2.18 America: a.d. 401 to 500  (Page 2/2)

The Mogollon Culture farther to the east continued as previously and it is apparent in the literature that not all writers separate this from the Hohokam and/or Anasazi cultures, but in some respects it is definitely unique. (Ref. 210 )

Mexico, central america, and the caribbean

This may have been the zenith of the Teotihuacan civilization which was the spiritual metropolis of Mexico. Despite a century of modern research no one still is able to say for certain who built this great city, what language they spoke or why they suddenly seemed to vanish. It overlooked a fertile valley with plenty of water and great supplies of obsidian, the raw material for utensils and weapons of great sharpness. Nine-tenths of the city is still buried today. (Ref. 176 )

There was also continued growth of the Maya centers of Yucatan with extensive trading including the importation of salt, obsidian and other minerals such as hematite, pyrite and jade. Craftsmen, accountants, commercial diplomats and other experts were needed to run this network. (Ref. 215 ) According to Principal Epochs of the Ancient History of Yucatan, written in the Maya language from memory by an elderly Indian and translated by the 19th century Don Pio Perez

This century marked the end of the Period IV in Costa Rican history and was marked by the prolific jade carvings. The best quality jadeite may have been brought to Costa Rica from the north, indicating more and more contact with other Mesoamerican cultures.

Perhaps ceremonial metates, maceheads and jades were used there by an elite group who held these items as badges of office. Most of the jades take the form of the axe-god in which a forest clearing tool makes up the lower half of a pendant. (Ref. 265 )

South america

In the heart of the central coast of Peru there is a long archeological gap from the time of the Chavin Society to about A.D. 450 when the Early Lima or the Maranga Society appeared with the building of a number of ziggurats on a large hacienda. Maranga territory, as revealed by pottery remains, stretched from the Chillon to the Lurin valleys. The people probably used lateral canals for irrigation. By the beginning of the 20th century there were still about 75 of their great pyramidal mound dwellings in and around Lima but they are gone now. In the lower Chillon Valley there are the ruins of a vast rectangular enclosure 700 feet long, made of trapezoidal clay blocks, each weighing several hundred pounds. They also made long, high, straight walls, miles long, running obliquely to the river bank. These people apparently came from "nowhere" and disappeared again after a few centuries.

During this same period the Tiahuanaco Society flourished in the high Andes. (See multiple previous centuries). In the south the Nazcas may have reached their apex with the construction of the puzzling giant geometric shapes and outlines of animals and plants, made by arranging stones in lines covering some 200 square miles and actually identifiable only from the air. Tons of small stones were so used and strings were stretched from posts to keep the lines straight. Carbon dating of some of the post remains indicates A.D. 500. Maria Reiche, who has spent her adult life in these desert drawings, believes that they are forms of a giant calendar. Another possibility is that they were part of a fertility cult.

In Columbia, 250 miles south-west of Bogata, in a dense forest there are more than 300 large stone statues, some 14 to 21 feet tall, some with teeth like cats and some which seem to be feeding on the children they are holding. Carbon - 14 dating indicates that these were made between this 5th and the 12th centuries. A certain affinity of these statues to those of Easter Island gives some further credence to Thor Heyerdahl's theories of South American migrations into the Pacific. (Ref. 62 , 176 )

Forward to America: A.D. 501 to 600

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