2000 years of population swings among Indigenous Americans
11 comments
·February 7, 2025AlotOfReading
I get a deep sense of gell-man amnesia from this paper. I don't have familiarity with all of the regions in the analysis, but the analysis don't match existing RC data for the southwest region at all. The well-understood RC peak numbers for AZ (HU 15) should be about century later than in the study (~1100). The 4 corners region (HU14) should be about 350 years later (~1150). The rio grande should be about 150 years later (~1200-1400), with a barely noticeable decline from 1400-1600. They explain this away as regional averaging, but it's sloppy to have some of the best regional RC datasets in the world available and not use them as analysis controls or even cite the relevant landmark papers. That's to say nothing of the much-discussed difficulty matching RC data to demography.
I don't know how bad the data is in some of the other areas, but I suspect it's not much better.
Aloisius
The paper gives a relative population loss between 1150 and 1500 CE of ~30%, with caveats.
null
throwiut
Old immigrants call new ones go home. Seems many haven't learnt history in schools
zmgsabst
There were multiple migrations; tribes fought for land and replaced each other; people arrived by ships; etc.
Nobody even knows who the first settlers actually were — and they’ve likely been replaced more than once. Talk of “indigenous” is usually just a vestige of European colonialism which simultaneously treats the existing population as simplistic while focusing on Europeans events/actions as special in history.
If your tribe arrived 400 years ago and has been here since, you’re as “indigenous” as anyone else — and it’s not surprising they don’t like others taking their stuff. Nobody does.
gottorf
To go further, I personally don't think the first settlers to a piece of land have a better or more special claim over it than any subsequent group. That line of thinking feels like an appeal to cosmic justice more than anything else.
0xDEAFBEAD
It's tricky because property rights are legitimately the foundation of a peaceful and prosperous society. It's bad to incentivize violent conquest and theft. But it's also bad to incentivize a society where the way to become wealthy is to tell the best sob story about stuff that happened to your ancestors generations and generations ago.
defrost
We can resettle the two million acres of Ted Turner land then?
kennyloginz
Nice, so how is your special claim better?
vkou
Should the most recent settlers to it have a stronger claim, instead?
Should they have an equal claim?
Can I put in a claim to ownership of wherever you live?
If you have the chance, it's really worth making the trip to Cahokia, IL. It was the capital of one of those civilizations that peaked in the 12th century, and you can still climb the monumental earthworks and gain a sense of the place. Any society that DIYs a mountain in Illinois deserves to be remembered.