Why NOT in America?

[Rokcet Scientist]

So how do we explain well-documented Clovis technology in all 48 contiguous states, Mexico and Central America...dispersed in a few hundred years.* And we're talking 11,000 B.P.

That was tribal, imo. Not what I call 'civilisation', or social cohesion on a supra-tribal scale (metals, wars, agriculture, city culture, trade, craftsmanship, organized religion, etc. etc.). And tribes trek. As the points clearly show. And, afaik, there is no sign whatsoever that Clovis people lived in anything but tribal systems.
In fact, the wide dispersal of Clovis points in such a short span of time is a strong indicator of a nomadic lifestyle. And nomads live in small tribal systems. Extended families at best. Not big tribes. Let alone supra-tribal systems, with a 'national' self-image, as required for a 'civilisation'.

And then the Clovis people disappeared! Suddenly! No trace left. They disappeared before they could develop to the next logical stages: civilisation. As their brethren in Eurasia, in more ways than one, did.
But the people that remained after Clovis' unceremonious disappearance didn't develop civilisation either. What they left were at best inferior copies of Clovis points. As if made by children (compared to Clovis). And the next 8,000 years didn't leave any great civilisational traces either until the pre-pre-Inca, the Toltecs, and the Maya. Those millennia are an utter void in the Americas. While the rest of the world was buzzing with excitement, development, wars, religions, yada, yada, yada, nothing even remotely similar seems to have happened in the Americas.

Why?

[Minimalist]

Caral goes back to around 3,000 BC so you can hardly call that "nothing."

[Rokcet Scientist]

Caral goes back to around 3,000 BC so you can hardly call that "nothing."

Correct. But as yet firmly in dispute. And even so, then there's still 5 millennia of activity missing.

[Digit]

To meet your definition of civilisation RS man has to cease being a hunter/gatherer, and based on modern H/Gs, they only give it up reluctantly and then usually because they cannot avoid doing otherwise.

[Charlie Hatchett]

In fact, the wide dispersal of Clovis points in such a short span of time is a strong indicator of a nomadic lifestyle. And nomads live in small tribal systems. Extended families at best. Not big tribes. Let alone supra-tribal systems, with a 'national' self-image, as required for a 'civilisation'.

Many Clovis experts disagree:

Meanwhile at the Gault site deep in the heart of central Texas, Clovis culture is being reconsidered week by week, midway through a planned five-year dig. The emerging view hardly resembles the Clovis story known to generations of archeology students. Instead of a new group of people exploring an unknown land, we seem to see a people thoroughly familiar with their surroundings. Instead of highly mobile elephant hunters, we see what looks like a full-blown generalized hunting and gathering culture living in the same kind of places and doing many of the same kinds of things that characterized Archaic-era life all across the continent a few thousand years later. This is more than a new spin, this is a whole new way of thinking about what is still, to many, America's earliest recognizable culture.

http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/gault/clovis.html

[Rokcet Scientist]

[...] we see what looks like a full-blown generalized hunting and gathering culture

'Hunters/gatherers' is not a 'civilisation', Charlie. 'Merely' a culture. Like you yourself say.

living in the same kind of places and doing many of the same kinds of things that characterized Archaic-era life all across the continent a few thousand years later.

In other words: no meaningful progress was made after Clovis . . . !

Why not?

This is more than a new spin, this is a whole new way of thinking about what is still, to many, America's earliest recognizable culture.

'Culture' indeed. Not a civilisation.

[Digit]

Well for what it's worth gentleman my dictionary defines civilisation as the act of being civilised!
Not a single mention of metal working etc at all.
Are we saying that the Aboriginies and the Bushmen etc are uncivilised?

[Charlie Hatchett]

[...] we see what looks like a full-blown generalized hunting and gathering culture

'Hunters/gatherers' is not a 'civilisation', Charlie. 'Merely' a culture. Like you yourself say.

living in the same kind of places and doing many of the same kinds of things that characterized Archaic-era life all across the continent a few thousand years later.

In other words: no meaningful progress was made after Clovis . . . !

Why not?

This is more than a new spin, this is a whole new way of thinking about what is still, to many, America's earliest recognizable culture.

'Culture' indeed. Not a civilisation.

O.K., you win R.S.

[Minimalist]

I still think you are over-generalizing, Rokcet.

Sure, an argument could be made for an agrarian culture developing in Turkey c 9,000 BC which spread as far south as Jericho.... but what were they doing in Germany or the Steppes of Russia at the same time.

These things seem to be episodic. Local conditions gave rise to the need for agriculture and it seems highly likely that the Native Americans in the Mid-West had no problem with a hunting/gathering life style until the White Man showed up and shot all his buffalo. In the SW and NE agriculture WAS the answer and Indian towns showed up on the landscape.

