Bones Of Indigenous Victim Reveal Brutality Of European Colonization Of Gran Canaria

The subtropical island of Gran Canaria, off the west coast of Morocco, was the focus of European expansion and colonization in the 15th century. Between 1478 and 1483, the Crown of Castile, a Medieval state in modern-day Spain, subjugated the local population through armed conflict, slavery, and death caused by weapons and diseases the native Canarians had never encountered. A majority of the native population perished in this colonization effort, but archaeological evidence from this time period is scant. Recent research on a man found buried in a traditional way, however, reveals massive sharpforce trauma to his head, arm, back, and pelvis, and researchers believe he may represent the first clear evidence for the brutality of European colonization on Gran Canaria.

Writing in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, a team of archaeologists headed by Jonathan Santana-Cabrera of Santa Elena State University in Ecuador lays out the evidence for European-on-native violence in the skeleton of a man from the Los Acarreaderos burial ground on Gran Canaria. The skeleton was discovered in a collective grave that had four additional bodies, all wrapped in textile shrouds and deposited in a natural cave, typical for pre-Hispanic burials on the island. He was in his 20s when he died, and carbon dating puts his death during the time at which the Crown of Castile was establishing a colonial regime in this island chain.

In assessing the instances of sharp trauma — such as linear or V-shaped cut marks — the researchers discovered a total of 13 wounds in the upper body. These wounds were inflicted by one or more swords swung from different angles of attack. All injuries occurred at the same time, there are no signs of healing, and their severity would certainly have caused the man’s death. Based on close analysis of the lesions, Santana-Cabrera and colleagues were able to re-create the mechanism of most of the injuries, revealing the violent way this man died.

The main injury to the skull, for example, was caused by an “impact so powerful,” the researchers write, “that it completely split the cranium.” Characteristics of the bone further show that “the attack came from behind” and that the assailant “may have been in a higher position than the victim.” Another skull trauma is seen in the left eye orbit, and it completely separated the frontal bone of the skull vault from the bones of the face. “This direction indicates that the assailant was probably positioned opposite the victim.”

The man’s left arm was also cut in several places. Intense cracking of the bone and a V-shaped notch in the upper part of the humerus suggest a sideways blow while the victim was holding his arm in front of him. Additional blows to the middle part of the left upper arm bone were even more forceful and demonstrate that the victim was in fact raising his arm, almost certainly in a futile attempt to ward off the sword blows.

Although less forceful, additional traumatic cut marks were found on the man’s shoulder blades, neck, and sternum, showing attacks from both the front and behind, as well as sword thrusts to his pelvis at the height of his hipbones that may have come from the side. It is impossible, though, to tell for certain the order of the blows, just that they occurred in the same short time-frame. The injuries sustained by this victim were to areas that Europeans would have protected with armor.  The indigenous Canarians, however, fought naked or protected only by their normal clothing made from animal skins and textiles. But many did have wooden shields, usually held in the left hand, so this man’s arm injuries could be explained as an attempt to disarm him. No artifacts were found with the body, but long-bladed weapons were standard issue for the Castilian troops who conquered Gran Canaria in the late 15th century.

“This case represents an extremely violent episode in which one or several assailants inflicted serious injuries with completely different weapons from those normally used by the indigenous population of Gran Canaria,” the authors explain. The wounds themselves occurred at the time of death and almost certainly caused it, and they are “a clear indicator of the speed and aggressiveness of the attack, the likely participation of several assailants, and the victim’s scarce possibilities of effective defense.”

In fact, the murder of this man may have been done to send a message. The very high number of injuries from different directions has a parallel in Castilian historical accounts of the conquest, in which colonial soldiers attacked native leaders to demoralized the Canarians and force them to flee or surrender. This attack’s aim was “not only to kill the victim but also to intimidate the enemy, as described in written sources contemporary with the conquest,” the researchers note.

The carbon-14 date of the skeleton cannot unfortunately pinpoint the exact time at which this man died. It is possible that a small group may have maintained its indigenous funerary rituals following the conquest, meaning this man was killed during widespread repression of indigenous culture for refusing to change his ways. But based on historical records, Santana-Cabrera and colleagues think that his death is more likely related to Castilian incursions into the Agaete Valley, a stronghold that fell at the end of the conquest of Gran Canaria in 1483.

