[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[SunkenCiv]

and let's not forget this topic, which oddly never did get added to GGG:

Stained Teapot Reveals An Ancient Love Of Chocolate
The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 7-18-2002 | Roger Highfield
Posted on 07/18/2002 8:26:07 AM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/718306/posts

The site was occupied from 2000 BC until 1000 AD. Then some competitor in what is now Georgia hit on the idea of putting nuts in the chocolate bars...

[Lando Lincoln]

I'd certainly like to be on your GGG ping list........

I recently had the opportunity to visit Peru. I spent nearly a week tromping around the ruins of various sites - including Machu Picchu. I have had the opportunity in my life to visit Egypt, the Greek isles and Greece, Italy and the Roman ruins, much of South America and a very small portion of China. For me, nothing compared to Machu Picchu and the Inca civilization. They had societal order, agriculture, engineering, etc. that was incredible. Essentially, their society remained in balance until the Spaniards arrived. At that point, the word of God, as spread by the Spaniards, largely destroyed their society. That and the illnesses brought over by the New World. But I must say, theirs was a phenomenol civilization.

Lando

[vannrox]

First City in the New World?

Peru's Caral suggests civilization emerged in the Americas 1,000 years earlier than experts believed

Six earth-and-rock mounds rise out of the windswept desert of the Supe Valley near the coast of Peru. Dunelike and immense, they appear to be nature's handiwork, forlorn outposts in an arid region squeezed between the Pacific Ocean and the folds of the Andean Cordillera. But looks deceive. These are human-made pyramids, and compelling new evidence indicates they are the remains of a city that flourished nearly 5,000 years ago. If true, it would be the oldest urban center in the Americas and among the most ancient in all the world.

Research developed by Peruvian archaeologist Ruth Shady Solís of San Marcos University suggests that Caral, as the 150-acre complex of pyramids, plazas and residential buildings is known, was a thriving metropolis as Egypt's great pyramids were being built. The energetic archaeologist believes that Caral may also answer nagging questions about the long-mysterious origins of the Inca. Caral may even hold a key to the origins of civilizations everywhere.

What has amazed archaeologists is not just the age but the complexity and scope of Caral. Pirámide Mayor alone covers an area nearly the size of four football fields and is 60 feet tall. Inside a large sunken amphitheater, which could have held many hundreds of people during civic or religious events, Shady's team found 32 flutes made of pelican and condor bones and 37 cornets of deer and llama bones. "Clearly, music played an important role in their society," says Shady.

Eventually Caral would spawn 17 other pyramid complexes scattered across the 35-square-mile area of the Supe Valley. But based on Caral's size and scope, Shady believes that it is indeed the mother city of the Incan civilization.