Any Archaeologists here?

[MicaelS]

I'm looking for a one to three books that explain the history and migratory pathways of the Native American civilizations. I'm specifically interested in the construction of the megalithic structures of Central and South America. Something explaining why the Central and South American civilizations built these structures, and the Northern ones did not.

[xchrom]

1. Cahokia & other structures don't figure into your thoughts? Nt

[MicaelS]

6. Yes,.... but I want to know why

The Central / Southern people built all these stone structures, and the Northern ones did not.

[xchrom]

8. I think it always boils down to materials...

I.e. In the southwest - you're back to stone & clay.

[csziggy]

13. And resources to support enough workers

The Southwest had stone and clay, but not enough food. The Mississipians and mound builders had food but not a lot of appropriate stone.

[WinkyDink]

2. We don't know who built them. E.g., "Olmecs" is a made-up word.

[Throd]

3. Were the peoples of N America more migratory?

I think the OP poses an interesting question.

[bhikkhu]

4. The mound builders used dirt

...and on the Pacific coast there were some pretty impressive wooden buildings. Same behavior, more or less, just different materials at hand.

Kind of the same as the "bamboo hypothesis", where you don't find a clear historical stone-copper-bronze-iron age development in Asia, not because they were technologically undeveloped, but because they were quite proficient at making tools from bamboo.

[xchrom]

5. But the Bronze age starts in Asia, doesn't it?

Aren't bronze artifacts found in Thailand & cambodia & china older than in the west?

[bhikkhu]

12. Yes, but that wasn't known until fairly recently

back in the 1800's and early 1900's it was common to find European historians very impressed with the superior development of European culture and its clear linear timeline, as compared with the primitive and incongruous East. I forget the name of the guy who observed that bamboo was probably more effective for many things than metals, and that the eastern demarcation line where metal cultures stopped was pretty much the line on the map where bamboos began to flourish.

[csziggy]

7. It would take more than three books

Archeologists have a lot of disagreements about when and how and by whom the Americas were settled. And the debates about who built megalithic structures and why in some places, not in others is another point of contention.

Some books that seem to cover the more current theories of settlement are:
The First Americans: In Pursuit of Archaeology's Greatest Mystery by James Adovasio
First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America by David J. Meltzer
Settlement Of The Americas A New Prehistory by Thomas D. Dillehay
The Great Journey: The Peopling of Ancient America by Brian Fagan (get the 2004 updated version)

The megalithic structures discussion is less popular these days and I don't know of any recent books about that subject that are not crackpot theories. Many of the very early ruins have not been well studied or have only been written about by reliable sources in scholarly journals. Many books attribute stone structures in Northeastern North America to aliens or early European explorers - Irish monks, Vikings, and so forth - rather than trying to find proper studies.

My own pet theory - though I am not an anthropologist or archeologist - is that megalithic civilization arise where there are the resources and organization to support their construction. In Europe, stone henges were built where there were lots of people, enough food to allow large projects other than basic survival and the kinds of rocks that could be used to construct them.

While in Eastern and Middle North American, there were well developed civilizations capable of large projects, they simply did not have stone of the right types to build megalithic structures. There is some archeological evidence that the mound builders of the Southeast and along the Mississippi had well developed commerce and likely cultural exchanges with Central American groups. Obsidian points have been found at Florida sites and there is no obsidian anywhere in Florida. The closest source would be Mexico or Central America. Southwestern US cultures had the stone but not the abundance of resources to allow the same kind of projects, though the cliff dwellings they left are pretty impressive lithic constructions.

The time period between original settlement and capability of large scale construction would have been extended - thousands of years. I'm not sure the books I listed above will help you in your quest.

[MicaelS]

10. Thanks so much, that is exactly

The kind of information I'm looking for.

[nebenaube]

14. IMHO

Cahokia devolved into an oligarchy and collapsed. Not the kind of material likely to be presented these days.

[Fla_Democrat]

9. 525 nt.

:evilgrin:












:smoke:

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

11. I don't know about the stuff in the Americas...

But I built Stonehenge to impress a date. The moon hit a certain stone on her birthday that year.













(sorry, I just couldn't help myself :evilgrin: )

[applegrove]

15. Just curious if you know when the northern peoples of Canada emmigrated from Asia? Was it 10,000

years ago? 25,000?

