alt Hacker News> “It’s an incredibly exciting finding, because for so long, the intellectual aspects of native Native American cultures have really been sidelined, if not consciously suppressed by colonial powers,” Wiener said.
Really? That's what this is motivated by? Plain old boring science and more objective documentation of artifacts aren't good enough reasons?
How is anything being suppressed if there are a ton of random stories constantly being published about Native Americans apparently being secret geniuses with magical powers?
This is borderline racist. NBC has really gone down the shitter.
> Madden left legal practice in 2017 and started independent research on the Olmec civilization, an early Mesoamerican population, before he began a master’s program in archaeology — his “original love” — in 2022.
At least they're honest about who they're interviewing and leave it up to the reader to decide credibility?
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Im not American, so my knowledge on the natives, or Indians as I'm told they prefer to call themselves, was based on media made by these colonial powers. I started reading into the subject recently and I find that the only thing the colonial powers seem to miss out is the brutal treatment of women, the gang rapes and the torture. Interestingly enough, the powers that be in New York that never had dealings with the Indians face to face had the same picture of peace loving land hippies in mind when telling southerners how to negotiate with them. The comanche specifically were some of the most impressive and frightening people I've ever read about.
That's quite amusing; you don't see the connection between "magical powers" and sidelining real intellectual achievements?
Also, Madden is not a master's student anymore. He's a 62 year old doctoral candidate and the lead author on this study.
This is becoming more and more common. I recently read an article about the male genetic material's influence on pregnancy complications and it included a similar blurb about women's rights and colonialism (don't ask me how that last one is related). Like, just state the findings and your conclusions from them. No need to attempt to save the world.