America Unearthed were the Maya in Georgia ?

reply to post by punkinworks10


That's interesting, I didn't know that about native California tribes. I haven't studied a whole lot of Japanese history, but touched on the jo on period when I did my basic requisites for archaeology....years ago.

Just to give another example relating to what I meant before in the previous post, chilis and citrus fruits. They all come from less than a handful of closely related species and all the cultivars we are accustomed to at the grocery store are manipulations arising from selective reproduction.

In fact, pretty much everything we buy these days at the store and consider to be the norm in "edible" plants look only slightly like the original ancestor, which may have been somewhat unpalatable to downright nauseating if eaten haphazardly. I just mentioned chili peppers and citrus fruits, as well as brassica in the previous post, but lettuces, potatoes, onions/shallots/garlic/scallions (allium family), bananas, apples, strawberries, pretty much all of the produce section is not a true representation of the fruits or edible parts as they would otherwise be in the wild without Man's intervention. Actually, the deli has some things in it that don't look true to form either. Come too think of it, as exemplified today, buffalo and turkey would have eventually been domesticated by the native North Americans in absence of the european interruption. I have no doubt in my mind. Perhaps quail, ducks, Canadian geese and the rabbit as well.

Malanga and manioc are a couple more native to tropical America, but that require special prep to be edible.

I hope I didn't come off as too authoritarian in the last post, I just have been doing a lot of plant growing projects involving un- or undercultivated plants that are native to central and south Florida. Some are used as landscaping and highway edging, but actually bear edible fruit that is, for the most part pretty good tasting.

I'd've been on the tangent that we should develop them for agriculture because they are adapted to our climate and precipitation, as well as being salt resistant. I feel that the native tribes of this region could have developed agriculture based on many of these plants.

At any rate, to keep the conversation moving, I was just curious as to everyone's thoughts about how easy it would be to lose evidence of a pré-Colombian, or even pré-Mayan civilization in North America. How could the absence of structures, excluding the pyramid-like mounds be explained. Could exclusive use of wood be a valid excuse for the lack of civilization? If so, should we expect to find evidence of wooden structures that would have eroded without a trace by first contact/Westward expansion?

This is another show where you only hear one side of the argument, so it makes sense to search out some balance. The link below is to Jason Colavito's informed, but certainly sceptical blog, but it offers an open debate between him and Scott Wolter, and makes clear that Colter is a professional who knows his rocks.

Personally, I tend to disagree with any theory supported by 'Ancient American' magazine, so I'm going to be cautious on this one!

Link

www.jasoncolavito.com...

reply to post by Snippy23


Well apprehension is understandable in any field and can sometimes keep us from the fate of infamous labels. Labels that haunt beyond the span of a mans lifetime and hold no prejudice to any academic field or profession.
A concern I have had the miss fortune to witness, but sadly, will most likely never experience.

Good post just the same and thank you for the link.

Originally posted by Sphota
I hope I didn't come off as too authoritarian in the last post, I just have been doing a lot of plant growing projects involving un- or undercultivated plants that are native to central and south Florida. Some are used as landscaping and highway edging, but actually bear edible fruit that is, for the most part pretty good tasting.

I'd've been on the tangent that we should develop them for agriculture because they are adapted to our climate and precipitation, as well as being salt resistant. I feel that the native tribes of this region could have developed agriculture based on many of these plants.

At any rate, to keep the conversation moving, I was just curious as to everyone's thoughts about how easy it would be to lose evidence of a pré-Colombian, or even pré-Mayan civilization in North America. How could the absence of structures, excluding the pyramid-like mounds be explained. Could exclusive use of wood be a valid excuse for the lack of civilization? If so, should we expect to find evidence of wooden structures that would have eroded without a trace by first contact/Westward expansion?

Honestly the Maya were late comers to the scene, and we have plenty of evidence for cultures such as ,olmecs mixtecs and the people teotihuacan. We can find traces of the forerunners to these cultures going back 8000,years . In SA civilization starts 7000 years ago with the first public works.
Any civilization, outside of a rainforest basin, we have found or will find, namely through the use of agriculture and irrigation, just as we have with the cultures we have found.

Originally posted by randyvs
I did do a search, found nadda .

Actually, it's been discussed before.

Is evidence of a Mayan Site in Georgia being suppressed by the academic community?

