Vatic Note: Hmmm, a stone mason, huh? Wonder if that has anything to do with the "controversy"?
http://www.examiner.com/architecture-design-in-national/mayas-the-usa-controversy-you-be-the-juror
By: Richard Thornton
Date: 2011-12-24
The article is reproduced in accordance with Section 107 of title 17 of the Copyright Law of the United States relating to fair-use and is for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.
http://www.examiner.com/architecture-design-in-national/mayas-the-usa-controversy-you-be-the-juror
By: Richard Thornton
Date: 2011-12-24
A recent article "Ruins in Georgia mountains possibly linked to ancient Mayans" has become a very popular topic on Examiner.com. The article presents evidence to support a position long held by the Creek, Cherokee and Chitimacha Indians; namely that sea-going merchants, illiterate farmers and escaped slaves fled Mesoamerica during a period of chronic wars, drought and volcanic eruptions, then settled in what is now the Southeast and Mississippi Basin.
Although already generating approximately 81,000 “Likes” on Facebook, the article has also generated considerable controversy. A group of archaeology professors in the Southeast have vigorously objected to the article and created a separate web site to organize opposition to it. Numerous archaeologists from around North America, however, have also placed positive comments on the article.
Examiner.com is offering you the reader, the opportunity to take the role of a juror on this controversy. You will be allowed to review the scientific evidence presented by both sides, then state your opinion as a comment at the end of the article.
There were numerous negative comments from archaeologists that challenged the author’s educational qualifications. Richard Thornton is a card-carrying Creek Indian architect and city planner, with seven years of university education. He has worked as an architectural-town planning consultant to archaeologists on Native American sites, and as a historic preservation architect for Early American structures, throughout his entire adult life.
He was awarded a fellowship to study Mesoamerican architecture & town planning in Mexico under the tutelage of one of the greatest archaeologists who ever lived, Roman Piña-Chan, Director of the Museo Nacional de Antropologia. He has written seven books on Native American and Mesoamerican culture, and taught Pre-Columbian architecture at Georgia Tech.
He created the seven models of ancestral Creek towns in the Capitol of the Muscogee-Creek Nation in Okmulgee, OK. Richard was the architect for Oklahoma’s Trail of Tears Memorial in Council Oak Park, Tulsa. He is also an expert stone mason and very knowledgeable about prehistoric & colonial stone masonry techniques.
Description of the Research Project
In 2007 an alliance of Native American professors and professionals around the United States, known as the People of One Fire, began an exhaustive analysis of available archaeological reports, early maps, plus Spanish, French and English colonial archives in order to develop a more accurate description of the Southeast’s Native American history,
The impetus for this gargantuan project was a series of popular books published by archaeology professors at certain Southeastern universities during the previous 20 years that mistranslated Native American words and misrepresented the known indigenous history of the Southeast. An early objective of the project was to develop a list of Native American words recorded by early explorers in order to provide the public with their correct translations.
The translation of these words, however, opened up a new perspective that was not anticipated by the Native American scholars. Many of the ancient place names were not rooted in the modern tribes of the Southeast, but in the Maya and Totonac civilizations of Mexico.
The first big breakthrough occurred while a Choctaw professor at Louisiana State University was studying the French Colonial Archives. She discovered that the Native American name for the section of the Gulf Coast between the mouths of the Mobile and Chattahoochee (Apalachicola) Rivers was Am Ixchel. These are Chontal Maya words that mean “Place of Ixchel.” Ixchel was the Maya goddess of the new moon and childbirth.
The People of One Fire team then began cross-comparing the Muskogean languages of the Southeast with the Maya and Totonac languages of Mexico. All of the Muskogean languages had borrowed Mexican words, but the Itsati (Hitchiti-Creek) language, spoken by some of the biggest players in the mound-building business, seemed more Mesoamerican than indigenous.
Archaic Itsati contained many words that are pronounced the same and mean the same as their counterparts in Itza Maya and Totonac. For example, the words for city, corn, beans, king, judge, noble and sun were the same in Archaic Itsati and Itza Maya. The word for house and merchant (chiki and tamahi) were the same in Itsati and Totonac. When Itsati-Creek guides for Hernando de Soto, labeled a particularly backward people in South Carolina, chiliki, they were using the Totonac adjective for barbaric or primitive.
In both Maya and Archaic Itsati-Creek, the title of the Great Sun (High King) of a province was Hene-mako. The official title of the Second Chief of the Muscogee-Creek Nation in Oklahoma is the henehau. Throughout the history of the Mayas, their word for high nobility, second only to the Great Sun, was hene-ahau.
