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Olmec 2 Maya in America's

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Olmec
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The Olmec were an ancient Pre-Columbian people living in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, roughly in what are the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Their immediate cultural influence, however, extends beyond this region (Olmec artwork has been documented as far as El Salvador). The Olmec flourished during the Formative (or Preclassic) era, dating from 1200 BCE to about 400 BCE, and are believed to have been the progenitor civilization of later Mesoamerican civilizations.

Early history

Etymology of the name "Olmec"
The name "Olmec" means "rubber people" in Nahuatl, the language of the Mexica ("Azteca"), and was the Aztec name for the people who lived in the area of the Olmec heartland in the 15th and 16th centuries, some 2000 years after what we know as the Olmec culture died out. The term "rubber people" refers to the ancient practice, spanning from ancient Olmecs to Aztecs, of extracting latex from Castilla elastica, a rubber tree in the area. The juice of a local vine, Ipomoea alba, was then mixed with this latex to create rubber as early as 1600 BCE.
Early modern explorers and archaeologists, however, mistakenly applied the name "Olmec" to the rediscovered ruins and artifacts in the heartland decades before it was understood that these were not created by people the Aztecs knew as the "Olmec", but rather a culture that was 2000 years older. Despite the mistaken identity, the name has stuck.

It is not known what name the ancient Olmec used for themselves; some later Mesoamerican accounts seem to refer to the ancient Olmec as "Tamoanchan". Another term sometimes used to describe the Olmec culture is tenocelome, meaning "mouth of the jaguar". In part because the Olmecs developed the first Mesoamerican civilization and in part because so little is known of the Olmecs (relative, for example, to the Maya or Aztec), a wide number of Olmec alternative origin speculations have been put forth. Although several of these speculations, particularly the theory that the Olmecs were of African origin, have become well-known within popular culture, popularized by Ivan van Sertima's book, They Came Before Columbus, they are not considered credible by the vast majority of Mesoamerican researchers.

Unraveling the Origins of the Mysterious Olmec!

The huge African-looking stone heads and the obviously Caucasian-looking men on the stelae of
La Venta and Monte Alban further confuse and confound the archae-
ologists and anthropologists. Instead of taking heed of the Indian tradi-
tions and the works of historians of the Middle Ages and earlier, these
"experts" stumble around in darkness
When the Maya traveled across the Atlantic to the New World, a mysterious culture was already in full bloom in Mesoamerica. Called the OLMEC, The Facts On File Dictionary of Archaeology states that they were "a Mesoamerican group whose heartland lay in the low-lying swampy areas of the southern Veracruz and Tabasco provinces of Mexico.
"More than 1,500 years before the Maya flourished in Central America, 25 centuries before the Aztecs conquered large swaths of Mexico, the mysterious Olmec people were building the first great culture of Mesoamerica. Starting in 1200 B.C. [actually much earlier] in the steamy jungles of Mexico's southern Gulf Coast, the Olmec's influence spread as far as modern GUATEMALA, HONDURAS, BELIZE, COSTA RICA and EL SALVADOR.
Evidence of the Olmec culture can be found as far north as Cholula -- which is located about 60 miles south-east of Mexico City. Here is found the great man-made mountain called "tlahchiualtepetl." "Once sacred to the peaceful cult of Quetzalcoatl, but now surmounted by an ornate Catholic church, this emmense edife was ranked among the most extensive and ambitious engineering projects ever undertaken anywhere in the ancient world" (Fingerprints of the Gods, by Graham Hancock. Crown trade Paperbacks, N.Y. 1995. P. 109).

The archaeological excavations have revealed that this edifice -- the largest building ever erected on earth -- was not the product of one dynasty. It was built up over a very long period of time (probably three thousand years or more) and was a collective project, created by an inter-generational labor force drawn from the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Toltec, Zapotec, Mixtec, Cholulan and Aztec that had passed through Cholula since the dawn of civilization in Mexico.
The existence of the  culture in Mexico and Central America, along with terraced pyramids (similar to SUMERIAN ZIGGURATS), calendrical systems, mathematics and sculptured figures WITH BEARDS or Negroid features implies, to many observers, "a CONNECTION with such peoples as the...PHOENICIANS, HITTITES... or CARTHAGINIANS" -- all of whom were CANAANITES! (Maya:The Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization., p. 44).

Olmec Origins
In the year 1883 B.C. an invasion of Spain took place from the confines of North Africa. Having become a civilized land and weathy due to changes in climate and the presence of many producing gold mines, Spain aroused the greed of Egypt and other North African nations. A king by the name of GERION or DEABUS, with a large army and many ships, conquered Spain and forced the inhabitants to dig gold for their new African overlords. Many Spanish slaves died from overwork under this tyranny.
The history of this period is as follows:
Gerion, the Giant 34 1883-1849 (or 35) (1884-1849)

Gerion was the seventh generation from HAM. He descended through Cush, Saba (the Saba of Gen. 10:7), Gog, Triton, Ammon and HIARBA (compare the last name with the Biblical "ARBA" of Joshua 13:14, who was THE FATHER OF THE ANAKIM GIANTS).
The Lomnini 42 1849-1807
The Lomnini were three GIANT SONS of Gerion. They were allowed to continue to rule in the land [Spain] after an invasion in 1849 by an Egyptian army under Osyris Denis (Dionysius in Greek). -- Compendium of World History, vol. II, pp.113-115.

The Egyptians slew Gerion in 1849, whereupon the part of his tribe that was left fled to sea in their ships AND SAILED TO THE NEW WORLD. A tradition found among the TOLTECS of Mexico, and preserved by the historian Ixtlilxochitl, declares that at one time there were GIANTS IN THEIR LAND.

Part of the remnant fled to Ireland where they buit strongholds on Tory Island and in the Hebrides.
Herman Hoeh adds that "one of the LOMNINI in Spain, meanwhile, was given to wife a sister of Osyris. A son of the union, NORAC, SETTLED SARDINIA and built the city of Norca. Sardinia is famous for traditionally being inhabited by GIANTS who left the MEGALITHIC REMAINS and GIANT TOMBS."

The Mysterious Anakim

The Anakim were a race of people of extraordinary size who lived in the mountainous regions of Canaan as well as some coastal areas -- particularly in the south and, as we shall see, across the north of Africa. Numbers 13:22 relates that at one time three prominent men of the Anakim -- Ahiman, Sheshai and TALMAI -- resided at Hebron. It was here that the 12 Hebrew spies first saw the Anakim and subsequently gave a frightening report of their experience to Moses.
However, evidence exists that the Anakim were well-known to the Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom and were ALREADY PRESENT in parts of North Africa. Egyptian Execration Texts (from pottery on which the names of enemies of the pharaoh were written and which was then broken as a curse) make mention of the tribe of Anak as "Iy-'anaq." Explains Donald B. Redford in Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times:
The most precious source bearing on Egypt's relations with Asia in the late Middle Kingdom, [are] the so-called Execration Texts...For the 12th and early 13th Dynasties four lots of texts have relevance: figurines from Helwan, early 12th Dynasty (no Asiatics names preserved); figurines and pottery from the Nubian fortress of Mirgissa...pottery purchased on the market and now in Berlin, dating from the reign of Senwosret III or (early) Amenemhet III; and clay figurines excavated at Saqqara and now in Brussels, dating one or two generations after the Berlin bowls...Here [in the Berlin group], for both NUBIA and Asia (and for LIBYA as well, although the section is brief), we have the following "paragraphs": (A) a listing of named chieftains each preceded by the denomination "chief of (TOPONYM) N, and all the henchmen who are with him"...The Mirgissa texts have six entries for section A with three toponyms mentioned ('ANAQI four times)...(Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. Pp. 87-88).

Further, it should be noted that one of the prominent men of the Anakim was TALMAI -- the root TAL -- is found everywhere from TLemcen, near the ATLas Mountains, to the ATLantic Ocean. A sub-tribe of the leading Berber tribe in Morocco is called TALesinnt. This root is particularly prevalent in the Megalithic heartland of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). When the Lenni Lenape Indians migrated across the United States they ran into the Moundbuilders whom they called the TALegawil or TALega -- the root TAL- linking them to the TAL-MAI. "From this root came both the Arabic "tell" (man-made mound, artificial hill) and the related word "tuul" (hill, heap) in the Cushite languages of East Africa. In Berber Africa, 'Tell denotes the mountainous but fertile region of Algeria and Morocco between the Atlas [Mountains] and the Mediterranean' (Fage & Oliver, 548)" (The Berber Project, by R. Ben Madison).

The British Traditions
Early British tradition also records the presence of SWARTHY GIANTS who built many of the MEGALITHIC monuments or henges.
The arrival of the North Africans (Anakim) in Ireland is recorded by Geoffrey Keating in The History of Ireland:
Neimheadh won three battles on the FOMORIANS, namely, NAVIGATORS OF THE RACE OF HAM, WHO FARED FROM AFRICA; they came FLEEING to the islands of the WEST OF EUROPE, and to make a settlement for themselves, and (also) FLEEING THE RACE OF SHEM, for fear that they might have advantage over them, in consequence of the curse which Noah had left on HAM FROM WHOM THEY CAME; inasmuch as they thought themselves to be safe from the control of the POSTERITY OF SHEM by being at a distance from them: WHEREFORE THEY CAME TO IRELAND....It is wherefore they used to be called FOMORIANS, namely, from their being committing robbery on sea: FOMHORAIGH, i.e. along the seas. -- Vol. 1. The Irish Texts Society, London. 1902. Pp. 179 & 183.
Irish tradition also tells the story of "stones [that] were brought there by a King who arrived in a LARGE FLEET with a retinue of priests and AFRICANS. The Africans set up the stones, those who died in the process being buried within the circle. When THE KING DEPARTED he left behind the high priest and others, and they invited the local people to assist in their rituals: 'The priests wore robes made of SKINS AND FEATHERS OF BIRDS, that of the Chief Priest being white with a girdle made from the neck feathers of mallard drakes; the other priests wore FEATHER CLOAKS of mixed colours.'" (Megalithomania, by John Michell. Cornell University Press, N.Y. 1982. P.102.)

The Irish traditions regularly portray the Fomorians as GIANTS who laid claim to the mainland of Ireland; and they are reported to have claimed their annual tithes or tribute from the Irish (the children of Neimheadh) at Mag Cetne, on The Plains of Tribute, which lay on the south side of the Ess Ruaid Falls -- stretching towards the river Drowes along the coastal plain of north Sligo. In the Annals of Connacht this area is referred to as Mag Cetne of the Fomore (Fomorians).
There was much slavery and great oppression afterwards on the race of Neimheadh by the Fomorians, revenging the battles which Neinheadh had gained over them. MORC, indeed, son of DEILEADH, and CONAING, son of FAOBHAR, from whom is named Tor Conaing on the border of Ireland north had a fleet, and they residing in Tor Conaing which is called TOIRINIS [Tory Island], enforcing a tribute on the children of Neimheadh: and the extent of that tribute was TWO THIRDS OF THE CHILDREN, and of the corn, and of the milch-kine of the men of Ireland, to be offered to them every year on the eve of Samhain at Magh gCeidne between the Drobhaois and the Eirne...(The History of Ireland, p. 183).

A Megalithic People
At the same time that the Megalithic sculptures appeared in the Olmec region of Mesoamerica, huge stone Megaliths, identical to those being built in Europe, SUDDENLY popped up in New England. "Distinctive 'dolmens' (multi-ton boulders balanced precisely on the three smaller stones) were constructed on both sides of the Atlantic. Received opinion holds this to be pure coincidence, but it is hardly plausible that these enormous and distinctive structures should 'just happen' to be invented on two different continents at EXACTLY the same time, especially in the one part of America most accessible to the Megalithic builders of Europe (Trent, ch.2)" (ibid., pp.11-12).
It must be remembered that the Olmec were a "megalithic" people. States Philip J. Arnod III: "As a cultural entity, the Gulf Olmec occupied the area of southern Veracruz and northern Tabasco, Mexico from approximately 1200 bce [some sources push the date back to 1800 B.C.E.] to 400 bce. This era spans the Early and Middle Formative periods in the Mesoamerican chronology. The Gulf Olmec adaptation was based on swidden maize agriculture, supplemented with riverine and terrestrial resources (Coe and Diehl 1980; Rust and Leyden 1994). THE PRIMARY DIAGNOSTIC OF THE GULF OLMEC CULTURE WAS THEIR PENCHANT FOR MEGALITHIC SCULPTURE (colossal heads, "thrones," and stele) and large-scale, earthen, ceremonial architecture" (Ethnicity, Pottery, and the Gulf Olmec of Ancient Veracruz, Mexico. Pp.2-3).
Not only that, but some of these colossal heads were found in the Olmec city of La Venta -- which was located on the island of Tonala off the Gulf Coast!
When author Graham Hancock traveled to the old colonia town of Santiago Tuxtla in Mexico he found, in the town park, one of these huge heads. When he first spotted it he wrote that "in the centre of the park, like some magic talisman, stood an enormous grey boulder, almost ten feet tall, carved in the shape of A HELMETED AFRICAN HEAD...Here, then, was the first mystery of the Olmecs: a monumental piece of sculpture, more than 2000 years old, which portrayed a subject with UNMISTAKABLE NEGROID FEATURES" (Fingerprints of the Gods, Crown Trade Paperbacks, N.Y. 1995. Pp. 120-121).

"it was unmistakably THE HEAD OF AN AFRICAN MAN wearing a close-fitting helmet with long chin-straps. The lobes of the ears were pierced by plugs; THE PRONOUNCED NEGROID FEATURES were furrowed by deep frown lines on either side of the nose, and the entire face was concentrated forwards above THICK, down-curving lips" (ibid.)
"Cleared by the surrounding earth it presented an awe-inspiring spectacle. Despite its great size the workmanship is delicate and sure, THE PROPORTIONS PERFECT. Unique in character among aboriginal American sculptures, it is remarkable for its REALISTIC TREATMENT. The features are bold and AMAZINGLY NEGROID in character..." (Quoted in Fingerprints of the Gods, p. 122.)
It was 22 feet in circumference, weighed 19.8 tons, stood almost 8 feet high, had been carved out of solid basalt, and displayed clearly 'an authentic combination of racial characteristics.' Indeed, like the other pieces I had seen at Santiago Tuxtla and at Tres Zapotes, it UNMISTAKABLY AND UNAMBIGUOUSLY SHOWED A NEGRO...My own view is that the Olmec heads present us with physiologically ACCURATE images of REAL individuals of NEGROID STOCK -- charismatic and powerful AFRICAN MEN whose presence in Central America 3000 years ago has not yet been explained by scholars" (ibid., pp. 130-131).
Since Gerion and his sons the Lomnini were directly descended from HAM by way of Hiarba (Arba), then they would have, in all likelihood, NEGROID features and characteristics! So this further links the Olmec to the Anakim of Canaan.
I mentioned earlier that the root TAL- (from TALMAI the Anakim) is prevalent in place-names across North Africa and throughout Spain. Like the Israelite tribe of Dan, it seems that everywhere the tribe descended from Talmai went they left behind evidence of their passing in the place-names and physical features of the land. Have they left behind a record of their presence in Central America? Indeed they have! If you study a map of Mexico, and countries to the south, you will find place-names and geographical features with the root TAL- in abundance. For example, there are the towns of AuTLan, CanaTLan, ColoTLan, CuauTLa, TeziuTLan, HuixTLa and many others. There is the MezquiTAL River, Mount NauhcampatepeTL, Mount PopocatepeTL and the ruins of MiTLa. The extent of the place-names ranges from MazaTLan on the west coast to HuixTLa on the border with Guatemala.
In Guatemala itself we find the towns of AmatiTLan, EscuinTLa and ReTALhuleu, along with Lake AtiTLan and the volcano of AtiTLan, while El Salvador delivers AcajuTLa.
The archaeological record also indicates this wide-ranging influence of the Olmec/Anakim people.

