Archaeologica.org

Actually, Ishtar, there were elephant-like animals in South America but they became extinct around 9,000 BC.....which raises a whole lot of other questions, doesn't it?

http://www.amnh.org/science/biodiversit ... cidea.html

Gomphotheres are related to primitive elephantids, and share many features with them. Their grinding teeth, for example, had many more cusps and more complicated wear patterns than those of mastodons. Cuvieronius, the last genus of New World gomphotheres to become extinct, was widely distributed in North, Central, and South America. In feeding habits it was presumably a browser. In South America, this taxon survived until about 11,000 radiocarbon years before present; they apparently became extinct somewhat earlier in North America.

Now here we have, not one, but two 'impossible' scenarios to chose from.
Club members will be donating their hair in bucket loads if they read that Min.

Hey, Dig, how've you been?

I'm surprised about this. There are representations of extinct animals on South American artwork.

From toxodon on the Gate of the Sun at Tiahuanaco to cave paintings of prehistoric elephants. I first heard about this in one of Von Daniken's books years ago. At the time I dismissed it is as, "obviously, they were not as extinct as everyone thought!" Now, however, it seems that man was here a lot earlier than people thought or perhaps ( WARNING - Sacriledge Approaching ) a little bit of BOTH.

Breaking my back gardening Min and praying for rain so I have an excuse to stop!
I really can't understand the mind set of these experts who look at these carvings and walk away saying they aren't Elephants, or that Olmec heads aren't African.
Maybe they are right, but I wish they'd explain why?

Reviewing the earlier posts in which Marduk claimed similarity to Indian symbols, I believe he was referring to North American Indians, not Asian Indians.

I wish you had some links for your statements, Ishtar. I like to check sources and read the viewpoints shaded by own worldview rather some novel new way. No seriously, please try to post some supporting links.

I think one interesting thing which can be seen in the British Isles and perhaps the Americas as well, is the lure of precious metals. Man learned very early to mine metals from the earth and european supplies of gold, copper and other metals waned as metal working took on more necessity. I don't know how advanced cultures got to South America or when, but I wouldn't be surprised if exploitation didn't soon become the motivation to stay and perhaps an indigenous population of laborers made the economics more feasible.

Precious metals waned in Britain Monk?
I'll say. Do you know that the Romans even used hydraulics here in Wales to get at the gold?
Where a suitable slope contained gold they built resevoirs above the desired area then breached the dam when it was fall so that the hillside was stripped to the bedrock in the flow.

Forum Monk wrote:Reviewing the earlier posts in which Marduk claimed similarity to Indian symbols, I believe he was referring to North American Indians, not Asian Indians.

Ah, so you've emailed him then. So what else did the great god Marduk have to pronounce on the subject?

There are more than 200 nations of Native Americans in the Americas - so perhaps you wouldn't mind asking Marduk which ones he means.

He may as well be let back on to this forum if he's going to be using various people as his mouthpiece, rather like a god wouldn't you say, Monk, with you as his priest? I, for one, would be glad to see him back.

Forum Monk wrote:
I wish you had some links for your statements, Ishtar. I like to check sources and read the viewpoints shaded by own worldview rather some novel new way. No seriously, please try to post some supporting links.

You can just as easily Google for Indian+South America as me. I've already told you, what little I have on this subject - and I'm by no means an expert on it - comes from a load of books, papers and also quite a lot of time spent in India talking to the people about what they thought their history was before the British Raj turned up and sold them a duff story about it. I've given you plenty of material to Google with if you're so determined that your world view must be formed solely by what's on the web.

Forum Monk wrote: I don't know how advanced cultures got to South America or when, but I wouldn't be surprised if exploitation didn't soon become the motivation to stay and perhaps an indigenous population of laborers made the economics more feasible.

That's pure conjecture based on....what? Now it's my turn to ask for links or at least references

Minimalist wrote:Actually, Ishtar, there were elephant-like animals in South America but they became extinct around 9,000 BC.....which raises a whole lot of other questions, doesn't it?

Thanks for that, Min. That's really interesting....and yes, it does raise a whole load of other questions.

Ishtar wrote:You can just as easily Google for Indian+South America as me. I've already told you, what little I have on this subject - and I'm by no means an expert on it - comes from a load of books, papers and also quite a lot of time spent in India talking to the people about what they thought their history was before the British Raj turned up and sold them a duff story about it. I've given you plenty of material to Google with if you're so determined that your world view must be formed solely by what's on the web.

Yep. 260,000,000 pages on the south american indians in the result. Guess you figure I have nothing but time to pour through page after page to confirm or discredit your statements? Frankly, I'm not that inclined since I'm no the one bring it up in the first place. Without links you have only out of context statements, opinions and hearsay evidence. Therefore nothing to comment on.

