International team of scholars expands understanding of America’s past
A documentary for public television is currently being filmed in Georgia that explores the movements between South America, Mesoamerica and the Southeast of domesticated plants, cultural ideas and people. The project began in December 2012 at the ruins of the Maya city of Chichen Itza at the time of the recycling of the Maya calendar.
The program is unique because participants include a team of scholars from Europe, South America and North America. One of the participants worked with archaeologist Johannes Loubser on a site in South Africa. Loubser briefly surveyed the Track Rock Gap terrace complex in the Georgia Mountains during 2001. Before, during and after filming segments the team interacts, often creating the script as filming progresses. By sharing knowledge gained from their own professional experiences, new understandings of mankind’s past develop.
On April 3, 2013 the cast visited several archaeological sites in Georgia’s famous Nacoochee Valley. It is located at the headwaters of the Chattahoochee River between the remnants of ancient volcanoes and the Blue Ridge Mountains. All of those invited to that particular day’s filming met first for lunch at the Unicoi State Park Lodge at Anna Ruby Falls. Several languages (including Canadian, eh?) floated back and forth across the long dinner table. It was here, that film director, Antara Brandner, finalized the questions to be asked the team in front of the camera.
Much of the other conversation at the luncheon focused on the visit by some of the group to the nearby Track Rock terrace complex ruins during the previous week. They complained about the many trees that had been sawn down by the U.S. Forest Service to block the trail. An archaeologist from Europe asked the group why the United States government is allowing the ruins to be destroyed by trees and vines growing up within the ancient stone walls. One of the diners, who is on a United Nations commission, suggested that mentioning the on-going travesty before the United Nations might humiliate officials in Washington, DC into taking action.
The mysterious Soque Indians
The first filming location was on the Soque River, adjacent to fertile bottomland that contains many small mounds which were built at various times between around 200 BC and 1500 AD. The Soque (pronounced jzhō-kē) of the South Carolina Upcountry and northeastern tip of Georgia remain an unsolved mystery. Their name is pronounced exactly like Zoque of southern Mexico, who have been associated with the Olmec Civilization. Olmec was the name of a Nahuatl people, who migrated to southern Mexico about 1000 years after the so-called Olmec Civilization collapsed.
The Soque were once the most powerful ethnic group in what is now South Carolina. They practiced many Mesoamerican cultural traditions such as head flattening and the construction of planned towns with many plazas and temples. Beginning in the 1560s, waves of plagues spread from European coastal settlements, which probably reduced the Soque population by about 90%. Beginning around 1660 British-sponsored Rickohocken Indians of Virginia, who were given firearms, staged horrific slave raids into the Lower Southeastern United States.
By the time, the Charleston Colony was firmly established in the 1680s, only a few hundred Soque remained. Most survivors eventually joined the Creek Confederacy, but some remained in small villages in the Georgia and North Carolina Mountains. Their presence survives in the name of the Soque River in Georgia, Lake Jocasee in South Carolina and Soco Gap in North Carolina. The last ethnically distinct Soque village was located near Clarksville, GA (on the border between the Creek and Cherokee Nations) until 1818. Their original language has been lost.
The Nacoochee Mound
Filming next shifted to a terrace overlooking the Nacoochee Mound, which is immediately south of Helen, GA. To the northwest are Brasstown Bald Mountain and the Track Rock Terrace Complex.
The Nacoochee Mound is one of Georgia’s most beloved landmarks. It is the site of a large Creek town named Nokose (pronounced Nō-kō-shē) which means “Bear.” When Cherokees captured the valley in early 1720s, they called the site, Noguchee, but renamed the nearby mountain, Yonah, which is the Cherokee word for bear.
The mound is built upon an ancient cemetery containing “stone box graves.” These sepulchers probably date from about the same time that the Track Rock terrace complex was built, c. 900 – 1000 AD. Maya commoners traditionally buried their loved ones in stone box graves, but stone box graves are particularly common in the vicinity of Nashville, TN.
The town of Nokose was located at the intersection of several of the most important Native American trade routes in eastern North America. These trails linked the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Southern Appalachians, Tennessee Valley, Mississippi Valley, Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes regions together. Native Americans lived here and passed through here for thousands of years. It was also the location of the first gold rush in the United States. Gold still can be found in nearby streams.
The Kenimer Mounds
The final filming location of the day was near the Kenimer Mounds in the modern day village of Sautee, GA. One set of interviews was located immediately south of the mounds and next to the “Eastwood” Native American Village Site (9WH2) which was excavated by archaeologist Robert Wauchope. The other set was on top of a bridge over the Chattahoochee River about 200 yards farther south. Sautee comes from the Creek Indian ethnic name, Sawa-te, which means “Raccoon People.” Early European maps label the Indian village there, Itsate, which means, Itza (Maya) People. During the mid and late 1700s, the village was named, Chote, which probably means “Cho’I People.” Cho’i is a language spoken even today by some Maya groups in southern Mexico.
