MOUNDS IDENTIFIED AS OLDEST MAN-MADE STRUCTURES IN NORTH AMERICA
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MOUNDS LOCATED ON THE LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY (LSU) CAMPUS HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED AS THE OLDEST KNOWN MAN-MADE STRUCTURES IN NORTH AMERICA.
The two mounds stand 20 feet tall and are coordinated in an alignment toward one of the brightest stars in the night sky. They are among more than 800 man-made structures built by indigenous people across Louisiana.
Many of these mounds have been destroyed over the centuries, while the LSU campus mounds have remained preserved, listed on the National Register for Historic Places.
Researchers from the University collected sediment core samples, revealing layers of ash from burned reed and cane plants, as well as remains of burned osteons that indicates that the mounds were likely used for ceremonial purposes.
A radiocarbon analysis of the material suggests that the mounds were built over thousands of years, with construction of Mound B starting around 11,000 years ago.
Tree roots found in sediment layers shows that Mound B was abandoned around 8,200 years ago, a period when the northern hemisphere experienced a major climate event with temperatures suddenly dropping on average by about 35 degrees Fahrenheit, which lasted about 160 years.
Then, around 7,500 years ago, the indigenous people began to build a new mound, Mound A, just to the north of the first mound.
According to the new analyses, the indigenous people reconstructed the first mound during construction of Mound A, both being completed around 6,000 years ago.
“There’s nothing known that is man-made and this old still in existence today in North America, except the mounds,” said LSU Department of Geology & Geophysics Professor Emeritus Brooks Ellwood, who led this study, published in the American Journal of Science by Yale University.
The crests of both mounds are aligned along an azimuth that is about 8.5 degrees east of true north. According to LSU astronomer and study coauthor Geoffrey Clayton, about 6,000 years ago, the red giant star Arcturus would rise about 8.5 degrees east of north in the night sky, which means it would have aligned along the crests of both LSU Campus Mounds. Arcturus is one of the brightest stars that can be seen from Earth.
Romans and Italians that predated or were contemporaneous with Marco Polo are shown in the videos above. It does appear that Marco Polo wasn't the first and only westerner to journey the unknown territories of the far east. We could go further back in time to Greek periods also since they've shown to produce maps that displayed the entire Old World. Vice versa, several hundreds of thousands Mongols traveled as far west as Hungary ( or maybe even further west ). In other words, there were actually several people from almost every part of the Old World continent that traveled throughout and they mainly traveled on the Silk Road and Spice Trade Route located on the seas. They traveled mainly for trade, but others because of migration and warfare and for some because of exploration. Marco Polo was the most famous explorer of them all probably because of his book titled "The Travels of Marco Polo".
PETÉN ITZÁ WAS A KINGDOM OF THE ITZÁ MAYA, CENTRED ON THEIR CAPITAL OF NOJPETÉN IN LAKE PETÉN ITZÁ, GUATEMALA.
The Itzá were descended from the Ah Itzá Yucatecan Maya lineage, a people who dominated the Yucatán peninsula and established a large trading Empire from their capital at Chichén Itzá.
Near the Maya collapse at the end of the Classic Period, the Ah Itzá Yucatecan lost a power struggle with the Cocom and the Xiu, resulting in their migration (or expulsion) to the ancestral home of Lake Petén around AD 1441–1446.
The kingdom of Petén Itzá emerged in the Post-Classic Period, centred on a small island where the Itzá constructed the city of Nojpetén (present-day Flores) in the mid-15th century AD. The political geography of Petén Itzá was divided into a quincunx, consisting of four provinces ruled by paired batabob (lesser rulers).
Nojpetén was described by the 16th century Spanish conquistador, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who said that the city was surrounded by water and contained closely packed temples, palaces and thatched houses.
Nojpetén (Present-Day Flores) –
Later accounts from the 17th century note that the city had 21 pyramids, the largest of which was called the ‘castillo’ by the conquistadors and was comparable in size and design to that of the principal pyramid at Chichen Itza.
The current street plan of modern Flores is believed to have been inherited from the city layout of Nojpetén, with a quadripartite division by principal streets running north–south and east–west that intersect at the summit, occupied by the modern plaza and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Los Remedios.
Nojpetén had defensive walls built upon the low ground of the island, which may have been hastily constructed by the Itza at a time when they felt threatened either by the encroaching Spanish or by other Maya groups.
Evidence of conflict with neighbouring Maya was documented by the Spanish missionary, Andrés de Avendaño y Loyola, who visited Nojpetén in 1696. His journals mention nine of the temples in a burnt and ruinous state following attacks by the Kowoj Maya, a people who migrated from Mayapan after the Maya collapse.
Nojpetén fell to a Spanish assault in 1697, the last Maya kingdom to fall during the Spanish conquest of Petén. The Spanish renamed the city as Nuestra Señora de los Remedios y San Pablo, Laguna del Itza (“Our Lady of Remedy and Saint Paul, Lake of the Itza”).
