[Aztlan] Race and ethnicity in the past

Thu Jan 15 14:16:23 CST 2009

Lloyd (and others)-

On the first note, there is a decent amount of evidence that many 
peoples in the past didn't care much about a person's "race" (i.e., 
images of people with different 'racial' attributes pictured together, 
perhaps even in 'elite' contexts). What I remember (and someone can 
correct me if I am wrong) is that our version of racism came about with 
the Age of Discovery, especially with the advent of transoceanic 
voyaging. In just a manner of weeks or months one could be in a place 
with people who looked utterly different than oneself without seeing the 
variation in populations between one's own people and new ones being 
seen for the first time. Also, many of these voyagers expected to find 
monsters and strange 'mythological' beasts in their travels. It is no 
surprise then when they encountered people very different than 
themselves they found them to be 'monstrous' and qualitatively different 
from themselves. This is less likely to happen when you are traveling by 
other means where you tend to travel through intervening populations and 
see phenotypic traits change as you move through space. It is harder to 
see people, even at the 'other end' as all that different from yourself 
when you have seen the variation in between (Marco Polo and Ibn .

Such early racism is clear in the treatment of Africans who were brought 
to the New World as slaves. While one can argue that slaves have existed 
for a long time, I am convinced that American slavery with its 
foundation in racism is different than capturing an individual from a 
neighboring cultural group. No matter how much you may hate that person 
it is easier to see them as human because they are more like you than 
some one from across an ocean.

Lastly, we seem to have become scientifically obsessed with it beginning 
with Linnaeus, who was the first to split humans into different species 
(as with other animals). Much of what he used included things like 
dress, etc. which are clearly cultural and not biological. Indeed, to 
anthropology's great shame one of the first things we did (1800s) was 
measure all sorts of skulls of different races and identified traits 
that "proved" that 'whites' or Caucasians (or a subgroup such as Aryans) 
were superior to others. Of course all of these studies have been 
disproven, starting with the great Franz Boas.

My point is definitely not that people in the past were not concerned 
with how other people looked. Indeed, where I work on the coast of 
Ecuador people practiced a form of cranial deformation that elongated 
the skull. It appears that this was a physical way of separating the 
elite from the 'rest'. Is it racism, however? That would involve knowing 
how the 'elite' treated others, something that would be very hard to 
prove archaeologically. I think it is quite likely that people saw 
people who looked differently in different ways, but can I prove one way 
or the other that these people were concerned with race or not, NO. But, 
it is clear to me that racism as practiced in the US is different and, 
therefore, our concern with it is probably different than people in the 
past. I find it unlikely that racism, as practiced in the US (let's say 
pre-1950) was common in the prehistoric world. It may have existed 
somewhere, however, and I would find that extremely interesting.

Ben Carter, PhD, RPA

ECOLING at aol.com wrote:
> Thanks to Michael Smith for his interesting post yesterday
> and the wonderful references comparing more recent times.
>
> I am intrigued by the notion that the modern West is obsessed by race.
> Is that actually true?   If so, why?   Is there more co-existence of large 
> populations from radically different origins in modern societies 
> which might give rise to that?   Or is it merely that we are closer to it so 
> we 
> see our own societies in a way which we can only get hints of for ancient
> societies where we only have evidence from archaeology *and other fields*?
>
> *
>
> I must still second Nick Hopkins's presentation, however.
> In particular, I must protest the following statement by Michael Smith.
> (I am a linguist, but don't want to hold linguistics above other fields,
> it's merely where I happen by accidents of history
> to have the most skills and knowledge.)
>
> <<Perhaps rather than saying that I don't care what language was
> spoken at Teo (I forget exactly what I said), I should have said
> that the ethnic identity of the people of Teo is not the most important
> thing to know about them.>>
>
> While I can agree with a fraction of this, the question itself is wrong.
> We should not be in the business of trying to say what fields of
> study are *more important* than others.   Knowing the ethnic identity
> of parts of a cultural phenomenon may be crucial to *interpreting*
> what they do or create.   Which of these types of behaviors and
> objects are inherited from which of their ancestors, or may be
> greatly illuminated by comparisons with their brothers and sisters
> and cousins (other cultures who share parts of their ancestries)?
> Which of the behaviors and objects are conservative (merely
> carrying on what some of the ancestors did), and which are
> innovations or syntheses?   Discovering partial answers to these
> questions can suggest quite different interpretations, and can
> sometimes rescue us from partly or completely wrong-headed
> interpretations which a single field (whether archaeology or
> any other) would come up with in isolation.   Question about
> ethic identity are closely linked with questions about history
> and ancestry.
>
> By contrast, Michael Smith's comment shows a great willingness
> to make other kinds of comparisons with other cultures across
> time and space.   Wonderful.
>
> The "more important" statement however 
> seems to be much like the sometimes-cooperative and
> sometimes-competitive relations between epigraphy,
> iconography, and archaeology in Mayan studies.   Specialists in
> one field tend to prefer and think their own field more important
> that others in which they have less interest or skills.
> Such claims of importance are usually quite wrong,
> justified only from particular limited perspectives.
> Better questions are not which is "more important",
> but rather how each can contribute what the others will miss.
>
> An example very much on my mind is the synthesis of 
> climate history with human history which is greatly promoted
> by Richardson Gill's _The Great Maya Droughts_.
> (I've had it for years, and have lost much by not delving into it
> earlier in depth much earlier -- one of those field boundary things.)
> This synthesis strengthens and integrates several views of the past,
> and can do as much as further studies of written or inscribed
> records or archaeology to help establish historical validity
> (or not) for parts of those records.   The records can also help
> to validate parts of the climate history.   A fascinating item
> from it is that the great drought and famine of "1 Rabbit" (1454) in
> the Central Mexican histories is in Gill's analysis the same one as
> brought down the city of Mayapan (1451-1454).   
> These are usually not discussed together, because of multiple
> kinds of field boundaries.
> Alva Ixtlilxochitl recorded an eclipse for that time in Central Mexico, 
> and an eclipse is also recorded for the corresponding passage 
> in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel (Roys 1933:77).
> Since eclipses are not mentioned for all droughts,
> this may be significant.
>
> Onwards in trying to integrate information.
>
> Lloyd Anderson
> Ecological Linguistics
> PO Box 15156
> Washington DC 20003
> ecoling at aol.com
> 202-547-7683
>
>
>
> **************
> A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy 
> steps! 
> (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1215855013x1201028747/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=De
> cemailfooterNO62)
> _______________________________________________
> Aztlan mailing list
> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/aztlan
> Click here to post a message Aztlan at lists.famsi.org
> Click to view Calendar of Events http://research.famsi.org/events/events.php
>
>
>
>   