Can the culture whose urban remains have been recently uncovered in Brazil be considered a Neolithic village or a civilization? According to the information available in the Nat Geo piece, this city was made of village clusters organized like medieval towns in Europe. Well, what do you think? Can the organizing principle of civilization be applied to this finding? Or this is just a Ban Po or Jomon-like site?
History is a work in progress. I am really interested in whether this archaeological site will establish a new paradigm or just add data to our current body of knowledge. The article also reports on the issue of environmental interaction. Would this place be an example of a form of civilization in balance with the environment?
Read the article and react! Remember that this is free writing and that no APWH rubrics will be used to measure your inputs. Write poetry if you want to! But react! You can also post images, movies, and other media.
14 comments:
(This is my first time blogging!!!!)
I am very happy to announce that this is my first time blogging. As far as we have studied in the AP World History course I believe that this newly found Neolithic "village" should be considered as a village not as a civilization, which is the topic of our first blog subject. I believe it should be considered a village not a civilization because of the fact that up to now it is only that newly found location, not a group of them in an area. If more locations are found then the culture of the group of locations should be studied to determine if they had the characteristics to be a civilization: writing, social strata, trade and communication, jobs, etc.
Prof. Bravo I hope this is enough information as to what you were looking for. I still have no idea what exactly is expected of such blog.
Excellent! I agree. However, what is puzzling for me is the possibility of a "city" in the midst of a flood (as you know the Amazon is an unstoppable muddy current that increases levels surprisingly). How were they able to adapt their "city" (if it's not Neolithic) to such environment? If they produced innovations to overcome such environmental challenges they must have had social organization.
i agree with andy . this is just a recent discovery with little evidence to support its being a civilization . that we know of its not a large settlement or a group of villages, its just a newly found area where human traces were left behind . we also know minimal information about the people, their customs, etc . so until further findings about the area, it should be considered a village not a civilization ..
I am not letting this one slide so easily! Andy and Sophie, you are not considering the following evidence:
"the repeated patterns within and among settlements across the landscape suggest a highly ordered and planned society"
Well it "suggests," yet we should be opened to the possibility of civilization
"(...) two major clusters—or polities—of towns, villages, and hamlets. Each cluster contains a central seat of ritualistic power with wide roads radiating out to other communities."
Well, from our readings we know that shrines were also centers for Neolithic societies- this one I'll accept doesn't support the theory of a civilization in the Amazon. Still, consider this one:
"Each settlement is organized around a central plaza and linked to others via precisely placed roads."
And here is the nagging conundrum of this article, or its challenge to the notions of civilization and urbanism:
"Hecht [ Susan Hecht, an Amazon specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles] said the research also challenges the idea that urbanism means a central, dominant, and powerful city."
So, are you notions of civilization challenged???
I think I have become addicted to this blogging thing.
Contrary to Andy or Sophia, after reading the passage I feel that the discoveries in the Amazon are of actual civilizations because:
1-they had repeated patterns in landscape
This means that they must of had an efficient form of leadership/organization.
2- Heckenberge discovered there were "two major clusters—or polities—of towns, villages, and hamlets" and "Each cluster contains a central seat of ritualistic power with wide roads radiating out to other communities"
In class we have studied how trade has occurred since our early ancestors and if these people had roads they must of had some form of trade and communication because these would make it easier to interact with other cities. Also, Heckenberge found that the ancient amazon cities had a central ritualistic thing and this is similar to what we have studied with the sumerian ziggurats.
Hence I undoubtedly think that this discovery was of an ancient civilization.
The way the American indigenous did these patterns for me it was a very good idea because every little community was like the same distance to the main place of the main place of the whole civilization. So there was no community in which was to far every one was almost equally in the since of distance. This way was much better especially for the Chasquis who were highly trained runners and agile people who ran from place to place to deliver messages or objects so in this way the distances they had to run were less.
If this theory is true we can say that American Native people were very organized without no influence of the Europeans because it is said that this line patterns have been present since before the arrival of the Europeans in the 15th and 16th century. When the Europeans arrived that was when they disappeared because of the diseases they brought.