The  Men!
But this is not all -- strange as it may seem, sculptures of tall, thin-featured, long-nosed, apparently CAUCASIAN men with straight hair and full beards and wearing long, flowing robes were discovered at La Venta ALONGSIDE the Olmec heads! Here's the story of one such sculpture:
Matthew Stirling, the American archaeologist who excavated La Venta in the 1940s, made a number of spectacular discoveries there. The most spectacular of all was the STELE OF THE BEARDED MAN.
The plan of the ancient Olmec site...lay along an axis pointing 8 degrees west of north. At the southern end of this axis, 100 feet tall, loomed the fluted cone of the great PYRAMID. Next to it, at ground level, was what looked like a curb about a foot high enclosing a spacious rectangular area one-quarter the size of an average city block. When the archaeologists began to uncover this curb they found, to their surprise, that it consisted of the upper parts of a wall of columns. Further excavation through the undisturbed layers of stratification that had accumulated revealed that the columns were ten feet tall. There were more than 600 of them and they had been set together so closely that they formed a near-impregnable STOCKADE. Hewn out of solid basalt and transported to La Venta from quarries more than sixty miles distant, the columns weighed approximately two tons each.

Why all this trouble? What had the stockade been built to contain?
Even before excavation began, the tip of a MASSIVE CHUNK OF ROCK had been visible jutting out of the ground in the CENTRE of the enclosed area, about four feet higher than the illusory 'curb' and leaning steeply forward. It was covered with carvings. These extended down, out of sight, beneath the layers of soil that filled the ancient stockade to a height of about nine feet.
Stirling and his team worked for two days to free the great rock. When exposed it proved to be an imposing stele fourteen feet high, seven feet wide and almost three feet thick. The carvings showed an encounter between two tall men, both dressed in ELABORATE ROBES and wearing elegant SHOES WITH TURNED-UP TOES. Either erosion or deliberate mutilation (quite COMMONLY PRACTISED on Olmec monuments) had resulted in the complete defacement of one of the figures. The other was intact. It so obviously depicted A CAUCASIAN MALE with a HIGH-BRIDGED NOSE and a long, flowing beard that the bemused archaeologists promply christened it "Uncle Sam." -- Fingerprints of the Gods, by Graham Hancock. Pp. 132-133.

The Egyptian Reliefs
Who were these obviously Caucasian figures carved in the stones uncovered at La Venta? They were uncovered in exactly the same strata as the huge Olmec heads, so were plainly contemporary with the heads. Who could they be?
If you compare the La Venta figures to the Egyptian reliefs at Abydos in Upper Egypt that depict the battle of Kadesh, you will see SIMILAR attirement. The HITTITE charioteers (a Canaanite tribe) shown in the reliefs all have long, elaborate robes and shoes with turned-up toes! Not only that, but the hats or caps of the Hittite charioteers look VERY SIMILAR to the cap on the figure on the circular stele at La Venta! While the La Venta stones may not be depicting the Hittites per sec, other of the Canaanite tribes could have worn similar clothes. We also must realize that there was quite a bit of diversity among the Canaanites -- some looked obviously Negroid (the Anakim) and others were very Caucasian in appearance. Notes Graham Hancock: "It is by no means impossible that these great works preserve the images of peoples from a vanished civilization which embraced SEVERAL ethnic [or tribal] groups" (Fingerprints of the Gods, p. 137).
Philip J. Arnold III, in his article Ethnicity, Pottery, and the Gulf Olmec of Ancient Veracruz, Mexico, makes the observation that the Olmec culture was made up of TWO different "Ethnic" groups:

During 1991 and 1992 I served as co-director of a regional survey of the Tuxtla Mountains (Santley and Arnold 1995). This survey focused on surface settlement remains and documented the entire pre-Hispanic occupational sequence within a four hundred square km portion of the volcanic uplands. As a result of this research, we now have considerable information on the Early and Middle Formation period within the UPLAND PORTION of the Gulf Olmec Heartland. These data provide an important contrast to the riverine and estuarine occupation within other portions of the Gulf Coast during the Early and Middle Formation periods.
He goes on to note --
Perhaps the most important finding from our recent settlement survey is the LACK OF CONGRUENCE between the Tuxtlas occupation and that documented around Olmec centers such as San Lorenzo and La Venta. First, we encounter none of the large-scale architecture that characterizes the Gulf Olmec centers. To be sure, several sites in our study area boast large numbers of high earthen mounds, but these sites invariably date to the later portion of the pre-Columbian sequence. In other words, the monumental construction that characterizes Gulf Olmec occupation in other parts of the Heartland IS NOT REPLICATED in the Tuxtlas.
A number of other discoveries by the author indicate that there was a DIFFERENCE between the Gulf Olmec settlements of La Venta, San Lorenzo and Tres Zapotes and those of the Tuxtla Mountains.
Arnold concludes by saying --
It should be clear from the above presentation that Early and Middle Formative period occupation within the Tuxtlas was rather DIFFERENT from occupation along the surrounding coastal plain. Variation in material culture, especially pottery styles, combined with differences in settlement configuration and subsistence orientation all contribute to this characterization. The question, of course, is to what degree these differences may be attributed to ethnicity as opposed to some other explanation...Given the current information, I believe that there is reason to suggest that the Tuxtlas occupants constitute a DISTINCT ETHNIC GROUP WITHIN THE GULF OLMEC CULTURE. Although the Tuxtlas was part of the Gulf Coast socio-economic system, this region did not participate in much of the activity and symbolism that characterizes coastal occupation. Unfortunately, at the present time we cannot establish whether the occupants of the Tuxtlas saw themselves as different or were viewed as different by the people at the Gulf Olmec centers. In either case, however, it is clear that there was a lack of copying or "appropriation" of emblems and motifs between these two areas. Ultimately, we note a significant distinction between the activities of individuals in and around sites like San Lorenzo and the behavior of individuals within the Tuxtla Mountains.
Arnold's work clearly confirms what the stelae and monuments of the Olmec centers have conveyed all along -- the Olmec culture consisted of two different groups or tribes, the Negroid megalith builders and sculptors and a Caucasian-like component of unknown function.
The archaeological evidence clearly suggests that rather than developing slowly and painfully -- as is normal with static human society -- the civilization of the Olmec, like that of ancient Egypt, emerged ALL AT ONCE AND FULLY FORMED. Indeed, the transition period from primitive to advanced society appears to have been so short that it makes no kind of historical sense to modern anthropologists, archaeologists and historians. Technical skills that should have taken hundreds or even thousands of years to evolve (according to the "experts") were brought into use almost overnight -- and with no apparent anticedents whatsoever.
This is no mystery unless you realize that the Olmec culture arrived from across the Atlantic ocean -- fully formed and fully functional.
The megalithic Olmec civilization that left such a mark in the archaeological record of Mesoamerica, was that which developed from the Anakin/Fomorian survivors of the defeat they received at the hands of the Egyptians in Spain -- more than 1,200 years before the death of Christ!
The customs of these people (megaliths, child-sacrifice, place-naming) all point to their origins in North Africa and Canaan. The mystery of the Olmec is solved -- by studying the traditions and archaeological records of a people, as well as accepting the records of by-gone historians, we can arrive at the truth and lift the veil that continues to cloud the view of the "experts" of this world!

The Olmec writing system is unique. The Signs are similar to the writing used by the Vai people of West Africa. The Olmecs spoke and aspect of the Manding (Malinke-Bambara) language spoken in West Africa.
Both the Olmec and epi-Olmec had hieroglyphic writing systems.
The Libyco-Berber writing can not be read in either Berber or Taurag, even though these people use an alphabetic script similar to the Libyco-Berber script which is syllabic CV and CVC in structure.
This was an important article because it offered the possibility that the Mayan signs could be read by comparing them to the Libyco-Berber symbols (Rafineque, 1832). This was not a farfetched idea, because we know for a fact that the cuneiform writing was used to write four different languages: Sumerian, Hittite, Assyrian and Akkadian.
Uncanny Similarities
In the arts, Mexico's earliest civilization, the Olmecs, echo Egypt's finest sculptures. Olmec artists carved large man-jaguar warriors that are similar to the Egyptian sphinxes on display showing lions with the heads of gods or kings. The seated statue of an Egyptian scribe carved between 2465 and 2323 BC shows stonework and attention to detail that parallels a seated stone sculpture of an Olmec lord. There is no evidence the Olmecs and Egyptians ever met.
Shared traits run to architecture, with Egyptians building pyramids as royal tombs and the Mayans and Aztecs following suit with pyramids as places of sacrifice to the gods. While there is no room for pyramids at the exhibition -- part of the Universal Forum of Cultures, an international cultural festival held in Barcelona in 2004 -- organizers say it is the first time many of pieces have left Egypt. They include entire archways from Nile temples, a bracelet worn by Ramses II and sarcophagi used by the pharaohs. Mexico has also brought together Aztec, Mayan and Olmec pieces from across the country.
Although many Meso-Americanists accept the view that the Olmecs possessed calendrical symbols controversey surrounds the presence of writing among the Olmecs. Wiener (1922) and Lawrence (1961) have maintained that the Olmec writing was identical to the Manding writing used in Africa. Eventhough these scholars reject the idea of West African people influencing the Olmecs, historical , archaeological, and linguistic data may indicate the migration of Manding speaking people to Meso-America in ancient times (Winters , 1979; Wuthenau, 1980). The some of the Olmec people may have come from Africa. Winters (1979, 1997) believes that the Olmec spoke an aspect of the Manding languages spoken in West Africa, not Mixe- Zoquean as suggested by Terrence Kaufman.
Friar Diego de Landa (1978:8,28) , in Yucatan Before and After the Conquest, wrote that "some old men of Yucatan say that they have heard from their ancestors that this country was peopled by a certain race who came from the East, whom God delivered by opening for them twelve roads through the sea".
This tradition probably refers to the twelve migrations of the Olmec people. This view is supported by the stone reliefs from Izapa, Chiapas , Mexico published by the New World Foundation. In Stela 5, from Izapa we see a group of men on a boat riding the waves (Wuthenau 1980; Smith 1984 ; Norman 1976).

It is clear that Stela No.5, from Izapa not only indicates the tree of life, it also confirms the tradition recorded by Friar Diego de Landa that the Olmec people made twelve migrations to the New World. This stela also confirms the tradition recorded by the famous Mayan historian Ixtlixochitl, that the Olmec came to Mexico in "ships of barks " and landed at Pontochan, which they commenced to populate (Winters 1984: 16). These Blacks are frequently depicted in the Mayan books/writings carrying trade goods.
On Stela No.5 we see a boat surrounded by waves. In the center of the boat on Stela No.5, we find a large tree. This tree has seven branches and twelve roots. The seven branches probably represent the seven major clans of the Olmec people. The twelve roots of the tree extending into the water from the boat probably signifies the "twelve roads through the sea", mentioned by Friar Diego Landa.
The Amerindian migration traditions and Stela No.5, probably relates to a segment of the Olmec, who landed in boats in Panotha or Pantla (the Huasteca) and moved along the coast as far as Guatemala. This would correspond to the non-Maya speaking group detected by Swadesh that separated the Maya and Huasteca speakers 2000 years ago.
Bernardino de Sahagun (1946) a famous authority on Mexico also supports the extra-American origin of the Olmecs when he wrote that A"Eastern settlers of Mexico landed at Panotla on the Mexican Gulf. Here they remained for a time until they moved south in search of mountains".The reported route of the Panotha settlers recorded by Sahagun interestingly corresponds to the spread of the Olmecs in Meso-America. The Olmec civilization extended from the Gulf of Mexico to Chalcatzingo, in the Mexican highlands along the Pacific coast (Morley, Brainerd & Sharer 1983, p.52).
This Amerindian historical and linguistic evidence indicates that a new linguistic group entered the Olmec heartland around the time we find the Olmec culutre in Mexico (Soustelle, 1984). Winters (1979,1997) claims that this new linguistic group was a group of Manding people that migrated from West Africa to Mexico.
The major evidence for the African origin of the Olmecs comes from the writing of the Mayan people. As mentioned earlier most experts believe that the Mayan writing system came from the Olmecs (Soustelle, 1984). The evidence of African style writing among the Olmecs is evidence for Old World influence in Mexico.
An Olmec origin for many PreClassic Maya sites, would explain the cover-up of the jaguar stucco mask pyramids with classic Maya pyramids at these sites. It would also explain Schele and Freidel's (1990) claim that the first king of Palenque was the Olmec leader U-Kix-chan; and that the ancient Maya adopted many Olmec social institutions and Olmec symbolic imagery.

Winters (1979, 1997) was able to read the Libyco-Berber signs because they were analogous to the Manding or Si signs recorded by Delafosse (1899). These Si people , now centered in West Africa and the Sahelian region formerly lived in an area where Libyco-Berber inscriptions are found (Winters, 1983, 1986). Using the Manding languages Winters (1983) was able to decipher the Libyco-Berber inscriptions (see The Vai Writing System.
The second clue to the Manding origin of the Olmec writing was provided by Leo Wiener in Africa and the Discovery of America (1922,v.3). Wiener presented evidence that the High Civilizations of Mexico (Maya and Aztecs) had acquired many of the cultural and religious traditions of the Malinke-Bambara (Manding people) of West Africa. In volume 3, of Africa and the Discovery of America, Wiener discussed the analogy between the glyphs on the Tuxtla statuette and the Manding glyphs engraved on rocks in Mandeland.
In Table 1, we show a comparison of the Libyco-Berber, Vai syllabic signs, and Olmec signs from selected sites to test the hypothesis of Lawrence (1961), Wiener (1922) and Winters (1979, 1983), that the Olmec writing is of Manding origin .
Tollan" and its inhabitants as Toltecs - and that any ruling lineage in postclassic Mesoamerica would strengthen their claims to power by claiming Toltec ancestry. Often Mesoamerican migration accounts state that Tollan was ruled by Quetzalcoatl (or Kukulcan in Maya and Gukumatz in K'iche') a godlike mythical figure who was later sent into exile from Tollan and went on to found a new city somewhere else in Mesoamerica. Such claims of Toltec ancestry and a ruling dynasty founded by Quetzalcoatl have been made by such diverse civilizations as the Aztec, the Quiché and the Itza' Mayas. While the sceptical tradition does not deny that cultural traits of a seemingly central Mexican origin have diffused into a larger area of Mesoamerica they tend to ascribe this to the dominance of Teotihuacán in the Classic period and the general diffusion of Cultural traits within the region. Recent scholarship thus do not see Tula, Hidalgo as a "Toltec" site but rather tries to find clues of the ethnicity of the people who built it. Lately it has been suggested that they were in fact Huastecs.

