Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2020 i National Geographic History

The state of California gave a bronze statue of Father Serra to Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol building in 1931. Father Serra established nine of the 21 missions that grew into thriving cities along California’s coast, from San Diego to San Francisco. Two centuries earlier, Serra, on behalf of the Catholic Church and Spain, fervently sought to Christianize the native populations who lived there and to solidify Spain’s imperial reach in North America. To expand this influence of the crown and church, Serra established a series of missions: villages for indigenous people to live, work, and worship under the leadership and authority of Spanish priests and soldiers. Since 1931, Serra’s legacy has become more complex and divisive. Some note that he helped lay the foundation for much of the…

8TH CENTURY B.C. In a work in which women are otherwise portrayed as weak, Homer’s epic poem The Iliad refers to the Amazons as “women who are the equals of men.” CIRCA 7TH CENTURY B.C. A post-Homeric account of Troy, the Aethiopis, features the Amazon queen Penthesilea. She sides with the Trojans and is killed by Achilles. 5TH CENTURY B.C. In his Histories, which often blends fact and fiction, Herodotus recounts how Amazon women and Scythian men paired up and enjoyed sexual equality. 4TH CENTURY B.C. In his Laws, Plato proposes girls and boys receive the same instruction in combat, inspired by tales of Amazons, and the example of real-life Scythian women.…

IN THE 1940S archaeologists studying Scythian sites in Ukraine, south Russia, Caucasia, and Central Asia excavated grave mounds called kurgans. When they found human remains accompanied by weapons, they assumed the deceased must be male. The advent of DNA-testing has proven those assumptions wrong. About 300 skeletons, some battle-scarred, have been identified as female; like Scythian men, these women were buried with their quivers of arrows, battle-axes, spears, and horses. Further studies of Scythian culture revealed an egalitarian way of life. As part of a nomadic tribe of mounted archers, all the children—both sons and daughters—would be taught to ride horses and shoot arrows from a young age. Regardless of gender, Scythians donned similar clothing too. Everyone dressed in tunics and pants, making it easier for all people to hunt…

AN ARCHITECTURAL WONDER, Trajan’s Bridge was ordered built in A.D. 103 to secure rapid supply lines in Rome’s war against the Dacians. Completed in two years, it connected the Danube’s southern shore (modern-day Kladovo in Serbia) with the northern (modern-day Drobeta–Turnu Severin in Romania). Designed by Apol-lodorus of Damascus, the bridge was made of intricate wooden arches that stood atop stone piers. Rather than build short spans, which would have required more piers and taken too long, he devised a unique wooden arch solution. The bridge was demolished some 150 years later by Aurelian as he withdrew from Dacia. At over six-tenths of a mile, it was the longest span bridge built for more than 1,000 years. Twelve of the original 20 piers still exist, although all but two are…

The Crusades stand as one of the key historical milestones of the Middle Ages. Backed by the Catholic Church, European Christians launched eight separate missions to take the Holy Land from Muslim control between 1096 and 1291. Led by Europe’s elite, the Crusades were documented in great detail by the leaders of the church as well as the people who fought them. Their leaders, their movements, and their outcomes are well known to history. The story of the Children’s Crusade of 1212 brings to mind powerful images of throngs of medieval European children gathering together in faith to wrest Jerusalem from the Muslims. The events of the two expeditions fascinated 13th-century audiences, and chroniclers wrote different accounts decades after the Children’s Crusade ended. Historians, however, are hampered by a lack…

DURING THE BEAGLE’S VOYAGE, Darwin famously amassed a huge scientific collection of plants and animals, but another important legacy is his prolific and detailed correspondence with family and friends. The letters reflect Darwin’s mood over the five years of the voyage and—despite the ups and downs—suggest he was never disheartened. His words to his loved ones also expose the man behind the scientist. His humanity and personality quirks are on full display—from delighting in his private cabin on the ship to asking his sisters to mail him more “Prometheans,” or matches. To Catherine Darwin, Charles’s sister Río de la Plata, May 1833 And it appears to me, the doing what little one can to encrease the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can…

