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90-710: The first recorded use of the term "Naacal" is contained in Augustus Le Plongeon 's work from 1896, "Queen Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx ." From pages xxiii - xxiv of the preface: "Perhaps also will be felt the necessity of recovering the libraries of the Maya sages (hidden about the beginning of the Christian era to save them from destruction at the hands of the devastating hordes that invaded their country in those times), and to learn from their contents

180-607: A different social structure. Until the accurate dating of Watson Brake and similar sites, the oldest mound complex was thought to be Poverty Point , also located in the Lower Mississippi Valley . Built about 1500 BCE, it is the centerpiece of a culture extending over 100 sites on both sides of the Mississippi . The Poverty Point site has earthworks in the form of six concentric half-circles, divided by radial aisles, together with some mounds. The entire complex

270-466: A few trips back to New York to attempt to sell bas-relief molds to museums, give lectures, and solicit financial backing for their studies. By the 1880s, while most Mayanists accepted that the Maya civilization postdated Ancient Egypt , Le Plongeon stood by his theories. He cited his years of fieldwork and studies of archival sources, and challenged those he considered "armchair" archaeologists to debate

360-638: A much later date, probably no more than 2,000 years ago, moving across the ice from Siberia into Alaska. The North American climate was unstable as the ice age receded during the Lithic stage . It finally stabilized about 10,000 years ago; climatic conditions were then very similar to today's. Within this time frame, roughly about the Archaic Period , numerous archaeological cultures have been identified. The unstable climate led to widespread migration, with early Paleo-Indians soon spreading throughout

450-574: A number of E. G. Squier 's expeditions and took photographs out in the field. Le Plongeon was influenced by the work of Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg , John Lloyd Stephens , and Frederick Catherwood . These works, in combination with his own explorations in Peru, led Le Plongeon to believe that civilization had its origins in the New World. While in Peru Augustus became interested in

540-615: A number of illustrated lectures at the California Academy of Sciences on Peruvian archaeology and the causes of earthquakes. His travels then continued on to New York City, and by 1871 he was at the British Museum in London studying Mesoamerican manuscripts. While in London he met Alice Dixon , the woman with whom he would collaborate for the rest of his life. Alice was born in London in 1851. Her father, Henry Dixon,

630-762: A population of over 20,000. Other chiefdoms were constructed throughout the Southeast, and its trade networks reached to the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. At its peak, between the 12th and 13th centuries, Cahokia was the most populous city in North America. (Larger cities did exist in Mesoamerica and the Andes.) Monks Mound , the major ceremonial center of Cahokia, remains the largest earthen construction of

720-579: A single unified empire. The Mixtecs would eventually be conquered by the Aztecs until the Spanish conquest. The Mixtecs saw the Spanish conquest as an opportunity for liberation and established agreements with the conquistadors that allowed them to preserve their cultural traditions, though relatively few sections resisted Spanish rule. The Totonac civilization was concentrated in the present-day states of Veracruz and Puebla . The Totonacs were responsible for

810-539: A structure known as the Platform of the Eagles and Jaguars and unearthed a large statue or altar figurine. They coined the name "Chaacmol" (later " Chac Mool " or chacmool ) for it. Although their derivation of the name is known now to have had no association with figures of this type, the name has remained in general use among later archaeologists. This statue would later be used as a demonstration of Toltec influences at

900-463: A variety of tools, including distinctive projectile points and knives, as well as less distinctive butchering and hide-scraping implements. The vastness of the North American continent, and the variety of its climates, ecology , vegetation , fauna , and landforms, led ancient peoples to coalesce into many distinct linguistic and cultural groups. This is reflected in the oral histories of

990-631: Is Y-chromosome haplogroup Q1a3a . Researchers have found genetic evidence that the Q1a3a haplogroup has been in South America since at least 18,000 BCE. Y-chromosome DNA , like mtDNA , differs from other nuclear chromosomes in that the majority of the Y-chromosome is unique and does not recombine during meiosis . This has the effect that the historical pattern of mutations can easily be studied. The pattern indicates Indigenous peoples of

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1080-411: Is nearly a mile across. Mound building was continued by succeeding cultures, who built numerous sites in the middle Mississippi and Ohio River valleys as well, adding effigy mounds , conical and ridge mounds, and other shapes. The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures lasted from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE. The term was coined in the 1930s and refers to prehistoric sites between

