Ancient World Review

Poverty Point Mound-Builders Were "Highly Skilled Engineers"

"The Native Americans who occupied the area known as Poverty Point in northern Louisiana more than 3,000 years ago long have been believed to be simple hunters and gatherers. But new Washington University in St. Louis archaeological findings paint a drastically different picture of America's first civilization." Source: Science Daily.

"Far from the simplicity of life sometimes portrayed in anthropology books, these early Indigenous people were highly skilled engineers capable of building massive earthen structures in a matter of months -- possibly even weeks -- that withstood the test of time, the findings show."

The mound-builders of the Poverty Point Culture lived around 1730 - 1350 BC in the Lower Mississippi Valley and along the neighboring Gulf Coast. This was during the late Archaic Period when indigenous tribes were making the transition to sedentary farming all across North America. According to Wikipedia, the Poverty Point Culture "features stone work, flintknapping, earthenware, and effigy, conical, and platform mounds, as well as planned settlements on concentric earthen ridges."

The settlement at Poverty Point is thought to have been the largest in North America at the time and its earthworks are impressive:

"Although the earthworks at Poverty Point are not the oldest in the United States (those at Watson Brake were built about 1900 years earlier), they are notable as the oldest earthworks of this size in the Western Hemisphere. In the center of the site is a plaza covering about 15 hectares or 37 acres. Archeologists believe the plaza was the site of public ceremonies, rituals, dances, games and other major community activities." The plaza includes some "unusually deep pits" thought to have anchored large posts. These might have been part of a prehistoric calendar, since the shadows cast by these posts could have been used to track the seasons.

The consensus, up until now at least, is that the plaza must have taken a long time to build, not to mention a huge amount of effort and organization. According to Wikipedia, the construction of the earthworks was a monumental task that "demanded a sustained investment of human labor, and the organized skill and cultural will to sustain the effort over many centuries. One authority calculated that it would take more than 1,236,007 cubic feet ... of basket-loaded soil to complete the earthworks. That would mean 1,350 adults laboring 70 days a year for three years."

This new study, however, concludes that the construction didn't take anywhere near that long:

"Using modern research methods including radiocarbon dating, microscopic analysis of soils and magnetic measurements of soils, the research provides conclusive evidence that the earthworks were built rapidly. Essentially, there is no evidence of boundaries or signs of weathering between the various levels, which would have occurred if there was even a brief pause in construction." (Science Daily)

It's possible that the Poverty point site we see today has been partially obliterated by floods and the like. The next video presents an alternate take on what the earthworks actually looked like in prehistoric times and suggests a connection with the sun temples of South America. I have no idea how seriously to take this theory, but it raises the interesting possibility that the Aztecs, Maya and Incas may have been descendants of the mound-builders of North America.

Also see:

Poverty Point Mound Research Helps Smash Old Paradigms (Ancient Origins)

Multi-method geoarchaeological analyses demonstrates exceptionally rapid construction of Ridge West 3 at Poverty Point (Southeastern Archaeology)

Ohio's Mysterious Serpent Mound

Video from 2017.

"The Great Serpent Mound is a 1,348-foot-long, three-foot-high prehistoric effigy mound on a plateau of the Serpent Mound crater along Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio." (Wikipedia) As far as I can tell, nobody knows how old the mound is or who built it, but "The two leading theories are that the mound was built by either the Adena Culture (800 BC to 100 AD) around 320 BC, or the Fort Ancient Culture (1000 to 1750 AD) around 1070 AD."

No artifacts or remains have been found in the mound which could help archaeologists figure out how old it is. The theory that the earthwork was built by the Adena Culture is based on carbon dating of human remains unearthed in the vicinity. The Fort Ancient Culture theory, however, is based on the carbon dating of charcoal found in a trench dug into the mound itself, so the later dates (1000 - 1750 AD) seem more likely. Everything's still up in the air, though, because the charcoal itself might have been shifted by various processes (frost, burrowing insects and animals, etc).

The mound is located on the site of an ancient meteorite impact crater which is over 200 million years old. According to Megalithomania, this crater creates all sorts of magnetic and gravitational anomalies which cause "weather fluctuations and earth energy effects in the form of earth lights" in the area. (Quote is from the description for the video below.) Make of that what you will. It's still a mystery why the mound was built, but its orientation seems to have astronomical significance. According to Wikipedia, "The head of the serpent is aligned to the summer solstice sunset and the coils also may point to the winter solstice sunrise and the equinox sunrise."