Tollan, Tolan, or Tolán is the name used for the capital city of two empires of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica; first for Teotihuacan, and later for the Toltec capital of Tula.
The name means "Place of Cattails" in the Nahuatl language, with the figurative sense of a densely populated "place where people are thick as reeds". Names with the same meaning were used in Maya and other native Mexican languages.
Teotihuacan seems to have been the first city known by this name. After the collapse of the Teotihuacan empire, central Mexico broke into various petty states. The Toltec created the first sizable Mexican empire after the fall of Teotihuacan, and their capital was referred to by the same name as a reference to the earlier greatness of Teotihuacan.
In Aztec accounts at the time of the arrival of the Conquistadores, Teotihuacan and the Toltec capital sometimes seem to be confused and conflated.
The epithet "Tollan" was also sometimes applied to any great metropolis or capital. Cholula, for example, was sometimes called "Tollan Cholula", and the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán was likewise given the title "Tollan". The Mixtec translation of this, Ñuu Co'yo is still the Mixtec name for Mexico City to this day.
The original Nahuatl name was Acholōllān. Probably composed of the two roots "choloa" "to flee" or its substantivic form "chololiztli" "flight" and the locative suffix -tlān meaning "place of" - making the names meaning something close to "place of flight".
It is possible that this meaning has to do with the original inhabitants of the city having been forced to leave by the expanding Nahuas. Some historians have posited that Cholula was originally inhabited by the Oto-Manguean Chorotega people who were driven from central Mexico with the incursions of the Nahuas.
Chorotega [tʃoro'tega] is the name of an indigenous people of Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua the ethnic population number around 795 according to the ethnologue 2000 survey. The Chorotega language which was a member of the Manguean branch of the Oto-Manguean linguistic family is now extinct.
The Oto-Manguean languages are spoken mainly in Mexico and it is thought that the Chorotega moved south from Mexico together with the speakers of Subtiaba and Chiapanec well before the arrival of the Spaniards in the Americas.
Some sources list "Cholutega" as an alternative name of the people and their language and this has caused some, for example Terrence Kaufman (2001) to speculate that they were the original inhabitants of the city of Cholula, who were displaced with the arrival of Nahua people in central Mexico. The etymology for the nomenclature "Chorotega" in this case would come from the Nahuatl language where "Cholōltēcah" means "inhabitants of Cholula".
The name Teotihuacán was given by the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec centuries after the fall of the city. The term has been glossed as 'birthplace of the gods,' reflecting Nahua creation myths that took place in Teotihuacán. Another translation was offered by Thelma Sullivan, who interprets the name as "place of those who have the road of the gods." The original name of the city is unknown, but it appears in hieroglyphic texts from the Maya region as 'puh', or "Place of Reeds. This suggests that the Maya understood Teotihuacán as a 'Place of Reeds' similar to other Central Mexican settlements that took the name 'Tollan,' such as Tula-Hidalgo and Cholula. This naming convention led to much confusion in the early 20th century as scholars debated whether Teotihuacán or Tula-Hidalgo was the Tollan described by 16th–century chronicles. It now seems clear that 'Tollan' may be understood as a generic term applied to any large settlement, rather like the modern expression "the Big Smoke". In the Mesoamerican concept of urbanism, Tollan and other language equivalents serve as a metaphor, linking the bundles of reeds and rushes that formed part of the lacustrine environment of the Valley of Mexico and the large gathering of people in a city.

Prehistory
The Oto-Manguean family has existed in southern Mexico at least since 4000 BCE and probably before. The Oto-Manguean urheimat has been thought to be in the Tehuacan valley in connection with one of the earliest neolithic cultures of Mesoamerica, and although it is now in doubt whether Tehuacán was the original home of the Proto-Otomanguean people, it is agreed that the Tehuacán culture (5000 BCE–2300 BCE) were Oto-Mangue speakers. The long history of the Oto-Manguean family has resulted in considerable linguistic diversity between the branches of the family. Oto-Mangue speakers have been among the earliest to form highly complex culures of Mesoamerica - the Archeological site of Monte Albán with remains dated as early as 1000 BCE is believed to have been in continuous use by Zapotecs other Mesoamerican cultural centers which may have been wholly or partly Oto-Manguean include the late classical sites of Xochicalco, which may have been built by Matlatzincas, and Cholula, which may have been inhabited by Manguean peoples. And some even speculate an Oto-Manguean influence in Teotihuacán. The Zapotecs are among the candidates to have invented the first writing system of Mesoamerica - and in the Post-classic period the Mixtecs were prolific artesans and codex-painters. During the postclassic the Oto-Manguean cultures of Central Mexico became marginalized by the intruding Nahuas and some, like the Chiapanec-Mangue speakers went south into Guerrero, Chiapas and Central America, while others such as the Otomi saw themselves relocated from their ancient homes in the Valley of Mexico to the less fertile highlands on the rim of the valleys.
The Totonac people resided in the eastern coastal and mountainous regions of Mexico at the time of the Spanish arrival in 1519. Today they reside in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and Hidalgo. They built the Pre-Columbian city of El Tajín, and further maintained quarters in Teotihuacán (a city which they claim to have built). Until the mid-19th century they were the world's main producers of vanilla.

Origins and foundation
The early history of Teotihuacán is quite mysterious, and the origin of its founders is debated. For many years, archaeologists believed it was built by the Toltec people, an early Mexican civilization. This belief was based on Aztec writings which attributed the site to the Toltecs. However, the Nahuatl word "Toltec" means "great craftsman" and may not always refer to the Toltec civilization. Also, Teotihuacán predates the Toltec civilization, ruling them out as the city's founders. Other scholars have put forth the Totonac people as the founders of Teotihuacán, and the debate continues to this day. There is evidence that at least some of the people living in Teotihuacán came from areas influenced by the Teotihuacano civilization, including the Zapotec, Mixtec and Maya peoples. The culture and architecture of Teotihuacán was influenced by the Olmec people, who are considered to be the "mother civilization" of Mesoamerica. The earliest buildings at Teotihuacán date to about 200 BCE, and the largest pyramid, the Pyramid of the Sun, was completed by 100 CE.
Architectural styles prominent at Teotihuacan are also found widely dispersed at a number of distant Mesoamerican sites, which some researchers have interpreted as evidence for Teotihuacan's far-reaching interactions and political or militaristic dominance. A style that has been particularly associated with Teotihuacan is known as talud-tablero, in which an inwards-sloping external side of a structure (talud) is surmounted by a rectangular panel (tablero). Variants of the generic style are found in a number of Maya region sites, including Tikal, Kaminaljuyu, Copan, Becan, and Oxkintok, and particularly in the Petén Basin and the central Guatemalan highlands. However, it has been established that the talud-tablero style pre-dates its earliest appearance at Teotihuacan in the Early Classic period, and instead seems to have first originated in the Tlaxcala-Puebla region during the Preclassic. Analyses have also been able to trace the development into local variants of the talud-tablero style at sites such as Tikal, where its use precedes the 5th-century appearance of iconographic motifs shared with Teotihuacan. Thus it appears that the talud-tablero style disseminated through Mesoamerica generally from the end of the Preclassic and not specifically or only via Teotihuacano influence. It is unclear how or from where the style spread into the Maya region.
The city was a center of industry, home to many potters, jewelers and craftsmen. Teotihuacán is known for producing a great number of obsidian artifacts. Unfortunately no ancient Teotihuacano non-ideographic texts are known to exist (or known to have existed), but mentions of the city in inscriptions from Maya cities show that Teotihuacán nobility travelled to and perhaps conquered local rulers as far away as Honduras. Maya inscriptions mention an individual nicknamed by scholars as "Spearthrower Owl", apparently ruler of Teotihuacán, who reigned for over 60 years and installed his relatives as rulers of Tikal and Uaxactún in Guatemala.
Most of what we infer about the culture at Teotihuacán comes from the murals that adorn the site (and others, like the Wagner Murals, found in private collections) and from hieroglyphic inscriptions made by the Maya describing their encounters with Teotihuacano conquerors. The creation of murals, perhaps tens of thousands of murals, reached its height between 450 and 650 AD. The painters' artistry was unrivalled in Mesoamerica and has been compared with that of Florence, Italy.
Religion
The religion of Teotihuacán is similar to those of other Mesoamerican cultures. Many of the same gods were worshiped, including the Feathered Serpent and The Rain god. Teotihuacán was a major religious center, and the priests probably had a great deal of political power. As with other Mesoamerican cultures, Teotihuacános practiced human sacrifice. Human bodies and animal sacrifices have been found during excavations of the pyramids at Teotihuacán; it is believed that when the buildings were expanded, sacrifices were made to dedicate the new building. The victims were probably enemy warriors captured in battle and then brought to the city to be ritually sacrificed so the city could prosper. Some were decapitated, some had their hearts removed, others were killed by being hit several times over the head and some were even buried alive. Animals that were considered sacred and represented mythical powers and military might were also buried alive but imprisoned in cages: cougars, a wolf, eagles, a falcon, an owl, and even venomous snakes.

Archaeological site
Knowledge of the huge ruins of Teotihuacán was never lost. After the fall of the city, various squatters lived on the site. During Aztec times, the city was a place of pilgrimage and identified with the myth of Tollan, the place where the sun was created. Teotihuacán astonished the Spanish conquistadores during the post-conquest era. Today Teotihuacán is one of the most noted archaeological attractions in Mexico.
The Feathered Serpent Pyramid is built in the talud-tablero style, with several platforms forming the pyramid. In between every platform there is a wall where a feathered serpent’s head sticks outward. Its body wraps around the entire pyramid. Along with the feathered serpent there is also another figure that some believe is a representation of a crocodile or a representation of the deity Tlaloc. These figures alternate around the pyramid. In the eyes of these figures there is a spot for obsidian glass to be put in, so when the light hits, its eyes would glimmer. In between the heads a row of three shells can be found, showing that the people of Teotihuacán were trading with people along the Mexican coast. In antiquity the entire pyramid was painted. Today it is hidden by the adosada platform built in the 4th century hinting at political restructurisation of Teotihuacan during that time.
Burials at the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent
The people of Teotihuacan believed in ritual sacrifice to satisfy the gods. Multiple burials were found at the pyramid, and it is believed that they were sacrificed as part of the dedication of the temple. The numbers of the burials are 4, 8, 9, 13, 18, and 20; these numbers represent significant ideology in Mesoamerica. There are four directions in the world, nine layers of their underworld, thirteen layers of heaven and earth, and a ritual calendar of thirteen months of twenty days or two hundred and sixty day calendar, and a solar calendar of eighteen months of twenty days.
Relation to the Calendar
As stated above there was a correlation between the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent and a calendar for the people of Teotihuacán. The pyramid also is thought to contain two hundred and sixty feathered serpent heads between the platforms. Each of these feathered serpents also contains an open area in its mouth. This open area is big enough to put a place holder in. Thus, it is believed that the people of Teotihuacán would move this place marker around the pyramid to represent the ritual calendar. When a spiritual day would arrive the people would gather within the walls of the Ciudadela and celebrate the ritual.

Aztec/Mexica civilization
Aztec
With the decline of the Toltec civilization came political fragmentation in the Valley of Mexico. Into this new political game of contenders to the Toltec throne stepped outsiders: the Mexica. They were also a proud desert people, one of seven groups who formerly called themselves "Azteca", in memory of Aztlán, but they changed their name after years of migrating. Since they were not from the Valley of Mexico, they were initially seen as crude and unrefined in the ways of Nahua civilization. Through cunning political maneuvers and ferocious fighting skills, they managed to become the rulers of Mexico as the head of the 'Triple Alliance' (which included two other "Aztec" cities, Texcoco and Tlacopan).
Latecomers to Mexico's central plateau, the Mexica thought of themselves as heirs of the civilizations that had preceded them. For them, highly-civilized arts, sculpture, architecture, engraving, feather-mosiac work, and the invention of the calendar were because of the former inhabitants of Tula, the Toltecs.
The Mexica-Aztecs were the rulers of much of central Mexico by about 1400 (while Yaquis, Coras and Apaches commanded sizable regions of northern desert), having subjugated most of the other regional states by the 1470s. At their peak, 300,000 Mexica presided over a wealthy tribute-empire comprising about 10 million people (almost half of Mexico's 24 million people). The modern name "Mexico" comes from their name.
Their capital, Tenochtitlan, is the site of modern-day Mexico City. At its peak, it was one of the largest cities in the world with population estimates of 300,000. The market established there was the largest ever seen by the conquistadors when they arrived.
professor Michael D. Coe, coauthor of the book The True History of Chocolate, argues that the word xocolatl appears in "no truly early source on the Nahuatl language or on Aztec culture."
Chocolate has been used solely as a drink for nearly all of its history. The earliest record of using chocolate pre-dates the Mayans. Chocolate residue has been found in pottery dating to 1100 BC from Honduras, and 600-400 BC from Belize. The chocolate residue found in an early classic ancient Maya pot in Río Azul, northern Guatemala, suggests that Mayans were drinking chocolate around 400 A.D.. In the New World, chocolate was consumed in a bitter, spicy drink called xocoatl, and was often flavored with vanilla, chile pepper, and achiote (known today as annatto). Xocoatl was believed to fight fatigue, a belief that is probably attributable to the theobromine content. Other chocolate drinks combined it with such edibles as maize starch paste (which acts as an emulsifier and thickener), various fruits, and honeyIn 1689 noted physician and collector Hans Sloane, developed a milk chocolate drink in Jamaica which was initially used by apothecaries, but later sold by the Cadbury brothers. Chocolate was also an important luxury good throughout pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and cacao beans were often used as currency. For example, the Aztecs used a system in which one turkey cost one hundred cacao beans and one avocado was worth three beans. The word "chocolate" comes from the Aztecs of Mexico, and is derived from the Nahuatl word xocolatl (pronounced [ʃoˈkolaːtɬ]), which is a combination of the words, xocolli, meaning "bitter", and atl, which is "water". The Aztecs associated chocolate with Xochiquetzal, the goddess of fertility. Chocolate is also associated with the Mayan god of fertility. Mexican philologist Ignacio Davila Garibi, proposed that "Spaniards had coined the word by taking the Maya word chocol and then replacing the Maya term for water, haa, with the Aztec one, atl." However, it is more likely that the Aztecs themselves coined the term, having long adopted into Nahuatl the Mayan word for the "cacao" bean; the Spanish had little contact with the Mayans before Cortés's early reports to the Spanish King of the beverage known as xocolatl


The Great Pyramid of Cholula, the world's largest monument and largest Pre-Columbian pyramid by volume, is a huge complex located in Cholula, Puebla, Mexico.
The temple-pyramid complex was built over many dozens of generations, from the 2nd century BC to the early 16th century, and was dedicated to the deity Quetzalcoatl. It has a base of 450 by 450 m (1476x1476 ft) and a height of 66 m (217 ft). According to the Guinness Book of Records, it is in fact the largest pyramid as well as the largest monument ever constructed anywhere in the world, with a total volume estimated at 4.45 million m³, almost one third larger than that of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. (The Giza pyramid is taller, however.) The Aztecs believed that Xelhua built the Great Pyramid of Cholula.
Olmec history originated at its base within San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, where distinctively Olmec features begin to emerge before 1200 BCE. The rise of civilization here was probably assisted by the local ecology of well-watered rich alluvial soil, encouraging high maize production. This ecology may be compared to that of other ancient centers of civilization: Mesopotamia and the Nile, Indus, and Yellow River valleys. It is speculated that the dense population concentration at San Lorenzo encouraged the rise of an elite class that eventually ensured Olmec dominance and provided the social basis for the production of the symbolic and sophisticated luxury artifacts that define Olmec culture. Many of these luxury artifacts, such as jade, obsidian and magnetite, came from distant locations and suggest that early Olmec elites had access to an extensive trading network in Mesoamerica. The source of the most valued jade, for example, is found in the Motagua River valley in eastern Guatemala, and their obsidian is mainly from sources also in the Guatemala highlands, such as El Chayal and San Martín Jilotepeque.
La Venta
The first Olmec center, San Lorenzo, was all but abandoned around 900 BCE at about the same time that La Venta rose to prominence. Environmental changes may have been responsible for this move, with certain important rivers changing course. A wholesale destruction of many San Lorenzo monuments also occurred around this time, circa 950 BCE, which may point to an internal uprising or, less likely, an invasion. Following the decline of San Lorenzo, La Venta became the most prominent Olmec center, lasting from 900 BCE until its abandonment around 400 BCE. During this period, the Great Pyramid and various other ceremonial complexes were built at La Venta.
Decline
It is not known with any clarity what caused the eventual extinction of the Olmec culture. The Tres Zapotes site, on the western edge of the Olmec heartland, continued to be occupied well past 400 BCE, but without the hallmarks of the Olmec culture. This post-Olmec culture, often labeled Epi-Olmec, has features similar to those found at Izapa, some distance to the southeast.
However, between 400 and 350 BCE, population in the eastern half of the Olmec heartland dropped precipitously, and the area would remain sparsely inhabited until the 19th century. This depopulation is likely the result of environmental changes: perhaps the result of important rivers changing course or silting up due to agricultural practices. Whatever the cause, within a few hundred years of the abandonment of the last Olmec cities, successor cultures had become firmly established, most notably the Maya to the east and the Zapotec to the southwest.

