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Sylvan_Skryer t1_j9mas58 wrote

How could it be that people who were living in NA for millennia found fossils before other people that came to the US just 500 years ago?

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[deleted] t1_j9mnkok wrote

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[deleted] t1_j9n2ibi wrote

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davtruss t1_j9owrtl wrote

Why do the Chinese revere dragon bones? I mean, after you've excavated enough dragons to bury the Emperor's wives, word gets around.

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PerformanceNow t1_j9mfejt wrote

I highly doubt the first fossil finders in North America were slaves who came on in 1492 at the earliest. The Native Americans were here for thousands of years before Columbus, and so were the Vikings. It's more likely to believe they were the first to discover fossils.

But, yes, the article points out a much needed aspect of American history that the first archaeologists working for westerners were enslaved.

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panckage t1_j9mstrr wrote

Fossils should preserve well though, right? Ivd be really really surprised if no fossils have been found in native archeological sites... I mean if you find a cool trilobite fossil or something... It would make a nice decoration...

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The_Cysko_Kid t1_j9ofx8s wrote

I've picked up a rock and found that it had fossilized material in it. Does that mean im an archaeologist? If so I think I deserve a raise.

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JH76 t1_j9osahc wrote

Archeologists don’t study fossils though.

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PerformanceNow t1_j9p3nbo wrote

What do you mean? Isn't it part of the skillset to be an archaeologist? I know certain anthropologists specialize in it. But I had always thought archaeologists also had a cursory knowledge of the subject. Maybe I'm wrong.

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JH76 t1_j9p5xip wrote

Fossils are studied by Paleontologists. The vast majority of times, fossilization takes at least 10,000 years so archeologist, who themselves specialize in studying remains of human activity, tend not to look for or study fossils.

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PerformanceNow t1_j9pipge wrote

Hmm. I thought paleontologists were simply interested in animal fossils, not human fossils.

You learn something new everyday.

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commentist t1_j9mbbl3 wrote

Hard to argue that first fossil were not discovered by Indigenous people, however consider this colonization of current US geographical area started 1492 first ship with slaves landed in 1619. That is 127 years and it is very possible that some of the early settlers discovered fossils.

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Skogula t1_j9mno1p wrote

The people here before 1492 discovered fossils earlier.

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HumanContinuity t1_j9p8ddn wrote

Weird, just like their comment said that same fact earlier than yours!

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petit_cochon t1_j9mrf3v wrote

Something people seem to not notice: indigenous people were enslaved and had slaves. Of course they found fossils.

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[deleted] t1_j9nws5o wrote

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The_Cysko_Kid t1_j9ofjmj wrote

So...smithsonian mag can't identify who these enslaved people were, who they were enslaved by, or what they were actually doing but they can say wirh absolute certainty they dug up a mammoth tooth and were able to correctly identify it, and that their place of origin was in the congo.

Sounds like a cool story with, you know, quite a bit of creative license.

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CamelSpotting t1_j9pf5j4 wrote

It doesn't say they can't identify who they were enslaved by, learning and recording the names of slaves wasn't that common, and digging has been one of the most common labors in history. What exactly is your issue?

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Plydgh t1_j9pnxbw wrote

Presumably the mammoth remains would have been identified by somebody. And somebody would have written something about this down. Otherwise we wouldn’t know it happened.

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CamelSpotting t1_j9pqrom wrote

Presumably reading the article would identify that somebody.

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kompootor t1_j9ncmus wrote

This article, like a lot of articles that deal with any history of science before modern science, seems to drastically exaggerate the value of any piece of information or insight given before modern science starts developing, slowly, at the end of the 18th century, and it similarly exaggerates, by giving any meaning to, any similarity to a modern science concept and anything proposed pre-science. So as a lazy example, you can read Aristotle for a few pages and feel like there's some deep insight, like he knew some greater truth, until you realize that when he's making up theories on 100 things he might get lucky with a handful of sentences, or one or two propositions, that sound like something in the textbooks once people start actually doing things methodically. This kind of stuff is valuable to history, H&PoS, and anthropology, but it's not science.

That said, the main contribution of people like Cuvier, more than any now woefully-incorrect theory or now-erroneous classification he made (I'm not familiar with paleontology, but the "father of" figures have this in common), seems to be getting the people coming after to study and build upon existing literature, learn a methodology and follow it, publish findings (not hide them), and tutor others. In that sense, if what's said in the final section of the article is representative, then as this work is bringing new people into the academic field it is arguably at least of comparable value to the science as its original foundations.

