65 Moche: Bawden 1996; Uceda and Mujica eds. 1993. Research on the Moche was greatly stimulated by the discovery of relatively untouched, art-filled tombs in Sipan in 1987. (Accounts of the efforts by Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva to save the site’s artifacts from looters, include Kirkpatrick 1992 and Atwood 2004.) Since Sipan, much research on the Moche has focused on their art—understandably so, given its high quality (e.g., Alva and Donnan 1993).
66 Chavín de Huantar: Author’s visit; Burger 1992; Lumbreras, González, and Lietaer 1976 (roaring sounds); Lumbreras 1989; Rowe 1967.
8 / Made in America
1 Chak Tok Ich’aak’s life and death: Stuart 2000; Schele and Mathews 1998:75–79; Martin and Grube 2000:28–29 (portrait reproduced on 28, “entered the water,” 29); Harrison 1999:71–81. See also Stone 1989.
2 The four cities are Palenque (Martin and Grube 2000:156), La Sufricaya (Estrada-Belli 2002), El Perú and Uaxactun (Martin and Grube 2000:28–29).
3 “No words”: Webster 2002:7.
4 Uniqueness of collapse: Interviews and e-mail, Turner; Turner 1990.
5 Morley’s theory: Morley 1946:262. The earliest version of the ecological-overshoot theory I know of is Cooke 1931. Cooke claimed that overexpansion of agriculture had caused erosion that filled up Maya water reservoirs.
6 Pollen studies: Vaughan, Deevey, and Garett-Jones 1985; Deevey et al. 1979.
7 Environmental degradation, deforestation, floods: Binford et al. 1987; Abrams and Rue 1988; Woods 2003. I am grateful to Prof. Woods for sending me a copy of his article.
8 Deforestation-induced spiral to collapse: Santley, Killion, and Lycett 1986.
9 Drought: Curtis and Hodell 1996 (“Our findings suggest a strong relationship between times of drought and major cultural discontinuities in Classic Maya civilization,” 46). See also, Hodell, Curtis, and Brenner 1995.
10 Green parable: See, e.g., Catton 1982; Lowe 1985; Lutz 2000 (“Environmentalists concerned about the rapid growth of world population repeatedly cite the Maya collapse as an example of what happens if a region’s population growth exceeds its population carrying capacity,” vii); Ponting 1991 (“The clearest case of environmental collapse leading to the demise of a society comes from the Maya,” 78); Diamond 2004: 157–77; Wright 2005: 94–106 (Maya collapse shows that “civilizations often behave like ‘pyramid’ sales schemes, thriving only when they grow,” 83). Part of the appeal, one assumes, is that the Maya fall (like that of Cahokia, which I cover later) was not due to Europe.
11 “were able to,” “Are contemporary”: Ponting 1991:83; 1990:33.
12 Examples of spiritual books: Grim 2001; Berkes 1999; McGaa 1999; Durning 1992.
13 Five Great Values: Derived from Reiten 1995. Reiten, an administrator in a Bureau of Indian Affairs school in New Mexico, gave her list to Tony Sanchez, of Oakland State University, who revised it to broaden the values’ applicability from the Lakota to all Indians—implicitly, and one assumes benevolently, asserting that all indigenous peoples thought alike, thus denying their intellectual and cultural diversity. I quote from Dr. Sanchez’s revised version (Sanchez 2001:420–21).
14 Van der Donck: Shorto 2004; Van der Donck 1841 (“all free by nature,” 207; “They remark,” 210; “woods, plains and meadows,” 150–51; “several hundred miles,” 138).
15 “Such a fire”: Van der Donck 1993:n.p. (“Of the Wood, the Natural Productions and Fruits of the Land”). I use this translation here because it is more evocative.
16 The following discussion of the natural role of fire draws from Mann and Plummer 1995:89–92; Mt. St. Helens from author’s visits.
17 Nature not in lockstep: Botkin 1990; Pickett and Thompson 1978.
18 Ecological role of fire: Wright and Heinselman 1973; Komarek 1965 (“The earth,” 204).
19 Fire and landscape management: Pyne 1982:71–81 (Lewis and Clark, 71–72; Jefferson, 75); Day 1953:334–39; Williams 1989:47–48; Williams 2002; Cronon 1983:48–52; Morton 1637:52–54 (“to set fire,” 52). The impact of fire varied; in Martha’s Vineyard, for instance, it seems to have been negligible (Foster et al. 2002).
20 Carriages in Ohio: Bakeless 1961:314, cited in Denevan 1992a:369.
21 “could be”: Wroth ed. 1970:139. See also, Higginson 1792: 117–18 (reporting “thousands of acres of ground as good as need to be, and not a tree in the same”).
