From: "Mark" 


"Monte Davis"  wrote in message
news:3gjko1lrqvikun7ocgg5pofr26slgd5pgv{at}4ax.com...
> Ellen K.  wrote:
>
>>Great article in the current Smithsonian Magazine, "Native
Intelligence"
>>-- brings information that shows the first Thanksgiving in a whole new
>>light.
>
> Extracted from Charles Mann's _1491_, which I'm just finishing.
> Excellent popular history/anthropology/archeology, enough in the vein
> of Jared Diamond's books that it ought to do well.
>
> The short version is: much that we thought we knew about the Native
> Americans and their "timeless ways" is wrong -- because what settlers
> saw was, in fact, a tattered remnant of what had been here before wave
> after wave of Eurasian diseases ripped through them, moving ahead of
> (and faster than) the frontier.

Yes Monte, I just read a review of that book somewhere (that I can't find
at the moment) sounds very interesting.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5