The Chontal Maya were the international shipping moguls of Mesoamerica. They developed plank-built boats, powered by either rowers or sails that were the size of Viking long ships and could traverse wide expanses of ocean. Archeologists have discovered hundreds of smoking pipes in ancestral Creek towns that are models of the Chontal Mayas’ feathered serpent ships. These unique pipes even have upturned prows with serpent heads and rudders. Creek dugout canoes were relatively flat and had no rudders.
Zeroing in on Brasstown Bald Mountain
Many of the most important rivers of the "eastern" Southeast either begin on the slopes of Brasstown Bald or relatively short walk away . . . at least for Native Americans! These include the Chattahoochee, the Coosa-Alabama system, the Hiwassee, the Etowah and the Savannah.
Major trade routes connecting the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Ohio Valley converge on both sides of the mountain. There was also a major trail that directly connected the Track Rock Complex with the large town of Etalwa, which was on the shoals that blocked large canoes going farther into the mountains. This is why a seemingly remote location would have been a extremely strategic location for a town in 1000 AD.
In 2009 one People of One Fire researcher obtained a highly accurate satellite map of North America from NASA that contained corrections for the earth’s curvature. On his computer he plotted in the latitude and longitude of all the major indigenous town sites in eastern North America and the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Almost all the town sites were aligned to the solstices and equinoxes. What seemed very odd, though, was that many of the lines converged over Brasstown Bald Mountain in northern Georgia. This didn’t make sense to him, since he did not know of any major Native American towns at or near Brasstown Bald.
By mid-2010 it had become clear to People of One Fire researchers that the greatest concentration of surviving Maya place names was in the Southern Highlands of North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. The original name of the Tennessee River was Callimaco, which means “House of the King” in Maya. A famous town on a riverine island visited both by Hernando de Soto in 1540 and Juan Pardo in 1567 was named Chiaha. It is a common Maya place name in Mexico today, which means “beside the river.”
De Soto’s chroniclers commented that Chiaha was the only place they visited in the Southeast where the natives raised honey bees and ate honey. The only other region in the entire Western Hemisphere where honey was consumed was the Maya Homeland. Here the Mayas developed an indigenous, stingless bee as a honey producer.
By early 2011 the researchers were concentrating on beautiful mountainous region called Itsapa (Territory of the Itza) by the Creeks and Itsa-yi (Place of the Itza) by the Cherokees. Major geographic features of this area are the Nacoochee Valley, the Hiwassee River Valley, a chain of ancient, extinct volcanoes, and Brasstown Bald, Georgia’s highest mountain. Another name for the Itza Mayas was “Children of the Snake” because they worshiped a god in the form of a horned rattlesnake. Hiwassee literally means “Children of the Viper” in the Itsati and Koasati languages.
The Cherokees have a tradition that the Itsate (Itza People,) who lived in the region before them, worshipped a snake god with ruby eyes in a great temple at the top of their mountainside capital. Members of the Creek Confederacy were monotheistic, and did not worship any idols. Boulder Six of the famous Track Rock petroglyphs contains the Maya glyphs meaning Mako (Great) – Hene (Royal Sun) – Guku’matz (Feathered Serpent.) The first two symbols are found on the copper breastplates of the Great Suns (kings) of Etalwa (Etowah Mounds) 65 miles away.
In 2000 a South African archaeologist, Johannes Loubser was paid both by the U.S. Forest Service and local donors to study the Track Rock petroglyphs and prepare a survey of a large complex of stone structures nearby. The details of this study are described in the earlier article. Loubser declared the massive complex of stone agricultural terraces to be unique to the United States.
Loubser had never visited the Maya ruins and also had no educational background in either Muskogean (Creek) or Maya architecture, so perhaps he was not aware that the site was identical to dozens of terrace complexes in Chiapas, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. He also was not aware that most of the glyphs at Track Rock Gap can be found on the art of Etowah Mounds.
Someone led Loubser to believe that the Cherokees had lived for many centuries around the archaeological site. This skewed his interpretation of the ruins to focus on 19th century legends as primary interpretation of the site. In fact there were no Cherokees in Georgia until after 1715. Until very late in that century, their presence was minimal.
The official 1780 British Army map of the Province of Georgia shows the entire Brasstown Bald region occupied by Upper Creeks and a grand total of 24 Cherokee warriors in Georgia. Mississippi Period Archaeology of the Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains, a lab manual published by the University of Georgia Department of Anthropology, labels the Pre-Colonial Period archaeological sites on all sides of Brasstown Bald Mountain to cultures directly ancestral to Georgia's Creek Indians. Loubser did correctly observe that there were several styles of stone masonry work, suggesting that several different ethnic groups had lived on the site.
In 1999, archaeologist Mark Williams, then of the University of Georgia, led a brief survey of the massive, five sided Kenimer Mound in the Nacoochee Valley. Williams estimated the construction date of the mound to be around 900 AD. He was puzzled by the location and construction details of the mound, since they were different than later five side mounds in Georgia. It was sculpted from the top of a large hill then finished with clay fill.
