Kind: captions
Language: en
for the vast majority of human existence
we've been nomadic and we've done these
kind of wider or tighter nomatic circles
depending on the geographic region but
they'd move so once humans figured out
how to stay in a place that's the
initial trigger to what would become
civilization I think you said Beauty and
blood went hand inand for the Aztec what
I meant by that is they were absolutely
comfortable with human sacrifice and you
know ripping people's hearts out this
they had this this just you know
grotesque violent bent but in the same
way they also absolutely loved flower
gardens and poetry and music and dance
the same Aztec King who would order the
hearts of a thousand people extracted
also would stand up at dinner parties to
recite his own poetry but they were
really just surgical about it they'd use
a thick obsidian knife where they could
just break the ribs right along the
sternum and then push the sternum down
Pull up and just while the person was
alive yep while the person was
alive the following is a conversation
with Ed Barnhart an archaeologist
specializing in ancient civilizations of
South America meso Amica and North
America this is Alex Freedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's Ed
Barnhart do you think there are lost
civilizations in the history of humans
on Earth which we don't know anything
about yes I do and in fact you know we
we have found some civilizations that we
had no idea about just in my lifetime I
mean we've got gockley Tey and we've got
the stuff that's going on in the
Amazon and there are some other less
startling things that we had no idea
existed and push our dates back and give
us whole new civilizations we had no
idea about so yeah it's happened and I
think it'll happen again do you think
there's a lost civilization in the
Amazon that uh the Amazon jungle has
eaten up or is hiding the evidence of
yes I do and I uh we're we're beginning
to find it there are these huge what we
call geoglyphs these Mound groups that
are in geometric patterns I think that
the average Joe when they hear the word
civilization they think of something
that looks like Rome and I don't think
we're ever going to find anything that
looks like Rome in the Amazon I think a
lot of things there I mean wherever you
are on the planet you use your natural
resources and in the Amazon there's not
a whole lot of stone what stone is there
is deep deep deep so a lot of their
things were built out of dirt and trees
and feathers and textiles but is it
possible that all that land that's not
covered by trees is actually hiding
stone for example some architecture some
things are just very difficult to find
for
archaeologists I think at the base of
the Andes where the Amazon connects to
the Andes there's a lot of potential
there cuz that's where the stone
actually starts poking up when you get
down into the Basin stone is meters and
meters under the ground except for a a
stray Cliff here and there where the
River Run dug deep and even then only in
the dry season cuz that River Rises like
over a 100 feet every year that's one of
the things having visited that area uh
just interacting with waterfalls and
seeing the water I was uh humbled by the
power of water to shape Landscapes and
probably erase history in the context
that we're talking about of
civilizations is water can just make
everything disappear over a period of
centuries and Millennia and so if there
something existed a very long time ago
thousands of years ago it it's it's very
possible it was just eaten up by
Nature absolutely in fact in my opinion
that's almost a certainty in a lot of
places yeah uh you know the Grand Canyon
was dug by water there's this wimpy
Little River in it right now and you
can't possibly imagine that it dug that
but it did the power of nature and
geology is really kind of magical and
when it comes to you know ancient
civilizations that could be from a long
time ago there's probably a lot that are
just under the ocean and just the wave
action have destroyed them and what they
haven't destroyed buried
deep under the ocean so you think
Atlantis ever
existed I don't think that Atlantis
existed I do think it was one of Plato's
many parables talking about you know
putting it in an interesting story as a
teaching device in his school if one did
exist or a shadow of it my money would
be on Acer aceri is what's left of a big
city that was on the island of Santorini
and when their volcano blew up it blew
up most of the city and shot chunks of
it so fast that 70 Mi away in cre there
are chunks of Santorini in their Cliff
so it blasted what was ever there but
what's left on the side of the crater
aceri is strangely Advanced for its age
and so if there's anything that's a
model for Atlantis as Plato explained it
it's at criteria
so acary the ancient Greek city so it
says the settlement was destroyed in the
thein eruption sometime in the 16th
century BCE and buried in volcanic ash
