[javert]

Consistently ignored? Not at all. We are constantly reminded of this topic these days. It's very popular.

For instance, all you hear about on Columbus Day is about how (supposedly) horrible Colombus was, and how people are insulted that we still celebrate him.

[CalRobert]

Can you elaborate? Perhaps things have changed since I lived in the US (two years ago) but most people I knew were more or less completely ignorant of pre-colonial American history, and had only a passing familiarity with Columbus' misdeeds. I hope indeed it has changed.

[WalterBright]

Relatively little is known about pre-colonial history in North America, due to the absence of writing from those times. This is pretty much true of all peoples that did not have writing.

[kylebgorman]

The Mayan rulers carefully documented their vicious wars of conquest (among other things). Some believe the Incas, with their "quipu" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu) recording devices, were on their way to a writing system. But that's really it re: pre-Columbian writing.

[WalterBright]

There is a fair bit known about the Mayans because of their writing (and a lot of that survived because it was carved into stone). But the N. American peoples did not have writing, and their lifestyle did not leave behind much for archeologists.

[JoeAltmaier]

Mounds, burials, artifacts (but mostly ephemeral e.g. bone and skin), some surviving culture.

[protomyth]

Quite a lot of the history has been written from the stories carried down, and I do believe the central and south american tribes had writing which is still largely ignored.

(Edit: quite a lot of the old stories are written down, downvoters- I cannot help if you don't value the current efforts. I won't be providing links as there is Google and I have to deal with a damn blizzard)

[CalRobert]

Europeans destroyed them. It's a crime against history that can hardly be expressed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices

[userulluipeste]

I understand that it's simpler to say just "Europeans" instead of "European colonial powers", but before you know it you may cast an unjust collective accuse over an entire continent full of people, many of which had nothing to do with the sins of America's colonization.

[CalRobert]

OK, make that "A group of people who came to the Americas from Europe and behaved in a less than polite manner"

[protomyth]

You do know that there are tribes other than the Mayans?

[happyscrappy]

>central and south american tribes had writing which is still largely ignored.

They were almost completely destroyed by Europeans.

[protomyth]

"Almost" is not all and given the responses in this thread, I get the feeling that people are not aware of the number of tribes in the Americas.

[rayiner]

Columbus was awful and we should be ashamed for celebrating him. We also learn way too much about native Americans, in some weird cultural guilt trip for past misdeeds. That isn't new--much of my childhood was wasted on learning native American history in the early 1990's.

[ashark]

Agreed. Maybe it's a regional thing, but I remember tons of time spent covering Native Americans in grades K-12. More than any other topic in history, probably. Meanwhile we barely covered European history outside the Age of Exploration, and the rest of the world received even less consideration.

From your "early 1990s" mention I'm thinking we're around the same age, though, so maybe it was different before, or it's changed since. Or, again, maybe it's regional. Mid Westerner, but didn't grow up anywhere near a reservation, for the record.

[CalRobert]

Wasted? Seriously? If you live in the Americas it's a part of the history of your home. If you think all history is a waste, then sure, but to focus on just the history of the people who lived on a landmass for most of its populated history is a bit inconsistent.

[javert]

No, it is a waste as a schoolchild to spend years and years studying Native Americans at the expense of everything else, when literally everything we know about them can be learned fairly quickly. There simply isn't that much information there.

Having also been a schoolchild in the 90s, I assume the same material was simply being repeated over and over and over. The American school system is busted like that.

[king_jester]

I had the exact opposite experience. Learning about native peoples and their history was extremely fascinating for me and I wouldn't like to have missed out on that knowledge. Learning more about other people is never a waste.

[chema]

History should be more than being "reminded". Few American could name the three largest Native nations today, much less 100 years ago, or what their systems of government, leaders, or social structures were.

I learned a lot in school about the Puritans, and Ancient Europe and even Egypt and Asian history, but little to nothing about the people who lived in California less than 200 years ago.