This is important. The Mayan collapse has begged explanation for decades. As well we also have significant coastal abandonment at other locales to explain. Hurricanes solve the whole problem nicely.
After all since our recent bombardment, coastal construction is looking far too fool hardy. Now imagine the frequency jumping to decadal rather than every century. That is what happened and recovery became impossible as would happen with us as well.
We are also seeing how a poorly organized society gets on as well in Puerto Rico. They are not too far from all been refugees..
.
Rise and fall of American civilizations linked to hurricane frequency
Between 800 AD and 900 AD, when the Maya civilization collapsed, there were 250% more hurricanes each year than today.
In ongoing studies funded
by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
National Science Foundation, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),
National Geographic Society, United States Navy and Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution, scientists have been able to pinpoint the
locations and chronology of major hurricanes as far back as 400 AD. The
researchers have also been able to determine changes in the temperature
of the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Ocean temperatures currently
are the highest they have been since before the Ice Age.
The current status of this fascinating research is being presented by the Nova Series on PBS. The program is entitled, Major Hurricanes and is also being streamed online.
Major Hurricanes only makes
a brief reference to the impact of hurricane activity and ocean water
temperature on American indigenous civilizations. However, the
chronological syncopation between Mesoamerica, the Southeastern cultures
and the Desert Southwest cultures is patently obvious in the chart
above.
When the People of One Fire was founded
in 2006, one of the major questions that we sought to answer was “What
caused apparently sudden changes in the cultural development of the
indigenous peoples of Southeastern North America?” Academic
anthropology had shifted to the micro-scale, seldom looking a regional
populations or migration of ethnic groups. They ignored the migration
legends of the various branches of the Creek Confederacy.
Meanwhile, the bulk of actual
archaeological investigations had shifted to private consulting firms,
who were primarily working at archaeological sites about to be destroyed
by construction. More recently, many archaeological firms have been
gobbled up by national engineering firms. There are no incentives for
private consultants to address the issues, which are of concern to
Native Americans. The pressure is on the archaeologists to get in and
get out without causing controversies or even attaching special
significance to the site they are working on.
Current status of research
In contrast, these studies of historic
hurricane activity and changes in ocean water temperature are definitely
on the track to answering the questions of Native American researchers
about the “whys” of past civilizations. There is an obvious
chronological connections between the rise and fall of indigenous
civilizations and climatic changes. However . . . here is the big
surprise . . . the impact of climatic change can be diametrically
opposite between individual regions of Mesoamerica and North America.
A major breakthrough in climatological
research occurred when marine scientists realized that the beds of
under-ocean cenotes or sink holes contained precise records of major
hurricane strikes. Particles of wood within the varying sand strata can
be radiocarbon dated. During major hurricanes, much coarser sand is
pushed by underwater currents into the bottom of the cenote.
The research by NOAA sponsored
scientists, which were featured in the PBS program are augmented by an
ongoing research project at the University of Massachusetts. Professors
Jeffrey P. Donnelly and Jonathan D. Woodruff have successfully taken the
hurricane record back at least 5,000 years, using the same techniques
featured on the PBS program. Using locations on the Atlantic Coast with
far higher contents of woody materials, they have obtained precise dates
for monster hurricanes, which struck eastern North America.
One of the many fascinating discoveries
made so far by the scientific teams is that the predominant paths of
major hurricanes wobble northward and southward through the decades.
Currently, the researchers do not understand why. In the early 1990s,
major hurricanes tended to strike southern Florida and then turn
northward into the heart of the Southeast. In the late 1990s, large
hurricanes tended to travel westward, south of the Leeward Islands and
strike Central America. In the first decade of the 21st
century, several major hurricanes traveled northward of the Leeward
Islands then entered the Gulf of Mexico. We are now entering a period
when huge hurricanes are actually forming in the Gulf of Mexico. It is
possible that in the near future they will form in the Gulf then be
carried up the Atlantic Coast by the Gulf Stream. Alternatively, they
could travel across the Lower Southeast.
The temperature of the water in the Atlantic Ocean did not have as much effect on indigenous
peoples of the Americas as originally theorized.
