Mayan Ruins Found in Georgia

Wow. Fascinating, stunning, and somehow ... obvious.

Whoo-ee! That's awesome. I've always thought that it was a silly assumption that all the great American civilizations had been somehow confined to an area south of what we now call the Rio Grande and that up North the only city builders were the people that the Navajos call Anasazi. We just haven't done enough archeological digs because basically nobody knows where to dig. I hope that this is only the first of some startling discoveries.

Hopefully they will eventually open it to the public. I could make this one on a weekend.

This is amazing. Can't wait to read more about this.

Did you not know about Cahokia?

I'm just 15 miles south of the Aztec Ruins. Not that they have anything to do with Aztecs, but that's what we call them.

Had heard of it. Didn't know much about it. Thanx for the link, Set.

I've visited both Chaco Canyon and Frijoles Canion in your neck of the woods, Rog. Impressive enough, but certainly not indicative of anything as sophisticated as what the Maya had on the Yucatan Peninsula. I spent a day and a night at Chichen Itza back in 1995 and am still haunted by the memories.

If you're ever back, visit the Salmon Ruins. Chaco and Mesa have always seemed kind of dead, if that makes any sense.

Frijoles? I'll have to look into that. Chichen Itza isn't even on the dreamscape.

Went through the article.
It doesn't base the Mayan origin of the ruins on any other characteristic than the name of the site.
Now, it is known that the languages of some tribes in North American have the same origin as the languages of some tribes in Mesoamerica. Just as most Indo-european languages are related among themselves. Most archeologists believe it is because they were different branches derived from the original settling tribes.
A similarity of the language -or of some words or toponyms- does not make a unity of culture.

Now, if you read further down, according to Mark Williams, Director of the University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology, who -the article explains- led an archaeological survey of the Kenimer Mound, and found that the mound had been partially sculpted out of an existing hill then sculpted into a final form with clay, says that "There simply is no evidence in the ground that supports the idea, however, of anything in the Southeast being actually associated with the Maya. Period. Do you think the Mays invented moving dirt? ".

Oh....still, finding archaeological sites is always thrilling!

Same with one of the ruins in Chaco Canyon. There is a section of colonnades in the Chetro Ketl ruin that convinced a few archeologists of a Mexican origin. Like the Aztec Ruins, it was an interesting idea for awhile.

We really don't know anything very much about the people who lived at Chaco Canyon or any of the other excavated sites in that area -- Frijoles Canyon, Canyon deChelly etc. etc. -- beyond what can be discovered from the ruins themselves. It is generally assumed that the people who lived there were the ancestors of present-day Pueblo peoples e.g. the Hopi and the Zuni. This seems a safe enough assumption because the style of the dwellings of all these cultures is similar and the design of present-day artifacts of the Pueblo tribes bears a fairly close reseblance of the artifacts discovered in the ruins. But, interestingly, there is hardly any oral tradition among Hopis or Zunis that would throw some light on their own origins. We know very little about the Anasazi themselves. And the name by which we call them -- Anasazi -- is a Navajo word simply meaning (roughly) the Old Ones.There is not even a consensus among most historians as to whether the so-called Anasazi were still dwellling in their canyon cities when the Athapascan-speaking Navajo came into the country or whether those tiered and terraced homes had already been abandoned at a prior date.

I can not wait to read more about this!