Shaking hands with the ancients north of the Mexican border

[josephusminimus]

A lot of people probably aren't aware there were cultures over a lot of the US to rival those found in South America and Mexico in sophistication before the arrival of Europeans.&nbsp; Part of the reason might be because they mostly vanished a century before the explorers from across the sea arrived.<br /><br />Another part might be because they weren't big on precious metals, and the Europeans didn't have a lot of interest in what went before if there was no wealth to be gained knowing about it.<br /><br />But from Florida, all up the Mississippi River to Minnesota, in Georgia, and in the mid-western states a culture or cultures developed from 100 CE gradually into something spectacular.&nbsp; The arriving Europeans didn't pay them much mind, often destroyed the sites as offhandly as they cut down the forests and slaughtered bisen.<br /><br />The eastern US cultures did a lot of mound building though, and there's still a lot left for the interested person to visit, admire, puzzle over.&nbsp; Fact is, the people who know most about them don't know much.&nbsp; There are a few scatterings of artifact evidence suggesting they might have migrated to Mexico in mass and become the Aztecs, settled so firmly as an organized society they were the main obstacle to Spanish conquest.<br /><br />A few searches on the matter would turn up a lot of sites still out there a nomad could visit.<br /><br />Further west, there's the huge population of Chacoan/Mogollon sites nobody agrees what happened to them, why they vanished, where they went.&nbsp; But because they were later the sites werent so badly damaged and left themselves open to visits, both as documented ruin sites, and as undocumented sites likely to be encountered by surprise.<br /><br />It's a whole 'nother potential object of endeavor, study, interest for the nomad looking for something to do that doesn't involve situation comedy.

 

[josephusminimus]

<p>Native American Culture The Mound Builders <br /><a href="http://www.squidoo.com/native-american-culture_mound-builders">http://www.squidoo.com/native-american-culture_mound-builders</a></p><p>Mound builder (people)<br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mound_builder_(people">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mound_builder_(people</a>)<br /><br /><img rel="lightbox" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...pg/626px-Mississippian_cultures_HRoe_2010.jpg" class="bbc_img" /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture</a></p><p><br />The Chacoan World<br /><a href="http://www.brianlarkin.org/special/4corners/ccnhp/index.htm">http://www.brianlarkin.org/special/4corners/ccnhp/index.htm</a><br /><br /><br /><img rel="lightbox" src="http://www.brianlarkin.org/special/4corners/ccnhp/ccnhp_area_road_map_03-s.jpg" class="bbc_img" /><br /><br />Mogollon culture<br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogollon_culture">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogollon_culture</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>

 

[offroad]

Looks like maps of middle earth. Where is Hobbit Mississipian?&nbsp;

 

[josephusminimus]

<p>For most it's a reflection on the windshield.&nbsp; But for the larger RVs it's there between the GPS screen, the cell phone screen and the dashboard coffee-maker.</p>

 

[Guest]

There's this one guy with two dogs who walks by my house every day leaving smelly mounds. &nbsp;I hate that!

 

[josephusminimus]

#5<br /><br />Every culture leaves something for posterity.&nbsp; If you can find a market for those mounds they won't be part of what's left.&nbsp; Otherwise, enjoy.

 

[josephusminimus]

&nbsp;I read somewhere that half the US population can't find the Mississippi River on a map. Probably that hobbit question's more germane than it struck me when I&nbsp;read the post.

 

[bk2valve]

I should have posted something here Jack. Very interesting stuff....damn there is a lot of stuff to discover....not nearly enough time.....<br />Bri

 

[Jaimee]

<p>Choice of font can be so very critical.&nbsp;<br /><br />I've grown up around mounds, so&nbsp;I don't think of their significance very often.&nbsp;&nbsp;But sure enough, I am in the Plaquemines area very near the Medora site.&nbsp; One interesting note, cultures don't abide by boundaries as evidenced by random ancient mounds all over this area.&nbsp;</p>

 

[dragonflyinthesky]

<em>I live 15 minutes from Sunwatch in Dayton. I feel like Bri, so much to see so little time. </em>

 

[Where~the~wind~blows]

Until Jack made this post I had never heard of these mounds before, it would certainly be a fun adventure going to each one and learning their history.&nbsp;

 

[Lostinspace]

