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Q: When did cultivation of plants begin in the Americas?

 

A: Agriculture in the Americas is very old. Cultivation of maize, which came from a native grass called teosinte, began in what is now south central Mexico at least 5,000 years ago, probably earlier. It may have been domesticated elsewhere as well at about the same time. Native Americans in eastern North America were experimenting with the cultivation of squash and indigenous grasses by 4000 bc, but maize did not arrive there until about ad 900. The potato was domesticated in the highland Andes of South America at least 4,000 years ago, probably considerably earlier. In what is now Peru, cultivated beans, including the lima bean, made their appearance by 7000 bc.

 

Q: Are there any peoples of the world who remain unaffected by modern influences?

 

A: There were half a century ago, but there probably aren’t today. It is possible, though increasingly unlikely, that small populations of isolated peoples still survive in remote parts of New Guinea or the Amazon Basin.

 

Q: What is the importance of the Rosetta Stone?

 

A: The Rosetta Stone, which bears an inscription in three languages, provided the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. The inscription is a proclamation by pharaoh Ptolemy V on the occasion of his coronation at Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt, on March 27, 196 bc, decreeing measures aimed at securing the support of the indigenous population. The decree leaves those who read or heard it in no doubt of the divinity of the pharaoh: “Since King Ptolemy, the ever-living, beloved of Ptah, the god Manifest and Beneficent, born of King Ptolemy and Queen Arsinoe, Father-loving gods, has conferred many benefits on the temples and those who dwell in them and on all the subjects in his kingdom, being a god born of a god and goddess…” The Rosetta Stone was found in 1799 by a French officer, who was helping to build a fortification in the town of that name in the Egyptian Delta. French scholar Jean François Champollion deciphered the stone in 1822.

 


Date: 2015-02-16; view: 738


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