British explorer Percy Fawcett was one of the last of the era that inspired Hollywood’s swashbucklers like Indiana Jones. Fawcett also became one of the 20th Century’s most famous disappearances when he vanished into the Amazon jungle in 1925. He was searching for a lost city he named “City of Z.” Perhaps the fabled El Dorado, a lost Inca stronghold or an outpost of Atlantis refugees. He seemed to think he knew where it was. Eighty-five years later, the details of his demise are still unclear. The book The Lost City of Z has brought back this forgotten explorer back to life for modern readers. Exploration Fawcett is a reprint of Fawcett’s own journals from his adventures in South America up until his final trek. These are fascinating windows into the lost era of explorations and the wild and dangerous southern continent of those days.
Ancient America
2012, Just Another Year
It’s like Y2K all over again. People are making a fortune writing and talking about 2012. The movie 2012 was entertaining, if not largely implausible. Really, are you going to escape an exploding supervolcano? Or you can breeze through Apocalypse 2012 which is an amusing book that looks into all of the cataclysms we are overdue for and those who peddle end time theories. In any case, this whole “the world is going to end in 2012” started with the Mayan calendar.
The ancient Mayan calendar resets itself at the end of 2012. Technically it is known as the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar and once it reaches the end of the latest 144,000 day period on December 20, 2012, it will reset to zero.
Then what?
Well, nothing. The Mayans didn’t claim the world was going to end.
Sounds like another Y2K bust. On the other hand, humanity hasn’t faced a civilization-wide disaster in some time. Maybe not in 2012, but we have been living scott-free for quite awhile now. The more we study ancient legends and the geology of the planet the more signs of global catastrophe we find. The last Ice Age and the Neolithic era of humanity may have ended because of an impact event (see Cycles of Cosmic Catastrophes). There’s a lot of debate about that one, but many ancient accounts seem to be referring to some major disaster.
In fact, there seems to have been more than one. The end of the Bronze Age may have been hastened by a similar event that ignited volcanoes around the globe and civil unrest. Perhaps not coincidentally, this is about when the events of the Exodus are dated (see The Miracles of Exodus). A global crisis would explain why the mighty Egyptians half-heartedly pursued the Hebrews and let them go to begin with. There’s also a biblical reference to Sea Peoples showing up about this time doing the invasion thing. Displaced from some destroyed land perhaps?
Maybe instead of worrying about 2012, people should be looking to the past to see how mankind made it through such disasters, how they shaped us and what we can learn.
Afterall, when we have localized disasters like hurricanes, floods and oil spills, we have nothing but chaos and confusion. What would we do if something really big happened?
The Aztec Christmas Flower
The Poinsettia was introduced from Mexico in the early 1800s by Joel Roberts Poinsett. Franciscan friars had been using them in their Christmas decorations. The star-shaped leaf of the plant was said to symbolize the Star of Bethlehem. The red leaves (yes, they are leaves) represented the blood of Jesus. Legends had arisen of a young girl involved with miracles occurring with the plant. Long before that the Aztecs had used them to make dyes and medication. They also used them in their human-sacrifice rituals, the leaves being a reminder of those who were sacrificed. Interesting to ponder that this symbol of Christmas was once part of such a terrible tradition from long centuries ago. Though, ironically, we still make the blood association. The plant’s supposed poison qualities, however, are a myth (doesn’t mean it’s edible, however).
American Natives: Not so Primitive
There is a common misconception that the Native Americans were primitive or only a step or two removed from barbarians. In reality they built sophisticated societies across the Western Hemisphere. The cities of the Aztecs, Mayans and Incas are a testament contrary to the myth. So are the sophisticated irrigation works and brick towns of the Southwest. In the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys natives built thousands of mounds across the region. Many were complex shapes, effigies of animals or were part of sprawling earthworks. Mounds often hid burials, some with underground tombs. Places like Cahokia in East St. Louis, Illinois, were the centers of massive populations. This city centered around an earthen flat-topped mound that resembled the pyramids in Mesoamerica in shape and Egypt’s in size. It was no small feat for pre-industrial peoples to build such structures that seem only mounds of dirt to us.
Sadly, the vast majority were destroyed as settlers moved into these areas. Where they stood out in the relatively flat lands of Ohio, town-builders and farmers were quick to level them. In hillier lands, what mounds existed often blended into the terrain. Farmers, who had to farm the rolling land as it was, were more apt to leave mounds alone. At times they farmed around and over the mounds. I suspect that some have survived to this very day hiding in plain sight.
