Re: America's Stonehenge 2

["darwin ramsey" <darwinramsey@hotmail.com>]

Maybe it is too many years in academia but I think Pohl is an idiot.  I have 
read his works and am seriously unimpressed with his science.  I am not 
saying that some trade may have been going on, however, it is going to take 
a great deal more than a site that has been sacked through the years to fit 
someone's ideal history to convince me.

As to the artifacts from Latin America.  We (the archaeological community in 
the US) know that the cross-country migration of the ice age was not the 
first.  Early people migrated along the western coast all the way into South 
America.  We have early dates there.  In fact, that was the first place the 
pre-12,000 years ago date was discovered.  However, here in South Carolina 
we now have uncovered evidence of a pre-12,000 occupation.

There are huge sites throughout the Mid-West and the Mississippi River 
Valley that make this site (Stonehenge 2) look ridiculous.  We are talking 
about mounds that are hundreds of feet high and cover acres.  There are 
detailed astronomical calendars.  In the Southwest there are the pueblos and 
the Nez Perez (sp?) graphics on the desert floor that cover huge expanses of 
land.  Cahokia covered several miles and approximately 4,000 people lived 
there during its height.  Moundville is also about that large (2,500 to 
3,000 residents).  The rulers in these places had subject areas that 
extended for miles in all directions.  They had complicated alliances and 
trade groups.  They produced complicated weapons and beautiful artwork.  
They were a very sophisticated people.  They had to disband because their 
population outgrew the resources.  Once the population dispersed they forgot 
their glory and their cities fell to dust.  People moved around and often 
groups that occupied the areas later had nothing to do with the original 
city at all.  They could not explain these huge sites to the Europeans and 
so the ethnocentric Europeans assumed that the aboriginal population didn't 
build these sites.

My point is, there is lots of evidence for Indians to have constructed this 
site and NONE for Europeans, Mynoans, Egyptians, etc.  Remember, European 
descendants wrote that description including the reference to 'Baal.'  I am 
unimpressed.  I write copy like that but we try to avoid words that most 
people won't understand or taht will confuse the audience.  I work with 
museums and interpretive centers.  I know too well what goes on behind the 
scenes to take such a reference on face value.

Please, I know about archaeology.  I have spent the last 14 years doing 
archaeology and getting paid for it.  It is a different perspective that 
doing volunteer work.  Volunteer work is a great deal more fun.  I have to 
have references for everything I do.  If it is a "new" discovery I need a 
great deal of evidence to support my claim.  One piece of copy on an 
interpretive display doesn't make it.  I am not politically correct by any 
stretch of the imagination.  However, many years of research support my 
claim that the aboriginal residents of the US have been treated as second 
class citizens because they were "too stupid and primitive" to build 
anything like this.

I just don't believe that Europeans had to rush over here and build this 
structure.  I think the people who were already here had the knowledge and 
technology to do so just like the British Isles aboriginal population had to 
build Stonehenge.



>


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