As the first civilization in Mesoamerica, the Olmecs are credited, or speculatively credited, with many "firsts", including the Mesoamerican ballgame, bloodletting and perhaps human sacrifice, writing and epigraphy, and the invention of zero and the Mesoamerican calendar. Their political arrangements of strongly hierarchical city-state kingdoms were repeated by nearly every other Mexican and Central American civilization that followed. Some researchers, including artist and art historian Miguel Covarrubias, even postulate that the Olmecs formulated the forerunners of many of the later Mesoamerican deities.
Mesoamerican ballgame
The Olmec, whose name means "rubber people" in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs (see below), were likely the originators of the Mesoamerican ballgame so prevalent among later cultures of the region and used for recreational and religious purposes. A dozen rubber balls dating to 1600 BCE or earlier have been found in El Manatí, an Olmec sacrificial bog 10 kilometres east of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan. These balls predate the earliest ballcourt yet discovered at Paso de la Amada, circa 1400 BCE. The fact that the balls were found with other sacrificial items, including pottery and jadeite celts indicates that even at this early date, the ballgame had religious and ritual connotations.
Bloodletting and sacrifice
There is a strong case that the Olmecs practiced bloodletting, or autosacrifice. Numerous natural and ceramic stingray spikes and maguey thorns have been found in the archaeological record of the Olmec heartland.
The argument that the Olmecs instituted human sacrifice is significantly more speculative. No Olmec or Olmec-influenced sacrificial artifacts have yet been discovered and there is no Olmec or Olmec-influenced artwork that unambiguously shows sacrificial victims (similar, for example, to the danzante figures of Monte Albán) or scenes of human sacrifice (such as can be seen in this mural from El Tajin).
However, at the El Manatí site, disarticulated skulls and femurs as well as complete skeletons of newborn or unborn children have been discovered amidst the other offerings, leading to speculation concerning infant sacrifice. It is not yet known, though, how the infants met their deaths. Some authors have also associated infant sacrifice with Olmec ritual art showing limp "were-jaguar" babies, most famously in La Venta's Altar 5 (to the right) or Las Limas figure (see Religion below). Definitive answers will need to await further findings.
Writing
The Olmec may have been the first civilization in the Western Hemisphere to develop a writing system. Symbols found in 2002 and 2006 date to 650 BCE and 900 BCE respectively, preceding the oldest Zapotec writing dated to about 500 BCE.
The 2002 find at the San Andrés site shows a bird, speech scrolls, and glyphs that are similar to the later Mayan hieroglyphs showing "3 Ajaw", both a calendar day and a ruler's name.
The 2006 find, known as the Cascajal block from a site near San Lorenzo, shows a set of 62 symbols, 28 of which are unique, carved on a serpentine block. A large number of prominent archaeologiests have hailed this find as the "earliest pre-Columbian writing". Others are skeptical because of the stone's singularity, the fact that it had been removed from any archaeological context, and because it bears no apparent resemblance to any other Mesoamerican writing systems.
There are also well-documented later hieroglyphs known as "Epi-Olmec", and while there are some who believe that Epi-Olmec may represent a transitional script between an earlier Olmec writing system and Maya writing, the matter remains unsettled.
Compass
The find of an Olmec hematite artifact, fitted with a sighting mark and found in experiment as fully operational as a compass, has led the American astronomer John Carlson after radiocarbon dating to propose that "the Olmec may have discovered and used the geomagnetic lodestone compass earlier than 1000 BC". Carlson suggests that the Olmecs may have used such devices for directional orientation of the dwellings of the living and the interments of the dead.
Mesoamerican Long Count calendar & invention of the zero concept
The Long Count calendar used by many subsequent Mesoamerican civilizations, as well as the concept of zero, may have been devised by the Olmecs. Because the six artifacts with the earliest Long Count calendar dates were all discovered outside the immediate Maya homeland, it is likely that this calendar predated the Maya and was possibly the invention of the Olmecs. Indeed, three of these six artifacts were found within the Olmec heartland area. However, the fact that the Olmec civilization had come to an end by the 4th century BCE, several centuries before the earliest known Long Count date artifact, argue against an Olmec origin.
The Long Count calendar required the use of zero as a place-holder within its vigesimal (base-20) positional numeral system. A shell glyph was used as a zero symbol for these Long Count dates, the second oldest of which, on Stela C at Tres Zapotes, has a date of 32 BCE. This is one of the earliest uses of the zero concept in history. The Monument 1 in the Maya site El Baúl, Guatemala, bears a Long Count Date of 37 BCE

Olmec art
Olmec artforms remain in works of both monumental statuary and small jadework. Much Olmec art is highly stylized and uses an iconography reflective of a religious meaning. Some Olmec art, however, is surprisingly naturalistic, displaying an accuracy of depiction of human anatomy perhaps equaled in the pre-Columbian New World only by the best Maya Classic era art. Common motifs include downturned mouths and slit-like slanting eyes, both of which can be seen as representations of "were-jaguars". Olmec figurines are also found abundantly in sites throughout the Formative Period.
In addition to human subjects, Olmec artisans were adept at animal portrayals, for example, the fish vessel to the right or the bird vessel in the gallery below.
Olmec colossal heads
Perhaps the best-recognized Olmec art are the enormous helmeted heads. As no known pre-Columbian text explains these, these impressive monuments have been the subject of much speculation. Given the individuality of each, these heads seem to be portraits of famous ball players or perhaps kings rigged out in the accoutrements of the game.
According to Grove, the unique elements in the headgear can also be recognized in headdresses of human figures on other Gulf Coast monuments, suggesting that these are personal or group symbols.
The heads range in size from the Rancho La Cobata head, at 3.4 m high, to the pair at Tres Zapotes, at 1.47 m. Some sources estimate that the largest weighs as much as 40 tons, although most reports place the larger heads at 20 tons.
The heads were carved from single blocks or boulders of volcanic basalt, quarried in the Tuxtlas Mountains. The Tres Zapotes heads were sculpted from basalt found on San Martin Volcano. The lowland heads were possibly carved from the Cerro Cintepec. It is possible that the heads were carried on large balsa rafts from the Llano del Jicaro quarry to their final locations, or more likely dragged and rafted down rivers. To reach La Venta, roughly 80 km (50 miles) away, the rafts would have had to move out onto choppy waters of the Bay of Campeche.
Some of the heads, and many other monuments, have been variously mutilated, buried and disinterred, reset in new locations and/or reburied. It is known that some monuments had been recycled or recarved, but it is not known whether this was simply due to the scarcity of stone or whether these actions had ritual or other connotations. It is also suspected that some mutilation had significance beyond mere destruction, but some scholars still do not rule out internal conflicts or, less likely, invasion as a factor. There have been 17 colossal heads unearthed to date.
Beyond the heartland
Olmec-style artifacts, designs, figurines, monuments and iconography have been found in the archaeological records of sites hundreds of kilometres outside the Olmec heartland. These sites include:
• Tlatilco and Tlapacoya, major centers of the Tlatilco culture in the Valley of Mexico, where artifacts include hollow baby-face motif figurines and Olmec designs on ceramics.
• Chalcatzingo, in Valley of Morelos, which features Olmec-style monumental art and rock art with Olmec-style figures.
• Teopantecuanitlan, in Guerrero, which features Olmec-style monumental art as well as city plans with distinctive Olmec features.
Other sites showing probable Olmec influence include Abaj Takalik in Guatemala and Zazacatla in Morelos. The Juxtlahuaca and Oxtotitlan cave paintings are attributed by most researchers to the Olmecs. Many theories have been advanced to account for the occurrence of Olmec influence far outside the heartland, including long-range trade by Olmec merchants, Olmec colonization of other regions, Olmec artisans travelling to other cities, conscious imitation of Olmec artistical styles by developing towns – some even suggest the prospect of Olmec military domination outside of their heartland or that the Olmec iconography was actually developed outside the heartland.
The generally accepted, but by no means unanimous, interpretation is that the Olmec-style artifacts, in all sizes, became associated with elite status and were adopted by non-Olmec Formative Period chieftains in an effort to bolster their status.

Daily life
Ethnicity and language: AFRICAN by other namesare STILL AN AFRICAN
While the actual ethnicity of the Olmec remains unknown, various hypotheses have been put forward. In 1976 Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman published a paper which argued that there are a core number of loanwords which have apparently spread from a Mixe-Zoquean language into a wide number of Mesoamerican cultures into many other Mesoamerican languages. Campbell and Kaufman go on to argue that these core loanwords can be seen as an indicator that the Olmecs, the first "highly civilized society" of Mesoamerica, spoke a language which is an ancestor of the Mixe-Zoquean languages, and that they spread a vocabulary particular to their culture to the other peoples of Mesoamerica.
Since the Mixe-Zoquean languages still are, and historically are known to have been, spoken in an area corresponding roughly to the Olmec heartland, and since the Olmec culture is now generally regarded as the first "high culture" of Mesoamerica, it has generally been regarded as probable that the Olmec spoke a Mixe-Zoquean language.
Olmec religious activities were performed by a combination of rulers, full-time priests, and shamans. The rulers were probably the most important religious figures, with their links to the Olmec deities or supernaturals providing legitimacy for their rule. There is also considerable evidence for shamans in the Olmec archaeological record, particularly in the so-called "transformation figurines".
Olmec mythology has left no documents comparable to the Popul Vuh from Maya mythology, and therefore any exposition of Olmec mythology must rely on interpretations of surviving monumental and portable art (such as the Las Limas figure at top right), and comparisons with other Mesoamerican mythologies. Olmec art shows that such deities as the Feathered Serpent and the Rain Spirit were already in the Mesoamerican pantheon in Olmec times.
Social and political organization
Little is directly known about the societal or political structure of Olmec society. Although it is assumed by most researchers that the colossal heads and several other sculptures represent rulers, we have nothing like the Maya stelae (see drawing) which name specific rulers and provide the dates of their rule.
Instead, archaeologists have relied on the data that they do have, such as large- and small-scale site surveys. The Olmec heartland, for example, shows considerable centralization, first at San Lorenzo and then at La Venta. No other Olmec heartland site comes close to these in terms of size or in quantity and quality of architecture and sculpture. Diehl, for example, refers to San Lorenzo and La Venta as "Regal-Ritual Cities".
This centralization leads archaeologists to propose that Olmec society was also highly centralized, with a strongly hierarchial structure, concentrated first at San Lorenzo and then at La Venta, with an elite that was able to use their control over materials such as monumental stone and water to exert and legitimize their regime
Chavín de Huantar is an archaeological site containing ruins and artifacts originally constructed by the Chavin, a pre-Inca culture, around 900 B.C. The site is located 250 kilometers north of Lima, Peru at an elevation of 3150 meters, between the Andean mountain ranges of the Cordillera Negra and the Cordillera Blanca. Chavín de Huantar has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Some of the Chavín reliefs from this archaeological site are on display in the Museo de la Nación in Lima.
Chavin de Huantar was initially built around 900 B.C. While the fairly large population was based on an agricultural economy, the city's location at the head waters of the Marañon River, between the coast and the jungle, made it an ideal location for the dissemination and collection of both ideas and material goods.
The archæological consensus is that Chavín was some kind of ceremonial focus; some have tentatively located it within a lost tradition of oracles and dream incubation. But the mystery remains profound, and is considerably heightened by the bigger picture that it represents. By most reckonings, and depending on how the term is defined, 'civilisation' emerged spontaneously in only a handful of locations around the globe: Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, China, Mexico, perhaps the Nile. To this short list, especially if civilisation is defined in terms of monumental architecture, must now be added Peru. It was only in the 1930s that Chavín was proposed to be some 3,000 years old, and it's only recently been recognised that huge ceremonial structures of sunken walled plazas, typically set at the foot of raised stone platforms and pyramids, were being constructed in Peru at least 1,000 years earlier. The coastal site of Caral, only now being excavated, turns out to contain the oldest stone pyramid thus far discovered by Europeans just as the New World discovery., predating those of Old English and all of Europe. So, the mystery of Chavín is not an isolated one: it was the flowering of a pristine and unique culture, and one which still awaits interpretation.



Maya ruins of Belize
The Maya ruins of Belize include a number of well-known and historically important pre-Columbian Maya archaeological sites. Belize is considered part of the southern Maya lowlands of the Mesoamerican culture area, and the sites found there were occupied from the Preclassic until and after the arrival of the Spanish.
Caracol
Perhaps the most important, Caracol ('the snail' in Spanish), is located in western Belize, near the border with Guatemala and within the Belizean part of the Peten rainforest. Caracol was the center of one of the largest Maya kingdoms and today contains the extant remains of thousands of structures. The city was an important player in the Classic period political struggles of the southern Maya lowlands, and is known for defeating and subjugating Tikal (while allied with Calakmul, located in Campeche, Mexico).
Cerros
The site of Cerros, located on Chetumal Bay in northern Belize, is notable as one of the earliest Maya sites, reaching its apogee during the Late Preclassic on Chetumal Bay, and for the presence of an E-Group, a unique structural complex found in Maya architecture.
Lamanai
Lamanai, located on the New River in Orange Walk District, is known for a the longest continually-occupied site in Mesoamerica. The initial settlement of Lamanai occurred during the Early Preclassic, and it was continuous occupied up to and through the colonization of the area. During the Spanish conquest of Yucatán, the conquistadores established a Roman Catholic church at Lamanai, but a native Maya revolt drove them away. The extant remains of the church are still standing today.
Other sites
• Actun Tunichil Muknal
• Altun Ha
• Cahal Pech
• El Pilar
• Louisville
• Lubaantun
• Nim Li Punit
• Xunantunich
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents. While technically referring to the era before Christopher Columbus, in practice the term usually includes the history of American indigenous cultures as they continued to develop beyond the first Columbian landing in 1492, until they were conquered or significantly influenced by the Europeans' presence, even if this happened decades or even centuries after the initial landing.
Pre-Columbian is used especially often in the context of the great indigenous civilizations of the Americas, such as those of Mesoamerica (the Aztec and Maya) and the Andes (Inca, Moche, Chibcha, Cañaris).
Pre-Columbian civilizations during this long era independently established characteristics and hallmarks which included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies. Many of these civilizations had long ceased to function by the time of the first permanent European arrivals (c. late 15th - early 16th centuries), and are known only through archaeological investigations. Others were contemporary with this period, and are also known from historical accounts of the time. A few (such as the Maya) had their own written records. However, most Europeans of the time largely viewed such text as heretical and few survived Christian pyres. Only a few hidden documents remain today, leaving modern historians with glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge.
From both indigenous American and European accounts and documents, American civilizations at the time of European encounter possessed many impressive feats such one of the most populous cities in the world as well as modern theory of astronomy and mathematics.
Where they persist, the societies and cultures which are descended from these civilizations may now be substantively different in form from that of the original. However, many of these peoples and their descendants still uphold various traditions and practices which relate back to these earlier times, even if combined with those more recently-adopted.

