Ancient World Review

Deforestation & The Loss Of Terra Incognita

"A new study counters the view that tropical forests were pristine natural environments prior to modern agriculture and industrialization. Moreover, humans have in fact been having a dramatic impact on such forest ecologies for tens of thousands of years, through techniques ranging from controlled burning of sections of forest to plant and animal management to clear-cutting." Source: Science Daily (2017).

Comment: Humans have lived in the rainforests for thousands of years, but there's a big difference between the controlled burns and clear-cutting practiced by aboriginal tribes and the massive destruction which started during the last century.

For example, the 2012 NASA time-lapse video above shows the scale of the deforestation taking place in one section of the Amazon rainforest between around 1975 and 2010. The changes are pretty dramatic and this kind of destruction is happening all over the world.

According to Wikipedia, deforestation "accelerated significantly between 1991 and 2004, reaching an annual forest loss rate of 27,423 km² in 2004. Though the rate of deforestation has been slowing since 2004 (with re-accelerations in 2008 and 2013), the remaining forest cover continues to dwindle."

Deforestation is an inevitable result of industrialization, economic growth and overpopulation, and the loss of wilderness, even if it hasn't been pristine for millennia, doesn't just have ecological effects. For instance, I've always thought that one of the most appealing things about the ancient world is that it was still an unexplored wilderness to a large extent.

When Julius Caesar wrote his history of the wars in Gaul, he mentioned at one point that no one knew what lay on the other side of the Black Forest. Technically that wasn't true, of course -- the Germanic tribes had been living in the forest for a long time and there was a whole continent full of people to the east -- but the point is that it was still possible at the time for large sections of the planet to be terra incognita, even to a culture as large and sophisticated as the Roman republic.

The loss of this terra incognita has a mass psychological impact. It's the closing of the mental frontier. Like air travel, the disappearance of the wilderness makes the world a smaller place where most people end up concentrated in urban centers, an army of disposable proles who can be found by the millions in shanty slums and megacities surrounded by hundreds of miles of countryside which have been turned into agricultural factory floors.

Deforestation, industrialization and population growth are all connected. There's a feedback loop involved here. Clearing the forest makes it possible to grow more crops which leads to population growth which creates a demand for more crops which leads to more deforestation, and industrialization just makes the whole process faster and more efficient. Villages turn into towns which grow into cities and spread across the land like outbreaks of tobacco mosaic virus while the map changes color from green to brown and concrete gray.

In the near term, the situation looks grim. In the long term, it doesn't matter because it's not possible to eradicate wilderness. The current deforestation is only temporary. Wilderness always returns when civilization collapses and it can happen very quickly. Most people would say that this is no excuse for complacency, but what exactly can be done to stop the loss of wilderness on any meaningful scale? Doing that would require deindustrialization, depopulation and deliberate attempts to stop development in societies which are still struggling to pull themselves out of extreme poverty.

There are still sparsely populated and little explored places on Earth, but the real terra incognita now is outer space.

Polynesians Didn't Beat Columbus To South America After All?

Video from 2010. Much of the evidence presented in this video has apparently been disproven by later research.

The theory that the ancient Polynesians reached South America before Columbus is based, in part, on chickens and sweet potatoes.

"Among the intriguing indications that contact might have been made between Polynesians and the native peoples of South America was the supposed pre-Columbian presence of non-native chickens, allegedly introduced to the continent by seafarers from South Pacific islands. More evidence comes from the ubiquity of the sweet potato, a South American native, in the South Pacific — it was already widespread throughout the islands by the time James Cook sailed into the region in 1770." Source: National Geographic 2014.

