1491

I just breezed through 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (Knopf, 2005). The author is Charles C. Mann, a journalist, but he's done his homework in trying to synthesize the present state of science regarding the origin and history of pre-Columbian America. Bottom line: the simplified textbook version that most people got in school is now largely superceded by new developments, but there is so much dispute at the moment regarding alternative theories that there is no definitive consensus theory to replace it. I'll comment on the book for a few paragraphs, then come back to the Mo app at the end.

First, the primary thrust of the book is to emphasize how vibrant and successful cultures and states were in pre-Columbian America. Until about thirty years ago, the consensus view, still afflicted with latent if scientific ethnocentrism, was entirely different. From the very beginning, the narrative held that the Americas were populated by tribes who lived in villages that were ruled by chiefs; they were discovered, conquered, and exploited by nations who lived in cities ruled by kings. The vocabulary betrays the perspective. The problem is that the biggest American "villages" were as big or bigger than the biggest European "cities" at the time of discovery. American languages and cultures were as developed; American agriculture employed different crops but supported substantial populations. Even early intellectuals who saw positive things about the locals created a "noble savage" legend that was as ill-founded as the dominant "ignorant savage" view. The only institution that viewed the Indians as autonomous human beings who should be treated as such was the Catholic Church, a point that seems entirely lost on most commentators today.

Second, Mann makes the novel point that there was little "culture shock" to the Americans from coming into contact with strange visitors from a different neighborhood. The whole Quetzalcoatl story he dismisses as a late fabrication:

[Montezuma], according to many scholarly texts, believed that Cortes was the god-hero Quetzalcoatl returning home, in fulfillment of a prophecy. ... But the anthropologist Matthew Restall has noted that none of the conquistadors' writings mention this supposed apotheosis, not even Cortes' lengthy memos to the Spanish king, which go into detail about every other wonderful thing he did. Instead, the Quetzalcoatl story first appears decades later.

To the the locals, the Spanish were just powerful people from a new but unfamiliar area — there was no initial philosophical challenge to the American worldview when the Europeans showed up. Europeans, on the other hand, were thoroughly befuddled by the Indians, who weren't supposed to be there. There was Noah and the flood and post-flood resettlement ... so where did these millions of Indians populating the Americas come from? How did they get there? It really was a puzzle. The idea that the Native Americans were indigenous (i.e., actually native to America) was not even on their Eurobiblical mental map. The ancestors of the Indians must have either sailed there or walked. Big debate over who those ancestors were — Phoenicians, Basques, Chinese, Romans — but there was no doubt they must fit within the Eurobiblical narrative. The leading theory was that they were the Lost Tribes of Israel, meaning the Northern Tribes that were hauled off around 722 BC, not the Southern Tribes that lasted until being overwhelmed by the Babylonians around 598 BC (they weren't lost).

Third, one feature of the book that I haven't seen emphasized in other books on the subject is the degree to which it is now, only recently, realized the extent to which the Indians re-engineered their environment, sometimes for miles and miles around their settlements. They weren't passive hunter-gatherers; their agriculture massively altered the surrounding landscape. This is evident from aerial photos (seen in the book). It's similar to what Polynesians did, sometimes turning entire islands into extensive coconut and breadfruit plantations.

I'll stop there. If this stuff interests you, go find a copy of this easily navigated book. It covers Indian origins, too, reviewing the linguistic, mitochondrial DNA, and other evidence pointing to Eurasian origins. The newest evidence is increasingly supporting pre-Clovis immigrants, pushing the first arrival date well beyond the long-accepted date of roughly 12,000 BC. I guess I have to go reread Thomas Murphy's article in American Apocrypha now, make sure he's shooting straight. [Note: an early version of Murhpy's article is available online here.]

And the Mo app? No Nephites. That's not news, but it's interesting to reflect that every artifact Joseph came across he confidently proclaimed to be Nephite/Lamanite. In the early 20th century, B. H. Roberts mined the scholarship of his day looking for confirmation of the Continental Hypothesis, expecting to find it. But now, the ascendency of the Limited Geography Hypothesis leads orthodox LDS scholars to almost expect no evidence of Nephites in the natural record (the real-world evidence scholars base their theories on), then to treat that absence of evidence as confirming their view of LGH Nephites. Strange. Then there are the local leaders, still laboring under the Continental Hypothesis, who view someone like Murphy as some modern-day Korihor because he has a graduate degree in anthropology and writes from that perspective. Don't these people read books? Anyway, keep 1491 in mind for your Christmas list. Love that subtitle.

Comments

[Martin]

Thanks for a balanced review of the book. I also read 1491, and found it fascinating.

I am not Mormon, but was raised as one - I take no satisfaction in refuting BofM historicity, but the issue that gets me most is that the historical record unfolding in books like 1491 is so much more interesting, complex, and fertile than BofM orthodoxy.

[Ronan]

What? Quetzlcoatl isn't Jesus? Dave, say it ain't so!

[Jared]

I saw the book yesterday and was going to comment on it, but I see you've beat me to it and done a better job.

[Ben S.]

"orthodox LDS scholars ...almost expect no evidence of Nephites in the natural record (the real-world evidence scholars base their theories on)"

I'd clarify this. The problem is probably less one of finding evidence as it is identifying it. How does one distinguish a Nephite pot from another pot? A Lamanite wall from a non-Lamanite wall? I can't see a cogent argument that Nephites (or other BoM cultures) would have been distinct in an archaeologicaly identifiable way.

Sounds interesting though, I'll put it on my list of stuff to read after exams.