The history of the Americas is the collective history of North and South America, including Central America and the Caribbean. It begins with people migrating to these areas from the East, Atlantic, South Pacific, Asia and possibly Oceania during the height of an Ice Age. These groups are generally believed to have been isolated from peoples of the "Old World" until the coming of Europeans in the 10th and 15th centuries.
The ancestors of today's Native Americans were hunter-gatherers who migrated into The America’s from the East,South Pacific and the North. The most popular theory asserts that migrants came to the Americas via the East to the South Pacific, into the North, the land mass covered by the cold ocean waters in the Bering Strait. Small Paleo-Indian groups probably followed the mammoth and other prey animals. It is possible that groups of people may also have traveled into North America on shelf or sheet ice along the northern Pacific coast.
Cultural traits brought by the first immigrants later evolved and spawned such cultures as Iroquois on North America and Pirahã of South America. These cultures later developed into civilizations. In many cases, these cultures expanded at a later date than their Old World counterparts. Cultures that may be considered advanced or civilized include: Cahokia, Zapotec, Toltecs, Olmec, Aztecs and the Inca.

Norte Chico
The oldest known civilization of the Americas was established in the Norte Chico region of modern Peru. Complex society emerged in the group of coastal valleys, between 3000 and 1800 BCE. The Quipu, a distinctive recording device among Andean civilizations, apparently dates from the era of Norte Chico's prominence.

Chavín
The Chavín established a trade network and developed agriculture by as early as (or late compared to the Old World) 900 BCE according to some estimates and archaeological finds. Artifacts were found at a site called Chavín in modern Peru at an elevation of 3,177 meters. Chavín civilization spanned from 900 BCE to 300 BCE.
Inca
Holding their capital at the great city of Cusco, the Inca civilization dominated the Andes region from 1438 to 1533. Known as Tahuantinsuyu, or "the land of the four regions," in Quechua, the Inca culture was highly distinct and developed. Cities were built with precise, unmatched stonework, constructed over many levels of mountain terrain. Terrace farming was a useful form of agriculture. There is evidence of excellent metalwork and even successful brain surgery in Inca civilization.
The mass death of the Native Americans from slavery, disease and war led to severe changes in the population and ethnic identity of America's inhabitants. The slave labor of Americans killed by European incursions was replaced by that of sub-Saharan African peoples through the slave trade. Native populations became increasingly minor as the European and African slave populations grew rapidly. The dominance of White Americans continued through the period of widespread independence from European rule, begun in the late 18th century by the United States.
There is a substantial difference though, between the English and Spanish areas and models of colonisation. While Native Americans suffered death, slavery and exploitation throughout the Americas and were virtually exterminated almost everywhere, Native Americans, along with Mestizos, now make up the majority of the population in many Central and South American countriesMore importantly, the Southern parts were much more populated before European colonisation (50m) compared to the North (2m).
The number of Native Americans is increasing now in the U.S. by actual population growth, changing enrollment laws, and from the immigration from Spanish America, especially from Mexico, though the definition being applied to them is Hispanic.



BELIZE: formerly known as British Honduras was the former name of what is now the independent nation of Belize and was a British colony on the east coast of Central America, southeast of Mexico. First settled by Spaniards in the seventeenth century, it became a British crown colony from 1871 through 1964, when it became self-governing. Belize became fully independent from the United Kingdom in 1981. Belize was the last continental possession of the United Kingdom in the Americas.
Spain's invasion and conquest of the territory occurred in 1542. The Native Mayan population, however, rebelled and the Spanish were forced to leave Belize in 1546. The Spanish re-conquered Belize in 1567.

The first British settlement of British Honduras was by British loggers in 1638. The colony was of value to the British Empire for production of dyes and for mahogany lumber, used in vessels of the Royal Navy.
A new rebellion, once again, forced the Spanish to leave (1642). The estimated date of the beginning of British settlement is around the 1650s. And from the 1650s - 1800s the British used imported African slave labor.
The colony was frequently attacked by neighbouring Spanish settlers throughout the 17th and 18th centuries due to the territorial claim of Spain to the entire colony. In one notable clash in April 1754, a small British force of 250 men repelled an invasion by a Spanish expeditionary force of 1,500. In the Treaty of Paris of 1763, Spain finally recognized the right of British settlers to log the territory, which were further confirmed by the Treaty of Versailles (1783). Significantly, Spain did not surrender its territorial claim in either treaty.
The treaties did little to abate the warfare between British and Spanish colonists. A Spanish attack on September 15, 1779 led to the destruction of Belize City and the taking of many prisoners to Havana, Cuba. In 1797, war broke out between Great Britain and Spain, leading to increased Spanish attacks on the colony. With Royal Navy support, the British settlers finally won a decisive victory over the Spanish in the Battle of St. George's Caye on September 10, 1798.
As British loggers moved into the interior of the colony in search of mahogany, they came into contact with the native Maya people. Eventually, this led to conflict, with the Maya attempting to evict British loggers and troops from their forest lands in many clashes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One Maya attack in 1866 successfully captured a logging camp and routed a small British force, causing panic among the colonists. An unsuccessful attack on a British fort at Orange Walk in 1872 marked the last significant Maya attack on the British.
The breakup of the Spanish Empire in the New World (1811-1822) did not end the territorial dispute regarding the Spanish claim. The colony's neighbor to the west, the newly independent Republic of Guatemala since 1821, saw itself as the heir to the Spanish claim. There were an estimated 2,500 slaves in Belize around 1824. In 1838 slavery was formally abolished.

Forestry dominated the economy of British Honduras. Initially, the focus was upon logwood, which was used in dye manufacture. Falling prices for logwood in the 1770s led to a shift toward logging mahogany, which would dominate the economy until the mid-twentieth century. As the logging of mahogany was far more labor intensive, this also led to a significant increase of the importation of African slaves to the colony, mainly from Britain's Caribbean colonies. Due largely to extremely harsh working conditions the colony experienced four slave revolts; the first in 1765, and the last in 1820. Slavery was finally abolished in 1838. Exports of mahogany continued as an economic mainstay, as commercial agriculture remained unprofitable due to unfavorable colonial tax policies and trade restrictions. Colonial officials provided incintives during the 1860s that resulted in a large influx of Americans form the Southern United States, especially Louisiana, during and after the American Civil War. The Confederate Settlements in British Honduras introduced large scale sugar production to the colony and proved that it could be profitable where others had previously failed.
The lack of diversification in the economy left the colony very susceptible to swings in the mahogany market. The Great Depression of the 1930s, and an especially destructive hurricane in 1931, further depressed the economy and already low living conditions. From 1914 on, the forestry industry was in steady decline, outside of a brief revival during World War II (1939-1945). In the 1950s agriculture finally became a dominant part of economy, and in the 1970s fishing became significant. Land reform after World War II aided this expansion of the ecomony.

In Belize, slaves were used for logging. Therefore, slavery and Belizean society developed differently from other parts of the Caribbean where slaves and their families worked and lived in plantations. Slaves in Belize worked in scattered gangs in the forests, separated from their families in Belize City.
The earliest historical record of black slaves is from a Spanish missionary in 1724. He reported that they had been "introduced but a short time before from Jamaica and Bermuda".
Most of the slaves were brought to Belize in the late 18th century from the West Indies. Often they came through markets in Jamaica but some were brought directly from Africa, or from the United States.
At that time most of the slaves bought by the British were taken from the Niger and Cross Delta regions in the Bight of Benin (present-day Nigeria) in West Africa, and from further south in the Congo and Angola.
In 1850, African slaves in Belize still identified themselves according to the tribes they came from in Africa. It was stated that there were in Belize "Congoes, Nangoes, Mongolas, Ashantees, Eboes, and other African tribes". One section of Belize Town was known throughout the first half of the 19th century as Eboe Town. In 1850 it was said to consist of "numerous yards, flanked with long rows of what are called negro houses, being simply separate rooms under one roof, which used to be appropriated to slaves, and now accommodate the poorer labourers".
By the time of the colony's 1790 census, three-fourths of the population of British Honduras were African slaves. These slaves were ancestors of the Belizean Kriol people. However, the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, high death rates, and low birth rates substantially reduced the ethnic African portion of the population. The white portion of the population remained consistently at around 10%. The largest portion of the population became the Mestizo people, now about 50% of modern Belize. The Mayans are still present in Belize, at around 11%.
The population of the colony was always fairly small. In 1790, it was around 4,000. In 1856, it was estimated to be 20,000. By 1931, this grew to just over 50,000; and in 1946 to just under 60,000. However, by 1970 the population doubled to just under 120,000. On the eve of independence in 1980, the population stood at over 145,000.

Belizean Kriol people

The Belizean Creole or Kriol are Creole descendants of African slaves who were brought primarily from Jamaica and Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast to cut down mahogany trees. Many Irish and Scottish slave owners would either marry or engage in sexual relations with female slaves, creating this new ethnic group. Today, identifying a Creole may confuse some; a blonde, blue-eyed Creole is not an uncommon sight as the term also denotes a culture that distinguishes more than physical appearance. (NKC)
Until the early 1980s, Belizean Creoles constituted close to 70% of the population of Belize, but today they are about 25% of the population. (CSO) This was due to an influx of Central American refugees coming in from neighboring countries as well as emigration of approximately 85,000 Creoles abroad, primarily to the United States and England. (NKC)
In Belize, Creole is the standard term for any black person who is not Garinagu, or any person that speaks creole as a first language. This includes immigrants from Africa and the West Indies who have settled in Belize and intermarried with locals.
The British colonial administration passed laws to assert their ownership of the land, and timber extraction continued. Unlike plantation slavery in the Caribbean, the Belize version allowed slaves closer proximity to their masters but did not allow them to farm, except for occasional "provision grounds." Slaves carried machetes and shotguns for jungle survival. The Baymen masters divided their slaves into different areas of skills. For example, some of the different areas of skills included the highly skilled huntsmen who could distinguish the mahogany trees from a great distance, the axe-men who cut the trees, other slaves who cut the limbs from the trees which had been felled, and the cattlemen who fed and worked the cattle which moved the huge mahogany trunks. The Baymen began to take slave women as mistresses and as their common-law wives. Many of these women were later freed, therefore, whatever children they bore became free people of color. This mixture of European and African slaves created the Creole population. The development of a mixed, or Creole, community created social problems for the British settlers. The colonial administration separated the African-born slaves from the Creole slaves, the blacks from the browns, the freed blacks and colored and the skilled from the unskilled. Remnants of this division are still at work in our society today. Many Creole families can trace their origins to old Baymen families. Some of these families became well established and represented part of the lighter-skinned population. The colonial masters gave the better jobs to people with lighter skin color; and, people with certain names related to the old Baymen families were put in a different class. This type of prejudice was adopted by Creoles themselves, to some degree, and it later extended to the education and government sectors.

HISTORY
According to the local research, the Belizean Creole originated from a union of European settlers masterminding the logwood trade in the former British Honduras and the African slaves they imported to actually cut and ship the logwood. The National Kriol Council of Belize says that black slaves had been established on the Central American coast from the 1500s and earlier and were working for the Spanish further down the coast. By 1724, the British too were acquiring slaves from Jamaica and elsewhere to cut logwood and later mahogany. By all accounts they led a better life than their fellows in the West Indies, but were still mistreated, systematically raped and bullied. Even so, these slaves assisted in the defence of the fledgling settlement for much of the late 1700s, particularly in the 1798 Battle of St. George's Caye.
The Creoles settled mainly in Belize Town (now Belize City) and along the banks of the Belize River in the original logwood settlements including Burrell Boom, Bermudian Landing, Gracie Rock, Rancho Dolores and Flowers Bank. As the 1800s progressed they spread out to all the districts, particularly Dangriga and Monkey River, as the colony grew. Their sense of pride led to occasional clashes with authority, such as the 1894 currency devaluation riots, that foreshadowed greater conflicts to come.
In the 1900s the Creoles took the lead in organizing the development of the settlement. Riots in 1919 and 1934, combined with terrible conditions resulting from a disastrous hurricane in 1931, led to Belize's first trade unions and eventually to its first political party, the People's United Party (PUP). Creoles continue to lead the nation in politics. But conditions in Belize City worsened after another major hurricane in 1961 and shortly thereafter large scale migration began (and continues) to the United States and England, where successful individuals sent back money to assist those they left behind. Attempts to unite Creoles for development, such as the United Black Association for Development, met mixed results.
The most salient characteristic of Belizean society in the late 1980s was ethnic diversity. Ethnicity in Belize was not reduced to race, but instead referred to the collective identities formed through a complex interplay of racial, linguistic, and religious factors, as well as a sense of shared history and custom.

The two largest ethnic groups together constituted almost three-quarters of the population (see table 11, Appendix A). The 1980 census listed 39.7 percent of the population as Creole, a group usually defined as English speakers descended wholly or in part from African slaves imported to work in the colonial mahogany industry. The 1980 census combined the previously separate "black" and "coloured" segments of the population into a single group. Consequently, there was considerable physical diversity among people listed as Creole. A folk system of racial classification further hierarchically divided Creoles on the basis of such physical features as skin shade, facial features, and hair texture. Despite political independence, the colonial social bias toward "clear" or light skin and European features endured in contemporary Belizean society.

The second largest group, comprising one-third of the population, was identified as Mestizos, or persons of mixed Hispanic-Amerindian origin. In the local Creole vernacular, the Mestizos were known as "Spanish." The physical appearance of the Mestizos varied but not to the extent that it varied among Creoles. Most Belizean Mestizos were descended from refugees of the midnineteenth -century Caste War of Yucatán (see Mayan Emigration and Conflict , ch. 6). The majority of them settled in the northern districts of Corozal and Orange Walk, where they initiated the cultivation of sugarcane in Belize.
Migration during the 1980s had a major impact on the demographic balance between the two largest ethnic groups. As of 1991, the government had not released figures on ethnic identity from the 1990 census, but census officials predicted that Mestizos would equal or outnumber Creoles.
The third largest ethnic population comprised three distinct groups: the Yucatecan, Mopán, and Kekchí Maya. In 1980 one in ten Belizeans belonged to one of the three groups. Belizeans commonly referred to the Yucatecan and Mopán peoples as Maya. Contrary to the statements of colonial historians, some of these Mayan peoples were indeed descendants of the inhabitants of pre-Columbian Belize. Most Kekchí and Mopán, however, emigrated from Guatemala in the late nineteenth century.