Climatologists initially theorized that
the fluctuations in the size and frequency of major hurricanes were due
to the temperatures of the Atlantic Ocean. There seems to be some
relationship between warming of ocean waters and hurricanes, but the
scientists are still not sure what exactly it is. Nevertheless, the
climatologists are convinced that the radical heating of the North
Atlantic Ocean now occurring will radically change the climatic patterns
of both North America and Western Europe.
Mesoamerica
Formative Period
(1600 BC-200 AD) – Until around 800 BC, Mesoamerican cultures trailed
behind those in northern Louisiana and Georgia, except in regard to the
domestication of indigenous crops.
Mounds in Louisiana and Georgia
predate those in Mexico by at least 2,500 years. Pottery in Georgia
predates the appearance of pottery in Mesoamerica by about 2,800 years.
During the period between 3500 BC and 200 AD, there were relatively few
hurricanes in Mesoamerica.
Maya city-states boomed as the frequency of hurricanes was rapidly increasing, but crashed,
when they reached their peak.
Classic Period (200 AD – 900 AD)
Although Teotihuacan began booming
around 0 AD, the appearance of the earliest Maya writing system is the
official beginning of the Classic Period. Notice that the steep rise in
cultural advancements in Mesoamerica parallels the steep rise in the
number of major hurricanes. By 800 AD, the number of major hurricanes
each year exceeded what we are experiencing today. By 900 AD, there
were at least 25 major hurricanes in the region and all Classic
Mesoamerican civilizations had collapsed.
Cultural History: So .
. . the period between 800 AD and 900 AD when Maya civilization
collapsed was also a period when there were 250% more catastrophic
hurricanes each year than today. This is a causative factor for the
collapse of Maya civilization that has never been considered by
anthropologists.
In 1998, Hurricane Mitch hit Central
American as a Category 5 storm. The damage it did, would have killed
thousands of Mayas 1100 years earlier. The hurricane’s impact would
have been sufficient to wipe out the Lowland Maya Civilization, already
weakened by wars and drought. Cities in the northern Yucatan Peninsula
continued to thrive after the Lowland cities were abandoned. This is a
fact that cannot be explained by droughts or war. All of the Yucatan
was experiencing a drought and there are no surface streams in the
Northern Yucatan . . . only cenotes or natural wells.
Post-Classic Period (900 AD – 1520 AD)
Between 900 AD and 1400 AD, the number
of major hurricanes in the Caribbean each year dropped, but were much
more numerous than today. Between years and decades there were wide
variations in the number of major hurricanes. Evidence developed by the
scientists in Massachusetts suggests that the paths of major hurricanes
tended to shift away from Mesoamerica and toward Cuba, Dominica, Puerto
Rico and the Atlantic Coast of North America. There was an extremely
catastrophic hurricane, which hit the Yucatan Peninsula around 1000 AD.
Cultural History: The
year, 1000 AD is highly significant. There was a temporary abandonment
of Chichen Itza, with many of its suburbs, where the commoners and
slaves lived, being permanently abandoned. There were also stark changes
in the Southeast, which will be discussed in the next section.
Suddenly, the type of corner door houses, built by Itza Commoners in
Chichen Itza, appeared in at several locations in North and Central
Georgia.
During the period between 1000 AD and
1200 AD, much of northeastern, central and Gulf Coast Mexico experienced
major population growth and cultural advancement. Southern Mexico and
Central America stagnated, but still contained some cities and a very
advanced culture . . . at least for the Americas.
Around 1250 AD, the Tamauli almost
completely abandoned Tamaulipas on the Gulf Coast. Most Tamauli ended
up in Alabama and Georgia. Some may have settled in Louisiana and
Mississippi. One band definitely canoed back to their homeland in
Tabasco.
After around 1400 AD, the center of
advanced civilization in Mexico was the Valley of Mexico. It was here
that the Mexica joined an alliance with two other city states to create
the Aztec Empire.
Southeastern North America
Late Archaic Period and Early Woodland Period (3500 BC-0 AD)
Cultural advancements such as public
architecture and ceramics came much earlier to the Southeast than in
Mexico. Like in the Caribbean Basin and Gulf of Mexico, evidence
discovered so far suggests that there were very few major hurricanes
during these centuries.
