... wrote on Aug 3^rd, 2014 at 9:31pm:


Anything can have "cultural significance" if a culture decides it should.  A midden can be "culturally significant" simply because it exists.  That doesn't mean that people have to worship it or travel to see it or have anything to do with it.  Great Zimbabwe is culturally significant to many Africans but they don't worship it, will more than likely never travel there or have anything to do with it physically.  Gallipoli is culturally significant to many Australians (can't figure out why, myself, it's just a barren patch of coastline with some graves dotted here and there) but the majority don't worship it or will ever travel to see it.

To many Indigenes middens are culturally significant because they prove continuous occupation over extended periods, something many White Australians still deny.   They also indicate cultural links to the land, by demonstrating that the Indigenes consumed the food that it provided.

Denial of such significance is merely another tool in the Occupyer’s armoury to deny the Indigenes’ prior claim to ownership of that lands taken from them.

The images I provided were of structures which were once considered great but which were allowed to go to wrack and ruin.  Angkor and Machu Pichu were overgrown and long abandoned, the Great Wall of China was used as building materials and contributed greatly to the expansion of Beijing after the 12th century CE.   While not literally rubbish dumps, they had been abandoned and largely forgotten.  Indeed, long stretches of the Great Wall are merely heaps of rubble.   Once rediscovered they became "culturally significant".

Sprintcyclist wrote on Aug 3^rd, 2014 at 10:06pm:


That is exactly what they are, Sprint.   It was a common practice amongst stoneage peoples the world over:

from the Pech Merle cave in south-western France:



Hand prints dating from 37,000 years ago, and a red disk from 40,600 years ago (not pictured), in El Castillo Cave in Spain, are the oldest cave paintings in Europe:

gizmo_2655 wrote on Aug 4^th, 2014 at 7:20pm:


Most agreed they were ruins and of no interest.  Some however disagreed and poked around and figured things out and their significance was revealed.   The Great Wall was a linear quarry.  Angkor disappeared under the jungle, Machu Pichu was lost in the clouds and so on, ad infinitum.