which preserved the remains of the
Fresco and many objects in artworks so
we don't know how advanced That
civilization was no but we can walk
around the ruins and see that it's got
streets it's got Plumbing it's got
little sconces for uh for torches h
night it was a vibrant City with uh with
a lot of especially in terms of
Hydraulic Engineering it's it's very
Advanced for being 3,500 years old so if
you check out here's an image of the uh
excavation sh what a project it's an
amazing place and you can tell that it's
just part of it because it it's pretty
close to where the crater began so the
city itself was probably much larger so
in this case the a lot of evidence but
like we said there could be there could
be civilizations that there is no there
is very little evidence of because of
the natural environment that destroys
all the evidence right and I think Acer
is actually a great example of that
because here we have the side that did
preserve that looks amazing but we know
there was more of the city that was
completely obliterated it was shot
chunks of that City are probably in the
walls of cre 70 Mi away and uh you know
Plato says that it it sunk it was on an
island and it sunk well that's exactly
what happened to aceri you think this is
what Plato was referring to if it does
exist at least the model of it I think
this is probably what he was talking
about and there could be other
civilizations of which Plato has never
written right that we have no record of
and um it's humbling to think that
entire
civilizations with all the dreams the
hope the technological innovation the
the wars the conflicts the the political
tensions all of that uh the social
interactions the hierarchies all that
the art can be just destroyed like that
and forgotten completely lost to ancient
history I reflect upon that often as an
archaeologist I think about the this
great country that I live in and love
and all the things we've achieved but
you know we're we're a baby historically
speaking we've been around 200 years
heck a lot of the Cities I study in uh
Central and South America they had a run
of you know 800 a th000 years and now
they're ruins but we're we're barely
getting started in terms of historical
civilizations so humans Homo sapiens
evolved uh but they didn't start
civilizations right away there's a long
period of time when they did not form
these complex societies so how did we
let's say 300,000 years ago in Africa
actually go from there to creating
civilizations I think that a lot
of human uh Evolution had to do with uh
the the pressures that their environment
put upon them and you know a lot of
things start changing right around
12,000 years ago and that's when you
know our last ice age really ended I
think there was a whole lot of things
that just pressured them into especially
finding new ways of subsistence here in
the Americas a huge thing that happened
was all the meapa went away when the
climate changed enough the the mammoths
died out and the Bison died out and
there was just uh they had to come up
with different ways of doing things we
were hunters and gatherers and we had
things we got from hunting and we got
things we got from Gathering and in the
Americas when the things that they were
using to hunting went away and they had
to make do with rabbits they you know
the the Gathering started to be a much
more important thing and I think that
led to figuring out hey we could
actually grow certain things and Gardens
turned into crops turned into intensive
crops and then people were allowed to
gather in bigger groups and survive in a
single area they didn't have to roam
around anymore and that's where we get
uh the first sent
communities which means they they stayed
in the same place all year long for the
vast majority of human existence we've
been nomadic and we've done these kind
of wider or tighter nomatic circles
depending on the geographic region where
they'd know okay you know in the
mountains we in the we'll be in the
summer in the mountains CU there's
berries and things and then in the
winter we'll be down here and we'll hunt
but they'd move so once humans figure
out how to stay in a place I think there
that's the initial trigger to what would
become civilization what do you think is
uh there's a lot of questions I want to
ask here what what do you think is the
motivation for societies is it the the
character or the stick so you said like
is it like when resources run out when
the old way of life is no longer feeding
everybody then you have to figure stuff
out or is it more the carrot of like
there's always this kind of human spirit
that wants to explore that wants to uh
maybe impress the rest of the village or
something like this with the the new
discovery they made and venturing out
and coming out with with different ideas
or of technological innovation let's
call it well you know I I have an
Explorer's heart so I'm kind of uh you
know bi I'm biased right you know I I do
