tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/peopling-of-the-americas-27560/articlesPeopling of the Americas – The Conversation2020-07-22T19:51:24Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1428102020-07-22T19:51:24Z2020-07-22T19:51:24ZHumans inhabited North America in the depths of the last Ice Age, but didn’t thrive until the climate warmed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348770/original/file-20200722-29-1cgvogd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C8%2C1914%2C1267&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chiquihuite Cave in Mexico.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Devlin A. Gandy</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Humans lived in what is now Mexico up to 33,000 years ago and may have settled the Americas by travelling along the Pacific coast, according to two studies by myself and colleagues published today. </p>
<p>It has been commonly believed that the first people to enter the Americas were big-game hunters from Asia, who arrived after the last Ice Age around 13,000 years ago. This narrative is known as the “Clovis first” theory, based on distinctive stone tools produced by a people archaeologists call the Clovis culture.</p>
<p>For most of the 20th century, this theory was widely accepted. However, more recent archaeological evidence has shown humans were present in the Americas before the Clovis people.</p>
<p>Just how much earlier, however, is unclear and a topic of intense academic debate. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-dna-in-lake-mud-sheds-light-on-the-mystery-of-how-humans-first-reached-america-63776">Ancient DNA in lake mud sheds light on the mystery of how humans first reached America</a>
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<h2>What we found in Chiquihuite Cave</h2>
<p>Chiquihuite Cave is an archaeological site more than 2,740 metres above sea level in Zacatecas, Mexico. Ciprian Ardelean of the University of Zacatecas has been leading excavations of the site for more than seven years. Nearly 2,000 stone tools and pieces created through their manufacture have been found. </p>
<p>The tools belongs to a type of material culture never before seen in the Americas, with no evident similarities to any other cultural complexes. Importantly, more than 200 specimens were found below an archaeological layer that corresponds to the peak of the last Ice Age. (Archaeologists call this peak the Last Glacial Maximum.) </p>
<p>During this time, between 26,000 and 19,000 years ago, ice sheets were at their greatest extent. Evidence from Chiquihuite Cave, therefore, strongly suggests that humans were present in North America well before Clovis. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A hand holding a small stone tool." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348775/original/file-20200722-25-1m3rygt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348775/original/file-20200722-25-1m3rygt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348775/original/file-20200722-25-1m3rygt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348775/original/file-20200722-25-1m3rygt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348775/original/file-20200722-25-1m3rygt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348775/original/file-20200722-25-1m3rygt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348775/original/file-20200722-25-1m3rygt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A stone tool found below the Last Glacial Maximum layer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ciprian Ardelean</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Given the significance of the discovery, myself and a team of international researchers joined in the interdisciplinary study of Chiquihuite Cave. Some of us had the opportunity to visit the site following a four-hour long journey by foot, and see the evidence at first hand. Our aims were to reconstruct the environment humans lived in and define exactly when they occupied the site. </p>
<p>My own research at Chiquihuite Cave focused on the latter. I helped to build a chronology of more than 50 radiocarbon and optical dates. </p>
<p>Combined with the archaeological evidence, the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2509-0">results</a> showed humans inhabited Chiquihuite as early as 33,000 years ago, until the cave was sealed off at the end of the Pleistocene period (around 12,000 years ago). </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348240/original/file-20200719-29-52patm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman walking into a cave" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348240/original/file-20200719-29-52patm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348240/original/file-20200719-29-52patm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348240/original/file-20200719-29-52patm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348240/original/file-20200719-29-52patm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348240/original/file-20200719-29-52patm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348240/original/file-20200719-29-52patm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348240/original/file-20200719-29-52patm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Lorena Becerra-Valdivia inside Chiquihuite Cave in 2019, walking towards the archaeological excavations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas L.C. Gibson</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>The pattern of settlement</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2491-6">a second paper</a>, I explore the wider pattern of human occupation across North America and Beringia (the ancient land bridge connecting America to Asia). This involved analysing hundreds of dates obtained from 42 archaeological sites in North America and Beringia, including Chiquihuite Cave, using a statistical tool called Bayesian age modelling. </p>
<p>The analysis showed there were humans in North America before, during and immediately after the peak of the last Ice Age. However, it was not until much later that populations expanded significantly across the continent. </p>
<p>This occurred during a period of climate warming at the end of the Ice Age called Greenland Interstadial 1. The warming began suddenly with a pulse of increased global temperature around 14,700 years ago. </p>
<p>We also observed that the three major stone tool traditions in the wider region started around the same time. This coincides with an increase in archaeological sites and radiocarbon dates from those sites, as well as genetic data pointing to marked population growth. </p>
<p>This significant expansion of humans during a warmer period seems to have played a role in the dramatic demise of large megafauna, including types of camels, horses and mammoths. We plotted the dates of the last appearance of the megafauna and found they largely disappeared within this, and a following, colder period. </p>
<p>However, the contribution of climate change in faunal extinctions, represented by abrupt warming and cooling, cannot be fully excluded. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-evidence-that-an-extraterrestrial-collision-12-800-years-ago-triggered-an-abrupt-climate-change-for-earth-118244">New evidence that an extraterrestrial collision 12,800 years ago triggered an abrupt climate change for Earth</a>