The Garifuna, formerly known as the Black Carib, were Belize's fourth largest ethnic grouping, constituting 7 percent of the population in 1980. Descended from African slaves who intermarried with Amerindian inhabitants of the eastern Caribbean islands, the Garifuna were deported to the Gulf of Honduras by the British in the late eighteenth century (see Emigration of the Garifuna , ch. 6). Some Garifuna migrated to the southern Belizean coast, where they established five major settlements. Initially fishermen and subsistence farmers, the Garifuna were gradually incorporated into wage labor in the mahogany industry as early as the 1820s, and later on in the banana and citrus plantations that developed in the Stann Creek Valley and elsewhere in the early twentieth century. Over the course of the twentieth century, an increasing number of Garifuna men became migrant workers, first along the Caribbean coast of Central America, and later in the United States.
Smaller ethnic groups--East Indians (whose forebears came from present-day India), Arabs, Chinese, and Euro-Americans, including a sizeable community of German-speaking Mennonites--made up the remaining 10 present of Belize's population. Of these groups, the East Indian population was the largest. They were largely descendants of nineteenth-century indentured laborers imported to work the sugar plantations of the Corozal and Toledo districts. By the late 1980s, they had intermarried extensively with other ethnic groups, and for the most part, they no longer possessed an identifiably East Indian culture. They lived in all of the country's six districts, but were concentrated in Toledo.

There was a second, and much smaller, East Indian community in Belize, composed of Hindi-speaking traders who immigrated to Belize from Bombay in the 1960s. Living primarily in Belize City and Orange Walk, they formed an aloof, close-knit community that, by the late 1980s, dominated Belize City retail trade and played a major role in currency exchange and speculation.
The smallest ethnic groups--Arabs and Chinese--were also exclusively urban, mercantile populations. Known variously as Turks, Syrians, and Lebanese, many Belizean Arabs were actually Palestinian. Immigrating to Belize in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they figured prominently as merchants in the Belize and Cayo districts.
A significant number of Chinese were imported as contract laborers in the nineteenth century, but virtually all Chinese people living in Belize today came to the country in the twentieth century. Most resided in Belize City, but at least a few Chinese families lived in every major town. Some were merchants but most worked in the restaurant and lottery industries. In the late 1980s, the Chinese population increased dramatically with immigration from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Belize's small, German-speaking Mennonite population emigrated from Mexico between 1958 and 1962. Numbering more than 5,000, the Mennonites founded numerous settlements in the Orange Walk, Cayo, and Toledo districts. The government granted them complete autonomy over their communities. Nevertheless, they have been slowly integrated into the life of the nation, particularly into the economy. The more progressive Mennonites of Spanish Lookout (Cayo District) and Blue Creek (Orange Walk District) became important suppliers of poultry, eggs, dairy products, and furniture. Still, they remained exempt from military service and were not allowed to vote.
Aside from the Mennonites, the majority of Belize's small white population were British and United States expatriates. Unlike some other Caribbean societies, Belize never supported a large European settler community during the colonial period. Since independence, a large, transient population of United States and British volunteers and international aid personnel has augmented the local European population. In 1986 the United States Peace Corps alone had more than 200 volunteers, the corps's highest volunteer-to- population ratio in the world. By 1991, however, the number of Peace Corps volunteers had dropped to less than 100.
The distribution of officially recognized ethnic groups was highly skewed by region, and each district had its own characteristic cultural orientation. Creoles made up three-quarters of the population of Belize City and the surrounding area but no more than one-third of the population in the other five districts. Mestizos constituted two-thirds of the people in the northern sugar-producing districts of Orange Walk and Corozal, one-half the population of the predominantly agricultural Cayo district, but only about one-tenth of the population in Belize, Stann Creek, and Toledo. Garifuna lived mostly along the coasts of the two southernmost districts of Stann Creek and Toledo; they made up fewer than 3 percent of the population in any of the other four districts. The majority of the country's diverse Mayan population resided mainly in the interior of Toledo (where they constituted some 57 percent of the district's people) and the rural areas of Stann Creek, Orange Walk, and Corozal.

Battle of St. George's Caye
The Battle of St. George's Caye was a short military engagement that lasted from September 3 to 10, 1798, fought off the coast of what is now Belize. However, the name is typically reserved for the final battle that occurred on September 10.
The battle took place between an invading force from Mexico, attempting to claim Belize for Spain, and a small force of resident woodcutters called Baymen, who fought for their livelihood assisted by black slaves. After the final two and a half hour battle, ravaged by sickness, the Spaniards withdrew and the British declared themselves winners.

The territory that is now Belize was under dispute from as early as the mid 1750's by England and Spain. While Spain never occupied Belize, she apparently considered it part of her Central American territories, such as Mexico and Guatemala. The British had entered the territory as of 1638 to harvest logwood and later mahogany. Spain recognized this trade in the Treaty of Paris (signed in 1763[1]) but did not undertake to draw boundaries, leading to further disputes. Indeed, from 1779 to 1782 the Settlement was practically non-existent, its settlers having been deported to Havana, Cuba.
The Treaty of Versailles and the Superintendency
In 1783, hostilities were brought to an end by the signing of the treaty of Versailles, which allowed the Baymen rights between the Belize and Rio Hondo rivers; this was extended in 1786 to the Sibun River. Cutting rights were granted to the settlers on the condition that the settlement be recognized as belonging to Spain; Superintendent Col. Marcus Despard was to administer the terms of the treaty. Due to conflicts with the inhabitants Despard resigned, but by 1796 it was clear the issue would have to be settled.

Escalation and preparations
Humphreys relates that in a 1796 visit to the area, Visitador Juan O'Sullivan, claimed the British were encroaching on Spanish territory in Mexico by cutting near the Rio Hondo. Upon his return to Spain, hostilities broke out between England and Spain as a result of the Napoleonic Wars. The Spanish viewed the situation seriously and determined to take out the English.
Colonists appealed to Jamaica Lieutenant Governor Alexander Lindsay, Sixth Earl of Balcarres, for assistance. Even though he was in the midst of the Maroon Wars, Balcarres nontheless sent muskets and ammunition to the settlement and a further shipment arrived on Lt. Thomas Dundas' ship, the HMS Merlin in December 1796. But upon his arrival, Dundas noted panic in the settlement and the subsequent dispatching of slaves to cut logwood instead of preparing to defend the settlement.
Balcarres then named Major (promoted to Lt. Colonel) Thomas Barrow Superintendent of the settlement. Barrow, a seasoned veteran of war according to Humphreys, immediately began whipping the unruly Baymen into shape and martial law, stopping all activities in the settlement, was declared on February 11, 1797. On March 18, magistrates Thomas Potts, Thomas Graham and Marshall Bennett all asked Barrow whether there were any incoming messages from Jamaica. Barrow admitted that more help would be on the way soon, to alleviate the fears of the Baymen, but Humphreys calls the actions of Potts and company "cowardly" and says that even after that reassurance morale was low.
The June evacuation meeting
Impatient with the plans to defend the settlement, the Baymen called a public meeting for June 1, 1797. At this meeting, the Baymen voted 65 to 51 to defend the settlement and cooperate with Barrow. This initial support wavered considerably between then and September 1798, as reports came in of the size of the Spanish fleet. Don Arturo O'Neill Tirone, Yucatán Governor and Commander of the expedition, had secured:
“ ...two very large frigates, an armed brig, and two sloops carrying two 100 pounders, and four gunboats carrying each a 24 pounder in bow; with several other armed vessels, arrived... at Campeachy, and taking aboard about 300 troops, then sailed and (made a rendezvous) at the island of Cozumel;...the two frigates and the brig left the fleet there and as the deserters understood, returned to La Vera Cruz... A schooner of 22 guns, to which they (the deserters) belonged, then became commodore...All the small vessels of the fleet were to be sent to Bacalar to assist in embarking the troops at that place, said to consist of 12 companies of 100 men each... ”
This estimate was severely reduced due to outbreaks of yellow fever and dissent in the Spanish army. Nevertheless, it was enough to frighten the Baymen into posting lookouts near the boundaries of the territory.

Baymen's preparations
The Merlin's command in 1798 was Captain John Moss, a strategist on the order of Barrow. By July 18, 1798 the fleet had reached Cozumel, leading the settlers to agree to arm their slaves, an act that affected the outcome of the battle due to the slaves' knowledge of warfare. There were still some who were cautious and demanded evacuation, including Potts, but Balcarres ignored them and imposed martial law on July 26. The Settlement lineup consisted of the following:
“ Merlin, HM's sloop of war; two sloops, Towser and Tickler, with one 18 pounder and 25 men each; one sloop, Mermaid, with one short 9 pounder and 25 men; the schooners, Swinger and Teazer, with six four pounders and 25 men each; seven gun-flats, one 9 pounder and 16 men each. ”
In addition there were 700 troops ready to deter attack by land.
The battle
From September 3 to 5, the Spaniards tried to force their way through Montego Caye shoal, blocked by the defenders. The military commanders, Moss and Barrow, differed on where to put their resources for the next phase of the fight: Barrow thought they would go to the land phase, while Moss decided on defending St. George's Caye. Moss arrived in time to stop the Spaniards, setting the stage for September 10.
September 10
At 1:00 pm that afternoon, the Spaniards and British lined up off St. George's Caye. The Spaniards stormed through the channel, and at 1:30 engaged the English in a two hour fight which ended in defeat for the confused Spaniards. Moss reported no one killed and the side in good spirits. Barrow was dispatched and arrived in time to see the end of the battle and prevent the slave men from boarding the enemy. The Spaniards were in full retreat by September 13, and Barrow agreed to send vessels to further push the Spaniards back.
Aftermath
Conditions in Belize did not improve much after the battle, though the threat of Spanish attacks decreased significantly. The event is celebrated every September 10 in Belize as St. George's Caye Day or National Day.
The largest of Altun Ha's temple-pyramids, the "Temple of the Masonry Altars", is 54 feet (16 m) high. A drawing of this structure is the logo of Belize's leading brand of beer, "Belikin".
The site covers an area of about 5 miles (8 km) square. The central square mile of the site has remains of some 500 structures.


The Moai statues of Rapa Nui
One of the world's most famous yet least visited archaeological sites, Easter Island is a small, hilly, now treeless island of volcanic origin. Located in the Pacific Ocean at 27 degrees south of the equator and some 2200 miles (3600 kilometers) off the coast of Chile, it is considered to be the world’s most remote inhabited island. Sixty-three square miles in size and with three extinct volcanoes (the tallest rising to 1674 feet), the island is, technically speaking, a single massive volcano rising over ten thousand feet from the Pacific Ocean floor. The oldest known traditional name of the island is Te Pito o Te Henua, meaning ‘The Center (or Navel) of the World.’ In the 1860’s Tahitian sailors gave the island the name Rapa Nui, meaning ‘Great Rapa,’ due to its resemblance to another island in Polynesia called Rapa Iti, meaning ‘Little Rapa’. The island received its most well known current name, Easter Island, from the Dutch sea captain Jacob Roggeveen who became the first European to visit Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722.
In the early 1950s, the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl (famous for his Kon-Tiki and Ra raft voyages across the oceans) popularized the idea that the island had been originally settled by advanced societies of Indians from the coast of South America. Extensive archaeological, ethnographic and linguistic research has conclusively shown this hypothesis to be inaccurate. It is now recognized that the original inhabitants of Easter Island are of Polynesian stock (DNA extracts from skeletons have confirmed this), that they most probably came from the Marquesas or Society islands, and that they arrived as early as 318 AD (carbon dating of reeds from a grave confirms this). It is estimated that the original colonists, who may have been lost at sea, arrived in only a few canoes and numbered fewer than 100. At the time of their arrival, much of the island was forested, was teeming with land birds, and was perhaps the most productive breeding site for seabirds in the Polynesia region. Because of the plentiful bird, fish and plant food sources, the human population grew and gave rise to a rich religious and artistic culture.
That culture's most famous features are its enormous stone statues called moai, at least 288 of which once stood upon massive stone platforms called ahu. There are some 250 of these ahu platforms spaced approximately one half mile apart and creating an almost unbroken line around the perimeter of the island. Another 600 moai statues, in various stages of completion, are scattered around the island, either in quarries or along ancient roads between the quarries and the coastal areas where the statues were most often erected. Nearly all the moai are carved from the tough stone of the Rano Raraku volcano. The average statue is 14 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs 14 tons. Some moai were as large as 33 feet and weighed more than 80 tons (one statue only partially quarried from the bedrock was 65 feet long and would have weighed an estimated 270 tons). Depending upon the size of the statues, it has been estimated that between 50 and 150 people were needed to drag them across the countryside on sleds and rollers made from the island's trees.
The Paschalococos disperta and the Saphora toromiro were once the island’s most bountiful trees and sediment samples dating from 200 AD indicate an abundance of pollen from both trees in the island biota at that time. The Paschalococos disperta bear a striking resemblance to the still-surviving Jubaea chilensis, the Chilean wine palm, which grows up eighty feet tall and six feet in diameter. Thus the Paschalococos disperta palm tree trunks are the most probable candidates for the solution to the transportation of the enormous moai from their carving location at the Rano Raraku volcano to the many locations where they were erected around the island. These trees were also important to the islanders for fuel and for the construction of houses and ocean-fishing canoes.
The moai and ahu were in use as early as AD 500, the majority were carved and erected between AD 1000 and 1650, and they were still standing when Jacob Roggeveen visited the island in 1722. Recent research has shown that certain statue sites, particularly the most important ones with great ahu platforms, were periodically ritually dismantled and reassembled with ever-larger statues. A small number of the moai were once capped with ‘crowns’ or ‘hats’ of red volcanic stone. The meaning and purpose of these capstones is not known, but archaeologists have suggested that the moai thus marked were of pan-island ritual significance or perhaps sacred to a particular clan.
Scholars are unable to definitively explain the function and use of the moai statues. It is assumed that their carving and erection derived from an idea rooted in similar practices found elsewhere in Polynesia but which evolved in a unique way on Easter Island. Archaeological and iconographic analysis indicates that the statue cult was based on an ideology of male, lineage-based authority incorporating anthropomorphic symbolism. The statues were thus symbols of authority and power, both religious and political. But they were not only symbols. To the people who erected and used them, they were actual repositories of sacred spirit. Carved stone and wooden objects in ancient Polynesian religions, when properly fashioned and ritually prepared, were believed to be charged by a magical spiritual essence called mana. The ahu platforms of Easter Island were the sanctuaries of the people of Rapa Nui, and the moai statues were the ritually charged sacred objects of those sanctuaries. While the statues have been toppled and re-erected over the centuries, the mana or spiritual presence of Rapa Nui is still strongly present at the ahu sites and atop the sacred volcanoes.
Mystery surrounds the purpose of the ahu platforms and moai statues but even more perplexing mysteries have begun to surface from the research of scholars outside the boundaries of conventional archaeology. As previously mentioned, orthodox archaeologists believe that Easter Island was initially settled sometime around 318 AD by a small group of Polynesians lost on the open sea. Other scholars, however, have suggested that the tiny island may have once been part of far larger island and that the original discovery and use of the site may be many thousands of years earlier in time (it is known, for example, that Melanesians were journeying around the Pacific in boats as early as 5500 BC).