Cultural History:
There were two centers of advanced culture in the Late Archaic Period –
Northeast Louisiana and the Savannah, GA area. The Bilbo Mound in
Savannah dates from 3545 BC. It was originally a man-made island within
a large round harbor and connecting canal to the Savannah River. The
Watson Brake Earthworks date from around 3450 BC. They consist of a
circular earth berm with mounds built on top of it.
Between around 3200 BC and 1600 BC,
there were major mound centers clustered around the Bilbo Mound and
shell mound – shell midden complexes in southwest Florida. Around 2500
BC both pottery and shell rings appeared on the South Atlantic Coast
between Charleston, SC and St. Augustine, FL. The oldest shell rings
are near the mouth of the Altamaha River in Georgia. Most of the
surviving, early mounds on the South Atlantic Coast are near the Bilbo
Mound, but some may have been destroyed by hurricanes that occurred
later.
The cultural avant garde
returned to northeastern Louisiana around 1600 BC and 1000 BC, with the
construction of both Poverty Point type platform villages and
dome-shaped mounds. Beginning around 1000 BC, the Deptford Culture
spread out from Savannah and became most substantive in the lower North
Georgia Mountains and Upper Chattahoochee River Basin. Some villages
established on the Upper Chattahoochee and Upper Etowah Rivers
maintained almost continually occupied until the 1700s. They were
abandoned due to the Creek-Cherokee War.
Around 400 BC, the Deptford Culture
began evolving into the Kellogg and Cartersville Cultures. Villages
and towns in this culture eventually built large platform mounds that
were truncated ovals. Truncated ovals are an
architectural tradition indigenous to Georgia . . . not Mesoamerica or
Peru. This is important to remember.
By 200 AD, some of these towns such as
the Mandeville Site on the Chattahoochee River, the Booger Bottom Mound
Village and Leake’s Mound village were quite large. The principal
Mandeville Mound was a square truncated pyramid, typical of
Mesoamerica. The Deptford Mounds in North Georgia were truncated ovals.
Middle and Late Woodland Period (0 AD – 900 AD)
Almost imperceptibly at first, but then
after 400 AD at astonishing rate of increase, major hurricanes began
striking the Caribbean Basin and Atlantic Coast. By 900 AD, 25 major
hurricanes a year were striking the region. As always, the Georgia
Coast was the least effected section of the Atlantic Coast.
Around 539 AD, an asteroid or comet
struck the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cape Canaveral. Its tsunami
obliterated the barrier islands of Florida and left a massive debris
ridge on the Georgia coast, which is still 85 feet high and several
hundred feet wide in some places. Afterward, the debris ridge protected
the Georgia Coastal Plain from 11 to 16 miles inland from hurricane
winds and tidal surges.
Cultural History: The
Early Woodland cultures in Louisiana and Georgia evolved into the
Marksville, Swift Creek and Weeden Island Cultures. Swift Creek
villages in southeast Georgia disappeared after the tsunami. The Swift
Creek Culture began declining rapidly, while Swift Creek populations
began appearing in the Georgia Mountains and Upper Savannah River Basin .
. . very likely to evade the worst effects of hurricanes.
The Napier Culture began developing
from the Fall Line to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia around 600
AD. Its villages and towns were anywhere from 170 t0 300 miles from the
Atlantic Coast. Perhaps around 700 AD, the massive Kenimer Mound was
constructed in the Nacoochee Valley of Northeast Georgia. It was
identical to the sculpted pentagonal mounds, built by the Kekchi Maya of
Belize and Quintana Roo. Repeated hurricane strikes on the coast of
Belize and Quintana Roo may have spurred refugees to flee north out of
range of direct hurricane strikes.
Ocmulgee Mounds was founded between
around 800 AD and 900 AD by a people, who built supersized teepee shaped
houses typical of the Tekesta in southeast Florida, the coastal peoples
of Cuba and northern Colombia. Intense hurricane activity in the
Caribbean Basin may have also spurred them to move north and inland out
of harm’s way.
