[Agent Steel]

[youtube]R7baWokO4ms[/youtube]

I never knew about this. I'd like some second opinions about this from some people who have more knowledge of history than I do. Did the Native Americans really live in a utopia before the Europeans came here?

[anasawad]

Depending on the period.
Some periods were prosperous and had great living compared to everywhere else in the world.
And other periods had droughts and wars. and wasn't so good in general.
so it depends on which time period you are looking at.

[The Immortal Goon]

They were human beings, so like human beings, they had war, famine, slavery, all that fun stuff.

Depending on where you were though, things could be pretty ideal. In my area they knew of agriculture, but never used it as they had so much salmon, game, and wild fruits and vegetables. They just say around, Fucked, drank, and let food come to them.

[Suntzu]

When Europeans arrived in the New World the found stone age savages, no wheel, no metal tools, no beast of burden, no written language. The beautiful city Cortez found also had a "crib" containing 100,000 human skulls and human being butchered for meat.

[quetzalcoatl]

When Europeans arrived in the New World the found stone age savages, no wheel, no metal tools, no beast of burden, no written language. The beautiful city Cortez found also had a "crib" containing 100,000 human skulls and human being butchered for meat.

Native cultures weren't monolithic. There were as many different cultures as there were in Europe at a similar stage of development - they weren't any more (or any less) nasty than Europeans. But we all understand what you are doing. You want to justify the European colonization of the New World on the basis of the moral inferiority of its original inhabitants.

It's an accomplished fact, and justifications are irrelevant. The right has an obsession with justifying colonization carried out by Europeans. Libertarians even have an entire genre of writing arguing that the Civil War should have never been fought.

This is just as stupid as some of those on the left who vilify the White Europeans as a special class of evil. It has nothing to do with whiteness. It's just the intersection of geography, technology, and stage of development.

[Pants-of-dog]

I never knew about this. I'd like some second opinions about this from some people who have more knowledge of history than I do. Did the Native Americans really live in a utopia before the Europeans came here?

No, it was not utopia.

Also, Youtube videos are a pretty questionable source.

[MistyTiger]

No, it was not utopia.

Also, Youtube videos are a pretty questionable source.

I agree. A lot of Youtube videos are made by hyperactive or bored individuals. The ones who take on more serious subject might not have enough knowledge about it, but they read one or two books and they think they have it all figured out.

[youtube]R7baWokO4ms[/youtube]

I never knew about this. I'd like some second opinions about this from some people who have more knowledge of history than I do. Did the Native Americans really live in a utopia before the Europeans came here?

The idea of a utopia is a myth. Like the settlers, the Natives had to face harsh winters, cold spells, droughts...all kinds of difficulties that nature brought their way. They cannot control everything. As any living being or creature, they had to adapt to their surroundings. They had tips and tricks to make life seem easier.

[Agent Steel]

The source is Russia Today. It's just being broadcast through youtube. What do you mean when you make a generalized statement that youtube videos are a bad source? They can come from literally ANYWHERE.

[ThirdTerm]

Cherokee woman

I have a theory that the so-called Native Americans are actually descendants of European settlers who went native after disappearing from settlements. Haplogroup R1 (Y-DNA) (specially R1b) is the second most predominant Y haplotype among them: Cherokee (47%), Dogrib (40%) and Tohono O'odham (38%). If this European admixture were only the result of occasional interbreeding (i.e. Pocahontas), these percentages would be much lower (5-10%). The paternal DNA heritage of the Cherokee tribe is almost half European.

Cliff Pallace is a spectacular cliff ruin in Mesa Verde Nation Park in southwestern Colorado.

[Suntzu]

Native cultures weren't monolithic. There were as many different cultures as there were in Europe at a similar stage of development - they weren't any more (or any less) nasty than Europeans. But we all understand what you are doing. You want to justify the European colonization of the New World on the basis of the moral inferiority of its original inhabitants.

It's an accomplished fact, and justifications are irrelevant. The right has an obsession with justifying colonization carried out by Europeans. Libertarians even have an entire genre of writing arguing that the Civil War should have never been fought.

This is just as stupid as some of those on the left who vilify the White Europeans as a special class of evil. It has nothing to do with whiteness. It's just the intersection of geography, technology, and stage of development.

At a similar stage of development? Give me a break. You didn't read the part about "stone age"?

[Suntzu]

Much of Indian culture was wiped out by disease that proceeded the actual European advance through trade connections.

[quetzalcoatl]

They weren't at a similar stage of development. That's the point.

[NightShadows]

I think that a lot of seemingly "white" people were originally ingenious people. Well, actually it's true that we all were at some point, but I mean more recently as well. Some Natives hid their ancestry and pretended to be white, it's been put on record in some cases.

It's just that there' a lot of dark white people out there and I have a feeling that many of them hid their ancestry at some point, or that it was common for ingenious people to do this. My grandfather wasn't stereotypically ethnic looking and for sure he was at least half white but he always had really dark skin and when I look at photos at him I really wonder what his ancestry was. Also my Grandmother was Metis, which is basically an ingenious person of Canada, but basically the first explorers to North America were the French, looking for an un-colonized land to escape from their oppressive government and when they found the Natives people there, they actually lived with them and started families. They were still considered ingenious because generally they only had like one or two really "french" ancestors but they had their own culture that was a mixture of French there original tribes to celebrate their unique identities I suppose.

