2012

[wolvesevolve]

So much information here! I'm going to need to re-read a lot of it!

Does anyone know of any kind of relationship between the Myans and the Anasazi?

Ha, yeah sorry I covered a lot of ground with my last post (and luckily I constrained myself not to go into too much detail!) and those links I found also have a lot of info (I still need to read that short article about the Mayan long count calendar start date, not an easy read even if it is 3-4 pages).

Ok so here I go again!

Just like how I'm not an expert on "Mayan civilization", I'm even less knowledgeable of the U.S. Southwest prehistory, but I know SW archaeologists and do at least have an idea of what SW links exist to Mesoamerica.

But to answer your question Raven Wolf, there is probably no direct relationship between the Classic Period Mayans and the Anasazi (a term that I believe some Native Americans and archaeologists have a problem with. It's a rather generic term for the SW Puebloan cultures...I just wikipedia'd the term and got a nice explanation quote from Dr. Linda Cordell (fantastic archaeologist at University of Colorado Boulder) see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Pueblo_Peoples). What the archaeological record has shown is that macaw and parrot remains have been found in limited varieties at some Pueblo/Chacoan sites. The time period of these SW sites coincides with the Classic/Late Classic/Epi-Classic period in Mesoamerica, which would place the Classic Maya in its florescence and decline, as well as the height/decline of Teotihuacan. It's still a matter of debate of any direct contact between Teotihuacan and and Maya sites (if anything it might be that the central Mexican Teotihuacanos *MAY HAVE* established rulership ties to one dynasty in the Maya region), but certainly there was long distance trade and migration occurring all around Mesoamerica at this time, centering on Teotihuacan for sure. Turquoise was being mined in the U.S. SW and traded down into Teo., perhaps in exchange for exotic macaws and parrots. Mayans migrating all the way to central Mexico? I don't think there's any evidence of that....and so the possibility that any Mayans had interaction with the SW seem a lot slimmer. Teotihuacan may have had a caste/network of long distance traders (similar to the pochteca caste of the Aztecs/Mexica), and would conveniently explain how we find turquoise in Mexico and macaws in the desert Southwest. But this is just conjecture, idea that I have thought of as well as other Mesoamerican archaeologist, we really have no idea if such a group existed.

Another thing of interest...the Mississippian site of Spiro in Oklahoma has just recently been reexamined as also having some long distance trade interactions with Mexico. A piece of obsidian recovered in the early 20th century from Spiro, sat in museum storage for years....was recently "found again", the artifact turns out to be a green obsidian. The most famous of green obsidian sources is Pachuca, in central Mexico. I haven't read the latest results of tests, but I believe they did some sourcing analysis of the Spiro obsidian scraper and it is in fact from the Pachuca source in Mexico (there are a few other green obsidian sources in Mexico, but not widely exploited, there are no green obsidian sources outside of Mexico that I'm aware of). This would be perhaps the only example of a Mesoamerican artifact found at a Mississippian site (Spiro is the western-most Mississippian site, the majority of Mississippian sites are in the Southeastern U.S. and the Midwest, the largest site being Cahokia in East St. Louis/Collinsville).

Edited August 9, 2007 by wolvesevolve

[wolvesevolve]

Oh and happy Mayan new year! Today starts the new year on the Mayan calendar (or so https://www.mayadiscovery.com/ing/history/tiempo.htm tells me!).

[Guest axelson]

i dont believe its gonna be changes on the world... lots of people the were saying that. the mayans and olmecs they were making predicctions about the cosmos and stuff like that. but nothing close to the truth

that´s what i think and another thing!!! im from mexico, specially from veracruz

cheers!!!!

[wolvesevolve]

i dont believe its gonna be changes on the world... lots of people the were saying that. the mayans and olmecs they were making predicctions about the cosmos and stuff like that. but nothing close to the truth

that´s what i think and another thing!!! im from mexico, specially from veracruz

cheers!!!!

...and here I thought I might be the only one with ties to Mexico! I saw the welcome thread for you axelson, and thought you were Canadian, but no, a Veracruzano in Canada!

I'd be curious as to what you might think of my idea...that it seems to me a lot of this 2012 predicting is not coming so much from anything written by the Ancient Mayas or even an Olmec/Mayan/Mesoamerican mythology base (other than the idea that this world will end in 2012 AD and another will take it's place...part of the whole cyclical workings of myth, time, solar cycles, and rising/fall of "civilization")...but rather a lot of new age-y types, the media, and just popular modern superstition/curiosity are taking the ball and running with it! It's odd there's some cosmological phenomena concurring with the Mayan calendar, but maybe just like 5/5/2000 solar system alignment: it'll be kinda neat, but no catastrophe will befall the Earth.

Still, it'll be interesting to see what happens...in the year...2525....um i mean 2012!

