ARK 2nd midterm Flashcards
LANS AUX MEADOWS
6 things
Northernmost tip of newfoundland
Only undisputed archaeological evidence of Norse in North America
Carbon dating and tree-ring evidence : AD 990-1050
Occupied sporadically for 20 years
land was perfect but dipped because of scraelings (other people who lived there who arguements)
Discovered by Anne Stine Ingstad while looking for Vinland mentioned in Icelandic sagas
How do we know this is norse site in Lans Aux Meadows, what seperates it from claims of vikings in americas:
- Requires cold-weather adaptations and advanced knowledge of North Atlantic seafaring
- Icelandic Sagas had detailed information on voyages to Vinland and other parts of Maritimes
- Sod dwellings resemble known archaeological sites in Greenland associated with the Norse
- Over 800 Norse objects recorded from site
Kensington Runestone 5 things
Discovered by Olof Ohman 1898 in central Minnesota
Greywacke stone
records tale of scandinavian explorers in 14th Century
Edwards beleived that Olof ohman forged it for Scandinavian nationalism (true)
Walter thought made just before, so it was an artifact, just wasn’t made as far back as they thought
Mystery Hill 7
North Salem, New Hampshire
has stone structures and features
build by ancient Europeans (Irish Culdee monks)
Had Sacrificial Table:
Assumed to be sacrificial table but has no evidence of human blood, similar sacrificial tables in antiquity
Only “evidence” is that it looks like table
actually used as press to create apple cidar and soapes
Europeans in New World Before Columbus 3 things
Irish priest St. Brendan embarked on seven-year trip into Atlantic Ocean
Navigatio is story of saint brendan that was published into a book:
Wrote testament of saint Brendan coming to America not true cause no archeological evidence
Barry Fell, what did he disprove 3
St Brendan comming first to new world
Harvard marine biologist
provided apearing to be true evidence of explorations of Americas by Iberians (spain and portugal), Celtics, Greeks, ancient Hebrews, and Egyptians
overview of mound builders 6
Hypothesis as they believed people who were there weren’t smart enough to build these structures so there must have been another preceding society that was smart enough to build them
Hopewell Earthworks:
Consisted of burial mounds, astronomically-aligned geometric constructs, effigy mounds shaped as animals
Octagon Earthwork, apart of Newark Earthwork in Central Ohio:
60 hectares / 100 football pitches
Tracked 18.6 cycle of minimum and maximum lunar risings and setting on local horizon
Cahokia : The Paramount Center 7
Occupied from: AD 1000-1350, Cahokia (current Illinois)
Largest and best known Mississippian centers
Losers without allies and same ideology, combined forces and made Cahokia
Most-expansive pre-Columbian settlement
Sacred precinct where elites lives
Monks Mound:
Largest architectural monument north of Mexico
Cultural Evolution In The 19th Century 6, what did it assume, 4
Lewis Henry Morgan:
Ancient Society 1877
Suggested culture evolves progressively with stages of “technology”:
Savagery - Fishing, bow and arrow - aboriginals
Barbarism - Ceramics, domestication of plants and animals, metal working - Native Americans
Civilization - Writing, phonetic alphabet, creation of laws - Greeks, Europeans
Assumed:
Racialized worldview (some more civilized)
Justification for European Colonial Rule
Therefore assumed Indians incapable of the works of art that characterized mound-builder culture
Therefore thought to have been an ancient vanished American race
Grave Creek Stone
Discovered 1838 at Grave Creek Mound, West Virginia
Jesse and Abelard Tomlinson excavation
inscribed with 25 alphabet and pseudo alphabetical characters
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft first to examine, concluded contained a mix of Greek, Etruscan, Runic, Gallic, old Erse, Phoenician, Celtiberic
M.C. Reid studied stone and conducted experiment:
Ask 4 people create arbitrary characters
Characters resembled Old World alphabets
Concluded no reason beleive creek stone contained Old World inscriptions
David Oestreicher suggested inscription forged by James W. Clemens (loval physician who funded original excavations)
Source of inscriptions found in 18th century volume, “An Essay on the Alphabets of the Unknown Letters That are Found in the Most Ancient Coins and Monuments of Spain”