1170-593: Is the Olmec. This civilization established the cultural blueprint by which all succeeding indigenous civilizations would follow in Mexico. Pre-Olmec civilization began with the production of pottery in abundance, around 2300 BCE in the Grijalva River delta. Between 1600 and 1500 BCE, the Olmec civilization had begun, with the consolidation of power at their capital, a site today known as San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán near

1260-670: The Archaic period and the Mississippian cultures . The Adena culture and the ensuing Hopewell tradition during this period built monumental earthwork architecture and established continent-spanning trade and exchange networks. This period is considered a developmental stage without any massive changes in a short period but instead has a continuous development in stone and bone tools, leatherworking, textile manufacture, tool production, cultivation, and shelter construction. Some Woodland people continued to use spears and atlatls until

1350-702: The Cliff Palace of Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado and the Great Houses in Chaco Canyon , New Mexico . The Puebloans also constructed a road system that stretched from Chaco Canyon to Kutz Canyon in the San Juan Basin . The Ancestral Puebloans are also known as "Anasazi", though the term is controversial, as the present-day Pueblo peoples consider the term to be derogatory, due to

1440-669: The Dekkan , whence they carried their civilizing work all over the earth." According to Augustus Le Plongeon, the Naacals were the missionaries of Mayan religion and civilization. Le Plongeon advocated that the original, great civilization was in Central America, which contrasts with Churchward's view. The next known published use of the word occurred in 1926 when James Churchward used the term in his book, The Lost Continent of Mu, Motherland of Man . According to James Churchward,

1530-647: The Maya script . Other accounts also suggest that the Huastecs migrated as a result of the Classic Maya collapse around the year 900 CE. The Zapotecs were a civilization that thrived in the Oaxaca Valley from the late 6th century BCE until their downfall at the hands of the Spanish conquistadors. The city of Monte Albán was an important religious center for the Zapotecs and served as the capital of

1620-480: The Mayas were merely the decayed remnants of Naacal colonies . Churchward claimed to have gained his knowledge of the Naacals after befriending an Indian priest, who taught him to read the ancient dead language of the Naacals, spoken by only three people in all of India. The priest disclosed the existence of several ancient tablets, written by the Naacals, and Churchward gained access to these records after overcoming

1710-664: The Olmec , Teotihuacan , Mayas , Zapotecs , Mixtecs , Huastecs , Purepecha , Toltecs , and Mexica / Aztecs . The Mexica civilization is also known as the Aztec Triple Alliance since they were three smaller kingdoms loosely united together. These Indigenous civilizations are credited with many inventions: building pyramid temples, mathematics , astronomy , medicine, writing, highly accurate calendars , fine arts , intensive agriculture, engineering , an abacus calculator, and complex theology . They also invented

1800-463: The Tlingit , Haida , Chumash , Mandan , Hidatsa , and others, and some established large settlements, even cities, such as Cahokia , in what is now Illinois . Mesoamerica is the region extending from central Mexico south to the northwestern border of Costa Rica that gave rise to a group of stratified, culturally related agrarian civilizations spanning an approximately 3,000-year period before

1890-506: The founding population . The microsatellite diversity and distributions of the Y lineage specific to South America indicate that certain Amerindian populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region. The Na-Dené , Inuit , and Indigenous Alaskan populations exhibit haplogroup Q-M242 (Y-DNA) mutations, however, and are distinct from other Indigenous peoples with various mtDNA mutations. This suggests that

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1980-569: The Americas experienced two very distinctive genetic episodes: first with the initial peopling of the Americas and second with European colonization of the Americas . The former is the determinant factor for the number of gene lineages and founding haplotypes present in today's Indigenous populations . Human settlement of the Americas occurred in stages from the Bering Sea coastline , with an initial 20,000-year layover on Beringia for

2070-604: The Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct tribes. The Paleo-Indians were hunter-gatherers , likely characterized by small, mobile bands consisting of approximately 20 to 50 members of an extended family. These groups moved from place to place as preferred resources were depleted and new supplies were sought. During much of the Paleo-Indian period, bands are thought to have subsisted primarily through hunting now-extinct giant land animals such as mastodon and ancient bison . Paleo-Indian groups carried

2160-477: The Europeans arrived, Indigenous peoples of North America had a wide range of lifeways from sedentary, agrarian societies to semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer societies. Many formed new tribes or confederations in response to European colonization. These are often classified by cultural regions , loosely based on geography. These can include the following: Numerous pre-Columbian societies were sedentary, such as

