Historical Argument That Was In the Wrong Forum

[Kupe Navigator]

Please refrain from making rather bold and frankly offensive assumptions about me and my beliefs. I don't have any, "racist preconceptions", as many others on this forum can attest to my love and affinity for cultures all across the world.

I say this because it seems to make sense to me that if Central Asia is the origin spot of mankind, then it makes sense how these civilizations cropped up in these distant river areas at relatively similar times. I wouldn't ever say mankind began as "white". It was so clearly not Caucasian in all of these places. They came way later. Incontrovertible until some hundred years or thousand years of fifty years later when new evidence comes up, as it so often does. I could very well be wrong, and I hold that I could be wrong right this moment too.. Perhaps I overlooked something, there is so much information out there, it's hard to learn it all. I just think it is a possibility that mankind came from Central Asia.

As a Christian... this is just embarrassing. .

 

[Evie]

Forget christians, as a *human* this is embarassing.

The overwhelming evidence is that my ancestors, and all of ours, came from Africa.

 

[Henri Christophe]

I'm not super familiar but some African Supremacists state that both MesoAmerica and East Asia were once Black too

I'm not aware of this theory of East Asians being blacks, maybe it's come from the great migration from Africa. But even this great migration from Africa is hard to know if the first humans was black or not.

But, about the Mesoamericans I heard about, I think you are talking about the Olmecs, who build some colossal heads with a physionomy who resembles african people. Because it's big nose and big mouth.

And there is also the Olmec-Xicalanca, who we discussed intensily in this thread already. Who maybe not correlated with Olmecs but they see a black skin as something very great, and paint their leaders with a black dye to resemble even more black.
that is a picture of a Eagle Warrior who also is propably a king also, because is holding a stick. And if you look closely it is very black.

And for last we have this painting, in the right corner is possible to see a black dude, propably painting by black dye. He is the king and he is going to the king room (who isn't in image, but it is in the right of this mural).
In the left side there is a white dude, it is a enemy. Propably the Yaquis. Invaders from the North (in Meso America the north have a light skin in comparasion with the south Meso americans).
In the middle there is 3 dudes stand, but just one is turned to the right, look his legs, it's painting with black dye. He maybe is the king before being painting totally with the black dye, so we can see his color of skin, isn't exactly black, but is darker then the Yaqui in the left corner.

 

[Plotinus]

I say this because it seems to make sense to me that if Central Asia is the origin spot of mankind, then it makes sense how these civilizations cropped up in these distant river areas at relatively similar times.

It doesn't really, because those civilisations began less than ten thousand years ago. But Homo sapiens appeared something like three hundred thousand years ago. That's thirty times older. It's clearly perfectly possible for people to make the move from the Horn of Africa to the Fertile Crescent in 290,000 years. The appearance of civilisation in that region is explicable in terms of its fertility and suitability for agriculture, not the supposition that humans evolved right there and never moved away until they'd learned how to grow crops.

Also, there is more genetic diversity among Africans today than there is among the whole of the rest of the world's population put together; so if you really find it hard to imagine that Africans were ancestral to Asians then you're going to find it harder to imagine how Africans were ancestral to other groups of Africans.

 

[Traitorfish]

Loads of older history books cite Central Asia near the Mideast as the original home of mankind, which if you ask me, makes a lot more sense. Makes sense to me why organized civilizations started in places as far as the Yellow River, the Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile, and the Indus. All at relatively the same time.

How does the independent emergence of agrarian civilisations in Mesoamerica and South America fit into all of this? If it's demonstrably possible for human beings to independently come up with agriculture, centralised governments, pyramids, etc. a tremendous distant from their original homeland- and we can probably agree that Mexico is, from the perspective of a Palaeolithic hunter-gather, as unfathomably distant from Kazakhstan as it is from Kenya- then why would we expect the origin of humanity to be geographically closet to any particular early civilisation?

 

[Patine]

I'm not aware of this theory of East Asians being blacks, maybe it's come from the great migration from Africa. But even this great migration from Africa is hard to know if the first humans was black or not.

But, about the Mesoamericans I heard about, I think you are talking about the Olmecs, who build some colossal heads with a physionomy who resembles african people. Because it's big nose and big mouth.

And there is also the Olmec-Xicalanca, who we discussed intensily in this thread already. Who maybe not correlated with Olmecs but they see a black skin as something very great, and paint their leaders with a black dye to resemble even more black.
that is a picture of a Eagle Warrior who also is propably a king also, because is holding a stick. And if you look closely it is very black.

And for last we have this painting, in the right corner is possible to see a black dude, propably painting by black dye. He is the king and he is going to the king room (who isn't in image, but it is in the right of this mural).
In the left side there is a white dude, it is a enemy. Propably the Yaquis. Invaders from the North (in Meso America the north have a light skin in comparasion with the south Meso americans).
In the middle there is 3 dudes stand, but just one is turned to the right, look his legs, it's painting with black dye. He maybe is the king before being painting totally with the black dye, so we can see his color of skin, isn't exactly black, but is darker then the Yaqui in the left corner.

Please not back to this. It's the choice of dyes to make murals, not Black people in Ancient Mesoamerica. Please stop beating this tired old drum.