Georgia is the only location outside the territory of the Itza Maya in Mesoamerica, where five sided, pyramidal mounds were constructed as temple platforms. Generally, they were sculpted from existing hills, then finished with packed clay, like the Kenimer Mound. Williams is a specialist in Southeastern archaeology and so did not know that earthen mounds identical to the Kenimer Mound are commonplace in the Itza Maya homeland. He did not state who built the mound.
Dr. Arthur Kelly, former director of the University of Georgia’s Anthropology Department, WAS aware of the connection between the five sided mounds in Georgia and those in Mexico and Belize. While the author was preparing a site plan for one of Kelly’s last excavations, the famous archaeologist discussed the connection with him. During the 1940s through the 1970s Kelly had excavated numerous such mounds along the Lower Chattahoochee River.
In conjunction with the five sided mounds, Kelly often found what appeared to be local interpretations of Mesoamerica art. Kelly became convinced that there was direct trade and movement of population between the Southeast and Mesoamerica. Most of his department bitterly disagreed with him.
In 1969 Kelly discovered several apparent Mexican artifacts at the 9FU14 mound and village site on the Chattahoochee River near the Six Flags over Georgia amusement park and Atlanta. They were made of stones only found in Mexico and exhibited Mesoamerican-style glyphs or art. Shortly thereafter, a stone hoe was stolen from the University of Georgia archaeology lab and on a Sunday afternoon, a treacherous assistant of Kelly’s pushed the hoe into the side of the 9FU14 mound.
Fortunately, two Creek Indian college students were secretly watching the crime from the bushes along nearby Sandtown Creek. Their testimony cleared Kelly of criminal charges, but he was disgraced by the media coverage, and forced to resign his position. During that period, the apparent Mesoamerican artifacts disappeared, and Kelly was replaced by a professor, who didn’t agree with his Mesoamerican Contact theories.
Itza Maya terrace complexes do not look like the big Maya cities. This is where many archaeologists are getting confused. They have some small masonry buildings, or masonry foundations for wattle & daub walls, but no great pyramids or fine statues. Very few have carved stone tablets, but it is very common to see fieldstone piers like what is seen at the Track Rock site.
What is sophisticated about these sites is their hydraulic engineering. The terraces are placed near small mountain streams that, along with rain water, are manipulated to maintain ideal moisture for growing crops. The Itza Mayas in their original mountain homeland were generally illiterate, so one is not likely to see Maya writing at a terrace site either.
Another common featured shared by Itza Maya sites in Mexico and the Track Rock terrace complex is a small pyramidal, stone faced alter - facing the sunset of the Winter Solstice. The Maya solar calendar began on the Winter Solstice.
Representative comments and scientific evidence presented by the “No Mayas in the USA” viewpoint
We would love to hear from people who actually have visited the Track Rock terrace complex. However, all those who commented on the original article (no matter their opinion) should feel free to make additional comments or submit more scientific evidence supporting their particular viewpoint. Below are representative comments from those who opposed the contents of the orignal article.
1. Mark Williams – Archaeology professor at Florida State University
"I am the archaeologist Mark Williams mentioned in this article. This is total and complete bunk. There is no evidence of Maya in Georgia. Move along now."
2. Jonathan Warren - Honorary Consul for the Principality of Monaco in Las Vegas
"Mark, it kills them when REAL archaeologists know how to blog! My father, southwestern Archaeologist Dr. Claude Warren, has been laughing aloud at such wishful conclusions for years! Thanks for chiming in!"
3. Glynn Wilson - Editor & Publisher, The Locust Fork News Journal, Alabama
"The examiner's business model is total b******t. Letting amateurs write for free on an interface where you can't even find out who is behind it? Please.
"Your story is not even close to being written like a real science news story, and since I can't find it anywhere else and one of the scientists you cite says it is b******t, I won't run it.
"I don't have time to fact check it myself right here before Christmas. It is getting a lot of traffic, but people are going to be pissed off when they find out it is b******t. Which works for me, since once people feel fooled by a news site, they don't use it anymore."
4. Laura Jane Williams Kuncaitis · University of Georgia
"This is more BS than most people realize. See the above comments!"
5. Jannie Loubser – archaeologist who did the Track Rock survey in 2000
"Please read the article that I co-authored with Douglas Frink on our excavations at the stone feature complex near Track Rock Gap and see that nowhere did we mention the Maya. Based on available evidence, although at least one meandering wall and one big stone pile are prehistoric (Late Woodland/Early Mississippian), other stone piles and many of the straight walls could very well be historic (Euro-American agricultural terraces and field clearing piles).
