Filling in the blanks

[Rokcet Scientist]

The Amazon basin's past is getting more and more unraveled:

Public release date: 17-Oct-2010

New discoveries concerning pre-Columbian settlements in the Amazon

The pre-Columbian Indian societies that once lived in the Amazon rainforests may have been much larger and more advanced than researchers previously realized. Together with Brazilian colleagues, archaeologists from the University of Gothenburg have found the remains of approximately 90 settlements in an area South of the city of Santarém, in the Brazilian part of the Amazon.

"The most surprising thing is that many of these settlements are a long way from rivers, and are located in rainforest areas that extremely sparsely populated today," says Per Stenborg from the Department of Historical Studies, who led the Swedish part of the archaeological investigations in the area over the summer.

Traditionally archaeologists have thought that these inland areas were sparsely populated also before the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries. One reason for this assumption is that the soils found in the inland generally is quite infertile; another reason is that access to water is poor during dry periods as these areas are situated at long distances from the major watercourses. It has therefore been something of a mystery that the earliest historical account; from Spaniard Francisco de Orellana's journey along the River Amazon in 1541-42, depicted the Amazon as a densely populated region with what the Spanish described as "towns", situated not only along the river itself, but also in the inland.

NEW DISCOVERIES COULD CHANGE PREVIOUS IDEAS

The current archaeological project in the Santarém area could well change our ideas about the pre-Columbian Amazon. The archaeologists have come across areas of very fertile soil scattered around the otherwise infertile land. These soils, known as "Terra Preta do Indio", or "Amazonian Dark Earth", are not natural, but have been created by humans (that is, they are "anthrosols").

"Just as importantly, we found round depressions in the landscape, some as big as a hundred metres in diameter, by several of the larger settlements," says Stenborg. "These could be the remains of water reservoirs, built to secure water supply during dry periods."

It is therefore possible that the information from de Orellana's journey will be backed up by new archaeological findings, and that the Amerindian populations in this part of the Amazon had developed techniques to overcome the environmental limitations of the Amazonian inlands.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESCUE EFFORTS ARE URGENT

The archaeological sites in the Santarém area are rich in artefacts, particularly ceramics. A large and generally unstudied collection of material from the area is held by the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg. Collected in the 1920s by the Germano-Brazilian researcher Curt Unkel Nimuendajú, the material ended up in the Museum of Ethnography in Gothenburg and is essential for increasing our knowledge of the pre-Columbian Amazon. Brazilian researchers are therefore interested in joint projects, where new field studies are combined with research into the contents of the Museum of World Culture's collections from the same area.

The investigation area is situated near the city of Santarém, between the Amazon mainstream and its tributary; Rio Tapajós in northern Brazil. Maps: Per Stenborg.

"The Santarém area is presently experiencing intensive exploitation of various forms, including expansion of mechanized agriculture and road construction," says Dr. Denise Schaan at Universidade Federal do Pará. "This means that the area's ancient remains are being rapidly destroyed and archaeological rescue efforts are therefore extremely urgent."

"Our work here is a race against time in order to obtain archaeological field data enabling us to save information about the pre-Columbian societies that once existed in this area, before the archaeological record has been irretrievably lost as a result of the present development", states Brazilian archaeologist Márcio Amaral-Lima at Fundação de Amparo e Desenvolvimento da Pesquisa, in Santarém.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 101710.php

[kbs2244]

What is on the verge of happening there is what happened in the US in the mid-west.
(The states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Iowa.)

There was tons of evidence regarding previous inhabitants,.
Things like mounds, high temp furnaces, stone forts, open and sub-surface mines.

As the farmers moved in these were plowed over, dismantled for building materials, roadway fill, etc.

Economic expansion is a hard thing to stop no matter how noble your motives.

[Minimalist]

Perhaps the mythology of a virtually empty, pristine-paradise, facilitated the land grab desire?

Of course, the land grab would have proceeded anyway. If history tells us nothing else it tells us that.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Perhaps the mythology of a virtually empty, pristine-paradise, facilitated the land grab desire?

Of course, because it's nice and comforting to believe in fairy tales. History tells us that too.
And the mythology... nay, there are generally speaking no gods involved here, so it's a legend or a fairy tale, not a mythology.
Restart:
And the fairy tale would have helped motivate those who stayed behind to egg on the wannabe 'explorers' (but in reality opportunistic 'colonizers'...) to go west and find fame and fortune.

[kbs2244]

I remember when I was in grade school, all full of how the white man stole the continent from the Indians teaching, talking to my grandmother.

She grew up in north central Illinois, when there were still groups of Indians living in the creek bottoms, stealing cattle and begging.
They were basically put up with because it was almost impossible to get any court admissible evidence against them.

When I floated the idea of the white people taking the land from the Indians her reply was,
“Maybe so. But what did they do with it?”

The unspoken idea was the improvement the white man had made by putting the land under the plow and providing food for the world.

[Digit]

The same view was expressed over here, I remember replying during the early cold war period, 'so if the Russians could make better use of this country they would have the right to take over?'

Roy.

[Minimalist]

If someone steals $20 from you and puts it to a good purpose are you okay with being robbed?

[Rokcet Scientist]

If someone steals $20 from you and puts it to a good purpose are you okay with being robbed?

Apparently we are. Because isn't that what the government does? As laid down in reams of laws over 234 years (in the case of the US). And afaik with in majority the explicit OK of the victims, the voters/taxpayers via their representation in Congress! Else those laws wouldn't exist.

They signed checks for over a trillion bucks that way in the past decade alone, didn't they?

[Minimalist]

I don't recall seeing a gun stuck in my face.

[Rokcet Scientist]

I don't recall seeing a gun stuck in my face.

You must have a very short memory. Let me help you recall then: there was a caliber 9/11 stuck in your face...! It scared your fellow Americans and your Congress into signing on the dotted line for over a trillion bucks in 'security measures'.

[Minimalist]

Oh will you stop with that conspiracy horseshit.

Jesus christ, I've told you that those people are nothing but clowns looking to sell books.

[kbs2244]

In US Tax Court you are assumed guilty until you can prove that the IRS charges are not correct.
The burden of proof is on the defendant.

[Rokcet Scientist]

In US Tax Court you are assumed guilty until you can prove that the IRS charges are not correct.
The burden of proof is on the defendant.

I rest my case.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Oh will you stop with that conspiracy horseshit.

Who said anything about a conspiracy?
It is completely irrelevant who planned, produced, or executed 9/11!
9/11 was the gun that was pushed up your nose and scared you into spending a trillion bucks to prevent (preempt) a repeat performance! Totally irrespective of who wielded it!
And the people who proposed spending that trillion bucks displayed 9/11, the gun that was stuck up your face, hard, as their argument.
Face it!
Whether there was a connection between the two is a totally different discussion.

Jesus christ, I've told you that those people are nothing but clowns looking to sell books.

Killing the messenger(s) again.

[Minimalist]

In US Tax Court you are assumed guilty until you can prove that the IRS charges are not correct.
The burden of proof is on the defendant.

The US Tax Court is a "civil" court. "Guilt or innocence is irrelevant.

Rule 142 dealing with the Burden of Proof states:

RULE 142. BURDEN OF PROOF1
(a) General: (1) The burden of proof shall be upon the
petitioner, except as otherwise provided by statute or determined
by the Court; and except that, in respect of any new
matter, increases in deficiency, and affirmative defenses,
pleaded in the answer, it shall be upon the respondent.

So even here the burden of proving the case depends on the issue at hand.