[MicaelS]

16. That is one of the controversial questions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_people

The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleo-Indian culture that first appears 11,500 RCYBP (radiocarbon years before present), at the end of the last glacial period, characterized by the manufacture of "Clovis points" and distinctive bone and ivory tools. Archaeologists' most precise determinations at present suggest that this radiocarbon age is equal to roughly 13,500 to 13,000 calendar years ago.

After the discovery of several Clovis sites in western North America in the 1930s, the Clovis people came to be regarded as the first human inhabitants of the New World. Clovis people were considered to be the ancestors of all the indigenous cultures of North and South America. However, this majority view has been contested over the last thirty years by several archaeological discoveries, including possible sites like Cactus Hill in Virginia, Paisley Caves in the Summer Lake Basin of Oregon, the Topper site in Allendale County, South Carolina, Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania, the Friedkin site in Texas, and the Monte Verde and Cueva Fell sites in Chile. The claim to the oldest human archaeological site known in the Americas belongs to the Pedra Furada human remains and hearths, a site that precedes the Clovis culture and the other sites already mentioned by 19,000 to 30,000 years, but this discovery has become an issue of contention between North American archaeologists and their South American and European counterparts.In American archaeology most dates older than 10,000 are controversial. They are under intense scrutiny and may change as new dating technologies are developed and existing ones refined.

Known as "Clovis First", the predominant hypothesis among archaeologists in the latter half of the 20th century had been that the people associated with the Clovis culture were the first inhabitants of the Americas. The primary support for this was that no solid evidence of pre-Clovis human inhabitation had been found. According to the standard accepted theory, the Clovis people crossed the Beringia land bridge over the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska during the period of lowered sea levels during the ice age, then made their way southward through an ice-free corridor east of the Rocky Mountains in present-day western Canada as the glaciers retreated. This hypothesis has been continuously challenged by studies that suggest a Pre-Clovis Human occupation of the Americas until in 2011, following the discovery of pre-Clovis occupation site, a prominent group of scientists claimed to have definitely established the existence "of an occupation older than Clovis."

Personally I think it would be great to establish once and for all that there was Pre-Clovis Human occupation of the Americas. I always like to see long established science turned on its head.

[a la izquierda]

17. There's very little in the Amazon.

Amazonians did not, as far as we can tell, build massive temples. To do so requires a large, hierarchical society (ya know, the ones to direct and the grunts to do the labor). There's no evidence for this in the Amazon.

The earthworks of the Mississippian cultures exist because there was a large population to support them. So while there's no stone (or very little at that), there was a hierarchical basis of society.

What differs across the regions is a large, politico-religious hierarchy in which building massive complexes was important. You don't generally see that in North America, where the populations tended to be less dense. Now, of course, there are exceptions to these generalities (Cahokia, the Puebloan peoples)...but in places where there was a state religion and a massive population, well, there are temples and buildings.


ETA: You must read broadly across the regions in order to find consensus on archaeologists' opinions. And good luck delving through that. My dissertation has a chapter on archaeology in western Mexico. For a historian, that's a tough slog.

[MicaelS]

18. Thank you n/t

[a la izquierda]

19. No problem.

I'm a historian, not an archaeologist (though my BA minor was physical anthro); but I live to teach, write, and research, and my field is native peoples in Latin America (used to be native peoples in North America). So while I don't know all the arguments, I have a good sense of comparisons. PM me any time if you want some generic texts.

[MicaelS]

20. The Clovis First seems to have had a lock

For a very long time, but I was not aware that there were claims as far back as 55,000 yr BP. What's your personal opinion on when the first humans arrived in the Americas? Do you think they could have come via sea from Europe or Africa?

[a la izquierda]

21. There are some intriguing arguments...

for Clovis no longer being "the first," as recent excavations at Monte Verde in Chile show a carbon dating of around 14000 years. See here: http://anthropology.net/2008/05/08/earliest-known-archaeological-evidence-of-americans-found-in-monte-verde-chile/

There have also been some developments in Mexico, such as the skeleton of a woman found in a cave off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. This skeleton has been dated to about 13500 years. Note in the article that experts seem to think she displays southern Asian features. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080903-oldest-skeletons.html
Keep in mind, dating is not an exact science.

