In modern day society, the homeless are too often looked down upon as the lowest class.  We treat a settled down lifestyle as the ultimate goal — the American dream of a house with a white picket fence.  But as urban nomads, the homeless are not inherently down on their luck.  In fact, the nomadic lifestyle has a long and complex historical significance – like, for instance the Pazyryk people.

The construction of a Pazyryk kurgan.

The Pazyryk people were nomadic horsemen who inhabited the Altai mountain region from the 6th century B.C. to the 4th century B.C. (about.com).  The Pazyryk people combat the idea the nomadic peoples are, “less developed than many sedentary ones”  (nytimes.com), or that nomadic people of their region were simply “rude barbarians” (evolution-institute.org).  In Pazyryk burial mounds known as kurgans, artifacts like carved pieces of wood, goods formed from precious metals, and mechanically-complex carts have been found.  Foreign goods have also been found, but they have been transformed by the Pazyryk people’s craft — becoming even more fantastic.

An artist’s rendition of the tattoos covering the mummy known as Princess Ukok.

Even more interesting than the artifacts found inside of kurgans are the mummies buried with them.  Upon their bodies were intricate tattoos of animals both real and mythical.  It is believed that these tattoos symbolized place in society, names, or even pre-writing (nytimes.com)(ancient-origins.net “The Stunning Ancient Tattoos of the Pazyryk Nomads”).  This has been supported by the discovery of the mummy Princess Ukok, a young female who was found in an elaborate burial chamber.

The Pazyryk people have even been found to have performed complex surgery.  Two individuals were found to have undergone cranial surgery, and survived — evidenced by bone growth over the incisions (ancient-origins.net “Ancient Pazyryk nomads carried out highly advanced cranial surgery in Siberia”).  Interestingly, there is evidence that the surgeries performed are in line with ancient Greek medical texts suggesting the Pazyryk had an extensive range and communication with other cultures of their time period (ancient-origins.net “Ancient Pazyryk nomads carried out highly advanced cranial surgery in Siberia”).

The urban nomads of today are not unlike the Pazyryk.  Though some are not homeless  by choice, many do make the choice to be “home-free”.  Those of us with sedentary lives should not look down upon urban nomads.  We should work to coexist and stop trying to fix their way of living through assimilation into our lifestyle.  Nomadic people have an equally rich culture and history — especially if wealth is not measured in terms of material items.

References:

http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/ancient-pazyryk-nomads-advanced-cranial-surgery-siberia-1020300

http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/stunning-ancient-tattoos-pazyryk-nomads-002267

The Pazyryk Kurgans: a Glimpse into the Amazing World of Central Asia in the Iron Age (I millennium BCE)

http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/greekartarchaeology/ig/Wordless-Wednesday-Pictures/Pazyryk-Horseman-c-300-BC.htm#step-heading

Images:

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2012/03/13/science/13NOMA4/13JPNOMA4-popup.jpg

http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2012/08/15/1226450/724929-princess-designs.jpg

Further Reading:

The Textiles from Pazyryk

http://www.jstor.org/stable/23203291?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

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As President Obama urges world leaders to tackle climate change in Paris for COP21, members from the 124 nation group of the International Union of Architects plan to present to the Paris summit the Caral Letter, a letter celebrating the ancient city of Caral-Supe in Peru as a model for sustainable living in the twenty-first century.  This initiative is an example of how archaeology can be used to engage the problems our society currently faces by studying the past for ways to plan for a better future.   

The city of Caral overlooking the Supe river valley.

The city of Caral-Supe was home to the Notre Chico people and can be traced back to the Late Archaic period of the Central Andes and is also the oldest center of civilization in the Americas.  Caral is 5000 years old and 626 hectares, situated on a dry desert terrace overlooking the green valley of the Supe river.

Caral is famous for the ways its engineers developed the complex city using basic tools, representing inspiration to current world leaders and engineers trying to tackle climate change.  The city incorporates sunken amphitheaters, pyramids, and underground ducts that once channeled winds to keep fires burning (globalpost.com).  Moreover, Caral is situated in a seismically active area, and engineers of Caral innovated the use of flexible foundations called “shicras” to stabilize structures in the city.  

A picture of one of the structures in the city of Caral.