Note: "If 1070 AD is accurate as the construction year, building the mound could theoretically have been influenced by two astronomical events: the light from the supernova that created the Crab Nebula in 1054, and the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1066." (Wikipedia)

The Ohio Serpent Mound, naturally, has attracted the attention of the ancient-aliens crowd, who have connected these strange effigy mounds in North America to everything from the Nazca Lines in South America to the crop circles in England, arguing that they are either an attempt to communicate with Earth or a kind of air-traffic control system for UFOs, or both.

Theories like these have come under attack recently for being -- drumroll -- racist, but that's not too surprising because everything is racist these days. Personally, I think that the Serpent Mound in Ohio was built by a prehistoric Yig cult -- a cult that still exists, by the way -- but it would put my life in danger to disclose my sources for that in a public forum.

Scientists Trace Wooly Mammoth's Lifetime Journeys

"An international research team has retraced the astonishing lifetime journey of an Arctic woolly mammoth, which covered enough of the Alaska landscape during its 28 years to almost circle the Earth twice." Source: Science Daily.

"Scientists gathered unprecedented details of its life through analysis of a 17,000-year-old fossil from the University of Alaska Museum of the North. By generating and studying isotopic data in the mammoth's tusk, they were able to match its movements and diet with isotopic maps of the region."

The Ancient Underwater Cypress Forest Off The Gulf Coast

"When saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths and giant sloths roamed North America during the last Ice Age about 18,000 to 80,000 years ago, the Gulf Coast's climate was only slightly cooler, more similar to regions to the north like Missouri and North Carolina's climate today. As sea level dropped [during the ice age] and exposed more land on the continental shelf, bald cypress trees became established in swamps in what is now the northern Gulf of Mexico." Source: Science Daily.

Note: Researchers aren't sure what happened, but the general idea is that an "event" occurred during the last ice age, killing this coastal cypress woodland and burying the trees in sediment. Then, around 18,000 years ago -- a couple thousand years before the first humans are thought to have crossed the Bering land bridge into North America -- the ice age ended and the sea level rose, submerging everything. Much later, in 2004, "Hurricane Ivan cut a path across the region and exposed a preserved ancient bald cypress forest."

Park Ranger Discovers Huge Number Of Prehistoric Fossils In California

"A park ranger wandering through a petrified forest in California has unearthed a trove of prehistoric fossils, including a stunningly preserved mastodon skull and the remains of a 400-pound (181 kilograms) monster salmon, SFGate reported." Source: Live Science.

"Paleontologists unearthed dozens of fossil species near the Mokelumne River watershed in the foothills of the Sierra mountains southeast of Sacramento. The fossil site, which dates back roughly 10 million years to the Miocene epoch, is one of the most significant such troves ever discovered in the Golden State."

Comment: It's hard to imagine, but these prehistoric animals lived at a time when there were no humans in the world. Assuming our current picture of evolution is correct, the apes had just started to appear in the Old World at the beginning of the Miocene and the first human ancestors only began to diverge from the ancestors of modern chimpanzees near the end of the epoch. According to researchers, the region where these fossils were discovered was "an oak forest fringed by an ancient ocean" in the Miocene. If you ask me, California would've been a better place to live back then than it is today.

The Man-Eating Wendigo

"The Wendigo is a horrifying creature of Algonquian Native American legends that would devour human flesh to survive a harsh winter. But are they only myth, or are there really cannibalistic humanoids waiting in forests for their next victim?" Source: Ancient Origins.

"The Algonquians are some of the most extensive and numerous of the Native American groups in North America, and they once lived all along the Atlantic Coast and the Great Lakes Region. However, Wendigo-like creatures are also found in the legends of other Native American tribes, including the neighbors of the Algonquians, the Iroquois. Amongst these peoples, a creature known as the Stonecoat bears some similarities to the Wendigo.

"In some traditions, humans overpowered by greed could turn into wendigos; the myth thus served as a method of encouraging cooperation and moderation. Other sources say wendigos were created when a human resorted to cannibalism to survive. Humans could also turn into wendigos by being in contact with them for too long." (Wikipedia)

Comment: Wendigos are the kind of legendary beasts or cryptids studied by cryptozoologists. If you're interested in the general subject I can recommend the  Cryptozoology Anthology: Strange & Mysterious Creatures in Men's Adventure Magazines. This is an excellent book, described by one reviewer as the "Men's Mag Monster Motherlode."