think that that we have an inate desire
to see what's on the horizon yeah and to
impress other people with our
achievements things like that that I
we're we're social beings um that's that
that's really the edge that humans have
is our ability to work together so I I
think that it's much more the carrot
than the stick when things get ugly the
stick comes out but usually the carrot
does the job the really interesting
story is how the first people came to
the
Americas I mean to me that's pretty
gangster to go from Asia all the way
potentially during the Ice Age or maybe
at the end of the ice age or during that
whole period not knowing what the world
looks like going into the unknown can
you talk to that process how did the
first people come to the Americas well
first off I agree with you that was
pretty gangster I mean that's that's
that's a hard place to live I I listened
to some of your podcast is that guy uh
Jordan Jonas he cut the mustard but I I
wouldn't have made it Crossing there
well there you go like the fact that
those guys exist that somebody like
Jordan Jonas exist people that uh
survive and thrive in these harsh
conditions that that's an indication
that it's possible but yeah so when when
do you think and how did the first
people
come the traditional theories are still
somewhat valid or at least you know on
the table that when that land bridge
occurred that nomadic Hunters just
followed the game like they always had
and the game went across there cuz there
was no barrier and they followed them
across the thing that has changed is how
early that happened DNA has been a total
GameChanger for archaeology you know we
we get all these uh evolutionary tracks
that we could never see before when I
was a young archaeologist I had I would
have never dreamed we'd have the
information we have now and that
information a lot of it's coming out of
uh Texas A&M we see the traditional like
12,500 years ago that there was a
migration but now we're seeing one
that's almost certainly happening closer
to 30,000 years ago and
now the thing that seems like Madness
but might be true is that it could have
been as early as 60 a lot of the DNA
things are suggesting that the very
first migration could have come across
as early as 60 and when I was a younger
archaeologist it was heresy to go beyond
this
12,500 you were a wacko if you said that
but now it's really very clear that they
came over at least by 30,000 and the
Bridge opened and closed and opened and
closed that's during the Ice Age
right I mean that's crazy right that's
that is crazy yeah I mean you know they
didn't roll in and immediately make New
York but there were people and there
were definitely not people here before
that which is fascinating the uh the
when when the when the bridge
closed DNA mutated and so we have
specific kinds of Hao groups that are
here in the Americas that don't exist
otherwise and that same Hao group game
has been showing us more and more that
people came across Siberia that it's not
Africa it's not Western Europe those are
still you know they've become kind of
Fringe theories but they're not totally
eradicated I have
DNA is a developing science as well and
I think we all need to keep that in mind
that it's not like they just cracked the
code and now we know all the answers and
sometimes like in any science a
breakthrough puts us two two steps
backwards not forwards so I think you
know we don't need to have too much
faith in the models that are now being
created through DNA but they are
pointing in the direction of every body
came across from Siberia that all Native
American people are of Asiatic descent
do you think it was a gradual process if
it's like 30 to 60,000 years ago was it
just gradual movement of these nomatic
tribes as they follow the animals or was
it
like one explorer that pushed the the
tribe to just go go go go and go across
maybe across a 100 years travel all the
way uh across maybe into North America
into North North America where Canada is
now and then sort of like big leaps in
movement versus gradual
movement I think it was big leaps and
now this is just you know uh mostly
guess I'll I'll admit but I think that
it much in the way that a lot of our
evolutionary models talk about
punctuated equilibrium that there are
big moments of change and then it
settles out into a more uh slow and
steady pattern and then something big
will happen again I do think that uh the
early people went as far as they could
go and there were certain colonies that
just got isolated for thousands of years
one of the fascinating things that DNA
is showing us which actually blood types
were showing us way before that is that
the oldest people people in the Americas
are in South America the ones that are
uh that got separated early and didn't
mix their DNA like the people in the
Amazon most of those guys have uh O
blood type and their Hao Group D which
is the oldest one that entered the the
