Posted on 03/15/2005 5:42:09 PM PST by blam
Mother of us all, or sister? Olmecs a puzzle
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, New York Times
First published: Tuesday, March 15, 2005
On a coastal flood plain etched by rivers flowing through swamps and alongside fields of maize and beans, the people archaeologists call the Olmecs lived in a society of emergent complexity. It was more than 3,000 years ago, along the Gulf of Mexico around Veracruz.
The Olmecs moved a veritable mountain of earth to create a plateau above the plain, and there planted a city, the ruins of which are known today as San Lorenzo.
The Olmecs are widely regarded as creators of the first civilization in Mesoamerica, the area encompassing much of Mexico and Central America, and a cultural wellspring of later societies, notably the Maya. Some scholars think the Olmec civilization was the first anywhere in America.
Were Olmecs the "mother" culture? Or were they one among "sister" cultures?
Last month, Dr. Jeffrey P. Blomster, an Olmec archaeologist at George Washington University, reported in the journal Science what he and other researchers described as evidence of widespread export of Olmec ceramics that they said supported "Olmec priority in the creation and spread of the first unified style and iconographic system in Mesoamerica."
But proponents of the sister school are not letting things go unchallenged. The mother-culture advocates, said Dr. Susan D. Gillespie, a Mesoamerican archaeologist at the University of Florida, were "flogging a dead horse, the idea that the Olmec invented civilization, carried it to all of Mesoamerica, and it's the basis of the Maya."
Asians have little or no facial hair though. What's the deal with the beard?
bump for later
Asian have little or no facial hair though. What's the deal with the beard?
The Spanish had a mission at Hopewell, Virginia!
DeSoto came as far North as Terre Haute, Indiana, while members of his party actually traveled all the way North to Lake Michigan. Then there's the fellow who put Spanish boundary markers in what is now West Virginia.
This was New Spain!
Different Asians have different amounts of facial hair. You may be thinking of the Indian practice of pulling out the hairs ~ that leaves you "clean shaven" longer.
I didn't think American indians had ANY facial hair. And very little body hair at all.
You may find this thread from earlier today interesting.
American Indians, like other Asiatic people, have facial and body hair, although not generally to the degree you would get with Iraqis (for example).
Professor Stephen Oppenheimer has done some pretty good DNA work and is covered in his book, "Out Of Eden."
He says the 'X' gene (so called European gene) that is found only in Europe and among the American Indian population was once widespread. The Toba volcano 74,000 years ago severed the link (killed everyone in between). There was an explosion of human DNA 'branches' just after Toba and again during/after the Last Glacial Maximum(LGM).
See post #10.
The Sumerians were also a wide-ranging nomadic people who kept and/or hunted cattle.
One philologist has demonstrated that there is a single American Indian language (once spoken in California) that is related to an Old World language. That language is, intriguingly, Sumerian.
As a consequence I'm not too sure that any Shang characters we find in the Americas should be attributed to the Chinese since they might more properly be attributed to Sumerians.
Oppenheimer, in his book, "Eden In The East," said that the Sumerians probably came from SE Asia, Sundaland, when it went (completely) underwater 7-8,000 years ago. The Strait Of Mallaca(sp) was opened at that time and allowed sailing access to Mesopotamia, Egypt, etc..
It's really difficult to tell where the core Sumerian ethnic group came from, but I would imagine it's not too farfetched to suggest that they turned into an occupation group best described with the word "scribe".
ancestry.com will do a DNA genealogy profile for around $300. I've always wanted to do it just to see what would turn up.
What would you think if it indicated you were related to the Basque people?
BTW, many of the "mounds" found in Midwestern river valleys have more than one purpose ~ they become places to move out of the flood waters in Spring.
Here goes:
1. Welsh and Hindi are related languages, with Indo-European roots and similar structure.
2. King Mardoc of Wales lead a flotilla of 700 ships to America in the 600's. 'White men', ie: Welsh, were reported to have traveled into the American midwest.
3. Hence, plains tribes were able to communicate with a Hindi speaker.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.