[ed]

Sounds very interesting, Dave.

Does the book have a take on why the American civilizations were so easilly overwhelmed by a few Europeans, despite their huge cities and advanced civilizations? I imagine disease had something to do with it, but I would think it has to be more than that.

[Dave]

Ben, one thing the book does bring out (which traditional archeologists view as an unfortunate development) is that right now, all bets are off. That is, a lot of theories that the old consensus view ruled out completely now can't be so easily ruled out. If serious scholars now propose that Siberians, for example, could float their way to the New World in small skin-covered rafts, then proponents of a variety of more speculative theories (could the Irish have floated over? The Iberians? Maybe a stray Israelite family or two?) don't seem so outlandish anymore.

[Dave]

Ed, the book focuses on pre-Columbian America. For the role of post-Columbian disease weakening the Indian civilizations and decimating their populations, see Crosby's The Columbian Exchange. For a more general treatment of disease and history (aimed at a general audience), see Plagues and Peoples, by the famed U. of Chicago historian William McNeill -- it is much better than Guns, Germs, and Steel.

[JohnW]

The problem with BenS's analysis is that it skips a step. If the statements in the BofM regarding the Jaredites' material culture are taken at face value, for example, there is a fundamental disconnect with that so far discovered regarding the Olmec. Only when the numerous problematic elements such as the Jaredite use of metals and domestic animals are explained away as "translation artifacts" (or in some other manner) do you arrive at a situation where archaeological evidence for their existence would be "unidentifiable." The same is true, to a lesser degree, regarding the Lehites and the ancient Maya. The latter didn't possess or use any large land mammal as a beast of burden, let alone the "horses" and "asses" possessed by the Nephites and Lamanites. The same is true (during BoM times) for most of the precious and ferrous metals attributed to the Nephite material culture.

[Russell Arben Fox]

I ran across this book several months ago in an airport book store, and sat done and read it for about an hour. Absolutely fascinating stuff. He'd written an Atlantic Monthly article on this topic a few years back, and that (because he'd cited the work of John L. Sorenson) made a small splash among the FARMS crowd, if I recall correctly. Anyway, thanks for the review; I wish I knew more about anthropology, and had a better grasp of the arguments he's rebutting. I think I'll put this book on my Christmas list.

[Ben S.]

John W. raises a valid point, but I don't think it's as strong an argument as he thinks. I was specifically referring to material culture. Finding an unambiguously datable horse bone wouldn't prove anything but the presence of Equus at the right time. We still would not be able to distinguish a Nephite city from a non-Nephite city.

Further, I don't see generalized use of the term "ass" in the BoM (its presence is mentioned all of 6 times in the BoM, but they never do anything, and twice the reference is metaphorical), nor the horse.

Nor do I see actual attempts at understanding the translation as "explaining away" anything.

The only reason to assume that animal/plant/metal words must mean in the BoM what they mean in modern English is the assumption that a)God is completely responsible for the English of the BoM and b) God would be exactly and technically precise in using these terms.

I don't think either of these assumptions can be supported.

[JohnW]

In response to BenS's comments:

I don't think anybody needs to or should make assumptions about what animal/plant/metals words in the BoM "must mean." The issue sometimes up for grabs is what they do mean. What we might call the initial rule of thumb is that when the BoM text says "horse" or "ass" or "corn" or "gold" or "throne" the words have their ordinary or normal 1830 English meaning. You appear to be following that rule of thumb in your comments on the two animals.

It's ok to depart from the initial rule of thumb by explaining the reason for the departure, and then using or applying the reason consistently, and in a principled manner. For example, it can be argued that when Nephi refers to "steel" he is actually referring to bronze, pointing out that the KJV reflects a similar translation error. That analysis isn't helpful, however, when a whole list of metals is provided (iron, steel, copper, brass, gold and silver, as at II Ne 5:15)and the issue is whether and when the Maya mined and/or "worked in" any of such metals. If all the words don't have their ordinary English meaning, then what seven metals was Nephi actually referring to? And based upon what consistent criteria do we conclude that some words have their ordinary English meaning and others not?

Clearly we can't decide that "brass" doesn't mean "brass" simply because its existence or use is unattested or problematic in the relevant space and time depth. It's that sort of unprincipled analysis that I call "explaining away" the disconnect in material cultures. The same thing happens when someone like Sorenson assumes that "corn" means "corn" (attested use) but assumes or infers that "wheat" does not or cannot mean "wheat," or "silk" cannot mean "silk," simply because their ancient Mesoamerican use is unattested.

In my view, btw, Ben's last three paragraphs involve an even worse type of avoiding (of "explaining away") the merits of all instances of an alleged disconnect in material cultures. It's inaccurate and pointless to respond to the merits of an individual alleged disconnect like the Nephite use of "brass" by claiming that anyone raising it is assuming God guaranteed the accuracy of any or all such material referents in the text. Again, as noted above no one needs to or should simply assume that "brass" must mean "brass" or that "corn" must mean "corn." The task when we depart from the initial rule of thumb, rather, is to justify the departure in a principled and non-circular way.

Finally, in referring to "asses" I had in mind the passages at Mosaiah 12:5 and 21:3 which refer to and assume familiarity with the use of asses as beasts of burden, used to carry loads on their backs. The term is used in a similie with respect to people, but it doesn't make sense absent the underlying practice on which it is based. The disconnect with the Maya is that the existence or use of asses or any other large land mammal to carry loads is thus far unsupported, and inconsistent with their technological profile.