The Mother City ('Lost City' of Caral; Peru)

[Anonymous]

Having thought about this, I think that the example of the Mother City shows what can be achieved by humans when they don't have to compete for resources. According to the program, the MC had a 'virtuous circle' of trade which allowed it to invest in putting more land under cultivation, thus giving them more to trade with, etc. However, as they were the first to try city culture, and as populations would have been low, they wouldn't have faced conflicts with other cities, or found demand outstripping resources. I also assume that rather than having to invade anyone elses territory they were able to expand into 'empty space', or perhaps people would have wanted join them.

However, once everyone's trying to do the same thing, conflicts are probably inevitable. Zones of influence will overlap, shortages will occur etc, etc. Thats why we're not going to see that 'anarchist pacifist utopia' anytime soon. (For the record, I personally am not a pacifist.)

However, the point is that, in these admittedly historically unique circumstances, it appears that warfare and weapons were unknown. What this means is that humans can, if the circumstances are right, live in peace with each other. In other words, (as Uncle Karl might have said) - the causes of warfare are economic, rather than to do with some version of original sin.

If we start taking axes or nukes to each other, we're doing it not because of genetics, but for (in the widest sense) cultural reasons. This implies that the problem of human/human violence can be sorted out thru cutural change. If (and again I parrotphrase Marx) there were no shortages, and no masters, we could perhaps live in peace.

 

[rynner2]

Re: But I bet they have a police force

Originally posted by martinhpage
This is new to me. Fascinating. Perhaps the Costa Ricans are truly a civilisation without walls.

It's fascinating to find that the unit of currency in C.R. is the colon !

(Well, there ought to be an acute accent over the second 'o', but why spoil a good joke - or even a feeble joke?)

 

[Anonymous]

What about...

Wintermute said

. In other words, (as Uncle Karl might have said) - the causes of warfare are economic, rather than to do with some version of original sin.

What about cultures where there was no need for violence, but the young men still practiced ritualised warfare (e.g. the Trobriand islanders, the ancient Celts)? And didn't the Easter Islanders slaughter eachother for cultural reasons? As did the Europeans during the 30 years war.

Cultures without violence, ritualised or otherwise - at least one Eskimo tribe comes to mind, and perhaps the Mbuti - seem to be the exception.

So, I'd say that it is the causes of pacifism are economic (in the broadest sense), not the other way around.
M

 

[Anonymous]

MHP - I also said

If we start taking axes or nukes to each other, we're doing it not because of genetics, but for (in the widest sense) cultural reasons.

In any case, I don't know about the Trobriand Islanders (although I seem to remember seeing that doubt had been cast on the accuracy of the classic anthropological studies), but of the other examples you give;

Celts - warfare used to gain territory and resources

Easter Island - resource shortages due to unsustainable lifestyle led to conflict

30 Years War (and all historical European wars) - about territory and resources even if this was obsured by propaganda.

However, this is, to a certain extent, besides the point. Previous to the Mother City, there was no evidence to support the counter-view to the recieved wisdom that humans are by nature violently aggressive. The existence of the Mother City, with, lest we forget how this argument started, a thousand years of a culture where warfare was apparently unknown, shows that, no matter what atrocities were committed before or since, humans are capable of living peacefully together in large groups.

Maybe we'll have to wait till we start colonising other planets before we have the chance again, but the fact is that the Mother City shows that we can live another way from the way we do now. Its not our biology that stops us, its our psychology, and that's mutable.

 

[Anonymous]

I hope you're right, Wintermute.

Maybe the Mother City found a way to deal with our agressive tendencies - competitive pyramid building? - or maybe our behaviour isn't biologically determined after all. I just wish we could go to the stars in our lifetime.

However, someone did for the Mother City in the end, and the cultures that replaced it weren't very nice by modern liberal standards.

I hope that, if we reach the stars and build our Utopia, we don't encounter something less peaceful that will do for us in a similar manner.

