Problematizing Lessons from The Past

Problematizing Lessons from the Past

Unit Author: K. Anne Pyburn, Indiana University

Description

In an attempt to make their work relevant to the present and supportive of valuable political understandings, archaeologists have often tried to interpret their findings as providing “lessons from the past.” Usually these have something to do with a concern for the results of overpopulation or environmental destruction in the present. Many have assumed that showing how human error in the past led to starvation, suffering and collapse would impel people in the present to make better choices.

The results of these efforts have been negligible for social change, but unfortunately, constructing the ancestral cultures of Indigenous groups as wasteful, violent, political failures has had demonstrable negative consequences. This is particularly the case for living Maya people whose plight in the world today continues to be ignored, as their history is continuously used as a cautionary tale for humanity. People are shocked to learn that there are over 8 million Maya speakers alive today, many of whom are still struggling to overcome the genocide of the Guatemalan civil war. Few Americans learn about that civil war but few people have not heard of the Maya collapse.

In the PowerPoint linked below I cast the history of Maya speaking peoples in a different light and turn the “lessons from the past” upside down to expose the brilliant, creative, highly developed civil society, and astonishing sustainable economic strategies of Maya cultures. I show how a well-intentioned misrepresentation of the past has not only undermined Maya sovereignty in the present but is teaching exactly the wrong lessons from the past. The “Maya collapse” lessons are not only inaccurate, they miss the points about resilience and land rights that could have real impact on the modern world, by challenging the history of the destructive forces that are made to seem inevitable in traditional archaeological stories about the Maya past. 

There is an interesting double standard in the way that past peoples are discussed in the present. Very ancient peoples who are often patronized as living in “simple societies” are often characterized as in sync with the natural world and held up as examples of virtuous and healthy human life. On the other hand, people who lived in “complex societies” are often characterized as overpopulating and overexploiting their environments – providing an example of poor choices in the past.  These are all fairy tales, ancient hunters are known to have driven whole herds of bison over a cliff in order to eat some parts of only a few. And complex societies often show evidence of environmental resilience and resistance to despotism and many of the pathologies of the modern world.  In fact, no society is simple and very few (probably none) have simply disappeared due to their poor organizational decisions. More commonly societies transform over time with varied results.

Evidence of a sustained and healthy relationship with the natural world is common to many societies throughout history, but is often the result of brilliant environmental management, rather than non-interference with natural systems. Burning of grasslands, selective hunting, and reseeding of economically important plants, once discussed as environmental “tampering” by archaeologists, are now known to be evidence of sophisticated economic strategies. On the other hand, hydrological control and soil fertility maintenance through the invention of technologies such as raised fields and dark earth have only recently begun to be appreciated for their sustainability in the service of large and dense human populations. This is not to say that ancient rulers and subsistence farmers and long-distance traders made no mistakes in the past, but only that there is more to learn from the past than how societies fail. Some societies have succeeded with strategies that should be repeated.

Learning Goals

Students will be introduced to problematic interpretations of the past that will be familiar and probably not previously questioned. For Indigenous students this may be an opportunity to experience the surprise that other students feel when they first become aware of their own assumptions about Indigenous or Native people. The stories about the Maya collapse are so pervasive that even Maya people have often accepted them. 

Students will consider who should decide which lessons are taught from the past, and from whose past.

Reading List

Background for Instructor

Any online story about the Maya Collapse.

  • Students should be encouraged to separate data from interpretation in these stories, though it will be difficult. They should also be reminded of Module 2 in which they discussed how the background of the educator influenced their teaching.

PowerPoint: Misunderstanding the Past