Jeffrey (JT) Lewis @jtlewis_arch on Twitter is a southeastern archaeologist who makes archaeology YouTube videos at JT Lewis

Review of Graham Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse Ep. 1 on Gunung Padang, Part 1

Review of Graham Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse Ep. 1 on Gunung Padang, Part 2

Archaeologist Reviews Graham Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse Ep. 1

• Addressing Graham Hancock the Pseudoarchaeological Theorist, as well as Flaws in his Ancient Apocalypse, Great flood, and Seafaring R1b
• John Hoopes (Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas), who Graham Hancock thinks is “the most vehement and insulting of all archaeologists” and I think is great, addresses Pseudoarchaeology, Pseudohistory, and Pseudoscience
• Archaeology Tube by Dr. Bill Farley addressing Real Archaeology and Pseudoarchaeology as well as Science Communication with the Public
• Digging Up Ancient Aliens, by Archaeologist Fredrik Trusohamn, uses a background in Archaeology to examine Ancient Aliens and Pseudo-History

Mound Builders

“A number of pre-Columbian cultures in North America were collectively termed “Mound Builders“, but the term has no formal meaning. It does not refer to a specific people or archaeological culture, but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks which indigenous peoples erected for an extended period of more than 5,000 years. The “Mound Builder” cultures span the period of roughly 3500 BCE (the construction of Watson Brake) to the 16th century CE, including the Archaic period, Woodland period (Calusa culture, Adena and Hopewell cultures), and Mississippian period. Geographically, the cultures were present in the region of the Great Lakes, the Ohio River Valley, and the Mississippi River valley and its tributary waters.” ref

“The first mound building was an early marker of political and social complexity among the cultures in the Eastern United States. Watson Brake in Louisiana, constructed about 3500 BCE during the Middle Archaic period, is the oldest known and dated mound complex in North America. It is one of 11 mound complexes from this period found in the Lower Mississippi Valley. These cultures generally had developed hierarchical societies that had an elite. These commanded hundreds or even thousands of workers to dig up tons of earth with the hand tools available, move the soil long distances, and finally, workers to create the shape with layers of soil as directed by the builders. But early mounds found in Louisiana preceded such cultures, and were products of hunter-gatherer cultures.” ref

“From about 800 CE, the mound building cultures were dominated by the Mississippian culture, a large archaeological horizon, whose youngest descendants, the Plaquemine culture and the Fort Ancient culture, were still active at the time of European contact in the 16th century. One tribe of the Fort Ancient culture has been identified as the Mosopelea, presumably of southeast Ohio, who spoke an Ohio Valley Siouan language. The bearers of the Plaquemine culture were presumably speakers of the Natchez language isolate. The first written description of these cultures were made by members of the Spanish explorer Hernando de Sotos expedition, between 1540 and 1542.” ref

“The namesake cultural trait of the Mound Builders was the building of mounds and other earthworks. These burial and ceremonial structures were typically flat-topped pyramids or platform mounds, flat-topped or rounded cones, elongated ridges, and sometimes a variety of other forms. They were generally built as part of complex villages. The early earthworks built in Louisiana around 3500 BCE are the only ones known to have been built by a hunter-gatherer culture, rather than a more settled culture based on agricultural surpluses.” ref

“The best-known flat-topped pyramidal structure is Monks Mound at Cahokia, near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. This community was the center of Mississippian culture. This mound appears to have been the main ceremonial and residential mound for the religious and political leaders; it is more than 100 feet (30 m) tall and is the largest pre-Columbian earthwork north of Mexico. This site had numerous mounds, some with conical or ridge tops, as well as palisaded stockades protecting the large settlement and elite quarter. At its maximum about 1150 CE, Cahokia was an urban settlement with 20,000–30,000 people. This population was not exceeded by North American European settlements until after 1800.” ref

“Between 1540 and 1542, Hernando de Soto, the Spanish conquistador, traversed what became the southeastern United States. There he encountered many different mound-builder peoples who were perhaps descendants of the great Mississippian culture. De Soto observed people living in fortified towns with lofty mounds and plazas, and surmised that many of the mounds served as foundations for priestly temples. Near present-day Augusta, Georgia, de Soto encountered a group ruled by a queen, Cofitachequi. She told him that the mounds within her territory served as burial places for nobles.” ref

“The artist Jacques le Moyne, who had accompanied French settlers to northeastern Florida during the 1560s, likewise noted Native American groups using existing mounds and constructing others. He produced a series of watercolor paintings depicting scenes of native life. Although most of his paintings have been lost, some engravings were copied from the originals and published in 1591 by a Flemish company. Among these is a depiction of the burial of an aboriginal Floridian tribal chief, an occasion of great mourning and ceremony. The original caption reads:

Sometimes the deceased king of this province is buried with great solemnity, and his great cup from which he was accustomed to drink is placed on a tumulus with many arrows set about it.