The Mound Builder cultures (Adena, Hopewell and Mississippian) were gone by the time the colonials arrived. The Indians then living in the lands knew little about those who had lived here before. The colonials couldn’t believe that the natives were sophisticated enough to build such things which gave rise to the fantastic tales of Josiah Priest, and some say the books of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church. What archaeology has uncovered, and some native legends confirm, is that after centuries of civilization the Mound Builders succumbed to war, assimilation and other factors.
There are those, however, who have uncovered evidence that they believe points to outside influence on these Mound Builder cultures. It’s not proof of the spinners of fables (whose stories bare scant resemblance to known history), but, in particular, the suggestion is of pre-Columbus explorers and settlers from across the oceans. Controversial to say the least, but not in the way one may think. These visitors assimilated into existing cultures and added to them from their own. Sounds innocent enough, but this diffusionism is not so simple. More on this later…
(Adapted from here. See book for references.)
Mystery at Lovelock
In 1911, two workmen digging bat guano in a cave near Lovelock, Nevada ended up making an incredible find. They began uncovering hundreds of artifacts. Eventually thousands of artifacts and dozens of bodies were found. Many of the bodies were mummified, very tall and had red hair.
These remains affirmed local Indian legends about red-haired giants. Lovelock Cave was once near Lake Lahontan, one of many lakes that existed in now dry Nevada. It’s hard enough for us to imagine this desert state teaming with life and people. Giant red-haired residents decidedly doesn’t fit with what we know about native history. The site was largely ignored because it didn’t agree with the reigning theories and many of the original finds were lost. However, these weren’t the only giants found in the region.
So the question is, who were they and where did they come from?
1491
There’s a pervasive belief that the Indians were primitive or only a few steps above the cave man. Neither were true. From the metropolis at Cahokia (modern-day St. Louis), to the irrigation systems of the southwest to the teeming civilizations of Mesoamerica, the cave man was no where to be found. Had Columbus arrived a few decades later, or diseases not wiped out as much or more than 90% of the population, history in the Western Hemisphere may have unfolded a bit differently. One of the best books on the subject is 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. A must read on a lost world far different, and far more advanced, than many realize.
Vikings in America
For centuries the Viking sagas told of voyages to the New World. Yet for generations, these voyages were discounted as Viking legend until ruins of a settlement were found in Canada in the 1960s. Yet the idea of pre-Columbus voyages is still not widely accepted, even the Viking explorations are thought to be limited and of leaving no lasting impression. But is there more to the story?
Was the knowledge of Viking settlements really lost all those centuries? After all, the Vatican sent clergy to minister in the far-flung Viking frontier. Some suggest Columbus knew. Early American settlers and historians didn’t seem to shy away from the Norse explanation. Native legends may have been influenced by Viking encounters. These native legends were certainly inspiration for the wild story tellers of the 1800s like Josiah Priest and Joseph Smith, the writer of the Book of Mormon. The native stories, along with pervasive belief at the time that Indians weren’t advanced enough to have been the mound builders, contributed to those books about lost civilizations and vast battles. It’s taken generations to chip away at the misconceptions and fiction.
So do the Indian accounts contain whispers of the Norse? Will debates about the origins of the Newport Tower or the Kenningston Rune Stone ever end? What about the old European-like furnaces of Ohio? The Vikings were but a blip on the many millenia of history of the Western Hemisphere, but given their past, would we expect them to do nothing but make a small settlement on the Canadian coast? It’s likely that what marks they did leave are overlooked because it doesn’t fit into the normal history and we are trained to explain away little anomalies. Some fear that finding the Vikings will somehow slight the natives. In reality, no civilizations live in isolation. Did the Americas lay forgotten for 30,000 years?
For more see Vikings in America and Mound Builders.
Lost City in Grand Canyon
On April 5, 1909, the front page of the Arizona Gazette reported that Smithsonian explorers S.A.. Jordan and G.E. Kinkaid had found a cave opening that led to a vast underground complex of rooms, relics and mummified remains. The report gives extensive detail of the discoveries. The article was also the last mention of the find every recorded.
Some have claimed it was a hoax because the Smithsonian denied knowing the named explorers. The article also referred to the Smithsonian Institute, not Institution. Investigators did discover references to a S.A. Jordon and a E.K. Kincaid at the Smithsonian. So were the “errors” in the article simplly typos in the era before spell check and multiple editors? Or were they more parts of an elaborately fabricated story?
If it was fabricated, why did the same paper briefly mention Kinkaid’s journey a few weeks earlier? Famed Grand Canyon explorer John Wesley Powell also alludes to odd finds in the same region of the Canyon that the Gazette article refers to. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility for the Canyon to hide its secrets for so long. No one has proven this one to a reasonable conclusion either way. Maybe some hiker in the canyon will stumble across something…
Darrick Dean 