The southeast is covered over with Indian mounds.&nbsp; And they run all of the way up to NY.&nbsp; Ohio has quite a few.&nbsp; Go here for a comprehensive listing of sites... <span style="color: #ff0000;"><a href="http://www.greatdreams.com/mounds.htm" rel="nofollow"><span style="color: #ff0000;">http://www.greatdreams.com/mounds.htm</span></a>&nbsp;<br /></span>Here is a wikipedia site pic from Illinois <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Chromesun_kincaid_site_01.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Chromesun_kincaid_site_01.jpg</a>&nbsp;<br /><br /><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #000000;">Happy exploring.</span></span>

 

[offroad]

a good way to find some interesting local history is to take up GEOCACHING.&nbsp; many times a local will bookmark a geocoache GPS coordinates (virtual, or actual) at a historically significant site.&nbsp; So finding the geocache makes you aware of other local history, that you can then research.&nbsp; have no doubt that many of these locations mentioned have geocaches nearby.

 

[Stillwater]

I spent a week back in Chaco a few years back. An amazing place, to be sure.

 

[Vern M]

".....<span id="post_message_1275991334">A lot of people probably aren't aware there were cultures over a lot of the US to rival those found in South America and Mexico in sophistication before the arrival of Europeans. Part of the reason might be because they mostly vanished a century before the explorers from across the sea arrived."<br><br>They died because the people from "across the sea [Europe] brought&nbsp;diseases that wiped out most of who was here, people who had become very sophisticated. With the arrival of the Spanish, the natives were 80-percent&nbsp; dead in a matter of a&nbsp;hundred years.<br><br>Read up before you walk. You can be amazed. My haunt is the Hisatsinom's route -- into the continent likely via the Pecos river from the Rio Grand then up to Chaco Canyon and into the four corners area before retreating back to the southwest when the climate changed abruptly and remarkably. Much yet-undisturbed&nbsp;artifacts there. Read "House of Rain" by Craig Childs. Watch out for my van, too, anywhere&nbsp;from Seminole Canyon State Park in Texas to where ever Kokopeli leads.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br></span>

 

[josephusminimus]

You might be right, though the folks who make a study of such things tend to think the Chacoans, Mogollons, and the mound building cultures of the eastern US did their vanishing act mostly a century before the Europeans arrived.&nbsp; But I suppose they might have died retroactively from the diseases the Spaniards brought.<BR><BR>No doubt at all a lot of dying for microorganisms of European descent came for those later indigent tribes.&nbsp; <BR><BR>The Chacoan/Mogollons appear to have died, a large number of them, from being hit in the head with something hard and heavy back in the time immediately preceding the dissolution of their cultures.&nbsp; A civil war among them.<BR><BR>Sounds as though you and I might be walking some of the same ground, however.&nbsp; Most of my ancestors were Europeans and those who weren't lived long enough to reproduce, so if some of yours aren't European I'll try not to give them any retroactive diseases to die from.

 

[Stillwater]

I was looking for something else and found some pics from my time in Chaco.<br><br>

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<br><br>I wanted to wave but got the camera on the timer wrong! LOL<br><br>

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[josephusminimus]

Thanks for posting the pics stillwater.&nbsp; Particularly the butte.&nbsp; It gets left out of the Chaco equation a lot once the attention gets focused on the big houses.

 

[sassypickins]

Josephusminimus, thanks for this thread. I like those maps showing a ton of places to see.

Thanks for the book suggestion, Vern and for the photos, Stillwater. I visited Chaco for a couple of weeks in 1982 and took my daughter there recently, where she snapped a photo of me peeking through from the last of all those little doorways.

I saw evidence of solar building, outposts along the canyon mesa tops, bits of a wide stone road they said went way down through Central America, air conditioned food preparation areas, evidence of an agrarian culture and lots of pottery shards, arrowheads, items traded for from down south, local landfills, effects of not understanding how to maintain the ecosystem, calendarizing by use of the equinoxes, and, of course, evidence of the many rules of the society. It was pretty cool to climb up out of the canyon to a mesa and just sit there and imagine how it was.

Going to Chaco the first time was where I busted the accelerator cable on my stepvan driving 30 miles over a heavily rutted dirt road. I mickey-moused a cello string in there. Love stuff like that -- ok, when it works --