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<p>The first human arrivals came from eastern Eurasia, yet it looks as though there was a surprisingly early movement of people into the continent. </p>
<p>We think the path of earlier arrivals to these new lands was probably along the coast. Inland travel would have been blocked, either because Beringia was partly underwater or because modern-day Canada was covered by impenetrable ice sheets.</p>
<p>Together, the two studies and their results depart from previously accepted models, and allow us to uncover a new story of the initial peopling of the Americas. This journey, marking one of the major expansions of modern humans across the planet, will continue to mystify and spark debate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142810/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lorena Becerra-Valdivia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Stone tools found in a cave in Mexico have archaeologists rewriting the human history of the Americas.Lorena Becerra-Valdivia, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1105492019-01-31T12:46:48Z2019-01-31T12:46:48ZEuropean colonisation of the Americas killed 10% of world population and caused global cooling<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255769/original/file-20190128-108367-1t3cqmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wilhem Berrouet's impression of Columbus arriving in America.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/130765784@N06/42694898071/in/photolist-hndGU-hndB9-hpU9J-4tmBSb-dhNRfN-nDfUB-2JtRiY-vmUKE-8W8D7B-hndMt-vmVjj-4thz5B-4tmCiJ-vn2qy-vn2ME-4tmums-4tmuLo-wNmkZ-6qLTFN-6qLSMw-4thrs4-6r3oFM-vn36d-vmVGk-6r3mRi-6tmL2d-6thB4Z-xpatFo-4tmBC3-vmUrF-8StTDj-6qGGMe-6qLSuf-6qLSfQ-6qGHUt-283NvJg-eTD1ss">Salon de la Mappemonde/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While Europe was in the early days of the Renaissance, there were <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379118307261">empires in the Americas sustaining more than 60m people</a>. But the first European contact in 1492 brought diseases to the Americas which devastated the native population and the resultant collapse of farming in the Americas was so significant that it may have even cooled the global climate. </p>
<p>The number of people living in North, Central and South America when Columbus arrived is a question that researchers have been trying to answer for decades. Unlike in Europe and China, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2947274?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">no records on the size of indigenous societies</a> in the Americas before 1492 are preserved. To reconstruct population numbers, researchers rely on the first accounts from European eyewitnesses and, in records from after colonial rule was established, tribute payments known as “<a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/spains-american-colonies-encomienda-system-2136545">encomiendas</a>”. This taxation system was only established after European epidemics had ravaged the Americas, so it tells us nothing about the size of pre-colonial populations.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255772/original/file-20190128-108370-bghxtl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255772/original/file-20190128-108370-bghxtl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255772/original/file-20190128-108370-bghxtl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255772/original/file-20190128-108370-bghxtl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255772/original/file-20190128-108370-bghxtl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255772/original/file-20190128-108370-bghxtl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255772/original/file-20190128-108370-bghxtl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The coast in Cuba where Columbus arrived in 1492.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wild-cuban-coast-place-arrival-christopher-1237742905?src=CtcJoMsFJPQBwg53Ox6a-w-1-41">Authentic Travel/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Early accounts by European colonists are likely to have overestimated settlement sizes and population to advertise the riches of their newly discovered lands to their feudal sponsors in Europe. But by rejecting these claims and focusing on colonial records instead, <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/81p247.pdf">extremely low population estimates</a> were published in the early 20th century which counted the population after disease had ravaged it.</p>
<p>On the other hand, liberal assumptions on, for example, the proportion of the indigenous population that was required to pay tributes or the rates at which people had died led to extraordinarily high estimates.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379118307261">Our new study</a> clarifies the size of pre-Columbian populations and their impact on their environment. By combining all published estimates from populations throughout the Americas, we find a probable indigenous population of 60m in 1492. For comparison, <a href="https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/releases/maddison-project-database-2018">Europe’s population at the time was 70-88m</a> spread over less than half the area.</p>
<h2>The Great Dying</h2>
<p>The large pre-Columbian population sustained itself through farming – there is extensive archaeological evidence for slash-and-burn agriculture, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/farming-like-the-incas-70263217/">terraced fields</a>, <a href="https://www.joseiriartearchaeology.net/categories/research-projects/subcategories/past-human-impacts-in-amazonia/pages/raised-fields-monumental-mounds-ring-ditches">large earthen mounds</a> and home gardens. </p>
<p>By knowing how much agricultural land is required to sustain one person, population numbers can be translated from the area known to be under human land use. We found that 62m hectares of land, or about 10% of the landmass of the Americas, had been farmed or under another human use when Columbus arrived. For comparison, in Europe 23% and in China 20% of land had been used by humans at the time.</p>