us and what are they doing down there if
uh I do believe they came across the
bearing straight I don't think it's very
we have no no real evidence to say they
they came in Mass
across uh Oceania so they made it
probably by boat along the coast all the
way to South America so there's some
kind of cultural engine that drove them
to explore so if you had to bet all your
money it happened like tens of thousands
of years ago but in a very rapid Pace
there's these explorers they went all
the way to South America and there
established their kind of more stable
existence and from there South America
meso America North America was kind of
gradually expanded into that area I
think the next waves came down and did
North America and Central America and
the very first wave made it all the way
down to South America and got isolated
there and then mixed in with the next
groups that came that's fascinating kind
of like there's a there's an interesting
correlate in uh uh in Europe where today
everybody feels like uh Celtic people
are from Ireland but actually Celtic
people started in Eastern Europe and it
was the entire area and when Rome kind
of swept everything and and Rome was now
the the ruler of the day it was only
that far edge of the Celtic World
Ireland that they were like ah we're
we're not not going to mess with those
guys on that island we'll leave them be
so now it looks like that's the heart of
Celtic tradition but actually it's The
Fringe so if it if it is 60,000 years
ago these are really early humans yeah
and there were consistent things that
have been coming out for decades about
uh very old carbon 14 dates in the
Amazon and in the Andes area that
everybody just dismissed is no you
didn't get it date of 40,000 years but I
think we're going to come back around to
start readdressing some of these based
on new evidence at hand and that's the
interesting thing is you know the early
humans spread throughout the world and
then like you said perhaps have gotten
isolated and then civilizations sprung
from there and they all have similar
elements even though they were
isolated that's really interesting
that's really interesting that there's
multiple cradles of civilization
just one like one good idea that those
ideas naturally come up those structures
naturally come
up and I I wonder whether you know the
similarities that all those cradles have
it could be uh you know a shared much
deeper past that they all have or it
could be a more kind of Star Trek thing
where uh you know Captain Kirk was
always talking about the uh the the
theory of parallel human development
that humans Across the Universe go
through certain stages of development
and that that could be the answer to it
which which one do you lean on which
which one do you lean towards I think
it's a case by casee thing well I think
if we look globally I'd lean much more
towards the human parallel development
but if I look just to the Americas and
we have a shorter time period where you
know the the things that become major
civilizations now now I'll say you know
up to 30,000 years ago which is still a
blip in the time of of
humans um I think that there were shared
things that those people came over with
from Asia and that as they got separated
that they had core values that then
turned into things like religion and uh
cultural Customs that we can see I I'm a
big proponent that there are uh
commonalities in all the cultures of the
Americas that lead back to and point to
a a single distant origin you've spoken
about the Lost cradle of civilization
South
America so uh South America is not often
talked about as one of the cradles of
civilization South America mes America
can you explain well we have very early
stuff in South America you're right I
mean you know especially as uh uh as an
American our country's so big and you
know the we are so far removed from
these places we don't even think about
it but more and more we're seeing things
that that predate the earliest stuff
that we like to talk about like Egypt
and
Mesopotamia um there are things it's all
on the Peruvian coast that we have these
cradles of civilization someday we might
start talking about the Amazon more and
more but right now what we've got are
things that date back into the 3000s
BCE along the coast of Peru and there
are big stone-built pyramids and
temples and they're they're amazingly
isolated even now that we've found them
uh some of them like Coral is one of the
most famous ones just north of Lima
we've known about it for a couple
decades now how old it is but every time
I visit there it's like I've visited the
moon there's absolutely nobody there not
for Miles I it's uh amazing how such an
such a discovery was made and yet still
nobody goes to see it it's not easy to
get to so you think there's a bunch of
locations like that some may not have
been discovered in the Peru area oh
there are so many Peru has tons that
desert gets really ugly quick and it
