Additional discussion:
http://www.metafilter.com/104846/First-encounter

The 11:00 minute mark until the end is just heart melting seeing the tribesmen showing a smile or two and discovering similarities in anatomy.

Thank you for this Mark.

American Indians are certainly the same species as their European conqueros, yet they were less resistant to the germs the Europeans brought over. And Measles killed millions in the Roman Empire until humans adapted.

Also, lots of sicknesses are pretty much limited to agricultural societies, with animals playing a large role as as source of new strains and asymptotic carriers.

The villagers seen in the video aren’t our ancestors but our contemporaries. They don’t live in the stone age, but use some machine-made tools, wear machine-woven clothes, and even participate in a cash economy.

Above, I’ve disclaimed any expertise, and most of my information traces back to Prof Lemonnier, who rubbishes (French) this video in several places.

But based on reading parts of a couple of Lemonnier’s papers, there is so much nonsense in this video you can’t keep up with it. Take this idea that this community doesn’t have complex art. They don’t make art the way you (making an assumption) and I make art because, well, they don’t make art the way you and I make art. If we don’t know the techniques and meaning of whatever artefacts they do make, we can’t ourselves produce or appreciate these things. In this context, there’s no sense in talking about art at all, not as it’s sold in New York, London, or Paris.

So what conclusion do you draw from their lack of symphonic music? Or the complete absence of colour photography among this people? I have no idea, but I think anyone who claims the people who appear in this video don’t have “profound metaphysical philosophies” when he doesn’t even speak their language, doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously when using their culture, which he doesn’t understand, as a counter-example to his own.

It’s earlier, so maybe from a “young and stupid” perspective it’s slightly better, but the whole thing came across as a politically-motivated (well-meaning) high school play staged on the edge of the jungle a few minutes walk from civilisation.

TL;DR:
Anthropology is universally contaminated with the cultural prejudices of its practitioners, no matter how professional.

In all seriousness, if by chance this is real, then those guys are really dangerous idiots. That tribe won’t have encountered all sorts of bugs those white guys are carrying and immune to. This much we know about “Guns, Germs and Steel”. Anthropologists they ain’t, unless they’re evil anthropologists.

I agree with you largely. Still, it appears I disagree with your concept of complexity in art. Refinement about a mixture of opportunity and ability, the reality is their ability to manifest subtleties in their working medians for art limited the detail any particular member would have opportunity to master.

Who then proceeded to yell “I WILL kill him!” and then had a knife fight with their leader. Sting lost.

Mark, if you’re interested in an interview with someone who has experience of the actual situation of modern indigenous (and ‘uncontacted’) peoples, I’m sure Survival International
or a similar organisation could provide someone. That could make for a great feature.

Anthropologist Pierre Lemonnier who exposed this documentary as fraud in an article for the French Newspaper “Liberation” studied the Papuans for over a decade and says that the “unknown tribe” lives less then 4 days away by foot from an dispensary with a landing strip, radio and nurses. They also use the Vailala River to travel to the coast to sell handmade goods

http://loulouville.blogspot.com/2011/06/this-is-incredible-footage-from.html

Or Google: LOULOUVILLE + FAKE

Looking for link.