2250-668: The Hohokam, they constructed kivas and great houses as well as ballcourts . Several of the Sinagua ruins include Montezuma Castle , Wupatki , and Tuzigoot . The Salado resided in the Tonto Basin in southeastern Arizona from 1150 CE to the 15th century. Archaeological evidence suggests that they traded with far-away cultures, as evidenced by the presence of seashells from the Gulf of California and macaw feathers from Mexico. Most of

2340-659: The Le Plongeons made a short excursion to Uxmal . The Le Plongeons were in Yucatán during the Caste War , a conflict between the Maya, called the Chan Santa Cruz, and the army of Yucatán. When they traveled to Chichen Itza in 1875, they were accompanied by a military escort. When they arrived at the site, local Maya men were hired to clear the vegetation and help with excavations. The Le Plongeons were some of

2430-570: The Masters of the Far East," Baird T. Spalding makes this remark about the 'Naacals': "The teachings that Buddha received came from the same source as did those of Osiris but in a different way. The teachings that Buddha contacted came from the Motherland direct to Burma, brought there by the Naacals. Osiris' teachings came direct to him, as his forefathers lived in the Motherland and when he

2520-618: The Maya city of Chichen Itza . The Toltecs established vast trading relations with other Mesoamerican civilizations in Central America and the Puebloans in present-day New Mexico . During the Post-Classic era, the Toltecs suffered a subsequent collapse in the early 12th century, due to famine and civil war. The Toltec civilization was so influential to the point where many groups such as the Aztecs claimed to be descended from. With

2610-454: The Maya civilization cannot be overstated: it transformed political power, artistic depictions, and the nature of economics. Within the city of Teotihuacan was a diverse and cosmopolitan population. Most of the regional ethnicities of Mexico were represented in the city, such as Zapotecs from the Oaxaca region. They lived in apartment communities where they worked their trades and contributed to

2700-514: The Maya sites in Yucatán being the cradle of civilization , with civilization then traveling east first to Atlantis and later to Ancient Egypt . The Le Plongeons named kings and queens of these dynasties and said that various artworks were portraits of such ancient royalty (such as the famous Chacmool , which the couple excavated at Chichén Itzá). The Le Plongeons reconstructed a detailed but fanciful story of Queen Moo and Prince Coh (also known as "Chac Mool") in which Prince Coh's death resulted in

2790-841: The Mississippian groups had vanished, and vast swaths of their territory were virtually uninhabited. The Ancestral Puebloans thrived in what is now the Four Corners region in the United States. It is commonly suggested that the culture of the Ancestral Puebloans emerged during the Early Basketmaker II Era during the 12th century BCE. The Ancestral Puebloans were a complex Oasisamerican society that constructed kivas , multi-story houses, and apartment blocks made from stone and adobe, such as

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2880-519: The Naacal were the people and civilization of the lost continent of Mu , as well as the name of their language . According to Churchward, the population of the Naacal civilization was as high as 64 million. Their civilization, which flourished 50,000 years ago, was technologically more advanced than the civilization of Churchward's own time (late 19th to early 20th century), and the ancient civilizations of India , Babylon , Persia , Egypt , and

2970-483: The Olmec resulted in a power vacuum in Mexico. Emerging from that vacuum was Teotihuacan, first settled in 300 BCE. By 150 CE, Teotihuacan had risen to become the first true metropolis of what is now called North America. Teotihuacan established a new economic and political order never before seen in Mexico. Its influence stretched across Mexico into Central America, founding new dynasties in the Maya cities of Tikal , Copan , and Kaminaljuyú . Teotihuacan's influence over

3060-744: The Olmecs, Teotihuacan, the Toltecs, the Mexica, and the Mayas. These civilizations (except for the politically fragmented Maya) extended their reach across Mesoamerica—and beyond—like no others. They consolidated power and distributed influence in matters of trade, art, politics, technology, and theology. Other regional power players made economic and political alliances with these civilizations over 4,000 years. Many made war with them, but almost all peoples found themselves within one of their spheres of influence. Regional communications in ancient Mesoamerica have been

