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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Theoria, and for the additional ping, thanks indcons. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. |
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Posted on 12/24/2012 8:48:15 PM PST by Theoria
On a recent December morning, Mack Jones hiked a trail bordering the lake at Sandy Creek Park in Athens before he ventured off the path and up a forested ridge. There he showed a group following him a series of mysterious stone terrace walls and rock piles.
"It's hidden in plain sight, and it's been that way for the 30 years the park has been here," Jones said. "No one has messed with it and maybe they won't."
Jones believes those numerous rock piles - and especially the stone wall terraces lacing the hillside - might constitute evidence that the ancient Mayans once established a village here in Georgia
"Maybe it's not as crazy as it seems," said Jones, who has spent much time photographing and mapping the stone works as he sought to document the site in hopes that one day archeologists will launch an investigation.
Tonight at 10 p.m. on History Channel's H2, "American Unearthed" will address the question on whether the Mayans established villages in north Georgia. The program keys on a site in Towns County known as Track Rock.
The show's producer, geologist Scott Wolter of Minneapolis, heard about the sites in Georgia, but was told by several Georgia archaeologists "that there was nothing to the Track Rock site. They knew for a fact that no Mayan immigrants ever came to the Southeast," he said in a press statement.
Contacted Wednesday, Wolter wouldn't discuss what the program will disclose.
"I can't tell you how the episode ends, but let's say I was very, very surprised at what we found," Wolter said. "This is not a matter of faith. It's a matter of evidence."
One Georgian that the History Channel producers interviewed is Richard Thornton, an architect and city planner, who has studied the Track Rock ruins, a large series of about 150 terraces. Thornton, a Dahlonega resident who is of Creek Indian ancestry, spent time in Mexico studying the ancient Indian cultures.
Thornton provided the show with information on what he has found at Track Rock, which he considers "an important archeological zone."
The show producers were told about the site at Sandy Creek Park, but Thornton said he doesn't know if they found time to visit.
"It looks very similar to Track Rock in many ways, but until you get archeologists in there doing radiocarbon dating and tests, we won't know for sure if there is a Mayan presence," Thornton said.
The program will also present DNA evidence gathered from people in the region, Thornton said. Some of the Creek Indians in the region of Track Rock provided DNA samples and tests revealed the presence of both Mayan DNA and DNA from people of South America.
Thornton's published works on Track Rock opened Jones' eyes to the possibility a Mayan connection to the Sandy Creek site.
Thornton's illustrations "showed the mounds of rocks and terracing and it looks like what I'm seeing at Sandy Creek. I call it getting my eyes right," said Jones, a graphic artist who lives in Athens.
Once Jones felt like the terraces and rock piles might have historical importance, he pondered what he should do. He contacted officials with the park and archeologists at the University of Georgia.
"Nobody was getting back in touch with me, so I wrote Thornton and he wrote me back," Jones said. "I told him it was his illustrations that made me see this out here."
According to Thornton, the show will have a surprising conclusion.
"They have absolute proof that the Mayans have been coming here for a long time," he said. "It's not just Track Rock."
Why not? AMericans has established outposts a hell of a lot further away than that.
What do you think they will look like in 700 years.
My ancestors are from Europe. They migrated to the Americas. Nobody asked them to come here.
Turns out people always have and always will migrate.
Any civilization generally spreads out from a center, with evidence of its presence stronger the closer to that center.
This means that one would expect strong evidence of Mayan presence in the Caribbean, Florida and south Georgia, which AFAIK does not exist, not an isolated presence in north Georgia.
It’s not like they had the option of establishing free-standing colonies supported by air, like ours in Afghanistan and Central Asia.
I’ve read similar accounts of Viking presence in Minnesota or Alberta, with no particular explanation of why they would have bypassed other lands between. When the later Euro settlers of history showed up, it took them centuries to reach these areas.
The Stephen Lekson rules......
Everybody knew everything
Distance was not a problem
There is no coincedence
I would think they didn’t necessarily bypass the lands in between. We’re just stuck with the few places where some evidence has been found. In this case, it seems completely reasonable that Mayans might have travelled all over the Caribbean area and pushed up the coast. I suspect that wide travel and trade was wider and earlier than has often been assumed.
They only found dirty Mayans in Georgia!
I have no problem with extensive trade, but if the Mayans were to establish settlements in North Georgia, why are the not identifiable Mayan ruins near Mobile, Pensacola and Miami?
I would think these are the ruins of the precursor tribes to the Cherokee, Creek and other tribes of Southern US.
Higher quality? when did they ever have shows likeEureka or Stargate? Lower quality than E! Wich at least has The Soup.
Higher quality? when did they ever have shows likeEureka or Stargate? Lower quality than E! Wich at least has The Soup.
Higher quality? when did they ever have shows likeEureka or Stargate? Lower quality than E! Wich at least has The Soup.
Thing is, there is evidence the Creek migrateed from central America and western Mexico.
The ruins I have stumbled across were near major rivers, the major “highways” of early inhabitants in this country.
We do not see evidence of early settlements in this country very often, mainly because virtually no one leaves the interstates when travelling.
Here are just a couple links that are likely just modern names for ancient peoples.
http://lostworlds.org/ocmulgee_mounds/
http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/kolomoki1.html
Nope. Ain’t wrong. The people of Tonga were not allowed into the Priesthood until 1978 and they are called Lamaminites by many LDS.
A term of derision and bigotry.
bottom line is that the DNA shows them to ultimately be siberian based - and not Jewish.
1.) Topographical data taken from an aerial survey tends to suggest the presence of temple mounds identical to those found in Mayan cities. This was interesting, but not very convincing, one way or the other.
2.) Several artifacts were shown that were found in the same region of the suspected temple mounds that appear to have Mayan iconography. The match in styles was very striking, but the provenance of the artifacts was unknown.
3.) Linguistic similarities between Mayan and the local Cree tongue, including the names that several tribes called themselves seemed to be derived from classical Maya. This was interesting, but, again, not pursued in much depth.
4.) The Mayans used great quantities of a pigment known as "Mayan Blue", yet no source of the clay upon which it was based has been found in Mexico, aside from a few small deposits. However, the clay used for Mayan Blue turns out to be commonplace in the area of Georgia where the suspected temple mounds are located. An x-ray spectrograph done on a known sample of Myan Blue from Mexico showed that the clay used to make it carried the identical chemical signatiure of the Georgia clay.
In the end, it was interesting and not a completely lunatic suggestion, but not terribly well developed, but then what could you expect.
Nohhhhh!?!?!
/s
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas, glad you’re still in here once in a while. :’)
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Theoria, and for the additional ping, thanks indcons. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. |
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There was a lot of merchandise moving back and forth across very long distances in the pre-Columbian eras. If there was something the Mayans wanted here in Georgia, there is every chance the Mayans, or some representatives of their culture, came here.
Depends on what you consider evidence. The have found turquoise from Arizona in Central American digs.
A term of derision and bigotry.
Yes, you are STILL wrong. I know Tongans who held the LDS Priesthood in 1968 (and obviously long before that), and Samoans, and Hawaiians. It is you who are the bigot.
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