I think that this is very interesting because there is a lot of history facts discovered but yet a lot to discover more.
Great connection Jose Oscar! The Chasquis are an example of how urbanization depends on defined infra-structure (roads).
After reading the comments from everybody else, I found out I was missing something. I didn't know that there was a link to the real article. Now that I have read it, i want to restate my opinion on the post. My position on the matter has changed to believe that this culture was in fact a civilization. The facts that lead me to this new opinion was that there are many similarly planned cities. Another was that the cities were intricately planned with central plazas and districts spanning forth from there (I went on to find more information on the matter because I felt it was very interesting). In conclusion, my front for this post is that the newly founf culture in the Amazon is indeed a long-lost civilization, awaiting to be uncovered and provide us with more knowledge for our course.
well i think that it's a village. This city just shows that it had long and advanced infrastructure, for trade, and well-planned cities plazas, etc. Of all ive read i didnt find any discoveries that say that the civilization had a writing system, statues or temples that show that it had a religion, and weapons that show that the city had a military system. these things make up a civilization. these well-planed cities and long roads are just improvements created because it makes things easier. i can plan a grid system of houses just by drawing a map of it with a stick in the floor and just telling them what to do verbally. the same with the roads. in my opinion, language isnt a big deal when we're dealing in this particular time in history because communication was already formulated by hunter-gatherers even thousands of years before this city. It's obvious that they traded, but even small villages in Sumer traded. i also think that these planned cities and walls was a need not just the luxury to be organized. in difficult & unpredictable climate like this, there isnt much space, for constant change of farming areas due to the soil not being so good, the need of space for so much people, and the limitations by natural problems.
Okai . Jose makes a clear point with his opinion. Still i disagree. The first argumental note fall on them not developing a writting system. So I would like to point out that cultures in the Americas emerged much later than did the ones in the Western World and all of the great meso-civilizations flourished without a writing system.
Let's take also the example of Harrapan culture, where what we have to decide if they were a civilization is their over-the-top city planning and other factors such as inter regional trade. In this new Amazon City we have a organized city plan which apparantly was not that simple to accomplish taking into perspective that some cities of the Middle Ages did not compare in the sense of city planning. With any great project within a civilization there needs to be a able body of leadership to facilitate the growth of the culture. And yes these things are made to make life easier, which is the main motive for invention...
In conclusion, I believe that the Amazon City could infact be a civilization because of the effective city planning and all the god-given factors that implies.
As the devil’s advocate, I have to say that Jose has a great point- Sumer villages traded and they weren't a civilization until they reached their urban development. What about Jenne-Jeno? It's still considered by many a Neolithic village. If it wasn't for the Nok’s metal smelting (which ironically is attributed to the contact with Phoenician traders), their spread of sedimentary culture and innovations to South Africa, and their big walled network of villages, we wouldn't dare to name it a civilization. Yet, I also agree with Ceci- both Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa were highly organized urban centers with a high level of administrative organization. So, it’s very likely that the newly discovered city in the Amazon may rank as civilization in the Harappa or Niger categories.
Although historians prefer writing, we know that urban layouts (predecessors of the micro-ship in terms of their complex intricate organization), are a physical manifestation of the teleology of a civilization, In simple words, a city layout offers a concrete manifest of the inhabitants' origin and purpose.
Well after reading every one's comment I would have to say that José’s is probably the one I agree on the most simply because his opinion is strictly based on the standard of what makes a civilization a civilization and not a village. But on that note you'd have to also understand that the standard of what is a civilization is flawed because cities like Tenochtclan who also had no serious form of writing are considered civilizations simply due to their sheer size. So if the Aztecs were considered a civilization without a form of writing who says that the site in the Amazon couldn't become a city or wasn't already. The basic understanding of that, writing came as a result of growing population of a city should be bended or changed these kind of exceptions. In fact there are also a lot of other extensive facts that prove it to actually be a very organized city. Like the extensive trade and road routes and the center pieces of the city (whatever it might be). So in a controversy like this one were opinions are thrown from all directions and perspectives I think that regardless what my opinion is, the fact of the matter is that this city does not yet fit the criteria of what is considered a city. In the end my answer is village.
Post a Comment