Ancient native american civilizations in Mesoamerica

Members of the Mayan ethnics from Yucatan, Chiapas and Guatemala launched the website “Living the Mayan time, sun, corn and Calendar”, which aims to provide teachers and high school students with content in Maya Astronomy and Mathematics.

“It is an effort that brought the work of more than 130 people, of which 95 percent belong to the Maya indigenous from Yucatan, Chiapas and Guatemala, who worked to create a web page that highlights the ancestral knowledge of this civilization in areas such as astronomy and the calendar. This Mayan culture site will provide interactive tools in Maya Math lessons for children and high school teachers,” declared Isabel Hawkins.

New evidence shows humans lived in North America more than 14,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than had previously been known.

A new genetic study suggests that all american indians can trace their lineage to one of just six mothers. AUTHOR: Malcolm Ritter Six women mothers of native americans Nearly all of today’s Native Americans in North, Central andSouth America can trace part of their ancestry to six women whosedescendants immigrated around 20,000 years ago, a […]

AUTHOR: Knute Berger

Five years ago this July, an ancient skeleton was found on the banks of the Columbia River during a hydroplane race near Kennewick, Washington. When the bones turned out to be a major archaeological find, the remains of a 9,000 year-old prehistoric man, a political, legal, cultural, and racial battle ensued. Just who was Kennewick Man, who owned his bones, and what should be done with them?

Suspension bridges were familiar and vital links in the vast empire of the Inca, as they had been to Andean cultures for hundreds of years before the arrival of the Spanish in 1532.

DNA extracted from a 10,300-year-old tooth found in On Your Knees Cave on Prince of Wales Island off southern Alaska in 1996 reveals a previously unknown lineage for the people who first arrived in the Americas. A study of the oldest known sample of human DNA in the Americas suggests that humans arrived in the New World relatively recently, around 15,000 years ago.

Evidence of capture and rituals is unearthed at a site near Mexico City.

Skeletons found at an archeological site show that Aztecs captured, sacrificed and partially ate several hundred people traveling with invading Spanish forces in 1520.

By 500 BC, the St. Johns culture has become firmly established. A change in pottery-making methods marks this shift. Pots are made by coil construction rather than by simply forming pots from a slab, and the tempers have changed. Pelotes Island is affected by Georgia styles and Florida styles. Up in Georgia, sand was used as a temper to harden the clay. Sometimes pottery with both sand and fibers are found, demonstrating the slow shift to new technology. The Florida style required the potter to use clay from fresh water sources containing fresh-water sponges.

The earliest hard evidence we have for Native American occupation of Pelotes and Pinders Islands dates from about 2000 BC. Both islands possesses shell middens (giant oyster trash piles) which are full of fiber-tempered pottery. This pottery was made by mixing clay with fibers from Spanish moss or saw palmetto and firing it. The fibers function as a temper and keep the pot from cracking during the firing process.

The Olmec had many beliefs. Among these beliefs were chaneques which were dwarf trixters who lived in water falls. They also had their own beliefs in cosmology. The Olmec had natural shrines devoted to the hill on which the shrine was located and the water.

20 Days of the Aztec Month.. KEYWORDS: aztec calendar names of days on aztec calendar month Here are the names of the days of a month on the Aztec calendar and what they mean.

The center of the Aztec civilization was the Valley of Mexico, a huge, oval basin about 7,500 feet above sea level. The Aztec empire included many cities and towns, especially in the Valley of Mexico. The largest city in the empire was the capital, Tenochtitlan.

The early settlers built log rafts, then covered them with mud and planted seeds to create roots and develop more solid land for building homes in this marshy land. Canals were also cut out through the marsh so that a typical Aztec home had its back to a canal with a canoe tied at the door.

The Aztec Gods and Goddesses

It is estimated that the Aztecs had over 1,700 gods and goddesses, many of whom required human sacrifices. Based on the number of sacred temples located, scientists have estimated approximately a quarter million humans were sacrificed every year, roughly equivalent to 1% of the population. Here is a partial list of the Aztec gods and goddesses.

The Aztec Calendar was basically similar to that of the Maya. The ritual day cycle was called Tonalpohualli and was formed, as was the Mayan Tzolkin, by the concurrence of a cycle of numerals 1 through 13 with a cycle of 20 day names, many of them similar to the day names of the Maya.

The Aztec civilization contained about 15 million people that lived in nearly 500 towns and cities. About 300,000 people lived in Tenochtitlan.

This is one of two Aztec creation stories.

Quetzalcoatl, the light one, and Tezcatlipoca, the dark one, looked down from their place in the sky and saw only water below. A gigantic goddess floated upon the waters, eating everything with her many mouths.

KEYWORDS: ancient American civilizations Clovis people DNA evidence genetic signatures Siberian and American Indian populations 30,000 years ago 13,000 years ago 8,000 years ago DNA sequence of Siberian men’s Y chromosomes M242 13,600 years ago first human migrations to the New World female migrations American languages fall into three groups, known as Amerind, Na-Dene and […]