— Jacques le Moyne, 1560s” ref

“Maturin Le Petit, a Jesuit priest, met the Natchez people, as did Le Page du Pratz (1758), a French explorer. Both observed them in the area that today is known as Mississippi. The Natchez were devout worshippers of the sun. Having a population of some 4,000, they occupied at least nine villages and were presided over by a paramount chief, known as the Great Sun, who wielded absolute power. Both observers noted the high temple mounds which the Natchez had built so that the Great Sun could commune with God, the sun. His large residence was built atop the highest mound, from “which, every morning, he greeted the rising sun, invoking thanks and blowing tobacco smoke to the four cardinal directions.” ref

“Radiocarbon dating has established the age of the earliest Archaic mound complex in southeastern Louisiana. One of the two Monte Sano Site mounds, excavated in 1967 before being destroyed for new construction at Baton Rouge, was dated at 6220 years ago (plus or minus 140 years). Researchers at the time thought that such huter-gatherer societies were not organizationally capable of this type of construction. It has since been dated as about 4500 BCE or 6,523 years ago, although not all agree.” ref

“Watson Brake is located in the floodplain of the Ouachita River near Monroe in northern Louisiana. Securely dated to about 5,400 years ago (around 3500 BCE), in the Middle Archaic period, it consists of a formation of 11 mounds from 3 feet (0.91 m) to 25 feet (7.6 m) tall, connected by ridges to form an oval nearly 900 feet (270 m) across. In the Americas, building of complex earthwork mounds started at an early date, well before the pyramids of Egypt were constructed. Watson Brake was being constructed nearly 2,000 years before the better-known Poverty Point, and building continued for 500 years. Middle Archaic mound construction seems to have ceased about 2800 BCE. Scholars have not ascertained the reason, but it may have been because of changes in river patterns or other environmental factors.” ref

“With the 1990s dating of Watson Brake and similar complexes, scholars established that pre-agricultural, pre-ceramic American societies could organize to accomplish complex construction during extended periods of time, invalidating scholars’ traditional ideas of Archaic society. Watson Brake was built by a hunter-gatherer society, the people of which occupied this area only a seasonal basis. Successive generations organized to build the complex mounds over a 500-year period. Their food consisted mostly of fish and deer, as well as available plants.” ref

“Poverty Point, built about 1500 BCE in what is now Louisiana, is a prominent example of Late Archaic mound-builder construction (around 2500 BCE – 1000 BCE). It is a striking complex of more than 1 square mile (2.6 km²), where six earthwork crescent ridges were built in concentric arrangement, interrupted by radial aisles. Three mounds are also part of the main complex, and evidence of residences extends for about 3 miles (4.8 km) along the bank of Bayou Macon. It is the major site among 100 associated with the Poverty Point culture and is one of the best-known early examples of earthwork monumental architecture. Unlike the localized societies during the Middle Archaic, this culture showed evidence of a wide trading network outside its area, which is one of its distinguishing characteristics.” ref

“Horr’s Island, Florida, now a gated community next to Marco Island, was excavated by Michael Russo in 1980. He found an Archaic Indian village site. Mound A was a burial mound that dated to 3400 BCE, making it the oldest known burial mound in North America. The oldest mound associated with the Woodland period was the mortuary mound and pond complex at the Fort Center site in Glade County, Florida. Excavations and dating in 2012 by Thompson and Pluckhahn show that work began around 2600 BCE, seven centuries before the mound-builders in Ohio.” ref

“The Archaic period was followed by the Woodland period (circa 1000 BCE). Some well-understood examples are the Adena culture of Ohio, West Virginia, and parts of nearby states. The subsequent Hopewell culture built monuments from present-day Illinois to Ohio; it is renowned for its geometric earthworks. The Adena and Hopewell were not the only mound-building peoples during this time period. Contemporaneous mound-building cultures existed throughout what is now the Eastern United States, stretching as far south as Crystal River in western Florida. During this time, in parts of present-day Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, the Hopewellian Marksville culture degenerated and was succeeded by the Baytown culture. Reasons for degeneration include attacks from other tribes or the impact of severe climatic changes undermining agriculture.” ref

“The Coles Creek culture is a Late Woodland culture (700–1200 CE) in the Lower Mississippi Valley in the Southern United States that marks a significant change in the cultural history of the area. Population and cultural and political complexity increased, especially by the end of the Coles Creek period. Although many of the classic traits of chiefdom societies had not yet developed, by 1000 CE, the formation of simple elite polities had begun. Coles Creek sites are found in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Texas. The Coles Creek culture is considered ancestral to the Plaquemine culture.” ref

“Around 900–1450 CE, the Mississippian culture developed and spread through the Eastern United States, primarily along the river valleys. The largest regional center where the Mississippian culture is first definitely developed is located in Illinois along a tributary of the Mississippi, and is referred to as Cahokia. It had several regional variants including the Middle Mississippian culture of Cahokia, the South Appalachian Mississippian variant at Moundville and Etowah, the Plaquemine Mississippian variant in south Louisiana and Mississippi, and the Caddoan Mississippian culture of northwestern Louisiana, eastern Texas, and southwestern Arkansas. Like the mound builders of the Ohio, these peoples built gigantic mounds as burial and ceremonial places.” ref

“Fort Ancient is the name for a Native American culture that flourished from 1000 to 1650 CE among a people who predominantly inhabited land along the Ohio River in areas of modern-day southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, and western West Virginia.” ref

“A continuation of the Coles Creek culture in the lower Mississippi River Valley in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana. Examples include the Medora site in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana; and the Anna and Emerald Mound sites in Mississippi. Sites inhabited by Plaquemine peoples continued to be used as vacant ceremonial centers without large village areas much as their Coles Creek ancestors had done, although their layout began to show influences from Middle Mississippian peoples to the north. The Winterville and Holly Bluff (Lake George) sites in western Mississippi are good examples that exemplify this change of layout, but continuation of site usage. During the Terminal Coles Creek period (1150 to 1250 CE), contact increased with Mississippian cultures centered upriver near the future St. Louis, Missouri. This resulted in the adaption of new pottery techniques, as well as new ceremonial objects and possibly new social patterns during the Plaquemine period.” ref 

