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Why did Europeans never invent writing, but Mexicans did?
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Date: February 5th, 2013 12:33 PM Author: Spruce church Kinda weird that Euros had to import writing from the Middle East as well as concepts such as zero and so on, but the Mayans discovered that shit on their own
Mesoamericans also did performed much more impressive feats of domestication and breeding than the Europeans did. Corn was way more productive than anything the Europeans had (and most of their domesticated crops and livestock came from outside of Europe anyway) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 12:35 PM Author: motley brunch gunner the Mayans were pretty bright, sucks that they got pwned (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573181) |
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Date: August 11th, 2026 8:03 PM Author: https://imgur.com/a/o2g8xYK The Spanish dood who burned their library also gave us the only book that was useful for deciphering the Mayan script. A Russian cracked the code in the 1950s but no one in America learned about it until after the wall came down (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#50062140) |
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Date: August 11th, 2026 7:59 PM Author: nyuug
azn's still haven't really discovered writing, they are just using a bunch of hieroglyphs
Date: February 26th, 2025 9:28 PM Author: hank_scorpio
http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5536032&forum_id=2#48697467 |
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Date: August 11th, 2026 8:00 PM Author: nyuug still LOLLERCAUSTING@ cumskins literally believing we use "hieroglyphs" (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#50062119) |
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Date: August 11th, 2026 8:17 PM Author: nyuug ASIANS USE HIEROGLYPHS DURR DURR (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#50062221) |
Date: February 5th, 2013 12:35 PM Author: Talking chapel because race realism and iq fetishism are not science (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573185) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 1:39 PM Author: Pink home The OP, however, is definitely SCHOLARSHIP (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573569) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 12:36 PM Author: Unholy mischievous french chef parlour Mexicans are a much more intelligent race of humans
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Date: February 5th, 2013 12:37 PM Author: Talking chapel (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573198) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 12:52 PM Author: Peach ungodly heaven boistinker Si (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573304) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 12:37 PM Author: ivory stubborn whorehouse doctorate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runes (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573201) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 12:38 PM Author: Spruce church "Parent systems: Phoenician" (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573209) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 1:08 PM Author: vivacious codepig garrison pwned
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Date: February 5th, 2013 1:13 PM Author: irradiated violent jap Euros take credit for a lot of shit that they borrowed from the middle east -- civilization, etc. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573406) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 1:20 PM Author: wild step-uncle's house becky Yeah maybe if europeans weren't retards they would have independently come up with a civilization totally independent of contact from the rest of the world, just like... uhhh... fuck, what was that place where advanced civilization developed 2000 years ago independent of contact with other large populations? I'm sure it exists but it's lost on me. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573439) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:33 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma Oh, you mean just like the Mesoamericans? Yeah, exactly. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573894) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:33 PM Author: wild step-uncle's house becky link to there being large scale civilization in mesoamerica 2000 years ago? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573898) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:36 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec
Stop embarrassing yourself. It's obvious you know nothing about history. |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:37 PM Author: exhilarant pit rude. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573922) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:39 PM Author: wild step-uncle's house becky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec#Social_and_political_organization
"Nonetheless, Olmec society is thought to lack many of the institutions of later civilizations, such as a standing army or priestly caste.[81] And there is no evidence that San Lorenzo or La Venta controlled, even during their heyday, all of the Olmec heartland.[82] There is some doubt, for example, that La Venta controlled even Arroyo Sonso, only some 35 kilometres (22 mi) away.[83] Studies of the Tuxtla Mountain settlements, some 60 kilometres (37 mi) away, indicate that this area was composed of more or less egalitarian communities outside the control of lowland centers.[84]"
You realize that small egalitarian communities with no standing army or organized religion typically aren't counted as civilizations by anthropologists, right? |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:44 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma a) Lack of a priestly caste =/= egalitarian b) You're embarrassing yourself again. The traditional hallmark of civilization according to anthropologists is writing, and the secondary hallmark is cities. Have you ever taken an anthro class?
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:46 PM Author: wild step-uncle's house becky my quote says these places were made up of egalitarian communities, and 'city' implies hierarchy. ergo... (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573961) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:47 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma City implies hierarchy! LOL, please, stop getting yourself pwned. Please, for the love of god.
