Mayan History Wrong!

[Beagle]

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/co ... iuic_N.htm

The classic Maya were part of a Central American civilization best known for stepped pyramids, beautiful carvings and murals and the widespread abandonment of cities around 900 A.D. in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and El Salvador, leaving the Maya only the northern lowlands of the Yucatan peninsula. The conventional wisdom of this upheaval is that many Maya moved north at the time of this collapse, also colonizing the hilly "Puuc" region of the Yucatan for a short while, until those new cities collapsed as well.

But that story of the Maya is wrong, suggests archaeologist George Bey of Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss., who is co-leading an investigation of the abandoned city of Kiuic with Mexican archaeologist Tomas Gallareta of Mexico's National Institute of Archaeology and History. "Our work indicates that instead the Puuc region was occupied for almost 2,000 years before the collapse in the south," says Bey, by e-mail.

Mayan civilization 1,000 yrs. older than thought - possibly more. Good slide show.

[Minimalist]

The sound of crashing paradigms is music to my ears.

[Ishtar]

They will eventually find that they are even older than that.

[gunny]

The similarity of the architecture and tradition of bearded men on sailing ships that came as teachers had to have an Egypt or middle eastern basis. Some of them died. It seems strange that no tombs, with artifacts have been found. Where is Indiana Jones when you need him?

[gunny]

Read some background on Indiana Jones. The founder of "Star Wars" produced a movie with Steve McQueen called Nevada Smith. He was to have a continuation as Indiana Jones Nevada Smiths son. It was too complex, so he changed Smith to Jones, named after his cat.

[gunny]

In case you are wondering--my nickname with friends is "Google" --simply full of the important, little known tidbits.

[kbs2244]

I remember a book with a Nevada Smith character.
Don’t remember any movie.
Seems the book had a Howard Hughes type character in it also.

I would not be surprised to learn that both Ish and gunny are eventually proved right on the age and overseas influence.
The Global Economy is not a very recent thing.

[War Arrow]

The similarity of the architecture and tradition of bearded men on sailing ships that came as teachers had to have an Egypt or middle eastern basis. Some of them died. It seems strange that no tombs, with artifacts have been found. Where is Indiana Jones when you need him?

It doesn't seem that strange that neither tombs nor artefacts have been found given the lack of evidence to support the arrival of these ancients and the evidence to support that the often quoted myth of bearded strangers from afar (leaving aside for the moment the fact that some indigenous Mexicans sported light beards, notably Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin himself as recorded in Cortez's letters to Carlos V) appears in no native record until long after the conquest (Sahagun's mid 16th century account being the earliest we know of), a typically Mesoamerican reordering of history to justify the present which, alongside depictions of ceremonial paper 'beards' (see Codex Zouche-Nuttal, amongst other sources) has served to perpetuate the Quetzalcoatl-as-foreigner myth.

Architecturally speaking there are certainly coincidences, but all it takes to prove this theory right (I would argue) is the repetition of a single symbol or architectural device which cannot be dismissed as coincidence (sun symbols can surely be discounted, cuniform writing (or an equivalent) would be another matter) and as such, this smoking gun symbol has yet to be found.

I don't know? Doesn't anybody think that ancient global culture would have been a whole lot stranger if there were no coincidences or cases of disparate peoples arriving at similar ideas (pyramid shaped structures for example).

I have nothing against the boats argument, indeed I believe the idea that all ancient cultures remained entirely isolated seems improbable, but there is nothing in Mesoamerica which requires ancient contact (or teaching from afar) as an explanation.

[rich]

Well, unless there actually was a world wide flood - then how about the flood myth?

[Minimalist]

appears in no native record until long after the conquest (Sahagun's mid 16th century account being the earliest we know of),

Of course, the Spaniards did a fairly good job of burning ancient texts.

I get a similar argument from Christians who complain that there is no textual evidence for the alleged similarities of the other Savior Gods to Jesus.

Of course, they usually forget to mention that Christians burned down entire libraries during the reign of Theodosius and second, that several early writers wrote about those very similarities which they now find so distasteful.

[Digit]

'The Carpet Baggers' KB.

[kbs2244]

Dosn't ring a bell, Digit.
I will take your word for it though.
Boy, I must have been young and desprate to read a book with a title like that.

[Digit]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Smith

That one KB?

[kbs2244]

Your stretching me now Digit.
But none of that seems to fit.
As I remember it the Nevada character was a minor one.
As I read the synopsis of the Carpet Braggers the general plot seems right, but I don’t remember Nevada becoming rich and famous.
He was kind of a caretaker at a ranch in the boonies where the Howard Hughes charter would go and kick back when thing got a little too much in the real world.
Kind of a practical type guy that would help the boss get back to “big picture” prospective.
But you are probably talking 50 years ago?

[Cognito]

I have nothing against the boats argument, indeed I believe the idea that all ancient cultures remained entirely isolated seems improbable, but there is nothing in Mesoamerica which requires ancient contact (or teaching from afar) as an explanation.

W/A - you are correct that proof has yet to be found for influential pre-Columbian contact across the Atlantic. Logically, if I had to speculate to the point of pissing off everyone, I would say the idea of pyramids went from the Caral area to Egypt based on current dating. However, I don't believe that either.

I do believe that Europe was similar to today's third-world countries prior to the discovery (aka invasion) of the Americas wherein great wealth and valuable crops were transferred back across the Atlantic. My graduate history finals essay was a hypothesis that the transfer of mineral wealth directly resulted in the ascendancy of Christendom over the Islamic world by the watershed year 1683 when Islam was soundly defeated at the gates of Vienna, beginning a long, downward slide in influence.