Do Civilizations Really Collapse?

Author(s): Eric A. Powell

Source: Archaeology, Vol. 61, No. 2 (March/April 2008), p. 18, 20, 56
Published by: Archaeological Institute of America
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41780338
Accessed: 21-04-2020 21:34 UTC

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■m m m
By Eric A. Powell

Do Civilizations Really Collapsed

Scholars gather to challenge popular author
Jared Diamond's take on societies' "ecocidal" tendencies.

reduce the history of societies to one work all the more compelling*
atop Tumamoc Hill, a tall grand narrative obscures the unique- The problem, say many schol-
On butte atop a blustery Tumamoc
butte near the centernear
of the October center Hill, a day of tall ness of individual cultures* ars, is that Diamond gets the past
Tucson, a dozen social scientists In the Pulitzer Prize- winning wrong* Criticism of his work focuses
scramble across volcanic rock piles Guns, Germs & Steel : The Fates of on a concern that Diamond fails
and weave through stands of saguaro Human Societies (1997), Diamond to appreciate the complex role that
cactus to look at traces of human offered an ambitious "short history of culture plays in the development
habitation: large rock terraces, or everybody for the last 13,000 years," of societies* Anthropologists and
trincheras , that cling to the side of an account that explained the gulf archaeologists whose lives are devot-
the hill, and the faint remains of ed to studying the complexity of cul-
small pit houses that date from 300 ture recoil at Diamonds statement
b*c* to a*d* 450. The wind some- that "historical studies of human
times carries away the voices of their societies can be pursued as scientifi-
guides, archaeologists Paul and Suzy cally as the study of dinosaurs"
Fish of the Arizona State Museum* Some archaeologists are espe-
So the cultural anthropologists, cially concerned with Collapse , feel-
historians, and archaeologists strain ing Diamond cherry-picks data to
to hear them describe the desert life- fit his environmental agenda* They
style of the people who made their say his concern with using ancient
home at this trincheras site, one of cultures as cautionary tales about
the biggest in the Southwest* Paul environmental mismanagement
and Suzy tell a good story, so the leads Diamond to reduce the history
scholars don t want to miss it* of people such as the Easter Island-
This diverse group is visiting between the first and third worlds ers and the"Anasazi" or Ancestral
Tumamoc Hill while taking a break largely as a matter of geographical Puebloans who lived at Chaco Can-
during a four-day seminar called accident* In his most recent book, yon to accounts of the elites whose
"Choices and Fates of Human Collapse : How Societies Choose to Suc- decisions doomed their societies
Societies," a gathering where the ceed or Fail (1996), Diamond uses to failure* Soon after the book was
topic of storytelling is a matter of "vanished" ancient cultures such as published, concern with its depic-
some urgency Hosted by the Amer- the Classic Maya and Easter Island- tion of the Classic Maya and other
ind Foundation, an archaeologi- ers to illustrate how past societies civilizations as "failed societies"
cal research institute in Dragoon, that mismanaged the environment reached such an acute level that at
Arizona, the seminar is dedicated were doomed to catastrophe, com- the 2006 American Anthropo-
to analyzing and countering ideas mitting what he calls "ecocide*" logical Associations (AAA) annual
popularized by Jared Diamond, Diamonds vision of history is meeting in San Jose, California, a
perhaps Americas most well-known celebrated in the popular press and symposium devoted to critiquing
storyteller when it comes to the even by many academics as a wel- Diamond s works drew a standing-
human past* The UCLA geographer come synthesis of a number of dif- room- only crowd* The response was
and physiologists two enormously ferent historical disciplines* The fact so enthusiastic that two participants,
popular books have been credited that his ultimate goals as a writer are Patricia McAnany of the University
with turning a new generation on to challenge the idea that the West is of North Carolina Chapel Hill, a
to the science of the past, but at the superior because of racial or genetic Mesoamerican archaeologist, and
same time have generated grumbling differences and to raise awareness of Near Eastern specialist Norman
and even alarm among some special- the environmental catastrophe fac- Yoffee of the University of Michi-
ists, who say Diamonds attempt to ing contemporary society make his gan, put together the seminar at the