People are inherently conservative. They do not make significant changes without a damn good reason. Starvation would be one such reason but the North American continent, fertile, vast and well-watered, presented a much different set of climate types than did the M/E which appears to have begun drying out at the end of the Ice Age and continues drying to this day.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Quote from: Rokcet Scientist on May 18, 2006, 10:50:15 AM
Quote from: Jacques Cinq-Mars on May 16, 2006, 09:08:06 AM
Quote from: Rokcet Scientist on May 16, 2006, 07:00:37 AM
They walked to Flores, imho.
Exactly like they walked to Europe, Australia and (from two sides!) to the Americas.

With all due respect, Rokcet Scientist, the Forum can certainly do without your rambling ‘humble opinion’ on this.

Jacques Cinq-Mars
What "due respect"?
You're displaying arrogant cynical irony.
(Stupidity and short-sightedness too . . . )
For the meaning of "respect" I submit you ask your mum and dad.

If I may interject a comment here addressed to Rokcet Scientist, with regard to respect "due" your opinion, it deserves no respect. Not because personal opinions are necessarily disallowed here, but because your opinion (walked to Australia???) was offered with absolutely no facts or argument of support. In other words, it is what is known in Internet jargon as a "troll".
Dar

P.S. As far as I'm concerned, as moderator, you (R.S.) can consider your membership to be on shaky ground. One more outburst like your last, and I will personally remove your right to post comment here.

If I may interject a comment here addressed to Dar: that is known in real life as a "prejudice".

___________________________________________________

Nonsense. Prejudice has nothing to do with this. A troll is a troll is a troll. You are trolling, it's that simple and obvious. Insofar as this exchange is concerned, for now I'm removing it from this thread and moving it to miscellaneous, where it will be subject to further disposition perhaps eventual deletion.

Dar

Any special point you're trying to make with those carefully selected quotes, Charlie?

Dar simply didn't like my dissenting opinion. He's prolly a member or follower of the club. And for many moderators a dissenting opinion is a reason to abuse their banning powers.
Simple fascism, really.

[Minimalist]

Well...not here.

Although I do visit a board called Evilbible.com and I think the admin there has a very quick trigger. Just about the time that some Fundie gets interesting he gets banned.

Arch wouldn't last more than a couple of posts.

Still....it cuts down on the fun factor.

[Forum Monk]

... the North American continent, fertile, vast and well-watered, presented a much different set of climate types than did the M/E which appears to have begun drying out at the end of the Ice Age and continues drying to this day.

Perhaps the quote above is not worthy of your position, Min, but as I read it, you and Rokcet seem to be agreeing on many levels. "Civilization" advanced in europe/asia much more quickly and spread more rapidly than it did in the western hemisphere. I see no need to quibble over the semantics of the words Rokcet chooses, to me his point is clear. (I hope)

I think the bottom line, Min, and I guess for the moment, I agree with you as well; in the west, there was no "need" to create towns and coorperative societies of the same kind we have seen developed in the east. The "hunter/gather" life style was sufficient. And it does not mean the society was necessarily primitive. Just adapted to the environment.

[Digit]

Mind you Forum, I still think you're dodging my question about Aboriginies and Bushmen being or not being civilised.
Come on, somebody take up the challenge!
Personally I do not believe that civilisation requires any material structures, only an agreed code of laws and their enforcement.

[Forum Monk]

Ok, Digit. I'm not shy.

Technically, the Bushmen, Aborigines, AmerInd's were civilized in the strict sense of the word; i.e. they acted civilized; i.e they followed laws and behaved in a way that was socially acceptable to their society. But that doesn't mean they fit the modern definition of civilized. Now before you scream cultural bias, consider that I think Rokcet is speaking of a larger overriding morality, the development of a class system, the emergence of a need to leave a "mark" for posterity, multi-hierachical social structure, etc. These are the earmarks of a radical change from "hunter/gather" social structures and beginnings of the definition of civility we still hold today.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Mind you Forum, I still think you're dodging my question about Aboriginies and Bushmen being or not being civilised.
Come on, somebody take up the challenge!
Personally I do not believe that civilisation requires any material structures, only an agreed code of laws and their enforcement.

"Civilisation' may be defined in various ways, Digit. As you illustrate. Which is precisely why I defined exactly what I meant by 'civilisation' in the threadstarter:

agriculture, city culture, metals, wars, trading, craftsmanship, writing, seafaring, organized religions, etc.

In other words: no, bushmen' and aboriginals' cultures are not civilisations. Faaaaar from it. They are hunter/gatherer cultures that never yet got to the stage of developing a civilisation. As Homo Sapiens' development goes, they are backward. Lagging faaaar behind.

FYI: Orang Utans, Chimpanzees, and Bonobo's have culture too. I'm betting Gorilla's do as well. We only haven't discovered it yet. Just a matter of time, imo.