Massive 1,100+ year old Maya site discovered in Georgia's mountains

National Architecture & Design | Examiner.com ^ | December 21, 2011 | Richard Thornton

[LucyT]

Archaeological zone 9UN367 at Track Rock Gap, near Georgia’s highest mountain, Brasstown Bald, is a half mile (800 m) square and rises 700 feet (213 m) in elevation up a steep mountainside.

Visible are at least 154 stone masonry walls for agricultural terraces, plus evidence of a sophisticated irrigation system and ruins of several other stone structures. Much more may be hidden underground.

It is possibly the site of the fabled city of Yupaha, which Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto failed to find in 1540, and certainly one of the most important archaeological discoveries in recent times.

[SunkenCiv]

Well said.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks!

[SunkenCiv]

I’d never heard of it before, either. :’)

[PIF]

Great. Now the reconquista crowd is going to want Georgia back too.

—

Nah. They’ll just have the Courts appoint them Special Masters (as they did in Washington State) able to take whatever they choose which makes money.

[muawiyah]

Would they? The Mayans in Yucatan lived in a karstland. Stick those same folks on top of lateric top soils surrounded by gigantic pine forests they would probably build some other way.

There are several different cultures of Mound Building in the Ohio Valley and Central South ~ including folks who were neither Adena nor Hopewell but were still building mounds when De Soto visited (1541).

The Cherokee rightly denied having built older mounds ~ they lived much further West and were new arrivals in the Southern Appalachians.

[muawiyah]

Sounds fairly reasonable ~ lot of stuff encoded in there but Fur Shur it established the political supremacy of the women among the Iroquois.

[muawiyah]

Thanks. So did the Spanish.

So did the Swedes and Bretons ~ A very notable taste for the goods.

So what we have here is a site in hillycountry and there are ancient Indian works, more recent works, a modern town, and gold miners have been in the place.

This may well be one of the more important archaeological sites in North America when it comes to evidence of Spanish penetration.

At some point someone will come up with a picture of those "stones" ~ bet they are somewhat like parallelograms and look just like typical 1500s Spanish boundary stones ~ which are also sometimes quite large.

[muawiyah]

Right here in Fairfax County we had a number of VERY LARGE Indian settlements. One was at what is now called Fort Belvoir along the Occoquan and Potomac rivers. There were about 20,000 year round residents there ~ before European discovery these folks made their living producing POTTERY and STONEWEAR which they traded up and down the East Coast. After European discovery they switched over to making European designs.

Another area of interest is upstream above Great Falls on the Potomac ~ there were comparable numbers of Indians in that area attracted by the presence of year round fresh water even during periods of drought.

This territory changed hands many times over the centuries, but every linguistic group in North America had "places" with people there when the Spanish discovered the Western Arm of Chesapeake Bay.

Very valuable place ~ now used as the United States capital city!

[afraidfortherepublic]

Fascinating! Thanks.

[muawiyah]

The Mayan people(s) used boats.

[JoeProBono]

"3D virtual reality image was made from the Johannes Loubser site plan. There may be many other hidden structures in the ancient site."

[1010RD]

War.

[1010RD]

Or once thought you could. ;-]

[muawiyah]

The bow and arrow was commonly used in The Old World for several thousand years. The Atl-Atl hung on for far longer in The New World.

The "evidence" of what kinds of weapons were in use is the size of the points. Very small points are "darts" used in blow guns. Very large points were used on spears of the sort thrown by the Atl-Atl. Mid-sized points, which don't begin appearing in significant numbers in North America until the 600-800 period, were used on arrows (as in bow and arrow technology).

You can look at folk tales and if someone's talking about "arrows" that means later than 700 AD.

That brings us back to the question of whether or not bow and arrow tech was "spread to the Americas" by Old World visitors, or was an indigenous invention.

There were certainly plenty of opportunities for the bow and arrow to be brought here ~ so why didn't it happen? Or, was it as late as the period when the primitive Swedes obtained the design for clinker built hulls from the more advanced Sa'ami?

Rather like the chariot, upon its invention was the Viking dragon boat immediately put to use finding new Western lands?

[JoeProBono]

[M Kehoe]

Good morning.

Looks like one of two things. Either the fuel tank from a Russian space craft, or "Wilson," all grown up.

I know, an obscure reference...

5.56mm

[JoeProBono]

;-{)

[bert]

Everybody knew everything
Distance was not a factor

Stephen Lekson

[Atlantan]

More info on Etowah Indian Mounds with a video.

http://lostworlds.org/etowah_mounds/

[bigheadfred]

We’ll never be able to shut those La Raza lowlifes up now.

Yeah. Call a Mexican an Indian and see how froggy they get. All hopping mad. They AREN'T Indians. Just a bunch of indignant, indigent, idiotic half-breed wannabee leftovers from the Spanish RAPE of the Americas.

They can get on the return to Europe bus first. So they can sit in the back...