Ohio Earthworks

kbs2244 · Post by **kbs2244** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:47 am

From the news page.

http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.asp?id=8833

This is big news.

It changes the whole concept of just how sophisicated the inhabitants of NA were 1500 years ago.

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:37 am

Indeed. It also implies a level of social cohesion/control which enables the planning and execution of a major project.

HGs don't care about irrigation projects. That requires extensive agriculture.

kbs2244 · Post by **kbs2244** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 2:21 pm

So the next question becomes;

Were the “Indians” that the Europeans found in a HG state because of an Amazon like regression due to some sort of disaster, or was it an entirely different culture that built it?

This is not the only earthworks of this style in the area.

There is one in Tennessee also, called Fort Ancient, I believe.
When I walked through it I could see why the white settlers thought it was a fort.
It had waist high stone wall surrounding a flat 5 acre hilltop.
But it is now called a “purely ceremonial” location because no signs of habitation have been found inside the walls.
But if it was a big pond, nobody would be living in it.

I don’t know how they would have got the water up there though.
I do not recall any springs and in some places the walls were built at the edge of a 20 foot drop into a creek.

I hope this will start some re-examination of these type sites.

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 3:19 pm

Were the “Indians” that the Europeans found in a HG state because of an Amazon like regression due to some sort of disaster, or was it an entirely different culture that built it?

Good question.....which instantly reminded me of the discussion we had a bit earlier about the impact of the plagues that the Europeans brought with them. Also, the Europeans did not come into contact with the mid-west Native Americans first. They filtered themselves through the NE and SE.

Could a plague have driven an agricultural economy back to the HG model, I wonder?

kbs2244 · Post by **kbs2244** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 12:07 pm

I believe the regression to an HG society from an agricultural one is what is purposed for the Amazon basin.
The plague survivors were the ones on the very edge of the population centers and thus escaped the plague, but they were also the least sophisticated of the civilization and basically watched it collapse around them without the ability to keep it going.

As far as smallpox travel, we know it got to the Pacfic Northwest long before the white man did.