Indigenous People Have Been Here Forever. Why Won't Archeologists Believe It?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. A possible outline of indigenous oral tradition research inspired by the article

The article at the end makes a case for using indigenous oral traditions, to apply "indigenous science" to archaeology.

So I looked up "indigenous science" on the internet, admittedly in a skimming cursory way via three links:
https://theconversation.com/how-indigenous-knowledge-advances-modern-science-and-technology-89351
https://www.macleans.ca/society/how-western-science-is-finally-catching-up-to-indigenous-knowledge/
https://eos.org/articles/keeping-indigenous-science-knowledge-out-of-a-colonial-mold

The firehawks discussed in the second article got me to think of how indigenous knowledge differs from "scientific" knowledge. I realized that it is the difference between qualitative data and quantitative data, respectively. The existence of firehawks is qualitative indigenous knowledge passed down over time. "Science" would find it qualitatively, given enough time to collect large quantities of detailed data. But it didn't find (yet) what indigenous people knew.

How does indigenous culture arrive at knowledge? In some ways, the same way as "science" does: large quantities of detailed data. Indigenous culture does not tabulate it to arrive at conclusions as quickly as science does, but both cultures sift large quantities of data. Indigenous people do it over long periods of time, but only data that accords with reality survives the test of time.

Just how significant a role do firehawks play in quantity and severity of fires is yet to be determined and that would be a job for science, to collect enough data to compare sized of effects.

But indigenous culture knew (knows) where to look.

Which brings me to the oral traditions, especially as relating to legends and history. There is a huge store of sifted data in those traditions. Sifted, because they have been hammered into durable shape over time by the traditions.

If modern techniques of data analysis and data science were used in a research effort, many correlations could be made and facts about "pre-" history retrieved. I would call it "oralnomics" in analogy to genomics. That is a term I just created and search engine shows it is not a word in use anywhere.

For example, if it were to be found correlations in series of legends from different groups mentioning a cleft in hills in stories involving adultery among the gods, then there would be a point of departure for research into mentions of landscape features. There may have been some key event in one main culture transiting to the Americas, from which many tribes and groups descended. This is clearly a crudely fabricated example, but I am sure that interesting facts could be uncovered.

Genomics is essentially data science: bioinformatics. It includes tremendous string matching and organizing (strings of DNA codons) and correlating that with research data, such as crop yields and disease survival (at a crude level; actual research is much more sophisticated).

So, gather together masses of indigenous stories from all over the world, from hundreds and thousands of groups, and apply big data science to it and discover many "oralnomes".

This is how to bridge the gap between indigenous knowledge (qualitative) and science (quantitative). Science finds stuff but more like feeling around for things in the dark ("unknown unknowns&quot . Indigenous knowledge provides some light and pathfinding.