THE BEGINNINGS OF Darwin’s theory of evolution have been traced by some authors to his study of finches in the Galápagos. The differentiation that existed between the birds of each island demonstrated how the species evolved according to the particular environment. Today, however, many believe that Darwin only came to these conclusions some time after returning to England and seeing the results of new experiments with bird breeding. The samples of finches brought from the Galápagos turned out to be badly labeled, so once back in London, Darwin found it hard to identify them.…

Chewed-up wads of tree pitch are not uncommon finds at Stone Age sites in northern Europe, but one little black blob of it has proved to be a goldmine of genetic information. The pitch (also called “tar”) from a birch tree was ancient “chewing gum” that was preserved in mud after it was discarded. The gum contained human saliva, and scientists have been able to extract DNA from it. Found on the island of Lolland in southern Denmark and carbon-dated to around 5,700 years ago, the gum preserved enough DNA that scientists were able to extract for the first time an entire ancient hu-man genome from something other than human bones—a feat called “amazing” by Hannes Schroeder, who led a team at the University of Copenhagen. Schroeder said the gum…

JUNÍPERO SERRA was canonized, or made a saint, in a special mass in Washington, D.C., in September 2015. Pope Francis I praised the priest’s efforts to “defend … and protect” the “dignity” of California’s Native American population in the mid-1700s. Yet detractors—50 different Native American tribes among them—argued that Serra supported a colonial system that destroyed Native American cultures and decimated its populations. He was not, as some believe, a self-sacrificing pioneer who introduced Catholicism and European-style agriculture; he imposed them, they believe.…

EVIDENCE that genuine warrior women existed in the regions where ancient Greeks located the Amazons has been mounting for years. In late 2019 researchers from Russia’s Institute of Archaeology made a landmark discovery in the Voronezh province in western Russia: a burial containing four female Scythian fighters, ranging in age from about 13 to late 40s, who fought, lived, and died on the steppe of western Russia some 2,300 years ago. Parts of the tomb had been looted, but the burials of two women were intact. One appeared to have died in her mid-20s. Her body was buried with her legs bowed, in the position of a horsewoman, with two spears alongside. Also intact was the body of the oldest woman, whose skull still was adorned with a ceremonial headdress…

AMAZONIAN VALOR can be found among other female characters in classical writings. Plutarch, in his first-century A.D. treatise On the Bravery of Women, recounts the deeds of Telesilla, a Greek poet who successfully defended the city of Argos against the Spartans. King Cleomenes of Sparta had defeated the city’s army in the field and was marching to Argos to capture the city. Telesilla rallied the women, the youth, and the elderly to take up arms against Cleomenes’ attack. Their combined forces repelled the Spartans, and Argos was saved. The second-century A.D. geographer Pausanias wrote of a stela (now disappeared) outside the Temple of Aphrodite in Argos that records Telesilla’s bravery, a rare tribute to a woman in a culture where they had little official place in public or military life.…

27 B.C. As Germanic tribes push south into Roman territory, Emperor Augustus launches a campaign to push them back. A.D. 9 Three Roman legions are wiped out by barbarians at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Augustus withdraws, fixing a border on the Danube River. A.D. 105-106 A series of wars against Dacia, today’s Romania, culminate in Trajan’s victory. Rome annexes it—its only territory north of the Danube. A.D. 270 The Visigoths attack Dacia while Rome is consumed by civil wars. Although Aurelian defeats the Visigoths, he cedes the territory to them. A.D. 378 The Visigoths, after having been allowed to settle inside the empire, to flee the Huns, attack and defeat the Romans at Adrianople. A.D. 476 A Visigoth army removes the last Roman emperor in the west, replacing…