“As more Mississippian culture influences were absorbed, the Plaquemine area as a distinct culture began to shrink after CE 1350. Eventually, the last enclave of purely Plaquemine culture was the Natchez Bluffs area, while the Yazoo Basin and adjacent areas of Louisiana became a hybrid Plaquemine-Mississippian culture. This division was recorded by Europeans when they first arrived in the area. In the Natchez Bluffs area, the Taensa and Natchez people had held out against Mississippian influence and continued to use the same sites as their ancestors. The Plaquemine culture is considered directly ancestral to these historic period groups encountered by Europeans. Groups who appear to have absorbed more Mississippian influence were identified as those tribes speaking the Tunican, Chitimachan, and Muskogean languages.” ref

Earth-diver Mythology

“Earth-diver (plural earth-divers): (mythology) A common character in various traditional creation myths who is sent by a supreme being into the primal waters to find substance (often sand or mud) with which to build habitable land.” ref

“The earth-diver is a common character in various traditional creation myths. In these stories, a supreme being usually sends an animal (most often, a type of bird, but also crustaceans, insects, and fishes in some narratives) into the primal waters to find bits of sand or mud with which to build habitable land. Some scholars interpret these myths psychologically while others interpret them cosmogonically. In both cases emphasis is placed on beginnings emanating from the depths.” ref

Earth-diver Motif distribution 

“According to Gudmund Hatt and Tristram P. Coffin, Earth-diver myths are common in Native American folklore, among the following populations: Shoshone, Fox people, Blackfoot, Chipewyan, Newettee, Yokuts of California, Mandan, Hidatsa, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ojibwe, Yuchi, and Cherokee.” ref 

“American anthropologist Gladys Reichard located the distribution of the motif across “all parts of North America”, save for “the extreme north, northeast, and southwest”. In a 1977 study, anthropologist Victor Barnouw surmised that the earth-diver motif appeared in “hunting-gathering societies“, mainly among northerly groups such as the Hare, Dogrib, Kaska, Beaver, Carrier, Chippewyan, Sarsi, Cree, and Montagnais.” ref 

“Similar tales are also found among the Chukchi and Yukaghir, the Tatars, and many Finnic traditions, as well as among the Buryat and the Samoyed. In addition, the earth-diver motif also exists in narratives from Eastern Europe, namely Romani, Romanian, Slavic (namely, Bulgarian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Belarusian), and Lithuanian mythological traditions.” ref

“The pattern of distribution of these stories suggests they have a common origin in the eastern Asiatic coastal region, spreading as peoples migrated west into Siberia and east to the North American continent. However, there are examples of this mytheme found well outside of this boreal distribution pattern, for example, the West African Yoruba creation myth of Obatala and Oduduwa.” ref

 Native American narrative

“Characteristic of many Native American myths, earth-diver creation stories begin as beings and potential forms linger asleep or suspended in the primordial realm. The earth-diver is among the first of them to awaken and lay the necessary groundwork by building suitable lands where the coming creation will be able to live. In many cases, these stories will describe a series of failed attempts to make land before the solution is found.” ref

“Among the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the earth diver cosmogony is attested in Iroquois mythology: a female sky deity falls from the heavens, and certain animals, the beaver, the otter, the duck, and the muskrat dive in the waters to fetch mud to construct an island.” ref

“In a similar story from the Seneca, people lived in a sky realm. One day, the chief’s daughter was afflicted with a mysterious illness, and the only cure recommended for her (revealed in a dream) was to lie beside a tree and to have it be dug up. The people do so, but a man complains that the tree was their livelihood, and kicks the girl through the hole. She ends up falling from the sky to a world of only water, but is rescued by waterfowl. A turtle offers to bear her on its shell, but asked where would be a definitive dwelling place for her. They decide to create land, and the toad dives into the depths of the primal sea to get pieces of soil. The toad puts it on the turtle’s back, which grows larger with every deposit of soil.” ref

“In another version from the Wyandot, the Wyandot lived in heaven. The daughter of the Big Chief (or Mighty Ruler) was sick, so the medicine man recommends that they dig up the wild apple tree that stands next to the Lodge of the Mighty Ruler, because the remedy is to be found on its roots. However, as the tree has been dug out, the ground begins to sink away, and the treetops catch and carry down the sick daughter with it. As the girl falls from the skies, two swans rescue her on their backs. The birds decide to summon all the Swimmers and the Water Tribes. Many volunteer to dive into the Great Water to fetch bits of earth from the bottom of the sea, but only the toad (female, in the story) is the one successful.” ref

GENES AND MYTHS: ANCIENT MAL’TA DNA AND THE EARTH-DIVER MYTHOLOGICAL MOTIF

“Earth-Diver is one of the most widely-distributed and well-studied cosmological myths. Found in mostly Uralic-speaking Eastern Europe, in Siberia, in Munda-speaking Northeast India and North America, its action is set in post-diluvial times when a demiurge sends various creatures to bring a piece of mud from the bottom of the ocean. The first creature fails, but the second one succeeds. Importantly, it’s the least likely creature that succeeds, while the more obvious favorite fails. A loon is a much better diver than a duck but it’s the duck that succeeds. In the end, the demiurge blows the earth out of the tiny piece of mud and restores life on it. Depending on the region, the diving creatures are different – in Eurasia it’s waterfowl birds – loon and duck, in North America it’s amphibians such as turtle or frog, animals such as otter or beaver or waterbirds, in Northeast India and the American Southwest – it’s arthropods.” ref

“Population folklorists such as Vladimir Napol’skikh (Древнейшие этапы происхождения народов уральской языковой семьи: данные  мифологической реконструкции (прауральский космогонический миф)/The Initial Stages of Evolution of Uralic-Speakers: Evidence from a Mythological Reconstruction (Proto-Uralic Cosmogonic Myth). Moscow, 1991) have suggested that the Earth-Diver motif is the folkloric manifestation of a more comprehensive system of beliefs related to the experiences of a shamanic flight in Northern Eurasian and Amerindian cultures. Siberian shamans liken themselves to waterfowl birds flying between worlds in search of the soul of their patient and they manipulate waterfowl figurines during their shamanic seances.” ref