So I as well my Grandmother who was Metis married my Grandfather who claimed to be white and they more or less both passed off as being white and I guess I am more or less sort of "white" but who can say! And also my father was adopted, and on his birth certificate or whatever it was, it claimed his mother was German but sometimes I think he must have been an Ashkenazi Jew or something because of his features. Sure, he looked mostly German, but his nose was kind of different. It was not really big, it looked different and as well he had thick black curly hair.

Now that everyone is pointing fingers at America and saying that anyone who is conservative now is a "meth addicted white trash redneck" it makes me sad because the West overall is a huge melting pot and we're all pretty much mutts. I don't think I would be such a mutt if I was from somewhere else.


Uh, all the pointed remarks against white people is a little unsettling though. As I am part Native American and as well grew up next to a large Indian Reservation and honestly, yes they have lots of problems but many of them choose to drink and commit crimes and the like. So of them honestly were given some really nice pieces of land as retribution from the government and yet they seemingly still choose to live in squalor and drink. A lot of Natives seriously cannot handle alcohol. They also choose to live in resentment and bitterness over what happened to them a really long time ago and it's those feelings that kind of fuel a lot of their behavior. I mean they cannot really get over what happened to them.

[NightShadows]

Cherokee woman

I have a theory that the so-called Native Americans are actually descendants of European settlers who went native after disappearing from settlements. Haplogroup R1 (Y-DNA) (specially R1b) is the second most predominant Y haplotype among them: Cherokee (47%), Dogrib (40%) and Tohono O'odham (38%). If this European admixture were only the result of occasional interbreeding (i.e. Pocahontas), these percentages would be much lower (5-10%). The paternal DNA heritage of the Cherokee tribe is almost half European.

Cliff Pallace is a spectacular cliff ruin in Mesa Verde Nation Park in southwestern Colorado.

The Native American were Asians and as well they had inter-bred with Romans at a few points in history.

This is a Siberian women, the style and appearance almost looks exactly like the Native Americans.


I guess they are not really "asian" either.

[ThirdTerm]

The origins of the First Americans remain contentious. Although Native Americans seem to be genetically most closely related to east Asians1, 2, 3, there is no consensus with regard to which specific Old World populations they are closest to4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Here we sequence the draft genome of an approximately 24,000-year-old individual (MA-1), from Mal’ta in south-central Siberia9, to an average depth of 1×. To our knowledge this is the oldest anatomically modern human genome reported to date. The MA-1 mitochondrial genome belongs to haplogroup U, which has also been found at high frequency among Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic European hunter-gatherers10, 11, 12, and the Y chromosome of MA-1 is basal to modern-day western Eurasians and near the root of most Native American lineages5. Similarly, we find autosomal evidence that MA-1 is basal to modern-day western Eurasians and genetically closely related to modern-day Native Americans, with no close affinity to east Asians. This suggests that populations related to contemporary western Eurasians had a more north-easterly distribution 24,000 years ago than commonly thought. Furthermore, we estimate that 14 to 38% of Native American ancestry may originate through gene flow from this ancient population. This is likely to have occurred after the divergence of Native American ancestors from east Asian ancestors, but before the diversification of Native American populations in the New World. Gene flow from the MA-1 lineage into Native American ancestors could explain why several crania from the First Americans have been reported as bearing morphological characteristics that do not resemble those of east Asians2, 13. Sequencing of another south-central Siberian, Afontova Gora-2 dating to approximately 17,000 years ago14, revealed similar autosomal genetic signatures as MA-1, suggesting that the region was continuously occupied by humans throughout the Last Glacial Maximum. Our findings reveal that western Eurasian genetic signatures in modern-day Native Americans derive not only from post-Columbian admixture, as commonly thought, but also from a mixed ancestry of the First Americans.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v5 ... 12736.html

West Siberian populations such as Mansi and Khants have the high frequency of hg U4, which is a West Eurasian haplogroup inherited from ancient European hunting-gatherers. The presence of Asian haplogroups is a result of population admixture which goes back to 6,000–10,000 years ago. Ancient Siberians who lived around 24,000-10,000 years ago had no East Asian admixture and the 24,000-year-old individual (MA-1) from Mal’ta was genetically European. Raghavan et al. (2014) found that MA-1 is ancestral to modern-day western Eurasians and it's also related to modern-day Native Americans (14-38%). MA-1 belongs to Y-DNA haplogroup R* and mtDNA haplogroup U. Haplogroup U is a typical haplogroup of European hunter-gatherers and Y-DNA haplogroup R* is the ancestral haplogroup for R1a and R1b. Native Americans carry a high frequency of R1 (R-M173), which may be partially derived from MA-1 in addition to presumed post-Columbian admixture. Haplogroup R-M173 (R1) is common among some Native American tribes (38-79%) and R1 is also widespread among certain south-central Siberian groups. The paper by Raghavan et al. (2014) proved that Native Americans were around 30% European prior to the arrival of European settlers but we're still not sure about the Siberian origin of hg R1b, which would be up to future studies to connect dots.