The stone piles and walls reported in the 1830s and again in the 1850s by early Euro-American travelers through Track Rock Gap are very likely Creek/Cherokee who honored deceased relatives. The paucity of ceramics and house remains within the stone feature complex strongly suggests that it was not a habitation site.
I've never visited the Yucatan but can vouch for the fact that I did not come across anything that looked Maya. Until evidence can be found to the contrary, the stone feature complex in Track Rock Gap is probably multi-component, at least one wall and one stone pile being southeastern Indian and very likely other stone piles and walls being Euro-American"
6. Joe March Mink – Editor at large - CyArk
"While there are many, many compelling parallels between Central American and North American indigenous mythologies (hero twins, specific colors associated with the cardinal directions, symbols of power based around a crosshatched image depicting a seating mat, etc.), that does not mean there was direct evidence that the post-Classic Period Collapse Maya emigrated all the way to Georgia.
That kind of distance in migratory movements in the Americas was, generally, limited to hunter and gatherer lifeways from the pre-agricultural ancient past - the bulk of evidence shows that the Classic Period Maya either migrated a much shorter distance north to the Yucatan, where they helped burnish the power of regional centers such as Chichen Itza and (later) Mayapan, or they de-urbanized and returned to the countryside following the dissolution of the old nation-state polities of the Maya cities. They didn't "disappear" from the region, as the article suggests, and they didn't die off in large numbers until the Spanish brought smallpox over half a millennium later."
7. Jessica McClellan - Arizona
"Richard Thornton should be ashamed of twisting archaeological reports to suit whacko theories. None of this is evidence that the Maya were ever in Georgia. Think critically. And stop denying the actual builders of these North American sites their accomplishments. You don't have to be Maya, or Egyptian, or an extraterrestrial to come up with agricultural terraces."
8. Charles Bryan Sellers - Alabama
"While the linguistic connection is fun...this is just bordering on stupidity! Those who know a little about SE language and our attempts to translate it realize that it has more holes than swiss cheese...(see ADAIR, R. "Southeastern Indians late 1700's where he tries to convince us that these said Indians were lost Hebraic tribes...going to great length finding "undisputible linguistic, religious and ceremonial similarities" that just were even MORE ridiculous than you can imagine...see also "Book of Mormon" for similar hocus pocus :).
The idea that this area contained "Natchez like" sun worshipers, HUGELY influenced by cultures to the South, is nothing new....just not quite ready to be cannonized... Looking at the art found in Mississippian digs in the SE we have ALWAYS seen CLEAR stylistic similarities...generaly only different in quality and expertise (Rattlesnake disc and Duck bowl withstanding).
So, yes this is an intriguing idea and yes there could have been people from Central America setting up advanced agrarian cities...but these same rock formations were once thought to be Spanish fortifications (see DeSoto's "fort" in NE Alabama)...then Indian forts...and now Mayan terraces....why not just admit that even the "Mississipian's" could have also used terrace farming....or do we need another "Prince Maddoc" pile to explain why those "savages" could have never done those things themselves."
9. Hamilton Hastie Bryant III · Auburn, Alabama
"Sam, you right. The site is real and the people were real but the connection to Mesoamerica is fantasy. Mark Williams is a real, good archaeologist and if there were some legit connection he'd have made it known."
10. Mark Edward Sanders – Archaeologist
"The author’s basic premise — that because the site in Georgia existed around the same time of the collapse of the Maya, and because the linguistic and physical similarities between the two cultures are impossible to miss — is nonsense.
"Regarding the similarities-in-time issue, the author fails to mention that many Native American cultures — including the Maya and Southeastern tribes — were going through hardships around 900-1200 AD. In the Four Corners region, entire pueblos were being abandoned at this same time, due presumably to climate change (the “Little Ice Age” is widely regarded as a culprit). The Tiwanaku culture in present-day Bolivia was also likely wiped out by intense climate change. There’s no indication that they migrated to Georgia from Bolivia (or the Yucatan, or Kansas City, etc.).
With regard to the similarities-in-artifacts/archaeological features issue, the article reminds me of something similar I read a few years ago about the similarities between Tibetan mandalas and Navajo sand artwork. I just Googled “Tibetan mandalas Navajo” and came up with one site that refers to this phenomenon."
Although already generating approximately 81,000 “Likes” on Facebook, the article has also generated considerable controversy. A group of archaeology professors in the Southeast have vigorously objected to the article and created a separate web site to organize opposition to it. Numerous archaeologists from around North America, however, have also placed positive comments on the article.
Examiner.com is offering you the reader, the opportunity to take the role of a juror on this controversy. You will be allowed to review the scientific evidence presented by both sides, then state your opinion as a comment at the end of the article.
