It is generally accepted history that the Spaniards and other Europeans brought diseases with them that killed off the indigenous people of the Americas. There is certainly some truth to that in some areas of the New World -- but it may not be the case in Mexico, which is usually cited as Exhibit A for the "foreign diseases" argument.

Here's what history tells us about the Spanish conquest of Mexico: Armed with modern weapons and Old World diseases, several hundred Spanish soldiers toppled the Aztec empire in 1521. And by the end of the century, the invaders' guns, steel and germs had wiped out 90 percent of the natives.

It's a key piece of the "Black Legend," the tales of atrocities committed by the Spanish Inquisition and colonizers of the New World.

But it may be just that — legend, according to Rodolfo Acuña-Soto, a Harvard-trained epidemiologist.

He argues that an unknown indigenous hemorrhagic fever may have killed the bulk of Mexico's native population, which plummeted from an estimated 22 million in 1519, when the Spaniards arrived, to 2 million in 1600.

And he warns that the fever — which the Aztecs called cocoliztli in their Nahuatl language — may still be lurking in remote rural areas of Mexico.

Not everyone buys the theory. But Acuña-Soto, who spent 12 years poring over colonial archives, census data, graveyard records and autopsy reports, is convinced that many historians are wrong about what killed the Aztecs.

"The problem with history is that it's very ideological," he said. "In this case, it was a beautiful way of accusing the Spaniards of unimaginable cruelties and of decimating the population of Mexico."

Spanish colonizers were far from blameless, he quickly points out. By subjecting the Indians to slave-like conditions and malnutrition, they made them more vulnerable to the disease, he said.

"Of course, there's a terrible story of cruelty and disease that killed a huge amount of indigenous people," he said. "But we don't know what this disease was."

Acuña-Soto, who has published his findings in several international scholarly journals, is a research professor at Mexico's National Autonomous University.

Notice, this doesn't absolve teh Spanish of charges of great cruelty. But it does raise the possibility that something else was at work -- and that the agent of infection is still around. I ca't wait to se what further research shows.

Posted by: Greg at 04:41 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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This could change our whole picture of the emergence of human civilization.

The remains of what has been described as a huge lost city may force historians and archaeologists to radically reconsider their view of ancient human history.

Marine scientists say archaeological remains discovered 36 metres (120 feet) underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India could be over 9,000 years old.

The vast city - which is five miles long and two miles wide - is believed to predate the oldest known remains in the subcontinent by more than 5,000 years.

The site was discovered by chance last year by oceanographers from India's National Institute of Ocean Technology conducting a survey of pollution.

Using sidescan sonar - which sends a beam of sound waves down to the bottom of the ocean they identified huge geometrical structures at a depth of 120ft.

Debris recovered from the site - including construction material, pottery, sections of walls, beads, sculpture and human bones and teeth has been carbon dated and found to be nearly 9,500 years old.

Read the whole article -- it is fascinating.

Posted by: Greg at 12:52 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I've got a Holocaust-deying troll who has been infesting my site for some time. He is an immoral, intellectually-deficient pseud-Christian hate-monger. But under no circumstance should he be considered a criminal for his holding and expression of a repugnant view that is contrary to the overwhelming weight of historical evidence.

A situation taking place in Europe now illustrates the folly of laws banning the publication of what the government decides is the only correct interpretation of historical evidence.

Turkey's painful progress towards European Union membership has been plunged into crisis by a dispute with the French over the massacre of Armenians during and after the 1914-18 war.

A Socialist-backed proposal, which could pass the National Assembly on Thursday, would make it illegal in France to deny that the killings amounted to genocide by Turkey.

The legislation, which has gained support from Right-wing assembly members, would see anyone denying that a genocide took place jailed for up to five years.

Armenians claim that as many as 1.5 million of their ancestors were killed between 1915 and 1923 in an organised campaign to eradicate them from eastern Turkey.

The Turkish government fiercely denies a genocide, saying that hundreds of thousands of Turks and Armenians died in a civil war.

Under Turkish law, it is illegal to accuse the state of genocide. Scores of Turkish writers and intellectuals who have debated the massacres publicly have faced prosecution under article 301 of the penal code, outlawing insults to "Turkishness".

The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reacted with indignation to the French proposal, asking: "What would you do if the Turkish prime minister came to France and denied that the genocide had taken place? Arrest him?"

And therein lies the problem. Such an official, while clearly wrong about the history of his own nation, would not be a criminal in any moral sense -- merely deluded. After all, the documentary evidence is too strong -- including pictures of soldiers standing next to piles of severed heads of Armenian men, women and children.

But neither is the scholar who dares to present that evidence to document the grave evil that took place betwen 1915 and 1923 a criminal, for all of Turkey's attempt to punish those who dare to speak the truth about the murder of millions of Christian Armenians by Muslim Turks acting (for at least part of that time) on behalf of the religious government of the Muslim Ottoman Empire.

The study of history is not a crime. Stating one's conclusions should not be, either.

Posted by: Greg at 10:44 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Proof that past mistakes can be corrected.

Just before 6 p.m. on a recent evening, students began to fill a lecture hall at Vanderbilt University. Some pressed cellphones to their ears, others sipped cups of coffee. Flip-flops scuffed the carpet as the students shed book bags and opened laptops

A typical class, perhaps — until the teacher with the shock of white hair rose from the table at the front of the hall, greeted the students and asked a question: “How many of you have experienced a hate crime against yourself? Let’s see the hands.”

So began the lecture by the Rev. James M. Lawson Jr., 78, who returned to teach at Vanderbilt this fall, 46 years after the university expelled him for his role in lunch-counter sit-ins that made Nashville a springboard for a generation of civil rights activists.

The expulsion of Mr. Lawson, a Methodist divinity student who was one of the nationÂ’s leading scholars of civil disobedience and Gandhian nonviolence, was quickly dubbed the Lawson affair, and tarnished VanderbiltÂ’s reputation for years. University officials apologized to Mr. Lawson long ago, honoring him and inviting him back for periodic lectures. Even Harvie Branscomb, the chancellor who presided over Mr. LawsonÂ’s ouster, apologized before his death.

But the invitation to return as a visiting professor is a new chapter in relations between Vanderbilt and its famous former student.

“It isn’t often that an institution gets the chance to correct for a previous error,” said Lucius Outlaw, Vanderbilt’s associate provost for undergraduate education, who first proposed that Mr. Lawson be asked here for the year.

This is a course I would love to be able to take. It isn't often that you get to hear from the participants in historical events.

Posted by: Greg at 10:33 PM | Comments (24) | Add Comment
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