22 Smith’s gallop: Smith 1910 (vol. 1):64. He also saw Indians hunting with fire (70).
23 Bison range: Author’s interview, Woods (citing scarcity of bison bones at archaeological sites), Roe 1951; Mathiessen 1987:147–52; Cronon 1983: 51–52 (“were harvesting”).
24 Impact of Native American burning: Pyne 1982:71–83; Little 1974; Dorney and Dorney 1989; Delcourt et al. 1986; Rostlund 1957a, 1957b.
25 Great Plains and anthropogenic fire: Axelrod 1985; Steuter 1991; Sauer 1975; Williams 1989:46–48; Lott 2002:86–88 (“When Lewis and Clark,” 88); Kilburn and Brugam 2010 (“lightning strikes,” 45).
26 Fidler’s fires: Fidler 1992 (“Grass all,” “Not a,” “All burnt,” “the grass,” 13–15; “The Grass,” 36; “very dangerous,” 59). 287 Return of forest to Midwest: Williams 1989:46 (Wisconsin, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska); Fisher, Jenkins, and Fisher 1987 (Wyoming); author’s visit, Texas (displays of historical photographs). 287 “disastrous habit”: Palliser 1983:30.
27 Raup: Raup 1937 (“have been,” 84; “inconceivable,” 85).
28 “It is at least”: Brown and Davis 1973:116, quoted in Williams 2002:183.
29 Vale: Vale 2002 (“modest,” 14); 1998. Vale was rebutted in Keeley 2002. An example of how natural scientists continue to dismiss the human presence is Hillspaugh, Whitlock, and Bartlein 2000 (examining long-term fire frequency at Yellowstone National Park, an area inhabited for thousands of years, “offers a natural ‘experiment’ that allows us to consider the sensitivity of fire regimes to climate change alone,” 211 [emphasis added]).
30 Cahokia description: Author’s visit; author’s interviews, Woods, Pauketat. The best recent summary is Pauketat 2009. But see also, Dalan et al. 2003; Young and Fowler 2000.
31 Biggest population concentration: Iseminger 1997, cited in Woods 2004:152.
32 Controversy over mound origins: Silverberg 1968 (Bancroft, 98); Garlinghouse 2001; Kennedy 1994:230–39; Jefferson 1894:query XI (excavation of “barrow”).
33 Ouachita mounds: Saunders 1997; Pringle 1997 (“I know it,” 1762). The mounds no longer overlook the river, which has changed its course since their construction.
34 Psychoactive tobacco: See, e.g., Siegel et al. 1977:18. The species is Nicotiana rustica.
35 Origins and rise of eastern North American agriculture: Smith 1993 (“the indigenous crops in question,” 14), 1989. See the similar early argument in Linton 1924:349.
36 Eastern Agricultural Complex: More formally, the Eastern Agricultural Complex consists of squash (Cucurbita pepo); marshelder or sumpweed (Iva annua); erect knotweed (Polygonum erectum); maygrass (Phalaris caroliniana); common sunflower (Helianthus annuus); little barley (Hordeum pusillum); and lambs-quarter, aka chenopod or goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri). Marshelder, like sunflower, has an edible, oily seed. Erect knotweed is a low plant with starchy, edible seeds; it is not the invasive Japanese knotweed that is a problem in the eastern United States. The grain from maygrass and little barley, both knee-high grasses with tufted stalks, was probably dried and pounded into flour. Lambsquarter is a spinach-like green that unfortunately looks like the toxic western black nightshade.
37 Hopewell culture: Woodward and McDonald 2002; Romain 2000; Seeman 1979. For the bow and arrow, see Browne 1938. Browne’s long-accepted argument that the bow and arrow arrived relatively late has recently been challenged (Bradbury 1997) and reaffirmed (Boszhardt 2002).
38 Hopewell religion: Brown 1997.
39 “stunning vigor”: Silverberg 1968:280–89.
40 Cahokia chronology: There are many versions of Cahokian chronology, because the radi
ocarbon calibrations have been revised repeatedly, but they differ more in detail than in substance. I use the chronology in Dalan et al. 2003:69. But see also Fowler 1997: Appendix 1.
41 London population: Weinreb and Hibbert eds. 1993:630–32.
42 Cahokia not a city: Woods and Wells 2001.
43 Big Bang: Pauketat 1994:168–74. Pauketat himself did not use the term “Big Bang,” though it is now in common use.
44 Synchrony and proximity of mound sites: Emerson 2002.
45 Engineering of Monks Mound: Woods 2001, 2000. My thanks to Ray Mann for help in understanding the engineering and to Dr. Woods for a copy of these and other papers.
