| < Back | Home |
Though it is a reasonable certainty that the African Xi/Olmec of Mexico were originally a part of the Xia/Shang people of China, who crossed the Bering straits and entered the Americas. There is uncertainty as to the origins of other ancient Africans in North America: among these are the Seminoles of Florida, the Tsimshia of Western Canada (not the modern people), the Jamassee of Northern Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina - the Californians, whose legendary Queen Calafia lent her Name to the state of California, the Mississippians of South-central United States. The question is: Are they Australians/Polynesians who migrated North from South/Central America, or are they remnants of the Xi/Olmec who broke-off as the main group headed south into Mexico?
|
Comparative morphological studies of the earliest human skeletons of the New World have shown that, whereas late prehistoric, recent, and present Native Americans tend to exhibit a cranial morphology similar to late and modern Northern Asians (short and wide neurocrania; high, orthognatic and broad faces; and relatively high and narrow orbits and noses): the earliest South Americans tend to be more similar to present Australians, Melanesians, and Sub-Saharan Africans (narrow and long neurocrania; prognatic, low faces; and relatively low and broad orbits and noses).
This study asserts that EVERYONE came across the Bering straits: Blacks - the original Paleoamericans first, and then later, the Mongols.
Quote: "No transoceanic migration is necessary to explain our findings, because Paleoamerican-like humans were also present in East Asia during the final Pleistocene and could perfectly well have entered the New World across the Bering Strait. A final solution to this dilemma will depend of course on a better understanding of what was happening in North America at the same time. Recent archaeological data can be used to support a dual occupation of the New World, either directly or indirectly. Dixon, for example, analyzed the diversity of the projectile points found in the earliest sites of North America and concluded that two different and independent cultural traditions (or cultures) entered the continent in the final Pleistocene. According to Dixon, bow-and-arrow technology was brought to the Americas only by the second tradition, because the atlatl was the primary hunting weapon of the first."
| Note: The Atlatl is found in ancient Africa, ancient Europe, ancient Pacific: But NOT in ancient China! that is at least circumstantial evidence that not everybody came across the Bering straits. |
 |
As is typical with nonsense White man history, there is a seeming need by Whites to denigrate Blacks, whereby any Blacks not in continental Africa, are declared to have been brought there as Slaves. This is not an innocent declaration brought about by ignorance. Quite the contrary, post Colombian Europeans encountered an Americas teeming with Blacks, they wrote about them, painted pictures of them, collected their artifacts, and also counted them in their census. Yet there are any number of Seminole histories, which declare that the so-called "Black Seminoles" are a tribe of run-away Slaves who latched onto the "Real" seminole tribe. Sadly, it may be that the seminoles themselves, like so many indigenous Black people, have lost their own history, and may not even know any better, thereby believing it.
But that bit of White man nonsense, is about as far away from the truth as you can get. According to scientific evidence, the Black Seminoles were the first people to settle in North America (Florida), at a time when the rest of the North was still under glaciers, more than 10,000 years ago. We cannot provide a history or culture for the Seminoles, because all available material is corrupted with nonsense like: they were run-away Slaves, they moved to Florida, the almost total confusion with neighboring Amerindian tribes etc.
 |
| From the study.
Geographical location of other early human skeletal remains in the Americas showing Paleoamerican morphology and their respective chronological range. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Stone MasksSoapstone, painted with red and green pigments; 24 x 22.5 x 18.2 cm. William Duncan, the missionary who established Metlakatla, British Columbia: by unknown means, came into possession of the sighted mask. He offered the stone mask for sale in 1878, it was collected from the missionary by the explorer Alphonse Pinart and donated to the Musée de l'Homme, Paris in 1881. The Ottawa mask was collected in 1879 by Israel Wood Powell, deputy commissioner of Indian Affairs for British Columbia. Although he recorded acquiring the mask at Kitkatla, Powell did not visit the village that year. In view of the confusion in his records, it is probable that he acquired it in another community. One possibility is that both masks originated in Port Simpson. Separated for over one hundred years, the two masks were not reunited until 1975, when the Paris mask travelled to Canada to appear in an exhibition. It was then that the relationship between the two masks, expressions of the same face, was discovered. The Canadian mask, without apertures for eyes, fits snugly over the Paris mask, with its round eyeholes. It is thought that the pair was worn in a naxnox performance, where an individual's personal power was displayed in dance. To present the illusion of the eyes actually opening and closing, the dancer must have turned quickly while removing the "blind" mask to reveal the one with eyeholes. The dancer would have needed considerable strength to hold the four-kilogram (almost 9 lbs.) inner "sighted" mask in place with the wooden mouthpiece, although a harness attached through holes in the mask's rim might have helped support it. The "unsighted" mask may have been held in the hand, concealed by the dancer's costume. The exact age of the masks is unknown, although the Paris museum exhibits theirs in the B.C. collection, indicating that it is over 2,000 years old. The Canadian Conservation Institute, Department of Canadian Heritage, has undertaken an analysis of their mask, but their results are as yet unpublished. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Cultures with Mississippian characteristics began to flourish in the Mid-South around 800 or 900 A.D, and peaked around 1200 to 1500 A.D. The widespread adoption of maize provided a new food source which encouraged permanent (year-round) settlements and growth of populations. Intensive corn agriculture, supplemented with squash, and beans (after 1200 A.D.) provided a surplus of food that could be easily stored and traded. Use of the bow and arrow, tipped with small triangular points, greatly increased hunting efficiency. Advances were also made in pottery technology. Shell-tempering provided stronger vessels and increased cooking efficiency. A variety of vessel forms began to be used and included jars, bowls, bottles, pans, and plates. Also, vessels were made that depicted animals or people (known as effigy vessels), as well as intricately engraved, incised, or painted vessels. Some Mississippians also practiced artificial cranial deformation or head shaping. The spread of these Mississippian culture traits was facilitated by a vast and widespread trade network.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Mississippian period settlements were located predominantly in the floodplains of large rivers. These flooplains offered rich, well-drained, easily tilled soils conducive to the cultivation of maize, squash, and beans. Nearby fish and waterfowl were readily available in these locations and provided an additional source of protein. Also, the harvesting of wild foods, such as nuts and fruits, provided a further source of protein and fat. Animals such as deer, raccoon, and turkey also remained important sources of food.