“Remarkably, very similar figurines are found at the 24,000-year-old Mal’ta archaeological site in South Siberia (see one on the left made out of a mammoth tusk), and Napol’skikh, in his 1991 book as well as in a recent talk (see video in Russian, roughly from 11:40 on) proposed that the Mal’ta people possessed the “cult of a waterfowl” and told the Earth-Diver myth. This means that the Earth-Diver motif may go back to pre-LGM times.” ref

“Mal’ta has recently made headlines thanks to the sequencing of the genome of a 4-year-old boy found at this site. The DNA sample fell in-between West Eurasians and Amerindians, without any special connection to East Asians, and showed typical West Eurasian mtDNA and Y-DNA haplogroups, namely U and R, respectively. They are sister lineages of widely distributed in the Americas hg B (mtDNA) and hg Q (Y-DNA). It appears that, in pre-LGM times, Amerindians and West Eurasians formed a genetic continuum and that modern East Asians did not yet emerge as a distinct population.” ref

“This finding may put the distribution of the Earth-Diver myth into a new perspective. Per Davidski’s request, I adduce the map of the distribution of the Earth-Diver motif in Eurasia and North America (see the shaded areas on the left). One should not expect a perfect fit between the distribution of myths and genes but the Earth-Diver distribution is rather clearly demarcated on a worldwide scale and does show continuity between West Eurasia and North America. The motif is notably absent from Western Europe – precisely the area that was covered with the glacier from 25,000 to 14,000 years ago – and from Beringia (Paleoasiatic peoples such as Chukchees and Koryaks as well as Eskimos don’t tell earth-diver stories), which may have been blocked by ice as well. Its presence in the Balkans is a due to relatively recent events such as Turkic and Avar migrations across the southern European steppe.” ref

“According to Napol’skikh’s motif phylogeny (on the left), the Earth-Diver myth has gone through 3 evolutionary stages – MNP-0, MNP-1, and MNP-2. At MNP-0, any creature (and any number of creatures) could become the demiurge’s helper as long as the least likely creature succeeded. At MNP-1, the plot crystallized around a pair of waterfowls in Siberia and Western North America and a pair of animals in Eastern North America. At MNP-3, one of the creatures dropped off and the demiurge used the help of only one helper. The “cladistics” of the myth is, therefore, rather simple: the dynamic and variable ancestral forms crystallize into progressively fewer characters.” ref

“As the detailed maps of motif and submotif distribution (see above, from Napol’skikh 2011) show, North America and Northern Eurasia share MNP-2 but then the rest of the variation is continent-specific. Eurasia has a number of clearly derived variants that are missing from the Americas, while America has a number variants not seen in Eurasia.  Napol’skikh observes that stage MNP-0 is better represented in North America – the region that tends to have more archaic versions of the motif and more basal motif diversity (not just waterfowls, but animals, too; not just two creatures but many, etc.). Remarkably, the use of arthropods by the demiurge is a trait shared by Munda-speaking Northeast Indians (see the Berezkin map of Eurasia above) and the Muskogean-speaking Amerindians from the Southeast, both areas being the southernmost extremes of the Earth-Diver distribution. As the Mal’ta boy is re-writing the prehistory of Eurasia, opportunities are growing for cross-disciplinary integration that would tie together genes and culture into a coherent story.” ref

Archaeologist Reacts to Graham Hancock’s “Ancient Apocalypse” – America’s Lost Civilization

Alchemists of Memory: The Prehistoric Monumental Archaeology of the Southeastern United States

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Shell Mounds and Shell rings

“Shell mounds are small hills, usually in coastal locations, composed entirely of shells (clams, oysters, whelks) discarded by generations of Native Americans which support an assemblage of calciphilic plant species. Archeological evidence indicates they were occupied at the time Europeans first landed in Florida. Several are now surrounded by mangroves, evidence that they were built when sea level was lower than today. Originally there were many such shell mounds along coastal lagoons and at the mouths of rivers (and even inland along the St. Johns River), but most were destroyed for road building in the early part of the last century.” ref

“A rich calcareous soil develops on the deposited shells which supports a diverse hardwood forest on undisturbed mounds. Central Florida mounds are often characterized by tropical species occurring north of their normal range. On Turtle Mound at Canaveral National Seashore in Volusia County tropical trees such as white stopper (Eugenia axillaris), sea torchwood (Amyris elemifera), wild lime (Zanthoxylum fagara), false mastic (Sideroxylon foetidissimum), inkwood (Exothea paniculata), and lancewood (Ocotea coriacea) were recorded at or near their northern range limits in 1971. Freezes eliminated or reduced the populations of many of these by the time the mound was re-sampled several decades later, illustrating that the tropical flora of these northern mounds is in constant flux. Shell mounds on the Cedar Keys in Levy County on the Gulf coast are also northern outposts for tropical species most likely brought in by migrating birds.” ref

“Tropical species found on these Keys such as white stopper, Florida swampprivet (Forestiera segregata), snowberry (Chiococca alba), and saffron plum (Sideroxylon celastrinum) are all species whose fruits are eaten by migrating birds. Shell mounds in the Florida Panhandle, i.e. on St. Vincent Island and on St. Joseph peninsula, support temperate canopy trees such as live oak (Quercus virginiana) and cabbage palm (Sabal palmetto) as well as calcium-loving temperate
species not found in nearby maritime hammocks on sand, including soapberry (Sapindus saponaria) and Carolina buckthorn. Even south of Tampa and Cape Canaveral, the species composition of shell mound forests tends to be more strictly tropical than that of maritime hammocks on sandy substrates in the same region, with white stopper, Florida swampprivet, strangler fig, saffron plum, and gumbo limbo being the most commonly encountered woody species.” ref

