Im a brazillian historian...
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Regional History or Period History
Forum Name: History of the Americas
Forum Discription: The Americas: History from pre-Colombian times to the present
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=31962
Printed Date: 21-May-2024 at 04:10
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Topic: Im a brazillian historian...
Posted By: Alcebiades
Subject: Im a brazillian historian...
Date Posted: 29-Jun-2012 at 12:27
| So yea, if anyone wants to know something about South American history, shoot, but let me warn you that our history is rather dull and boring.(I majored in classical studies, but I still know a good deal about LA history). |
Replies:
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 30-Jun-2012 at 19:07
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Alcibiades, can you tell me about the precolumbian civilisations that predated the Aztecs and Incas? What caused their mysterious disappearance?
------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Alcebiades
Date Posted: 01-Jul-2012 at 14:26
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Hmmm... its not as much that they mysteriously disappeared, but like other illeterate people from the "Old World", we know very little about them because either they left no written records, or we´re not able to translate them. Unfortunetly, we haven´t found a "Rosetta Stone" for a lot of those populations, so their history are left for archaelogist to ponder. The most notable pre-columbian civilizations are the: Olmecs(1.600 B.C.E/900 B.C.E) - Precursors to pretty much every central american civilization that came afterwards, they are the first western civilization to have devoloped a comprehensive writting system and were also responsible for creating the pantheon of anthropomorphics Gods that would become standard for the region for the next 2.500 years (Serpent God, Sun God, Chamaleon God, Jaguar God etc...). The Olmecs are also responsible for creating the first meso-american calendar, called "the long count", from whitch the mayans would borrow from heavilly thousands of years later. Their calendar is extremly accurate, way more than the Babylonian calendar that was standard for Eurasia at that time. They even accounted for bissextus years, adding one day every 4 years which they called "The day outside of time". They also built temples, aqueducts, sacrificed people to the Gods etc... VERY broadly speaking, you can think on them as the "sumerians" of pre-columbia America. In South America, the Nazca Culture(100 C.E/800 C.E) deserves a shout. They are one of the precursors to the Inca, and like them they never developed a writting system, which makes their study extremly problematic. We do know that they made beautiful pottery, statues, and other nice works of art. They are also responsible for creating the breathtaking "Nazca Lines", which has archaeologists to these days still scratching their heads to figure out 1-) How they made them and 2-) What do they mean. They seemed to have worshiped a "Sun God", an "Orca God", a "Spider God", a "Puma God" and other anthropomorphic Gods. They probably disappeared due to volcanic Global warming, which made their region suffer from terrible floods. Their civilization was also situated on a region of strong tectonic activity, so its likelly they suffered a couple of 8+ Ritcher Scale earthquakes. Such earthquakes are still terribly common on the region. |
Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 01-Jul-2012 at 14:35
| Is the script of the Olmecs readable? As far as I know the oldest deciphered American script is the Maya script and dates back to 300 BC. |
Posted By: benzin
Date Posted: 01-Jul-2012 at 19:03
Dear Alcebiades, is this writing familiar to you ?
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Posted By: Alcebiades
Date Posted: 02-Jul-2012 at 12:23
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Hmmm... not really... I'm fairly sure it isn't Aztec or Mayan, but I'm by no means qualified to give you a reliable opinion on this subject. Some characters are similar to that of the Olmecs, like the odd shaped "S" and the circle with 3 pointed triangles on the inside. Most of the characters are completely unknown to me though. But yea, as someone already pointed out, a lot of the Pre-columbian scripts have never been deciphered, and probably never will. This is partly because the Spanish burned every single ancient text they could find in the Americas, calling them "works of the devil." A real bummer.
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Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 27-Jul-2012 at 20:11
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Alcibiades, what do you know about the ancient city of Tiwanaku, said to date back to 1500 BC?
------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Sander
Date Posted: 28-Jul-2012 at 09:34
Is that a metal plate? Gold? Crespi collection?
From where and when?
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