
Ancient Infant's DNA Reveals New Clues to How the Americas Were Peopled - kposehn
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/upward-sun-river-infants-genome-peopling-americas/549572/
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sexydefinesher
"peopled"? Really?

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kafkaesque
I got into a very nasty discussion with someone on here over Latin American
history once.

As much as I love a lot of things about Hacker News, most users here have
never discussed the indigenous histories of the Americas, so remain ignorant
as to how to express themselves in such discussions.

To be clear, you should not be downvoted.

And to others oblivious as to why "peopled" is wrong: To people is frowned
upon when discussing early histories of the Americas because it connotes that
before the arrival of Europeans, aboriginals were not people and there was a
lot of "empty space."

There were plenty of people in the Americas. The vast genocides across all of
the Americas by the hand of European governments were due to a culture clash
and the European immigrant's need for hegemonic power.

After the deaths of most indigenous population, Europeans used rhetoric to
convince people that "vast, empty" lands needed to be "peopled." Genocide was
used to replace native tribes with European immigrants.

A lot of the lands that were already rich in resources and on their way to
healthy growth (prospering) did not need to be "peopled" by European
immigrants.

Yes, if you know all this information and still use "peopled," you should be
ashamed of yourself.

Here is a map of all the tribes in _just_ North America:

PDF file:
[http://www.tribalnationsmaps.com/uploads/1/0/4/5/10451178/pi...](http://www.tribalnationsmaps.com/uploads/1/0/4/5/10451178/pipeline.pdf)

Other maps:
[http://www.tribalnationsmaps.com/store/c1/Featured_Products....](http://www.tribalnationsmaps.com/store/c1/Featured_Products.html)

NPR article:
[https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/06/24/323665644...](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/06/24/323665644/the-
map-of-native-american-tribes-youve-never-seen-before)

Site of the maker of these maps:
[http://www.tribalnationsmaps.com](http://www.tribalnationsmaps.com)

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andrewem
What I don't understand about your making this argument here is that the
article uses "peopled" exclusively to describe what happened 11,500 years ago.
It doesn't use it at all to discuss the much later arrival of Europeans.

Is your argument that the verb "to people" is so poisoned by its misuse for
the arrival of Europeans that it shouldn't be used even to describe those who
were genuinely among the first Homo sapiens to arrive in the Americas? (I'm
aware that "the Americas" is a contentious term, but I'm following your usage
here.)

~~~
christofosho
We don't know if 11500 years was indeed the first. But I understand your
argument.