Newark Holy stones
Artifacts of stone bowl decalogue and keystone
found in Hopewell mounds with inscriptions
David Wyrick found decalogue that had writing in modern hebrew and they discredited, so he remade them in ancient hebrew because he wanted people to beleive the ancient people were from hebrew
Myth of vanieshed race
many people thought First nations werent connected to mound building culture. 5 arguments:
- Too primitive (couldnt produce stone metal and clay)
- More ancient than earliest remnants of Indian culture
- Bore inscriptions in European Asian and African alphabets
- Native people werent building mounds when first contacted by Europeans, and were ignorant of them when questioned
- there was materials in mound that were beyond tech knowledge of natives
Early Examinations of the Mounds
Thomas Jefferson :
President of US
One of first to Argue against “Lost Race” theory for origin of earthworks
Observing Monacan Indian ceremony on mound in Virginia
Associated the Monacans as descendants of mound builder culture
Directed excavation of Virginia Indian burial mound
Found artifacts/human remains from primary/secondary interments
Saw continuity btw cultural remains and existing Native groups
Cyrus Thomas and the Bae:
Prior to mound exploration he believed they were built by advanced race that no longer exists
Conducted a lot of research in many areas which became cornerstone of modern scientific archaeology, laying rest to myth of lost race of mound builders
His reports specifically addressed 5 questions
He also discredited the bat creek stone cause rendered poorly and was a mix of languages
Atlantis Squarepantis
legend attributed to Plato (appeared in his dialogues: Timaeus and Critias)
Used Atlantis as platonic dialogues to illustrate there ideas and characteristics of an ideal city-state
Atlantis is a plot device in story of Athens:
Timaeus is just the existence of atlantis and how they fought with athens
Critias:
Atlantis the antagonist is an empire gone bad
Its defeat is example of how perfect society can defeat the most powerful empire
Afterwards Atlantis disappeared into the depths of the sea after a single day and night of earthquakes and floods
LOOK AT COMET STRIKE
SAY RED FOR THIS TO KEEP GOING BACK
Ancient Astronauts: The Source Of The Idea
Instrumental in scientific applications for search for extraterrestrial life (SETl)
Radio astronomer Frank Drake established project Ozma to use National Radio Astronomy Observatory to scan for E.T. radio signals in distant star systems
Co-designed Pioneer Plaque as the first physical message sent to space, designed Arecibo Message (first radio message deliberatly sent from earth), and crafted Voyager Golden Record
Best known for Drake Equation, attempt to estimate # E.T. civilizations in Milky Way Galaxy
Carl Sagan worked closley with Drake as he was a graduate student of his that was impressed by Drakes ideas
He published the article Direct Contact among Galactic Civilizations by Relativistic Interstellar Spaceflight, using scientific methods to explore ideas about “ancient astronauts”
REVIEW DRAKE EQUATION
Fermi Paradox
Contradiction of high likelihood of E.T. life yet lack of evidence
Possible explanations:
E.T. life is rare or non-existent
Periodic extinction by natural events
E.T. exists but not developed interstellar space travel technology
Could be nature of intelligent life to destroy itself/others
Civilizations only broadcast detectable signals for brief time
Alien life may be too alien
No thanks, Earth peoples… get your shit together and well talk
Inkblot test: Ancient Egyptian Light Bulbs
Dendera Light is motif in Hathor Temple, Dendera, Egypt, its one of best preserved in Egypt
It depicts Egyptian creation myth
They put salt in light tech to reduce lamp black deposit, which Van Danican attributed to aliens
The Inkblot Test: NAZCA Lines
Nazca culture created numerous Geoglyphs in dry desert southern Peru
Some of Geoglyphs are animals not found not locally, but from opposite side of Amazon
Many of the Geoglyphs best seen from air and surrounding foothills and mountains
Also depicted rising sun and astronomy
Van danican said aliens made lines cause mexicans
Mariah reiche was first to study lines, and said it was the nazcas
The Inkblot Test: Pakal, Space Explorer?