Early and Middle Mississippian (Hierarchal) Periods (900 AD-1375 AD)
The advanced peoples of Florida,
Georgia and South Carolina clearly developed from cultural influences
from the south, not the west so the label adopted by the archaeological
profession nationally really does not apply here. It is quite obvious
that the peoples of the Lower Southeast began making major cultural
advances at the same time that southern Mexico was in a state of
cultural stagnation.
University of Massachusetts researchers
have found evidence of many major hurricane strikes on the Atlantic
Coast between around 1100 and 1400 AD. One or more Category 5 or
perhaps Category 6 hurricanes around 1150 AD devastated the Atlantic
Coast.
In addition, an asteroid, cluster of
asteroid fragments or comet struck the North Atlantic Ocean in 1014 AD,
causing at least 30,000 deaths in England alone and probably just as
many on the coast of North America. Stone engravings and Maya script
at Chichen Itza describe a large object coming across the sky to the
north. It was assumed to be the Sky Serpent God. This would explain
the numerous stone serpents on the mountain tops of Georgia and perhaps
the motivation for bands of Itza refugees to head north to the “Land of
the Sky Serpent.”
There was another peak of major
hurricane activity around 1200 AD. Geologists have identified the
effects of massive floods on Georgia’s inland rivers about this time.
Until the hurricane research by climatologists, the geologists could not
figure out what type of weather event would create something
approaching “Noah’s Flood.”
The floods caused stark changes in the
locations of several rivers. The Etowah River changed path and cut right
through the heart of the town, cutting a vast gash through the
landscape. A later of mud was deposited on top of the entire town.
The Ocmulgee River also deposited a
layer of mud on Ichesi (Lamar Village) plus turned its horseshoe bend
into an island. This weather event is what made archaeologists in the
1930s think that the Lamar Village was founded “200 years after the
abandonment of Ocmulgee Mounds.” The archaeologists stopped digging,
when they ran into a layer of mud not containing artifacts.
In 1257 AD the Samalas Supervolcano
exploded with 13 times the volume of pollutants, produced by Mount Saint
Helens. This initiated the Little Ice Age. The first effect in
Northwestern Europe was not especially cold weather, but endless rains,
which flooded the fields. It is probable that heavy rainfall also fell
on eastern North America . . . but not western North America. See the
POOF article: Super Volcano
Cultural History:
Around 900 AD three culturally advanced provinces in southern Florida
apparently merged together and formed a single state in which the two on
the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts began making pottery like those of the
province near Lake Okeechobee. Canals and raised causeways were
constructed to interconnect the many towns and villages of this state.
Also around 900 AD, more newcomers
arrived at Waka (Ocmulgee Mounds). They started construction of a
square, truncated pyramidal mound, typical of Mesoamerica.
During the 990s AD, a people with
different cultural traits that the people living on the acropolis at
Ocmulgee, established the village of Ichesi on a horseshoe bend in the
Ocmulgee River, two miles south of the acropolis (Lamar Site) and the
town of Etula at a horseshoe bend on the Etowah River (Etowah Mounds).
The only agricultural terrace to be
radiocarbon dated at Track Rock Gap came in at 1018 AD. This was four
years after the tsunami
Around 1150 AD, both the towns of the
Lake Ocheechobee Region and the acropolis at Ocmulgee were abandoned.
We finally know what happened. One or more incredibly powerful
hurricanes devastated the Lower Southeast.
Around 1200 AD, Etula (Etowah Mounds)
was abandoned. Archaeologists do not know why. Geologists do. An
incredibly destructive flood cut through the town. Now the geologists
know what caused the flood.
Also, around 1200 AD, a flood severely
damaged Ichesi. We now know that probably the same hurricane, which hit
Etula, also devastated Ichesi.
In 2017, archaeologists learned that it
was not drought that drove the population out of Cahokia, but floods.
Many an anthropological book has been written that assumed droughts
caused a failure of crops then starvation and then famine. Au
contraire, it was devastating floods that depopulated the Middle
Mississippi River Basin. Perhaps they did result in plagues though.
It is ironic, and probably significant
that while the eastern half of the North American Sunbelt was inundated
by violent floods, the Southwest Desert Plateau was fried by one of the
worst droughts in the region’s history . . . causing Chaco Canyon to be
completely abandoned.