[hippyroo]

Ancient cultures are very interesting. From Mezzo American to to the fertile cresent to China ancient man was obviously intelligent, organized, religious, and concerned about the afterlife and the end of the world. How the ancients knew so many things that we "know" they couldn't have known only shows our smug stupidity. I wonder if they felt the same way about their ancestors?

[Guest Ebdim9th]

A friend of mine and I once visited a mound-builder native American village here in Alabama. The archeologist quotes there as part of the tour texts said that the pyramidal mound temples there with mud huts/houses constructed on top were no evidence of long-distance trade between the mound-builders, which spread out over most of the southern states, and the Mexican civilizations. As apparently certain head dresses, ceremonies, structural arrangements similar to those of the Mayans and other Mexican civilizations. It gave me an image of one of the archeologists in question standing in front of the temple before a group of tourists, trying to weave magic with his/her words like an alchemist. What you see here as proof positive of trade with the Mayans and Aztecs is nothing of the kind. We won't give you any reason, we'll simply tell you it's 'just so'. As with the past examples sited in the above posts, simply because you've not found the trail yet, does not mean the macaws didn't some how reach the midwest from Mexico. It just means you haven't looked hard enough. I'm telling you those temples were identical to thier Mayan counterparts, except for perhaps the type of mud or clay used in thier construction, due to the available materials in Alabama versus those in Mexico.

Edited August 21, 2007 by Ebdim9th

[Guest SouthernCelt]

In Mississippi, the Choctaw were mound-builders and their center of civlilization or holiest place, Nanih Waiya, is said to be where they received the sign from the Great Spirit that this was to be their new home on their migration from the south. Supposedly they carried a large/long pole cut from the trunk of a tree and each night they would dig a hole and put the pole in it. The following morning they would see which direction the pole leaned and that was the bearing for the next day's journey. When the pole remained vertical in the hole, that was the sign that they had arrived at the place to which the Great Spirit wished them to go. That place of the pole remaining vertical was in Central Mississippi at Nanih Waiya.

Archaeologists and anthropologists have never been able to decide if the Choctaws were a smaller tribe of Latin American area Indians that were driven out by war, famine, pestilence, etc. and therefore separated from the other larger civilizations in the area or whether they were part of those civilizations and chose to "expand" their territory by traveling north.

Interestingly, the Natchez Indians were not of the same origins as the Choctaw, were much more warlike, practiced human sacrifice and built mounds for religious purposes. They were thought to be directly connected to the Aztecs due to these similarities. The Natchez were virtually wiped out in a punitive, revenge raid by European settlers after the Natchez massacred the occupants of Fort Rosalie overlooking the Mississippi River. Fort Rosalie was built by the French to help secure control and possession of the river for their use in trade from the north, particularly in beaver pelts which was all the rage for capes and coats back in France. The current town of Natchez, MS is located in the vicinity of the old fort and of the Natchez Indian village.

[Guest Ebdim9th]

Thanks ~~Southern Celt~~ that was alot of good information. Pretty much just what I was talking about, with some expected variation on the theme...

[Guest SouthernCelt]

What has always fascinated me about the story of the Choctaw migration is the similarity to the Israelite's escape from Egypt and resettlement in Canaan. They both came from the "south" and went "north" (quotes on direction since the directions were general, not compass bearings). The Israelites had, for a time, the pillar of smoke by day and pillar of fire by night to point the way; the Choctaws had the pole. They were both going to a place they believed was chosen for them by the Great Spirit/God. Those are the most obvious similarities. I'm sure there are many others perhaps less obvious.

[wolvesevolve]

A friend of mine and I once visited a mound-builder native American village here in Alabama. The archeologist quotes there as part of the tour texts said that the pyramidal mound temples there with mud huts/houses constructed on top were no evidence of long-distance trade between the mound-builders, which spread out over most of the southern states, and the Mexican civilizations. As apparently certain head dresses, ceremonies, structural arrangements similar to those of the Mayans and other Mexican civilizations. It gave me an image of one of the archeologists in question standing in front of the temple before a group of tourists, trying to weave magic with his/her words like an alchemist. What you see here as proof positive of trade with the Mayans and Aztecs is nothing of the kind. We won't give you any reason, we'll simply tell you it's 'just so'. As with the past examples sited in the above posts, simply because you've not found the trail yet, does not mean the macaws didn't some how reach the midwest from Mexico. It just means you haven't looked hard enough. I'm telling you those temples were identical to thier Mayan counterparts, except for perhaps the type of mud or clay used in thier construction, due to the available materials in Alabama versus those in Mexico.