The city also epitomizes a message about how our society should respect the environment.  “This society was very interested in developing in harmony with nature. They never occupied the valley, they didn’t settle on productive land. Fertile fields were deities,” said Peruvian archaeologist Ruth Shady, who conducted the first excavations at Caral in 1996 and brought the site to world attention (globalpost.com).  The city of Caral-Supe is an admirable example for architects to present to the climate summit not only because it serves to inspire current world leaders and engineers with the extraordinary tasks people accomplished with only basic tools, but also because the people of Caral intimately respected their environment – a pertinent message for world leaders looking to solve climate change.

The city of Caral-Supe shows that archaeology can be a means of tackling the problems our society faces today by providing examples about how we faced – and overcame – similar challenges posed in the past.  

“We turn to the past to see how civilization was organized 5,000 years ago, thinking about their commitment to nature, their cosmic vision,” said Jose Arispe, one of Peru’s leading architects and an adviser with the International Union of Architects. (globalpost.com)

References

http://www.globalpost.com/article/6685210/2015/11/10/perus-ancient-city-caral-inspires-modern-architects

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1269

http://www.peruthisweek.com/news-ancient-citadel-of-caral-inspires-modern-builders-108134

Photo 1 http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/02/26/caral_2-6202c5022d4f3a304ac051b478a0acb728860ab7-s900-c85.jpeg

Photo 2 http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/Images/countries/American%20pics/caralpyramidmayor.jpg

Further Reading

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/27/world/archaeological-site-in-peru-is-called-oldest-city-in-americas.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/The-mother-of-all-civilisations/articleshow/2625053.cms?referral=PM

Gigapan of Caral-Supe http://gigapan.com/gigapans/163382

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Cidade Velha, former capital of the Cabo Verde Islands off the coast of West Africa, is home to a 500-year-old secret—a church, buried and left in ruins for hundreds of years, has been recently excavated and recognized as “the oldest formal European colonial building” discovered in sub-Saharan Africa to date (Cambridge). However, the mystery surrounding it is rooted in something much darker.

Colonized by Portuguese settlers, Cidade Velha was once a booming port city that owed its success to the slave trade, functioning for over 300 years as a holding point before slaves were sent to Portugal and the Americas (Phys.org). The previously mentioned Portuguese church, upon its excavation by a team from Cambridge University, was discovered alongside a massive cemetery of about 1,000 bodies. Interestingly enough, at least half of these bodies buried in Christian tradition were African, and presumed slaves (Discovery). These graves give rise to evidence of religious conversion of locals by the Portuguese settlers, and begin to raise important questions about Cabo Verde’s history that haven’t yet been addressed. The teeth and bodies of the dead have the potential to be examined in order to provide a deeper context of slaves’ diets and living conditions, as well as provide an objective truth about what life was really like in Cabo Verde in the 1500s as a result of colonization.

Excavated tombstones in Cidade Velha (Cambridge)

The excavation of this church in particular was an effort by Cambridge University that successfully began to rewrite the story of the Cabo Verde Islands and clarify a national history long-shrouded by the lingering remains of colonialism, slavery, and religious conversion. It is important to note that archaeologists from Cambridge collaborated with local workers on the excavation, making it a truly community effort. The digs were also made public and generated an immense amount of interest and support from locals.

Local children at excavation site (Cambridge)

The stories of Cabo Verde are now being claimed by the Cabo Verdeans, and rightfully so. Archaeological excavations such as this slowly but surely strip colonialism of its power over history’s narratives and let us remember history as it was, not as a dominant power structure wanted us to believe. This is a long-overdue reclamation of power, and it gives depth to local heritage, culture, and pride. “It’s a profound social and political story to which these new archaeological investigations are making an invaluable contribution,” says Marie Louis Stig Sørensen of Cambridge, and she’s absolutely correct—through archaeology, a local community can reclaim the ability to tell their own stories, and that is undeniably powerful.

Further Reading:

500-Year-Old Church Found in Slave Trade Settlement

Earliest church in the tropics unearthed in former heart of Atlantic slave trade – phys.org

Earliest church in the tropics unearthed in former heart of Atlantic slave trade – Cambridge

Uncovering the first European church in the tropics – YouTube

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