recommended to SF SQRL by: Making Light
recommends it for: everyone

Non-fiction writers who produce prose as dry as the Negev should take a leaf out of Mann's highly readable, very enjoyable, and, most important of all, enlightening book.

Mann provides an overview of recent research regarding the extent of city-building and agriculture in North and Meso America in the thousands of years prior to Columbus's arrival in 1492. Exposing the "pristine myth", Mann explores sophisticated societies, methods of agriculture, and writing systems that h...more

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03/03/09

Patrick Gibson rated it:

bookshelves: history, truth_sort-of

Read in March, 2009

recommends it for: history buffs - and archaeology/anthropology

Glyptodonts, caliche and zoonotic. Sounds like a law firm hell doesn’t it? Alas, it is only some of the terms Charles Mann digs up discussing pre-Columbian agriculture. (Digs up, get it? Never mind.)

I’ve done my share of wandering the Yucatan. Unlike the civilizations of Rome or Egypt, you just know there is a much more profound mystery surrounding the Maya, Inca and even the North American cultures pre-invasion. Vast cities, astounding architecture, math, astrology and human sac...more Glyptodonts, caliche and zoonotic. Sounds like a law firm hell doesn’t it? Alas, it is only some of the terms Charles Mann digs up discussing pre-Columbian agriculture. (Digs up, get it? Never mind.)

I’ve done my share of wandering the Yucatan. Unlike the civilizations of Rome or Egypt, you just know there is a much more profound mystery surrounding the Maya, Inca and even the North American cultures pre-invasion. Vast cities, astounding architecture, math, astrology and human sacrifice—what more could you ask for? Unfortunately what we know is filtered through the eyes and attitude of European xenophobia.

This treatise is designed to change the idea that the Americas before Columbus was a vast wilderness populated by inconsequential natives easily ignored. In fact, when ‘the Italian from Spain’ did show up, the population was equal if not greater than that of Europe—perhaps in the tens of millions.

The scope is vast, the research detailed—combining recent sociological statistics with legend and scholarship from an array of sources. This is the first ‘chunk’ of information I have read on the civilizations of the Mississippi flood plain and how the massive earth mounds correlate, in a way, to the Anasazi. Very interesting. The author also goes into detail on the cat-fights emanating from other experts in the field—a little like Jared Diamonds “Collapse.”

Mann takes into account the immense sweep of geological time and the empires that have come and gone in only a span of twenty millennia and the seemingly abrupt changes that have occurred to so many. There are fascinating tales of places like the great Inca city of Tenochtitlan—in its heyday, it was larger than Paris—and Tawantinsuyu on the shore of Lake Titicaca in the high Andes, a marvel of architecture and economic prosperity.

His prose is concise but sometimes overly technical. As he connects the dots of cultural myths between the Colorado Plateau (particularly the Hopi) and those of Central Peru some amazing revelations emerge.

This makes an excellent companion to “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” with a lot less gloom and doom. Skip about seventy-five pages in the middle. You’ll know when.
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11/03/08

Marie rated it:

Read in November, 2008

The Americas stumbled on by Columbus had more people living in them than were living in Europe, and American societies were at least as complex as any found in Europe. The author surveys the lastest work of anthropologists, archeaologists, and historians demonstrating, among other things, that pre-Columbian Americans had found ways to create soil in the Amazon to assist agriculture, alter crops genetically so they could feed large populations living in cities,trade goods over long distances, ere...more

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09/18/08

Paige rated it:

bookshelves: history, nonfiction

This book is a fascinating window into the cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus. Author Charles Mann, an award-winning writer for Science and The Atlantic Monthly, debunks many widely held notions about the inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere. With a contagious excitement, Mann shares recent discoveries of archeologists, historians and geographers, many of which up-end previously accepted beliefs.

Mann presents new research showing that the population numbers ...more

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07/24/08

Benjamin rated it:

Read in July, 2008

Excellent collation of research on Indian history that has sparked controversy not only in the discipline of history but sustainable ecology - it trenchantly organizes and presents evidence not completely unknown to myself, but not presented for collective impact on the knowledgeable generalist until now. Viewed as a whole, it cogently elaborates the controversies and agendas driving various parties, Indian and white, archaelologist and environmentalist, seeking to influence not only how people ...more Excellent collation of research on Indian history that has sparked controversy not only in the discipline of history but sustainable ecology - it trenchantly organizes and presents evidence not completely unknown to myself, but not presented for collective impact on the knowledgeable generalist until now. Viewed as a whole, it cogently elaborates the controversies and agendas driving various parties, Indian and white, archaelologist and environmentalist, seeking to influence not only how people view the history of the Americas prior to 1491, but the future, too. Easily the most incendiary critique originates in his presentation of evidence suggesting that, contra to myths of primeval landscapes unblemished by man that originated in the wake of demographic collapse, all of the Americas, including the Amazon, swarmed with peoples that managed and altered the landscape to their desires. This conceit undermines the supposition that a human presence in environments like the Amazon can only prove deleterious - while the evidence suggests that the Amazon, along with other environments, were thrown out kilter in the massive die off of Indian populations that managed them for their own use. The populations encountered in later epochs of intense European settlement, relatively savage and few in number, should not be considered definitive iterations of Indian culture and accomplishment anymore than Rome's medieval squalor in wake of the Empire's collapse should be considered the sum total of Rome's achievement. Mann instead recontextualizes them as the indomitable but traumatized remnnants of cultures and peoples immolated by small pox, typhoid, and other diseases to the point that they could not sustain their former way of life, leading to ecologocal disruption across the Americas and altering a formerly human managed landscape into the "primeval continent of forest" encountered by British colonists so influential in shaping America's image not only of itself, but of its Indian peoples, even as the myth continues to exert influence on America's vigorous environmental movement. This book explores far more of interest than I could ever present, but hopefully this little salvo grants some intimation of what awaits the curious reader.(less)