<p>This changed in the decades after Europeans first set foot on the island of Hispaniola in 1492 – now Haiti and the Dominican Republic – and the mainland in 1517. Europeans brought measles, smallpox, influenza and the bubonic plague across the Atlantic, with <a href="https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/183.html">devastating consequences for the indigenous populations</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255774/original/file-20190128-108355-x814hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255774/original/file-20190128-108355-x814hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255774/original/file-20190128-108355-x814hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255774/original/file-20190128-108355-x814hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255774/original/file-20190128-108355-x814hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255774/original/file-20190128-108355-x814hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255774/original/file-20190128-108355-x814hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Incan agricultural terraces in Peru.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/agriculture-centre-terraces-covered-by-grass-1132628009?src=eHPhYo5WW1WElwHxgtE7Kg-1-22">Alessandro Vecchi/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Our new data-driven best estimate is a death toll of 56m by the beginning of the 1600s – 90% of the pre-Columbian indigenous population and around 10% of the global population at the time. This makes the “Great Dying” the largest human mortality event in proportion to the global population, putting it second in absolute terms only to World War II, in which <a href="http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm#Second">80m people died</a> – 3% of the world’s population at the time.</p>
<p>A figure of 90% mortality in post-contact America is extraordinary and exceeds similar epidemics, including the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/black_01.shtml">Black Death in Europe</a> – which resulted in a 30% population loss in Europe. One explanation is that multiple waves of epidemics hit indigenous immune systems that had evolved in isolation from Eurasian and African populations for 13,000 years.</p>
<p>Native Americas at that time had never been in contact with the pathogens the colonists brought, creating so-called “<a href="https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/183.html">virgin soil</a>” epidemics. People who didn’t die from smallpox, died from the following wave of influenza. Those who survived that succumbed to measles. Warfare, famine and colonial atrocities did the rest in the Great Dying.</p>
<h2>Global consequences</h2>
<p>This human tragedy meant that there was simply not enough workers left to manage the fields and forests. Without human intervention, previously managed landscapes returned to their natural states, thereby absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. The extent of this regrowth of the natural habitat was so vast that it <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mass-deaths-in-americas-start-new-co2-epoch/">removed enough CO₂ to cool the planet</a>.</p>
<p>The lower temperatures prompted feedbacks in the carbon cycle which eliminated even more CO₂ from the atmosphere – such as less CO₂ being released from the soil. This explains the drop in CO₂ at 1610 seen in Antarctic ice cores, solving an enigma of why the whole planet <a href="https://www.eh-resources.org/timeline-middle-ages/">cooled briefly in the 1600s</a>. During this period, severe winters and cold summers caused <a href="https://books.google.ge/books/about/Global_Crisis.html?id=gjdDP15N4FkC&redir_esc=y&hl=en">famines and rebellions from Europe to Japan</a>. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255759/original/file-20190128-108364-psy089.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255759/original/file-20190128-108364-psy089.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255759/original/file-20190128-108364-psy089.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255759/original/file-20190128-108364-psy089.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255759/original/file-20190128-108364-psy089.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255759/original/file-20190128-108364-psy089.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255759/original/file-20190128-108364-psy089.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Global temperatures dipped around the same time as the Great Dying in the Americas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=466264">Robert A. Rohde/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthropocene-began-with-species-exchange-between-old-and-new-worlds-38674">modern world</a> began with a catastrophe of near-unimaginable proportions. Yet it is the first time the Americas were linked to the rest of the world, marking the beginning of a new era.</p>
<p>We now know more about the scale of pre-European American populations and the Great Dying that erased so many of them. Human actions at that time caused a drop in atmospheric CO₂ that cooled the planet long before human civilisation was concerned with the idea of climate change. </p>
<p>Such a dramatic event would not contribute much to easing the rate of modern global warming, however. The unprecedented reforestation event in the Americas led to a reduction of 5 parts per million CO₂ from the atmosphere – only about <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide">three years’ worth of fossil fuel emissions</a> today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110549/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Koch receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership initiative. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Brierley receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council, the Belmont Forum and the national Science Foundation (US) to study climates of the past and future. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Maslin is a Founding Director of Rezatec Ltd, Director of The London NERC Doctoral Training Partnership and a member of Cheltenham Science Festival Advisory Committee. He is an unpaid member of the Sopra-Steria CSR Board. He has received grant funding in the past from the NERC, EPSRC, ESRC, Royal Society, DIFD, DECC, FCO, Innovate UK, Carbon Trust, UK Space Agency, European Space Agency, Wellcome Trust, Leverhulme Trust and British Council. He has received research funding in the past from The Lancet, Laithwaites, Seventh Generation, Channel 4, JLT Re, WWF, Hermes, CAFOD and Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Lewis has received funding from Natural Environment Research Council, the Royal Society, the European Union, the Leverhulme Trust, the Centre for International Forestry, National Parks Agency of Gabon, Microsoft Research, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.</span></em></p>No records of the size of Native American populations before 1492 and the arrival of Europeans survive. A new study has found answers.Alexander Koch, PhD candidate in Physical Geography, UCLChris Brierley, Associate Professor of Geography, UCLMark Maslin, Professor of Earth System Science, UCLSimon Lewis, Professor of Global Change Science at University of Leeds and, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/852142017-10-06T20:36:10Z2017-10-06T20:36:10ZHow Columbus, of all people, became a national symbol<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189056/original/file-20171005-9753-12axacx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Agricultural Building at the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, Illinois, circa 1893. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Agricultural_Building_at_the_Worlds_Columbian_Exposition,_Chicago,_Illinois,_circa_1893.jpg">University of Maryland Digital Collections</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Christopher Columbus was a <a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-679-40476-7">narcissist</a>.</p>
