Anthropology

and history of Spain and Latin America. Since Native cultures are a large part of the culture and history of Latin America, anthropology of the Americas was a natural minor. But I found North American Native cultures very interesing, too.

From the time of the early Spanish and Portuguese conquistadores in the Americas, there were rumors of a great, ancient civilization in the Amazon basin, but nobody ever found one. In modern times, evidence of pre-Columbian extensive agriculture and hut villages was found, but no stone architecture. None of the things we would associate with civilization were found. But the people in the region spoke of a time when there was a great city that ruled a large area. I've wondered if the city was actually farther north, a forerunner of the later Mesoamerican cities.

I wonder about it because of some similarities in a few customs and styles. The Amazon basin soil is too acidic for agriculture. Investigators found that ancient Amazonians had transported good soil and built up layers of it for growing crops. That shows some organization and sophistication in planning that would require a fairly large and unified group with a strong leader and some strong motivation. So the great city might have existed, built with perishable wood instead of stone.

The people of Caral (and the Incas much later) were familiar wirh Amazonian animals and crops. There are flat-topped temple pyramids in Peru and in Mesoamerica. Amazonia lies between these regions. Much later than Peru or Mesoamerica, there were flat-topped earthen temple pyramids in North America, and also some of the Mesoamerican crops, like Maize.

So, I'm not an anthrpologist. I only minored in the subject. But it looks to me like there might have been an early Amazonian society that contributed concepts, if not technologies, to places like Peru and Mesoamerica.