A Genetic History Of The Pre-Contact Caribbean

"Prior to European colonization ... the Caribbean was a mosaic of archaeologically distinct communities that were connected by networks of interaction since the first human occupations in Cuba, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico around 6,000 years ago. The pre-contact Caribbean is divided into three archaeological ages, which denote shifts in material cultural complexes. The Lithic and Archaic Ages are defined by distinct stone tool technologies, and the Ceramic Age — which began about 2,500–2,300 years ago — featured an agricultural economy and intensive pottery production. Technological and stylistic changes in material culture across these Ages reflect local developments by connected Caribbean people as well as migration from the American continents, although the geographical origins, trajectories and numbers of migratory waves remain under debate." Source: Nature (Dec. 2020).

Related: What ecosystem greeted the first human settlers in the northern Caribbean?

This study looked at the "genome-wide" DNA data from "174 ancient individuals from The Bahamas, Haiti and the Dominican Republic (collectively, Hispaniola), Puerto Rico, Curaçao and Venezuela" together with the data from "89 previously published ancient individuals." One of the study's findings, reported in the NY Times (Dec. 2020), was that "the [pre-contact] population of Hispaniola was no more than a few tens of thousands of people. Almost all prior estimates have been at least tenfold too large." (Earlier estimates went as high as 750,000).

Comment: Columbus, of course, has been viciously attacked for his involvement in the slave trade, etc. etc., but I have to point out that the Caribbean tribes he contacted were also involved in slavery and, in some cases, cannibalism. The Arawaks, for instance, welcomed the Spanish at first, asking them for protection against the warlike Caribs (the Kalingo) who raided the other tribes for plunder and prisoners:

"According to the Spanish conquistadors, the Kalinago were cannibals who regularly ate roasted human flesh. There is evidence as to the taking of human trophies and the ritual cannibalism of war captives among both Carib and other Amerindian groups such as the Arawak and Tupinamba." (Wikipedia)

In their original logs, dispatches and letters, the Spaniards described how the Caribs would capture male infants and boys during their raids and take them home, where they would fatten up their slaves and then eat them, sometimes after a period of years. This is a part of history which never makes it into the classrooms and popular press.

First Americans Had Indigenous Australian Genes

"During the last ice age, when hunters and gatherers crossed the ancient Bering Land Bridge that connected Asia with North America, they carried something special with them in their genetic code: pieces of ancestral Australian DNA, a new study finds." Source: Live Science.

"Over the generations, these people and their descendants trekked southward, making their way to South America. Even now, more than 15,000 years after these people crossed the Bering Land Bridge, their descendants — who still carry ancestral Australian genetic signatures — can be found in parts of the South American Pacific coast and in the Amazon, the researchers found."

Comment: The theory here is that indigenous Australians migrated north through Asia, crossed over the Bering Land Bridge into what is now Alaska and then traveled down the coast to South America --  a very long and roundabout journey. That could very well be true, but it's also possible that the prehistoric seafarers of Oceania reached South America more directly by island hopping across the Pacific. This disputed theory is based on the discovery of very early human settlements in South America which -- assuming that the dating is correct -- seem to conflict with the orthodox story:

"Excavations of South American sites containing traces of ancient human activity have suggested that humans reached the southern region of the continent at least 14,500 years before present (BP) — remarkably quickly after first entering the Americas — and that they soon developed diverse technologies across different sites. But the picture yielded by these archaeological investigations is a patchwork, leaving open key questions, such as whether the first humans migrated south along the Pacific coast or by some other route. The history is further complicated by disputed claims (examples marked by red headers with asterisks) that certain sites reflect a much earlier occupation of the continent beginning more than 20,000 BP." Source: The Scientist (2020).

The Angel Mounds In Indiana

Video from 2013. Closed-captions helpful.

"Angel Mounds Historic Site, off Pollack Avenue, Newburgh, Indiana is a Middle Mississippian village (ca. 1100 - 1450 AD) along the Ohio River. There are earthen flat-topped mounds, indications of protective earthworks, a protective stockade, and burial and building sites on and near mounds." Source: The Megalithic Portal. 

