Posted on 09/15/2020 9:44:54 AM PDT by BenLurkin
A new study by lead author Professor Jesse J. Casana, chair of the department of anthropology at Dartmouth College published in American Antiquity , says the team of archaeologists conducted their survey at a ranch located in the lower Walnut River valley. The author describes the local topography as flat, with no visible archaeological features. However, flying state of the art scanning equipment over this landscape located in present-day Arkansas City, Kansas, near the Arkansas River, revealed “an ancient, circular shaped ditch measuring 50 meters wide and approximately 2 meters thick”.
The scientists explain in their paper that as the soil eroded it filled up the circular ditch with different types of soils than the original mud, and this means the structure retained water differently, which the researchers say gives the site “unique thermal properties.” Furthermore, the water retention levels at the site also impacted vegetation because grass growth was more vigorous than other vegetation, and using “near-infrared imagery,” the team of scientists were able to identify areas that had been filled in at the Kansas earthwork.
The new method the professor referred to means working at night because archaeological features have fluctuating thermal effects and after the ground cools down at nighttime hidden features below ground level emit thermal infrared radiation, at different rates, which the researchers captured using drones. And with their high-resolution aerial data the team reproduced detailed thermal and multispectral imagery of the lost 18-hectare archaeological site.
(Excerpt) Read more at ancient-origins.net ...
PinGGG!......................
“Professor Casana describes the circular feature as a “council circle,” which were centers of tribal communities in North America, believed to have associations with astronomy, but they also served as ceremonial, political, and defensive structures.”
Might be a good way to trap passing game animals.
So all that Mormon stuff was true, huh?
Too late to PING so PONG
So, this land should be given to some Indians?
More possible proof that many of whom we labeled as Native Americans, probably originally came from across an ocean and settled.
I really enjoy these discoveries as I studied seriously North American pre-Colombian history in college many years ago (when learning something was actually a requirement for graduating).
However, I am always wary of the great leaps of faith often taken by the individual discoverers to make their site so very important. This simple discovery fits that pattern.
What evidence do they have of all this besides the fact that it is a circle? It could also be any number of innocuous and less interesting things. Not saying that it isn't a tribal circle, but where's the beef?
Might be a good way to trap passing game animals.
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Or it might have some other logical purpose. Occam’s razor gives precedence to simplicity. The archaeological community seems to lean toward complexity. Just saying.
Please see my #12 that’s related to your comment.
Great. More finds for some more fiction stories.
They discovered a old buffalo wallow.
Other, well-researched and excavated native sites set the pattern.
So the ancients had center pivot irrigation too?
“an ancient, circular shaped ditch measuring 50 meters wide and approximately 2 meters thick”
Assuming that this “scientist” meant diameter and deep.
Never seen a thick ditch...must be metric system speak
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Maybe this will be a modern intact find from the Mound Builders area not pillaged by 19th and early 20th century “explorers”.
Native Americans, probably originally came from across an ocean and settled.
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Doubtful as to it being any proof - look more to recent nDNA and mtDNA studies as will as haplogroup studies for that sort of information; also intersections of Clovis and Soluterean stone working cultures.
This appears to be an intact Mound Builder site.
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