Also, that part of your link is talking about a settlement outside the city's control, you brain-damged retard. |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:50 PM Author: Vibrant space so by that standard, the inca weren't civilized? just asking, i really have no idea (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573986) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:53 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma Yeah, it really makes a lot of anthropologists really conflicted, because they had a state and advanced material culture in other ways. Some people argue khipu counts, but this hasn't been substantiated. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22574007) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:55 PM Author: Vibrant space when i was growing up, it was spelled "quipu" in my history book... is that a spanish transcription that is now deprecated/considered inaccurate? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22574012) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:56 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma Both are still current as far as I recall (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22574014) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 3:00 PM Author: Vibrant space ty (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22574031) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:45 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma I guess the Japanese don't have civilization since they don't have a standing army! (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573957) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:47 PM Author: wild step-uncle's house becky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._military_presence_in_Japan
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:50 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma Can't wait for the day civilization reaches Iceland and Costa Rica... (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573985) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 1:14 PM Author: wild step-uncle's house becky europeans have been literate for 2700 years, northern europeans for 2000, the earliest evidence of a mayan writing system is from like 1500 years ago. also, maya script is a form of hierogliphs, which is not real writing. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573411) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 1:40 PM Author: Pink home (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573578) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:32 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma WHAT SCHOLARSHIP!
Wrong. Mesoamericans have been literate for 2900 years. Northern Europeans? At most 1900 years, and stolen from Southern Europeans who stole it from Middle Easterners.
www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/world/middleeast/obama-to-visit-israel-in-spring.html?hp
Mesoamerican writing is definitely real writing, as real as Chinese writing. |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:36 PM Author: wild step-uncle's house becky you realize that the pictograms depicted below are what passed for "independently developed mesoamerican writing systems," right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Palenque_glyphs-edit1.jpg |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:40 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma What's your point? You don't like the way it looks? You're a massive moron. It's just as advanced a writing system as Chinese logograms. In fact, the Mayan system was more akin to modern Japanese writing, since it included both logograms AND a syllabary. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573931) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:45 PM Author: wild step-uncle's house becky it's a system of pre-hieroglyphic visual communication, you can't use those kinds of language systems to convey grammar, indicate pronounciation, or do anything else a written langugage is supposed to do.
also, if you want to count that kind of shit as writing, there are tons of undeciphered european scripts from before the arrival of phoenician script in europe, such as this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitovo_inscription |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:47 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma Except you're fucking wrong. It was a syllabary like modern Japanese Hiragana you idiot. Stop getting yourself pwned.
http://www.ancientscripts.com/images/maya_syllabary_1.gif |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:58 PM Author: wild step-uncle's house becky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitovo_inscription (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22574027) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:58 PM Author: Diverse mewling black woman tanning salon You are the one pwning yourself breh. you are arguing with assless chaps. |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 3:00 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma is he a known retard brother. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22574030) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 3:07 PM Author: Diverse mewling black woman tanning salon There was a "deep thoughts with Assless Chaps" movement last year (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22574056) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 1:14 PM Author: Vibrant space "europe" didn't exist, historically. the greeks and romans were part of a mediterranean/near-eastern complex that included the earliest farmers and the first writing systems. it would have been weird if the greeks and romans had discovered any of that stuff on their own since those things were cultural commonplaces in their milieu before they emerged as distinct societies
the greeks didn't invent 0 but they did invent calculus (calculation via infinitesimals) and steam engines and the antikythera mechanism and stuff, so i think they're still ahead
once greek and roman culture had diffused to northen europe, it catalyzed a round of ethnogenesis in northern europe that resulted in part in the modern european ethnicities -- french, british, dutch, etc., all of which came into being within the last ~1200 years (you could argue the french were earlier, but it took a while for the franks, gallo-romans, etc to become "french" in any meaningful sense) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 1:18 PM Author: wild step-uncle's house becky yeah this whole idea that europeans are johnny come latelies to civilization is retarded, there was a european civilization before christian civilization, jesus christ. also, the earliest stone monuments in the world are in europe. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573431) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 1:24 PM Author: Vibrant space europe occupies a strategic position. on the one hand, it's shitty land on the whole; on the other, it's the natural crossroads of the middle east, central asia and africa -- just look at the waves of central asian invaders, everything from aryans to near-eastern early farmers right down to ottomans as recently as the 17th century
northern europe has always had a fairly advanced level of material culture, like with metallurgy and writing and stuff, but was such shitty, unproductive land that state formation still wasn't complete in some parts of it 1,000 years back. as for the med basin, the western med was hick territory for a long time, but there was always a degree of civilization there, too
the achievements of the maya are pretty impressive considering how isolated the americas were, beyond that you can't compare them to the layers and layers of old world civilizations going back to the dawn of history |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:35 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma You are pretty uneducated, which is OK, but stop acting like you know anything. Even though there was European civ before christian civ, it still came THOUSANDS OF YEARS after civilization in Egypt, China, and Mesopotamia.