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07/24/08

Kenny rated it:

Read in July, 2008

recommends it for: amateur historians

As a result of decades of revisionist history (as well as flat-out incorrect but sincere assumptions by scientists), most people have come to see pre-Columbian America as an Edenic wilderness inhabited by pure-hearted indigenous folk living lightly on the land, leaving nary a footprint outside their biodegradable sweatlodges.

Yet Mann shows us a densely populated, fiercely impacted hemisphere where no one was indigenous (they all came from somewhere else), much of the land repeatedly ...more As a result of decades of revisionist history (as well as flat-out incorrect but sincere assumptions by scientists), most people have come to see pre-Columbian America as an Edenic wilderness inhabited by pure-hearted indigenous folk living lightly on the land, leaving nary a footprint outside their biodegradable sweatlodges.

Yet Mann shows us a densely populated, fiercely impacted hemisphere where no one was indigenous (they all came from somewhere else), much of the land repeatedly went up in smoke in a slash-and-burn regime designed to remake it for man, plants, and animals alike (a good portion of the Amazon rainforest itself is said to be the result of human intervention, planting, and control over millenia), sculpted in incredibly huge and aggressive ways (terrace farming in Peru, the literal creation of the Great Plains in north America by the "Indians," giant figures carved into the dirt seen in their complete form only from the air in the Andes), with vast, heavy-handed populations (many ancient cities in the Americas were not only contemporaneous with those in Europe, they were larger, cleaner, and better managed).

The result is that Columbus brought steel and smallpox to the Americas, decimating the local populations through war and disease, which perhaps wiped out as much as 90% of the entire human population of the hemisphere in just a few years. Columbus' men received syphillis in return, and cannot be blamed for the smallpox (no one even knew how disease was transmitted back then). They can also be excused from attempting to dominate the local cultures. After all, that is what the Inka, Maya, Olmec, and a score of other civilizations Mann discusses in the book had been doing to each other for nigh onto 10,000 years. The only difference is that we have the history of the conquest (thanks to the Spaniards themselves), not just a few worn sandstone steles covered in vines to place the popular blame on the Euro-conquerors.

What happened in the Americas happened everywhere else in the world by people no different from those they found in the western hemisphere. Thus it has always been and likely thus it will always be.

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06/30/08

Alex rated it:

Read in May, 2008

What we think of when we think of the pre-Columbian Americas -- a wilderness lightly occupied by primitive tribes -- was in fact only the tiny remnants of a sophisticated and highly evolved society which had been ravaged by European disease, largely before Europeans could ever make contact with them.

That is the provocative thesis of this thoughtful and thorough look at what existed in this hemisphere before 1491, and what happened to it in 1492. While it sounds like a tired political...more What we think of when we think of the pre-Columbian Americas -- a wilderness lightly occupied by primitive tribes -- was in fact only the tiny remnants of a sophisticated and highly evolved society which had been ravaged by European disease, largely before Europeans could ever make contact with them.

That is the provocative thesis of this thoughtful and thorough look at what existed in this hemisphere before 1491, and what happened to it in 1492. While it sounds like a tired politically correct, multi-culturalal revisionism, it isn't -- it's a fascinating and honest search for a clear-eyed history of the continent. It is also a sweeping, well-research chronicle of the macro elements that mold history --- in the spirit of Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel." Not only will it change the way you look at America's history, but it will change your view of how history unfolds.

Aside from the history of the various empires which existed in pre-Columbian America -- Mayans, Azteks, Incans, and many you've never heard of -- Mann also looks at the biology, technology, and anthropology behind the history. Among some interesting points he hits on are the development of corn (the first feat of genetic engineering, he claims), why Indians were so vulnerable to European germs (it's more complicated than you think), and how Indian culture influenced the development of the colonies and, he alleges, American ideas of freedom and democracy.

Mann isn't an academic, and he largely is just collecting information that other scientists have uncovered. The purpose of the book is not to uncover new facts, but to gather them in a way they haven't before to show how the newest available research so vividly contradicts our ingrained ideas about how the Americas were settled.