3150-676: The Pacific Islands. He returned to San Francisco to open a daguerreotype portrait studio on Clay Street. In 1862, he traveled to Lima, Peru and opened another photography studio and an "electro-hydropathic" medical clinic based on an early form of alternative medicine. Le Plongeon pioneered the use of photography as a tool for his studies. He began using the wet collodion glass-plate negative process he used for studio portraits to record his explorations. He traveled extensively all over Peru for eight years visiting and photographing ancient ruins, including Tiahuanaco . Augustus also joined

3240-459: The Spanish colonists. The Wichita people were a loose confederation that consisted of sedentary agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers who resided in the eastern Great Plains . They lived in permanent settlements and even established a city called Etzanoa , which had a population of 20,000 people. The city was eventually abandoned around the 18th century after it was encountered by Spanish conquistadors Jusepe Gutierrez and Juan de Oñate . When

3330-619: The Tlaxcalans for preserving their culture and for their assistance in defeating the Aztecs. The Tlaxcalans would once again assist to the Spaniards during the Mixtón War and the conquest of Guatemala . Cuzcatlan was a Pipil confederacy of kingdoms and city-states located in present-day El Salvador . According to legend, Cuzcatlan was established by Toltec migrants during the Classic Maya collapse in approximately 1200 CE. During

3420-641: The age of eighty-three; Alice followed in 1910 at the age of fifty-nine. A collection of the works of the Le Plongeons currently resides at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles . The archive contains original records covering their travels from the 1860s through the early 1900s, including diaries, unpublished scholarly manuscripts and notes, correspondence, and extensive photographic documentation of ancient architecture and sculpture, city views, and ethnographic studies. Le Plongeon

3510-557: The calendar, were bequest from the former inhabitants of Tula, the Toltecs. The Mexica-Aztecs were the rulers of much of central Mexico by about 1400 (while Yaquis , Coras, and Apaches commanded sizable regions of northern desert), having subjugated most of the other regional states by the 1470s. At their peak, the Valley of Mexico where the Aztec Empire presided, saw a population growth that included nearly one million people during

3600-577: The causes of earthquakes. He was able to observe the 1868 Arica earthquake and he studied the resulting damage and interviewed people about what they experienced. During this time Le Plongeon began to speak out against abuses by Jesuit priests and the Catholic Church in Peru. He published two anti-Jesuit books, La religion de Jesus comparada con las ensenanzas de la Iglesia (1867), and Los Jesuitas y el Peru (1869). In 1870, he left Peru and traveled back once again to San Francisco where he gave

3690-512: The city's economic and cultural prowess. Teotihuacan's economic pull impacted areas in northern Mexico as well. It was a city whose monumental architecture reflected a monumental new era in Mexican civilization, declining in political power about 650 CE—but lasting in cultural influence for the better part of a millennium, to around 950 CE. Contemporary to Teotihuacan's greatness was that of the Maya civilization. The period between 250 CE and 650 CE

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3780-528: The civilizations in its area, the Tarascan Empire was the most prominent in metallurgy, harnessing copper, silver, and gold to create items such as tools, decorations, and even weapons and armor. Bronze was also used. The great victories over the Aztecs by the Tarascans cannot be understated. Nearly every war they fought in resulted in a Tarascan victory. Because the Tarascan Empire had little links to

3870-747: The cliff dwellings constructed by the Salado are primarily located in Tonto National Monument . The Iroquois League of Nations or "People of the Long House" was a politically advanced, democratic society, which is thought by some historians to have influenced the United States Constitution , with the Senate passing a resolution to this effect in 1988. Other historians have contested this interpretation and believe

3960-404: The coast in southeast Veracruz . The Olmec influence extended across Mexico, into Central America , and along the Gulf of Mexico . They transformed many peoples' thinking toward a new way of government, pyramid temples, writing, astronomy, art, mathematics, economics, and religion. Their achievements paved the way for the Maya civilization and the civilizations in central Mexico. The decline of

4050-615: The coast of Chile . While there he settled in Valparaiso and taught mathematics, drawing, and languages at a local college. In 1849 he sailed to San Francisco during the California gold rush to work as a surveyor , and also apprenticed to become a doctor of medicine. One of his accomplishments as a surveyor included drawing a plan for the layout of the town of Marysville, California in the Central Valley in 1851. Augustus

4140-494: The colonization of the Americas dates from between 40,000 and 13,000 years ago. The chronology of migration models is currently divided into two general approaches. The first is the short chronology theory with the first movement beyond Alaska into the Americas occurring no earlier than 14,000–17,000 years ago, followed by successive waves of immigrants. The second belief is the long chronology theory , which proposes that