18 ARCHAEOLOGY • March/April 2008

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 Amerind Foundation to explore in probably have not reached even nance of European civilization as the
greater depth the issues raised at the a fraction of the readership com- culmination of a series of historical
AAA meeting» manded by Diamonds big-picture accidents that started with the first
Mc Anany and Yoffee reached tomes» (When reached for comment, domestication of plant and animal
out to specialists in a wide range Diamond declined to answer ques- species some 13,000 years ago»
of fields, from the cultural anthro- tions related to the seminar, citing Diamond argues that a unique com-
pology of Papua New Guinea to his unfamiliarity with the critiques bination of geography and access to
the archaeology of the American presented there») domesticated species led inexorably
Southwest» They invited them to On the seminar s first day to Europe's domination over the
Amerinds Arizona estate to spend McAnany starts off the proceedings rest of the world» But the seminar
four days discussing and refining by emphasizing her admiration for participants maintain that Europe's
their critiques of the ideas popular- Diamonds writing abilities» "The central place in the world order is a
ized by Diamond» McAnany and beauty of Diamond is his simplicity," fleeting phenomenon» They argue
YofFee also emphasized the need to that it makes no sense to see all of
get their message out to the world history as a logical progression lead-
beyond specialists, and organized "If you talk ing to European ascendancy» To do
the seminar around the goal of pro- so, they say, ignores recent political
ducing a volume of essays written for
to 20 different historians and cultural realities that motivated
students and the general public» then you'll get 20 different European conquest and coloniza-
It was a tall order» McAnany and tion» There was nothing inevitable
histories " says Yoffee ♦
YofFee were asking participants both about the Spanish invasion of the
to dissect hugely complex issues
"We know that » Inca Empire, for instance» Rather,
with their peers and to present those But Diamond is wrong ; it was the unique cultural values of
issues in papers that could be read late-medieval Spain that resulted in
by the average high-school senior or And he's wrong in ways Pizzaro leading a coalition of Native
interested layperson» that matter " American groups against the last
No wonder then, that after three Inca emperor, Atahualpa»
days of intense discussions, the sem- The situation is reversed in
inar participants seem pleased by she says» "And the more we can have Collapse » Here, Diamond often
the field trip to Tumamoc Hill» The students read about archaeology and depicts culture as the villain» He
group is content to wander the butte, history the better» But how is the argues that many ancient civiliza-
admiring its views of downtown story being told? We want to tell a tions failed largely because leaders
Tucson and listening to Paul and story that's more complex than the obsessed with maintaining power
Suzy Fish tell the story of how the one in Collapse »" mismanaged the environment»
site is far older than they thought it McAnany goes on to outline Easter Island is a prime example»
was before excavating here, and how areas in which the seminar par- In Collapse , Diamond revisits evi-
it is still revered by Native Ameri- ticipants are in broad agreement dence that shows the Easter Island-
cans such as the Tohono O bdham» with Diamond» In particular, they ers cut down all their trees in part
For a few hours, Collapse and Guns, concur that the differences between to build the famous stone heads
Germs & Steel recede into the back- the first- worlds "haves" and the called Moai, precipitating an envi-
ground, and the group focuses on third- worlds "have nots" are not the ronmental catastrophe that had
the people who lived here 2,000 results of genetics, a critical theme of devastating consequences, including
years ago» Guns, Germs & Steel McAnany also a population crash» For Diamond
expresses admiration for Diamonds this is a textbook case of "ecocide,"
efforts in Collapse to raise awareness an example of a people making poor
to the seminar, but his of environmental problems facing environmental choices because of
Diamond presence topresence
the seminar, was in the not but Amerinds invited his
in the Amerinds modern society But that is where their obsession with a cultural phe-
library, where the scholars meet their sympathy for his positions nomenon, in this case the Moai»
every day, is palpable» The small seems to end» "If you talk to 20 different his-
two-story room is lined with books The entire premise of Guns, torians then you'll get 20 different
on Southwestern anthropology and Germs & Steel, is flawed, they say, histories," says Yoffee»" We know
archaeology» Combined, these books because it seeks to explain the domi- (continued on page 56)