Re your points: Yes, I exaggerated. Trobriand Islanders - I agree Malinoski(?) missed a trick or two, and some of his conclusions have been called into doubt. But, as far as I recall, raids and war for social reasons - proving manhood etc - is common across many cultures. Yes, as I recall, the Celts fought wars over loot and territory, but the young warriors also sought to prove themselves in more pointless martial adventures. And loot and territory had social significance beyond any utility to the conqueror. A Celtic chieften's worth was measured by his capacity to give gifts to his warriors.

Re the 30 Years War, again, yes politics, but also fuelled by religion.

I still think biology has something to do with humanity's war-torn history, but perhaps we can save this line of argument for another thread. It's been fun

M

 

[Anonymous]

MHP - honourable draw?

 

[intaglio]

MHP - honourable draw?

HONOURABLE DRAW?!!! don't be foolish we want BLOOD, a victim to be cast upon the altar, his heart ripped still beating from his writhing body and cas upon the sacred flames.

i'll go and take my dried frog tablets now

 

[Anonymous]

Well, we could settle this by trial by combat

Intaglio wrote

HONOURABLE DRAW?!!! don't be foolish we want BLOOD, a victim to be cast upon the altar, his heart ripped still beating from his writhing body and cas upon the sacred flames.

Wintermute could try to socialise me, and I could try to hit him with my two handed sword

Seriously, if you want to see rhetorical blood, start an appropriate thread in a week or so - we need a break - and I'm sure Wintermute and I will be happy to do the gladiator thing. It's an interesting area of debate, but we were getting a little off topic, and so far down the thread that we weren't getting contributions from other people

M

 

[Anonymous]

Wintermute could try to socialise me,

I prefer the traditional hanging from a lampost with the guts of the last priest, if that's OK with you.

Seriously, I thought I'd started 'looping'.

And anyway, there's a Beckjord to mock, I haven't time to hang round here all day!

 

[NilesCalder]

Of course if (IF!) Graham Hancock is right about antedelluvian civilisations existing that were inundated during the end of the last Ice Age (and he's putting forward a surprisingly good case) then any City that didn't predate the end of Ice Age could not be the Mother City...

Niles "Why don't we have Daddy Cities?" Calder

 

[intaglio]

This might be why we haven't found one in the *old world* yet and why the best candidate so far is in the *new*. Surely the point about this city is that it appears to have no precursor on the site or in the region. That has to be qualified by the dificulty that archaeologists can read the wrong story, Sir Mortimer Wheeler expounding about the end of the Harappan civilisations infront of the film camera's springs to mind.

 

[EnolaGaia]

To (retroactively) set some more context, here's a 2001 BBC article on Caral ...

Thursday, 26 April, 2001, 19:12 GMT 20:12 UK

Oldest city in the Americas

Caral was built long before the huge stone structures of Mexico

An ancient city in what is now Peru was built at the same time as the great pyramids of Egypt, archaeologists have revealed.

New evidence indicates the desert site at Caral, on the slopes of the Andes, was built between 2,600 BC and 2,000 BC.

What we're learning from Caral is going to rewrite the way we think about the development of early Andean civilisation
- Jonathan Haas, Field Museum in Chicago

This date pushes back the emergence of the first complex society in the New World by nearly 800 years.

And it suggests that the people behind the project were advanced enough to organise the labour needed to create the architectural wonder of the day.

Caral is one of 18 sites in central Peru's Supe Valley, which stretches eastward from the Pacific coastline, up the slopes of the Andes.

Earth pyramids

All the inland settlements once had architecture on a grand scale, including the six huge platform mounds seen at Caral.

Because of its size and complexity, archaeologists had thought Caral was built about 1,500 BC.

But carbon dating of plant samples found at the site add another 1,000 years or so to this figure.

The pyramids are buried under a layer of windblown and sand

That puts Caral in the same period as the great pyramids of Egypt, and long before the huge stone structures of Mexico.