No. Amateur diggers (who aren't archaeologists and haven't really studied the Maya or Aztecs) found some things (damaging a real archaeological site) and announced their own conclusions.

They were wrong (by the way, a Central America-Eastern US connection WAS a valid theory in academic circles for awhile, since there's a known connection between Arizona/New Mexico and Central America. Further evidence showed that the influence didn't go that far.

Spiral mounds are just the beginning of what looks to be a very informative series, about everything in America's own back yard

I couldn't watch it. I hated the smug "we don't have to read anything about it because we SEE this stuff and we can make any connections we like" attitude.

We know a lot about the mounds. We know a lot about the area. We know a lot about all of these civilizations and we're learning more. It's a shame that television gives voice to people who know nothing about the subject but want to make "important discoveries" and invent connections.

Originally posted by Sphota
At any rate, to keep the conversation moving, I was just curious as to everyone's thoughts about how easy it would be to lose evidence of a pré-Colombian, or even pré-Mayan civilization in North America.

Very difficult to lose evidence. Heck, we've got mud brick and stone buildings that go back 5,000 years (which would be pre-all-of-that) that are still around, and we find artifacts and rock art that's up to 9,000 years old.

Could exclusive use of wood be a valid excuse for the lack of civilization?

No. We've found plenty of wooden buildings in Europe that are very old.

reply to post by Byrd


Valued input by Byrd ladies and gentlemen.
I only wish you would have posted earlier. So in your mind and as I did make mention. It would be correct to say, that the reason they weren't allowed to go in to the site, was for the simple and practical reason of conservation ?
Rather than the sensationalist idea of an ensuing cover up ?

Any comments on the plate ?

Great to see you post Byrd.

reply to post by randyvs


It's actually on Wikipedia: (Kenimer Site)

More of the story is here: Note that Thornton is an archiTECT... not an archaeologist.

And yes, as a known site with graves, they do NOT want amateurs running around there digging up stuff.

Originally posted by 1/2 Nephilim
reply to post by LostWorldsORG

 

For one, what is the deal with the Southern Death Cult ( not the band

) ? From my understanding the "cult" ceremonies and way of life began around Kolomoki. Although I don't think much is known about Letchworth...I've read the priesthood of Ocmulgee were one in the same as the Southern Death Cult and again, just my opinion but I think they were Weeden Island descendants.

The "official" version is that the Southern Cult symbolism first starts at Ocmulgee where the forked-eye motif appears on the eagle platform in the Earthlodge there that dates to before 1014 AD. But actually many of the symbols first show up during the Swift Creek culture back around 200 AD. (Kolomoki was part of that culture.) Swift Creek is thought to evolve into Weeden Island but I think it may represent the arrival of another group from Mexico. Still working on that connection.

Originally posted by 1/2 Nephilim
reply to post by LostWorldsORG

if you don't mind there is this artifact found locally a few months ago I'd like you to see, I can send pics in a message if thats cool? It is by far my favorite artifact ever found around here and I think it shows exactly how far off the textbooks are about the natives of my region.

edit on 22-12-2012 by 1/2 Nephilim because: (no reason given)

You can post it (publicly or privately) to me at the LostWorlds Facebook page: www.facebook.com...

If you post it publicly there might be some other people who see it who can also help identify it. :0

Originally posted by punkinworks10
reply to post by LostWorldsORG

 

I am keenly interested in the astronomical ideas involving the Taurid meteor showers.
It re enforces some ideas I've held for quite some time, namely that the meso American calender and its long cycle was based on the observation of periodic appearances of a swarm of celestial objects that were the remainders of the so called "clovis comet" that continued to rain misfortune upon the people of the world for many generations.
The survivors of the north American impact fled south and formed a partial cultural foundation for the subsequent people of meso America. Their mythos tells the tale of this disaster..

From what I can tell this event is the foundation of their entire religion and culture...just as it is the foundation of most religions in the world. This event and the resulting floods appear to have left serious scars in the collective memory of mankind.

Originally posted by punkinworks10
reply to post by LostWorldsORGThe change from a reasonably egalitarian society with little class distinct to a highly stratified society with a clearly defined ruling elite speaks highly of mesoamerican influence.

Multiple Native American groups in the southeast have legends that they were ruled over by foreigners who lived atop the mounds. Thus their own oral histories reveal that the "official version" of history by white anthropologists is complete bunk. But the anthropologists think they're smarter than the very people they're studying so they dismiss these oral histories and legends as fanciful myths with no basis in reality. Pretty arrogant if you ask me.