There were numerous negative comments from archaeologists that challenged the author’s educational qualifications. Richard Thornton is a card-carrying Creek Indian architect and city planner, with seven years of university education. He has worked as an architectural-town planning consultant to archaeologists on Native American sites, and as a historic preservation architect for Early American structures, throughout his entire adult life.
He was awarded a fellowship to study Mesoamerican architecture & town planning in Mexico under the tutelage of one of the greatest archaeologists who ever lived, Roman Piña-Chan, Director of the Museo Nacional de Antropologia. He has written seven books on Native American and Mesoamerican culture, and taught Pre-Columbian architecture at Georgia Tech.
He created the seven models of ancestral Creek towns in the Capitol of the Muscogee-Creek Nation in Okmulgee, OK. Richard was the architect for Oklahoma’s Trail of Tears Memorial in Council Oak Park, Tulsa. He is also an expert stone mason and very knowledgeable about prehistoric & colonial stone masonry techniques.
Description of the Research Project
The impetus for this gargantuan project was a series of popular books published by archaeology professors at certain Southeastern universities during the previous 20 years that mistranslated Native American words and misrepresented the known indigenous history of the Southeast. An early objective of the project was to develop a list of Native American words recorded by early explorers in order to provide the public with their correct translations.
The translation of these words, however, opened up a new perspective that was not anticipated by the Native American scholars. Many of the ancient place names were not rooted in the modern tribes of the Southeast, but in the Maya and Totonac civilizations of Mexico.
The first big breakthrough occurred while a Choctaw professor at Louisiana State University was studying the French Colonial Archives. She discovered that the Native American name for the section of the Gulf Coast between the mouths of the Mobile and Chattahoochee (Apalachicola) Rivers was Am Ixchel. These are Chontal Maya words that mean “Place of Ixchel.” Ixchel was the Maya goddess of the new moon and childbirth.
The People of One Fire team then began cross-comparing the Muskogean languages of the Southeast with the Maya and Totonac languages of Mexico. All of the Muskogean languages had borrowed Mexican words, but the Itsati (Hitchiti-Creek) language, spoken by some of the biggest players in the mound-building business, seemed more Mesoamerican than indigenous.
Archaic Itsati contained many words that are pronounced the same and mean the same as their counterparts in Itza Maya and Totonac. For example, the words for city, corn, beans, king, judge, noble and sun were the same in Archaic Itsati and Itza Maya. The word for house and merchant (chiki and tamahi) were the same in Itsati and Totonac. When Itsati-Creek guides for Hernando de Soto, labeled a particularly backward people in South Carolina, chiliki, they were using the Totonac adjective for barbaric or primitive.
In both Maya and Archaic Itsati-Creek, the title of the Great Sun (High King) of a province was Hene-mako. The official title of the Second Chief of the Muscogee-Creek Nation in Oklahoma is the henehau. Throughout the history of the Mayas, their word for high nobility, second only to the Great Sun, was hene-ahau.
The Chontal Maya were the international shipping moguls of Mesoamerica. They developed plank-built boats, powered by either rowers or sails that were the size of Viking long ships and could traverse wide expanses of ocean. Archeologists have discovered hundreds of smoking pipes in ancestral Creek towns that are models of the Chontal Mayas’ feathered serpent ships. These unique pipes even have upturned prows with serpent heads and rudders. Creek dugout canoes were relatively flat and had no rudders.
Zeroing in on Brasstown Bald Mountain
Many of the most important rivers of the "eastern" Southeast either begin on the slopes of Brasstown Bald or relatively short walk away . . . at least for Native Americans! These include the Chattahoochee, the Coosa-Alabama system, the Hiwassee, the Etowah and the Savannah.
Major trade routes connecting the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Ohio Valley converge on both sides of the mountain. There was also a major trail that directly connected the Track Rock Complex with the large town of Etalwa, which was on the shoals that blocked large canoes going farther into the mountains. This is why a seemingly remote location would have been a extremely strategic location for a town in 1000 AD.
In 2009 one People of One Fire researcher obtained a highly accurate satellite map of North America from NASA that contained corrections for the earth’s curvature. On his computer he plotted in the latitude and longitude of all the major indigenous town sites in eastern North America and the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Almost all the town sites were aligned to the solstices and equinoxes. What seemed very odd, though, was that many of the lines converged over Brasstown Bald Mountain in northern Georgia. This didn’t make sense to him, since he did not know of any major Native American towns at or near Brasstown Bald.
By mid-2010 it had become clear to People of One Fire researchers that the greatest concentration of surviving Maya place names was in the Southern Highlands of North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. The original name of the Tennessee River was Callimaco, which means “House of the King” in Maya. A famous town on a riverine island visited both by Hernando de Soto in 1540 and Juan Pardo in 1567 was named Chiaha. It is a common Maya place name in Mexico today, which means “beside the river.”