BARBARIAN FORCES were a constant threat to Rome despite successes patrolling the Danube. In a.d. 167 a consortium of Marcomanni, Quadi, and other Germanic tribes attacked Roman towns in Italy for the first time in more than 150 years. They ransacked the prosperous town of Opitergium (modern Oderzo, Italy) and defeated the Roman troops sent to stop them. Then they marched against Aquileia, but lacking siege equipment, could not get past its walls. Emperor Marcus Aurelius fought the barbarians repeatedly over the next decade, culminating in a major victory in A.D. 179, a year before his death. His son, Emperor Commodus, agreed to peace with the by-then destitute tribes in exchange for a promise not to retaliate. The Marcomanni remained a threat until A.D. 296, when they were beaten definitively.…

IT HAS BEEN ARGUED that the so-called Children’s Crusade was not strictly made up of children. In 1977 the Dutch historian Peter Raedts argued that the Latin term pueri referred not only to those who were children, but also to those who were socially “small.” In other words, pueri could be peasants, like Stephen and Nicholas, who belonged to the lowest echelon of society. Several sources specifically mention that adult men and women, as well as the elderly, did take part in the events of 1212. The term pueri could have been used to refer to male adolescents under 15 years old, which was then the legal age to marry. This definition adds teenagers to the mix. However, the word infantes also appears in the sources describing participants in the…

ON APRIL 18, 1835, Darwin wrote a long letter from Valparaíso (Chile) to his friend and former teacher, the botanist and geologist John Stevens Henslow. He described the local lizards and invited his colleagues’ opinions. Darwin's methodical approach to research and his generosity and openness to academic cooperation is on full display: “I also send a small bottle with 2 Lizards: one of them is Viviparous, as you will see by the accompanying notice.” Darwin had heard of a French scholar who had found a similar lizard, so he urged his friend to “hand over the Specimens to some good Lizardologist & Comparative Anatomist to publish an account of their internal structure.”…

EVOLUTION OF AT THEORY IT IS LIKELY that during his trip aboard the Beagle Darwin may have already been beginning to sketch a first outline of his theory of evolution. Immediately after returning to London, he began to work on the theory in earnest, albeit secretly, in his private notebooks. He drafted a first brief treatise that he kept hidden for fear of the scandal it would provoke. As early as 1837 (a year after his return on the Beagle), he drew a “tree of life” (left) to illustrate the evolution—or “transmutation” as he then termed it—of species. It was not until 1859 that Darwin published the final version of his theory, spurred to do so by the publication of similar ideas by the English naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. DARWIN'S…

THE FORENSIC reconstruction of Calpeia’s face, unveiled in 2019 and now on display in the Gibraltar National Museum, startles visitors with the modernity of her appearance. Manuel Jaén, the conservator who carried out the reconstruction, has stressed, “The entire face conforms to forensic parameters: the nose, hair, skin color … It’s amazing; a lot of people have said that Calpeia looks very familiar.”…

SILVER BIRCH FORESTS occur naturally throughout most of Europe, but the trees prefer colder climates and are more abundant in the boreal region of northern Europe. Researchers link birch bark with various possible Stone Age uses, such as layered mats or containers. Charred birch-bark rolls have been found that might have served as torches or tapers for lighting fires. But the main use of birch bark was to heat it to make pitch, or tar, a gluey black-brown substance used in Europe since at least the middle Pleistocene (approximately 750,000 to 125,000 years ago) to fasten stone blades to handles. Pieces of birch pitch have been found with tooth marks, prompting archaeologists to reason that as the pitch cooled and solidified, it was chewed to make it moldable again. The…

THE ASSAULT on Berl in was launched on April 16, 1945. Two Soviet fronts (army groups) took part: the First Belorussian Front under Marshal Georgi Zhukov and the First Ukrainian Front led by Marshal Ivan Konev. Zhukov’s forces advanced due west from the Oder River against the German Ninth Army, while Konev’s forces crossed the Neisse River to the south and overwhelmed the Fourth Panzer Army. After sending two armies west to link up with the U.S. First Army along the Elbe River, Konev turned north with armored forces and sealed off Berlin on April 25, preventing the German 12th Army from relieving the capital. Russian troops then stormed Berlin, which fell on May 2.…

