Book 55: 1491

1491 by Charles Mann is a summary of anthropologists' and archaeologists' modern beliefs about the pre-Columbus Americans. Many of the traditional assumptions about that time period have been dismissed by scientists for 30 years now, but history books and history teachers are not updating their information.




Many aspects of Native American history are still hotly debated, and Mann explains each of the main positions to us, along with the evidence they're based on. Here are some of the main points:

* There were probably more people living in the Americas in 1491 than in Europe. By the time most European settlers had arrived, early contact had already wiped out maybe 90% of all the people on the continents. That's why it was believable that the Americas were barely inhabited, and therefore the colonists didn't kill THAT many natives. That's why the survivors were poorly organized and terrified. The number of pre-smallpox inhabitants is vehemently debated, but it was certainly millions and millions (maybe over 25 million in Mexico alone).

* The first inhabitants probably arrived 22,000 - 30,000 years ago (the Bering Strait theory, which says they arrived 13,000 years ago, is no longer widely believed).

* American Indians built elaborate, sophisticated cities with running water, more than adequate food production, and clean streets (unlike any place in Europe, where there was generally sewage running down the streets and very poor nutrition).

* Before 1492, Mexicans used plant breeding processes to create corn. Modern scientists say they would be so unlikely to succeed at it that they would never get the grant money to try.

* Huge sections of the Americas were completely landscaped by Indians. Miles and miles of hills were built, rivers were rerouted, the Amazon rainforest was turned into an orchard against all odds (today, our scientists cannot succeed at growing anything there). It looked natural, hence the stereotype of Indians living either like ignorant beasts, unable to manipulate their environments, or like perfect creatures in balance with nature.

Some other cool stuff:

* More than 9 out of 10 Native Americans have type O blood. They have a very limited gene pool because the first Indians were a small group of people. This limited gene pool is why so many were susceptible to small pox.

* Indians spoke about 1200 different languages.

* Mesoamerica is the source of corn, tomatoes, peppers, most squashes, and many beans. Indians may have developed 3/5 of the crops currently in cultivation. Imagine Italy without tomatoes or Thailand without any peppers!

* Mesoamericans invented the Zero independent of Sumeria. Mann writes:

"That zero is not the same as nothing is a concept that baffled Europeans as late as the Renaissance. How can you calculate with nothing? they asked. Regarding zero as a dangerous idea, the Catholic Church banned Hindu-Arabic numerals -- the 0 through 9 used today -- in much of Italy until the fourteenth century."

* The Olmec had invented the wheel and had used it for over 2,000 years... for toys. Maybe because their land had no horses or oxen to pull carts. Maybe because their land was wet and muddy all the time -- wheels would have just gotten stuck.

* I learned the word "fissiparous" which means "tending to break apart into pieces".

I really enjoyed reading 1491. It's not too dry for a history book.