De Soto’s chroniclers commented that Chiaha was the only place they visited in the Southeast where the natives raised honey bees and ate honey. The only other region in the entire Western Hemisphere where honey was consumed was the Maya Homeland. Here the Mayas developed an indigenous, stingless bee as a honey producer.
By early 2011 the researchers were concentrating on beautiful mountainous region called Itsapa (Territory of the Itza) by the Creeks and Itsa-yi (Place of the Itza) by the Cherokees. Major geographic features of this area are the Nacoochee Valley, the Hiwassee River Valley, a chain of ancient, extinct volcanoes, and Brasstown Bald, Georgia’s highest mountain. Another name for the Itza Mayas was “Children of the Snake” because they worshiped a god in the form of a horned rattlesnake. Hiwassee literally means “Children of the Viper” in the Itsati and Koasati languages.
The Cherokees have a tradition that the Itsate (Itza People,) who lived in the region before them, worshipped a snake god with ruby eyes in a great temple at the top of their mountainside capital. Members of the Creek Confederacy were monotheistic, and did not worship any idols. Boulder Six of the famous Track Rock petroglyphs contains the Maya glyphs meaning Mako (Great) – Hene (Royal Sun) – Guku’matz (Feathered Serpent.) The first two symbols are found on the copper breastplates of the Great Suns (kings) of Etalwa (Etowah Mounds) 65 miles away.
In 2000 a South African archaeologist, Johannes Loubser was paid both by the U.S. Forest Service and local donors to study the Track Rock petroglyphs and prepare a survey of a large complex of stone structures nearby. The details of this study are described in the earlier article. Loubser declared the massive complex of stone agricultural terraces to be unique to the United States.
Loubser had never visited the Maya ruins and also had no educational background in either Muskogean (Creek) or Maya architecture, so perhaps he was not aware that the site was identical to dozens of terrace complexes in Chiapas, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. He also was not aware that most of the glyphs at Track Rock Gap can be found on the art of Etowah Mounds.
Someone led Loubser to believe that the Cherokees had lived for many centuries around the archaeological site. This skewed his interpretation of the ruins to focus on 19th century legends as primary interpretation of the site. In fact there were no Cherokees in Georgia until after 1715. Until very late in that century, their presence was minimal.
The official 1780 British Army map of the Province of Georgia shows the entire Brasstown Bald region occupied by Upper Creeks and a grand total of 24 Cherokee warriors in Georgia. Mississippi Period Archaeology of the Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains, a lab manual published by the University of Georgia Department of Anthropology, labels the Pre-Colonial Period archaeological sites on all sides of Brasstown Bald Mountain to cultures directly ancestral to Georgia's Creek Indians. Loubser did correctly observe that there were several styles of stone masonry work, suggesting that several different ethnic groups had lived on the site.
In 1999, archaeologist Mark Williams, then of the University of Georgia, led a brief survey of the massive, five sided Kenimer Mound in the Nacoochee Valley. Williams estimated the construction date of the mound to be around 900 AD. He was puzzled by the location and construction details of the mound, since they were different than later five side mounds in Georgia. It was sculpted from the top of a large hill then finished with clay fill.
Georgia is the only location outside the territory of the Itza Maya in Mesoamerica, where five sided, pyramidal mounds were constructed as temple platforms. Generally, they were sculpted from existing hills, then finished with packed clay, like the Kenimer Mound. Williams is a specialist in Southeastern archaeology and so did not know that earthen mounds identical to the Kenimer Mound are commonplace in the Itza Maya homeland. He did not state who built the mound.
Dr. Arthur Kelly, former director of the University of Georgia’s Anthropology Department, WAS aware of the connection between the five sided mounds in Georgia and those in Mexico and Belize. While the author was preparing a site plan for one of Kelly’s last excavations, the famous archaeologist discussed the connection with him. During the 1940s through the 1970s Kelly had excavated numerous such mounds along the Lower Chattahoochee River.
In conjunction with the five sided mounds, Kelly often found what appeared to be local interpretations of Mesoamerica art. Kelly became convinced that there was direct trade and movement of population between the Southeast and Mesoamerica. Most of his department bitterly disagreed with him.
In 1969 Kelly discovered several apparent Mexican artifacts at the 9FU14 mound and village site on the Chattahoochee River near the Six Flags over Georgia amusement park and Atlanta. They were made of stones only found in Mexico and exhibited Mesoamerican-style glyphs or art. Shortly thereafter, a stone hoe was stolen from the University of Georgia archaeology lab and on a Sunday afternoon, a treacherous assistant of Kelly’s pushed the hoe into the side of the 9FU14 mound.
