8 Matching Annotations
  1. Aug 2019
    1. There’s a perception that the Old World is the advanced world and transferred all this knowledge to the New one, but we are realizing that they knew a lot, and I think this is one more piece of evidence for that

      It's refreshing to see someone coming to this conclusion based on the research and evidence. It seems most of the time we tend to underestimate the technology that civilizations in this era used.

    2. What happened here is that these rocks were struck by lightning sometime between when they were formed many thousands of years ago, and when they were carved

      It kinda makes you wonder if it wasn't struck by lightning naturally but that the people did it to the rocks intentionally.

    3. The fields found in the statues, however, are far stronger — in some cases nearly four times that of the Earth’s magnetic field.

      That's quite impressive. It's on the same order of magnetisim as the rocks at the Puma Punku site in Bolivia.

    4. artisans carved the figures so that the magnetic areas fell at the navel or right temple — suggesting not only that Mesoamerican people were familiar with the concept of magnetism but also that they had some way of detecting the magnetized spots

      The potbelly statues have very strong magnetic areas on the head and around the belly button suggesting that the people who made them had knowledge of magnetism.

  2. May 2019
    1. Cahokia, as it may have appeared around 1150 CE. Painting by Michael Hampshire for the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.

      This structure reminds me of the pyramids. It's interesting how cultures thoughout the world tend to share the same shapes of structures.

    1. A gradual decline in the Cahokian population is thought to have began sometime after 1200 A.D. and two centuries later, the entire site had been abandoned.

      Interestingly, the Mayan declined around the same time as this civilization began.

    2. Archaeologists have also excavated four, and possibly five, circular sun calendars referred to as Woodhenge.

      Again there is a connection to megalithic architecture's large sundials

    1. There was also an astronomical observatory (“Woodhenge”), consisting of a circle of wooden posts.

      This term "Woodhenge" further points to an acknowledgment of the similarities between this site and other pyramid sites.