4230-432: The de Soto expedition wandered the American Southeast for four years, becoming more bedraggled, losing more men and equipment, and eventually arriving in Mexico as a fraction of its original size. The local people fared much worse though, as the fatalities of diseases introduced by the expedition devastated the populations and produced much social disruption. By the time Europeans returned a hundred years later, nearly all of

4320-463: The decline of the Toltec civilization came political fragmentation in the Valley of Mexico . Into this new political game of contenders to the Toltec throne stepped outsiders: the Mexica . They were also a desert people, one of seven groups who formerly called themselves "Azteca", in memory of Aztlán , but they changed their name after years of migrating. Since they were not from the Valley of Mexico , they were initially seen as crude and unrefined in

4410-423: The destruction, a few original documents have survived, and others were transcribed or translated into Spanish, providing modern historians with valuable insights into ancient cultures and knowledge. Before the development of archaeology in the 19th century, historians of the pre-Columbian period mainly interpreted the records of the European conquerors and the accounts of early European travelers and antiquaries. It

4500-471: The earliest migrants into the northern extremes of North America and Greenland derived from later populations. Asian nomadic Paleo-Indians are thought to have entered the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge (Beringia), now the Bering Strait , and possibly along the coast. Genetic evidence found in Indigenous peoples ' maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) supports the theory of multiple genetic populations migrating from Asia. After crossing

4590-430: The empire from 700 BCE to 700 CE. The Zapotecs resisted the expansion of the Aztecs until they were subjugated in 1502 under Aztec emperor Ahuitzotl . After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire , the Zapotecs resisted Spanish rule until King Cosijopii I surrendered in 1563. Like the Zapotecs, the Mixtecs thrived in the Oaxaca Valley. The Mixtecs consisted of separate independent kingdoms and city-states, rather than

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4680-409: The end of the period when they were replaced by bows and arrows . The Mississippian culture was spread across the Southeast and Midwest of what is today the United States, from the Atlantic coast to the edge of the plains, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Upper Midwest, although most intensively in the area along the Mississippi River and Ohio River . One of the distinguishing features of this culture

4770-512: The erection of monuments in his honor (similar to the commemoration of Prince Albert by Queen Victoria ). While most of Le Plongeon's contemporaries dismissed his theories, individuals such as Ignatius L. Donnelly and Helena Blavatsky drew upon Le Plongeon's research for their own theories. Augustus spent the remainder of his life in Brooklyn, New York , writing about the connections between Maya and Egypt and defending himself against detractors. Augustus le Plongeon died in Brooklyn in 1908 at

4860-408: The establishment of cities, such as El Tajín as important commercial trading centers. The Totonacs would later assist in the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire as an opportunity to liberate themselves from Aztec military imperialism. The Toltec civilization was established in the 8th century CE. The Toltec Empire expanded its political borders to as far south as the Yucatán peninsula , including

4950-403: The first Cazonci, Tariacuri, united these communities and built them into one of the most advanced civilizations in Mesoamerica. Their capital at Tzintzuntzan was just one of the many cities—there were ninety more under its control. The Tarascan Empire was among the largest in Central America, so it is no surprise that they routinely came into conflict with the neighboring Aztec Empire . Out of all

5040-411: The first group of people entered the hemisphere at a much earlier date, possibly 50,000–40,000 years ago or earlier. Artifacts have been found in both North and South America which have been dated to 14,000 years ago, and accordingly humans have been proposed to have reached Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America by this time. In that case, the Inuit would have arrived separately and at

5130-709: The first people to photograph and study Chichen Itza. Their photographic work was methodical and systematic, and they took hundreds of 3-D photos . They documented entire Maya buildings, such as the "Governor's Palace" at Uxmal , in overlapping photos by placing the camera on a tall tripod or scaffold to correct for perspective and then processed the plates in the unlit rooms of Maya buildings. In addition to entire facades of buildings, they also photographed small artifacts , and architectural details such as bas-reliefs , Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions, and sculptures . They excavated buildings, drew maps and copied murals, and made molds of bas-reliefs. At Chichen Itza they excavated

5220-400: The former Toltec Empire , they were also quite independent in culture from their neighbors. The Aztecs, Tlaxcaltec , Olmec, Mixtec, Maya, and others were very similar to each other, however. This is because they were all directly preceded by the Toltecs, and they therefore shared almost identical cultures. The Tarascans, however, possessed a unique religion, as well as other things. Tlaxcala

