Posted on 12/22/2004 6:09:11 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Archaeologists have unearthed evidence that the oldest civilisation in the Americas dates back 400 years earlier than previously thought, according to research published today.
New radiocarbon dating of 95 samples taken from pyramid mounds and houses suggest that by 3100 BC there were complex societies and communal building of religious monuments across three valleys in Peru.
This emerging civilisation was the first in the Americas to develop centralised decision-making, formalised religion, social hierarchies and a mixed economy based on agriculture and fishing.
The newly uncovered sites in the Fortaleza and Pativilca valleys, along with the nearby previously reported sites in the Supe valley are seen as the earliest common roots of the Inca empire.
Jonathan Haas, of the department of anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago, who is the lead author of the research published in the journal Nature, said: "The scale and sophistication of these sites is unheard of anywhere in the New World at this time, and almost any time. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
About 20 years ago Al Gore invented the internet...
Interested, Blam?
Merry Christmas.
FMCDH(BITS)
FMCDH(BITS)
Civilization on the American continent officially began on the 1st of June, 1796 when Tennessee became a state.
God bless Al Gore, carbon dating, and the everlasting coffee health research.
It has long been speculated that the fine stonework found in places of South America predate that flood.
Thanks for the interesting post. I like archeology of the New World.
So how did they get all the way down to Peru if man supposedly walked to the Americas using the Bering Strait?
Shouldn't there be societies somewhere on the way down there?
Most of the cultures in North America never got to far beyond the stone age, but some intriguing remnants all over the place. The coolest one the I saw were at Mazinaw Lake, south of Ottawa- lots of huge pictographs, similar to cave paintings, halfway up the face of a 200ft cliff.
Pointless insult of some archaeologists for no reason?
They didn't necessarily walk. It's very possible they came by boat.
FYI
ping
Thing about the Kon-Tiki is that Heyerdahl has been proven to be completely wrong by DNA evidence. There's not a scrap of DNA from South Americans in the South Pacific Islands; Polynesians are all from Taiwan and Southeast Asia.
That's fine and dandy. But the journey could be made, even using very primitive methods. Where they came from is a different story. But once they caught the trade winds or the ocean stream or whatever, a primitive ship could have made it to the Americas.
No, no, no.
I'm an amateur archaeologist myself. I don't mean to insult, I am generally maintaining a friendly argument with them over pre-historical things.
Read 16 Amazon reviews also.
Heyerdahl was trying to prove that people sailed WEST from South America to settle the Polynesian Islands.
It's quite possible some of the immigration from Asia to the Americas was by boat, but most likely in a series of short trips along the coast.
The problem is with the Ice Age ending the coastlines they were moving down are now under quite a bit of water. Hard to do underwater archaeology for that sort of thing.
Yes, you're right, Heyerdahl was trying to link Western Hemisphere to Polynedian migration. But what I thought was interesting (I just saw the Kon-Tiki documentary a couple months ago) was how primitive his boat was, and it made it on such a long voyage.
A primitive vessel COULD have made it from Old World to New, as well. There is no PROOF or EVIDENCE, but the possibility remains. Early mankind may have been more mobile than we give them credit.
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