Three researchers in particular, Graham Hancock, Colin Wilson and Rand Flem-Ath, believe that Easter Island was an important node in a global grid of sacred geography that predates the great floods of archaic times. Easter Island, writes Graham Hancock, is
“part of a massive subterranean escarpment called the East Pacific Rise, which reaches almost to the surface at several points. Twelve thousand years ago, when the great ice caps of the last glaciation were still largely unmelted, and sea-level was 100 meters lower than it is today, the Rise would have formed a chain of steep and narrow antediluvian islands, as long as the Andes mountain range.”
At that time, the land we now call Easter Island would simply have been the highest peak of a much larger island. The fascinating question posed by Hancock, Wilson and Flem-Ath is whether this much larger island had been found and settled long before the ‘318 AD discovery’ date assumed by orthodox archaeology? (In reference to the notion of a so-called ‘Ice Age,’ it is important to mention that scientists from a variety of disciplines including geology, climatology, zoology, paleoanthropology, oceanography, geophysics and mythology have begun to question the hypothesis of an ice age and glacial coverage that was first proposed by Charles Lyell and Louis Agassiz in the early 1800’s. Readers interested in learning more about the possible non-existence of the Ice Age and its glacier coverage will enjoy the book Cataclysm: Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500 BC, by Allan & Delair.)

Besides its more well known name of Rapa Nui, Easter Island is also known as Te-Pito-O-Te-Henua, meaning ‘The Navel of the World’, and as Mata-Ki-Te-Rani, meaning ‘Eyes Looking at Heaven’. These ancient names, and a host of mythological details ignored by mainstream archaeologists, point to the possibility that the remote island may once have been a geodetic marker and the site of an astronomical observatory of a long forgotten civilization. Speculations about this shadowy antediluvian culture include the notion that its mariners had charted the world’s oceans, that its astronomers had sophisticated knowledge of long-term astronomical cycles such as precession and cometary orbits, and that its historians had records of previous global cataclysms and the destruction they caused of even more ancient civilizations.
The fact that sweet potatoes, a staple of the Polynesian diet, and several other domestic plants - up to 12 in Eastern Island - are of South American origin indicates that there must have been some contact between the two cultures. Either Polynesians have travelled to South America and back, or Indian balsa rafts have drifted to Polynesia, likely never being able to return due to their inferior navigational skills and less enduring ships - or both. Polynesian connections in South America have especially been seen among the Mapuche Indians in central and southern Chile. The Polynesian name for the small islet of Sala y Gómez (Manu Motu Motiro Hiva, "Bird's islet on the way to a far away land") east of Easter Island has also been seen as a hint that South America was known before European contacts. Further complicating the situation is that the word Hiva ("far away land") was also the name of the islanders' legendary home country. Unexplicable insistance of eastern origins of the first inhabitants was unanimous among the islanders in all early accounts. Today, the mainstream archeology is skeptical about non-Polynesian influence on the island's prehistory, although the discussion has become very political around the subject. DNA sequence analysis of Easter Island's current inhabitants offers strong evidence as to their Polynesian origins, a tool not available in Heyerdahl's time. However, as the number of islanders that survived the 19th century deportations was very small, perhaps just 1-2% of the peak population, this mainly confirms that the remaining population was of Polynesian origin.
The Polynesian name of the island is Rapanui, which is a name given by a Tahitian visitor in the 19th century who says that the island looked like the Tahitian island of 'Rapa,' but bigger, 'Nui.' Inhabitants are of Polynesian descent, but for decades anthropologists have argued the true origins of these people, some claiming that ancient South-American mariners settled the island first.
When we think of Eastern Island we think of of huge stone carved figures - monoliths- that dot the coastline. They are called Moai - (pronounced moe-eye). Moai are statues carved of compressed volcanic ash on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). The statues are all monolithic, that is, carved in one piece. However, less than about one-fifth of the statues that were moved to ceremonial sites and then erected once had red stone cylinders pukau placed on their heads. These "topknots," as they are often called, were carved in a single quarry known as Puna Pau.
About 95% of the 887 moai known to date were carved out of compressed volcanic ash at Rano Raraku, where 394 moai still remain visible today. Recent GPS mapping in the interior will certainly add additional moai to that count. The quarries in Rano Raraku appear to have been abandoned abruptly, with many incomplete statues still in situ.
However, the pattern of work is very complex and is still being studied. Practically all of the completed moai that were moved from Rano Raraku and erected upright on ceremonial platforms were subsequently toppled by native islanders in the period after construction ceased.
Although usually identified as "heads" only, the moai are actually one piece figures with heads and truncated torsos.
The most widely-accepted theory is that the statues were carved by the Polynesian colonizers of the island beginning by about A.D. 1000-1100. In addition to representing deceased ancestors, the moai, once they were erect on ceremonial sites, may also have been regarded as the embodiment of powerful living chiefs. They were also important lineage status symbols.
The moai were carved by a distinguished class of professional carvers who were comparable in status to high-ranking members of other Polynesian craft guilds. The statues must have been extremely expensive to craft; not only would the actual carving of each statue require effort and resources, but the finished product was then hauled to its final location and erected.

It is not known exactly how the moai were moved but the process almost certainly required human energy, ropes, wooden sledges and/or rollers. Another theory is that the moai may have been "walked" by rocking them forward.
By the mid-1800s, all the moai outside of Rano Raraku and many within the quarry itself had been knocked over. Today, about 50 moai have been re-erected on their ceremonial sites.
Ancient island legends speak of a clan chief called Hotu Matu'a, who left his original home in search of a new one. The place he chose is now known to us as Easter Island. When he died, the island was divided between his six sons and then, later, sub-dividied among their descendants.
As in the case of many religious structures on Easter Island, it has been situated with astronomical precision: it's seven statues look towards the point where the sun sets during the equinox.
Rongo-rongo is the hieroglyphic script of Easter Island. It has remained a mystery since its discovery. For over a hundred years, controversy has raged over the meaning and source of these enigmatic characters.

HISTORY OF Māori: Hiva
The Māori name Hawaiki refers to the mythical land to which some Polynesian cultures trace their origins. It may also refer to an underworld in many Māori stories, and in Mangaia in the Cook Islands, the Cook Islands Maori word Avaiki always means "underworld" (Tregear 1891:392).
The Māori name Hawaiki figures in legends about the arrival of the Māori in Aotearoa (New Zealand). The same concept appears in other Polynesian cultures, the name appearing variously as Hawaiki, Havai‘i, or ‘Avaiki in other Polynesian languages, though Hawaiki or Hawaiiki appear to have become the most common variants used in English. Even though the Sāmoans (themselves forming one of the oldest communities in Polynesia) have preserved no traditions of having originated elsewhere, the name of the largest Sāmoan island Savai‘i preserves a cognate with the word Hawaiki, as does the name of the Polynesian islands of Hawaii, written Hawai‘i in Hawaiian (the diacritical mark ‘ denoting a glottal stop that replaces the "k" in some Polynesian languages).
Other cognates of the word Hawaiki include sauali'i ("spirits" in Sāmoan) and hou'eiki ("chiefs" in Tongan). This has led some scholars to hypothesize that the word Hawaiki, and, by extension, Savai'i and Hawai‘i, may not, in fact, have originally referred to a geographical place, but rather to chiefly ancestors and the chief-based social structure that pre-colonial Polynesia typically exhibited (Taumoefolau 1996).
In Easter Island, the name of the mythical home country appears as Hiva, allegedly east of the island.

LEGENDS
According to various oral traditions, Polynesians migrated from Hawaiki to the islands of the Pacific Ocean in open canoes, little different from the traditional craft found in Polynesia today. The Māori people of New Zealand trace their ancestry to groups of people who reportedly travelled from Hawaiki in about 40 named canoes (waka). (Compare the discredited Great Fleet theory of New Zealand settlement)
Polynesian oral traditions say that the spirits of Polynesian people return to Hawaiki after death. In the New Zealand context, such return-journeys take place via Spirits Bay, Cape Reinga and the Three Kings Islands at the extreme north of the North Island of New Zealand — giving a possible pointer as to the direction in which Hawaiki may lie.
DNA, linguistic and archaeological evidence indicates that the Austronesian-speaking peoples (including the Polynesians) probably originated from islands in eastern Asia, possibly from Taiwan, and moved southwards and eastwards through the South Pacific Ocean. The common ancestry of all the Austronesian languages, of which the Polynesian languages form a major subgroup, supports this theory. This evidence indicates that at least some of the migration occurred against the prevailing winds, and hence deliberately rather than just accidentally. Austronesian and Polynesian navigators may have deduced the existence of uninhabited islands by observing migratory patterns of birds.
In recent decades, boatbuilders (see Polynesian Voyaging Society) have constructed ocean-going craft using traditional materials and techniques, and have sailed them over presumed traditional routes using ancient navigation methods, showing the feasibility of such deliberate migration.

Taiwan (traditional Chinese: 臺灣 or 台灣; simplified Chinese: 台湾; Hanyu Pinyin: Táiwān; Tongyong Pinyin: Táiwan; Wade-Giles: T'ai²-wan1; Taiwanese: Tâi-oân) is an island in East Asia. "Taiwan" is also commonly used to refer to the territories administered by the Republic of China (ROC) and to ROC itself, which governs the island of Taiwan, Lanyu (Orchid Island) and Green Island in the Pacific off the Taiwan coast, the Pescadores in the Taiwan Strait, and Kinmen and the Matsu Islands off the coast of mainland Fujian. The island groups of Taiwan and Penghu (except the municipalities of Taipei and Kaohsiung) are officially administered as Taiwan Province of the Republic of China.
The main island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa (from Portuguese (Ilha) Formosa, meaning "beautiful (island)"), is located in East Asia off the coast of mainland China, southwest of the main islands of Japan but directly west of the end of Japan's Ryukyu Islands, and north-northwest of the Philippines. It is bound to the east by the Pacific Ocean, to the south by the South China Sea and the Luzon Strait, to the west by the Taiwan Strait and to the north by the East China Sea. The island is 394 kilometers (245 miles) long and 144 kilometers (89 miles) wide and consists of steep mountains covered by tropical and subtropical vegetation.

Prehistory
Main article: Prehistory of Taiwan
Evidence of human settlement in Taiwan dates back thirty thousand years, although the first inhabitants of Taiwan may have been genetically distinct from any groups currently on the island. About four thousand years ago, ancestors of current Taiwanese aborigines settled in Taiwan. These aborigines are genetically related to Malay and Polynesians, and linguists classify their language as Austronesian.[1] Polynesians are suspected to have ancestry traceable back to Taiwan.

CHINA CHI, XIA
Huaxia (traditional Chinese: 華夏; simplified Chinese: 华夏; pinyin: Huáxià) is a name often used to represent China or Chinese civilization.