5310-543: The impact was minimal or did not exist, pointing to numerous differences between the two systems and the ample precedents for the constitution in European political thought. The Calusa were a complex paramountcy/kingdom that resided in southern Florida . Instead of agriculture, the Calusa economy relied on abundant fishing. According to Spanish sources, the "king's house" at Mound Key was large enough to house 2,000 people. The Calusa ultimately collapsed into extinction at around 1750 after succumbing to diseases introduced by

5400-484: The indigenous peoples, described by a wide range of traditional creation stories which often say that a given people have been living in a certain territory since the creation of the world. Throughout thousands of years, paleo-Indian people domesticated, bred, and cultivated many plant species, including crops that now constitute 50–60% of worldwide agriculture. In general, Arctic, Subarctic, and coastal peoples continued to live as hunters and gatherers, while agriculture

5490-687: The influence that astronomical activities had upon Mesoamerican people before the arrival of Europeans. Many of the later Mesoamerican civilizations carefully built their cities and ceremonial centers according to specific astronomical events. The biggest Mesoamerican cities, such as Teotihuacan , Tenochtitlan , and Cholula , were among the largest in the world. These cities grew as centers of commerce, ideas, ceremonies, and theology, and they radiated influence outwards onto neighboring cultures in central Mexico. While many city-states, kingdoms, and empires competed with one another for power and prestige, Mesoamerica can be said to have had five major civilizations:

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5580-608: The initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European colonization , which began with Christopher Columbus 's voyage in 1492. This era encompasses the history of Indigenous cultures prior to significant European influence, which in some cases did not occur until decades or even centuries after Columbus's arrival. During the pre-Columbian era, many civilizations developed permanent settlements, cities, agricultural practices, civic and monumental architecture, major earthworks , and complex societal hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had declined by

5670-433: The issues. However, as evidence mounted against cultural diffusion , Le Plongeon became marginalized and his theories fell further outside the growing mainstream of Maya archaeology. Le Plongeon insisted that the symbols of Freemasonry could be traced to the ancient Maya and that the ancient knowledge had come to ancient Egypt from the ancient Maya by way of Atlantis. He and Alice constructed an imaginative "history," with

5760-509: The land bridge, they moved southward along the Pacific coast and through an interior ice-free corridor. Throughout millennia, Paleo-Indians spread throughout the rest of North and South America. Exactly when the first people migrated into the Americas is the subject of much debate. One of the earliest identifiable cultures was the Clovis culture , with sites dating from some 13,000 years ago. However, older sites dating back to 20,000 years ago have been claimed. Some genetic studies estimate

5850-472: The late Aztec period (1350–1519). Their capital, Tenochtitlan , is the site of modern-day Mexico City . At its peak, it was one of the largest cities in the world with population estimates of 200,000–300,000. The market established there was the largest ever seen by the conquistadores on arrival. Initially, the lands that would someday comprise the lands of the powerful Tarascan Empire were inhabited by several independent communities. Around 1300, however,

5940-607: The late twentieth century, archeologists have studied, analyzed, and dated these sites, realizing that the earliest complexes were built by hunter-gatherer societies, whose people occupied the sites on a seasonal basis. Watson Brake , a large complex of eleven platform mounds, was constructed beginning in 3400 BCE and added to over 500 years. This has changed earlier assumptions that complex construction arose only after societies had adopted agriculture, and become sedentary, with stratified hierarchy and usually ceramics. These ancient people had organized to build complex mound projects under

6030-405: The northern Yucatán Peninsula . While his writings contain many notions that were not well received by his contemporaries and were later disproven, Le Plongeon left a lasting legacy in his photographs documenting the ancient ruins. He was one of the earliest proponents of Mayanism . Le Plongeon was born on the island of Jersey on 4 May 1825. At 19, he sailed to South America and shipwrecked off

6120-457: The only true writing system native to the Americas using pictographs and syllabic elements in the form of texts and codices inscribed on stone, pottery, wood, or perishable books made from bark paper. The Huastecs were a Maya ethnic group that migrated northwards to the Gulf Coast of Mexico. The Huastecs are considered to be distinct from the Maya civilization, as they separated from the main Maya branch at around 2000 BCE and did not possess