<p>He believed he was personally chosen by God for a mission that no one else could achieve. After 1493, he signed his name “xpo ferens” – “the Christbearer.” His stated goal was to accumulate enough wealth to recapture Jerusalem. His arrogance led to his downfall, that of millions of Native Americans – and eventually fostered his resurrection as the most enduring icon of the Americas.</p>
<h2>Columbus in chains</h2>
<p>In 1496, Columbus was the governor of a colony based at Santo Domingo, in what is now the modern Dominican Republic – a job he hated. He could not convince the other “colonists,” especially those with noble titles, to follow his leadership. </p>
<p>They were not colonists in the traditional sense of the word. They had gone to the Indies to get rich quick. Because Columbus was unable to temper their lust, the Crown viewed him as an <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2326-1951.1989.tb02138.x/abstract">incompetent administrator</a>. The colony was largely a social and economic failure. The wealth that Columbus promised the Spanish monarchs failed to materialize, and he made continuous requests for additional financial support, which the monarchs reluctantly provided. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140945/original/image-20161007-21454-163qr4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140945/original/image-20161007-21454-163qr4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140945/original/image-20161007-21454-163qr4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140945/original/image-20161007-21454-163qr4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140945/original/image-20161007-21454-163qr4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140945/original/image-20161007-21454-163qr4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140945/original/image-20161007-21454-163qr4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inspiracion de Cristobal Colon by Jose Maria Obregon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inspiracion_de_Cristobal_Colon_by_Jose_Maria_Obregon,_1856.jpg">Museo Nacional de Arte</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By 1500, conditions in Hispaniola were so dire that the Crown sent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/aug/07/books.spain">Francisco de Bobadilla</a> to investigate. Bobadilla’s first sight, at the mouth of the Ozama River, was four Spanish “mutineers” hanging from gallows. Under authority from the king, Bobadilla arrested Columbus and his brothers for malfeasance and sent them to Spain in chains. Columbus waited seven months for an audience at the court. He refused to have his chains removed until the meeting, and even asked in his will to be buried with the chains.</p>
<p>Although the Spanish rulers wanted Columbus to disappear, he was allowed one final voyage from 1502 to 1504. He died in 1506, and went virtually unmentioned by historians until he was resurrected as a symbol of the United States.</p>
<h2>Inventing Columbus</h2>
<p>In the mid-18th century, scholars brought to light long-forgotten documents about Columbus and the early history of the New World. </p>
<p>One of the most important was Bartolome de las Casas’ three-volume “Historia de las Indias.” This book was suppressed in Spain because it documented Spain’s harsh treatment of the native peoples. His depiction of Spanish mistreatment of the Indians provided the foundation for the “<a href="http://catholicism.org/the-black-legend.html">Black Legend</a>.” His account “blackened” Spanish character by depicting it as repressive, brutal, intolerant and intellectually and artistically backward. Whatever Spain’s motives, the conquest of the Americas destroyed native cultures and ushered in centuries of African enslavement.</p>
<p>Another was the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Diario_of_Christopher_Columbus_s_Fir.html?id=nS6kRnXJgCEC">personal journal</a> of Christopher Columbus from his first voyage, published in 1880. The journal captured the attention of Gustavus Fox, Abraham Lincoln’s assistant secretary of the Navy, who made the first attempt to reconstruct the route of Columbus’s first voyage.</p>
<p>Renewed scholarly interest in Columbus coincided with political motives to deny Spain any remaining claims in the Americas. Spain’s American colonies declared independence, one by one, from the beginning of the 19th century. Simón Bolivar, and other Creole revolutionary leaders, embraced a classical philosophy that highlighted their Roman ancestry to a degree that “Spanish America” was converted to Latin America. The final assault came with the U.S. invasion of Cuba and the six-month <a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/intro.html">Spanish-American War</a> in 1898. Puerto Rico became a U.S. territory, and this year marks the 100th anniversary of the purchase of the U.S. Virgin Islands from Denmark.</p>
<p>Columbus likely would have slipped back into obscurity if not for American hubris.</p>
<h2>The Columbian Exposition</h2>
<p>In 1889, France put on what reviewers described as the <a href="http://www.crownpublishing.com/sites/erik-larson-devil-white-city/">most spectacular</a> World’s Fair possible. Held on the Champs de Mars in Paris, its crowning achievement was the <a href="http://www.toureiffel.paris/en.html">Eiffel Tower</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140943/original/image-20161007-21447-1e0brrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140943/original/image-20161007-21447-1e0brrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140943/original/image-20161007-21447-1e0brrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140943/original/image-20161007-21447-1e0brrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140943/original/image-20161007-21447-1e0brrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140943/original/image-20161007-21447-1e0brrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140943/original/image-20161007-21447-1e0brrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Looking West From Peristyle, Court of Honor and Grand Basin of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Looking_West_From_Peristyle,_Court_of_Honor_and_Grand_Basin,_1893.jpg">The Project Gutenberg EBook of Official Views of The World's Columbian Exposition</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After Paris, the United States set out to prove to the world it was the equal of Europe by staging its own World’s Fair. No one has claimed credit for the theme of the Exposition, but the stage was set when American writer and author of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/washington-irving-9350087">Washington Irving</a>, attempted to revive his flagging career by writing the first biography of Christopher Columbus in English, published in 1828. </p>
<p>His <a href="https://archive.org/details/discoveryconques00irvirich">embellishments</a> created the great hero whose legend the fair celebrated: “He was one of those men of strong natural genius, who appear to form themselves; who, from having to contend at their very outset with privations and impediments, acquire an intrepidity in braving and a facility in vanquishing difficulties.” </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1386.html">Columbian Exposition</a> and World’s Fair was timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the New World. President Benjamin Harrison presided over opening ceremonies on Oct. 12, 1892. That same day, the Pledge of Allegiance was introduced in American schools.</p>