Since this National Geographic article was written, DNA research has apparently disproved the idea that the chickens studied in South America provided a link with Polynesia:

"Researchers sequenced mitochondrial DNA from 22 chicken bones found at Polynesian archaeological sites and 122 feathers from modern chickens living on islands across the South Pacific. They used an enzyme to remove any contamination by modern DNA that may have clouded the results of earlier studies. When the team compared the 'cleaned-up' DNA of Polynesian chickens with that of ancient and modern South American chickens, they found the two groups were genetically distinct." (National Geographic)

As for the sweet-potato connection, it doesn't hold up, either. According to Science Daily (2018), "New evidence shows that sweet potatoes arose before there were any humans around to eat them. The findings also suggest that the sweet potato crossed the ocean from America to Polynesia without any help from people. The discovery raises doubts about the existence of pre-Columbian contacts between Polynesia and the American continent."

Video from 2014. Whether they got there before Columbus or not, the Polynesians definitely had the capability to reach South America.

Comment: The "chickens and sweet potatoes" evidence may not hold up, but it still seems hard to believe that a seafaring people like the ancient Polynesians didn't have some contact with Pre-Columbian America. There seems to be a lot of plant evidence for early transoceanic contact and some studies have also found genetic links between Native Americans and Polynesia (Christian Science Monitor 2015).

According to a 2014 Science Magazine article, "Polynesians from Easter Island and natives of South America met and mingled long before Europeans voyaged the Pacific, according to a new genetic study of living Easter Islanders."

A later (2017) study, however, found that the people living on Easter Island before Columbus were genetically isolated:

"A study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology found only evidence of Polynesian DNA in human remains on the island that predate European contact in 1722." Source: New York Times (2017). According to the study, "We found no Native American admixture in pre- and post-European-contact individuals."

What's the truth? Who knows? The two DNA studies involving Easter Island directly contradict each other, so it would appear that DNA results aren't as conclusive as we've been led to believe. Whatever the case, though, it still seems highly likely, at least to me, that Polynesians reached the New World a long time ago. Considering their ability to make long sea voyages and spread from island to island across the ocean, I'd be amazed if some of them didn't make it all the way to South America. What kind of impact they had is another question.

Ancient Peruvian Mystery Solved From Space (2016)

"In one of the most arid regions in the world a series of carefully constructed, spiralling holes form lines across the landscape. Known as puquios, their origin has been a puzzle – one that could only be solved from space." Source: BBC Future (2016).

"The holes are from the Nasca region of Peru – an area famous for the Nasca lines, several enormous geometric images carved into the landscape; immaculate archaeological evidence of ceremonial burials; and the rapid decline of this once flourishing society.

"What adds to the intrigue in the native ancient people of Nasca is how they were able to survive in an area where droughts can last for years at a time.

"The puquios were a 'sophisticated hydraulic system constructed to retrieve water from underground aquifers,' says Rosa Lasaponara of the Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis, in Italy. And they transformed this inhospitable region."

Note: No one is sure who built this water system. According to Wikipedia, "research has led to conflicting results about when the aqueducts were built, in part due to a general lack of historical references both before and after the time of the Spanish Empire. Some archaeologists contend that they were built by Pre-Columbian people around 540 CE in response to two prolonged droughts during that time. The first historical writing of their existence was in 1605 by Reginaldo de Lizárraga, which some contended could indicate that they were built by the Spanish. However, the available Spanish texts do not mention a project to build the puquios, nor describe already existing water systems.^"

The Mysterious Origins Of Ayahuasca

Item: "A young backpacker has died in Peru after taking hallucinogens in an ancient Amazonian 'cleansing ceremony'." Source: Daily Mail (2015).

"24-year-old Matthew Dawson-Clarke consumed ayahuasca [also known as yage], a hallucinogenic drink made from vines, as part of a seven-day retreat to foster a spiritual awakening."

Comment: This kid was another victim of "yage tourism" by westerners looking for enlightenment in the jungles of South America. Like the rise in interest in neopaganism and eastern religions, yage tourism is yet another example of the spiritual malaise that has spread through the West as a direct result of the decline of Christianity. It's also an example of what has been called commercial shamanism, the selling of ancient traditions to desperate or curious westerners.