Spread out across the Midwest, Eastern and Southeastern United States, the Mississippian Culture (app. 800 - 1600 AD) was a sprawling collection of "urban settlements and satellite villages (suburbs) linked together by loose trading networks." (Wikipedia). "The largest city was Cahokia, believed to be a major religious center located in what is present-day southern Illinois."

Also see: The Mississippian Period: Origins Of New World Civilization

I'm not sure if the Mississippian Culture qualifies as a "civilization" as such, but the people living in its scattered settlements and villages did share a common culture in many regards. They were all mound builders, for instance. They were maize agriculturalists, made shell-tempered pottery, created hierarchical chiefdoms with centralized political and religious control, and developed systems of "institutionalized social  inequality," according to Wikipedia.

The Angel Mounds village covered around 103 acres, according to the Indiana State Museum. An "important religious, political and trade center for people living within a 75-mile radius," the village is thought to have been home to around 1000 people at its height. The site had "six large platform mounds (Mounds A through F), five smaller mounds (Mounds H through L), and at least one large plaza." Cahokia, by contrast, was much larger. "At its apex around 1100 CE, the city [Cahokia] covered about 6 square miles ... and included about 120 manmade earthen mounds in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and functions. At the apex of its population, Cahokia may have briefly exceeded contemporaneous London, which at that time was approximately 14,000–18,000." (Wikipedia)

There isn't much left of the Angel Mounds village except for its mounds, but the site has been a rich source of artifacts. "From 1939 to 1942, the Works Progress Administration employed more than 250 workers to excavate 120,000 square feet ... of the site, which resulted in the recording and processing of 2.3 million archaeological items." Though small compared to Cahokia, the Angel Mounds settlement was an important site connected to what appears to have been a very large and active culturally-interrelated complex that extended at various times from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

"Mississippian culture was not a single 'tribe,' but many societies sharing a similar way of life or tradition." (Encyclopedia of Alabama) Whatever you call it, though, it definitely wasn't a unified civilization of egalitarian traders and farmers living together in peace and harmony. Fortifications were common in Mississippian settlements. The remains of a stockade and defensive palisade at Angel Mounds, for instance, provide clear evidence that the people there had reason to be worried about attacks. Warfare was fairly common in the southeast during this time:

According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, "Significant warfare first began to develop among Georgia Indians in the Mississippian Period (A.D. 800-1600), a time when relatively large societies called chiefdoms evolved throughout southeastern North America. During this period defensive fortifications were first built around some towns.

"These included log palisades that completely encircled large towns such as the one at the Etowah Mounds in north Georgia. Palisades were often plastered with clay to keep them from being ignited by burning arrows. Sometimes they incorporated defensive towers (bastions) that allowed archers to shoot at enemies who got close to the wall. Ditches similar to moats were also dug around some palisades and were part of the fortifications of both the Etowah site and the Ocmulgee site at Macon." 

Cahokia's Rise Parallels Onset Of Corn Agriculture In North America

Documentary from 1994.

"Corn cultivation spread from Mesoamerica to what is now the American Southwest by about 4000 B.C., but how and when the crop made it to other parts of North America is still debated. In a new study, scientists report that corn was not grown in the ancient metropolis of Cahokia until sometime between A.D. 900 and 1000, a relatively late date that corresponds to the start of the city's rapid expansion." Source: Science Daily (2020).

Note: "Cahokia was the largest and most influential urban settlement of the Mississippian culture, which developed advanced societies across much of what is now the central and southeastern United States, beginning more than 1,000 years before European contact." (Wikipedia)

Maize (corn) is thought to have been domesticated in southern Mexico around 10,000 years ago. If the dates are correct, it took around 6,000 years for the cultivation of maize to spread to the American southwest and another 3,000 years for the crop to reach Cahokia in the midwest. This very slow spread can be explained, at least partly, by the fact that it took time for maize to adapt to northern climates, but it also suggests that the indigenous peoples of the ancient Americas were fairly static, spending most of their time in their traditional territories.

When maize reached Cahokia it was just a small village, but around a century later (or less) the settlement began to expand dramatically:

"Beginning in about 1050, Cahokia grew from 'a little village of a few hundred people to part of a city with 5,000 to 10,000 people in an archaeological instant' ... The population eventually expanded to at least 40,000. This early experiment in urban living was short-lived, however. By 1350, after a period of drought and civil strife, most of the city's population had dispersed." (Science Daily)