Jamie Posted February 6, 2013 Posted February 6, 2013 I would hightly sugest you watch the Documentary for clarification on some points if you are not already familiar with Caral and its (thought slightly disputed) importance. Basicaly, Caral was a South American city in the very begining stages of civilization development, the kind of city that archaeologists were searching for in order to try and learn early mans motivations to come together to build civilizations to begin with. One of, it not the oldest in South America (there is still some dispute, but if there are older cities, they are still fairly close in age.) As you can imagine, one of the main theorys was that humans started building civilizations in order to protect themselves against war. As we should know by now, the modivation for war is child abuse and peace comes out of peaceful parenting. As it turns out, the War Theory didn't hold up. There was absolutly no signs of war or violence at Caral, no weapons, mutalated bodies or signs of human sacrifice. There wasn't even fortifacations to protect against invading forces. What they did find were signs of cooperation and trade. As an inland comunity, they lived on a diet of mostly fish and were clearly trading for drugs and pigments from the rain forest to the north. Given that they were clearly a peaceful society entirely built on trade, do you think this point to fairly healthy parenting styles? Do you think it is likely that parenting practeces simply degraded over time perhaps from trama based on famin, pestulence desease or other natural desasters? What might it have taken to cause a peaceful people to eventualy degrade into widespread human sacrifice? (It has been determend that there is likely some contenuity between Caral and the later Myan and Incan civilizations.) I would realy like peoples thoughts on this. It realy has been perplexing me given it seems to go against the hypothesis that human parenting practices started out atrocious and have slowly been evolving over time. The Lost Pyramids of Caral 1 of 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZCmPb8dt_g (more/better information in later parts of the documentary)
fingolfin Posted February 7, 2013 Posted February 7, 2013 http://youstupidrelativist.com/08Ext/09Econ/04EconHist.html http://youstupidrelativist.com/08Ext/09Econ/05Z2Cannibal.html http://youstupidrelativist.com/08Ext/09Econ/01Vital.html Essentially, it's all about food and population density.
Jamie Posted February 10, 2013 Author Posted February 10, 2013 Makes sense. Basicly, a population goes through a starvation period, is forced to resort to canabalism, and the psychological affects linger on for what seems like eternity. The bond beetween any parent and serviving child would be severly broken by the canabalization of other siblings, and thus effect there future paranting and how they value their own children. Also, I guess once pandora's box is open, so to speak, it's hard to put the demons back. Soo.... then human sacrifice wouldn't seem much different to sacrificing a cow or a shaft of corn; it could have started as sacrificing some of the only food sorce humans had left in plenty?
TheRobin Posted February 10, 2013 Posted February 10, 2013 Makes sense. Basicly, a population goes through a starvation period, is forced to resort to canabalism, and the psychological affects linger on for what seems like eternity. The bond beetween any parent and serviving child would be severly broken by the canabalization of other siblings, and thus effect there future paranting and how they value their own children. Also, I guess once pandora's box is open, so to speak, it's hard to put the demons back. Soo.... then human sacrifice wouldn't seem much different to sacrificing a cow or a shaft of corn; it could have started as sacrificing some of the only food sorce humans had left in plenty? I'm not sure I would subscribe to that idea. Mostly because even in societies where there has been a shortage of food at some times, this hasn't really led to resorting back to childsacrifice and the sort after the amount of food needed has been restored.Btw is there any data that portrais such a behaviour as you describe it (the canibalization of siblings and ones own children)? Cause I would assume, once people are that desperate no one will be survive to leave that legacy behind for others.I don't know much about the Caral, but wouldn't it be more likely that they've just been invaded by these "less friendly" cultures and dragged away as slaves or so?Also in a side note, the linked sites really aren't portraying the most established ideas (to put it mildly) and its author doesn't seem to have a good understanding in economics, so I would take these ideas with a few grains of salt if I were you. (There's also another thread ("The Utopian Paradox" in which this has been discussed to some degree if you want to see where that has lead)).
Jamie Posted February 14, 2013 Author Posted February 14, 2013 Well, that is true. It is a bit hard to tell though, given how early in history Caral was abandoned compared to the Myan. the evenence apparently shows that they traveled north to more fertile land. After that I have no clue what happened.
Carlos Morales Posted February 14, 2013 Posted February 14, 2013 http://youstupidrelativist.com/08Ext/09Econ/04EconHist.html http://youstupidrelativist.com/08Ext/09Econ/05Z2Cannibal.html http://youstupidrelativist.com/08Ext/09Econ/01Vital.html Essentially, it's all about food and population density. Is that your website?
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