Oldest human-made structure in the Americas is older than the Egyptian pyramids

[Judi Lynn]

Last edited Sat Aug 27, 2022, 12:16 PM - Edit history (1)

By JoAnna Wendel published about 13 hours ago

The grass-covered mounds represent 11,000 years of human history.



Students pictured walking past two large grassy mounds on the LSU campus
The LSU Mounds can be found at the north end of Louisiana State University's campus. (Image credit: LSU)

To find the oldest known human-made structures in the Americas, you don't need to hike into the wilderness or paddle down a raging river — all you need to do is visit Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

At the north end of Louisiana State University's (LSU) campus sit two grassy mounds, rising in a gentle slope to a height of about 20 feet (6 meters). The mounds are just two of more than 800 similar human-made mounds in Louisiana, built by Indigenous Americans. Although researchers knew they were old, a new study has determined just how old these ancient structures are.

The grassy surface hides layers of ancient clay, dirt and ash. And researchers recently found that the oldest mound is 11,000 years old, making it the oldest human-made structure discovered in either North or South America.

"There's nothing known that is man-made and this old still in existence today in the Americas, except the mounds," study first author Brooks Ellwood, emeritus professor of geology and at LSU, said in a university statement(opens in new tab). The research was published in the June issue of Yale University's American Journal of Science(opens in new tab).

More:
https://www.livescience.com/oldest-human-made-structure-americas

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[GreenWave]

2. I wonder if there is a Cahokia Mounds connection?

https://cahokiamounds.org/

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thanks for sharing the video, it really helps flesh out the image of the ancient society.

Fascinating seeing the structures as they would have appeared, they surely resemble their counterparts in Mexico and Central America! Amazing!

The video helps realizing just how large the "mounds" really were. It was a huge undertaking building them.

[wnylib]

4. Big time difference between Cahokia and

the ancient Louisiana mounds. But I guess it's possible that the Louisiana mounds influenced the building of other mounds several millennia later, as an idea passed down for hundreds of generations.

[GreenWave]

5. Sorry for the lengthy delay

Back in the PC saddle again.

I am seeing in many ancient cultures the lack of trumpeting what they do. China for example probably reached West into California building rudimentary walls and on the East Coast the word Appalachia is said to be Chinese in origin.

So what we know we often need several grains of salt as new intel is coming in frequently.

Barcelona claims Criistofer Colom as their own. After the first of 4 voyages he betrays nascent Spain and goes to Portugal seeking financing. This would lead to the line of demarcation. I suspect the Inquisition did not view too kindly his unholy approach and he may he been partially expunged. (As an anecdote, once the Spanish Inquisition decided that Quixote was blasphemous and subject to a 250 year ban, the French Inquisition swept in and helped distribute it in the New World making the early versions extremely popular.)

Others will rob and plunder never once publicizing their nefarious deeds so they can repeat and repeat

Here we also have possibilities of Aztecs starting out in the Great Lake regions, normally dominating where they went. Major exception the Apache. They are often credited with building pyramids when I last left off, those were built by Teotihuacanes and that fame would be usurped.

To your point mounds are in many places in the US. Perhaps they last longer and can reach heights in regions where stone is not the preferred tool of the trade.
Sorry for rambling.

[wnylib]

6. A few points about languages and word origins

Last edited Tue Aug 30, 2022, 12:17 AM - Edit history (1)

along with origins of groups, like the Aztecs.

The word Appalachia derives from the Muskogee linguistic family. There were several tribes whose languages were in the Muskogee family. The best known are the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Alabama. They were part of the forced removal on the Trail of Tears.
Their native region was mostly in NW Florida, Alabama, and North as far as Kentucky.

Aztec legend says that they were from a place called Aztlan, but the exact location is unknown, except that it was north of what is now Mexico. The Aztecs called themselves Mexica. Their lanhuage, Nahuatl, is part of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family. The tribes that speak a Uto-Aztecan language are all from the American West, Southwest, and Mexico. If the Aztecs had been from the Great Lakes region, they would have spoken a language from either the Soiuan or the Algonquian language family. Siouan speaking people were in the western Great Lakes region. Algonquian speakers were in the mid to western part of the Great Lakes. In the eastern Great Lakes region, the people were culturally and linguistically Iroquoian. No Aztecs there.

Once an architectural style or cultural custom is established, it can sometimes be followed for centuries, or even millennia. We don't know who was the first person in the world to create an arch or steps for building construction, but once both things were developed, human beings have been using arches and steps in constructions ever since. Both concepts were developed independently in various parts of the world and continue into modern times.

So, those 11,000 year old mounds in Louisiana show us that people were building mounds that long ago. The custom apparently lived on well after that in North America because mounds are found throughout eastern and Midwestern North America, built at different times, by different cultural societies, and with varying ustoms and beliefs, depending on the cultures that built them.

The city of Cahokia existed from about 1050 C.E. (AD) to 1350 C.E. The mounds were probably built before the city developed and grew. That was the usual pattern with mound building societies. The mounds were ceremonial centers that eventually developed into villages at the site, or into a large city in the case of Cahokia. But the Cahokia mounds were built aboutc10,000 years later than the Louisiana mounds.

I've seen the mounds built by the Hopewell and Adena cultures in Ohio. The Adena were first (500 BCE to 100 CE). The Hopewell dates are 100 BCE to 500 CE. (No my memory is not that good. I had to look up the exact dates.) These cultures were made up of different, unrelated societies who shared common religious and burial customs in the building of mounds. The Adena and Hopewell were centered in Ohio but extended to surrounding states, especially the Hopewell. They traded long distances, into northwestern PA and southwestern NY where some Hopewell artifacts can be found today.

As the shared mound customs and ceremonies spread, they evolved into the Mississippian Culture throughout the Midwest and Southeast along the Mississippi and its tributaries.

An analogy would be the evolution of Christianity out of the older Jewish culture and religion. Non Jews gave their religion's Jewish roots their own interpretation. For 2000+ years various Christian sects have shared some common traditions but have been influenced by a variety of cultures that adopted Christianity. The mounds builders seem to have shared religious customs although they were a diverse group of prople.

I am skeptical about the Chinese reaching American. Not enough evidence to confirm it.