<p>Chicago created the “White City” – a collection of nine “palaces” designed by America’s greatest architects, conceived and constructed in only 26 months. Outside the White City was the grittier Midway, which is now a common feature of carnivals and fairs. The fair gave visitors their first taste of carbonated soda, Cracker Jacks and Juicy Fruit chewing gum. An enormous 264-foot-tall Ferris wheel transported 36 cars each carrying up to 60 people on a 20-minute ride. More than 28 million tickets were sold during the six months the Columbian Exposition was open. Columbus was the darling of 19th-century mass media.</p>
<p>Seventy-one portraits of Columbus, all posthumous, hung in a Grand Gallery. Following Irving’s descriptions, Columbus became the embodiment of the American Dream. The son of simple wool weavers and someone who had a great dream challenged the greatest scholars of his day, and boldly went where no man had gone before. Better yet, he was Italian. America could deny that Spain had any part in the discovery of the New World.</p>
<p>President Harrison declared a national holiday to coincide with opening of the Columbian Exposition – <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/exploration/columbus-day">Columbus Day</a>. It was officially recognized by Congress in 1937. </p>
<p>In 1992, as the United States prepared for the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the Americas, the pendulum swung again. The devastating impact of his “discovery” on native peoples throughout the Americas led protesters to decry Columbus as a “<a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/columbus-day-protesters-call-christopher-columbus-terrorist-mark-indigenous-peoples-day-1523750">terrorist</a>.” </p>
<p>Columbus the man died more than 500 years ago. Columbus the legend is still being dismantled. His story illustrates the blurred borders between myth and history – how an architect of destruction was turned into a national symbol.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on Oct. 10, 2016.</em></p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct the name of the president who presided over the Columbian Exposition’s opening ceremonies.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85214/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Francis Keegan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An anthropologist tells the story of how Columbus actually came close to falling into historical obscurity, until American hubris got in the way.William Francis Keegan, Curator of Caribbean Archaeology, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/665512016-10-10T14:01:25Z2016-10-10T14:01:25ZColumbus Day: Black legend meets White City<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140942/original/image-20161007-21451-1caeggz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Agricultural Building at the Worlds Columbian Exposition, Chicago, Illinois, circa 1893.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Agricultural_Building_at_the_Worlds_Columbian_Exposition,_Chicago,_Illinois,_circa_1893.jpg">University of Maryland Digital Collections</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The story of Christopher Columbus, as with all legends, involves a series of great successes and horrible failures. </p>
<p>Columbus’s current favorability rating hovers somewhere close to those of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. This was not always the case – he was once a revered figure who represented the American dream.</p>
<p>Columbus was a <a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-679-40476-7">narcissist</a>. He believed he was personally chosen by God and that no one else could achieve his mission. His stated goal was to accumulate enough wealth to recapture Jerusalem. After 1493, he signed his name “xpo ferens” – “the Christbearer.”</p>
<p>The King and Queen of Spain revoked their initial support for his first voyage to the New World because Columbus’s demands for nobility and hereditary rights were so excessive. The monarchs changed their minds only after it was calculated that the expedition would cost Spain the equivalent of $7,000 (in 2016 US dollars). Isabella did not have to “hock her jewels” to foot the bill.</p>
<p>Columbus’ personal qualities led to his downfall. In 1496, he became governor of the colony based at Santo Domingo, modern Dominican Republic – a job he hated. He could not convince the other colonists, especially those with noble titles to follow his leadership. And, he was an <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2326-1951.1989.tb02138.x/abstract">incompetent administrator</a>. The colony was largely a social and economic failure. The wealth that Columbus promised the Spanish monarchs failed to materialize, and he made continuous requests for additional support. Finally, he left the colony to go exploring. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140945/original/image-20161007-21454-163qr4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140945/original/image-20161007-21454-163qr4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140945/original/image-20161007-21454-163qr4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140945/original/image-20161007-21454-163qr4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140945/original/image-20161007-21454-163qr4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140945/original/image-20161007-21454-163qr4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140945/original/image-20161007-21454-163qr4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inspiracion de Cristobal Colon by Jose Maria Obregon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inspiracion_de_Cristobal_Colon_by_Jose_Maria_Obregon,_1856.jpg">Museo Nacional de Arte</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Conditions were so dire by 1500, the Crown sent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/aug/07/books.spain">Francisco de Bobadilla</a> to investigate. Bobadilla’s first sight, at the mouth of the Ozama River, was four Spanish “mutineers” hanging from gallows. Under authority from the King, Bobadilla arrested Columbus and his brothers and sent them to Spain in chains. Columbus waited seven months for an audience at the court. He refused to have his chains removed until the meeting and even asked in his will to be buried with the chains.</p>
<p>Although the Spanish rulers wanted Columbus to disappear, he was allowed one final voyage from 1502 to 1504. He died in 1506, and went virtually unmentioned until he was resurrected as a symbol of the United States.</p>
<h2>Inventing Columbus</h2>
<p>My <a href="https://www.amazon.com/People-Who-Discovered-Columbus-Prehistory/dp/081301137X">interest</a> in this American icon began 35 years ago with a search for his first landfall. I wanted to understand the man who wrote the only accounts of the Native Bahamians, known today as Lucayans. </p>