 |
 |
 |
During the Mississippian period, people began settling in large towns that were the centers of government and religious life. Most Mississippian period towns were built around a central plaza and included one or more large, flat-topped mounds. These mounds were used as a base, or substructure, for temples and houses for the elite members of the community. Plazas provided a large, central, open space for ceremonial and social events. The commoners' lives were led by powerful chiefs and priests who controlled trade, made alliances with neighboring towns, or waged war. Many of the large Mississippian mound centers were fortified by earthen embankments and ditches. These features are barely visible in many places today, due to plowing and development. The Mississippian Period is commonly divided into three subunits: Early, Middle, and Late.
 |
 |
 |
Shell-temper was the new ingredient in pottery. Shell tempered pottery was a true technological innovation that liberalized shape and increased strength. Another benefit of shell tempered pottery was an increased efficiency in cooking.
Arrow points first occur at this time in the Mid-South. The technological advantage of the bow and arrow was to greatly increase hunting efficiency. The discoidal or chunky stone appears also with the inception of the Mississippian period and was used in the chunky game.
Early Mississippian period sites were comprised mainly of farmsteads, hamlets, small villages, and larger villages. The Mississippian population usually was dispersed in farmsteads and villages in order to take the best possible advantage of the environment.
Farmsteads and hamlets were related to central villages, which in turn were related to a larger (paramount) village. Redistribution and storage of surplus took place at the large villages, or administrative centers. The main advantage this type of organization was greater productivity and the ability to support and control larger populations. Surplus food was used in many ways. Storage provided insurance against future crop loss. Another use was to support craft specialization in which work was done in shell, stone, pottery and wood. Surplus was also used for feasts when administrative centers were embellished and repaired. Ceremonies must have taken place often, accompanying planting, harvesting, and with burials of people who held high rank within the community.
 |
Middle period Mississippian began around 1000-1050 A.D. The population was dispersed in farmsteads, hamlets, and small villages in most of the region. At about 1150 A.D. villages became increasingly associated with the ceremonial center, which became a "civic-ceremonial center." Villages also became stockaded with rows of houses with the ceremonial component enclosed inside. Protection of the ceremonial center and the population obviously became increasingly important although archaeological indications of warfare were scarce during this time.
 |
 |
By 1250 A.D, a political system had come into being and was composed of sites which included the previously mentioned civic-ceremonial center with mounds, associated with palisaded villages, surrounded by dispersed farmsteads. Wattle and daub wall trench houses developed but were not widespread.
Above-ground storage probably developed during this period in order to protect surplus foods from small animals. Pottery became fairly standardized and well made. A variety of effigy and painted vessel forms were being produced but were still largely restricted to ceremonial-burial use.
At major sites during the Late Mississippian period, highly distinctive artifacts were deposited in burial mounds. These artifacts were the symbolic of a religious cult in which the chiefly elite were apparently the leading participants. Among these "Southern Ceremonial Complex" objects were axes with the head and shaft carved from a single piece of stone; polished or chipped stone batons or maces; copper pendants decorated with circles or weeping eyes; shell gorgets depicting woodpeckers, rattlesnakes or spiders; pottery vessels decorated with circles, crosses, hands, skulls, rattlesnakes, flying horned serpents, and feathered serpents; copper plates and engraved shell cups portraying male figures (perhaps warriors, or shamans, or deities) wearing eagle or falcon costumes and sometimes carrying a baton in one hand and a trophy head in the other.
Warfare increased between Mississippian societies during this time. This was most likely due to an increase in competition for scarce agricultural land among growing populations. Archaeologically an increase in warfare is evident in several ways. For example, many Mississippian sites were fortified with palisades, skeletons with imbedded arrowheads have been uncovered, scalping or beheading is depicted in artwork; and there are numerous portrayals in Mississippian artwork of scalping or beheading as well as severed trophy heads.
 |
Decoration of the hair may have been more important in this period. Tubular beads made of bone, copper, and conch-shell are found more frequently at sites. Bone fishhooks were in existence long before this Late period but at this time became fairly common.
When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the Southeast in the mid 1500's, the Mid-South region had largely been abandoned. It was formerly believed that the desertion of the Mississippian centers had been the result of a population loss due to the introduction of European diseases. However, as radiocarbon dates have since made clear, the decline in population began more than a century before Europeans set foot in the region. To date, the Mississippian decline has not yet been satisfactorily explained.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Great Plains
Arapaho Indians |
Great Basin
Cahuilla Indians
|
Plateau Region
Cayuse Indians
|
New Southwest
Acoma Indians |
California
Kato Indians
|
Pacific Northwest Achomawi Indians
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| < Back | Home |