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...A Forum for American Indian Issues...
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Archaeology 
Sun Aug 28, 2011 at 11:28:28 AM PDT
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While the Inka are the best-known pre-Columbian civilization in South America, there were other earlier and longer-lasting highly developed civilizations. Tiwanaku (also spelled Tiahuanaco and Tiahuanacu) is generally recognized by archaeologists as an important precursor of the Inka Empire. Tiwanaku, located on the southeastern shore of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, was a major city-state that controlled parts of the Andean highlands for about five centuries.
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Fri Aug 19, 2011 at 20:31:13 PM PDT
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What is now the state of Nevada was home to American Indian people for several millennia prior to the arrival of the first Europeans in the area. As a part of the Great Basin, Nevada is often seen as being somewhat inhospitable to human habitation. The Great Basin Area includes the high desert regions between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. It is bounded on the north by the Columbia Plateau and on the south by the Colorado Plateau. It includes southern Oregon and Idaho, a small portion of southwestern Montana, western Wyoming, eastern California, all of Nevada and Utah, a portion of northern Arizona, and most of western Colorado. This is an area which is characterized by low rainfall and extremes of temperature. The valleys in the area are 3,000 to 6,000 feet in altitude and are separated by mountain ranges running north and south that are 8,000 to 12,000 feet in elevation. The rivers in this region do not flow into the ocean, but simply disappear into the sand. The summers are hot and the winters are cold. Yet in spite of the ecological challenges, Indian people successfully adapted to the region.
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Thu Jun 30, 2011 at 09:28:25 AM PDT
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Three thousand years ago-about 1000 BCE-there was a lot going on around the world. Some examples:
Egypt: the New Kingdom era was collapsing
Mesopotamia: Babylon was in decline
Greece: Greece was beginning a period which would later be known as the Dark Ages characterized by the loss of Mycenaean writing
Rome: there was no city of Rome:only seven hills with a few hamlets
South Asia: the Aryans were settling on the plain of the Ganges River
Pacific Ocean Islands: the Lapita people were sailing to New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga
China: the Zhou dynasty was in its first century of rule
Middle East: the Hebrew tribes were uniting under the leadership of Saul
Europe: the Celtic migrations were beginning
Mesoamerica: the Mayans were draining swamps to create new farmlands
North America: American Indians by this time had developed many diverse cultures. What follows is a brief overview, based on archaeological findings, of some of the things that were happening in North America around 1000 BCE.
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Mon Jun 06, 2011 at 21:52:06 PM PDT
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Four thousand years ago, the Bronze Age was just beginning in Europe and in China. Palace civilizations were beginning in the Aegean. The chariot had emerged as a war vehicle in the Near East, in Egypt, and in parts of Eastern Europe. By 4,000 years ago, American Indians had occupied North America many millennia and had developed adaptations to the many ecological zones within the region.
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Thu May 26, 2011 at 13:47:52 PM PDT
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In 1854 a Mormon expedition under the leadership of W. D. Huntington reported finding some ancient ruins in southeast Utah. Twenty years later, the photographer William Henry Jackson gave the name Hovenweep-a Paiute/Ute word meaning "Deserted Valley"-to the ruins.
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Wed May 04, 2011 at 17:55:20 PM PDT
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While the Inka (Inca) are probably the best-known of the ancient civilizations of South America because they were flourishing when the Spanish arrived, there were many ancient civilizations which preceded them and provided the cultural foundations for the Inka. One of these was Moche who began to flourish about 2000 years ago.
The Moche flourished from about 1 to 700 CE on the north Peruvian desert margin between the Andes and the Pacific. Their realm extended for at least 250 miles between the Lambayeque and Nepeña Valleys. In each of the river valleys they established ceremonial centers with large platform mounds. Each of the major Moche settlements seems to have been ruled by hereditary rulers who held religious and political power. Unlike the later Inka, the Moche were not an empire, but more closely resembled city-states unified by common cultural features.
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Wed Apr 27, 2011 at 22:12:44 PM PDT
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The Mesoamerican ball game was played throughout Mesoameria-Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras. In addition, a version of the game was played by the Hohokam in Arizona and there is evidence of the games (stone yokes) found in the Caribbean islands. For the Maya, the ball game was culturally and ritually important. Most major Maya centers have a ball court.
The ball court at Chichén Itzá is shown above.
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Tue Apr 19, 2011 at 13:05:58 PM PDT
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A thousand years before the Spanish invasion of the Americas began, American Indians were living throughout North America. Furthermore, they had lived on this continent for many thousands of years before this.
There was no single, unified American Indian culture: people adapted to the many different environments of North America in many different ways. One of the technological innovations that began to spread into many parts of North America at this time was the bow and arrow, which was often used alongside the atlatl. Here are some of the events and developments happening circa 500 CE. The names of the archaeological sites mentioned are not the names which Indian people 1,500 year ago used: they are contemporary names given to them by archaeologists and others.
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Thu Apr 14, 2011 at 08:38:37 AM PDT
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For thousands of years Indian people left evidence of their presence on the land with rock art: pictographs and petroglyphs. Pictographs are created by painting on rock surfaces with natural pigments while petroglyphs are pecked, carved, or abraded into the surface of the rock.