46 Pauketat’s model: Pauketat 1998; 1997:30–51; 1994:esp. chap. 7.
47 Burials in small mound: Fowler et al. 1999.
48 Slow introduction of maize: Riley et al. (1994) dated maize found near Cahokia from 170 B.C.–60 A.D.
49 Maize not important to Hopewell: interviews, Woods; Lynott et al. 1986.
50 Woods’s model of Cahokia fall: Author’s Interviews, Woods; Woods 2004, 2003; Woods and Wells 2001. In its basics, this scenario is similar to that in Mehrer 1995:esp. Chap. 5.
51 Widespread land clearing: Lopinot and Woods 1993.
52 Sedimentation evidence for flooding: Holley and Brown 1989, cited in Woods 2004:155; Woods 2003; Stinchcomb et al. 2011 (Delaware). See also, Holden 1996, Neumann 2002:150–51.
53 Haudenosaunee villages: Day 1953:332–34 (six square miles, Denonville, 333; “hundreds of acres,” 338).
54 American chestnuts: Kummer 2003; Mann and Plummer 2002.
55 “They pound them”: Bartram 1996:56. For many groups in the Southeast, milk from mast was the only kind of milk available.
56 Lack of evidence for deaths or hunger: Milner 1992.
57 Palisade: Iseminger 1990. In a novel interpretation, Pauketat argues that the Cahokians’ attempt to shut themselves behind a palisade actually could have been “an offensive tactic” that let Cahokia’s rulers “project a larger-than-normal armed force by freeing up people who otherwise would have guarded the capital” (Pauketat 1998:71).
58 Status gap: Trubitt 2000.
59 1811–12 earthquakes: Nuttli 1973. According to Nuttli’s estimates, which are based on multiple historical accounts, the earthquake was so powerful that ten miles away from the fault it apparently kicked the ground up at a foot per second, enough to shotput people into the air (table 7). Cahokia, 140 miles away from the center of the 1811 earthquakes, would not have experienced such drastic shaking, but because the soft Mississippi soils readily transmit earthquake waves the impact would still have been devastating.
60 Lack of Calakmul investigation: Strictly speaking, this isn’t true. Two Carnegie Institution archaeologists visited Calakmul several times after a Carnegie botanist reported its existence, but the site was so remote that they did little other than map the central area (Lundell 1934; Ruppert and Denison 1943).
61 Calakmul description: Folan 1992; Folan et al. 1995, 2001.
62 Calakmul population: Culbert et. al. (1990) estimated the population of the entire Mutal (Tikal) city-state at 425,000. Fletcher and Gann (1992) used the same methods for Calakmul, concluding that Calakmul was 37 percent bigger than its rival (see also Folan 1990:159). The resultant population would be 582,250, which I have rendered as 575,000 to maintain a similar level of approximation.
63 Stuart’s work: Stuart 2000. Tatiana Prouskouriakoff and Clemency Coggins suggested the outlines of the encounter in the 1960s, but later archaeologists rejected the idea of an actual intrusion from Teotihuacán, instead arguing that the evidence suggested an influx of ideas, rather than people. Stuart marshaled enough data to convince most of his colleagues that Prouskouriakoff and Coggins were right to begin with.
64 Mutal-Kaan war: Martin and Grube 1966. I thank Prof. Grube for sending me a copy of this widely cited and influential work. A recent summary is in Martin and Grube 2000. See also, Martin 2000.
65 Beginning of Kaan: Folan et al. 1995:325–30 (discussion of chronology).
66 Views of Maya state organization: Fox 1996. The most prominent early advocate of the small-equal-state position was Morley (Morley 1946:50, 159–61). In the more recent past it was adopted by such prominent Mayanists as Peter Mathews (1991), Stephen Houston (1993), Nicholas Dunning (1992), and William Sanders and David Webster (1988). The most widely cited dissent to the small-state view that I know of came from Joyce Marcus, who argued for four dominant centers in several publications (e.g., Marcus 1973). An unpublished but widely circulated analysis by Martin and Grube (1996) changed many minds (see also, Grube and Martin 1998). I thank Prof. Grube for sending me copies of both. The most accessible summary of their views is Martin and Grube 2000:17–21.
67 Semblance of empire: This is a revamped version of a sentence in Chase, Grube, and Chase 1991:1.
68 Decipherment of y-ahaw: Usually credited to Houston and Mathews 1985:27; Bricker 1986:70.
69 “The political landscape”: Martin and Grube 2000:21. Martin’s comparison of the Maya to the Greeks comes from interviews and email.
70 Sky Witness: Martin and Grube 2000:90–92, 102–04.
71 Mutal size and population: Adams and Jones 1981:318–19; Culbert et al. 1990 (arguing for 425,000 as total size).
72 Possible motives for Kaan-Mutal war: Fahsen 2003 (trade routes); Harrison 1999:121 (commerce, dynasty); Grube, pers. comm. (ideology).
