(Wk 3A) The importance of the old South American cultures

Archeologists have dedicated centuries to re-discover and understand the pre-Colombian cultures that habited America between the XVI and XVIII centuries, before the Europeans came to America.

Some people may think that if the Europeans hadn’t “discover” America, we would still live nomads or something like that, but thanks to the discoveries that many archeologists have made, we know better.

The people that have studied the South American cultures, have discover that they were actually really civilized, they had very advanced knowledge in architecture, cosmography, astronomy, archeology and art, between others. The Zenù tribe, for example, that habited America between the IX and XII centuries even had a pretty complicated hydraulic system.

All these cultures had much knowledge because they exchanged discoveries between them. Each tribe had a specific “occupation” at which they where experts at an which they taught to other tribes. They also had a very efficient way of governing that they considered that the land was the most important thing in the tribe, followed by the community and then by the individuals, so they knew very well how to take all the advantages of their land.

When the Europeans got to America they either destroyed or took away most of the resources from which the tribes survived, making them disperse and eventually disappear. Some of the artifacts made by the pre-comlombians were also disposed because “semejante universo de representaciones mìticas no fue asimilado por los Europeos”(imagenes de su diversidad pg 39). They thought most of them were vulgar and un-natural.

So, some people think we, Americans, were saved with the arrival of the Europeans, but others assure that it was our perdition. what do you think?

Where are we going to be in two centuries? Wk 2A

The map of a country, in some ways, represents its history, development and culture, or as the book "imegenes de la diversidad" puts it: "El mapa de un paìs es la casa que resguarda la historia de quienes la han habitado desde siempre" (pg 13). As time passes by, the geographic frontiers of a country change and in the specific case of Colombia, these changes have made it`s shape smaller. What changes the geography of a country, besides the biologic catastrophes, are the political decisions its goverment makes.

Between the XVI and the XXI centuries the colombian government, obvlious to the cultural value of the countrie`s land, sold it, with little dignity, to forgeing countries. Given the lack of interest of the Colombian government during this time, the coasts of Colombia were the target of those country`s that wished to exile their prisoners or free their slaves.

And so, after all these time, only today we (Colombians) decided to complain about how our former governments gave away our land so easily, but anyway, we are allowing our actual government to do the exact same thing that was done to our land in the past two centuries specially, with the satelite space that belongs to our country, so, I may ask, what have we learned from our mistakes? and where are we going to be in another two centuries?