Native American Ancient Civilizations & Lost Cities
An ancient temple contains the oldest sculptures and astronomically oriented structures found in the New World. The 33-foot stepped pyramid temple, the Temple of the Fox, in a 20-acre excavation site at Buena Vista, Peru. The temple dates to 2220 B.C. – which makes it 1,000 years older than anything of its kind previously found.
Are the footprints of surprisingly ancient Americans preserved in
40,000-year-old volcanic ash in southern Mexico? In December, an
article in the journal Science cast a cloud of doubt over that claim.
3,000-year-old carvings contain ‘new symbols in Mesoamerica’ MEXICO CITY – A carved monolith unearthed in Mexico may show that the
Read moreJapanese researchers said they have discovered–with
the unintended help of looters–what appears to be a temple ruins at
least 4,800 years old that could be one of the oldest in the Americas.
The temple is believed to have been built before or around 2600 BC
when Peru’s oldest known city, Caral, was created, the researchers said.
Amid the aisles of spaghetti and canned peas, cereals and breads made with mysterious-sounding grains such as amaranth and quinoa are sprouting up at major supermarkets.
Read moreResearchers report Wednesday that they found a 4,500-year-old burial
in Mexico that had the oldest known example of dental work in the
Americas.
The upper front teeth of the remains had been ground down so they
could be mounted with animal teeth, possibly wolf or panther teeth,
for ceremonial purposes.
Native American cultures that once flourished in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and West Virginia constructed geometric and animal-shaped earth works that often rivaled Stonehenge in their astronomical accuracy. This lost heritage from the Adena, Hopewell and Fort Ancient cultures is returning in the form of a traveling exhibit that will include virtual reconstructions of earthworks from 39 sites.
Read moreAmateur archeologists will get a chance to search this summer for the lost mission of Santa Isabel de Utinahica, built in the wilderness in the 1600s for a lone friar who was dispatched to evangelize among the Indians on the edge of Spain’s colonial empire.
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Jaguars and panthers aren’t from Indiana but they show up at the Mann Hopewell Site as beautifully detailed carvings. Put them together with clay figurines that have slanted eyes — not a Hopewell feature — and Linderman says we could be looking at a connection between Indiana and Central or South America.
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Watson Brake, an area of mounds south of Monroe, was discovered by local archaeologist Reca Jones more than 30 years ago. Since then, she has worked tirelessly to have the area declared a state park to preserve its treasures.
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An ancient civilization of mound builders who lived near the Ocmulgee River just northeast of what is now downtown Macon may have been home to more native people than originally thought. Though the research, much of it done with a ground-scanning instrument to roughly map underground shapes and forms, is still under way, early analysis seems to indicate more unearthed dwellings at the site than were previously known to have existed.
Read moreSeven skeletons discovered in a remote New Mexico canyon were victims of a brutal massacre that may have been part of an ancient campaign of genocide, archaeologists say. The victims—five adults, one child, and one infant—were members of an obscure native culture known as the Gallina, which occupied a small region of northwestern New Mexico around A.D. 1100
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