Fortunately, two Creek Indian college students were secretly watching the crime from the bushes along nearby Sandtown Creek. Their testimony cleared Kelly of criminal charges, but he was disgraced by the media coverage, and forced to resign his position. During that period, the apparent Mesoamerican artifacts disappeared, and Kelly was replaced by a professor, who didn’t agree with his Mesoamerican Contact theories.
Itza Maya terrace complexes do not look like the big Maya cities. This is where many archaeologists are getting confused. They have some small masonry buildings, or masonry foundations for wattle & daub walls, but no great pyramids or fine statues. Very few have carved stone tablets, but it is very common to see fieldstone piers like what is seen at the Track Rock site.
What is sophisticated about these sites is their hydraulic engineering. The terraces are placed near small mountain streams that, along with rain water, are manipulated to maintain ideal moisture for growing crops. The Itza Mayas in their original mountain homeland were generally illiterate, so one is not likely to see Maya writing at a terrace site either.
Another common featured shared by Itza Maya sites in Mexico and the Track Rock terrace complex is a small pyramidal, stone faced alter - facing the sunset of the Winter Solstice. The Maya solar calendar began on the Winter Solstice.
Representative comments and scientific evidence presented by the “No Mayas in the USA” viewpoint
We would love to hear from people who actually have visited the Track Rock terrace complex. However, all those who commented on the original article (no matter their opinion) should feel free to make additional comments or submit more scientific evidence supporting their particular viewpoint. Below are representative comments from those who opposed the contents of the orignal article.
1. Mark Williams – Archaeology professor at Florida State University
"I am the archaeologist Mark Williams mentioned in this article. This is total and complete bunk. There is no evidence of Maya in Georgia. Move along now."
2. Jonathan Warren - Honorary Consul for the Principality of Monaco in Las Vegas
"Mark, it kills them when REAL archaeologists know how to blog! My father, southwestern Archaeologist Dr. Claude Warren, has been laughing aloud at such wishful conclusions for years! Thanks for chiming in!"
3. Glynn Wilson - Editor & Publisher, The Locust Fork News Journal, Alabama
"The examiner's business model is total b******t. Letting amateurs write for free on an interface where you can't even find out who is behind it? Please.
"Your story is not even close to being written like a real science news story, and since I can't find it anywhere else and one of the scientists you cite says it is b******t, I won't run it.
"I don't have time to fact check it myself right here before Christmas. It is getting a lot of traffic, but people are going to be pissed off when they find out it is b******t. Which works for me, since once people feel fooled by a news site, they don't use it anymore."
4. Laura Jane Williams Kuncaitis · University of Georgia
"This is more BS than most people realize. See the above comments!"
5. Jannie Loubser – archaeologist who did the Track Rock survey in 2000
"Please read the article that I co-authored with Douglas Frink on our excavations at the stone feature complex near Track Rock Gap and see that nowhere did we mention the Maya. Based on available evidence, although at least one meandering wall and one big stone pile are prehistoric (Late Woodland/Early Mississippian), other stone piles and many of the straight walls could very well be historic (Euro-American agricultural terraces and field clearing piles).
The stone piles and walls reported in the 1830s and again in the 1850s by early Euro-American travelers through Track Rock Gap are very likely Creek/Cherokee who honored deceased relatives. The paucity of ceramics and house remains within the stone feature complex strongly suggests that it was not a habitation site.
I've never visited the Yucatan but can vouch for the fact that I did not come across anything that looked Maya. Until evidence can be found to the contrary, the stone feature complex in Track Rock Gap is probably multi-component, at least one wall and one stone pile being southeastern Indian and very likely other stone piles and walls being Euro-American"
6. Joe March Mink – Editor at large - CyArk
"While there are many, many compelling parallels between Central American and North American indigenous mythologies (hero twins, specific colors associated with the cardinal directions, symbols of power based around a crosshatched image depicting a seating mat, etc.), that does not mean there was direct evidence that the post-Classic Period Collapse Maya emigrated all the way to Georgia.
That kind of distance in migratory movements in the Americas was, generally, limited to hunter and gatherer lifeways from the pre-agricultural ancient past - the bulk of evidence shows that the Classic Period Maya either migrated a much shorter distance north to the Yucatan, where they helped burnish the power of regional centers such as Chichen Itza and (later) Mayapan, or they de-urbanized and returned to the countryside following the dissolution of the old nation-state polities of the Maya cities. They didn't "disappear" from the region, as the article suggests, and they didn't die off in large numbers until the Spanish brought smallpox over half a millennium later."
7. Jessica McClellan - Arizona
"Richard Thornton should be ashamed of twisting archaeological reports to suit whacko theories. None of this is evidence that the Maya were ever in Georgia. Think critically. And stop denying the actual builders of these North American sites their accomplishments. You don't have to be Maya, or Egyptian, or an extraterrestrial to come up with agricultural terraces."