Etymology
According to the historical record, Zuo Zhuan, the ancient Xia Dynasty of central China was a state that held propriety and justice in high esteem, thus the word xia (夏), which has the meaning of "great" or "grand", was used by subsequent dynasties to refer to the entire country as a mark of refined culture. The word hua (華) was also used in reference to the beautiful clothing that people in ancient China wore, as the word means "illustrious" and "splendid". (中國有禮儀之大，故稱夏；有服章之美，謂之華。)
It is also possible that xia referred to Xiashui (夏水), another name for the Han River, and hua referred to Mount Hua. Both the river and the mountain were historically and culturally significant to ancient China.
In the narrow, original sense, Huaxia refers to a group (or confederation of tribes) of ancient people living along the Yellow River who formed the nucleus of what later became the Han ethnic group in China. In this sense, the term did not originally represent China or Chinese civilisation as a whole, but referred instead to a specific ethno-cultural group (the Huaxia tribe or confederacy 華夏族) that was distinct from other Chinese peoples at the time, such as the Miao and the Dongyi. Subsequently, with the spread of Han culture over most of China, the term came to be used as a generic term for the Chinese nation itself, as well as for Chinese culture in general (including that shared by the overseas Chinese).
Although still used in conjunction, Hua (華) and Xia (夏) are more often used separately to represent things Chinese. Hua, in particular, has become almost synonymous with Chinese civilization.
The official Chinese names of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China refer to Huaxia in using the term Zhonghua (中華) to refer to China as a country. The PRC's Chinese name is "中華人民共和國" and the ROC's Chinese name is "中華民國".
The character hua is also often used, in the terms Huaqiao (華僑) and Huaren (華人), by the Overseas Chinese to refer to themselves. The term does not denote citizenship, but makes a reference to their ancestral origins.
The Chinese calendar is also known as the "Xia Li" (夏曆).
The Dynasty business class service on China Airlines is called "Huaxia Class" in Chinese.
Shaanxi (and the city of Xi'an therein) are considered one of the cradles of Chinese civilization. Thirteen feudal dynasties established their capitals in this province during a span of more than 1,100 years, from the Zhou Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty. It is also the starting point of the Silk Road which leads to Europe, Arabia and Africa.
Origins
The Erlitou culture (二里頭文化) (2000 BC to 1500 BC) is a name given by archaeologists to an Early Bronze Age society that existed in China. The culture was named after the site discovered at Erlitou in Yanshi, Henan Province. The culture was widely spread throughout Henan and Shanxi Province, and later appeared in Shaanxi and Hubei Province. Most Chinese archaeologists identify the Erlitou culture as the site of the Xia Dynasty, while most Western archaeologists remain unconvinced of the connection between the Erlitou culture and the Xia Dynasty since there are no extant written records linking Erlitou with the official history.
Discovered in 1959, Erlitou is the largest site associated with the Erlitou culture at 3 km². Erlitou monopolized the production of ritual bronze vessels. After the rise of the Shang Dynasty, the site at Erlitou greatly diminished in size, but remained inhabited during the early phase of the Shang Dynasty.
The Erlitou culture may have evolved from the Longshan culture. Originally centered around Henan and Shanxi Province, the culture later spread to Shaanxi and Hubei Province.
he Shang dynasty is believed to have been founded by a rebel leader who overthrew the last Xia ruler. Its civilization was based on agriculture, augmented by hunting and animal husbandry. The Records of the Grand Historian states that the Shang dynasty moved its capital six times. The final and most important move to Yin in 1350 BC led to the golden age of the dynasty. The term Yin dynasty has been synonymous with the Shang dynasty in history, and indeed was the more popular term, although it is now often used specifically in reference to the latter half of the Shang Dynasty. The Japanese and Korean still refer to the Shang dynasty exclusively as the Yin (In) dynasty.
A line of hereditary Shang kings ruled over much of northern China, and Shang troops fought frequent wars with neighboring settlements and nomadic herdsmen from the inner Asian steppes. The capitals, particularly that in Yin, were centers of glittering court life. Court rituals to propitiate spirits developed. In addition to his secular position, the king was the head of the ancestor- and spirit-worship cult. The king often performed oracle bone divinations himself, especially near the end of the dynasty. Evidence from the royal tombs indicates that royal personages were buried with articles of value, presumably for use in the afterlife. Perhaps for the same reason, hundreds of commoners, who may have been slaves, were buried alive with the royal corpse.
Fujian (help•info) (Chinese: 福建; pinyin: Fújiàn; Wade-Giles: Fu-chien; Postal map spelling: Fukien, Foukien; local transliteration Hokkien from Min Nan or Taiwanese: Hok-kiàn) is one of the provinces on the southeast coast of China. Fujian borders Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait. The name Fujian comes from the combination of Fuzhou and Jian'ou, two cities in Fujian. The name was coined during Tang Dynasty.
Most of Fujian is administered by the People's Republic of China. However, the archipelagos of Kinmen (Chinese: 金门; pinyin: Jīnmén) and Matsu (Chinese: 马祖; pinyin: Măzŭ) are under the control of the Republic of China based in Taiwan. Thus, there are two provinces (in the sense of government organizations; Fujian and Fujian) with the same name.
early records stating that the indigenous people in Fujian, primarily those living along the Min River, were Austronesians with "large eyes, flat nose and tattooed bodies" [citation needed], who made their living by fishing.
These people were probably the original inhabitants of southern China. Some of them may have been assimilated, driven further south, or exiled during Han Dynasty to eastern China (north of present-day Shanghai).
For the Han Chinese, this area was also known as Minyue. The word "Mǐnyuè" was derived by combining "Mǐn" (閩/闽; POJ: bân), perhaps an ethnic name and associated with the Chinese word for barbarians (蠻/蛮; pinyin: mán; POJ: bân), and "Yue", after the State of Yue, a Spring and Autumn Period kingdom in Zhejiang Province to the north. This is because the royal family of Yuè fled to Fujian after their kingdom was annexed by the State of Chu in 306 BC. Mǐn is also the name of the main river in this area, but the ethnonym is probably earlier.
Minyue was a de facto kingdom until the emperor of Qin Dynasty, the first unified imperial Chinese state, abolished the status. In the aftermath of the fall of the Qin Dynasty, however, civil war broke out between two warlords, Xiang Yu and Liu Bang; the Minyue king Wuzhu sent his troops to fight side-by-side with Liu Bang, and his gamble paid off. Liu Bang was victorious, and founded the Han Dynasty; in 202 BC he restored Minyue's status as a tributary independent kingdom. Thus Wuzhu was allowed to construct his fortified city in Fuzhou as well as a few locations in the Wuyi Mountains, which have been excavated in recent years. His kingdom extended beyond the borders of contemporary Fujian into eastern Guangdong, eastern Jiangxi, and southern Zhejiang. By this time Minyue was being sinicized and had a combination of aboriginal (possibly Austronesian) and Han Chinese elements.
The Austronesian people or Austronesian-speaking people, are a population group present in Oceania and Southeast Asia who speak, or had ancestors who spoke, one of the Austronesian languages. They form a diverse group of peoples stretching 57% around the globe west-to-east, ranging 206° from 44°E in Madagascar to 110° W on Easter Island. The territories settled primarily by Austronesian peoples are known collectively as Austronesia.
History ASTRONESIA
The first Austronesian speakers are believed to have originated on the island of Taiwan following the migration of a group, or groups, of Pre-Austronesian speaking peoples from continental Asia approximately 10,000-6000 B.C. Due to a lengthy split from the Pre-Austronesian populations, the Proto-Austronesian language and cultures emerged on Taiwan (Blust,1988).
Beginning around 5000-2500 B.C., the large scale Austronesian expansion began. Population growth primarily fueled this expansion. A society that gives prestige and a higher status to the descendants of a community's founder added more incentive to settle new lands.
These first settlers landed in northern Luzon in the Philippines. Over the next thousand years up until 1500 B.C., their descendants started to spread south to the rest of the Philippine islands, Celebes (modern-day Sulawesi), northern Borneo, Moluccas (modern-day Maluku), and Java.
The settlers in Moluccas sailed eastward and began to spread to the islands of Melanesia and Micronesia between 1200 B.C. and 500 B.C. repectively. Those that spread westward reached Sumatra, the Malay peninsula and southern Vietnam by 500 B.C.
The oceanic Austronesians reached Polynesia in 0 A.D. and spread to its three furthest points Hawaii in 500 A.D. New Zealand by 1300 A.D. and Easter Island between 300 AD and 1200 AD. In the Indian Ocean they reached Madagascar.
Trade with India and China flourished within the first millennia A.D., which allowed the creation of Indianized states. Muslim traders began arriving during the 10th century and brought with them Islam as well as the sultanates.
Europeans in search of spices later colonized most of Austronesia, starting from the 16th century, with British and Portuguese colonization of Malaysia, Portuguese and the Dutch colonization of Indonesia and East Timor, and the Spanish colonization and, later, the American governance of the Philippines. Meanwhile, the British, Germans, French, Americans, and Japanese began establishing spheres of influence within the Pacific Islands during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Japanese later invaded during World War II. The latter half of the 20th century initiated independence of modern day Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and many of the Pacific Island nations.
Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines enjoyed a high rate of economic growth but the authoritarian rule of Suharto and Marcos were later established years after the independence of Indonesia and the Philippines, resulting in stagnation. Marcos' regime was toppled in 1986 and Suharto's rule ended in 1998 and the economies of the two countries are finally recovering but problems and challenges remain.
Austronesia, in historical terms, refers to the homeland of the people who speak Austronesian languages, to which Malay, Filipino, Indonesian, Maori, Malagasy, native Hawaiian, the Fijian language and around a thousand other languages belong. The Austronesian homeland is thought by linguists to have been prehistoric Taiwan.
The name Austronesia comes from the Latin austrālis "southern" plus the Greek νήσος (nêsos) "island".
However, in present terminologies, the word Austronesia pertains to the regions where Austronesian languages are spoken. Austronesia then covers about half of the globe, although mostly ocean, and oceanic islands, starting from Madagascar to the west until Easter Island, to the east. Austronesia as a region has three traditional divisions: Formosa (Taiwan), Nusantara (the Malay Archipelago), and Austronesian Oceania (Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia).
Vanuatu
The original inhabitants of the islands now named Melanesia were likely the ancestors of the presentday Papuan-speaking people. These people are thought to have occupied New Guinea tens of millennia ago and reached the islands at least 35,000 years ago (according to radiocarbon dating). They appear to have occupied these islands as far east as the main islands in the Solomon Islands (i.e., including San Cristobal) and perhaps even to the smaller islands farther to the east.
It was particularly along the north coast of New Guinea and in the islands north and east of New Guinea that the Austronesian people came into contact with these pre-existing populations of Papuan-speaking peoples, probably around 4000 years ago. There was probably a long period of interaction that resulted in many complex changes in genetics, languages, and culture. It is likely that from this area a very small group of people (speaking an Austronesian language) departed to the east to become the forebears of the Polynesian people.
The Solomon Islands is a nation in Melanesia, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. Together they cover a land mass of 28,400 square kilometres (10,965 sq mi). The capital is Honiara, located on the island of Guadalcanal.
The Solomon Islands are believed to have been inhabited by Melanesian people for thousands of years.
It is believed that Papuan speaking settlers began to arrive around 30,000 BC. Austronesian speakers arrived circa 4,000 BC also bringing cultural elements such as the outrigger canoe. It is between 1,200 and 800 BC that the ancestors of the Polynesians, the Lapita people, arrived from the Bismarck Archipelago with their characteristic ceramics.[1] The first European to discover the islands was the Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira, coming from Peru in 1568.
Papua New Guinea (pronounced /ˈpæpuːə njuː ˈgɪni/, /ˈpæpjuːə/), in Tok Pisin: Papua Niugini, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands (the western portion of the island is occupied by the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua). It is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, in a region defined since the early 19th century as Melanesia. Its capital, and one of its few major cities, is Port Moresby. It is one of the most diverse countries on Earth, with over 850 indigenous languages and at least as many traditional societies, out of a population of just under 6 million. It is also one of the most rural, with only 18 per cent of its people living in urban centres. The country is also one of the world's least explored, culturally and geographically, and many undiscovered species of plants and animals are thought to exist in the interior of Papua New Guinea.
Human remains have been found which have been dated to about 50,000 years ago. These ancient inhabitants probably had their origins in Southeast Asia. Agriculture was independently developed in the New Guinea highlands around 9,000 years ago, making it one of the few areas of original plant domestication in the world. A major migration of Austronesian speaking peoples came to coastal regions roughly 2,500 years ago, and this is correlated with the introduction of pottery, pigs, and certain fishing techniques. More recently, some 300 years ago, the sweet potato entered New Guinea having been introduced to the Moluccas from South America by the then-locally dominant colonial power, Portugal. The far higher crop yields from sweet potato gardens radically transformed traditional agriculture; sweet potato largely supplanted the previous staple, taro, and gave rise to a significant increase in population in the highlands.
The Xia Dynasty (Chinese: 夏朝; pinyin: xià cháo; Wade-Giles: hsia-ch'ao), ca. 2070 BC–1600 BC, of China is a quasi-legendary dynasty and the first to be described in the Records of the Grand Historian and unofficial Bamboo Annals, which record the names of seventeen kings over fourteen generations lasted 431 or 471 years. The dynasty was preceded by the mythological Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, and followed by the Shang Dynasty.
Chinese sources describe the Guishuang (Ch: 貴霜), i.e. the "Kushans", as one of the five aristocratic tribes of the Yuezhi, also spelled Yueh-chi, (Ch: 月氏), a loose confederation of Indo-European peoples. The Yuezhi are also generally considered as the easternmost speakers of Indo-European languages, who had been living in the arid grasslands of eastern Central Asia, in modern-day Xinjiang and Gansu, possibly speaking versions of the Tocharian language, until they were driven west by the Xiongnu in 176–160 BCE. The five tribes constituting the Yuezhi are known in Chinese history as Xiūmì (Ch: 休密), Guishuang (Ch: 貴霜), Shuangmi (Ch: 雙靡), Xidun (Ch: 肸頓), and Dūmì (Ch: 都密).
the Guishuang (Ch: 貴霜) gained prominence over the other Yuezhi tribes, and welded them into a tight confederation under yabgu (Commander) Kujula Kadphises. The name Guishuang was adopted in the West and modified into Kushan to designate the confederation, although the Chinese continued to call them Yuezhi.
The Kushans are believed to have been predominantly Zoroastrian and later Buddhist as well. However, from the time of Wima Takto, many Kushans started adopting aspects of Indian culture like the other nomadic groups who had invaded India, principally the Royal clans of Gujjars. Like the Macedonians and Egyptians they absorbed the strong remnants of the Greek Culture of the Hellenistic Kingdoms, becoming at least partly Hellenised. The first great Kushan emperor Wima Kadphises may have embraced Saivism, as surmised by coins minted during the period. The following Kushan emperors represented a wide variety of faiths including Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and possibly Saivism.
The rule of the Kushans linked the seagoing trade of the Indian Ocean with the commerce of the Silk Road through the long-civilized Indus Valley. At the height of the dynasty, the Kushans loosely oversaw a territory that extended to the Aral Sea through present-day Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan into northern India.
The loose unity and comparative peace of such a vast expanse encouraged long-distance trade, brought Chinese silks to Rome, and created strings of flourishing urban centers.
The recently discovered Rabatak inscription tends to confirm large Kushan dominions in the heartland of India. The lines 4 to 7 of the inscription describe the cities which were under the rule of Kanishka, among which six names are identifiable: Ujjain, Kundina, Saketa, Kausambi, Pataliputra, and Champa (although the text is not clear whether Champa was a possession of Kanishka or just beyond it).
The Yuezhi/ Kushans expanded to the east during the 1st century AD, to found the Kushan Empire. The first Kushan emperor Kujula Kadphises ostensibly associated himself with Hermaeus on his coins, suggesting that he may have been one of his descendants by alliance, or at least wanted to claim his legacy.
he unification of the Yuezhi tribes and the rise of the Kushan is documented in the Chinese Historical chronicle Hou Hanshu:
"More than a hundred years later, the xihou (Ch:翖侯, "Allied Prince") of Guishuang (Badakhshan and the adjoining territories north of the Oxus), named Qiujiu Que (Ch: 丘就卻, Kujula Kadphises) attacked and exterminated the four other xihou ("Allied Princes"). He set himself up as king of a kingdom called Guishuang (Kushan). He invaded Anxi (Parthia) and took the Gaofu (Ch:高附, Kabul) region. He also defeated the whole of the kingdoms of Puda and Jibin (Ch: 罽賓, Kapiśa-Gandhāra). Qiujiu Que (Kujula Kadphises) was more than eighty years old when he died.
His son, Yan Gaozhen (Ch:閻高珍) (Vima Takto), became king in his place. He returned and defeated Tianzhu (Northwestern India) and installed a General to supervise and lead it. The Yuezhi then became extremely rich. All the kingdoms call [their king] the Guishuang (Kushan) king, but the Han call them by their original name, Da Yuezhi." (Hou Hanshu, trans. John Hill.
The Yuezhi/Kushan integrated Buddhism into a pantheon of many deities, became great promoters of Mahayana Buddhism, and their interactions with Greek civilization helped the Gandharan culture and Greco-Buddhism flourish.
During the 1st and 2nd century, the Kushan Empire expanded militarily to the north and occupied parts of the Tarim Basin, their original grounds, putting them at the center of the lucrative Central Asian commerce with the Roman Empire. They are related to have collaborated militarily with the Chinese against nomadic incursion, particularly when they collaborated with the Chinese general Ban Chao against the Sogdians in 84 CE, when the latter were trying to support a revolt by the king of Kashgar. Around 85 CE[citation needed], they also assisted the Chinese general in an attack on Turfan, east of the Tarim Basin.).oad transmission of Buddhism. Pollynesian first settlement of the island at that time, but it is unlikely that other details can be verified.
During this era there was the Polynesians were colonising islands acroass a vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean
Hotu Matua led his people from Hiva, linguistic analysis comparing Rapanui to other Polynesian languages suggests this was the Marquesas Islands.

Ancient Societies of the Seven Rays Solar Brotherhood:
1. Nagas (Serpents in Sanscrit) of Indus (India).
2. The earliest Mayans and their first Serpent kings, Caramaya and Naga Maya
3. Later the Serpentine Kings Kukulcan and Quetzalcoatal creating the Itza Maya Culture of South America.
4. The Lung Dragons of China, and an interesting fact is that an ancient Chinese term for dragon was Naga.
5. Amarus and Con Ticci Viracocha of Peru.
6. The Zohar is said to have passed from Adam to Noah and then to Abraham, who immigrated to Egypt. The Zohar or the Books of Splendor – were the Original texts of the Kabbalah. An earlier priest cult in Egypt was specifically formed to take care of the Royalty that went by the title of “ Messah’ or Crocodile Lords, who also lay claim to the Adam or Amen (Sun King) as being their Kamara. The early Egyptians who built the pyramids were called the Naga, which may be due to the influence of ...
7. The Olmec returning to North Africa from the lands of the Maya.
8. The Azteca who absorbed the cultures and religions of Meso-America had the goddess Coatlcue she wore a skirt of snakes, she is often depicted as having two dragon heads.
9. In the mythology of Sumeria the goddess Tiamat in her fury would destroy all who challenged her. All that is, but the Babylonian sun god, Marduk. In a celestial battle which took place in the heavens, Marduk slew Tiamat. Then, from Tiamuat’s dismembered body, he fashioned the heavens and the earth. From her dragon’s blood Marduk created man.
10. Nidhogg is said to be the Dragon Father of an underground world known by the Norse as Niflheim.
• School of Amen, Egypt, where the well-known Emerald Tablets were said to be amongst these ancient records brought there, and buried beneath the Sphinx
It is said that later, after the decline of the society in Egypt, the Emerald Tablets were taken from their resting place by non other than Nefertiti, Queen to Akhenaten who was a Kumara and schooled in the Brotherhood of the Seven Rays, to the Halls of Records in the Yucatan. There they remain waiting to this day in safe keeping!
Akhenaten received his teachings in the Brotherhood of the Seven Rays, in a secret school that is known to be in the Andes Mountains. (which is why there are so many archaeological artifacts here in the Americas, that show a direct connection to Egypt)

There are those that hold to the belief that this school was the ancient university of Machu Picchu, others argue that it was Tiahuanaku, the famed city of the sun. No records oral or otherwise have survived which designate which location it may have actually been. Perhaps those records are still to be revealed.

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