The Adena Legacy: Founders of Native American Religion

Beginning about 10,890 BP, a succession of people settled, flourished, and then faded from the Ohio River Valley–perhaps drawn to its diverse range of vegetation, terrain, water sources, and wild game–leaving numerous rock shelters, flint knapping sites, hunting camps, agricultural hamlets, and mound-oriented ceremonial centers in their wake.  Slowly evolving from a big-game hunting society into one based on foraging and smaller game, a dynamic culture of the so-called “moundbuilding” tradition emerged from the upper Ohio River Valley about 2,700 BP known as the Adena, a group that shaped the cultural and geographic landscape of Northeastern America as no group had before.  Read more . . .

The Discovery of America: Fantastic Voyages Before Columbus

While American history books had long contended that Christopher Columbus discovered America (an idea still perpetuated every Columbus Day), documents from a number of sources prove that not only did Columbus not discover America, there may have been a long procession of explorers who visited America, beginning with North America’s indigenous population thought to have arrived about 12,000 years ago.  Although there have been several theories supporting the possibility of European, Asian, and Africa explorers–some of which contend long-term trading with the indigenous people centuries before Columbus arrived--most hinge on legend rather than physical proof.  But that’s not to say there isn’t impressive evidence to indicate numerous possibilities of pre-Columbian Discoveries of America, and perhaps even occupation.  And many scholars look first to the story of St. Brendan who is known to have sailed the northern seas centuries before the now accepted “discoverer” of America, Leif Erickson.  Read more . . .

The Mysterious "Red Paint People" of North America

The so-called “Red Paint People” of New England and the Atlantic Canadian coastal regions of North America were a pre-Columbian indigenous culture named for the large quantities of red ochre they typically used in their mortuary practices.  An otherwise unknown seafaring group that began fishing and hunting along the coasts and rivers of North America at least 7,000 to 9,000 years ago, these ancient Americans came to rival their European counterparts in sophisticated stone and bone tool-making and navigational skills, several millennia before the Vikings.  With some of their coastal sites showing evidence of year-round occupation, evidence shows that their diets included sea fish, anadromous fish, shellfish, meat, berries, acorns, nuts and roots, with regular hunting (probably by spearing) of swordfish obtained from the Gulf of Maine.  Read more . . .