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Judi Lynn

(160,543 posts)
Mon Aug 20, 2018, 11:58 PM Aug 2018

Archaeologists explore a rural field in Kansas, and a lost city emerges


By DAVID KELLY
AUG 19, 2018 | 4:00 AM
| ARKANSAS CITY, KAN.

Of all the places to discover a lost city, this pleasing little community seems an unlikely candidate.

There are no vine-covered temples or impenetrable jungles here — just an old-fashioned downtown, a drug store that serves up root beer floats and rambling houses along shady brick lanes.

Yet there’s always been something — something just below the surface.

Locals have long scoured fields and river banks for arrowheads and bits of pottery, amassing huge collections. Then there were those murky tales of a sprawling city on the Great Plains and a chief who drank from a goblet of gold.

More:
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-kansas-lost-city-20180819-htmlstory.html

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lapfog_1

(29,205 posts)
2. Growing up in Kansas
Tue Aug 21, 2018, 12:07 AM
Aug 2018

we would always put in a 2 to 3 acre garden... plowed it by single blade turn plow hand steered and we frequently dug up pot shards and arrowheads... my dad once found a axe head made from obsidian (dragon glass to you GOT fans).

I think we had like 20 or 30 arrowheads in the collection... some good, others chipped or otherwise flawed. I think our land had once been used as a "manufacturing site" by native Americans... just down the hill from our land there was a rock quarry (flint mostly) that had been there a very long time

Judi Lynn

(160,543 posts)
4. Having those experiences in one's background could make a fanatic of a person! Amazing.
Tue Aug 21, 2018, 01:28 AM
Aug 2018

I don't think it all falls into place for children until they are old enough to get a sense of history.

That would be some kind of experience.

Obsidian axe head. Stunning.

I think I noticed the article said they had trade routes that extended all the way to the Aztec civilization around Mexico City, and I have read that Aztecs used obsidian a lot. It would be fantastic to have that axe head again and have someone examine it.

Have never even seen an ancient axe head in person.

You lived in a great location.

MuseRider

(34,111 posts)
6. I also have a nice collection
Tue Aug 21, 2018, 08:26 AM
Aug 2018

but smaller and nothing really larger than an arrowhead. I do have a nice, shiny black arrowhead that looks like it was never used. All the marks to make it are still there. Mostly I have regular, small arrowheads that are actually all pretty much intact. Lots of sharks teeth too.

We used to go to Burnetts mound as kids, I don't know why maybe just to get us out of the house, and my brothers and I would look all over the place and that is where I found most of them. Now....nothing but grafitti and fencing and apartments and houses all around it. I don't think many consider any of those little things important anymore.

Judi, I read this yesterday and was mesmerized but never had the chance to finish it. Thanks for this reminder. It came up on the phone because I still live around there. I will finish here. Thanks so much for all the wonderful items you bring to our attention.

lapfog_1

(29,205 posts)
7. I've been there... Burnetts Mound, Topeka KS
Tue Aug 21, 2018, 09:45 AM
Aug 2018

Never hunted for arrowheads there.

I remember that in 1966, the EF-5 tornado that took out a lot of the city went right over the mound.

My ex-wife's grandmother lived there and the tornado took out all of the houses directly across the street from her place, but almost didn't touch her house.

I think burnett's mound was also a Native American burial site.

MuseRider

(34,111 posts)
8. I stood outside a mile or so away and watched that tornado
Tue Aug 21, 2018, 01:32 PM
Aug 2018

at the age of 12. It and the seven others that touched down around us that evening were pretty amazing.

I was always told that Chief Burnett was buried there but that is not correct. The ground around it was not to be disturbed, it protected the people from tornados by using spirits of those who had passed. It was respected for years until the great fathers of Topeka decided to run the Interstate right along the sacred base. Then dig out part of it for a big old water tank then start building houses and apartments all around it. Not that I particularly believe in spirits protecting us from tornados but one would have thought that a stupid city could have respected it better than that!

The tornado started just to the Southwest of the city and went to the mound and covered it, picked up a radio guy who still lives after being carried by the storm and dropped. There are videos of it just swallowing the mound. It continued and lifted almost immediately as it left the Northeast city limits. Hmmmmm, I think we should have moved all that construction away from the mound. Most close or on it were distroyed.

It took years and years to recover from it.

ekelly

(421 posts)
5. Both of my parents grew up in Arkansas City, Kansas
Tue Aug 21, 2018, 02:24 AM
Aug 2018

and we still have family living there today. "Ark City" is what they call it. I can't wait to show them this article. Parents are in their 90s now, and live in Chicago, but they will find this very interesting. They used to take me there in the summer to visit relatives. My mom grew up on 3rd Street and my dad grew up on S. A Street.

Judi Lynn

(160,543 posts)
9. Archaeologists Discover The Site Of A Massive Long-Lost City In The US
Wed Aug 22, 2018, 12:18 AM
Aug 2018

Archaeologists Discover The Site Of A Massive Long-Lost City In The US



Archaeologists have unearthed the site of a lost city in the most unlikely of places. This civilization wasn’t found in the thick undergrowth of the jungle, nor was it guarded by evil spirits. It was discovered in an unassuming rural field in the heart of the US.

The Los Angeles Times recently talked to Donald Blakeslee, a Wichita State University professor, who discovered the lost city of Etzanoa in Arkansas City, Kansas, not far from the Oklahoma border. This settlement might have been one of the largest Native American settlements ever built, second only to one in Cahokia, Illinois. Spanish colonialists had written about the city’s vast size and complexity, however, the town had vanished with little trace by 1700.

“The Spaniards were amazed by the size of Etzanoa,” Blakeslee told The Wichita Eagle last year. “They counted 2,000 houses that could hold 10 people each. They said it would take two or three days to walk through it all.”

In 2015, Blakeslee and a team of his students were excavating near Arkansas City when they unearthed a mud-covered rusty piece of metal. Locals have discovered literally tons of metal artifacts in this field over the years, however, something about this discovery clicked in Blakeslee’s mind: the nail looked as if it had been flung from the cannon of a Spanish conquistador.

More:
https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/archaeologists-discover-the-site-of-a-massive-longlost-city-in-the-us/

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