The unfortunate victim found buried in an indigenous grave on Gran Canaria, the authors conclude, “represents an early example of the interpersonal violence between Europeans and natives that became frequent on both sides of the Atlantic from that time onwards.”
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Reference:

Killgrove, Kristina. 2016. “Bones Of Indigenous Victim Reveal Brutality Of European Colonization Of Gran Canaria”. Forbes. Posted: Available online: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/09/22/bones-of-indigenous-victim-reveal-brutality-of-european-colonization-of-gran-canaria/

Research re-examines role of Maya Women

UCR graduate student's discoveries in the British Museum and on the Yucatan Peninsula prompt reinterpretation of women's roles in pre-colonial Mexico

Contrary to popular belief, women played a central role in Maya society before the arrival of Spanish explorers in the early 16th century, a University of California, Riverside graduate student has discovered. That finding is significant for modern Mayan women, whose status in society rapidly diminished under Spanish colonial rule and remains so today, according to Shankari Patel, a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology.

Patel's groundbreaking research, which included extensive fieldwork in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and an examination of previously uncatalogued artifacts in the British Museum, has won her the 2011 Dissertation Award from the American Anthropological Association's American Feminist Association (AFA) and the AAA Minority Dissertation Fellowship. Patel expects to complete her dissertation, "Journey to the East: Pilgrimage, Politics, and Gender at Postclassic Yucatan," and graduate in June.

The AFA described her reinterpretation of the archaeology and history of the Maya as "compelling."

Patel, a native of Hawaii who grew up in Echo Park, Calif., said she became interested in the role of Maya women while touring the Yucatan Peninsula.

"Maya culture has been described by scholars as male-dominated. But I found many towns named for women, and female deities on the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula," she explained. "I started asking how women came to be removed from religious institutions and activities, and from the history of the region."

Patel discovered that thousands of religious and other artifacts of Maya society were removed from the region, beginning with Spanish explorers who arrived in 1512, and later by British sailors. More than 2,000 objects from Isla Sacrificios, a small island off the coast of Vera Cruz that she contends was part of a female deity pilgrimage network in use from about 1100 A.D. to 1500 A.D., were delivered to the British Museum in 1844 and remained in crates. Fewer than a dozen of those items had been published or displayed in the museum. "We excavate so much, but not all of it gets analyzed," she said.

After receiving permission from museum administrators and with research funding from UC MEXUS (University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States), Patel began a methodical examination of mountains of crates in a scene she likened to "Raiders of the Lost Ark." She found hundreds of spindle whorls — ceramic disks typically used for spinning and weaving, but in this case used in religious rituals — as well as female icons and figurines used in funerary rituals.

Artifacts at the British Museum and elsewhere in Europe provide evidence of the central role women played in Maya society before colonialization, Patel said, including priestess oracles along the Yucatan Peninsula's east coast.

"Women lost their status and authority with the advent of colonialism," she said. "The Spaniards didn't understand female leaders and they squashed pagan religions. They branded women healers and diviners as witches. They talked about them as improper women who spoke for their men.

"Our society is so patriarchal, and archaeologists often don't realize how that affects the way they look at the past. What we say about the past is important to the people who live there today. It's political how you talk about people in the past. If you say women are subjugated today because they always have been, that's a way of justifying what's happening today. If you can show that was not true, that it happened because of colonialism, there is opportunity for new interpretations of history and for change to occur."

Patel received her bachelor's degree in anthropology and an interdisciplinary master's degree in anthropology, geography and religious studies from California State University, Los Angeles. She said she chose UC Riverside for her Ph.D. studies because of the anthropology department's Maya scholars, who are known internationally for their research.

Thomas C. Patterson, distinguished professor and chair of the UCR Department of Anthropology, said Patel is a skilled archaeologist whose research will contribute to a richer understanding of the position of women in the religious and sociopolitical institutions of Postclassic (900-1500 AD) Maya society.

