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Andrs G. Meja-Ramn

Dr. Gary Johnson

EARS-07: Holocene New England

Wednesday, January 23rd 2013

Down Where Its Hotah, Undah da Watah, Undah da Sea1

[The rate of rising sea levels with respect to time] shall only be determined

using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the

year 1900. Rates of seas-level [sic] rise may be extrapolated linearly [but not

exponentially,] (House of Representatives of North Carolina). This is House

Resolution 819. And so North Carolinian politicians completely disregarded the

positive-feedback loop that scientists seem to agree will cause an exponential increase

in sea level rise and pretended it doesnt exist . Such an increase in sea levels will

drastically affect North Carolina, impacting fisheries and low-lying communities in the

Outer Banks. Although North Carolina refuses to acknowledge it , history shows that

sea levels have indeed risen, and in turn, affected the course of human civilization

multiple times throughout the history of our humble species .

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About twenty thousand years ago during the last ice age , land bridges connected

various landmasses to each othersuch as the British Isles to Europe, Australia to

Papua, and North America to Afro-Eurasia (Corliss) (see Figure 1)due to the massive

amount of water stored in the continental ice sheets . Across the former land bridge

which we now call Beringialikely came a group of Asiatic nomadic tribes who ,

within the succeeding twenty millennia, would go on to populate the Americas.

mtDNA is DNA found in the mitochondria of eukaryotic organisms such as

plants, animals, fungi, and protists. The Endosymbiotic Theory, postulated by the late

UMASS Amherst Professor Lynn Margulis, explains why plastid organelles contain

DNA. The theory states that at the key moment millions of years ago when eukaryotes

and prokaryotes were beginning to diverge, the proto-eukaryotic organisms absorbed

photosynthesizing and respirating organisms (Margulis) . These smaller organisms lived

inside the cytosol of the proto-eukaryotic organisms , and eventually lost the ability to

survive outside the larger cell (Margulis). The new organelles would then divide with

the pro-eukaryotic cells to form bona fide eukaryotic cells (Margulis) .

Since all organelles are inherited through the mother, all mtDNA not acquired

through mutation is passed on through the mothers side , which can give a reliable path

of migration over many thousands of years. Genetic research of such mtDNA has

supported the land bridge explanation for human population in the New World .

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Take for example mtDNA Haplogroup (the name for a specific type of mtDNA)

A. Genetic evidence suggests that mtDNA Haplogroup A originated in Eastern Siberia

30,000-50,000 years before present due to the high variability in mtDNA in this region

(Fagundes et al.). The spreadwhere high concentrations of people whose mtDNA

belongs to Haplogroup Adraws a clear path from Eastern Siberia, past the

Kamchatka peninsula, into Alaska and the Northwestern Territories, and down North

America all the way into the Amazon River basin (Fagundes et al .). Haplogroups B, C,

and D follow similar spreads (see Figure 3), and similar genetic testing has also

supported theories for the population of Australasia through the Papua-Australia land

bridge (Fagundes et al.)

As the ice began to melt and sea levels began to rise , the sole connection

between the new and old worlds disappeared un der the dark, watery abyss. The

severed connection caused the two global hemispheres to anthropologically evolve in

completely distinct manners, thereby allowing the European colonization of the

Americas in the 16th through 18th centuries. How?

Enter the Aztec Empire. This kingdom boasts the infamy of ruthless human

sacrifice and savage warfare. Every male citizen in the Aztec Triple Alliance was

required to serve in the countless military campaigns when called upon by the

government (Smith), and The Codex Mendoza (as well as countless Spanish sources)

attests to the brutality and efficacy of their warfare tactics. Aztecs were born killers.

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In 1519, Hernn Corts landed on the Yucatan peninsula seeking gold . Upon

hearing of the Aztecs in Central Mexico and their vast riches , Corts quickly proceeded

to their capital at Tenochtitlan. Despite acquiring an allied native army amounting to

close to 200,000 people (Smith), Corts was almost completely defeated at theNoche

Triste attack on his troops by the Aztec forces (Smith). After recuperating at the

Spanish-allied altepetl (city-state) of Tlaxcala, Corts decided to attack Tenochtitln

again, finding it considerably emptier than before (Durn). Tenochtitln easily

capitulated this time, but what was different?

During the few months that Corts was at Tlaxcala , another Spanish ship arrived,

however this time one Spaniard had smallpox . The disease rapidly spread from the

Yucatan into the rest of Mesoamerica, ravaging the local populations (Durn, Smith).

