History Myths and Misconceptions of History you Hate

S'task

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Something to bear in mind, while we're aggrandizing the pre-colonial native civilizations, while they were complex and impressive, they were ALSO just as human as anything in the Old World. There's a reason, after all, that pretty much ALL their neighbors took one look at Cortez and decided that "yeah, let's team up with the crazy white dude and his obviously greed motivated campaign to fuck the Aztecs". I've talked to more than one person who's studied anthropology with a focus on Central American natives and their history, and while they will wax poetic about the Mayans and other lost native civilizations, their opinion on the Aztecs can be pretty much summarized as "fuck the Aztecs, they had it coming."

In other words, for as advanced and organized as they were, they were just as human as everyone else, with their peaceful and friendly civilizations that can be inspiring to look at, and their civilizations that likely deserve to be looked at along the same we we look at Nazi Germany.
 

Doomsought

Well-known member
That evaluation, respectfully, Sir, completely neglects their demonstrated success at profound agronomy, control of their local biome, and artificial selection rivalling modern genetic engineering, if over greater time scales. It is a conceit to classify societies only based on the material used for tools. In quality of life the Mesoamericans greatly exceeded the bronze age civilisations of Eurasia.
That is precisely what separates neolithic from paleolithic. Every civilization used such large scale methods of agriculture until their farming technology became efficient enough that they didn't need to. Such large scale projects require an enormous amount of manpower which would could be used elsewhere. The Banaue Rice Terraces were constructed at a similar level of technological development, the Mesopotamians also began their famous canal and irrigation system prior to the bronze age.

The intense manpower requirements of these projects contributed to the Bonze age collapse, and we moved to more robust, small scale farming techniques.
 

LordSunhawk

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OK, going to put on my anthropology hat here... one moment. *comes back with a snazzy hat on*

Stories of great lost cultures in the Southwest are generally that of the Anasazi or Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi is used by the Navajo, meaning 'ancient enemy', the modern day Pueblo hate that term). The Hohokam are also implicated thanks to their incredible canal system (very neolithic and an explanation of that could take up an entire post, but the modern day SRP canal system runs over the exact same routes as the ancient Hohokam canals) as well as the Mogollon people. However, the Hohokam and Mogollon were pretty much extinct by the time of Spanish contact (the Hohokam in the 11th century, the Mogollon in the 12th to 13th century with remnants holding on until 1450 or so, pre-Columbus.)

These are the folks responsible for the admittedly impressive Great Houses and Cliff Palaces of the Southwest. But the size is highly deceptive. Even the largest of them rarely housed more than a thousand people, with much of the space devoted to storage and workspace.

In addition, the latest of the Great Houses was already a ruin in 1400, over a century *before* Spanish contact. The Pueblo III civilization, which was arguably the height of the Ancestral Pueblo, had work itself out by then. The Spanish came in during the successor Pueblo IV period and their influence led to the current Pueblo V.
 

The Name of Love

Far Right Nutjob
OK, going to put on my anthropology hat here... one moment. *comes back with a snazzy hat on*

Stories of great lost cultures in the Southwest are generally that of the Anasazi or Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi is used by the Navajo, meaning 'ancient enemy', the modern day Pueblo hate that term). The Hohokam are also implicated thanks to their incredible canal system (very neolithic and an explanation of that could take up an entire post, but the modern day SRP canal system runs over the exact same routes as the ancient Hohokam canals) as well as the Mogollon people. However, the Hohokam and Mogollon were pretty much extinct by the time of Spanish contact (the Hohokam in the 11th century, the Mogollon in the 12th to 13th century with remnants holding on until 1450 or so, pre-Columbus.)

These are the folks responsible for the admittedly impressive Great Houses and Cliff Palaces of the Southwest. But the size is highly deceptive. Even the largest of them rarely housed more than a thousand people, with much of the space devoted to storage and workspace.

In addition, the latest of the Great Houses was already a ruin in 1400, over a century *before* Spanish contact. The Pueblo III civilization, which was arguably the height of the Ancestral Pueblo, had work itself out by then. The Spanish came in during the successor Pueblo IV period and their influence led to the current Pueblo V.
So you think their civilizations collapsed before the Europeans set foot on the continent?
 

LordSunhawk

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So you think their civilizations collapsed before the Europeans set foot on the continent?

They mostly had. There were remnants leftover, of course, and successor civilizations, but all of them peaked well before the Europeans arrived. There were a series of massive droughts in the region in this period which devastated agriculture, and these civilizations just did not have the ability to import food or adapt to the changing conditions. In addition there is evidence that they were under significant pressure from the Aztec and other Mexica (not Mexican, Mexica, the cultural name for the group of cultures of which the Aztecs were dominant) civilizations in their waning years that contributed to the collapse.

Spanish contact precluded a cycle of rebuilding that had happened in the past, although I would argue that it *was* a rebuilding, just with new templates added to the matrix. The Pueblo V culture (the modern day Pueblo peoples) are by far the longest lasting of all the cultures in the region, and they lasted that long thanks to European assistance.
 
D

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Something to bear in mind, while we're aggrandizing the pre-colonial native civilizations, while they were complex and impressive, they were ALSO just as human as anything in the Old World. There's a reason, after all, that pretty much ALL their neighbors took one look at Cortez and decided that "yeah, let's team up with the crazy white dude and his obviously greed motivated campaign to fuck the Aztecs". I've talked to more than one person who's studied anthropology with a focus on Central American natives and their history, and while they will wax poetic about the Mayans and other lost native civilizations, their opinion on the Aztecs can be pretty much summarized as "fuck the Aztecs, they had it coming."

