The Pristine Myth

Charles Mann, whose recent book 1491 was discussed in an earlier post, had this interesting op-ed in yesterday's Christian Science Monitor. In it he takes on, as he does in his book, the popular misconception that prior to European contact, Native Americans lived in harmony with nature in a pristine eden. He quickly marshalls facts to show that the environment of the Americas in 1491 was not "nature in balance" but an artifact of Indian management, populated with tens of millions of people - possibly more than were living in Europe at that time.

Overall, Mann is quite right, but there is one corrective I would like to apply to this quote, "Although Indian engineering led to some disasters, for the most part its impact on the environment was...... subtle, transformative, and persistent." We really should keep in mind these overreaching disasters: the Puebloan Abandonment of the northern Southwest and the Classic Maya Collapse of Central America. These were not small events and we should credit Native Americans with as much hubris as Europeans have.

To me, what is most interesting is Mann's take on what this really means to the environmental movement. Much of what passes for environmentalism today is dedicated to taking humans out of the landscape so that it will be "pristine" as it was prior to European arrival. They do not understand that an authentic, pre-human environment for this continent would be far different than they think. In fact, it would have to be the environment of the Pleistocene.