Now, what does this have to do with sea level changes? When the Bering land bridge

was submerged, disease was no longer able to cross from the Old World to the New

World. Europeans and Asians had immunity to smallpox , while the Native populations

of the Americas had never encountered the disease before. Since they completely

lacked immunity, they died off extremely quickly, allowing the Aztec Triple Alliance

to be annexed into Spain as New Spain (Smith) .

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Although it may never be known for certain whether this clash of civilizations

would have taken place had the land bridge been present , it is almost certain that it

would have been radically different.

Rising sea levels tend to submerge things . Some of this land may be arable land

that can feed countless people. Although Malthusians argue that food supplies increase

only linearly (in the form ! = !"+ !, where m is the rate of change in food and k is

some constant, with y being the dependent variable) while population increases

geometrically (in the form ! = 2! + !), (see Figure 7) this is known to be false, despite

there being food crisises throughout modern society . Often enough, these crisises are

caused by a lack of adequate farmland due to slash-and-burn techniques , not rotating

crops adequately, or just unusable land. Often times, now submerged may have been a

breadbasket to a society that now needs this v ery important land. The change in sea

levels over the past few thousand years has flooded lands , thereby limiting the food

supply and the carrying capacity of the earth .

A rise in sea levels doesnt have to be slow and steady . The flooding may be

quick and catastrophic. Take the Black Sea, which catastrophically flooded due to a

rise in sea levels and an increase in melt water intake into the sea (Johnson) . The

catastrophic flooding displaced a large proportion of the small global population at the

time, which may have inspired the Epic of Gilgamesh and Noahs Ark story , both of

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which are important narratives to important civilizations throughout history (Johnson) .

This displacement may have dispersed one of the few agrarian cultures at the time ,

which, perchance, would have instigated a rise in agriculture throughout the World

Island, thereby allowing cities and city-states to develop.

Rising sea levels are a volatile topic in todays society . People try to deny the

fact that due to the warming global average climate , glaciers and ice caps are melting.

This directly causes a rise in sea levels, which affect our futures in countless ways. A

future rise in sea levels can be catastrophic for low-lying cities and places such as

Venice, New York, London, Amsterdam, and the North Carolinian Outer Banks (See

figures 8 and 9). The past is filled with clues that sea levels will rise , and scientists

predict a very rapid rise in the futureas much as 60 to 180 cm within the next 87

years (Vermeer).

Should politicianssuch as the aforementioned North Carolinian State

Representativeschose to ignore these warnings, they will eventually be, in the words

of an anthropomorphic cartoon crustacean, under the water, down in the muck here,

under the sea. (Clements)

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Works Cited

North Carolina. House of Representatives.House Bill 819. Raleigh, NC: n.p.,

4/25/2012. Print.

The Little Mermaid. Dir. Ronald Clements. Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc,

1989. DVD

Berdan, Frances, and Patricia Rieff Anawalt. The Codex Mendoza. Berkeley: University

of California, 1992. Print.

Corliss, William R.Mysteries beneath the Sea. New York: Crowell, 1975. Print.

Fagundes, Nelson J.R., Ricardo Kanitz, Roberta Eckert, Ana C.S. Valls, Mauricio R.

Bogo, Francisco M. Salzano, David Glenn Smith, Wilson A. Silva Jr., Marco A.

Zago, and Andrea K. Ribeiro-dos-Santos. "Mitochondrial Population Genomics

Supports a Single Pre-Clovis Origin with a Coastal Route for the Peopling of the

Americas." The American Journal of Human Genetics 82.3 (2008): 583-92.

Print.

Johnson, Gary D. "EARS-07: Holocene New England." Dartmouth College, Hanover,

New Hampshire. 16 Jan. 2013. Lecture.

Margulis, Lynn. "The Origin of Mitosing Eukaryotic Cells." The Journal of Theoretical

Biology 4.13 (1967): n. pag. Print.

Mynez, Vidal Pilar.Fray Diego Durn: Una Interpretacin De La Cosmovisin

Mexica. Mxico, D.F.: Univ. Nacional Autnoma De Mxico, 1997. Print.

Sandars, N. K. The Epic of Gilgamesh;. Baltimore: Penguin, 1964. Print.

Smith, Michael Ernest. The Aztecs. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003. Print.

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Vermeer, M., and S. Rahmstorf. "From the Cover: Global Sea Level Linked to Global

Temperature."Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106.51

(2009): 21527-1532. Print.