I'll be picking up this issue of Archaeology Magazine

[james_davis_nicoll]

Diamond on the Carpet

Archaeologists think Guns, Germs, and Steel author Jared Diamond misrepresents the downfall of ancient civilizations to score points for today's environmental movement. What does their criticism of the Pulitzer Prize winning biologist tell us about his biases, and how does it reveal their own?

Nicked from talheres

Comments

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

How much fundamental difference does this actually make? Ding Diamond for spinning things into the most emotionally graphic scenario ("they refused to adapt and all died off"), but from my limited memories of the book and a bit of common sense, I'd think the fundamental point should be that climate change can force societies to change drastically or leave. The article says "they left", but also that they left because of climate change, and didn't turn into Inuit.

After all, there's nowhere realistic for us to go from Earth. All we can do is change, in a controlled or uncontrolled fashion...

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

That's a rhetorical argument, not a scientific one. Diamond claims to be a scientist.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

And much as Diamond gets bashed, this struck me as as bad a case of theory trumping evidence as anything in his books:

"And while there are plenty of seal bones in Norse dumps, virtually no fish bones have been recovered, leading some to argue that they never took advantage of the ample fish resources in the streams and fjords, even in times of famine.

Gisladottir, a native of Iceland, scoffs at the notion, pointing out that Norse in other lands ate fish in quantity. "Of course they ate fish," she says. "One common way of preparing cod was to gut it, dry it, and then cook it in a pot for three or four hours and eat your porridge, bones and all."

I.e., I am so convinced my theory is right that I'd rather believe that *every single fish they caught* was eaten whole from head to tail, rather than accept the evidence that they ate almost no fish.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

If I recall correctly, the real problem with the fish hypothesis is the nitrogen-15 content in the archaeological remains is too low. Fish bones are in general poorly preserved.