Imagine, if you will, a people who had a complex written language that suffered no major changes for more than a thousand years; whose cultural development and intellectual sophistication allowed them to conceive of periods of earth history embracing ninety million years and more. Imagine that this nation employed a civil calendar more accurate than the present Gregorian reckoning, adopted by Europe in the sixteenth century to repair the glaring inaccuracies of the Julian calendar in effect since 46 BC.
Add to these the construction of great and beautiful cities having connecting roads, development of the plastic arts to a pitch as fine as any in the world, and the existence of a highly moral citizenry governed by law and good customs. Finally, imagine that this nation's thinkers employed the revolutionary mathematical concept of the zero or cipher -- without which you can't have a positional system -- in their calendrics and astronomical computations.
What's New:
Cahokia Mounds mark Illinois' most ancient city
While the record of European explorers in Illinois begins with the arrival of Marquette and Joliet in 1673, the chronicle of the Native American inhabitants dates back much further. This far earlier story, still only partially disclosed, reaches back into a dim and mysterious past. Scattered across the region are the relics of a dead and vanished civilization. They have been called the Mound Builders, thanks to the vast monuments of earth which tell of their previous existence.... an existence which is still shrouded in mystery.
Late Archaic Period - Orange Culture -2000 - 1000 BC
The earliest hard evidence we have for Native American occupation of Pelotes and Pinders Islands dates from about 2000 BC. Both islands possesses shell middens (giant oyster trash piles) which are full of fiber-tempered pottery.
Who Were the Tocobago Indians?
Tocobago Indians were a group of prehistoric and historic Native Americans living near Tampa Bay, Florida up until roughly 1760. The archaeological name for this and adjacent groups in late prehistoric (pre-European) times is the Safety Harbor culture.
The Apalachees of Northwest Florida from Mission San Luis
From at least A.D. 1000, a group of farming Indians was living in northwest Florida. They were called the Apalachees. Other Florida Indians regarded them as being wealthy and fierce. Some think the Apalachee language was related to Hitchiti of the Muskhogean language family.
Olmec Gods and Mystical Beliefs
Olmec had many beliefs. Among these beliefs were chaneques which were dwarf trixters who lived in water falls. They also had their own beliefs in cosmology.