73 Landscape alteration: The literature is vast. Examples include Darch 1988; Dunning et al. 2002; Fedick and Ford 1990; Gunn et al. 2002 (“geochemically hostile,” 313); Scarborough and Gallopin 1991; Sluyter 1994. See also, Scarborough 2003.
74 Oxwitza’ (Caracol): Chase and Chase 2001, 1996, 1994 (population, 5).
75 Star Wars attack on Mutal: Harrison 1999:122; Houston 1991; Freidel 1993. The Chases are skeptical of Kaan’s role, because they think it too far from Caracol and because they are skeptical about the translations by Grube and Martin (Chase and Chase 2000:63).
76 Maya way of conquest: Grube and Martin 1998.
77 Dos Pilas: Guenter 2003; Fahsen 2003. Previous attempts at decipherment include Boot 2002a, 2002b; better readings of the glyphs led to corrections. See also, Guenter 2002; Williams 2002.
78 Stairway quotes: Guenter 2002:39 (flint), 27 (skull).
79 Morley’s tally of dates: Morley 1946:64. Updated in Sidrys and Berger 1979; Hamblin and Pitcher 1980. I use Sidrys and Berger. A few hard-to-read inscriptions might have been set down as late as 928.
80 Four lines of evidence: Robichaux 2002 (waterflow evidence); Gill 2000 (ethnohistorical [Gill also uses many other types of data]; “starvation and thirst,” 1); Curtis, Hodell, and Brenner 1996 (oxygen data; “driest intervals,” 45); Haug et al. 2003 (titanium).
81 Paradoxical survival in the north: Dahlin 2002 (“How and why,” 327); Robichaux 2002. The Maya also fled west, toward Guatemala’s Pacific coast, another dry area in which they thrived during the drought. I leave the western cities out of the main account solely for simplicity. 316 Chichén Itzá: Milbrath and Peraza Lope 2003.
9 / Amazonia
1 Orellana’s expedition: The main sources are collected in Heaton ed. 1934 (“by God,” 262). The best histories of the expedition that I have come across are Smith 1990: chap. 2; Hemming 1987:185–94. Still enjoyable to read, though dated, is Prescott 2000 (“Not a bark,” 1075).
2 Orellana’s betrayal: The case for the prosecution is summed up in Means 1934. For Pizarro’s reaction, see letter, Pizarro, G., to king, 3 Sept. 1542, in Heaton 1934:245–51 (“the greatest cruelty,” 248).
3 “We were eating”: Heaton ed. 1934:408.
4 Angry hives: I have borrowed the simile from Smith 1990:68. The next two sentences are essentially reworkings of his sentences.
5 Carvajal on populousness, Tapajós attacks: Heaton 1934 (“farther we went,” 202; “all inhabited,” “five leagues,” 198; “numerous and very large,” 200; “Inland,” 216; “more than twenty,”
203).
6 Carvajal publication: Medina ed. 1894.
7 Carvajal criticism: López de Gómara 1979:131 (“mentirosa”); Myers et al. 1992; Denevan 1996a:661–64; see also, Shoumatoff 1986. Oddly, critics rarely mention that Orellana’s account is similar to those from the second Amazon expedition. This was the Pedro de Orsua expedition of 1559–61, subject of the Werner Herzog film Aguirre, the Wrath of God. The basic sources are collected in González and Tur eds. 1981. It stopped at the Tapajós in 1561, but provided little further information about the region, except for the suggestive fact that the Indian towns’ streets were laid out in a grid and that they had wooden temples with deities painted on the doors (González and Tur eds. 1981:111, 370).
8 Ecologists’ views: Arnold 2000. For how they fit into the general Western propensity to view the Amazon as a tropical Eden, see Holanda 1996; Slater 1995; and the polemical Stott 1999. German ecologist Andreas Schimper invented “tropical rain forest” as a scientific construct in 1898 (Schimper 1903). It was an example of a new scientific category that included the living community and its nonliving environment together as a single functioning unit—an ecosystem, a term Schimper’s school coined in 1935.
9 More sympathetic views of Carvajal: Author’s intervews, Balée, Erickson, Peter Stahl, Anna Roosevelt. See also, Porro 1994, Whitehead 1994, for contemporary treatments of early accounts.
10 Must become priority: E.g., “The time bomb of ecological, environmental, climatic and human damage caused by deforestation continues to tick, and the problem of tropical rainforest clearance must remain a priority within international politics” (Park 1992:162).
11 “A ceaseless round”: Belt 1985:184; Darwin ed. 1887 (vol. 3):188 (“best of all”).
12 Richards: Richards 1952. Richards’s ideas drew heavily on the idea of the natural progression of ecosystems toward a final, stable “climax” developed by ecologists Frederick E. Clements and Arthur George Tansley. In this view, the tropical forest was the climax, the ultimate vegetative destination, in hot, humid areas.
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus Page 54