Anthropology

Last edited Tue Aug 30, 2022, 01:17 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.