Western knowledge of the plant is relatively recent. According to the Erowid Ayahuasca Vault, the "earliest known western record of the psychoactive effects of ayahuasca ... in the Brazilian Amazon" appeared in 1852 when the "English ethnobotanist Richard Spruce [described] the use of the ayahuasca vine ... by the Tukanoan Indian tribes in Brazil and Colombia." Jesuit priests observed the use of ayahuasca in the 1700s, but Spruce was the first scientist to actually conduct any kind of study of its properties.

Its origins are still a mystery, but there's good reason to believe that the ritualistic use of ayahuasca goes back to prehistoric times:

"Writers on ayahuasca have often proposed that the use of the drink is very ancient; the date of about 5000 years BP recurs frequently. Anthropologists Ana María Llamazares and Carlos Martínez Sarasola (2004), for example, write that the use of ayahuasca 'is so deep-rooted in the native philosophy and mythology that there is no doubt about its great antiquity, as a part of aboriginal life. Archaeological finds in Ecuador show that the indigenous Amazons have been using it for about 5000 years.' Anthropologist Jeremy Narby (1998) states that ayahuasca 'belongs to the indigenous people of Western Amazonia, who hold the keys to a way of knowing that they have practiced without interruption for at least five thousand years.' Anthropologist Peter Furst (1976) says that 'we are probably not far wrong in suggesting that [the ayahuasca drink] is at least as old … as 3000 BC or even before.'" Source: Singing to the Plants.

According to Wikipedia, Ayahuasca "is an entheogenic brew made out of Banisteriopsis caapi vine and other ingredients. The brew is used as a traditional spiritual medicine in ceremonies among the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin and is known by a number of different names...

"B. caapi contains several alkaloids that act as monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). Another common ingredient in ayahuasca is the shrub Psychotria viridis which contains the primary psychoactive, dimethyltryptamine (DMT). MAOIs are required for DMT to be orally active."

Aya-waska is a word in the Quechua language which is closely associated with Ayahuasca shamanism. This suggests that the use of the plant may have originated with or been spread by the Incas:

Quechua "is perhaps most widely known for being the main language family of the Inca Empire." (Wikipedia) "The Spaniards encouraged its use, so Quechua ultimately survived and variants are still widely spoken today, being the co-official language of many regions and the second most spoken language in Peru."

Related: Quechua - The Living Language of the Incas

According to some researchers and indigenous shamans, ayahuasca shamanism first appeared in the region along the Rio Napo river in the western Amazonian lowlands. There is some archaeological evidence to support this, apparently, but the story of how this powerful psychedelic drink was "discovered" and first put to use is lost in time. "Discovered" is the wrong word, of course, since ayahuasca is a manmade brew designed to produce a certain effect. The fact that DMT isn't effective when taken orally except in the presence of certain specific alkaloids shows that the shamans who first brewed ayahuasca must have done a lot of experimenting with mixtures using different plants before they stumbled across the right combination of ingredients. The prehistoric shaman who first tried the drink must have had a terrifying experience.

Related:

The Dark Side Of Ayahuasca
Peru - Hell and Back

Peruvian Monument Engraved With "Fangs & Ornate Swirls" Lay Hidden For 2000 Years

"A sprawling, stone monument decorated with swirls, circular patterns and godly fangs has been hiding in a remote jungle in northern Peru for around 2,000 years." Source: Live Science.

"Though the locals knew of the monolith's existence — and a few explorers who visited the region had noted the structure — it wasn't until recently that researchers were able to investigate it in-depth. And now, they've created a highly detailed 3D scan of the stunning structure.

"The images and patterns are so abstract and ornate, they are hard to describe in words. However, the researchers said the two fangs engraved into the stone come from a deity that archaeologists call a 'feline feathered figure.'"

