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1491
May 2023: Indigenous
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1491 by Charles C. Mann - 4 stars (Subdue)
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This book explores what the Americas were like in pre-Columbian times. The author was aware that much of what was presented in the history books was out of date, but he could not find an updated version, so he decided to write this book. It was published in 2005. The commonly held idea was that Indians had sparsely settled the North and South America and mostly lived nomadic lives of hunting and gathering. The former thinking asserted that the land was pristine and remained so due to the Indians’ lack of technological advancement. Mann provides evidence and analysis that disputes this viewpoint.
Rather than attempting a full chronology of the history of the Americas, which would indeed be an enormous task, he splits his analysis into three sections. Part one takes a look at demographics, part two at origins, and part three at ecology. It contains voluminous data and disagreements among experts. It examines the latest (at the time) scientific research, including genetics, linguistics, anthropology, archeology, and sociology. It takes a look at the diseases that killed off a large number of people after the arrival of Europeans, and the reasons for such a death toll. It presents the indigenous people as comparable in achievements to the Europeans of the Old World.
“Mesoamerica would deserve its place in the human pantheon if its inhabitants had only created maize, in terms of harvest weight the world’s most important crop. But the inhabitants of Mexico and northern Central America also developed tomatoes, now basic to Italian cuisine; peppers, essential to Thai and Indian food; all the world’s squashes (except for a few domesticated in the United States); and many of the beans on dinner plates around the world. One writer has estimated that Indians developed three-fifths of the crops now in cultivation, most of them in Mesoamerica. Having secured their food supply, Mesoamerican societies turned to intellectual pursuits. In a millennium or less, a comparatively short time, they invented their own writing, astronomy, and mathematics, including the zero.”
It counters the idea that Indians split off from a single migration of ancestors across the Bering Strait into North Americas and spreading throughout Central and South America. (Thanks to the emergence of DNA analysis, this view has since been commonly accepted.) Current research indicates there were many more Indians in the Western Hemisphere than previously believed, and they arrived much earlier. They also transformed their environment to suit their needs. The author examines the complex societies of the indigenous peoples, such as the massive Inkan, Mexica/Aztec, and Mayan civilizations, and the large cities they built in what is today Central and South America. He goes further back into the history of the Olmecs, Toltecs, and Norte Chico. He also closely looks at the Cahokia (and a few other tribes) in North America.
It is an ambitious undertaking that can occasionally feel like it is employing a scattershot approach, but I found the content fascinating. It is written in a journalistic style and also serves as a quasi-memoir of the author’s travels to these regions. It raises controversies and invites further studies. It examines many conflicting hypotheses and scientific opinions. Recommended to fans of pre-Columbian history, and anyone interested in the origins, culture, and civilizations of indigenous (North, South, and Central) Americans.
PBT Comments: This book is tagged "indigenous" by 88 readers.