Posted on 05/06/2012 7:18:30 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The site of Tlacuachero in southern Mexico is an island in a mangrove swamp made up almost entirely of clamshells. Material recovered from the site shows that it was a place where people harvested shellfish and fish between 5,050 and 4,230 years ago -- long before the great civilizations of Mesoamerica would build their city-states. Over the years, the island grew as clams were harvested from the swamp and the shells were discarded there. While the shell mound was accumulating, the early people at Tlacuachero built several superimposed clay floors at the island center to create smooth surfaces that were easier to walk and work on. Nothing resembling the remains of houses has been found at the site, which probably indicates that the place was used only for processing the food that people gathered from the swamp.
Excavations begun in 1973 revealed holes where sturdy wooden posts had been driven into the floors. The pattern of the postholes marks places where racks for drying fish may have stood. Also on the floors were groups of tiny holes in oval patterns. These oval features are clustered only in one area of the floors, but why they were made has been a mystery ever since the first one was found. Features like these are often interpreted by archaeologists as being either purely utilitarian or purely ritualistic, which leaves out a whole range of human activities that has nothing to do with religion or making a living. But an answer to the question of what the oval features were used for may have been provided by an unlikely source -- a book titled Games of the North American Indians, published in 1907, by Stewart Culin. Were the oval features used to play a game? Historical, ethnographic, and archaeological evidence supports this idea.
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
Oval arrangements of small holes found at the site of Tlacuachero, may have been used to play an early type of "board game." Clay disks, with markings on one side, might have been thrown like dice but date to hundreds of years later than the game boards. (Courtesy of Barbara Voorhies)
Cradle of Chocolate?[snip] Digging through history to a time before agriculture, archaeologists from Cornell University and the University of California at Berkeley have found evidence of a village that was continuously occupied from 2000 B.C. to A.D. 1000 as well as hints to the secret of the community's remarkable longevity.
by Roger Segelken
October 8, 1998
"My guess is, it all comes down to chocolate," says John S. Henderson, professor of anthropology at Cornell and co-director, together with Rosemary Joyce of Berkeley, of the archaeological dig at Puerto Escondido, Honduras. The type of ceremonial pottery uncovered by the archaeologists points to that region of Mesoamerica as a possible "Cradle of Chocolate." [/snip]
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And yet look what Mexico’s become today...perhaps the filthiest,most dangerous cesspool ever known to humankind.
Bread and Circus was used through history.
Went to acapulco years ago. Disgusting and I was sick for weeks, yes weeks, after.
The only part of Latin America in which I've ever set foot is Brazil.Some of what I saw was impressive but most of what I saw was *beyond* nauseating.Never again will I set foot *anywhere* in that God forsaken place.
We just missed the radish festival...
“And yet look what Mexico’s become today...perhaps the filthiest,most dangerous cesspool ever known to humankind.”
I’ve been to over 20 States in Mexico, spanning all geographical areas of the country. Just about all border towns are disgusting and dangerous. There are a few other areas that are dirty, and a few areas that are dangerous (though most of these areas became dangerous more recently). But overall, most of Mexico once you get away from the tourist areas is not that dirty nor dangerous.
Chicago is more dirty than most of Mexico, and more dangerous than almost all of it.
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