Unknown Story of Ancient North America

Episode 1: Unknown Story of Ancient North America

Ancient Civilizations of North America

Dr Edwin Barnhart (2018)

Film Review

Evidence Barnhart gives for pre-European civilizations in North America includes

Cities of thousands of people
Palaces
Roads connecting cities
Kings
Councils
Astronomers
Architects
Artists
Musicians

There are numerous reasons why there is limited public knowledge, including the absence of writing systems in ancient North America, the tendency of new more primitive cultures to arise on the same sites as earlier civilizations and (following European contact) the mass die (from infectious disease) elders who knew the history of past civilizations, as well as the massive displacements that followed colonization.

Barnhart goes on to talk about the importance of DNA studies in understanding the history of pre-European North American residents. He divides them into two major groups: the Mississippian mound builders of eastern North America and the desert dwellers of the Southwest. The latter built apartment complexes housing thousands of people, as well as thousands of miles of complex hydraulic irrigation systems.

The Mississippians built pyramids the size of mountains. Though they look like mounds now, at the time they were angular structures covered with painted hard packed plastic covers. They were terraced with frontal ramps or staircases and topped with lavish palaces or temples. The explorer Herando De Soto writes about sleeping in several of these palaces.

The Louisiana pyramids, dating back 5,000 years, are as old as the Egyptian pyramids. The cities surrounding the pyramids featured hundreds of acres of public plazas, sports courts and fortified walls and thousands of residents. Their elaborate art work suggests a shared religion.

There were five civilizations at different times in the Southwest. Only the Ancestral Pueblo endured past European contact.

The Southwest people were master architects, engineers and masons. In addition to adobe apartments housing 900-1150 residents, they built astronomically aligned great houses and roads extending for hundreds of miles in all directions.

The  Hohokam in Arizona designed an irrigation system that turned hundreds of acres of desert green with corn and cotton. This civilization faded away in the 1300s, leaving behind hundreds of miles of irrigation canals.

In addition to these civilizations, North America hosted hundreds of complex hunter-gatherer cultures that were just as nuanced as medieval Europe.

Barnhart also includes a lengthy discussion in this lecture regarding the increasing unreliability of carbon 14 testing associated with higher background radiation levels also with atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. According to Barnhart, 99% of carbon materials are carbon 12, with 1% radioactive carbon 14. When a plant or animal dies, the carbon 14 begins to decay to carbon 12. Theoretically the amount of carbon 14 remaining, should allow a scientist to estimate when death occurred. However high levels of background radiation and ease of contamination make other more recent dating approaches more reliable.

Tree ring dating is extremely reliable in dry areas where wood is unlikely to decay. Optically stimulated luminescence uses a variety of radioactive isotopes to date quartz, feldspar and other mineral grains that have been heated by the sun.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/5712738