I am not a believer in the idea that Africans first "discovered" and subsequently influenced cultures in the Americas, put forth in arguments by van Sertima. It's possible that they did, but the evidence- African-looking Olmec heads- is sort of sketchy. If, all of a sudden, there was a confluence of evidence, then the case deserves a new look. To be sure, it's unclear who the Olmecs were, what they called themselves, and what language they spoke. I think a better case can be made for south Pacific influences on southwestern South American cultures.

Some genetic studies of a certain DNA haplogroup have spurred discussion about European origins of certain native populations...but from a quick scan of the literature, it seems as though this is a result of extremely ancient intermediaries between European and Siberian populations.



THanks, you've now set my writing schedule back an hour ;)

[MicaelS]

22. Thanks for all your help, I sincerely appreciated it

I'll PM you if I need your help. And thanks for the offer.

[Javaman]

28. Check out the book "the lost city of Z".

What's now being discovered, in regards to Amazonian civilizations, is that while they didn't build up vertically with stone constructs, it's now being found that there were advanced cities that built out horizontally. Circular self contained city plans with grid roads and pathways. Estimates of populations run as high at 5 to 10 thousand. Most of these findings have come about in the last 5 years.

[a la izquierda]

30. I think those are reasonable population levels...

for the Amazon, depending upon the location and natural resources. And there have been some exciting discoveries that I need to read up on before my spring class. Thanks for the suggestion.

[H2O Man]

23. I would suggest

that you consider expanding your search. Archaeology is but one branch of anthropology. Other branches might provide you with some more insight into why people near the equator built pyramids, while other cultures -- including the agrarian societies that constructed other things such as "earth mounds" -- did not. I would not limit studies to the Americas alone.

[JohnnyBoots]

24. 'The First Americans' by Dillehay/Meltzer

Good Luck.

[a la izquierda]

26. +1

Dillehay is the Monte Verde expert.

[SpiralHawk]

25. Eagle Relatives in the North built Mounds & great cities

The Imperialist Invaders (R) of yesteryear wrote the history and broke the treaties, as usual, so the whole story of the Americas is -- by and large -- untold.

[semillama]

27. I'm an archaeologist

And I agree with other posters that it's a matter of materials on hand, but also social organization. If you have a hierarchical society, such as some of the famous groups in Mesoamerica, then perhaps it's easier to organize and justify the labor for monumental architecture. Whereas in North America, strict hierarchies don't seem to have been too popular, although groups of people did get together to make monumental architecture (See the ancestors of the Southwest Native American nations, but also Cahokia-which may have been a city-state, and of course, the Hopewell cultures in the Midwest of ca. 0-1000 A.D., who built some impressive earthworks that demonstrated keen astronomical observations). I recommend William Romain's Mysteries of the Hopewell for the Midwestern stuff.

De La Garza has a book, Mayan Civilizations, that might be a good starting point for that culture.

[Terry in Austin]

29. Why these were built

The building material used is of some interest, of course, but the larger point, I think, is that these societies organized large, resource-intensive public works projects. Some of them happened to be made of stone, some made of earth. But why did these projects occur?

To explain behavior, anthropologists differentiate between "emic" and "etic" explanations -- the "why" given by the natives can be one thing, while the anthropolgists' own functional analysis can be quite another. Both are "right," of course.

One interesting explanation to come out of cultural-evolution study of North American mound-building behavior was that it functioned as a population control mechanism: when crops are good for a number of years, population expands; when crops are lean or fail, there are suddenly too many mouths to feed; in a marginal agricultural society, that can put enough stress on the social fabric to threaten its survival.

By diverting surpluses to the public works, that tends to inhibit the population peaks, keeping population more or less steady and within the variations of the food supply. This wasn't conscious policy; it just happened to be a successful adaptation in the evolution of a culture -- the natives would certainly explain the behavior in a very different way.

[librechik]

31. short answer: that's the kind of question entire careers are made out of

you won'be able to find the answer definitively in 1-3 books. Maybe 40 plus a lot of articles. But the point is we don't really know the answer, and the answer is so big we probably won't ever know. Archeologists argue among themselves about the answers. But the folks here talking about available materials and public projects are probably on the right track.

If you have an interest, the wikipedia entry on Indigenous Peoples of the Americas has a bibliography 165 cites long. Find something in the titles you can understand and relate to and start there.