5 ms·

Heck, as far as I can tell, even now, a lot of people who live within a few miles of the place don't really know it was there. I don't know that it's quite acc

Heck, as far as I can tell, even now, a lot of people who live within a few miles of the place don't really know it was there. I don't know that it's quite accurate to say that it wasn't recognized as a major site for centuries. European settlers pretty much immediately recognized the area as evidence of a large civilization. They just didn't believe anyone related to Plains Indians were capable of monumental architecture, so they instead cooked up legends about the "mound builders" that typically insinuated that they were built by a European culture - one of the lost tribes of Israel is a popular suspect - that had since disappeared.

jacobolus 8y ago
> one of the lost tribes of Israel is a popular suspect As far as I know, this idea is a creation of the Mormon church, which believes (based on their foundational holy text) that all native Americans are descended from a lost tribe of Israel, and which has spent significant resources sending archeologists around North America to prove this theory. (It turns out that if you lead with your conclusions, it is hard to do science. Some of the investigations of physical evidence are alright, but the reasoning and conclusions drawn from them are farcical.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_and_the_Book_of_Mormon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_and_the_Book_of_Mo...
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  The Lost Tribe folklore was already almost 2 centuries old by the time Smith produced the Book of Mormon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Lost_Tribes#Native_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Lost_Tribes#Native_America...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jacobolus 8y ago
    Aha, fair enough. The Mormons have put a lot more work into trying to defend/substantiate this theory than its other adherents have, from what I can tell searching around the web.
    - ChainOfFools 8y ago
      it's also not unreasonable to assume that the prevalence of these myths was itself a major contributing substrate of the theology dreamed up by Joseph Smith.
cmrdporcupine 8y ago
I read this book some years ago: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B002FQOHTW https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B002FQOHTW It was really good. But to your point, I'd say: don't assume that Europeans didn't believe the Plains Indians were incapable of the monumental architecture so much as a good many of the settlers actively wanted that knowledge suppressed, primarily for their own economic reasons (if it was on your farm land you made a living on, what would you do?) A good portion of the potential sites were deliberately destroyed. Especially in the modern era. Huge battles about strip malls, highways, parking lots and other construction. People knew to some degree what was there and the fact that it was there was inconvenient to the other narrative: the rise of America and its glory. So artifacts were destroyed and sites suppressed.

jacobolus 8y ago

> one of the lost tribes of Israel is a popular suspect As far as I know, this idea is a creation of the Mormon church, which believes (based on their foundational holy text) that all native Americans are descended from a lost tribe of Israel, and which has spent significant resources sending archeologists around North America to prove this theory. (It turns out that if you lead with your conclusions, it is hard to do science. Some of the investigations of physical evidence are alright, but the reasoning and conclusions drawn from them are farcical.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_and_the_Book_of_Mormon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_and_the_Book_of_Mo...

bunderbunder 8y ago
The Lost Tribe folklore was already almost 2 centuries old by the time Smith produced the Book of Mormon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Lost_Tribes#Native_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Lost_Tribes#Native_America...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jacobolus 8y ago
  Aha, fair enough. The Mormons have put a lot more work into trying to defend/substantiate this theory than its other adherents have, from what I can tell searching around the web.
  - ChainOfFools 8y ago
    it's also not unreasonable to assume that the prevalence of these myths was itself a major contributing substrate of the theology dreamed up by Joseph Smith.

cmrdporcupine 8y ago

I read this book some years ago: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B002FQOHTW https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B002FQOHTW It was really good. But to your point, I'd say: don't assume that Europeans didn't believe the Plains Indians were incapable of the monumental architecture so much as a good many of the settlers actively wanted that knowledge suppressed, primarily for their own economic reasons (if it was on your farm land you made a living on, what would you do?) A good portion of the potential sites were deliberately destroyed. Especially in the modern era. Huge battles about strip malls, highways, parking lots and other construction. People knew to some degree what was there and the fact that it was there was inconvenient to the other narrative: the rise of America and its glory. So artifacts were destroyed and sites suppressed.