6210-540: The people abandoned their settlements, likely due to drought. The Mogollon resided in the present-day states of Arizona , New Mexico, and Texas as well as Sonora and Chihuahua . Like most other cultures in Oasisamerica, the Mogollon constructed sophisticated kivas and cliff dwellings. In the village of Paquimé , the Mogollon are revealed to have housed pens for scarlet macaws , which were introduced from Mesoamerica through trade. The Sinagua were hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists who lived in central Arizona. Like

6300-416: The prehistoric Americas . The culture reached its peak in about 1200–1400 CE, and in most places, it seems to have been in decline before the arrival of Europeans. Many Mississippian peoples were encountered by the expedition of Hernando de Soto in the 1540s, mostly with disastrous results for both sides. Unlike the Spanish expeditions in Mesoamerica, which conquered vast empires with relatively few men,

6390-488: The priest's initial reluctance. His knowledge remained incomplete, as the available tablets were mere fragments of a larger text, but Churchward claimed to have found verification and further information in the records of other ancient peoples. Churchward claimed that the ancient Egyptian sun god Ra originated with the Naacals; he claimed that "Rah" was the word which the Naacals used for " sun " as well as for their god and rulers. In volume 2 of "The Life and Teaching of

6480-456: The site, with other examples found at the Toltec capital, Tula . They also documented their excavation of the Platform of Venus with photos as well as plan and cross-section drawings. From 1873 to 1884, the Le Plongeons visited and photographed other Maya sites such as Izamal , Isla Mujeres , Cozumel , Cancún , and Ake , and traveled to Belize (British Honduras). During this time they made

6570-425: The slightest erudition'. Engineer and writer L. Sprague de Camp dismissed the idea of the Naacal in an article written in 1946 on the subject of lost civilisations. Augustus Le Plongeon Augustus Henry Julian Le Plongeon (4 May 1825 – 13 December 1908) was a British-American antiquarian and photographer who studied the pre-Columbian ruins of America, particularly those of the Maya civilization on

6660-619: The subject of considerable research. There is evidence of trade routes starting as far north as the Mexico Central Plateau , and going down to the Pacific coast. These trade routes and cultural contacts then went on as far as Central America . These networks operated with various interruptions from pre-Olmec times and up to the Late Classical Period (600–900 CE). The earliest known civilization in Mesoamerica

6750-599: The time of the establishment of the first permanent European colonies, around the late 16th to early 17th centuries, and are known primarily through archaeological research of the Americas and oral histories. Other civilizations, contemporaneous with the colonial period, were documented in European accounts of the time. For instance, the Maya civilization maintained written records, which were often destroyed by Christian Europeans such as Diego de Landa , who viewed them as pagan but sought to preserve native histories. Despite

6840-637: The trip. They married in New York before traveling to Mexico in 1873. In 1873, the Le Plongeons traveled to Yucatán to study ancient Maya sites. Their goal was to explore the possibility of links between the Maya and the civilizations of ancient Egypt and Atlantis. Their first stop was in Mérida and they stayed there while Alice recovered from yellow fever . During her recuperation, the couple made connections with local scholars and both Augustus and Alice learned to speak Yucatec Maya. After Alice had recovered,

6930-555: The visits to the Caribbean by Christopher Columbus. Mesoamerican is the adjective generally used to refer to that group of pre-Columbian cultures. This refers to an environmental area occupied by an assortment of ancient cultures that shared religious beliefs, art, architecture, and technology in the Americas for more than three thousand years. Between 2000 and 300 BCE, complex cultures began to form in Mesoamerica. Some matured into advanced pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations such as

7020-500: The ways of the Nahua civilization. Through political maneuvers and ferocious martial skills, they managed to rule Mexico as the head of the 'Triple Alliance' which included two other Aztec cities, Tetxcoco and Tlacopan . Latecomers to Mexico's central plateau , the Mexica thought of themselves, nevertheless, as heirs of the civilizations that had preceded them. For them, arts, sculpture, architecture, engraving, feather-mosaic work, and

7110-420: The wheel, but it was used solely as a toy. In addition, they used native copper , silver , and gold for metalworking. Archaic inscriptions on rocks and rock walls all over northern Mexico (especially in the state of Nuevo León ) demonstrate an early propensity for counting. Their number system was base 20 and included zero . These early count markings were associated with astronomical events and underscore