Her research makes use of ethnohistoric, archaeological, and iconographic information from archaeological sites in eastern Mesoamerica and from Mexican codices, and illustrates linkages between the Mixtec and eastern Maya societies, Patterson said. "It focuses on understanding pilgrimages to oracular shrines that linked the two peoples from the two regions and how these journeys provided elite women with political resources that they wielded in everyday life," he added. "Her investigations will add significant textures to our understanding of Mexican society in late Precolumbian times. The reason for this is her articulation of gender and the participation of women in religious pilgrimages to the oracular shrines of female deities in the region."
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References:

EurekAlert. 2012. "Research re-examines role of Maya Women". EurekAlert. Posted: Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/uoc--rrr022912.php

Deep History of Coconuts Decoded: Origins of Cultivation, Ancient Trade Routes, and Colonization of the Americas

he coconut (the fruit of the palm Cocos nucifera) is the Swiss Army knife of the plant kingdom; in one neat package it provides a high-calorie food, potable water, fiber that can be spun into rope, and a hard shell that can be turned into charcoal. What's more, until it is needed for some other purpose it serves as a handy flotation device.



No wonder people from ancient Austronesians to Captain Bligh pitched a few coconuts aboard before setting sail. (The mutiny of the Bounty is supposed to have been triggered by Bligh's harsh punishment of the theft of coconuts from the ship's store.)

So extensively is the history of the coconut interwoven with the history of people traveling that Kenneth Olsen, a plant evolutionary biologist, didn't expect to find much geographical structure to coconut genetics when he and his colleagues set out to examine the DNA of more than 1300 coconuts from all over the world.

"I thought it would be mostly a mish-mash," he says, thoroughly homogenized by humans schlepping coconuts with them on their travels.

He was in for a surprise. It turned out that there are two clearly differentiated populations of coconuts, a finding that strongly suggests the coconut was brought under cultivation in two separate locations, one in the Pacific basin and the other in the Indian Ocean basin. What's more, coconut genetics also preserve a record of prehistoric trade routes and of the colonization of the Americas.

The discoveries of the team, which included Bee Gunn, now of the Australian National University in Australia, and Luc Baudouin of the Centre International de Recherches en Agronomie pour le Développement (CIRAD) in Montpellier, France, as well as Olsen, associate professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis, are described in the June 23 online issue of the journal PLoS ONE.

Morphology a red herring

Before the DNA era, biologists recognized a domesticated plant by its morphology. In the case of grains, for example, one of the most important traits in domestication is the loss of shattering, or the tendency of seeds to break off the central grain stalk once mature.

The trouble was it was hard to translate coconut morphology into a plausible evolutionary history.

There are two distinctively different forms of the coconut fruit, known as niu kafa and niu vai, Samoan names for traditional Polynesian varieties. The niu kafa form is triangular and oblong with a large fibrous husk. The niu vai form is rounded and contains abundant sweet coconut "water" when unripe.

"Quite often the niu vai fruit are brightly colored when they're unripe, either bright green, or bright yellow. Sometimes they're a beautiful gold with reddish tones," says Olsen.

Coconuts have also been traditionally classified into tall and dwarf varieties based on the tree "habit," or shape. Most coconuts are talls, but there are also dwarfs that are only several feet tall when they begin reproducing. The dwarfs account for only 5 percent of coconuts.

Dwarfs tend to be used for "eating fresh," and the tall forms for coconut oil and for fiber.

"Almost all the dwarfs are self fertilizing and those three traits -- being dwarf, having the rounded sweet fruit, and being self-pollinating -- are thought to be the definitive domestication traits," says Olsen.

"The traditional argument was that the niu kafa form was the wild, ancestral form that didn't reflect human selection, in part because it was better adapted to ocean dispersal," says Olsen. Dwarf trees with niu vai fruits were thought to be the domesticated form.

The trouble is it's messier than that. "You almost always find coconuts near human habitations," says Olsen, and "while the niu vai is an obvious domestication form, the niu kafa form is also heavily exploited for copra (the dried meat ground and pressed to make oil) and coir (fiber woven into rope)."

"The lack of universal domestication traits together with the long history of human interaction with coconuts, made it difficult to trace the coconut's cultivation origins strictly by morphology," Olsen says.

DNA was a different story.

