The sad thing is that Columbus is still pushed as the discoverer of the Americas and even as the first European to land on the shores of North America. I got into an argument with one of the Curators at the Field Museum (one of my sacred shrines...prior to becoming a developer, I was 3 years into a degree in anthropology, specializing in North and South American prehistory) about this when they opened a new exhibit on Naïve Americans a few years back. They had some signage at the end of the exhibit that said that the first European to land on NA's shore was Columbus. So I went to him asking why that was up there when we know and have known for a fact for quite some time that Leif Erickson was in Newfoundland 1000 years earlier and we even have found Norse settlements there dating something like 600 years before Columbus. There is a whole Norse Saga dedicated to the exploration of the east coast of NA. He told me that they have to show what the public wants. I told him bullshit...as a museum it is your job to educate the people, not perpetuate falsehoods. That really irked me. All Columbus did was find a tiny island in the Caribbean and never set foot on Continental North American soil...and thought he was off the coast of China. I don't celebrate Columbus Day...I view it as a day of mourning...the beginning of the systematic genocide of the North American Indian people stating with the Spanish and their atrocities, both physical and cultural and continuing with the American government's constant dishonorable betrayal of just about every treaty and agreement with the NAI people.
These people had many great cultures that did some pretty amazing stuff considering the technology they had. I had the honor of visiting the Hopewell mounds a couple of summers ago while I was doing a contract in SE Indiana. The Hopewell mounds are located along the Scioto River near Chillicothe, OH. Other mounds in their culture include the mounds just east of St. Louis, MO in Cahokia, IL. The Hopewells had grave goods that were made of materials from the east coast, the gulf coast, the Rocky mountains, and Mexico. One of the more iconic ones is a hand made from Mica that came from West Virginia. I went to the mound that this artifact was excavated from. It stands over 60 feet high, 30 feet across and 60 feet long. The built this mound by carrying buckets made of reeds or wood strips...no excavation equipment...all by hand. There are over 60 something sites in the area and sites in several other states. The materials they used were collected by trading and travelling on foot. Keep in mind that while horses and camels are native to North America, by the time the ancestors of these people came to North America, they were all extinct and they did not see horses until the Spanish brought them here from Europe. That is pretty amazing what they accomplished. On the way to Chillicothe, I stopped at another archaeological site called Ft. Ancient. It was built by the ancestors of today's Cherokee. This site was a massive enclosure built with earthen walls surrounding the site. One side was built up along the ridge of the Little Miami River valley gorge...an incredibly beautiful overlook. This site is a 100 acre complex. The walls, they believe towered up to 40 ft. It gets its name because 19th century excavator thought that the only possible use for this complex would be as a military fort. There is no evidence of this. The scale of this is mind boggling and really a testament to the ingenuity of humans. Again...they didn't have machinery to build all of this. Until Europeans came to North America, they didn't even possess a metallurgical technology, so any digging implements were made of stone, wood, or bone. Pretty amazing people... That's not even getting into the Maya, Aztec, Incas, or the Iroquois Confederation... Eric -----Original Message----- From: LRS Scout [mailto:lrssc...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, May 25, 2012 12:01 PM To: cf-community Subject: Re: 6 Ridiculous Lies You Believe About the Founding of America I knew a lot of it, but there were some neat new things in there. On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 10:42 AM, Sam <sammyc...@gmail.com> wrote: > > http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/20/opinion/garcia-columbus-jewish/index.htm > l > > whodathunk > > . > > On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 10:24 AM, Cameron Childress > <camer...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > > On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 10:09 AM, GMoney <gm0n3...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Blocked! Nerts :( > > > > Hopefully not spoiling it for others... Just for you, they are.... > > > > #6. The Indians Weren't Defeated by White Settlers #5. Native > > Culture Wasn't Primitive #4. Columbus Didn't Discover America: > > Vikings vs. Indians #3. Everything You Know About Columbus Is a > > Calculated Lie #2. White Settlers Did Not Carve America Out of the > > Untamed Wilderness #1. How Indians Influenced Modern America > > > > -Cameron > > > > .. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:351435 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