<p>In the mid-18th century, scholars brought to light long forgotten documents about Columbus and the early history of the New World. Among the most important was Bartolome de las Casas’ three volume, “Historia de las Indias.” This book had been suppressed because it documented Spain’s harsh treatment of the Native peoples. It is the foundation for the “<a href="http://catholicism.org/the-black-legend.html">Black Legend</a>” – a depiction that “blackened” Spanish character by depicting it as repressive, brutal, intolerant, and intellectually and artistically backward.</p>
<p>The second was the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Diario_of_Christopher_Columbus_s_Fir.html?id=nS6kRnXJgCEC">personal journal</a> of Christopher Columbus from his first voyage, published in 1880. <a href="http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/residents-visitors/notable-visitors/notable-visitors-gustavus-v-fox-1821-1883/">Gustavus V. Fox</a>, Abraham Lincoln’s Assistant Secretary of the Navy, used the latter in his attempt to determine the first island on which Columbus landed.</p>
<p>In 1828, American writer and author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/washington-irving-9350087">Washington Irving,</a> attempted to revive his flagging career by writing the first biography of Christopher Columbus in English. His <a href="https://archive.org/details/discoveryconques00irvirich">embellishments</a> created the great hero whose legend we continue to celebrate: “He was one of those men of strong natural genius, who appear to form themselves; who, from having to contend at their very outset with privations and impediments, acquire an intrepidity in braving and a facility in vanquishing difficulties.” And, Irving wrote that Columbus was the first to believe in a <a href="http://dhayton.haverford.edu/blog/2014/12/02/washington-irvings-columbus-and-the-flat-earth/">round earth</a> – a fact that was proved 1,000 years before Columbus.</p>
<p>Renewed scholarly interest in Columbus coincided with political motives to deny Spain any remaining claims in the Americas. Spain’s American colonies declared independence, one by one, from the beginning of the 19th century. Simón Bolivar, and other Creole revolutionary leaders, embraced a broader philosophy which highlighted their Roman ancestry. The complete conversion of Spanish America to Latin America arrived with the U.S. invasion of Cuba and the six month <a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/intro.html">Spanish-American War</a> in 1898. The last of Spain’s colonies were liberated.</p>
<p>Columbus likely would have slipped back into obscurity if not for American hubris. </p>
<h2>The Columbian Exposition</h2>
<p>In 1889, France put on what reviewers described as the <a href="http://www.crownpublishing.com/sites/erik-larson-devil-white-city/">most spectacular</a> World’s Fair possible. Held on the Champs de Mars in Paris, it’s crowning achievement was the <a href="http://www.toureiffel.paris/en.html">Eiffel Tower</a>. For some reason, the U.S. did not realize that it needed to put on a good show in Paris. Europeans viewed the poor quality of the exhibits as a reflection of U.S. inferiority. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140943/original/image-20161007-21447-1e0brrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140943/original/image-20161007-21447-1e0brrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140943/original/image-20161007-21447-1e0brrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140943/original/image-20161007-21447-1e0brrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140943/original/image-20161007-21447-1e0brrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140943/original/image-20161007-21447-1e0brrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140943/original/image-20161007-21447-1e0brrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Looking West From Peristyle, Court of Honor and Grand Basin of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Looking_West_From_Peristyle,_Court_of_Honor_and_Grand_Basin,_1893.jpg">The Project Gutenberg EBook of Official Views of The World's Columbian Exposition</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the embarrassment in Paris, the United States wanted to prove to the world it was the equal of Europe. Cities across the country competed to host a fair in the U.S. Chicago wanted to demonstrate it was equal to the older eastern cities of New York and Philadelphia and submitted the winning bid.</p>
<p>No one has claimed credit for the theme of the Exposition, but the timing was fortuitous. The <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1386.html">Columbian Exposition</a> and World’s Fair was timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the New World. President William H. Harrison presided over opening ceremonies on Oct. 12, 1892.</p>
<p>It was called the “White City” – collection of nine “palaces” designed by America’s greatest architects, conceived and constructed in only 26 months. Outside the White City was the grittier Midway, which is now a common feature of carnivals and fairs. The Fair debuted the first Ferris wheel, and gave visitors their first taste of carbonated soda, Cracker Jack, and Juicy Fruit chewing gum. An enormous 264-feet tall Ferris wheel transported 36 cars each carrying up to 60 people on a 20 minute ride. More than 28 million tickets were sold during the six months the Columbian Exposition was open.</p>
<p>Seventy-one portraits of Columbus, all posthumous, hung in a Grand Gallery. Following Washington Irving’s descriptions, Columbus became the embodiment of the American Dream. The son of simple wool weavers and someone who had a great dream, challenged the greatest scholars of his day, and boldly went where no man had gone before. Better yet, he was Italian. The world could deny that Spain had any part in the discovery of the Americas.</p>
<p>President Harrison declared a national holiday – <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/exploration/columbus-day">Columbus Day</a> – to coincide with opening of the Columbian Exposition. It was officially recognized by Congress in 1937. </p>
<p>As the United States prepared for the 500th anniversary, the pendulum swung again. The devastating impact of his “discovery” on Native peoples throughout the Americas led protesters to decry Columbus as a “<a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/columbus-day-protesters-call-christopher-columbus-terrorist-mark-indigenous-peoples-day-1523750">terrorist</a>.” </p>