The frequency of major hurricanes
dropped precipitously between 1200 AD and 1375 AD. This was the Golden
Times of Etula (Etowah Mounds), Ichesi and many other towns in North
Georgia, but was when Cahokia in southern Illinois and Moundville in
northwestern Alabama lost most or all of their populations. Clearly,
the cooling of the Atlantic Ocean and the stark reduction of hurricanes
on the Atlantic Ocean were good for Georgia, but bad for peoples living
in the Mississippi River Basin, northwestern Alabama and western
Tennessee.
In 1540, towns in the Southern Appalachians were thriving despite the heavy winter snowfalls.
Apparently, their summers were ideal.
Late Mississippian Period (1375 AD – 1600 AD)
Note both the stark drop in hurricanes
and the commensurate drop in the water temperature of the Atlantic Ocean
on the charts. This is the Little Ice Age. It was initially a time of
endless rains, but by 1375 AD had become a time of short growing seasons
and bitter cold winter weather, but somewhat fewer major hurricanes
than today. The Southern Appalachian Mountains became known as the
Snowy Mountains. During the winter moist air from the Gulf of Mexico
was constant pumped up into the sub-freezing air of the Blue Ridge
Mountain escarpment. The result was annual snowfalls equivalent to what
one sees now near Buffalo, NY and northern West Virginia.
Forensic botanists have examined tree
rings for the 1300s and 1400s in the Southern Appalachians and Upper
Tennessee River Valley. They have determined that around 1350 AD –
1375 AD the climate was extremely dry and cold, after exceptionally
heavy rainfall in the previous century. This drought coincides with the
25-35 year long abandonment of the large town of Etula (Etowah Mounds)
and the relegation of Moundville from being a large town to being only a
ceremonial center. Yet at the same time, the Province of Kaushe
(Kusa~Coosa) was thriving about 32 miles north of Etula. It could be
that the people of Kaushe had superior agricultural skills.
Cultural history:
After the shock of a period of cold dry
weather, apparently the climate was ideal in eastern Tennessee, western
North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, the Florida Panhandle and South
Carolina for the large scale cultivation of corn, beans, squash,
pumpkin, sunflowers and chia (salvia grain). Chiaha’s location on the
Little Tennessee, Oconaluftee and Nantahala Rivers, would have been
subject to massive snow melt water in the spring. This apparently was
an ideal situation for chia.
The chronicles of the De Soto
Expedition mentioned that there were fields of salvia (Chia) along the
rivers of the province of Chiaha. Chiaha means “Salvia River” in Itza
Maya and Itsate Creek. It is not an ancient Cherokee word, whose
meaning has been lost. Chiapas, the homeland of the Itza Maya, means
Place of the Chia (Salvia).
De Soto’s entrada entered Florida near
Bradenton on the Gulf Coast. There is no mention of either natural
disasters or plagues as it passed through what is now the Florida
Panhandle. In fact, the towns along the Ocmulgee and Oconee River
seemed to be prospering and well fed. In southern South Carolina he
passed though a region, later known as the Salud
However, when Hernando de Soto’s
Expedition passed through the South Carolina in the spring of 1540,
there had been a plague in the town of Kofitache-ki (Spanish ~
Cofitachequi = “Descendants of Mixed Ethnic Groups-People” in Creek).
Kofitache-ki was described as being two days from the ocean. Perhaps a
European disease had been left behind by a passing ship, which stopped
to gather provisions.
When De Soto passed through what is now
North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, northwest Georgia and Alabama, there
seemed to be plenty of food. There were several days of heavy rain and
a flood on the Etowah River in August 1540. This was probably the
remnants of a hurricane, but apparently it did no serious damage to the
town where he was staying.
Such an ideal environment certain not
be applied to Alabama, 20 years later when a foraging party for the
Cristin de Luna Expedition crossed the length of Alabama in search of
food for its starving colonists. The countryside was described as being
almost depopulated and bereft of stored food. Surviving locals blamed
the deaths caused by the De Soto Expedition for this holocaust. They
killed most of the warriors and left behind a legion of European
pathogens. This was not the diabolical work of a hurricane.
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