7200-503: The wisdom of those ancient philosophers, of which that preserved in the books of the Brahmins is but the reflection. That wisdom was no doubt brought to India , and from there carried to Babylon and Egypt in very remote ages by those Maya adepts (Naacal—'the exalted'), who, starting from the land of their birth as missionaries of religion and civilization, went to Burmah , where they became known as Nagas , established themselves in

7290-667: The word tracing its origins to a Navajo word meaning "ancestor enemies". The Hohokam thrived in the Sonoran desert in what is now the U.S. state of Arizona and the Mexican state of Sonora . The Hohokam were responsible for the construction of a series of irrigation canals that led to the successful establishment of Phoenix, Arizona via the Salt River Project . The Hohokam also established complex settlements such as Snaketown , which served as an important commercial trading center. After 1375 CE, Hohokam society collapsed and

7380-493: Was a Nahua republic and confederation in central Mexico. The Tlaxcalans fiercely resisted Aztec expansion during the Flower Wars ever since the Aztecs expelled them from Lake Texcoco . The Tlaxcalans would later ally with the Spanish conquistadors under Hernán Cortés as an opportunity to liberate them from the Aztecs and managed to successfully conquer the Aztecs with the help of the conquistadors. The Spaniards would reward

7470-416: Was a time of intense flourishing of Maya civilized accomplishments. While the many Maya city-states never achieved political unity on the order of the central Mexican civilizations, they exerted tremendous intellectual influence upon Mexico and Central America. The Maya built some of the most elaborate cities on the continent and made innovations in mathematics, astronomy, and calendrics. The Maya also developed

7560-597: Was a young man he had gone to the Motherland to study." David Bruton, Spalding's biographer revealed in "Baird T. Spalding As I Knew Him" (IEP, 1956) that Spalding's books were a magical autobiography and essentially fiction. Therefore, the inference that the Naacals themselves are a fiction or modern myth is strengthened. At the time of Churchward's publication, his work and sources were discredited. Historian Curtis Wilgus from George Washington University noted that Churchward's books read like 'the strangest of fiction', with 'imagination' mixed with 'mystic fanaticism' and 'not

7650-583: Was adopted in more temperate and sheltered regions, permitting a dramatic rise in population. After the migration or migrations, it was several thousand years before the first complex societies arose, the earliest emerging about seven to eight thousand years ago. As early as 5500 BCE, people in the Lower Mississippi Valley at Monte Sano and other sites in present-day Louisiana , Mississippi , and Florida were building complex earthwork mounds , probably for religious purposes. Beginning in

7740-556: Was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1878. Desmond, Lawrence G. (2009) Yucatan through her eyes: Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, writer and expeditionary photographer. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas , the pre-Columbian era , also known as the pre-contact era , or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil , spans from

7830-569: Was not until the nineteenth century that the work of people such as John Lloyd Stephens , Eduard Seler , and Alfred Maudslay , and institutions such as the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of Harvard University , led to the reconsideration and criticism of the early European sources. Now, the scholarly study of pre-Columbian cultures is most often based on scientific and multidisciplinary methodologies. The haplogroup most commonly associated with Indigenous Amerindian genetics

7920-632: Was paid for his services as a surveyor with land deeds. He profited from the sale of these plots and this income would fund the majority of his archaeological expeditions. Le Plongeon traveled to England and saw a demonstration for new photographic processes at The Great Exhibition . He then stayed in England to study photography under William Fox Talbot . Augustus wanted to test these methods in tropical climates so he spent time traveling to St. Thomas, Virgin Islands as well as Mexico, Australia, China, and

8010-726: Was recognized in the late nineteenth century for his contribution to the development of panchromatic photography, and for his photos of London architecture taken for the Society for Photographing Relics of Old London . Alice learned the techniques of photography from her father and worked as an assistant in his studio. After meeting Augustus, she became interested in ancient American civilizations and studied John L. Stephen's Incidents of Travel in Yucatan. She agreed to accompany Augustus on an archaeology expedition to study Maya ruins in Mexico. The pair left for New York to finalize preparations for

8100-538: Was the construction of complexes of large earthen mounds and grand plazas, continuing the mound-building traditions of earlier cultures. They grew maize and other crops intensively, participated in an extensive trade network, and had a complex stratified society. The Mississippians first appeared around 1000 CE, following and developing out of the less agriculturally intensive and less centralized Woodland period. The largest urban site of these people, Cahokia —located near modern East St. Louis, Illinois —may have reached

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