Idiot. |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:49 PM Author: Vibrant space i disagree somewhat with this... the ice man (ca. 3000 bc), e.g., didn't come from a city, but he was part of a sophisticated material culture that had metal smelting and economic specialization in manufacturing. given the low agricultural productivity of northern europe prior to the invention of the moldboard plow, that was pretty decent
no one is arguing that the first cities arose in europe. on the other hand, it's also not true that europeans were degenerate barbarians until 1400 ad, as a lot of people kind of unreflectively believe today |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:52 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma Metal smelting diffused from Anatolia, and they not only didn't have cities, but didn't have writing, geometry, states, or advanced mathematics. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22574000) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 3:00 PM Author: Vibrant space fair enough. is that the rule in anthro, that you need to have writing, cities, etc. to be non-barbarians? i'm sure that there's a good reason for it if it is
by that standard, northern europeans were barbaric well into the Christian era. but it seems funny to me to put, e.g., saga-era icelanders with their boatbuilding, metalworking, chronicle literature etc. on the same footing as historyless hunter-gatherers who follow the herds hucking rocks at them |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 3:01 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma totally fair. these categories are artificial, and they were obviously not on the same level. i was more reacting against the people denigrating the accomplishments of the Mesoamericans, which were impressive compared to Northern Europeans at the same time period and came about independently. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22574034) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 3:09 PM Author: Vibrant space yeah, the maya are such an interesting case b/c they really seem to have come from nowhere and to have left few progeny -- seems like they should have been the sumerians of the americas considering how far out in front they were culturally, but i guess they didn't have much of an edge in material or military culture. my understanding, and correct me if i'm wrong, is that the mayan inheritance lay totally fallow until certain curious spaniards started digging stuff up, and thereby inadvertently preserving some sources for scientific anthro & archaeology to deal with once they emerged
the maya are also interesting b/c their culture was so alien and frankly bugfuck crazy-seeming. brb the king's main job is to draw sacred blood from his foreskin, wtf. i guess they'd probably see us the same way |
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Date: February 6th, 2013 8:11 AM Author: demanding senate Weren't the earliest copper smelting furnaces found in Serbia? I think that's one area where Europeans were actually somewhat ahead of middle easterners, although iron smelting is a much more complicated process and was definitely present in the middle east a few hundred years before making it to europe. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22579159) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 1:21 PM Author: Laughsome Double Fault i don't remember the history class where euros borrowed writing from the middle east. i think it was just invented 5000 years ago and spread organically.
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:33 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma (moron) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573897) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:27 PM Author: cyan electric elastic band set Europeans didn't need to invite writing because they borrowed it from other civilizations.
Mayan writing was pretty fucking primitive, it was basically pictograms meaning it was where writing in the rest of the world was around 2500 BC.
