Divers Find Evidence of Prehistoric Mining Operation in North America (cbsnews.com) 24
A reader shared this article from CBS News:
Experts and cave divers in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula have found ocher mines that are some of the oldest on the continent. Ancient skeletons were found in the narrow, twisting labyrinths of now-submerged sinkhole caves... The discovery of remains of human-set fires, stacked mining debris, simple stone tools, navigational aids and digging sites suggest humans went into the caves around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, seeking iron-rich red ocher, which early peoples in the Americas prized for decoration and rituals. Such pigments were used in cave paintings, rock art, burials and other structures among early peoples around the globe.
The early miners apparently brought torches or firewood to light their work, and broke off pieces of stalagmites to pound out the ocher. They left smoke marks on the roof of the caves that are still visible today...
The research was published Friday in the journal Science Advances... "Now, for the first time we know why the people of this time would undertake the enormous risk and effort to explore these treacherous caves," said CINDAQ founder Sam Meacham. At least one reason, Meacham said, was to prospect and mine red ocher.
The early miners apparently brought torches or firewood to light their work, and broke off pieces of stalagmites to pound out the ocher. They left smoke marks on the roof of the caves that are still visible today...
The research was published Friday in the journal Science Advances... "Now, for the first time we know why the people of this time would undertake the enormous risk and effort to explore these treacherous caves," said CINDAQ founder Sam Meacham. At least one reason, Meacham said, was to prospect and mine red ocher.
Who you calling "Native", white boy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Whom are you calling "native"? The different peoples known today as "native Americans" descend from, at least two different waves of Siberians [nytimes.com], their own habits, traditions, and means of making a living varying vastly from each other.
The Wampanoag [wikipedia.org], for example — the tribes, that greeted Pilgrims in the future Massachusetts — were farmers, fishers and hunters. They were happy to find a new tribe — advanced enough to help them against the Iroquois and Narragansett [wikipedia.org].
I wouldn't derive particular pride from "mining" iron ore to use as paint...
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> I wouldn't derive particular pride from "mining" iron ore to use as paint...
Not so fast. Mineral pigments are step up from feces.
Re:Who you calling "Native", white boy? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't derive particular pride from "mining" iron ore to use as paint...
Considering that many of the most exciting (for people at the time) chemical advances of the 1800s were those that allowed industrial production of dyes and paints, I wouldn't be so dismissive of the importance of paint production. Early organic chemistry was funded by excitement over the vivid colours it could produce.
Look around you right now and figure out how many of the products you're surrounded by would've succeeded in the market if they had been left uncoloured by their manufacturers. (Heck, look at your screen right now - how likely would you have been to buy it if it was still green on black?)
We're a visual species, and industry and trade have been driven by the search for unique and striking colours for millennia. If they were digging this deep for ochre, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the kind of trade good that could pull in trade goods from hundreds of miles around. Making things colourful is an important industry, the kind that motivates people to put the work in to make all kinds of other things that we need.
Re:Who you calling "Native", white boy? (Score:5, Funny)
> Look around you right now and figure out how many of the products you're surrounded by would've succeeded in the market if they had been left uncoloured by their manufacturers.
Coloring books for starters.
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Industrial production — of anything — is an achievement. Being able to scrounge enough extra food to afford collecting — by hand — coloredl dirt from the ground is not...
Cockatoos are "visual species" [cockatoo-info.com]...
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Iron ore? Pffft! The Navajo were mining uranium, giving them unquestioned strategic superiority over other tribes in the region.
Actually, they were using the colorful oxides as pottery glazes.
Re:Interesting theory (Score:5, Interesting)
This kind of thinking is why von Däniken and his followers think everything that was built in the pre-Columbian New World was done by aliens.
It's true that the Americas never developed sophisticated metallurgy, but on the flip side they performed numerous feats of civil engineering beyond anything seen in Europe since the fall of Rome. For example the Hohokam Canal system, which irrigated some 110,000 acres of desert land in Arizona, or the vast agricultural terraces of South America covering over 2.5 million acres.
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Sure, but most of that has been since 1492; the oldest still-existing polder dates to forty years later.
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But science still shows that native people couldn't invent shit until the white man came and settled them.
No, there was plenty of guano available then, too.
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Rising ocean levels (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Rising ocean levels (Score:4, Informative)
The sea has risen about 130 meters in the last 80,000 years.
https://www.e-education.psu.ed... [psu.edu]
Re:Rising ocean levels (Score:5, Informative)
Actually it's gone up by 125 meters since just 20,000 years ago, but it's important to note that 20,000 year ago much of the Northern Hemisphere was covered in an ice sheet about 3 km thick.
Huh? (Score:3)
"why the people of this time would undertake the enormous risk and effort to explore these treacherous caves,"
The caves have stalactites and -mites, they have been stable for a looooooong time, nothing treacherous about them.
Re: Huh? (Score:2)
Get lost, cut, break a leg, etc? With nothing but hand held torches it would still be pretty fucking dark and a lot of it in deep shadow.
I've been in "civilized" caves strung with electric lights and hand rails. Still gotta watch your step.
Medieval Europeans were big on ochre, too (Score:5, Interesting)
seeking iron-rich red ocher, which early peoples in the Americas prized for decoration and rituals.
I'm watching the BBC series "Secrets of the Castle", and ochre keeps coming in it, too. If you're painting something beautiful for a noble or a church in the 1200s, you're using ochre.
The found the iron mines (Score:3)
I would love to know how they dated this (Score:1)
I would love to know how they dated this, my guess is they pulled a number out of their arse.