Currently reading Charles C. Mann's book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus:
"Much of the environmental movement is animated, consciously or not, by what geographer William Denevan calls 'the pristine myth' - the belief that the Americas in 1491 were an almost untouched, almost Edenic land, 'untrammeled by man,' in the words of the Wilderness Act of 1964, a US law that is one of the founding documents of the global environmental movement."
"Researchers differ in the details, some scientists have theorized that the Americas may have been hit with with as many as five waves of settlement before Columbus, with the earliest occurring as much as fifty thousand years ago."
"The Olmec, Maya, and other Mesoamerican societies were world pioneers in mathematics and astronomy - but they did not use the wheel. Amazingly, they had invented the wheel but did not employ it for any purpose other than children's toys, Those looking for a tale of cultural superiority can find it in zero; those looking for failure can find it in the wheel."
It's a fascinating subject but the unfamiliar names of individuals and tribes coupled with the author's need to provide copious facts to prove his case can at some times make for difficult, dry reading. Much like Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods. Not sure if I'll make it all the way through this book. I agree with his case already but Jeez...