The People Of The Clouds

"On the eastern slopes of the Andes Mountains, in the remote San Martin Province of Peru, lie the abandoned ruins of a mysterious civilization. Modern Peruvians tell us that a people whom they call the Chachapoya, 'the cloud people,' built these structures. The most notable of these is the massive Kuelap Fortress [see videos below], which contains more stone than even the pyramid of Cheops [the Great Pyramid] in Egypt. The Chachapoyan civilization, which according to the carbon-14 dating method dates at least as far back as 400 AD, existed until around 1500 AD. At that time, it succumbed to two external forces that arose in short succession. First, the expanding Incan Empire, which conquered the Chachapoyan civilization around 1490 after 20 years of fierce resistance, and next, diseases that the Europeans introduced after 1492 and which started showing up among the Chachapoya around 1535, diseases to which the Chachapoya had no immunity." Source: Lew Rockwell (2016).

Note: This article is based on the speculative theory that Carthaginians and some of their Celtic allies from northern Italy settled in South America following the Roman destruction of Carthage in 146 BC. The article and others I've seen describe the Chachapoyans as "European," but the citizens of Carthage were a Semitic people descended from the Phoenicians who originally founded the city. The Chachapoyans are described in the sources as being lighter than the other people living around them, but that doesn't mean that they were white Europeans.

"Ancient sources described the Chachapoya, the famous Cloud Warriors of Peru, as individuals with lighter skin than that of other peoples from the region, such as the Incas," according to Ancient Origins. "Also, they stood apart not only by their physical characteristics, but by the unique culture which they left behind." Among other things, they were apparently headhunters and shape-shifting sorcerers who mummified their dead. "The Incas feared the mummies of the Chachapoya, viewing them as the living dead who could rise and inflict death upon all those arrogant or ignorant enough to disturb them." (Ibid) The Incas eventually overcame their fear and conquered the Chachapoyas shortly before they themselves were conquered by the Spanish.

The theory that the Carthaginians or Phoenicians may have reached South America is an interesting one and at least theoretically possible since the Phoenicians were renowned for their seamanship, but the lack of archaeological evidence probably constitutes evidence in itself that they never made the voyage. Most of the mainstream sources I've found describe the Chachapoya as a tribe of South American indians.

"The Chachapoya Indians, often described in popular media as Peru's ancient 'Cloud People,' inhabited the Andean tropical cloud forests between the Maranon and Huallaga River valleys prior to their rapid cultural disintegration after the Spanish conquest in AD 1532. In anthropology and in the popular imagination, the Chachapoya represent the quintessential 'lost tribe,' founders of a 'lost civilization,' and builders of 'lost cities' now abandoned and concealed by cold and rainy tropical cloud forests." --  Encyclopedia of Anthropology (PDF). Note: Some of the opening text appears to be missing from this paper.

Related: Theory of Phoenician Discovery of the Americas

3000-Year-Old Megalithic "Water Temple" Discovered In Peru

"Archaeologists have discovered a 3000-year-old megalithic temple in Peru that an ancient 'water cult' used for fertility rituals." Source: Live Science.

"The temple, found at the Huaca El Toro archaeological site, is located in modern-day Oyotún in the Zaña Valley of northwestern Peru. It is the first megalithic temple, or one made from large stones, found in this valley, which sits between two rivers that join together and give rise to the Zaña River."

"A megalithic temple found near the springs of the Zaña Valley river in Peru is an interesting find for several reasons. First, it’s the only known megalithic architecture in the Lambayeque region. Second, archaeologists say it’s built by the earliest “great religion of ancient Peru.” And third, it seems that centuries after the site had lost its religious significance, people were still going there – though their reasons were quite different from the builders’ intentions for the temple." (Ancient Origins)

According to Archaeology News Network, an altar was discovered in the temple "that was likely used to offer important fertility rituals with water taken from the Zana Valley river."

Note: "Huaca, also spelled wak’a [is an] ancient Inca and modern Quechua and Aymara religious concept that is variously used to refer to sacred ritual, the state of being after death, or any sacred object. The Spanish conquistador Pedro de Cieza de León believed that the word meant 'burial place.' Huaca also means spirits that either inhabit or actually are physical phenomena such as waterfalls, mountains, or man-made shrines. The aforementioned shrines, which are found throughout the Inca territory from Ecuador to Chile, may be as simple as stones piled in a field (apachitas) or as complex as stepped pyramids that were once topped with canopies and carved images." Source: Encyclopedia Britannica.