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kompootor t1_j9nctfj wrote

The article still seems problematic though. They're really pushing it in the second section, like the wording was changed to just barely be factual or impressive. Or not. For example,

>Native Americans also posited that megafauna like giant beavers and bison had shrunk to their present sizes over time.

They picked the bison right, since that basically did just shrink directly to the modern form. The giant beaver however is unrelated to the modern beaver. Same with the other megafauna -- simply shrinking seems to be a major exception.

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Nathan_Poe t1_j9p41i7 wrote

So the claim is people who lived in North America for over 10,000 years found fossils?

Ok, I guess I can believe that.

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[deleted] t1_j9me7ho wrote

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jcrave t1_j9mgfvq wrote

Meh, it’s giving credit to people involved in the process their proper due. I think that’s fair. If you read the article, it talks about how paleontologists in the mid 20th century downplayed the role slaves and natives played in the process and how it’s affected minority diversity within the geo-science community in the present.

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Wellgoodmornin t1_j9mjlt1 wrote

But that's pretty much par for the course for things like that, right? Everyone knows Lord Carnarvon found King Tuts tomb but no one knows who the guys digging were. Not that it should be that way it just is.

It would be really interesting if they had a journal or something from one of the slaves as unlikely as that would be, but this is essentially "People used slaves to dig holes in 18th century America" which is pretty expected.

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InevitableBohemian t1_j9mtr91 wrote

If you read the article, it has some pretty cool stories about early fossil discovery and identification from enslaved and indigenous people, including some of the first identification of a mammoth molar as belonging to an elephant-like creature (the slaves had some experience with elephants, you see.) Notably, this stood at odds to a prevailing theory that it was from giants who drowned in Noah's flood.

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Wellgoodmornin t1_j9mvgem wrote

I will admit it's more interesting than i originally thought. I stopped reading after they seemed to move on from the elephant tooth to Lewis and Clark because I wanted to know more about the elephant tooth and it annoyed me. I didn't realize they circle back to it.

*mammoth tooth

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jcrave t1_j9mjtlx wrote

> Not that it should be that way it just is.

There’s your answer why this article exists.

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TRex19000 t1_j9mkkob wrote

But every non insane person knows slave labor was used in every aspect back then?

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jcrave t1_j9mr519 wrote

Slave labor in early American paleontology is definitely not a topic that’s been explored a lot. People may “know” it existed, but there are always more stories to tell. That’s the great thing about historical research.

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b_needs_a_cookie t1_j9nbmbx wrote

You'd be surprised what people aren't aware of or what they default to societal biases on if not clearly informed. Also, having a general inkling about slavery being used versus having a story/article/documentary clearly describe, model and expand upon its use will result into two different levels of an informed population.

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MOIST_PEOPLE t1_j9ns189 wrote

Children don't if they are not told. I don't know how old you are, or if you have kids, but at my age, almost 50, and having kids; You get a weird perspective of how youngster don't know anything they aren't told, and that once you die, you will be forgotten quickly, along with everything you know. Social narratives only live a short time as truths, real quick the change and become something different.

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DM_YOUR_BUTT t1_j9mcawb wrote

I mean it makes perfect sense that people doing hard labour outdoors would be likely to find fossils

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OuchieMuhBussy t1_j9n7u5w wrote

The first hunters in North America were also indigenous.

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[deleted] t1_j9oekna wrote

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CamelSpotting t1_j9pg0c6 wrote

Before formal science existed you weren't going to do much better than that. What's special is having workers that have say seen elephants before and can recognize the similarity.

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Anticrepuscular_Ray t1_j9mrlxe wrote

Of course they were, there are even archaeological sites documented with dinosaur fossils within them. How anyone wouldn't consider them as the first fossil finders of NA is mind-boggling.

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vewola3975 t1_j9nsk9v wrote

The Native Americans were here for thousands of years before Columbus

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Burrmanchu t1_j9p7639 wrote

So the people that were here first found fossils first. What a shocker.

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tomsan2010 t1_j9ncin2 wrote

Where do you think a lot of mythology comes from. People before the European colonists

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