The Kenimer Mounds Site is another one of those mysteries of the Nacoochee Valley. It is due north of Ocmulgee National Monument in Macon, GA and probably occupied during the same time period that the first mound was begun at Ocmulgee. Most recently-arrived residents of the valley didn’t even know that it was a mound. It is assumed to be a large, wooded hill.
Unlike virtually all the other mounds in North America, the Kenimer Mound was sculptured from a hill. This was the typical way that Itza Mayas during the Classic Period (200 AD – 900 AD) built their mounds. Itza Mayas did not create more sophisticated architecture until after that period when they conquered part of the northern Yucatan Peninsula. At the Kenimer site, soil was cut from some locations and piled on others to create a series of terraces and a massive five-side mound. There is a small rectangular platform mound near the foot of the large one. Trees have grown on the mound for hundreds of years.
In the past, the Kenimer Mounds has been twice, briefly visited by groups of archaeologists from the University of Georgia. The first time was in 1986 when it was given its name and site number, 9WH68. In the first visit, the group picked up some Napier Style potsherds on the surface. The Napier Style pottery was produced by a transitional culture between around 750 AD and 1000 AD that built pyramidal platform mounds and produced pottery with geometric motifs. Its mound centers were concentrated on the upper Chattahoochee, Chestatee and Etowah Rivers in the Blue Ridge Mountain Foothills. Napier style pottery has been found in a larger range of the Southeastern United States. The name comes from an archaeological site near Macon, GA.
In 1999 a team headed by UGA archaeologist, Mark Williams, surveyed the two mounds. Test pits were dug at several flanks. A topographic map and report was prepared. Williams noted the unusual fact that the mound was sculpted from a hill, but was not aware that this was also an Itza Maya architectural tradition.
Five-sided, pyramidal mounds are extremely rare in the Americas, except in the territory of the Itza Mayas in Mesoamerica and the ancestral lands of the Creek Indians in Georgia, western North Carolina and the eastern edge of Alabama. The Itza Mayas of southern Mesoamerica built pentagonal, earthen pyramids between around 600 AD to 1000 AD to honor their sun god, Kinich Ahau. The ancestors of the Creek Indians built pentagonal earthen pyramids between around 800? AD and 1375 AD that were oriented to the solar azimuth. Most faced the Winter Solstice sunset. The oldest known pentagonal mound in Georgia, Kenimer Mound A, is oriented east-west.
The team of scholars, assembled for filming at the Kenimer Mound, were asked, “Why did the Itza Mayas build pentagonal mounds?” J. J. Hurtak, who received his degree from a university in Mexico City, responded immediately. He stated that Maya priest-mathematicians held the pentagon sacred and associated both with the sun god and another god associated with the planet, Venus, Kukulkan. The form of the human body, with outstretched arms and legs, is outlined by a pentagon.
From the geometric relationships within a pentagon, Maya mathematicians derived the values of the mathematical constants, Pi and Phi. The pentagon was apparently also associated with geometric formulas used to track the altitude and azimuth of heavenly bodies. Maya draftsmen created pentagons with three equilateral triangles, which Maya priests also considered sacred geometric forms and numbers.
As scenes were being filmed on the bridge over the Chattahoochee River, observers were reminded of the bizarre realities of current Native American research in northern Georgia. A young man, with a military style haircut and ultra-rightwing bumper stickers, stopped by to inquire if the film crew had a permit from the US Forest Service to film there. Several people in the group responded him that they were nowhere near the Chattahoochee National Forest. He drove off, but returned several more times to grimace without making comments.
A woman in her sixties also drove by the filming several times. Each time she stopped to urge the group to immediately go talk with a man, who she said “knew all about the Indians in Georgia.” The gentleman she named retired to the Nacoochee Valley from New England several years ago. He is a self-styled Native American history expert, who claims that the Cherokee Indians built the Kenimer Mound as a place to do the Eagle Dance. He also believes that the Cherokees always lived in the Nacoochee Valley from 10,000 BC to the land cession of 1818.
All of the participants in filming dined together that evening at an outdoor German restaurant, overlooking the Chattahoochee River in Helen, GA. The diners were told that there is a New Age cult in the Southeast, composed of non-Native Americans, who believe that the Cherokees were the first humans to enter the Americas. This cult also believes that the Cherokees were the first people to cultivate corn, beans and squash, plus were the founders of the Olmec, Maya and Aztec civilizations. Then, the former colleague of Johannes Loubser informed the scholars that Loubser gave a lecture at the Fernbank Museum in Atlanta, where he stated that the Track Rock agricultural terraces were built by the Cherokees to hold ceremonies. Upon hearing this, the anthropologists shook their heads and smiled.
Any readers wishing to ask a question or provide information on an interesting archaeological site, may contact me at NativeQuestion@aol.com Right now the Native American History column of Examiner.com is running a special series on the Native American history of the Southern Appalachian Mountains.
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