Next video shows one of these sites: Naupa Huaca. I'm not sure where it's located

I haven't been able to find much of anything about the Huaca El Toro archaeological site where this water temple was discovered, but huacas are common in Peru:

"Huacas are commonly located in nearly all regions of Peru outside the deepest parts of the Amazon basin in correlation with the regions populated by the pre-Inca and Inca early civilizations. They can be found in downtown Lima today in almost every district, the city having been built around them. Huacas within the municipal district of Lima are typically fenced off to avoid graffiti." (Wikipedia)

How Was Machu Picchu Built?

Video from 2014.

"Machu Picchu is a city comprised of more than 200 buildings, temples, houses, pathways, fountains and altars all cut from grey granite from the mountain top. There is no evidence of any fortified walls, which means that it was not a fortress. Many of the stone blocks weigh more than 50 tons, and all are cut and fitted together in such a precise manner that it raises incredulity as to how [its builders could have] created such a monumental place." Source: Ancient Origins (2013).

Notes: A few years ago "[a] Polish-Peruvian archaeological team ... confirmed what has been suspected for many centuries – the Incas used the ancient city of Machu Picchu as a mountaintop observatory." (Ancient Origins (2014)) How the Incas constructed the city is apparently still a mystery:

According to Rediscover Machu Picchu, "[t]he Incas used dry stone technique to build the city. No mortar was used, the stone bricks were simply put together without any material to stick them together." The rocks were then "put together like a huge puzzle." This would've required an amazing amount of precision since "[s]ome of the bricks are so tightly put together that one cannot even put a knife between them."

The rocks were apparently split "with the so-called wooden wedge technique: holes were drilled into the rocks and wet wooden wedges were inserted into them. After that the constructors waited until the wet wooden wedges froze." The expanding wedges would then split the rock, "[b]ut the wooden wedge technique cannot explain the smoothness and perfect straightness of the bricks."

Wooden wedge rocksplitting technique as used in India.

The construction of Machu Picchu required thousands of workers and a huge amount of detailed planning, but from what I've read the Incas didn't have iron tools, wheels, or a written language. The logistics involved are mind-boggling, but the city was built somehow so unless you believe in ancient aliens, Machu Picchu provides yet more evidence that early humans were more technologically sophisticated than commonly believed.

"3D Audio" Machu Picchu Hike

Comment: This is a binaural recording test and the fisheye lens being used is kind of distracting, but the video shows some spectacular views of the airy and beautifully preserved Machu Picchu ruins in Peru.

Did The Mayans Migrate To South America?

Video from March 2018.

"Between 800 and 925 CE Mayan society experienced a rapid transition. The world of cities ended as populations moved back into the countryside. Historians debate the possible causes of the change — civil revolts, invasions, erosion, earthquakes, disease, drought. Likely some combination of these brought on an unusually rapid fading of a once-vibrant civilization. The Maya didn’t just disappear; several million descendants are still alive today." Source: The Khan Academy.

Comment: The theory that there was a Mayan migration to South America is interesting, but as far as I can tell it's mostly speculation. If something like this did happen, it would have been a long and arduous journey, to say the least. The distance from Guatemala to Brazil, for instance, is over 3000 miles. Another problem with the theory is that most sources believe that the Mayans who abandoned their cities during the Postclassic period moved north rather than south:

'Although much reduced, a significant Maya presence remained into the Postclassic period after the abandonment of the major Classic period cities; the population was particularly concentrated near permanent water sources. Unlike during previous cycles of contraction in the Maya region, abandoned lands were not quickly resettled in the Postclassic. Activity shifted to the northern lowlands and the Maya Highlands; this may have involved migration from the southern lowlands, because many Postclassic Maya groups had migration myths." Source: Wikipedia.

Related: Mysterious Geoglyphs Reveal Amazon Was Densely Populated Before Columbus (March 2018).