Mayan Words in Hitchiti-Creek Language Suggest Ancient Connection The Hitchiti language, one of many languages spoken by Creek Indians, was spoken in Georgia and Florida during the Colonial Period by tribes including the Hitchiti, Chiaha, Oconee, Sawokli, Apalachicola and Miccosukee. Based on the number of place names derived from the Hitchiti language, scholars believe this [...]
Is there evidence that the Maya were in Georgia and Florida? If so, why were they there? Were they mining gold and shipping it back to Mexico? Does a gold artifact discovered in a Florida mound in the 1800s offer positive proof of this? Let’s look at the evidence and see what it suggests about [...]
It’s possible that a culture influenced by both west Mexican and Olmec ideas settled in Georgia during the Mississippian period. Both the cultural traditions and oral history of the Creek Indians strongly suggest an origin from west Mexico.
Learn more about the ancient Native American civilizations that existed in Georgia before the arrival of Europeans. Includes videos, 3-D computer reconstructions, extensive image galleries and in-depth articles on Georgia archaeological sites such as Sapelo Shell Rings, Rock Eagle, Fort Mountain, Kolomoki Mounds, Ocmulgee Mounds and Etowah Mounds.
Designs on the Forsyth Petroglyph in Georgia may include astronomical representations of stars, the constellation Draco, the Pleiades asterism, a comet, and meteors or comet fragments and may be a record of a comet impact event that caused a severe weather event in 536 AD.
Native Americans constructed impressive structures(referred to as Indian Mounds) throughout the state of Florida for over 5,000 years. This Amerindian building activity occurred across three separate archaeological time periods in Florida: the Archaic period, the Woodland period, and the Mississippian period. Some of the first monumental constructions, the Horr’s Island mounds, were built along the [...]
Chihuahua pot from Niesler Mound in Georgia The origins of the Chihuahua have been lost in the mists of time yet new research reveals they once roamed the southern states of Georgia and Tennessee. The discovery was made by analyzing dog effigy pots unearthed in Georgia and Tennessee to determine the most likely breed they [...]
Do three dog effigy pots excavated in Georgia in the 1930s at the Bull Creek Site and one from the Neisler Mound site represent the Chihuahua breed, a native dog of Mexico? Is the tribe most likely associated with these pots the Kasihta/Cussetta Creek Indians whose migration legends strongly suggest an origin in west Mexico, [...]
The Sapelo Shell Rings Complex is the most ancient Native American civilization in the state of Georgia and is older than the pyramids of Egypt! See 3-D computer reconstructions and take a virtual reality tour of this lost city consisting of three circular villages each with a circular central plaza and each surrounded by a massive circular wall constructed from tons of sea shells.
A composite photograph of the front and back of the jade gouge shown with a centimeter scale. CREDIT: Les O’Neil, University of Otago An international team of archaeologists and geologists has found an extremely unusual example of jade in the Southwest Pacific, thousands of miles away from the nearest known geological source. The small green [...]
Watch an excerpt from the Lost Worlds: Georgia DVD. Buy today or make a donation and help support LostWorlds.org. All proceeds help fund future videos and exhibits. Six hours southeast of Atlanta off the Georgia coast on Sapelo Island, archaeologists have unearthed the remains of an ancient walled city which predates the construction of [...]
Some of the oldest known corn cobs, husks, stalks and tassels, dating from 6,700 to 3,000 years ago were discovered at Paredones and Huaca Prieta, two mound sites on Peru’s arid northern coast. (Credit: Tom D. Dillehay) People living along the coast of Peru were eating popcorn 1,000 years earlier than previously reported and before [...]
The discovery that objects from the Neolithic or Early Bronze Age carry patterns associated with high-current Z-pinches provides a possible insight into the origin and meaning of these ancient symbols produced by man. This paper directly compares the graphical and radiation data from high-current Z-pinches to these patterns. The paper focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on petroglyphs. It is found that a great many archaic petroglyphs can beclassified according to plasma stability and instability data. As the same morphological types are found worldwide, the comparisons suggest the occurrence of an intense aurora, as might be produced if the solar wind had increased between one and two orders of magnitude, millennia ago.