In other words, for as advanced and organized as they were, they were just as human as everyone else, with their peaceful and friendly civilizations that can be inspiring to look at, and their civilizations that likely deserve to be looked at along the same we we look at Nazi Germany.


I don't disagree with you at all. The ancient cultures could be absolutely ruthless, the Mayan for example, especially after the influence of the invading General Fire is Born of Teotihuacan, engaged in a century-long absolutely apocalyptic war in which we now know that the people thrown to the bottom of wells were sacrificed into them to poison them for drinking, not as a matter of ritual. It was a way to kill a city. Tawantinsuyu was an aggressive, aggrandising Imperial state which may have launched a, to them, unimaginably costly expedition to invade Easter Island! The Haida on the Pacific Northwest coast were legendary as the local Vikings, perfectly willing to launch massive slave raids and pitting fleets of hundred man war canoes against European warships until the bitter end. None of what I am saying is meant to imply they were in touch with the land in the classic "amble through nature" sense, either. They manipulated the whole hemisphere into a garden, and made it into their food storehouse in subtle ways that nonetheless were absolutely the hand of humanity on nature.

I can write on this subject for days, and will certainly post more, but one of my delights, I assure you, is that the more we learn, the more I know there was a second Peloponnesian War, carried on with equal deliberation and equal stubbornness, in the Yucatan.
 

prinCZess

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One that gets me:
That PM Mossadegh, the democratically-elected leader of Iran, was 'couped' in 1953 by the American CIA. It seems to have popped out of the skeevy CIA ops that WERE existing, but then become mythologized into this thing by Ron Paul and company, and all the nuance and historical events get completely lost in a narrative of 'see how bad the thing America did was!'

Mossadegh was elected. That much is true. He then overstepped his authority in a variety of ways, started ruling by fiat, cancelled elections once enough votes had been counted to secure him a parliament that would grant him an okay for fiat-rule, then just completely dissolved the Iranian parliament when even the cabal of his supporters allowed to sit there started to take issue with his decisions and rule. Then the actual operations designed by the US (and the UK--they had a big part in things as well that oft gets glossed-over) to overthrow the guy FAILED, a bunch of conspirators got arrested or chased out of the country...And then a separate, and much more popular revolution sprung up in reaction to a communist 'victory party' in Tehran that, at most, saw tertiary funding coming from some of the sources the CIA had stoked for the first attempt at ousting Mossadegh--and, ironically, had the clerics and religious extremists backing in support of the Shah.

It's just...Such a more complicated picture than is usually portrayed. And the point it's used to demonstrate would be SO much better-served by the CIA activities in South American countries (Guatemala as a big one) which the Iranian operations 'success' inspired.

(It should be noted that, in Mossadegh's defense, one can assert that the Parliament was holding Iran back, was fearful, or in some cases were 'collaborators' who valued UK interests and their own prosperity over the national interest. Which is a fair argument, if one I don't think justifies his dictatorial descent. But it's one that needs to be made, not merely alluded to.)
 
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Comrade Clod

Gay Space Communist
One that gets me:
That PM Mossadegh, the democratically-elected leader of Iran, was 'couped' in 1953 by the American CIA. It seems to have popped out of the skeevy CIA ops that WERE existing, but then become mythologized into this thing by Ron Paul and company, and all the nuance and historical events get completely lost in a narrative of 'see how bad the thing America did was!'

Mossadegh was elected. That much is true. He then overstepped his authority in a variety of ways, started ruling by fiat, cancelled elections once enough votes had been counted to secure him a parliament that would grant him an okay for fiat-rule, then just completely dissolved the Iranian parliament when even the cabal of his supporters allowed to sit there started to take issue with his decisions and rule. Then the actual operations designed by the US (and the UK--they had a big part in things as well that oft gets glossed-over) to overthrow the guy FAILED, a bunch of conspirators got arrested or chased out of the country...And then a separate, and much more popular revolution sprung up in reaction to a communist 'victory party' in Tehran that, at most, saw tertiary funding coming from some of the sources the CIA had stoked for the first attempt at ousting Mossadegh--and, ironically, had the clerics and religious extremists backing in support of the Shah.

It's just...Such a more complicated picture than is usually portrayed. And the point it's used to demonstrate would be SO much better-served by the CIA activities in South American countries (Guatemala as a big one) which the Iranian operations 'success' inspired.

He was couped though? On behalf of british oil interests no less.

The whole reason Khomeni and the Tudeh were the main figures leading up to the Shah's deposition is because everyone saw what happened to the democratic (well, ish) side of politics.
 

Battlegrinder

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He was couped though? On behalf of british oil interests no less.

The whole reason Khomeni and the Tudeh were the main figures leading up to the Shah's deposition is because everyone saw what happened to the democratic (well, ish) side of politics.

There was a coup, yes. But not by the CIA or the west, the coup that actually removed him and installed the Shah orginiated from iran and iranian parties, not the CIA.
 

Shipmaster Sane

You have been weighed
The idea that indigenous American cultures, which had mastered some of the most profound bioengineering in history to create their agricultural schema and engaged in vast geoengineering to the point that we now have evidence the Amazon Basin was essentially turned into a food garden for them, were somehow stone-age societies which needed to be uplifted by Europeans.
How does being advanced in agriculture preclude you from being Stone-age?

Are you suggesting they were in the Bronze Age? Iron Age perhaps?
 

ShadowsOfParadox

Well-known member
I have a new pet peeve, people who think the age of empires tech tree is how it works in real life.
how it works... prolly not.

how it happened in general terms(order of unlock)... prolly. Pretty sure we have older evidence Horse Collars compared to Heavy Plows and quite sure both came before crop rotation.
 

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