<p>Columbus the man died more than 500 years ago. Columbus the legend is still being dismantled. His story illustrates the blurred borders between myth and history – how an architect of destruction can be turned to a national symbol.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66551/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Francis Keegan receives funding from National Geographic Society, American Philosophical Society, National Science Foundation, Nova Albion Foundation. </span></em></p>An anthropologist tells the story of how Columbus actually came close to falling into historical obscurity, until American hubris got in the way.William Francis Keegan, Professor of Anthropology, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/592192016-05-20T01:06:24Z2016-05-20T01:06:24ZKennewick Man will be reburied, but quandaries around human remains won’t<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123227/original/image-20160519-4451-1wr6n2y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This clay facial reconstruction of Kennewick Man, carefully sculpted around the morphological features of his skull, suggests how he may have looked alive nearly 9,000 years ago.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://newsdesk.si.edu/photos/kennewick-man">Brittney Tatchell, Smithsonian Institution</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A mysterious set of 9,000-year-old bones, unearthed nearly 20 years ago in Washington, is <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/over-9000-years-later-kennewick-man-will-be-given-native-american-burial-180958947/">finally going home</a>. Following bitter disputes, five Native American groups in the Pacific Northwest have come together to facilitate the reburial of an individual they know as “Ancient One.” One of the most complete prehistoric human skeletons discovered in North America, “Kennewick Man” also became the most controversial.</p>
<p>Two teenagers searching out a better view of a Columbia River speedboat race in 1996 were the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/scientists-mysterious-kennewick-man-looked-polynesian-and-came-from-far-away/2014/08/25/45411b2a-27b3-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html">first to spot Kennewick Man’s remains</a>. Since then, the bones have mostly been stored away from public view, carefully preserved in museum storerooms while subject to hotly contested legal battles.</p>
<p>Some anthropologists were eager to <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/full/nature14625.html?message-global=remove">scientifically test the bones</a> hoping for clues about who the first Americans were and where they came from. But many Native Americans hesitated to support this scientific scrutiny (including tests which permanently destroy or damage the original bone), arguing it was disrespectful to their ancient ancestor. They wanted him laid to rest.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123268/original/image-20160519-16754-15lmeug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123268/original/image-20160519-16754-15lmeug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123268/original/image-20160519-16754-15lmeug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123268/original/image-20160519-16754-15lmeug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123268/original/image-20160519-16754-15lmeug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123268/original/image-20160519-16754-15lmeug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123268/original/image-20160519-16754-15lmeug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123268/original/image-20160519-16754-15lmeug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Kennewick Man’s remains had rested in the Columbia River Gorge for millennia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Columbia_River_Gorge_(3).jpg">Bleeding Skies</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>This high-profile discovery served as an important, if maddening, test case for a significant new law, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (<a href="https://www.nps.gov/nagpra/">NAGPRA</a>). It aimed to address the problematic history behind museum human remains collections. First it mandated inventories – many museums, in fact, were unaware how large their skeletal collections really were. Then, in certain cases, it called for returning skeletons and mummies to their closest descendant group. Since NAGPRA passed in 1990, the National Park Service estimates <a href="https://www.nps.gov/nagpra/FAQ/INDEX.HTM#How_many">over 50,000 sets of human remains</a> have been repatriated in the United States.</p>
<p>The legal framework fits well in cases where ancestry could be determined – think remains found on a specific 19th-century battlefield – but other instances became more contentious. Scientists sometimes argued that very old remains, including Kennewick Man, represented earlier migrations into the Americas by groups who might have moved on long ago. This point of view often clashed with indigenous perspectives, particularly beliefs that their ancestors have lived in specific places since the dawn of time.</p>
<p>Drawn against this complex background, it’s no wonder it’s taken almost two decades to bring the Kennewick Man story into better focus. </p>
<h2>Long history of scientizing some human remains</h2>
<p>Museums in the U.S. and Europe have <a href="http://www.basicbooks.com/full-details?isbn=9780465092253">collected and studied human remains</a> for well over a century, with the practice gaining considerable momentum after the Civil War. Archaeologists, anatomists and a mishmash of amateurs – influenced by an array of emergent sciences and pseudosciences – gathered bones by the thousands, shipping them in boxes to museums in an effort to systematically study race and, gradually, human prehistory.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123273/original/image-20160519-16754-1a00vyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123273/original/image-20160519-16754-1a00vyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123273/original/image-20160519-16754-1a00vyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123273/original/image-20160519-16754-1a00vyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123273/original/image-20160519-16754-1a00vyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123273/original/image-20160519-16754-1a00vyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123273/original/image-20160519-16754-1a00vyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123273/original/image-20160519-16754-1a00vyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many museums in the United States store human remains collections in spaces colloquially known as ‘bone rooms.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/niklasstjerna/5314416884">N Stjerna</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Museum “bone rooms,” organized to collect and study human remains, helped facilitate new scientific work in the late 19th and early 20th century. The <a href="http://www.amazon.com/SKELETAL-BIOLOGY-PLAINS-OWSLEY-DOUGLAS/dp/1560980931">skeletons provided better data</a> about diseases and migration, as well as information about historic diet, with potential impact for living populations. </p>
<p>But building museum bone collections also represented major breaches in ethics surrounding traditional death and burial practices for many indigenous people across the Americas and around the world. For them, data gathering was simply not a priority. Instead, they sought to <a href="http://www.sagchip.org/news/files/PressRelease_2015-05-13.pdf">return their ancestors to the earth</a>. </p>
<p>Considered in context, the concerns raised by many Native Americans are not particularly difficult to comprehend. For example, doing archival research for my book <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674660410">“Bone Rooms,”</a> I learned of the case of several naturally mummified bodies discovered in the American Southwest in the 1870s. The dried corpses were paraded around San Francisco, before being exhibited for the public in Philadelphia and Chicago. Once the immense popularity of the exhibitions died down, the bodies were distributed to several museums across the country where they were put into storage.</p>