“Rare plant species found on shell mounds include iguana hackberry (Celtis iguanaea), spiny hackberry (Celtis pallida), southern lip fern (Cheilanthes microphylla), aboriginal prickly apple (Harrisia aboriginum), yellow hibiscus (Pavonia spinifex), and terrestrial peperomia (Peperomia humilis).” ref

“Shell mounds are found along the coast throughout Florida and range westward and northward along the coastlines of the southeastern U.S. In the 1920s botanist John Kunkel Small noted the tropical flora on large shell mounds at Port Orange (1922), Hobe Sound (1922), Horti Point on the south end of Merritt Island (1927), Marco island (1928), and at the mouths of the Sebastian River (1927), Crystal River (1928), and Caloosahatchee River (1921). As mentioned, most of these were destroyed for road building. Three of the mounds Small described, Turtle and Green Mounds (1923) near New Smyrna and Madira Bickel Mound (1921) near Tampa Bay, are preserved in State or Federal parks. Others are features in larger parks, including St. Joseph Bay State Buffer Preserve, Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge (North Key and Seahorse Key), Cayo Costa State Park, Charlotte Harbor Preserve State Park (Josselyn Island), Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge (Wulfert Hammock), and Coconut Point Park (Brevard County).” ref

“The uniquely tropical flora of Central Florida shell mounds is in constant flux, with species being periodically exterminated by freezes and subsequently re-colonizing, most likely via bird dispersal. Community Variations: North Florida shell mounds have some temperate hammock species such as live oak and cabbage palm, plus calcium-loving temperate species such as soapberry, Carolina buckthorn, and sugarberry (Celtis laevigata). Central Florida shell mounds may have a combination of tropical and temperate canopy species with tropical understory species, including white stopper, snowberry, and marlberry (Ardisia escallonioides). Further south shell mounds have a predominantly tropical flora in both the canopy and understory.” ref

“Shell rings are archaeological sites with curved shell middens completely or partially surrounding a clear space. The rings were sited next to estuaries that supported large populations of shellfish, usually oysters. Shell rings have been reported in several countries, including Colombia, Peru, Japan, and the southeastern United States. Archaeologists continue to debate the origins and use of shell rings.” ref

“Across what is now the southeastern United States, starting around 4000 BCE or 6,023 years ago, people exploited wetland resources, creating large shell middens. Middens developed along rivers, but there is limited evidence of Archaic peoples along coastlines prior to 3000 BCE or 5,023 years ago. Archaic sites on the coast may have been inundated by rising sea levels (one site in 15 to 20 feet of water off St. Lucie County, Florida has been dated to 2800 BCE or 4,823 years ago). Starting around 3000 BCE evidence of large-scale exploitation of oysters appears. During the period 3000 BCE to 1000 BCE or 5,023 to 3,023 years ago shell rings, large shell middens more or less surrounding open centers, developed along the coast of the Southeastern United States. These shell rings are numerous in South Carolina and Georgia, but are also found scattered around the Florida peninsula. Some sites also have sand or sand-and-shell mounds associated with shell rings. Sites such as Horr’s Island, in southwest Florida, supported sizable mound-building communities year-round. Four shell and/or sand mounds on Horr’s Island have been dated to between around 4,870 and 4,270 years ago.” ref

“Groups living along the coast had become mostly sedentary by the Late Archaic period, living in permanent villages while making occasional foraging trips. Archaeologists have debated whether the shell rings resulted from the simple accumulation of middens in conjunction with circular villages, or if they were deliberately built as monuments. The start of mound building in the lower Mississippi River valley and in Florida by about 6000 years ago is cited as increasing the plausibility that the shell-rings were also monumental architecture. Excavations of the Fig Island rings revealed little evidence of habitation on the rings, and circumstantial evidence of rapid deposition of large quantities of shells in deliberate creation of the rings.” ref

“Sites in Colombia, Peru, and Japan, as well as in the southeastern United States, have been identified as shell rings. Residents of and visitors to the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia had long noticed circular shell mounds on some of the islands. The first written accounts of shell rings in South Carolina and Georgia appeared early in the 19th century. Archaeologists surveyed some shell rings near the end of the 19th century, but the first reported scientific excavation of a shell ring in the United States did not occur until 1933. Scientific excavation of shell mounds in Japan began in the 1920s.” ref

“About 60 shell rings had been identified in the southeastern United States by 2002. Most date from the Late Archaic period (c. 3000  to 1000 BCE or 5,023 to 3,023 yearts ago), but shell rings were also constructed during the Woodland (c. 1000 BCE to 1000 CE) and Mississippian (c. 800 – 1500) periods. Close to 100 circular and horseshoe-shaped shell mounds have been identified in the Kantō region of Japan (where a large majority of Japanese shell mounds are found). Shell rings in Japan have been dated from late in the Early Jōmon period until early in the Late Jōmon period (from before 3000 BCE until after 1000 BCE). While there are reports of a number of shell ring sites in Colombia, only the Puerto Hormiga shell ring (c. 3000 BCE to 2500 BCE) has been described in the archaeological literature. Archaeologists have continued to identify and investigate additional shell ring sites into the 21st century.” ref

“Shell rings in the United States may form a complete ring, or be open, C-shaped, or U- or horseshoe-shaped. They may form a nearly perfect circle, or an oval. In almost all cases, the central area or “plaza” contains little or no shell or occupational debris. Most shell rings in the United States consist primarily of oyster shells, but may include periwinkles, razor clams, whelks, ribbed mussels, hard-shelled clams (quahogs), and blue and stone crab claws and shell bits. The Common orient clam is the most common component in shell mounds in Japan. Other shells found in Japanese mounds include those of sea snails, surf clams (Mactra veneriformes), and Japanese littleneck clams (Tapes japonica).” ref

