American Excavation

In "Unearthing America's Ancient History: Investigation Suggests That the Maya May Have Designed the First Astronomical Observatory in the New World in Order to Cultivate Corn," Mr. Sylvanus Griswold Morley first tutors us on the difference between archeology and history.  "Archeology brings man's record forward from the remotest past to the dawn of history . . . begins when man as a species had become a biologic fact, 500,000, a million years ago."  "History carries on this strong story through written records - hieroglyphic inscriptions, cuneiform tablets, papyri, codices, chronicles, books, and documents of a description - down to the present day . . . not more than 7,000 years old at the outside, the closing chapter only in the story as a whole"  (National Geographic Magazine, July, 1931, p. 99).  This is important knowledge for us travelers through time and continents.

"Just as rice is the food staple of Asia, and wheat of Europe, so in ancient times Indian corn . . .was the food staple of America" (p. 100).  The cultivation of corn brought about a change in the way native peoples lived.  Instead of the nomadic life of hunting and moving on after an area was hunted out, cultivation of corn required staying in a fixed area.  Permanent homes then could be built.

It was the Maya Indians who widely cultivated corn and thus needed a reliable calendar for planting and harvesting.  "Perhaps as early as the beginning of the first millennium B.C. a number of time periods, especially the length of the year and of a lunation, had been accurately measured" (p. 108).  Next, they developed simple writing to record their calendar and religious ceremonies.  "The birth of the New World history was at hand" (p. 109).

 "They seemed to have moved southeastward into the great forests of what is now northern Guatemala" (p. 109).  Then the Mayans founded cities, built stone pyramid temples by the hundreds.  Many crafts were created: painting, pottery, weaving, and wood carving, to name several.

The Maya moved on for the second time to the Yucatan Peninsula where they reached a period of brilliance "in the 11th to 14th centuries.  Architecture, for example, reached a development never before attained" (p. 112).  Chichen Itza became their capital.

"The Temple of the Warriors is the most imposing structure excavated at Chichen Itza.  From a state of almost hopeless ruin it has been restored in a manner worthy of its original importance" (photo caption, p. 117).  I find it amazing that this ruin was even discovered, let alone excavated, in 1931, since it was covered by dense jungle after being abandoned in the middle of the 15th century!

The city of Uaxactun, "on the basis of the dated monuments. . . is the oldest center of the Mayan civilization. . .The arrangement of temples and pyramids . .formed a sort of giant sundial for determining the positions of the equinoxes and solstices in the year" (p. 114).  This information was used by the agricultural population of the surrounding country in regulating the different activities of their agricultural year, the felling and burning of the bush, planting and harvesting, with the ceremonies appropriate to each occasion" (p. 115).

Unfortunately, a civil war weakened their empire that "when the Spaniards arrived, a hundred years later, the warring remnants of this once great people fell an easy victim to the shock of foreign conquer" (p. 113).

The author concludes that "It is far too early to write the final history of this period."  I look forward to reading more recent reports of this ancient American civilization.