<p>Presenting human remains as purely scientific specimens and historical curiosities hurt living descendants by treating entire populations as scientific resources rather than human beings. And by focusing mainly on nonwhite groups, the practice reinforced in subtle and direct ways the scientific racism permeating the era. While some European American skeletons were collected by these museums for comparative purposes, their number was vastly outpaced by the number of Native American bodies collected during this same period.</p>
<p>Anthropologists and other scientists have worked to address some of these negative legacies. But the vestiges of past wrongdoings have left their mark on many museums across the country. Returning ancestral human remains, sacred artifacts and <a href="http://www.mohegan.nsn.us/press-room/recent-press-releases/press-release/2014/12/19/repatriation#">special objects</a> considered to hold collective cultural value attempts to serve as partial redress for these problematic histories.</p>
<h2>Kennewick Man’s odyssey</h2>
<p>Inaccurate initial media reports muddled the Kennewick Man story. After the first anthropologist who looked at the skull proclaimed a resemblance to European Americans (specifically the actor Patrick Stewart), a New York Times headline in 1998 announced, “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/02/us/old-skull-gets-white-looks-stirring-dispute.html?pagewanted=all">Old Skull Gets White Looks, Stirring Dispute</a>.” Indeed, as the paper commented, the bogus reports leading people to believe Kennewick Man might be a white person “heightened an already bitter and muddled battle over the rights to Kennewick Man’s remains and his origins.”</p>
<p>Hidden away from public view, the prehistoric remains were anything but forgotten. Many indigenous people came to view Kennewick Man as a symbol for the failings of the new NAGPRA law.</p>
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<span class="caption">Forensic anthropologists at the National Museum of Natural History examined Kennewick Man during 16 days of study in 2005 and 2006.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://newsdesk.si.edu/photos/kennewick-man-1">Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution</a></span>
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<p><a href="http://www.tamupress.com/product/Kennewick-Man,7921.aspx">Some scientists</a>, on the other hand, made impassioned arguments that the bones did not fall under the purview of the new rules. Their extreme age meant the remains were unlikely to be a direct ancestor of any living group. Following this logic, several influential scientists argued the bones should therefore be available for scientific study. Indeed, <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/kennewick-man-finally-freed-share-his-secrets-180952462/">extensive scientific tests</a> were carried out on the skeleton. </p>
<p>Two years after his discovery, Kennewick Man moved to the behind-the-scenes bone rooms at the Burke Museum on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle. The long tradition of gathering and interpreting human bones in museums made the decision seem almost natural. Still, it proved a highly problematic (and temporary) “solution” for many Native Americans who wanted the remains buried.</p>
<p>Last year, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/science/new-dna-results-show-kennewick-man-was-native-american.html">genetic testing finally proved</a> something many people had suggested for some time: Kennewick Man is <a href="http://doi.org/10.1038/nature14625">more closely related to Native Americans</a> than any other living human group.</p>
<h2>Reconciling scientific curiosity with scientific ethics</h2>
<p>Should human remains – including the rare, ancient or abnormal bodies sometimes considered especially valuable for science – ever be made into scientific specimens without their approval or that of their descendants? If we do choose to collect and study them for science, who controls the knowledge drawn from these bodies? </p>
<p>These are big questions. I argue that the effort to scientize the dead brings about distinct and specific responsibilities unique to human remains collections. Careful consideration is necessary. Cultural and historical context simply cannot be ignored. </p>
<p>By some estimates, museums today house <a href="http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/161946">more than half a million</a> individual Native American remains. Probably hundreds if not thousands of sets of skeletal remains will face these big questions in the coming decades.</p>
<p>Indicative of changing attitudes and ethical approaches to museum exhibition, recent calls to display Kennewick Man’s remains have largely been rebuked, despite potential for engaging large audiences. The prospect for new knowledge or effective popular education is tantalizing, but these objectives should never eclipse basic human and civil rights.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123269/original/image-20160519-4484-jrxzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123269/original/image-20160519-4484-jrxzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123269/original/image-20160519-4484-jrxzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123269/original/image-20160519-4484-jrxzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123269/original/image-20160519-4484-jrxzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123269/original/image-20160519-4484-jrxzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123269/original/image-20160519-4484-jrxzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123269/original/image-20160519-4484-jrxzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Museums across the country still have human remains in their bone rooms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderlane/4289519889">Wonderlane</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Two-and-a-half decades after NAGPRA, museums in the United States – including the American Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History – join the Burke Museum in continuing to maintain sizable human remains collections. Kennewick Man may be among the most high-profile cases of human remains going under the microscope – both in terms of the scientific study he was subject to and the intensity of the debate surrounding him – but he is certainly far from alone.</p>
<p>Skeletons wait patiently while the living attempt to work these problems out, but this patience is granted only because the bones have no other choice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59219/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Redman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A 9,000-year-old skeleton became a high-profile and highly contested case for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. How do we respectfully deal with ancient human remains?Samuel Redman, Assistant Professor of History, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.