That said, Mann is sometimes a bit too zealous in pushing his case, occassionally making leaps in logic that aren't backed up with the evidence. He also could have spent more time dealing with some of the reactions non-academics would have reading the book. I had some fairly unsophisticated questions myself -- "Hey, if the Indians were so well-developed, why weren't there any huge cities in the north?" "If they were so technological, why didn't they 'discover' Europe?"

But the bottom line is, this book is a must for anyone interested in the world's history. Highly recommended.(less)

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06/27/08

Dan rated it:

Read in July, 2008

1491 challenged my preconception of American life before it was “discovered” by Columbus. In school I was taught that Indians had minimal impact on the world we know today. The Indians I was told were few in numbers, they were weak as proved by how they were thoroughly conquered by opposing forces a fraction of the population of Indian, they were hunter/gatherers who had no impact on their environment and that as a whole they did not have much of an impact on European society.

The...more 1491 challenged my preconception of American life before it was “discovered” by Columbus. In school I was taught that Indians had minimal impact on the world we know today. The Indians I was told were few in numbers, they were weak as proved by how they were thoroughly conquered by opposing forces a fraction of the population of Indian, they were hunter/gatherers who had no impact on their environment and that as a whole they did not have much of an impact on European society.

The book challenges these misconceptions with current archaeological findings. This book gathers much of contemporary research describing the day-to-day lives, their intellectual progress and the manipulation of the environment. For example, it is now apparent that these societies developed sophisticated farming methods from the tip of South America to the high mountains of the Andes. The Amazon that I have been led to believe is a virgin forest, has actually been manipulated by its inhabitants to grow the type of food that they needed and vast swath of forest were converted to this use. We find that these peoples build complex societies before civilizations began appearing in the Fertile Crescent by the Tigris River.

The contact between the Settlers in North America and the Algonquin Nation may even have contributed to the type of government that the USA has today.

1491 is well written and well sourced. The author knows that some of the conclusions are controversial, and he makes a point to include both the archeological evidence for and against these. Some of the conclusions that are presented by the author are still being challenged by well-respected archeologists. On some conclusions that the author supports more evidence needs to be gathered before they are definitely accepted. But on other theories, such as the reasons for the precipitous decline of the Indian population, the author shows that based on the current evidence the only likely conclusions that one can infer is that the Indians were the victims of waves of epidemic of organisms which the Indians had no defenses.

Good book.

A review can be found here:

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review/...

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06/22/08

John rated it:

Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: history buffs

I am rethinking my review and giving this the highest rating. This book has really stayed with me in the months since I read it. I'm always a sucker for prehistory stuff, people speculating on history and social structure and motivations for doing things when all you have to go on are oral history and some artifacts but nothing written down. And there is so much we don't know about the Native Americans, even though we act as if we do. This book reminds the reader that we base all our knowledge a...more I am rethinking my review and giving this the highest rating. This book has really stayed with me in the months since I read it. I'm always a sucker for prehistory stuff, people speculating on history and social structure and motivations for doing things when all you have to go on are oral history and some artifacts but nothing written down. And there is so much we don't know about the Native Americans, even though we act as if we do. This book reminds the reader that we base all our knowledge about Indian tribes on what they were like when we managed to really sit down and chat with them starting in the mid 1600's on the east coast and really the 1700's for the interior, and we didn't know much about the western tribes even by Lewis and Clark, in 1802. But the european contact affected them much earlier. You can see that even with tribes like the Wampanoag, who the Pilgrims met. The Pilgrims had time to sit in their villages and really write about what they were like, but by that point they had been trading with Europeans for almost a hundred years, european goods were ingrained in their society, and the first waves of disease had already arrived via fishing boats. The society was very different from what it had originally been. And so with plains tribes, this was even more of a big deal. A tribe like the cheyenne or sioux, let's say. We really don't record anything about them until the 1800s. But they started getting things from us, not only traded goods but also diseases, in the 1500s. They traded with tribes who traded with tribes who traded with the spanish. That's 300 years of change! It's not that far fetched to think that maybe in 1830 some of these nomadic plains tribes were living in tipis and surviving only on what they could hunt because 150 years ago their societies were decimated by disease and they were forced to become nomadic hunter-gatherers. But what we learn in school is only what we can prove: the Cheyenne were a small tribe of hunter-gatherers that lived a meager existence on the plains, subsisting mostly on buffalo. This makes it sound like they were always FAR behind the europeans, which might not have been true.
Another interesting theory. Remember learning about the thundering herds of buffalo, millions strong, dominating the plains. You just figure it must have always been like that, until the europeans came along. But we ignore that the dominant predator for the buffalo was the native american. And European diseases caused possibly 75% of the native american population to die, round about 1700. So what we really saw in the 1800s was a massive population surge of buffalo, because the only people eating them had vanished.
Plus there's all kinds of great writing in here about how advanced the Incans were how they may have had a written language after all, but using knots on rope, which is really cool when you think about it. I think people would find history a lot more interesting if they talked about this kind of stuff in school. Maybe it's just me. (less)

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