8. Charles Bryan Sellers - Alabama
"While the linguistic connection is fun...this is just bordering on stupidity! Those who know a little about SE language and our attempts to translate it realize that it has more holes than swiss cheese...(see ADAIR, R. "Southeastern Indians late 1700's where he tries to convince us that these said Indians were lost Hebraic tribes...going to great length finding "undisputible linguistic, religious and ceremonial similarities" that just were even MORE ridiculous than you can imagine...see also "Book of Mormon" for similar hocus pocus :).
The idea that this area contained "Natchez like" sun worshipers, HUGELY influenced by cultures to the South, is nothing new....just not quite ready to be cannonized... Looking at the art found in Mississippian digs in the SE we have ALWAYS seen CLEAR stylistic similarities...generaly only different in quality and expertise (Rattlesnake disc and Duck bowl withstanding).
So, yes this is an intriguing idea and yes there could have been people from Central America setting up advanced agrarian cities...but these same rock formations were once thought to be Spanish fortifications (see DeSoto's "fort" in NE Alabama)...then Indian forts...and now Mayan terraces....why not just admit that even the "Mississipian's" could have also used terrace farming....or do we need another "Prince Maddoc" pile to explain why those "savages" could have never done those things themselves."
9. Hamilton Hastie Bryant III · Auburn, Alabama
"Sam, you right. The site is real and the people were real but the connection to Mesoamerica is fantasy. Mark Williams is a real, good archaeologist and if there were some legit connection he'd have made it known."
10. Mark Edward Sanders – Archaeologist
"The author’s basic premise — that because the site in Georgia existed around the same time of the collapse of the Maya, and because the linguistic and physical similarities between the two cultures are impossible to miss — is nonsense.
"Regarding the similarities-in-time issue, the author fails to mention that many Native American cultures — including the Maya and Southeastern tribes — were going through hardships around 900-1200 AD. In the Four Corners region, entire pueblos were being abandoned at this same time, due presumably to climate change (the “Little Ice Age” is widely regarded as a culprit). The Tiwanaku culture in present-day Bolivia was also likely wiped out by intense climate change. There’s no indication that they migrated to Georgia from Bolivia (or the Yucatan, or Kansas City, etc.).
With regard to the similarities-in-artifacts/archaeological features issue, the article reminds me of something similar I read a few years ago about the similarities between Tibetan mandalas and Navajo sand artwork. I just Googled “Tibetan mandalas Navajo” and came up with one site that refers to this phenomenon."
The article is reproduced in accordance with Section 107 of title 17 of the Copyright Law of the United States relating to fair-use and is for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.
3 comments:
i was born in Charlottle, Nc,my mothers people were from Burke County Nc,my Uncles on my mothers side are all dark tall and have indian features, myself i too have some of these features,however Ive been tracing my ancestors looking for a Cherokee connection(we always assumed we had Cherokee Blood)and havent found that connection,maybe we have Mayan Blood instead, we also have a large number of people with RH neg blood, Im wondering could there be a connection to rh negs and the Mayans?
Ah! A year and half later.
Nietzche said, "He who laughs last, laughs best."
My name is Richard Thornton in English. My Creek name is Kowi Cope. You see, unlike all of the name callers above, I am a Creek Indian and an expert on both Mesoamerican and Muskogean architecture. Also, unlike all of the above, typical of most Georgia Creeks, about 12% of my Asiatic DNA is Maya and about 30% of the Creek words I speak sound the same and mean the same in either Itza Maya or Totonac. All the name-calling above were by people who don't know didly-squat about either the Creeks or Mayas. Heck, not one of those people above have SEEN an Itza Maya terrace complex. Most have never even been in Mexico or talked to a Creek Indian. Mark Williams, along with Charles Hudson, were in a clique that crucified Dr. Arthur Kelly, when he announced that he thought that some artifacts he found in SW Georgia were Mesoamerican. Those artifacts were excavated about 200 yards from where (for centuries) Chontal Maya merchants hauled attapulgite to become the Maya Blue that adorned Palenque's buildings and murals. There was poetic justice at the end of America Unearthed. Dr. Kelly must have been rolling in the floor laughing in heaven.
Thank you for commenting, Richard, and as you said, your credentials compared to those commenting are superior in the area of the Mayas. Its why I like to publish both sides if available, so that others like yourself and like me, can read and decide what is real and what is not for them.
You also recently have some support for what you are saying. I attended a huge conferance for a religion group that proved to us with photos, and videos and presentations over 2 days that what you are saying is true. In fact, they found other sites further up that were exactly the same and that meant that migration was bigger than previously thought.
Anyway thanks for commenting.
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