Aztalan, Cahokia, Mississippian People, and Ireland?

Cultural diffusionism refers to the idea that certain practices and unique images, stories, or other items from one culture end up part of another culture when the two cultures meet.  After visiting the wonderful Milwaukee Public Museum and doing some further research, I am even more convinced of the idea that the old and new worlds were very connected before the time of Columbus.

As I mentioned in my books, the Ho-Chunk have the story of Red Horn in which two tribes were fighting and to end the fighting, a marriage between Red Horn and a Red-haired giantess was made.  The pottery displayed from Aztalan had a design very similar to a Celtic spiral.  And now, I have found a paper stating that strontium analysis was done on the human skeletal material from Aztalan and Cahokia and the conclusions were that some of the persons from Aztalan were born in or near Cahokia.

There are red-haired mummies found in Peru and recently European mummies (8,000 years old) were found in a Florida bog (Windover Bog).  One further piece of information to me besides the comparative mythology and scattering of European mummies, is the useage of mounds and mound effigies.  This was a common practice done in Ireland all through out Celtic Europe.  Of particular interest to me is the Man-Mound found in Baraboo, Wisconsin.  It is a horned man effigy.  Please take a look at what the man-mound looks like at this site:

http://www.saukcountyhistory.org/societyparkssites/manmoundpark.html


Now look at an item that was on display at the MPM from Peru:

What I find interesting is the similarity of the Man Mound in Baraboo and this item from Peru.  It reminds me of Cernunnos:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Detail_of_antlered_figure_on_the_Gundestrup_Cauldron.jpg

The horned man is a common theme in Southwestern Petroglyphs in America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Newspaper_rock.jpg

It is also found in an old image of Shiva-Pashupati from India:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shiva_Pashupati.jpg

With recent discoveries of the drug Cocaine and Tobacco in the ancient mummies of Egypt, the fact that cross-Atlantic or trans-oceanic travel occurred thousands of years ago is a fact as Cocaine and Tobacco were only found in MesoAmerica and South America during that time period.

I believe the evidence is mounting that trans-Atlantic travel in both directions occurred often and thousands of years ago and that many cultures have blended together as well as the blending of tribes from Europe and Pre-Columbus North, Central, and South America.

Perhaps I will write a paper on this and submit to an anthropology publication for the record.


by Rita Jean Moran (www.thelibrarykids.com)



Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Man_Mound.jpg

http://www.saukcountyhistory.org/societyparkssites/manmoundpark.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cernunnos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Detail_of_antlered_figure_on_the_Gundestrup_Cauldron.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shiva_Pashupati.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Newspaper_rock.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroglyph

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact_hypotheses

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture

Milwaukee Public Museum

I just visited the Milwaukee Public Museum in Wisconsin.  What a great museum it is.  In fact, I would say it was one of the best museums in regards to archaeology from cultures around the world.  I would say that it ranks up with my favorite museums including the Chicago Oriental Institute Museum and The Chicago Field Museum.  They had many artifacts from ancient cultures around the world along with some replicas of famous ancient artifacts.  If you look at their site, they are announcing plans to bring in hologram technology as part of their displays to further improve education of ancient cultures.

http://www.mpm.edu/

http://www.mpm.edu/collections/research/grants/

The Milwaukee Public Museum is planning a major new exhibition centered on ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome, utilizing not only current information and interpretations, but new technologies beyond traditional presentation methods. For one element of this initiative, the Museum was awarded funding from the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) to develop a proof-of-concept for a 3-D high-definition, full color true holographic or holographic-like exhibit of a virtual mummy unwrapping. Egyptian mummies have been a long-term research interest of the Project Director.

I took some photographs while I was there and would like to show you them.

Greek Pottery and Artifacts:

Some Artifacts From Aztalan:

The above pottery piece from Aztalan has a design on it that is very similar to Celtic design.  Here is the entrance stone to NewGrange (Irish megalithic structure) with the spiral pattern:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Newgrange,_Ireland.jpg

The spiral was used extensively in Irish and other Celtic culture.  They also showed an object called the Aztalan brick.  It was made from clay and straw and looked like concrete when hardened. 

I will continue to post some of the amazing pictures I took at the museum.  There were artifacts from cultures I did not know about from ancient Mesoamerica and South America.  Once again, I would say what a great job the Milwaukee Public Museum has done.

By Rita Jean Moran (www.thelibrarykids.com)

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Newgrange,_Ireland.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange

Aztalan

I want to tell you a story about a haunted place called Aztalan that I visited to do research for my second book of the series, The Library Kids The Serpent of Rock Lake.  

          Aztalan is a mysterious place near Rock Lake (Lake Mills, Wisconsin).  The site was abandoned and no one knows why to this day.  There are stories of fights between the inhabitants and Red Horn of the Ho-Chunk. Aztalan state park is Wisconsin's most important archaeological site.  The remains are from a Mississippian  peoples’  village that existed between A.D. 900 and 1300.

 

I decided to visit this mysterious place during the winter and see for myself what the place looked like.  I went to the main park and got out to see the Crawfish River.  I saw the large pyramid mounds, next.  There were 3 of them as the brochure had mentioned.  No one was there and the place was absolutely peaceful.  It felt like home, to me. 

I walked through the snow, to the large pyramid and walked up the steps.  I walked to the top where the snow had melted and I looked around.  I felt as if I had been there before.  I noticed the stockade fence and wondered what it was like for the inhabitants who lived there.

Next I drove to the Princess Mound.  The Princess Mound contained the body of a woman who was in her twenties when she died.  She was buried with 3 shell belts that contained various shells.  Some of them came from the Gulf of Mexico.  It was an unusual burial and the woman was thought to be some one of importance or perhaps someone who had died under a unique condition because her burial was away from the other burial mounds and her belts were elaborate.  Perhaps this woman was murdered.

I got out and again, no one was around.  There were no animals and the museum was closed.   There was some snow on the ground there as well.  I began to take pictures of the princess mound and then I heard it.

Behind me was a rattling type noise that came from no where.  I turned around, but could see no one or anything that was causing this noise.  I turned back around and began to take another picture.  And then the rattling noise came back, right behind me.  I turned around, but nothing was there.  I looked at  the trees behind the grave to see if there were any animals.  But there were none.

I looked all around, but there was nothing.

I turned again and took one more picture and then the noise came back again, right behind me.

Again for the 3^rd time, I turned and could find nothing that had caused the sound.  At this point, I decided it was time for me to go.

Perhaps that mound is haunted as others have said it is.  And the sound I heard was from the shell belts of the Princess who didn’t want me to be alone at the mound.

She let me know that she was still there.

By Rita Jean Moran (www.thelibrarykids.com)


Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztalan_State_Park