“Some shell ring sites have multiple rings. Some more-or-less equal-sized rings may be joined together in a “figure-8”, as with the Skull Creek 1 and 2 and Coosaw 1 and 2 rings in South Carolina, or be touching, as with the two circular mounds in the Kasori shellmound in Japan. Smaller rings may be attached to a main ring, as at Fig Island 1 in South Carolina and the Rollins shell ring in Florida. Shell rings in southwest Florida are often associated with large mounds and other shell works. Shell rings in Georgia average 53 metres (174 ft) in diameter, and those in South Carolina 64 metres (210 ft) in diameter. The U-shaped shell rings in Florida described as of 2006 averaged 178 metres (584 ft) in length. Middle and Late Jomon shell middens in Japan are often circular or horseshoe-shaped, typically about 150 metres (490 ft) in diameter and may be up to 200 metres (660 ft) in diameter.” ref

“The known shell rings are various states of preservation. Rings have been impacted by rising sea levels, erosion, plowing, and coastal development. Shell rings, along with other shell mounds, have been mined for shell to be used in road paving and other construction projects. Shell rings in Peru have been particularly impacted by mining.” ref

“Archaeologists debate whether shell rings developed incidentally from shells discarded around circular villages, or were intentionally built, perhaps for ceremonial purposes. Over the years archaeologists and others have proposed many uses for shell rings, including recreational (“gaming arenas”), ceremonial, “houses of state”, astronomical observatories, religious, torture chambers, and fish traps. Many archaeologists believe that shell rings developed incidentally from shells discarded around circular villages of egalitarian hunter-gatherers. Supporting the assessment that the shell ring builders were egalitarian is the absence of prestige artifacts or burials associated with the rings.” ref

“Earthen mounds, including circular and horseshoe-shaped mounds, are found in Japan away from the estuaries that supported shell mounds. Evidence of pit houses in and adjacent to circular and horseshoe-shaped earthen mounds has been cited as evidence that the mounds resulted from normal settlements rather than construction for ceremonial purposes. Repeated construction of pit houses would have left dirt piled up around a village. This explanation of the development of mounds as a result of digging pit houses has been extended to also explain circular and horseshoe-shaped shell mounds. Several ring-shaped, C-shaped, or horseshoe-shaped earthen mounds have been identified at sites in inland peninsular Florida, such as the River Styx archaeological site. Woodland period rings in the United States incorporated more soil into the rings, blurring the distinction between earthen and shell rings.” ref

“The evidence of the shell rings for residential vs. ceremonial origins in the United States is mixed. Some shell rings, such as Sapelo 3, Lighthouse Point, and Stratton Place, had houses on the crest of the rings. Other rings, such as Horr’s Island, Sewee, Sapelo 1, and Fig Island 1 had rings that were too steep for building on the crest. The top part of Fig Island 1 was built up with shells mined from other middens. Villages have been found near the rings at Horr’s Island, Rollins, Guana, and Sapelo 1. No living site has been found at or near the Sewee, Joseph Reed, and Hill Cottage rings. The Horr’s Island, Joseph Reed, and Fig Island sites supported large, settled populations.” ref

“Russo points out that, while a circular shape implies an egalitarian society, asymmetry in a ring may represent occupation by a non-egalitarian society. Open rings are often highest and widest at the point opposite the opening. High status members of the community would have their houses on the highest point of a ring. There are also geographical variations. The Late Archaic shell rings in Florida are larger in area than those in Georgia and South Carolina, although the volume of shells in a ring is about the same in Florida and in South Carolina. The rings in Florida are also U-shaped, while the rings in Georgia and South Carolina are circular or C-shaped. The U-shaped rings in Florida have their open ends oriented to dry land, while the C-shaped rings in South Carolina are oriented to marshes. Russo interprets the difference to the sites in Florida having to accommodate larger and more complex (less egalitarian) communities than those that used the sites in Georgia and South Carolina. Sites in Florida may have accommodated an increased population (resident on the ring or attending ceremonies at the ring) by extending the arms of the ring, while sites in South Carolina may have accommodated larger populations by building new rings.” ref

“Jadrnicek proposed an odorous order theory regarding shell ring formation November 2019. The theory suggests ring formations are caused by the odor of the shell wastes. As waste accumulated it would eventually rot and smell. Feasting rotated to avoid odors of rotting waste. Rotation of feasts occurred around a central access point usually a tidal stream leading to a circular form to the wastes deposited. Geophysical surveys showing intermittent deposition and pit formation under and in the interior of shell rings supports the theory.” ref

“Although the large size of shell middens gives the impression that the people associated with them lived primarily on shellfish, careful excavation of middens has revealed large quantities of fish bones, indicating that the people obtained more of their protein and calories from small fish than from shellfish. There is no evidence that the shell-ring dwellers practiced horticulture, but gathered plants were exploited. Nuts, fruits and seeds have been excavated from shell-ring sites.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Cahokia

“The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed c. 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from modern St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south-western Illinois between East St. Louis and Collinsville. The park covers 2,200 acres (890 ha), or about 3.5 square miles (9 km²), and contains about 80 manmade mounds, but the ancient city was much larger. At its apex around 1100 CE, the city covered about 6 square miles (16 km²) and included about 120 earthworks in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and functions.” ref 

“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 the Southeastern United States, beginning more than 1,000 years before European contact. Today, the Cahokia Mounds are considered to be the largest and most complex archaeological site north of the great pre-Columbian cities in Mexico.” ref