"What we're learning from Caral is going to rewrite the way we think about the development of early Andean civilisation," said study leader Jonathan Haas of the Field Museum in Chicago, US.

The Peruvian-American archaeological team says the pyramids and irrigation system show an organised society in which masses of people were paid, or compelled, to work on centralised projects.

This suggests that power and wealth were held by an elite group at a time when, in most of the Americas, people were still hunting and gathering in much smaller communities.

No pots

"The size of a structure is really an indication of power," said Haas.

"It means that leaders of the society were able to get their followers to do lots of work."

What is surprising to archaeologists is that the city was created by a society that had yet to invent pottery or cultivate grain.

Its people grew peppers, beans, avocadoes and potatoes - all of which they roasted, having no pots to boil them in.

They also ate lots of anchovies, which may have been used in dried form as a kind of currency, as grain was later.

The research is published in the journal Science.

SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1298460.stm

 

[Jim]

To (retroactively) set some more context, here's a 2001 BBC article on Caral ...



SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1298460.stm

Much more Plausible than some of the seemingly exaggerated claims for Tiahuanaco.

 

[AlchoPwn]

The doco mentioned:

Good stuff, well worth the watch.

 

[ramonmercado]

Archaeologists hopping with joy as toad mural found.

A mural believed to be 3,800 years old and from a lost civilisation has been found by archaeologists in Peru investigating an ancient city.

The mural, depicting a toad that wraps its hands around the head of a man, was discovered in the Vichama archaeological site in the north of the country, 68 miles (110 km) north of the capital, Lima. Archaeologist Tatiana Abad, told a news conference in Lima, the mural represents the "announcement of the arrival of water".

"It talks about the importance of water in times of crisis and the reflections that we can create from them," she added.

Excavators have been working at Vichama since 2007, revealing new ideas about the ancient Caral civilisation such as an advanced city plan and architecture.


https://news.sky.com/story/peru-3800-year-old-caral-civilisation-mural-found-11789593

 

[EnolaGaia]

The Caral site and the archaeologists studying it are under threat of destruction and death (respectively).

The Oldest City in The Americas Is an Archeological Wonder, And It's Under Invasion

Having survived for 5,000 years, the oldest archeological site in the Americas is under threat from squatters claiming the coronavirus pandemic has left them with no other option but to occupy the sacred city.

The situation has become so bad that archeologist Ruth Shady, who discovered the Caral site in Peru, has been threatened with death if she doesn't abandon investigating its treasures.

Archeologists told an AFP team visiting Caral that squatter invasions and destruction began in March when the pandemic forced a nationwide lockdown. ...

"There are people who come and invade this site, which is state property, and they use it to plant," archeologist Daniel Mayta told AFP.

"It's hugely harmful because they're destroying 5,000-year-old cultural evidence." ...

Developed between 3,000 and 1,800 BCE in an arid desert, Caral is the cradle of civilization in the Americas.

Its people were contemporaries of Pharaonic Egypt and the great Mesopotamian civilizations.

It pre-dates the far better known Inca empire by 45 centuries. ...

None of that mattered to the squatters, though, who took advantage of the minimal police surveillance during 107 days of lockdown to take over 10 hectares of the Chupacigarro archeological site and plant avocados, fruit trees, and lima beans.

"The families don't want to leave," said Mayta, 36.

"We explained to them that this site is a (UNESCO) World Heritage site and what they're doing is serious and could see them go to jail." ...

Shady is the director of the Caral archeological zone and has been managing the investigations since 1996 when excavations began.

She says that land traffickers - who occupy state or protected land illegally to sell it for private gain - are behind the invasions.

"We're receiving threats from people who are taking advantage of the pandemic conditions to occupy archeological sites and invade them to establish huts and till the land with machinery ... they destroy everything they come across" ...

"One day they called the lawyer who works with us and told him they were going to kill him with me and bury us five meters underground" if the archeological work continued at the site. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/oldest-city-in-the-americas-under-threat-from-squatters