Rock-art has been discovered and recorded in forty sites in northeastern Guanajuato, Mexico, as part of an ongoing project carried out by researchers from the National Institute of Anthropology and History. The majority of the images were created by hunter-gatherers who occupied the area during the 1-5 centuries AD, but religious iconography and inscriptions were also discovered dating to the colonial era, as well as the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The earliest explorers of the Amazon recorded that it was filled with villages and towns. After European diseases swept the area and wiped out its inhabitants, the jungle regrew and hid all evidence of these civilizations. Later explorers would find no evidence of such civilizations and the archaeological community, in all their brilliance and wisdom, [...]
Architect and scholar Richard Thornton has published his findings about an archaeological site on the side of Georgia’s highest mountain peak, Brasstown Bald. His conclusion, that the site was built by the Maya, could rock the archaeological community who have insisted for decades that no evidence existed for the presence of people from Mexico in [...]
This historically significant park is the oldest and largest Woodland Indian site in the southeastern United States, occupied by American Indians from 350 to 750 a.d. The park’s museum is built around an excavated mound, providing an unusual setting for learning who these people were and how they lived. Seven earthen mounds within the park [...]
Model of Rood’s Creek Indian Mounds in Kirbo Interpretative Center. Florence Marina is near the Rood Creek Indian Mound site located on Lake Walter F. George in western Stewart County. These eight mounds were focal points of an Indian community and served as a center for political and ceremonial activities during the Mississippian period. A [...]
Columbus Museum of Arts and Science – permanent exhibit, “Chattahoochee Legacy”. The museum houses one of the best Indian artifact collections in Georgia. Exhibits interpret many phases of the culture and lifestyles of Indians in central Georgia and Alabama. The museum also manages the Singer-Moye ceremonial complex, an earth mound site. Internal Links: [...]
Located near Macon, this large mound group features a restored ceremonial earth lodge. While the Indian culture thrived here between AD 900-1150, there is evidence of at least 10,000 years of human habitation from the Ice Age hunters to the Creek Indians to an English trading post in 1690. Displays trace the history of the [...]
This Park in Butts County surrounds the mineral springs once important to the Creek Indians. A small museum depicts the history of the area. Across U.S. 23 from the park is the Indian Springs Hotel where the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs ceding all the Creek lands in Georgia was signed. William McIntosh, who built [...]
Rocks piled to a height of 10 feet form an effigy of a soaring bird 102 feet long from head to tail and 120 feet wide from wing tip to wing tip. The quartz rock effigy mound probably served as a ceremonial center for Indians in the surrounding area. A tower overlook is adjacent to [...]
North Wilkes Library/Archives /Museum – Tignall. Nine miles north of Washington, GA on Highway 17. Small museum exhibiting the history of the Broad River Valley, the earliest settled area of Georgia. Creek, Cherokee and to some extent the Chickasaw lived in this area. Internal Links: [...]
Located in the State Capitol in Atlanta, houses exhibits and artifacts from all archaeological periods. Newly designed pre-historic exhibit on the fourth floor. Features life-size statue of chief from Etowah Mounds as well as artifacts from various archaeological sites around the state. Internal Links: [...]
Douglas County Water and Sewer Authority Building. Exhibit of artifacts found at the Mississippian Period site. Items include large pots (2 feet), pottery shards, stones, and information booklet with descriptions and drawings of the period. (706) 920-3850 Internal Links: [...]
The Etowah Mounds, near Cartersville, thrived during the Mississippian Period. A fortified town with seven earthen mounds, Etowah was the political and ceremonial center for the surrounding area. A modern museum houses one of the best Mississippian artifact collections in the nation and features an audiovisual presentation on archaeology. Internal Links: [...]
The Chieftains on Chatillion Road in Rome was the home of wealthy Cherokee Major Ridge. The two-story house of sawed lumber, built around and earlier log cabin, overlooked the Ridge toll ferry across the Oostanaula River. Major Ridge and his son John signed the New Echota Treaty of 1835 and were assassinated for their part [...]