Originally posted by punkinworks10
reply to post by randyvs

 

Hi randyvs,
I think the link between georgia and mesoamerica is the hopewell culture and the adena culture.
The hopewell culture was a multiethnic trading culture in the southeast us.

Yep, that's what I think too. The connection begins at least at this time. And of course there were other migrants and refugees who fled natural disasters and wars in Mesoamerica throughout the past 2000 years. (The migration legends of the southeastern tribes include all these as reasons they fled their homeland and ended up in the southeast.)

Most of the modern tribes we have today were the result of survivors of european plagues and wars banding together. So you end up with multiple migration legends within the same tribe and it makes it all very confusing. Imagine what would happen if disease and warfare wiped out 90% of modern Americans and the only survivors were survivalists hiding out in the hills and remote forests. Once the survivors all came together they would all have multiple family histories and ethnic origins. Could their great great great great grandchildren be expected to know all the details of the civilization their grandparents once inhabited and where they originally came from? That's exactly the problem today. So we have to piece it all together from fragments of legends and archaeological evidence.

Originally posted by 1/2 Nephilim
reply to post by punkinworks10

 

So they found everything there.. tons of obsidian points. Shell atl atl weights, you name it, they found it. Wiki Ocmulgee excavation, they THOUGHT they had excavated 19% of the site in the 20's-30's.. new GPR data shows its more like 13%..

They excavated 25 million artifacts in a 10 year period with a work force of 800 people, mmk?

Thats just 13% and the artifacts excavated were by no means localized.

And most of those artifacts have never been analyzed and are still sitting in the basement of museums somewhere while others have been lost, damaged, destroyed.

It's amazing archaeologists can actually suggest they know all there is to know about the history of this continent when they've only excavated less than 1% of any of it. Again, this is just the height of arrogance.

The one thing we can all be assured of is that 100 years from now the archaeologists will laugh at the conclusions drawn by today's "experts."

Originally posted by ~Lucidity

As for this dude making a huge deal about not being allowed on the property, for what is most likely a very explainable reason like that it is private property or a protected area, that seems like drama to me for what they think will make good TV.

lostworlds.org...

edit on 12/23/2012 by ~Lucidity because: (no reason given)

Actually, they were denied a commercial filming permit even though the USFS had already issued such permits at least twice previously. The official story from a video on their website was that some Native American tribes objected to filming at the site. Another reason was given that they didn't want to attract too many visitors to the site. Who knows what the real truth is for why they denied the film permit to History Channel. But the site is federal property and open to the public. So I see no legitimate reason they would have to deny letting video cameras into the site. If they don't want people to visit the site just close off all the trails. But they haven't done that. So all their explanations kinda fall flat.

And more importantly, why is a federal agency taking sides in a dispute between various researchers???? When was THAT the role of the U.S. Forestry Service? It all sounds like behind-the-scenes political machinations to me.

Originally posted by winofiend
I saw a documentary recently that showed evidence that the Mayan civilisation had been a lot further north than previously discovered, and what they found was ruins of something as monumental as any mayan ruins found, so I don't think it's far fetched to see that they may have been there, thought the clip doesn't really say much about what the guys basing his info off.

I wish I could remember what it was, I watch so many docos I forget which ones are where...

I think I saw the one you're talking about. It showed that the Mayans inhabited most of the Gulf Coast and on up into Al., Miss., Ark., etc...

I think it was one of those 2012 doomsday docos....

Originally posted by Sphota
I hope I didn't come off as too authoritarian in the last post, I just have been doing a lot of plant growing projects involving un- or undercultivated plants that are native to central and south Florida. Some are used as landscaping and highway edging, but actually bear edible fruit that is, for the most part pretty good tasting.

I'd've been on the tangent that we should develop them for agriculture because they are adapted to our climate and precipitation, as well as being salt resistant. I feel that the native tribes of this region could have developed agriculture based on many of these plants.

Eastern North America is accepted as one of the few places in the world where agriculture was developed independently:

"Contrary to this long-held belief, new research shows that eastern North America can now be unequivocally identified as a fourth major independent center of plant domestication, along with the Near East, China, and Mesoamerica (Smith, 1989: 1566). In fact, eastern North America provides the - clearest record available of agricultural origins anywhere in the world, providing new understanding of the processes involved in this key transformation in human history."

web.mesacc.edu...

reply to post by LostWorldsORG

Man, you are spot on! The Mayan influence is there, its right under our noses.