And if Mesoamerican civilization was so great and highly developed, how come they hadn't even invented the wheel yet by the time Europeans arrived in 1500? |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:40 PM Author: ivory stubborn whorehouse doctorate Early Mexicans encountering Spanish conquistadors thought the doods riding horses were one single animal. It didn't occur to them that that could be a guy sitting on the back of animal, they thought it was like a centaur or something. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573934) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:52 PM Author: Talking chapel http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2#22573964 (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573999) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:37 PM Author: Navy Heady Lay who needs writing when you have gunpowder and iron ore? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573921) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:40 PM Author: wild step-uncle's house becky or that very complex and advanced of technologies, the wheel! (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573933) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:42 PM Author: Navy Heady Lay wut (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573942) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:46 PM Author: ivory stubborn whorehouse doctorate Writing is necessary to trade resources with other civs. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573960) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:52 PM Author: Vibrant space i'm struggling to understand how this is responsive, help me out? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22573998) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:51 PM Author: Talking chapel When we saw so many cities and villages built in the water and other great towns on dry land we were amazed and said that it was like the enchantments (...) on account of the great towers and cues and buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry. And some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream? (...) I do not know how to describe it, seeing things as we did that had never been heard of or seen before, not even dreamed about. ” —Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 2:54 PM Author: Vibrant space now quote the part where he talks about how much the aztecs loved cannibalism
diaz makes for weird reading in general, i wasn't expecting him to talk up montezuma so much
also, cortez was a straight gangster. i love the part where they're retreating from the noche triste, like a few days after iirc, and they run into another spanish army sent from cuba and just fucking roll them over even though they're outnumbered like 6 to 1 and just got their own asses badly beat a few days before |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 3:06 PM Author: Opaque Marvelous Legend House The Middle East was white at that point. Does Elizabeth Taylor look Arab? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22574051) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 3:09 PM Author: mildly autistic business firm Plenty of Sid Meiers trolling going on ITT. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22574062) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 3:16 PM Author: Bateful Clear Sound Barrier Trailer Park Cretan hieroglyphs, second millennium BC? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22574097) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 3:21 PM Author: Bateful Clear Sound Barrier Trailer Park (alternate universe where it wasn't white people running shit in Egypt) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22574112) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 3:23 PM Author: Vibrant space don't troll me, bro
(alternate universe where the archaic proto-finnic type fused with aryans, paleo-iberians, who the fuck knows what else and neolithic farmers from the levant and backwashed into pre-dynastic egypt) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 11:13 PM Author: Idiotic indecent cumskin parlor didn't a euro monk invent silent reading (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22577792) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 11:16 PM Author: brindle spectacular multi-billionaire coffee pot cumskins basically have had a good 500 years and they only succeeded by being incredibly violent and imperialistic... now they are becoming extinct and nigs and browns and chinks are taking over.. lol at u faggots (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22577804) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 11:34 PM Author: Gay stead persian if you think europeans are bad, you're in for a big surprise when we're gone bro
*whites go extinct*
*azns still blaming whites for their inability to get laid* |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 11:18 PM Author: Charismatic orange nibblets office Why is there some weirdo in here FURIOUSLY trolling for Mayans? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22577817) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 11:19 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma It's not trolling, assless chaps was saying retarded bullshit. I hate when people who don't know shit about history go around spewing stuff that's just wrong. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22577822) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 11:20 PM Author: Charismatic orange nibblets office Oh, ok.
(gives you a warm blanket) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 11:21 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma (MAF cumskin)
Sorry your retarded cumskin brother got pwned by facts over and over again. He makes your whole race look retarded. |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 11:22 PM Author: Charismatic orange nibblets office calm down Sequoyah. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22577840) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 11:23 PM Author: cruel-hearted dilemma ROFL. Not a brown, but OK. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22577846) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 11:35 PM Author: Gay stead persian (MAF nowag) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22577917) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 11:39 PM Author: Charismatic orange nibblets office •draws an angry bird, maybe an angry monkey to pound the point home. Also a mean spider.• (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22577953) |
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Date: February 5th, 2013 11:47 PM Author: supple underhanded cruise ship I rate this thread as Listerine (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22578010) |
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Date: February 6th, 2013 1:26 AM Author: godawful curious den with some tax free tobacco. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22578787) |
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Date: February 6th, 2013 7:58 AM Author: self-absorbed jet-lagged theater stage The Scandinavians had their runes. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22579142) |
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Date: February 6th, 2013 8:17 AM Author: Bat-shit-crazy Abode (self-hating english speaker) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22579171) |
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Date: February 6th, 2013 8:26 AM Author: demanding senate I find that debates about history focusing on questions like 'who achieved 'x' sign of advanced civilization first' have a tendency to degenerate into nationalistic type disputes over fairly inconsequential things.
As somebody mentioned above, when we think of a 'civilization' we usually think of cities, but you can have cities without much in the way of a materially advanced culture, and a fairly advanced material culture without cities.
Europeans do appear to have been somewhat behind many other parts of the world in terms of urbanization and literacy, though they were also pretty far ahead in terms of metal production and certain other manufacturing techniques like shipbuilding; the first copper furnaces, for example, were found at a site in Serbia, and the oldest smelted gold alloys were found in bulgaria.
I think the past 500 years of western supremacy have been somewhat of an anomaly in the sense that you don't usually find one civilization that's just miles ahead of the others across every organizational, material and 'intellectual' axis, it's usually more like different regions have different advantages and disadvantages, derived largely from the landscape they find themselves siutated on. |
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Date: February 6th, 2013 8:38 AM Author: crusty preventive strike newt tell us moar about how tribes are always at war like dirty savages, mr. diamond (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2176255&forum_id=2Vannesa#22579196) |