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Thu Apr 07, 2011 at 10:56:24 AM PDT
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Eight thousand years ago, the people in the British Isles as well as in most of Europe were still living as hunters and gatherers. They had a tribal way of life, probably not that different from the Native Americans in North America at this time. Below is a look at some things going on in North America at that time.
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Sat Mar 26, 2011 at 10:21:47 AM PDT
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As the ice fields that had covered the northern portion of North America began to retreat, new environments were created. North America looked very different 16,000 years ago: there were now lakes, bogs, and marshes in areas that had been covered with ice. Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin were covered with park-like spruce and poplar forests. The grasslands of the northern Great Plains supported herds of pronghorns, bison (not the bison of today, but a much larger species with horns more like those of longhorn cattle), moose (about 10 feet in height), elk, and other large animals. With regard to carnivores, there were American lions, saber-toothed cats, giant short-faced bears, and wolves (both gray and dire).
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Thu Mar 17, 2011 at 14:02:23 PM PDT
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( - promoted by navajo)
At the height of the Classic Period (200 CE to 900 CE), the Maya population numbered several million people living in 60 kingdoms in the greater Yucatan area of Mexico. The Maya built large cities which were supported by the agricultural surpluses from the villages and towns in the surrounding countryside.
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Wed Mar 16, 2011 at 17:36:28 PM PDT
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( - promoted by navajo)
A century before the beginning of the European invasion of North America, there were a wide variety of different Native cultures on the continent. Just as the Europeans would discover a century later, there was no single American Indian culture in 1400, but many hundreds of distinct cultures. The archaeological record and Native American oral traditions provide some information about a few of these groups.
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Tue Feb 22, 2011 at 17:46:47 PM PST
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( - promoted by navajo)
It is not uncommon for accounts of American history to begin in the fifteenth century with the Spanish voyages of exploration. What the Europeans found was not a wilderness, but a land which had been settled by and developed for American Indians. By five thousand years ago there were many different cultural adaptations. In this essay, I'd like to briefly describe a few of the events which happened about five thousand years ago in the area which would later become the United States.
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Mon Jan 31, 2011 at 21:23:10 PM PST
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( - promoted by navajo)
About 11,000 years ago, the North American climate changed: it became warmer (by about 13 degrees Fahrenheit) and drier. There was also an increase in the seasonal extremes: summers were warmer and winters were colder. The large Pleistocene mammals such as the mammoth, which had once dominated the landscape, became scarcer. By 8,000 years ago many of the megafauna had become extinct. Extinction is a natural evolutionary development. For Indian people, this change meant that their cultures had to change so that they could adapt to the new environment. One cultural adaptation to this new environment was the Folsom cultural complex.
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Sat Jan 15, 2011 at 09:21:56 AM PST
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( - promoted by navajo)
About 3,000 years ago, the Indian people living in the Ohio River valley in southern Ohio and northern Kentucky began building burial mounds. Archaeologists would later call these people Adena and define this cultural tradition by its burial mounds, its public structures, and the development of long-distance trade. The Adena people often built their mounds in prominent places. Archaeologists feel that their mounds served as important landmarks for nearby dispersed populations.
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Sun Jan 09, 2011 at 20:42:17 PM PST
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( - promoted by navajo)
As the first Europeans began to move into the Ohio River valley area, they found numerous ancient earthen mounds. Many refused to believe that these had been built by Indians, or even the ancestors of Indians. As a consequence, many stories were created crediting the construction of the mounds to Aztecs, Egyptians, Phoenicians, and even vanished races.
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Wed Jan 05, 2011 at 08:57:27 AM PST
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( - promoted by navajo)
Ten thousand years ago, Native American people in what is now Utah had a lifeway that was centered around a pattern of seasonal wandering, the hunting of animals, and the gathering of plants. Human habitations at this time tended to cluster around lakes. Native American groups were surviving and prospering in an austere environment because they had an intimate knowledge of the land and its resources.
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Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 20:48:48 PM PST
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( - promoted by navajo)
More than a thousand years before the first Europeans arrived in North America, American Indians had developed complex civilizations which were characterized by the large earthen pyramids (usually called mounds) which were constructed throughout the southeast. Many of these mound complexes are found in the present-day state of Georgia. Among them is Kolomoki (also called Mercier mounds).
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 at 20:34:17 PM PST
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( - promoted by navajo)
The Aztec were only the last of many great civilizations in Mexico. The mother civilization of all of the Mesoamerican civilizations was the Olmec who flourished more than 3,200 years ago. Olmec civilization was centered off the Gulf of Mexico and includes archaeological sites such as Tres Zapotes, Laguna de los Cerros, San Lorenzo, and La Venta. The Olmec homeland bordering the Gulf of Mexico is hot, humid, and marshy-very different from the Valley of Mexico.
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| In Memoriam |
In honor of my mother, THE FLORA SOMBRERO LIND NAVAJO ENDOWMENT FUND has been set up to accept your donations.
This scholarship endowment has been established at the American Indian College Fund to honor Flora Sombrero Lind, as an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who was born at Inscription House, Arizona of the Many Goats clan circa 1925. This scholarship endowment is funded by Flora's family and friends who want to see Navajo students pursue higher education and carry on their great Navajo heritage.
Please leave a comment here if you donate.
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