 

[Henri Christophe]

@Patine @Zaarin @BuchiTaton
Let's discuss here about Byzantium issue, and let's @Xandinho threat alone...
Who thinks Byzantium deserve to be a civ, explain it here, who don't, also explain their reasons.
I am from the team who think Byzantium is just Rome and don't should be two different civs, if we want to high light the history of Rome between the years 400 and 1400, we don't need to call it Byzantium. We just need a leader of it's time.
And of all "byzantium" emperors, my favorite is Justinian who actually re-conquer Rome to the Roman Empire.

 

[Patine]

@Patine @Zaarin @BuchiTaton
Let's discuss here about Byzantium issue, and let's @Xandinho threat alone...
Who thinks Byzantium deserve to be a civ, explain it here, who don't, also explain their reasons.
I am from the team who think Byzantium is just Rome and don't should be two different civs, if we want to high light the history of Rome between the years 400 and 1400, we don't need to call it Byzantium. We just need a leader of it's time.
And of all "byzantium" emperors, my favorite is Justinian who actually re-conquer Rome to the Roman Empire.

I've already explained by point-of-view to death. And I stand by everything I said, across, like, four threads, and have changed nothing in opinion. You are beating the dead horse.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Sorry @Henri Christophe but I agree with @Patine about not want to extend more the toppic about Rome/Byzantium. I just wanted to clarify basics of the other point of view for any people that wanted to know about it.

 

[Henri Christophe]

Back in the Byzantium issue...
I was wondering, if Constantine become a civ leader, he should lead Byzantium, Rome or both?

 

[Plotinus]

England, of course, since that's where he was acclaimed emperor...

 

[Patine]

England, of course, since that's where he was acclaimed emperor...

You mean the Roman Frontier Province of Britannia, peopled by Roman colonists and Legionarres, but most Brythonic Celtic peoples. There was no England, by definition, until the Anglo-Saxons arrived, in number, and then came under the Hegemony of Wessex, really.

 

[Plotinus]

I know. I was trying to illustrate the futility of answering "What civ should X lead?" in any really meaningful way.

 

[Kyriakos]

Constantine as leader of the empire wouldn't be among the best choices anyway, imo
There are few competent emperors, like the Komnenoi, Basil II, the first of the Palaiologoi and so on.
Not that I have any issue with Theodora (CivIII), this is a game, doesn't have to be entirely realistic!

 

[Henri Christophe]

"What civ should X lead?" in any really meaningful way.

I don't agree, this a forum about a game who have civilizations with leaders, the leader is a key part of the game... so, it's very important.

Constantine as leader of the empire wouldn't be among the best choices anyway, imo

Also disagree. Constantine was the first Roman emperor to allow the christianity under the Roman empire. It's very important and make him a good choice.
But, Constantine was the first roman emperor to lead just half of empire, the east part, what you call Byzantium.

So, Constantine was the first emperor of Byzantium but his reign was before of the fall of West Rome, what raise the question, which civ should he leads?

 

[Patine]

But, Constantine was the first roman emperor to lead just half of empire, the east part, what you call Byzantium.

This statement is not true. You're thinking of Zeno, 142 years later. Constantine had a firmer grip on power over the whole empire than the great majority of his predecessors and successors for over a century before or over a century after his reign. I'm not at all sure where you got this notion from, to be honest.

 

[Ajidica]

This statement is not true. You're thinking of Zeno, 142 years later. Constantine had a firmer grip on power over the whole empire than the great majority of his predecessors and successors for over a century before or over a century after his reign. I'm not at all sure where you got this notion from, to be honest.

One could even argue it was later than Zeno, with Justinian. Odoacer was nominally ruling Italy in the name of the Emperor. Theoderic and his successors also kept up that fiction to varying levels. Indeed, relations between the Byzantines and the Ostrogoths were good enough the Byzantine fleet sent to fight the Vandals were able to stop over in Ostrogothic territory before sailing to Africa.

(Incidentally, that is a reason the historian Guy Halsall calls the period from about 450 to 550 the "Undead Roman Empire". It was obvious the Roman Empire in the west wasn't there, but it wasn't obvious it wouldn't come back, and there was still major influence across society in Roman economic and legal systems. If a few things had gone differently, Theoderic or Clovis might have declared themselves augustus and bringing the western Empire back. )

 

[Henri Christophe]

This statement is not true. You're thinking of Zeno, 142 years later. Constantine had a firmer grip on power over the whole empire than the great majority of his predecessors and successors for over a century before or over a century after his reign. I'm not at all sure where you got this notion from, to be honest.

I search about Zeno in Wikipedia, and indeed he is the leader of Byzantium when the western rome fall, but the first to lead Byzantium was Constantine meanwhile the emperor of the West rome was Licinius.

Constantine founded Constantinopla... and was it's first rule.

 

[Ajidica]

Having Constantine as leader of Byzantium would be like having Elizabeth I as leader of America.

 

[Patine]

I search about Zeno in Wikipedia, and indeed he is the leader of Byzantium when the western rome fall, but the first to lead Byzantium was Constantine meanwhile the emperor of the West rome was Licinius.

Constantine founded Constantinopla... and was it's first rule.

No, Constantine ruled the whole Roman Empire, and more solidly than most Roman Emperors from the 3rd to 5th Centuries. Licinius was an erstwhile ally who was also quickly defeated, leaving Constantine unchallenged for power for about 12 years. How does one discern, "ruling half of the Empire," from that? Just because he moved the capital? Does that logic mean the Brazilian President who moved the capital to Brasilia was only President of half of Brazil?