Collecting coconut DNA

The project got started when Gunn, who had long been interested in palm evolution, and who was then at the Missouri Botanical Garden, contacted Olsen, who had the laboratory facilities needed to study palm DNA.

Together they won a National Geographic Society grant that allowed Gunn to collect coconut DNA in regions of the western Indian Ocean for which there were no data. The snippets of leaf tissue from the center of the coconut tree's crown she sent home in zip-lock bags to be analyzed.

"We had reason to suspect that coconuts from these regions -- especially Madagascar and the Comoros Islands -- might show evidence of ancient 'gene flow' events brought about by ancient Austronesians setting up migration routes and trade routes across the southern Indian Ocean," Olsen says.

Olsen's lab genotyped 10 microsatellite regions in each palm sample. Microsatellites are regions of stuttering DNA where the same few nucleotide units are repeated many times. Mutations pop up and persist pretty easily in these regions because they usually don't affect traits that are important to survival and so aren't selected against, says Olsen. "So we can use these genetic markers to 'fingerprint' the coconut," he says.

The new collections were combined with a vast dataset that had been established by CIRAD, a French agricultural research center, using the same genetic markers. "These data were being used for things like breeding, but no one had gone through and systematically examined the genetic variation in the context of the history of the plant," Olsen says.

Two origins of cultivation

The most striking finding of the new DNA analysis is that the Pacific and Indian Ocean coconuts are quite distinct genetically. "About a third of the total genetic diversity can be partitioned between two groups that correspond to the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean," says Olsen.

"That's a very high level of differentiation within a single species and provides pretty conclusive evidence that there were two origins of cultivation of the coconut," he says.

In the Pacific, coconuts were likely first cultivated in island Southeast Asia, meaning the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and perhaps the continent as well. In the Indian Ocean the likely center of cultivation was the southern periphery of India, including Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and the Laccadives.

The definitive domestication traits -- the dwarf habit, self-pollination and niu vai fruits -- arose only in the Pacific, however, and then only in a small subset of Pacific coconuts, which is why Olsen speaks of origins of cultivation rather than of domestication.

"At least we have it easier than scientists who study animal domestication," he says. "So much of being a domesticated animal is being tame, and behavioral traits aren't preserved in the archeological record."

Did it float or was it carried?

One exception to the general Pacific/Indian Ocean split is the western Indian Ocean, specifically Madagascar and the Comoros Islands, where Gunn had collected. The coconuts there are a genetic mixture of the Indian Ocean type and the Pacific type.

Olsen and his colleagues believe the Pacific coconuts were introduced to the Indian Ocean a couple of thousand years ago by ancient Austronesians establishing trade routes connecting Southeast Asia to Madagascar and coastal east Africa.

Olsen points out that no genetic admixture is found in the more northerly Seychelles, which fall outside the trade route. He adds that a recent study of rice varieties found in Madagascar shows there is a similar mixing of the japonica and indica rice varieties from Southeast Asia and India.

To add to the historical shiver, the descendants of the people who brought the coconuts and rice are still living in Madagascar. The present-day inhabitants of the Madagascar highlands are descendants of the ancient Austronesians, Olsen says.

Much later the Indian Ocean coconut was transported to the New World by Europeans. The Portuguese carried coconuts from the Indian Ocean to the West Coast of Africa, Olsen says, and the plantations established there were a source of material that made it into the Caribbean and also to coastal Brazil.

So the coconuts that you find today in Florida are largely the Indian ocean type, Olsen says, which is why they tend to have the niu kafa form.

On the Pacific side of the New World tropics, however, the coconuts are Pacific Ocean coconuts. Some appear to have been transported there in pre-Columbian times by ancient Austronesians moving east rather than west.

During the colonial period, the Spanish brought coconuts to the Pacific coast of Mexico from the Philippines, which was for a time governed on behalf of the King of Spain from Mexico.

This is why, Olsen says, you find Pacific type coconuts on the Pacific coast of Central America and Indian type coconuts on the Atlantic coast.

"The big surprise was that there was so much genetic differentiation clearly correlated with geography, even though humans have been moving coconut around for so long."