I LOVED this reply you made, dead on.

Multiple Native American groups in the southeast have legends that they were ruled over by foreigners who lived atop the mounds. Thus their own oral histories reveal that the "official version" of history by white anthropologists is complete bunk. But the anthropologists think they're smarter than the very people they're studying so they dismiss these oral histories and legends as fanciful myths with no basis in reality. Pretty arrogant if you ask me.

I tried messaging you pics of that artifact on FB but its so slow to upload I may just have to link the pics from photobucket via FB. I would post publically but I sorta kinda know the guy who found it, or his family at least and don't wanna be putting it out there everywhere without his ok.

Originally posted by Byrd

No. Amateur diggers (who aren't archaeologists and haven't really studied the Maya or Aztecs) found some things (damaging a real archaeological site) and announced their own conclusions.

Please explain where you got your information. Please name the amateur diggers you are talking about and also please tell me what you know of their educational background since you say they "haven't really studied the Maya or Aztecs. Also, please tell me what "things they found" and what "real archaeological site" was "damaged" by their supposed digging.

Originally posted by Byrd

I couldn't watch it. I hated the smug "we don't have to read anything about it because we SEE this stuff and we can make any connections we like" attitude.

Since you didn't watch the show your only information must come from the promos for the show. Please show me a single promo for this show that explicitly stated or even insinuated "we don't have to read anything about it because we SEE this stuff and we can make any connections we like."

Originally posted by ByrdWe know a lot about the mounds. We know a lot about the area. We know a lot about all of these civilizations and we're learning more. It's a shame that television gives voice to people who know nothing about the subject but want to make "important discoveries" and invent connections.

As Mayan scholars willingly state, less than 1% of the Maya world has been excavated. How does this equate to "we know a lot about all of these civilizations"? I would dare say even less than 1% of the sites in the southeastern united states have been excavated and studied thoroughly. Actually, one of the big things going on in southeastern archaeology right now is getting accurate maps of these sites using ground penetrating radar. That's right, we don't even have accurate maps of most of these sites yet somehow "we know a lot about the mounds. we know a lot about the area."

The Track Rock site was first discovered and excavated in the past decade as was the Kenimer Mound site. These are two of the largest archaeological sites in Georgia yet somehow went unknown to archaeologists until the past decade. And both only had very very limited excavations amounting to just a few days of basically shovel tests. And somehow this is supposed to inspire confidence that they know everything there is to know about these sites?

There's plenty of evidence of many different migrations of people from Mexico into the southeastern u.s. The migration legends of the kasihta creek indians reference earthquakes and volcanoes. The migration legend of the hitchiti-creek say they arrived on the shore of florida by boat. The Cherokees say foreign priests who spoke an unknown language resided on the mounds and cherokee warriors massacred them after many abuses. But I guess white archaeologists with all their extensive excavations know more than these tribes own oral histories know about the history of this area.

Originally posted by Byrd

Very difficult to lose evidence. Heck, we've got mud brick and stone buildings that go back 5,000 years (which would be pre-all-of-that) that are still around, and we find artifacts and rock art that's up to 9,000 years old.

Could exclusive use of wood be a valid excuse for the lack of civilization?

No. We've found plenty of wooden buildings in Europe that are very old.

OK, now I know you know nothing about archaeology in the southeastern u.s. and Mayan areas of Mexico. Let me educate you. The soils in these two areas are very acidic and it destroys everything organic. Only a few wooden artifacts have been found in any of these areas, usually from bog water due to the anaerobic properties of this water prevents the wood from breaking down. The acidic soils of these areas destroy bones (which is why we have no skeletons of olmecs) as well as seashell. Most seashell art from these areas is badly damaged though some very exquisite samples have amazingly been preserved in certain tombs.

So yes, if a culture lived in a tropical environment with acidic soils and used wood as their primary construction material and/or artwork material, evidence of that culture would disappear over time. If they didn't produce pottery (used gourds or baskets, for example) and didn't use stone tools then little would survive to let us know they existed.

reply to post by 1/2 Nephilim


Have I completely lost my mind or are both Byrd and Lost Worlds posting on my thread. Pinch me Neph !