“Although some evidence exists of occupation during the Late Archaic period (around 1200 BCE) in and around the site, Cahokia as it is now defined was settled around 600 CE during the Late Woodland period. Mound building at this location began with the emergent Mississippian cultural period, around the 9th century CE. The inhabitants left no written records beyond symbols on pottery, shell, copper, wood, and stone, but the elaborately planned community, woodhenge, mounds, and burials reveal a complex and sophisticated society.” ref

“The city’s complex construction of earthen mounds required digging, excavation and transportation by hand using woven baskets. Construction made use of 55 million cubic feet (1.6 million cubic meters) of earth, and much of the work was accomplished over a matter of decades. Its highly planned large, smoothed-flat, ceremonial plazas, sited around the mounds, with homes for thousands connected by laid out pathways and courtyards, suggest the location served as a central religious pilgrimage city.” ref

“The city’s original name is unknown. The mounds were later named after the Cahokia tribe, a historic Illiniwek people living in the area when the first French explorers arrived in the 17th century. As this was centuries after Cahokia was abandoned by its original inhabitants, the Cahokia tribe was not necessarily descended from the earlier Mississippian-era people. Most likely, multiple indigenous ethnic groups settled in the Cahokia Mounds area during the time of the city’s apex.” ref

“Historian Daniel Richter notes that the apex of the city occurred during the Medieval Warming Period. This period appears to have fostered an agricultural revolution in upper North America, as the three-fold crops of maize, beans (legumes), and gourds (squash) were developed and adapted or bred to the temperate climates of the north from their origins in Mesoamerica. Richter also notes that Cahokia’s advanced development coincided with the development in the Southwest of the Chaco Canyon society, which also produced large-scale works in an apparent socially stratified society. The decline of the city coincides with the Little Ice Age, although by then, the three-fold agriculture remained well-established throughout temperate North America.” ref

“Cahokia became the most important center for the Mississippian culture. This culture was expressed in settlements that ranged along major waterways across what is now the Midwest, Eastern, and Southeastern United States. Cahokia was located in a strategic position near the confluence of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois rivers. It maintained trade links with communities as far away as the Great Lakes to the north and the Gulf Coast to the south, trading in such exotic items as copper, Mill Creek chert, and whelk shells.” ref

“Mill Creek chert, most notably, was used in the production of hoes, a high demand tool for farmers around Cahokia and other Mississippian centers. Cahokia’s control of the manufacture and distribution of these hand tools was an important economic activity that allowed the city to thrive. Mississippian culture pottery and stone tools in the Cahokian style were found at the Silvernale site near Red Wing, Minnesota, and materials and trade goods from Pennsylvania, the Gulf Coast, and Lake Superior have been excavated at Cahokia. Bartering, not money, was used in trade.” ref

“At the high point of its development, Cahokia was the largest urban center north of the great Mesoamerican cities in Mexico and Central America. Home to about 1,000 people before circa 1050, its population grew rapidly after that date. According to a 2007 study in Quaternary Science Reviews, “Between CE 1050 and 1100, Cahokia’s population increased from between 1,400 and 2,800 people to between 10,200 and 15,300 people”. an estimate that applies only to a 1.8-square-kilometre (0.69 sq mi) high-density central occupation area. Archaeologists estimate the city’s population at between 6,000 and 40,000 at its peak, with more people living in outlying farming villages that supplied the main urban center.” ref

“As a result of archeological excavations in the early 21st century, new residential areas were found to the west of Cahokia; this discovery increased estimates of historic area population. If the highest population estimates are correct, Cahokia was larger than any subsequent city in the United States until the 1780s, when Philadelphia’s population grew beyond 40,000. Its population may have been larger than contemporaneous London and Paris.” ref

“One of the major problems that large centers like Cahokia faced was keeping a steady supply of food. A related problem was waste disposal for the dense population, and Cahokia is believed to have become unhealthy from polluted waterways. Because it was such an unhealthy place to live, Snow believes that the town had to rely on social and political attractions to bring in a steady supply of new immigrants; otherwise, the town’s death rate would have caused it to be abandoned earlier.” ref

Mississippian culture

“The Mississippian culture was a Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE, varying regionally. It was known for building large, earthen platform mounds, and often other shaped mounds as well. It was composed of a series of urban settlements and satellite villages linked together by loose trading networks. The largest city was Cahokia, believed to be a major religious center located in what is present-day southern Illinois.” ref

“The Mississippian way of life began to develop in the Mississippi River Valley (for which it is named). Cultures in the tributary Tennessee River Valley may have also begun to develop Mississippian characteristics at this point. Almost all dated Mississippian sites predate 1539–1540 (when Hernando de Soto explored the area), with notable exceptions being Natchez communities. These maintained Mississippian cultural practices into the 18th century.” ref

“A number of cultural traits are recognized as being characteristic of the Mississippians. Although not all Mississippian peoples practiced all of the following activities, they were distinct from their ancestors in the adoption of some or all of these traits.