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 (continued from page 20) When Diamond does consider Easter Islanders still alive today are
that» But Diamond is wrong* And hes cultural factors in his accounts, they descendants of people who survived
wrong in ways that matter" are almost always the main culprits in the tragedy of European contact, not
a culture's downfall* For instance, Dia- the failure of their own leaders to man-
mond blames the failure of the Norse age the environment*
tion that the papers delivered colony in Greenland in the fifteenth Several participants cite the fact
Its at tionatthethea seminar
measure cover such a rich
that seminar the papers of cover Diamonds delivered such a ambi- rich century on the Norse's stubborn that Diamond seems to ignore the
array of topics, and not just the refusal to adopt a maritime lifestyle link between "vanished" ancient cul-
ancient past* Over the course of four like their Inuit neighbors* By ignoring tures and their descendants living
days, cultural anthropologists discuss fish and relying mostly on traditional today* Michael Wilcox, a Stanford
Diamond s analyses of the modern European livestock, writes Diamond, archaeologist and Yuma Indian, points
predicaments of New Guinea and the Norse were ill-prepared for out that the people of Chaco Canyon
Haiti, and the harrowing recent increasingly cold conditions brought in the American Southwest didn't die
events in Rwanda* on by the Little Ice Age, a period of out, they became today's Rio Grande
In Collapse, Diamond explains the global cooling toward the end of the Pueblos* "Archaeological sites aren't
Rwandan genocide largely as a func- medieval period* corpses," says Wilcox* "They re shells*"
tion of overpopulation* In 1994, the But Joel Berglund, a Danish People living in marginal environ-
country's ethnic Hutus slaughtered archaeologist, says that archaeologi- ments like the American Southwest
nearly 500,000 Tutsis after the plane cal evidence shows the Norse made and Greenland move around, says Wil-
carrying the president, a Hutu, was extensive use of fish bones as fertilizer cox* Abandonment of sites is a strategy,
shot down* The ensuing bloodshed for crops* Far from ignoring the sea, not a result of everybody dying out* In
had an immediate political cause, says they used it extensively for their own this light, the ruins at Chaco Canyon
Diamond, but ultimately it was the purposes* When the Little Ice Age are not symbolic of that culture's fail-
result of stress brought on by too many came, the Norse simply left, taking ure, just signs it moved on*
people occupying ever smaller plots of everything they could and moving to When the collection of essays
land, which severely stressed the food other parts of the Norse world* "Why discussed at the seminar is published,
supply* Genocide was the society's should we see the colony as a failure this is the message that might reso-
tragic attempt to regain equilibrium* when it succeeded against all the odds nate most with readers* While Dia-
But Christopher Taylor, a University for 400 years?" asks Berglund* mond stresses ecological catastrophe
of Alabama anthropologist who was Probably the most anticipated and the failure of societies, the semi-
in Rwanda at the time of the genocide, paper at the seminar was given by Uni- nar participants emphasize the resil-
sees the massacres as the result of a versity of Hawaii archaeologist Terry iency of cultures that survive political
complex combination of political, eco- Hunt, who has a story to tell about and environmental change*
nomic, and cultural factors* the fate of Easter Island that differs
After telling his colleagues how drastically from Diamond's* According
he and his Tutsi fiancee eluded Hutu to Hunt, the evidence for the Easter has died down, and Paul
death squads to escape the country, Islanders deforesting the island is On has and Tumamocanddied SuzySuzy
Fish aredown, Fish Hill, are and the wrapping Paul wind
wrapping
Taylor explains how he then ana- weak* The real culprit, he says, is Rat- up their story about the trincheras
lyzed political cartoons published in tus exulans, the Pacific rat* Brought builders* The climate 2,000 years
Rwandan newspapers for clues to the by the Polynesians, rats multiplied ago would have been wetter, they
horrible events* He says the cartoons quickly, eventually numbering in the say* Perhaps a drought led people to
showed that modern Rwandans millions* Hunt theorizes that they con- leave the area around a*d* 450* It's
linked the presidency to traditional sumed the island's palm nuts at such a possible they eventually became the
concepts of sacred kingship and fertil- high rate that the trees eventually died Hohokham people, who in turn are
ity rites* During periods of drought out* The Easter Islanders were at fault probably ancestral to the modern
and stress, the king could be sacri- in that they introduced the rat to the Tohono O'odham, for whom the hill
ficed for the people* At the time of island, but blaming their obsession is still sacred*
the assassination, Rwanda was going with Moai for the deforestation and As the sun begins to edge toward
through a drought, and also suffering subsequent population crash makes no the horizon, the seminar participants
economically because of a global drop sense* The Easter Islanders could have pile into a van and take the steep road
in the price of coffee, the country's been building Moai until the moment down to Tucson* Tumamoc Hill,
main export* The assassination of the they were contacted by Europeans, its rock terraces visible for miles, is
president in this context had a sym- says Hunt, at which point they became already casting its. long shadow across
bolic meaning that Taylor argues also victims of diseases for which they had the gleaming, modern city below* ■
played a role in the genocide* Over- no immunity* According to this theory,
population by itself doesn't explain the dramatic population crash was the Eric A* Powell is a senior editor at
the collapse of Rwanda* result not of ecocide, but genocide* The IArchaeology*

56 ARCHAEOLOGY • March/April 2008

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