Free Republic

Nothing lasts forever. Just ask Ozymandias, or Nate Fisher. Only the wind inhabits the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado, birds and vines the pyramids of the Maya. Sand and silence have swallowed the clamors of frankincense traders and camels in the old desert center of Ubar. Troy was buried for centuries before it was uncovered. Parts of the Great Library of Alexandria, center of learning in the ancient world, might be sleeping with the fishes, off Egypt's coast in the Mediterranean. "Cities rise and fall depending on what made them go in the first place," said Peirce Lewis,...

Scientists Study Anasazi Calender Mar. 21, 2005 Ed Yeates reporting Don Smith, College of Eastern Utah, San Juan branch: "I think we're becoming more aware that those people were far more familiar with astronomy, science and possibly math than we give them credit for." In a secluded ravine near Blanding, scientists and researchers gather to watch mysterious images forming right before their eyes. Although the rite of Spring, at least on our calendar, slipped in here yesterday almost unnoticed, it's literally in your face in this strange little canyon. We arrived weeks before spring equinox because people studying this place...

No, this isn’t about the Star-Spangled Banner, neither the flag nor the anthem. It’s about dawn itself. The promise of a new beginning. Civilization began, thousands of years before recorded history, when men discovered how to cultivate crops. That meant communities and social organization. It also meant the beginnings of astronomy, studying the movement of the sun. Early evidence of this includes the “solar observatories” built by the Incas in South America, by the Anasazi in North America, and most famously, by Druids and others at Stonehenge in Britain. All these identified the solar equinoxes, especially in the spring. Coupled...

Nearly 300 years ago, two great alliances collided on the Great Plains in a battle that changed the course of American history. But until now, no physical evidence of the storied conflict had ever been found. In the summer of 1720, where the Platte River meets the Loup in eastern Nebraska, Spanish soldiers, New Mexican settlers and their Pueblo and Apache allies clashed with warriors from the Pawnee and Oto nations of the Plains. In a daybreak raid, the Pawnee and the Oto — possibly with the support of French traders — routed the Spanish, killing their commander, Don Pedro...

An international incident 38 years ago this month remains shrouded in mystery. On the bitterly cold morning of Jan. 23, 1968, an American intelligence vessel, USS Pueblo, was operating in international waters off the coast of North Korea. It was surrounded by four North Korean patrol boats, with two MiG aircraft flying overhead. The boats ordered the Pueblo to stop and let the North Koreans board. The order was refused. The Pueblo headed further out to sea. The North Korean boats immediately opened fire. Armed with only a 50-caliber gun secured from the freezing temperatures by a tarp, the Pueblo...

Who Really Discovered America? Did ancient Hebrews reach the shores of the North and South American continents thousands of years before Christopher Columbus? What evidence is there for Hebrew and Israelite occupation of the Western Hemisphere even a thousand years before Christ? Was trans-Atlantic commerce and travel fairly routine in the days of king Solomon of Israel? Read here the intriguing, fascinating saga of the TRUE DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA! William F. Dankenbring A stone in a dry creek bed in New Mexico, discovered by early settlers in the region, is one of the most amazing archaeological discoveries in the Western...

Is there, within the Grand Canyon, an enigmatic system of tunnels that is evidence of an ancient Egyptian voyage to America? Is it all bogus? Or is the truth most likely somewhere in between? On April 5, 1909, a front page story in the Arizona Gazette reported on an archaeological expedition in the heart of the Grand Canyon funded by the Smithsonian Institute, which had resulted in the discovery of Egyptian artefacts. April 5 is close to April 1 – but then not quite… so perhaps the story could be true? Nothing since has been heard of this discovery. Today,...

Perched on a lonesome bluff above the dusty San Pedro River, about 30 miles east of Tucson, the ancient stone ruin archaeologists call the Davis Ranch Site doesn’t seem to fit in. Staring back from the opposite bank, the tumbled walls of Reeve Ruin are just as surprising. Some 700 years ago, as part of a vast migration, a people called the Anasazi, driven by God knows what, wandered from the north to form settlements like these, stamping the land with their own unique style. “Salado polychrome,” says a visiting archaeologist turning over a shard of broken pottery. Reddish on...

WSU Researchers Study Fate of an Ancient American Southwest Civilization Salem-News.com Evidence suggests that the Anasazi fled the region and joined related groups to the south and east. While the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde are easily the best known of these settlements, the region is dotted with some 4,000 known archaeological sites, including communities which supported as many as several hundred families. (PULLMAN, Wash.) - Using computer simulations to synthesize both new and earlier research, a team of scientists led by a Washington State University anthropology professor has given new perspective to the long-standing question of what happened more...

Ancient Culture Prompts Worry for Arid Southwest by Richard Harris Jane Greenhalgh An overview of what remains standing at Chaco Canyon. NPR Eve Goldman A view into the ruins at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon. Peek into the Cole-Overpeck family camping trip under the towering Ponderosa pines in the highlands of eastern Arizona, where climate change is both a personal and professional concern. All Things Considered, July 9, 2007 · Chaco Canyon is a stark and breathtaking ruin, nestled under soaring, red sandstone cliffs. It resembles the condition of the lost Inca city of Machu Picchu in Peru. For climate...

The wood in the monumental "great houses" built in Chaco Canyon by ancient Puebloans came from two different mountain ranges... The UA scientists are the first to report that before 1020, most of the wood came from the Zuni Mountains about 50 miles (75 km) to the south. The species of tree used in the buildings did not grow nearby, so the trees must have been transported from distant mountain ranges. About 240,000 trees were used to build massive structures, some five stories high and with hundreds of rooms, in New Mexico's arid, rocky Chaco Canyon during the time period...

New work on the skeletal remains of scarlet macaws found in an ancient Pueblo settlement indicates that social and political hierarchies may have emerged in the American Southwest earlier than previously thought. Researchers determined that the macaws, whose brilliant red and blue feathers are highly prized in Pueblo culture, were persistently traded hundreds of miles north from Mesoamerica starting in the early 10th century, at least 150 years before the origin of hierarchy is usually attributed. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the acquisition and control of macaws, along with other valued...

You may be surprised to know how far back chocolate goes -- perhaps 1,000 years in what's now the United States. Evidence of chocolate has been found in northwestern New Mexico's Chaco Canyon, at Pueblo Bonito. The discovery indicates trade was under way between the Chaco Canyon and cacao growers in Central America -- more than 1,000 miles away. Crown says importing the material would have been a major undertaking.