That's pure conjecture based on....what? Now it's my turn to ask for links or at least references

I will give you two links. After that you can type archeometallurgy into google.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining

The oldest known mine in the archaeological record is the "Lion Cave" in Swaziland. At this site, which by radiocarbon dating is 43,000 years old, paleolithic humans mined for the iron-containing mineral hematite, which they ground to produce the red pigment ochre. Sites of a similar age where Neanderthals may have mined flint for weapons and tools have been found in Hungary.

Ancient Egyptians operated malachite mines at Wady Maghareh on the Sinai Peninsula and at Timna in the Negev. At first, the bright green stones were used for ornamentation and for pottery glaze, but approximately 1,200 BCE, Egyptians discovered that malachite could be converted into copper by the application of intense heat and air.

In North America there are ancient, prehistoric copper mines along Lake Superior that were part of an extensive native trade network of copper tools, points, arrowheads, and artifacts. Some copper points that were found are over 3000 to 4000 years old, and copper was traded throughout the continent along major river routes. In addition, quartz, flint, and other minerals were are also mined, worked, and traded. In Manitoba there are ancient quartz mines in the north, and in Southeastern Manitoba by the Winnipeg River in Whiteshell Provincial Park.

And one up your alley:
http://metalrg.iisc.ernet.in/~wootz/her ... ritage.htm

Metals were extracted and utilized in the past in stages progressing usually from the use of native metal, to those metals which could be smelted easily from ores, to those which were more difficult to smelt. The commonly used metals in antiquity include gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, zinc and mercury. This brief review takes a synoptic look at some aspects of the early use of metal in a global perspective. It throws light on some of the achievements of ancient Indian metallurgists. Its heritage in metallurgy, medicine, mathematics and astronomy is a matter of pride for India.

Forum Monk wrote: Frankly, I'm not that inclined since I'm no the one bring it up in the first place. Without links you have only out of context statements, opinions and hearsay evidence. Therefore nothing to comment on.

If you have no comment, that's fine.

It was you that decided that you needed internet confirmation - and you expected me to do all the work for you.

I'm not trying to prove any points... Just telling the guys here about some of the ideas and theories that are out there that I thought they may not have heard about.

I'm not interested in a tournament.

I also didn't need a lecture on the history of mining - I've just written a website for Rio Tinto.

What I said was pure conjecture was your idea that some kind of slave labour was used from the indigenous population. That's what I was asking for references for.

Ishtar wrote:What I said was pure conjecture was your idea that some kind of slave labour was used from the indigenous population. That's what I was asking for references for.

You're correct. The indigenous labor comment was conjecture on my part.

Ok, Ishtar. I wish to apologise to you then. I mistakenly thought you were attempting to prove these theories of an India/South American connection and in spite of you saying no, I continued thinking you were.

There is nothing wrong with speculation and ideas. So I will read them with interest.

Phew, Monk! We finally broke through to each other universes! That's a relief....

The reason I was picking you up on the conjecture about indigenous labour was not for the purposes of empty point scoring. I do know something about very early mining practices - thousands of years back - and the attitude of the miners and the smiths to how the metals and minerals were mined was not one of the 'raping it' for all they could get (as has so much been the case in recent times). Instead, there was a feeling of working with the Earth who, as the mother, had gestated these minerals and metals within her 'womb'. So it was all carried out with the greatest of respect for 'her' and, because of this, there was a lot of attendant ceremony, rite and ritual around it for the miners to ask 'her' if it was OK to take it.

So this is very different mindset to how we see the earth today - although there has been, since the Sixties, a bit of a swing back in the other direction. But what I'm trying to get at here is that we all can fall into the trap of judging other civilsations way back in the past through the prism of our own modern mindset And all of us come from very recently imperialistic backgrounds. The reason we have the luxury of sitting here umming and ahing about the past with one another, while others can barely scratch a living, is bcause our forefathers went out and raped other countries - and even now, the US president is cynically exploiting the idea of 'terrorism' to take the oil from Iraq.

So my point is, just because all we've known is exploitative wars of one kind or another for the past several thousand years, it doesn't mean that it was always that way. There may not have been the means, for one thing- the intelligence and the speed of communication and transport - during the most ancient of times. And secondly, as I said, there was a very different, co-operative and symbiotic attitude towards the earth, the smallest remnants of which can only been seen today in perhaps, how the Native Americans lived before Columbus showed up.

My thought process was not one of early man raping the earth. One could probably make a reasonable case, he did not have the technology to rape the earth on the scale his modern counterparts have today. I was carrying through the earlier thinking that any advanced culture arriving in Boliva may be viewed as god-like and thus the invaders may find it easy to take advantage of the local population. Its not a case of man disrespecting the earth. Its a case of man disrepecting his fellow man.

It brings up an interesting question for another thread. When and why did slavery start?

When and why did slavery start?

There were different types of slavery.

Industrial scale slavery in mines and plantations seems to have been a Roman thing. The wholesale vending of captured people to slave traders was a means of making war profitable for the Romans.

Smaller scale slavery goes back to the Egyptians although more in a household servant sense than anything else. The Egyptians tended to murder prisoners of war outright.