Far from being a mish-mash, coconut DNA preserves a record of human cultivation, voyages of exploration, trade and colonization.
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References:

2011. "Deep History of Coconuts Decoded: Origins of Cultivation, Ancient Trade Routes, and Colonization of the Americas". Science Daily. Posted: June 24, 2011. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110624142037.htm

Cultural identity of indigenous society of Patagonia restored

Argentinean and Spanish researchers have shown that indigenous societies in Patagonia, the southernmost region of the Earth inhabited by humans over the past 13,000 years, were not static and marginal as had always been thought, but in fact had high levels of social organisation. The latest study by this team, published in the journal Arctic Anthropology, breaks down false myths and gives these societies the historic recognition they deserve.

"Was Patagonia a desert?" Using this question as its starting point, the Argentinean-Spanish research team has studied the development of ethnicity in Patagonia, one of the last regions of the world to be occupied by human beings, around 13,000 years ago according to radio carbon dating of archaeological remains in the region. The study, published in the journal Arctic Anthropology, overturns the traditional view of these societies.

"We started our study looking at the situation of the indigenous society today, which is suffering from a loss of cultural identity and a high degree of mixture between populations due to numerous migratory movements and the pressures of urban life", Juan A. Barceló, lead author of the study and an archaeologist and researcher at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), tells SINC.

Documentary evidence to date has held that the region was occupied by primitive hunter-gatherers who started to "die out" and disappeared leaving behind a "desert". However, even though the indigenous population subsists in marginal populations today, this study shows that it has a history of its own.

Using ethnographic documents containing the life stories of old people who lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers as children, as well as information sources from travellers and naturalists in the 19th Century, the social scientists used specially-created computer programmes to study the dynamics of indigenous populations.

"Going beyond the common areas of information, we incorporated archaeological, anthropological and ethno-historic data to highlight the profound social complexity and economic, social and reproductive strategies of these apparently extremely simple human communities", the researcher says.

One hundred years of resistance to colonisation

Prior to European colonisation, the indigenous population had highly ingrained levels of social hierarchy. "They had relatively well evolved leadership systems, social predominance was transmitted via parentage, and wealth was concentrated, particularly in the form of thousands of heads of cattle or horses", says Barceló.

The team of experts explains that the indigenous societies had complex social and political organisation, being able to mobilise thousands of warriors.

"When they were fighting against the pressure of industrial societies they were able to call up military bands of more than 1,000 warriors, bringing together forces from distant regions and with different languages and identities", the expert explains.

Barceló says this enormous mobilisation capacity held the ever-increasing pressures of industrial society at bay for almost 100 years "until the colonists started to use canons, rifles and sabres, totally wiping out certain ethnic groups".

Recognising the past

The view of these indigenous populations as marginal people who all spoke the same language is erroneous. Some historical studies on southern languages differentiate between 30 separate languages and dialects, which were inter-related to various degrees.

"Linguistic complexity was probably much greater before European contact, since a significant feature of colonisation was the trend towards linguistic homogeneity", according to the study.

The researchers also found these to be "extraordinarily dynamic" societies that adjusted their internal characteristics to cope with change. "These were not societies that had a passively adaptation to the land and its resources. Instead, they built their own path through history by taking constant social decisions", says Barceló.

"Aside from the academic community and the general public, this study is aimed at the indigenous societies who have traditionally been denied their own history", the expert concludes.
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References:

EurekAlert. 2010. "Cultural identity of indigenous society of Patagonia restored". EurekAlert. Posted: April 13, 2010. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-04/f-sf-cio041310.php

Juan A. Barceló, Mª. Florencia del Castillo, Laura Mameli, Eduardo Moreno, Blanca Videla. "Where Does the South Begin? Social Variability at the Southern Tip of the World". Arctic Anthropology. 46 (1-2): 50-71, 2009.

Speaking in Tongues: The History of Language Episode # 4 Civilization to Colonization - preview

Speaking in Tongues The History of Language Episode # 4 Civilization to Colonization - preview. Writing is a relative latecomer to the history of language. This program tracks its emergence in Mesopotamia, China, and Mesoamerica and its spread down through the millennia via conquest—usually violent, sometimes benign—and colonization. The creation of creoles and pidgins resulting from the interaction of specific populations is also addressed, and speculation is made about the first things to be written down. Noam Chomsky; Peter Daniels, coeditor of The Worlds Writing Systems; the Manhattan Institutes John McWhorter; MITs Michel DeGraff; and Salikoko Mufwene, of The University of Chicago, contribute. (48 minutes)
One part of a five part ground breaking documentary series.