K’inich Janaab PAKAL ruled for 68 years a longest reigning monarch in history of Americas
Reign saw turbulent wars btw Palenque and snake dynasty centered at Calakmul
During his time Palenque commissioned some of Maya civilizations finest art and architecture, including his famous sarcophagus
Van danican thought his sarcaphagous (as he was entoumbed in pyramid) was alien
Pyramid Power
Egypt:
118 built, Who built them?
Most built as tombs for pharaohs and their consort during old and middle kingdom periods
If ancient aliens responsible for pyramids we would expect to see technology magically appear in final form
We wouldnt expected to see:
Gradual evolution of megalithic monuments
Failed attempts at pyramid construction
Work quarters and other spaces associated with construction needs
Records detailing pyramid building events
Cultural and religious associations with pyramid structures pre dating pyramid construction
We see evidence of tumuli in Sahara
Egyptians with sufficient means (not just pharaohs) were buried in single level bench-like structures known as mastabas
Mesoamerica:
Maya pyramids added to accretional manner with construction related to end of cyclical 20 year K’atun period
Construction of single pyramid intermittently span period 1000 years or more??????? progressively build????????
take a long time
Pyramids connected to and symbolized witz (hollow mountain deity)
Considered living that required ritual offereings
Contained multiple burials/tombs as well as caches with jade, obsidian blades used in bloodletting rituals, lithic in shape of various animals and insects, and even bowls of human fingers
No alien artifact has bee found in these pyramids
E.T. Aliens in Pacific
Rapa Nui is small island extremely remote with nearest inhabited island over 2000km away, nearest continental point is 3500km away
First recorded contact was European on easter sunday by Jacob Roggeveen
Moai carved by Rapa nui people
Paro was tallest moai erected, 82 tonnes, 13 elephants
Half of Moai are still at Rano Raraku, main quarry on island, rest on islands perimeter
Theory Heyerdahl was moving moai upright with ropes
archaeologists terry hunt and carl lipo studied and supported theory of upright “walking” with ropes
legends of people commanding the rocks to walk so they did
Bartalome de las Casas
first natives of free will and wouldnt assimilate and cant convert by force to christianity
he lead to charles the first of spain putting in rules to avoid exploitation and mistreatment
subduction
when a tectonic plate goes under another
minoans
Beleived platos story of atlantis was mimicked after atlantis, but the only similarity was a palace, which could have been any society
Caleb at water
mounds were more than indians but less than europeans
Bat Creek
8 distinct characters 9 berial grounds
debunked by cyrus thomas, said it was cherokee language
cyrus gordon said it was a paleo hebrew for “for the jews”
both beleived fraud
madoc tale
about power politics
story saying that Madoc (the prince of wales) went to the new world so that britain had claim over the new world
Zheung he expidtion
chinese had advanced boats
Gavin menzies claimed the chinese made it to new world. His proof is they only had 6 out of 7 voyages recorded, 7th was to the new world
(thought could be true cause theres evidence of them making it to other places like africa)
olmec african
meixcans built stone heads that looked African, with big African lips. So they thought the Africans got there first
helena blavatsky
co-founded theosphical society that beleived in root races being:
Lemurians
Atlantsiance
Etheric
Hyperborean
Aryan
Point Rosay
Satalite thought there was an archaeological site of norse people, but when parcak pursued she found nothing
Davenport
inscrbed slate tablest
found my reverent jacob gas
beleived that he was tricked by his collegues since they were finding better stuff than they were, so they set this up to destroy his name
bimimi walls
roads and walls found underwater that they thought was part of atlantis