IN HIS 1787 BIOGRAPHY of Father Junípero Serra, Spanish missionary Francisco Palóu recorded the founding of the San Diego mission on July 16, 1769: “[In order to] subject the barbarism of the people who live in this new California to the gentle yoke of our Holy faith … Father Junípero raised the Standard of the Holy Cross, putting it in the place that seemed most appropriate to him for the establishment of the settlement and in sight of that port.”…

THE GREEKS surrounded themselves with images of powerful Amazons in battle scenes on painted pottery and temple friezes, but these female figures were also popular with sculptors. Writing in the first century A.D., the Roman writer Pliny the Elder described a competition between Greek sculptors in the mid-fifth century B.C. Charged with creating an Amazon statue for the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, they created bronze statues of Amazons in various poses. “Wounded Amazon” statues were especially popular. They depict an injured female warrior who has retreated from battle. In the example shown above, her quiver hangs useless under one arm. Her chiton, fastened at one shoulder, falls, exposing both breasts. Despite her fate, her expression does not betray suffering or anguish, which would likely have impressed Greeks for its…

LOCATED IN TODAY’S ROMANIA, Dacia was a wealthy regional power known for its gold and silver mines and skilled metalworkers. Dacian raids across the Danube into Roman lands spurred Emperor Trajan to wage a war, first in A.D. 101-102 and again in 105-106. Trajan’s forces destroyed Sarmizegetusa, the Dacians’ capital, wiped out their culture, and folded their lands and their treasures into the empire.…

ALBERIC DE TROIS-FONTAINES, a 13th-century French monk, wrote a lengthy chronicle between 1227 and 1241 that featured an entry on the Children’s Crusade, but historians doubt its accuracy. He details the attempts of the pueri to secure passage to Jerusalem when 30,000 of them reach Marseille. Swindled by slavers, many perished when their ships sank near Sardinia. According to Alberic, Pope Gregory IX was so moved by the event that he ordered a new church, called the Church of the New Innocents, to be erected on San Pietro (an island some four miles southwest of Sardinia), where the drowned children washed ashore. Alberic reported that their perfectly preserved bodies were carried into a local church where they remained and were visited by pilgrims. Historians have searched for remnants of this…

DARWIN’S LETTERS recorded his astonishment and awe at the beautiful landscapes he experienced on his five-year voyage. In an 1833 letter to his sister Caroline, he wrote: “[T]he Beagle will sail in a few days for Monte Video. It is now four months since my last letter so I will write a journal of everything that has since happened … Part of the way [through Tierra del Fuego] was by means of an arm of the sea, which connects the Atlantic & Pacific. Some of the scenes, from their retirement, & others from their desolate air, were very grand. Glaciers descend to the water's edge; the azure blue of the ice, contrasted with the white snow, & surrounded by dark green forests were views as beautiful as they were novel…

In 1996 archaeologists ventured into a cave in Gibraltar, where they found a burial containing human bones. Among them was a skull. The archaeologists knew that the burial was very old. It was discovered under layers of sediment containing fish, bird, and mammal bones and carved flint objects. The skull had been damaged after the burial, but it still joined the collection of the Gibraltar National Museum. The skull’s age remained a mystery for many years. In 2019 the results of a landmark study proved through DNA analysis that it belonged to a woman who lived 7,500 years ago, making it the oldest remnant of a modern female woman found in Gibraltar to date. Analysis also revealed that the skull’s genetic ancestry lay far east of the Iberian Peninsula. The…

1 SCANNING 3D cloning and restitution techniques allowed computers to fill in the missing and damaged portions of Calpeia’s skull. 2 RE-CREATING Using the proportions of the cranium, Jaén re-created the woman’s missing jaw. The researchers now had a 3D impression of a complete skull. 3 SCULPTING After DNA analysis established the nature of Calpeia’s soft tissue and muscles, the conservators sculpted clay to re-create her facial traits. 4 PAINTING A hyperrealistic silicon model was created from a mold and painted. Jaén ensured her skin showed signs of aging and weathering, typical of the time.…