Dear Mr. Long,
I'd like to respond to a couple of your recent posts on American prehistory.
If ancient Europeans or Polynesians made it to the Americas, it doesn't mean that the present NA's aren't descendents of the "original Native Americans". Actually it means that the present Native Americans have a slightly more diverse racial background than has previously been assumed. Evidence supporting this was alluded to in a recent Newsweek article.
Next, while the Sioux (or some Sioux groups) did migrate into the Black Hills, they didn't displace any tribes to the west. To the south, perhaps. The Comanche and Kiowa did migrate to the southern plains from the Wyoming/Black Hills area, though it's not known if the Sioux had anything to do with that. Tribes to the west of the Black Hills were the Crow (who originated from the Hidatsa on the upper Missouri), Shoshone (who probably migrated in from the Great Basin), Arapaho (also an offshoot of an upper Missouri tribe - Gros Ventres), and Cheyenne (an amalgam of at least 2 groups, one of which is probably the oldest Black Hills residents). Of the four tribes just mentioned, the first two were enemies of the Sioux, the last two were allies. The best source on the Great Plains prehistory is a work by a fellow named Karl Schlesier.
Next, in regard to the Iroquois and Lenape, I believe there is little evidence of warfare between the Iroquois and Lenape, though the Lenape were out-maneuvered and "diplomatically defeated" by an alliance between the Iroquois and the colonies of New York and Pennsylvania.
Lastly, regarding the middle Mississippian culture's (including the Cahokia people) disappearance sometime around 1500, no one knows the reason for this. The environmental theory you mentioned seems farfetched to me. A better guess, IMO, is that it might have resulted from a series of violent earthquakes. The entire region is underlayed by faults, of which the New Madrid fault is only one. Major earthquakes occur every few hundred years in this area, the last being a series in 1812 commonly known as the New Madrid earthquake. That one caused extensive flooding in the Mississippi flood plain, changed the route of the Mississippi river in places, caused a short-lived falls on the Mississippi, and produced extensive sand boils (pools of liquified sand). The middle Mississippians relied on farming in the Mississippi and Ohio flood plains. What would they have made of a series of devastating cataclysms that ruined the environment on which they depended? Of course, this is just a guess, but IMHO a better one that that they simply used up all the firewood and game. In the 1800's a white population numbering in the millions in the midwest did for a time kill off most of the wild game, but even they didn't use up all the firewood.
Bruce |