1. The construction of large, truncated earthwork pyramid mounds, or platform mounds. Such mounds were usually square, rectangular, or occasionally circular. Structures (domestic houses, temples, burial buildings, or other) were usually constructed atop such mounds.
2. Maize-based agriculture. In most places, the development of Mississippian culture coincided with the adoption of comparatively large-scale, intensive maize agriculture, which supported larger populations and craft specialization.
3. Shell-tempered pottery. The adoption and use of riverine (or more rarely marine) shells as tempering agents in ceramics.
4. Widespread trade networks extending as far west as the Rocky Mountains, north to the Great Lakes, south to the Gulf of Mexico, and east to the Atlantic Ocean.
5. The development of the chiefdom or complex chiefdom level of social complexity.
6. The development of institutionalized social inequality.
7. A centralization of control of combined political and religious power in the hands of few or one.
8. The beginnings of a settlement hierarchy, in which one major center (with mounds) has clear influence or control over a number of lesser communities, which may or may not possess a smaller number of mounds.
9. The adoption of the paraphernalia of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC), also called the Southern Cult. This is the belief system of the Mississippians as we know it. SECC items are found in Mississippian-culture sites from Wisconsin (see Aztalan State Park) to the Gulf Coast, and from Florida to Arkansas and Oklahoma. The SECC was frequently tied into ritual game-playing, as with chunkey.” ref

“The Mississippians had no writing system or stone architecture. They worked naturally occurring metal deposits, such as hammering and annealing copper for ritual objects such as Mississippian copper plates and other decorations, but did not smelt iron or practice bronze metallurgy.” ref

“The Mississippian stage is usually divided into three or more chronological periods. Each period is an arbitrary historical distinction varying regionally. At a particular site, each period may be considered to begin earlier or later, depending on the speed of adoption or development of given Mississippian traits. The “Mississippian period” should not be confused with the “Mississippian culture”. The Mississippian period is the chronological stage, while Mississippian culture refers to the cultural similarities that characterize this society.” ref

• The Early Mississippian period (c. 1000–1200 CE) had just transitioned from the Late Woodland period way of life (500–1000). Different groups abandoned tribal lifeways for increasing complexity, sedentism, centralization, and agriculture. Production of surplus corn and attractions of the regional chiefdoms led to rapid population concentrations in major centers.
• The Middle Mississippian period (c. 1200–1400) is the apex of the Mississippian era. The expansion of the great metropolis and ceremonial complex at Cahokia (in present-day Illinois), the formation of other complex chiefdoms, and the spread and development of SECC art and symbolism are characteristic changes of this period. The Mississippian traits listed above came to be widespread throughout the region.
• The Late Mississippian period (c. 1400–1540) is characterized by increasing warfare, political turmoil, and population movement. The population of Cahokia dispersed early in this period (1350–1400), perhaps migrating to other rising political centers. More defensive structures are often seen at sites, and sometimes a decline in mound-building and large-scale, public ceremonialism. Although some areas continued an essentially Middle Mississippian culture until the first significant contact with Europeans, the population of most areas had dispersed or were experiencing severe social stress by 1500. Along with the contemporaneous Ancestral Pueblo peoples, these cultural collapses coincide with the global climate change of the Little Ice Age. Scholars theorize drought and the reduction of maize agriculture, together with possible deforestation and overhunting by the concentrated populations, forced them to move away from major sites. This period ended with European contact in the 16th century.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey 

“How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Hinduism around 3,700 to 3,500 years old. ref

 Judaism around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (The first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew” dated to around 3,000 years ago Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley. And many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed around 2,500) ref, ref

Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)

“Judaism is an Abrahamic, its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Some scholars argue that modern Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, by the late 6th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions.” ref

“Yahwism is the name given by modern scholars to the religion of ancient Israel, essentially polytheistic, with a plethora of gods and goddesses. Heading the pantheon was Yahweh, the national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with his consort, the goddess Asherah; below them were second-tier gods and goddesses such as Baal, Shamash, Yarikh, Mot, and Astarte, all of whom had their own priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees, and a third and fourth tier of minor divine beings, including the mal’ak, the messengers of the higher gods, who in later times became the angels of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yahweh, however, was not the ‘original’ god of Israel “Isra-El”; it is El, the head of the Canaanite pantheon, whose name forms the basis of the name “Israel”, and none of the Old Testament patriarchs, the tribes of Israel, the Judges, or the earliest monarchs, have a Yahwistic theophoric name (i.e., one incorporating the name of Yahweh).” ref

“El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning “god” or “deity“, or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ‘ila, represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-, meaning “god”. Specific deities known as ‘El or ‘Il include the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Mesopotamia’s Early Dynastic Period. ʼĒl is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and Ugaritic sources, ʼĒl played a role as father of the gods, of creation, or both. For example, in the Ugaritic texts, ʾil mlk is understood to mean “ʼĒl the King” but ʾil hd as “the god Hadad“. The Semitic root ʾlh (Arabic ʾilāh, Aramaic ʾAlāh, ʾElāh, Hebrew ʾelōah) may be ʾl with a parasitic h, and ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning “gods” is ʾilhm, equivalent to Hebrew ʾelōhîm “powers”. In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for “god” by biblical commentators. However the documentary hypothesis for the Old Testament (corresponds to the Jewish Torah) developed originally in the 1870s, identifies these that different authors – the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and the Priestly source – were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion. Inconsistencies that arise between monotheism and polytheism in the texts are reflective of this hypothesis.” ref

Jainism around 2,599 – 2,527 years old. ref

Confucianism around 2,600 – 2,551 years old. ref

Buddhism around 2,563/2,480 – 2,483/2,400 years old. ref

Christianity around 2,o00 years old. ref

Shinto around 1,305 years old. ref

Islam around 1407–1385 years old. ref

Sikhism around 548–478 years old. ref

Bahá’í around 200–125 years old. ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):

Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist, Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Jeweler, Poet, “autodidact” Philosopher, schooled in Psychology, and “autodidact” Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Pre-Historian (Knowledgeable in the range of: 1 million to 5,000/4,000 years ago). I am an anarchist socialist politically. Reasons for or Types of Atheism

My Website, My Blog, & Short-writing or Quotes, My YouTube, Twitter: @AthopeMarie, and My Email: damien.marie.athope@gmail.com