Undoubtedly I am in agreement with you of the similarities of Mississippian temple-mounds, such as the ones you encountered in Alabama, and pyramids in Mexico and Central America. (I caution not to confuse "mound-builders" with Middle Woodland mounds (~700-1200 years before the Mississippians that are more commonly referred to as Moundbuilders in some of the literature; the Choctaw I believe are one of the few Native American tribes that can ascribe their descendance from prehistoric Mississippian culture). I describe Mississippian sites to fellow Mexicans (and others unfamiliar with North American earthen temple mounds) as "the pyramids of US Native American, not made of stone but of just earth". Some archaeologist of the 60's and 70's started espousing the idea that Mississippians were inspired or descended by "Mexican civilization". Oddly enough, no one has found that evidence (and yes, it is the "job" of prehistorians to continue to uncover any traces by continuing to look harder), those ideas are pretty dated and have been dropped....and let me go on to detail the problems that exist to substantiate any sort of trans-American prehistoric trade and interaction of ideas (as architecture/building techniques).

To address specifically what you may have seen at the site in Alabama with details of mud-huts, you have to take into account as to *HOW* those reconstructions of the thatch-wood huts upon temple-mounds were re-constructed for the public in books, at museums and archaeological sites. Not to knock the artists of the world out there, but they usually have very little left at their disposal to render reconstructions of prehistoric North American sites, and will have to use a frame of reference...the best one being reconstructions of Maya, Aztec, and other Mesoamerican descriptions and depictions. It looks pretty, but don't be deceived solely by an artist's drawing/painting, that more often than not will have many problems with accuracy.

Furthermore, as archaeologists, especially working in the Eastern/Southern/Midwest US, we deal with poor preservation, and all the evidence we have for the structures at such Southern US sites are postmolds ("circular" dark organic deposits left where post once stood) of wooden structures. In fact, almost all Mississippian mud-thatch-wood huts were made using wall trenches (which leave a marker similar to postmolds, in the form of long trenches of darker organic soil, in which wooden posts were placed to form walls...sometimes postmolds are visible within the wall trenches), which is a technique specific to only this culture in North America, not employed by other Native Americans in either in what is now the US or in Mexico among Mayans, Aztecs, or any other cultures there. Mayan huts (for example) were built with a simpler single posts in the ground and bound together. So what we have are two distinct building techniques for what "seems" to be the same "mud huts/houses". The Aztecs/Mexica really didn't build many huts like we see in the prehistoric US, they had a lot more stone construction for public buildings

The pyramidal Mississippian mounds also have a similar yet distinct function than Mesoamerican pyramids. Mississippian mounds (most prominently seen at Cahokia, near St. Louis) likely was the place of the elite rulership class residences and ceremonial areas that were at once restrictive (palisade walls sometimes surrounded some of these mounds) to the general public as well as visible to everyone of these prehistoric villages/towns. By in large most Mesoamerican pyramids from the earliest ones in Monte Alban, Oaxaca...to the Classic Mayan sites...to Teotihuacan...to the Aztec/Mexica capital at Tenochtitlan...pyramids served as solely as places of ceremony/sacrifice...with more often than not being a more public form of architecture, accessible by anyone. The structural organization of ceremonial centers might show similarities between temple mound sites and Mexican archaeological centers...but then again there are many similarities all over the world of archaeological sites in this respect...which probably has more to do with "human nature" and the celestial positioning of stars that will coincide with myths/religious beliefs, to create a cosmogram within a place of ceremony.

The material culture (pottery, stone tools, what remains we have of clothing) of prehistoric Mississippian sites are very dissimilar to what you'd find anywhere in Mexico. And studying the linguistic reconstruction of Mississippians and the Mexican plethora of language groups, again there is no connection what so ever. The BIGGEST PROBLEM is chronology...Mississippian sites date from 900 AD, and I might be wrong but the first sites were in the central and northern Mississippi River valleys....most of them abandoned by 1300-1400 AD (they endured longer in "The South"), though isolated tribes as the Choctaw were still employing mound building techniques up to the time of European contact. Classic Mayan sites known for their pyramids, this period of development diminished by 700 AD....granted there were some later Mayan sites, but if we're arguing interaction, the best bet was during the Classic Mayan period (which coincided with Teotihuacan at it's height as well). The Aztecs/Mexica only came into power in the latter part of the 14th Century and had domineering, expansive power for a short period of time, with no evidence what so ever of having control over areas getting close to the Rio Grande or anywhere near to what is "The South", not to mention its a little late to have any influence on those 1st Mississippian sites. Also keep in mind the vast distances we're talking about, between the Yucatan/Guatemala and the US, even Central Mexico to the US border is quite a hike!

I hope this all makes sense, and I'm not saying its IMPOSSIBLE that there was any contact between prehistoric Mexican indigenous people and the rest of North America, but it certainly is a long shot. If there was anything going on, it had to be in a very remote sense (like second-third hand trade from Northern Mexico into the US Southwest and then into Southern US), and had no real impact that you'd jump up and say "ah-ha!" the Mayans gave those Choctaws the idea to build mounds! (just being a little silly here)