The first men and women from the Canary Islands were Berbers

A team of Spanish and Portuguese researchers has carried out molecular genetic analysis of the Y chromosome (transmitted only by males) of the aboriginal population of the Canary Islands to determine their origin and the extent to which they have survived in the current population. The results suggest a North African origin for these paternal lineages which, unlike maternal lineages, have declined to the point of being practically replaced today by European lineages.

Researchers from the University of La Laguna (ULL), the Institute of Pathology and Molecular Immunology from the University of Porto (Portugal) and the Institute of Legal Medicine from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) have studied the Y chromosome from human dental remains from the Canary Islands, and have determined the origin and evolution of paternal lineages from the pre-Hispanic era to the present day. To date, only mitochondrial DNA has been studied, which merely reflects the evolution of maternal lineages.

Rosa Fregal, the principal author of the recently-published study in BMC Evolutionary Biology, and a researcher from the Genetics Department of the ULL, explains to SINC that "whereas aboriginal maternal lineages have survived with a slight downward trend, aboriginal paternal lineages have declined progressively, being replaced by European lineages".

Experts have also analysed an historic sample for La Concepción church (Tenerife), which dates back to the 17th and 18th centuries. With these data, they have established the impact of European colonisation and the African slave trade, and have determined the evolution of paternal lineages in aborigines from the Canary Islands or Guanches, from the pre-Hispanic era to the present day.

Although contribution is now mainly European, scientists state that North African and Sub-Saharan contribution was higher in the 17th and 18th centuries. The explanation as to why there is a difference between the lineages of men and women from the Canary Islands stems from the diverse contributions of parental populations, and, above all, as a result of European colonisation.

During this period, most relationships between men and women were between Iberian men and Guanches women, "due to the better social position of the former [Iberian men] compared to aboriginal males" Fregel explains. In addition to this, there was a higher mortality rate among male aborigines, who were displaced and discriminated against by conquerors. "Not only during the Crown of Castile Conquest in the 15th century, but also thereafter", the scientist affirms.

The researcher adds that in the case of Sub-Saharan lineages, both sexes were discriminated against equally, "and both maternal and paternal lineages have declined to date".

Traces of European colonisation

A previous study of the Y chromosome in the current population of the Canary Islands demonstrated the impact of European colonisation on the male population in the Canary Islands, Fregal points out that "When estimating the proportion of European lineages present in the current population of the Canary Islands, it was found that they represented more than 90%". Nevertheless, mitochondrial DNA studies in the current population demonstrated a notable survival of aboriginal lineages, where European contribution is between 36% and 62%.

Iberian and European contribution to male genetic patrimony in the Canary Islands increased from 63% during the 17th and 18th centuries to 83% in the present day. At the same time, male aboriginal genes decreased from 31% to 17%, and Sub-Saharan genes, from 6% to 1%.

As for women, European contribution is more constant, having moved from 48% to 55%, and aboriginal contribution, from 40% to 42%. The only decline observed in genetic contribution, from 12% to 3% in the last three centuries, has been in the case of Sub-Saharans.

Despite these advances, there are still mysteries to solve, such as how to determine whether the first inhabitants of the Canary Islands arrived by their own means or whether they were brought by force, "as there are no signs to ascertain whether they were aware of the navigation or if they came in one or several waves", Fregal concludes.
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References:
Anonymous. 2009. "The first men and women from the Canary Islands were Berbers". EurekAlert. Posted:October 21, 2009. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/f-sf-tfm102109.php

Fregel, Rosa; Gomes, Verónica; Gusmao, Leonor; González, Ana M.; Cabrera, Vicente M.; Amorim, Antonio; Larruga, José M. "Demographic history of Canary Islands male gene-pool: replacement of native lineages by European" BMC Evolutionary Biology 9: 181, 3 de agosto de 2009.