buries things completely there are so
many pyramids out there that are still
completely
untouched you know when people hear the
name pyramids they think of Egypt
immediately but Egypt has got about 140
pyramids and we have pretty much found
them all Peru has
thousands thousands of pyramids and now
they weren't built of uh a lot not all
of them were built of stone some of them
were Adobe bricks which have weathered
terribly so now they don't look they're
they're not exciting places to visit
today
you know what's funny too you you know
we started off talking about you know
whether I think there's A Lost
Civilization out there uh there are
definitely things that
are still to be discovered but there are
some things that were discovered a
hundred years ago and archaeologists or
back then they they called themselves
antiquarians just kind of passed over
Corral was one of these sites because
the the coast of Peru has some of those
pyramids that were made by the moch are
full of of gold and beautiful
Ceramics and you know things that you
can sell for big money but Corral was
found a long time ago but the
archaeologist was like ah no gold no
Ceramics forget about it this place is
no good we can't sell anything here and
then about the 1970s or 80s somebody
said hey no Ceramics is that older than
the invention of ceramics we better
go take another look at that place so
what's the dating on Corral Coral I
think starts at about 3200 BCE and it
lasts as a major civilization with a lot
of other cities around it uh until about
1,800
BC so what's the story behind like
looking at some of these images what's
the story about constructions like that
what was the idea that thing isn't that
amazing yeah oh that gosh I mean it
should be some sort of you know I'll be
a flaky archaeologist like you know this
is a this is a place where where rituals
took place that's so many things we say
are so just painfully vague and that's
about you know what we got and a place
like this I know the one we're looking
at here I've been here a couple of times
in the pyramid behind it the rubble's
built in a way where the building won't
Rock apart this is a very uh earthquake
prone place but the building haven't
fallen because they make these uh net
baskets of rocks inside that all kind of
Wiggle around and don't allow the
building to fall down and inside these
we've also found a couple of things that
were uh babies that were human babies
that were buried in there and I don't
think there's a lot of people that see
that and go oh look at that they were
sacrificing babies these
monsters I think a lot of the things
that are interpreted as baby sacrifices
Coral's evidence being one of them I
think it's more about the the tragic
nature of infant mortality in the past
it was a lot more common there were
cultures that didn't even really
properly name their kid until they got
to five because chances were they were
going to die and so I think a lot of
these babies that we find in these
ceremonial contexts that are interpreted
as sacrifices I think they're putting
them in special places because they They
Mourn the death of their kids and it
just happened a lot more frequently
then one of the things you said that
really surprised me is that pyramids
were built in
Peru possibly hundreds of years before
they were built in Egypt is that true
absolutely absolutely in fact there's
crazy there's one that's now
pushing uh 6,000
BCE like that's thousands of years
before the stuff in Egypt and that one's
called Waka Prieta and it was not a it
was not an Egyptian pyramid it was but
it was a pyramid and it was thousands of
years
before what do you think is the
motivation to build a pyramid the fact
that it can uh withstand the elements uh
structurally that kind of thing is is it
uh yeah why why do humans build pyramids
and why do they build it
in all kinds of different locations in
the world well you know my my rude
answer is is is is pretty boring really
and a lot of people ask me why are there
pyramids all over the planet how is that
is that a coincidence I mean who yeah I
think that uh when people wanted to
build a big
building without rebar or cement you end
up building something with a fat base
that goes up to a skinny top and that
turns into a pyramid
uh you know any kid who's playing with
blocks on the floor builds a couple
towers and his brother knocks him down
and if he wants one that's going to stay
and be tall he ends up making something
with a fat base and a and a tiny top and
I think that uh you know building
something big and tall together is one
of those those human things like we
built that that will be here after we're
gone people remember who we were we are
all if there's any human commonality
it's it's fear of our own deaths and
that we were nothing and no one will
ever remember us I think that the first
big monuments like that were probably uh
a group of people saying we're going to
do something that people will remember
forever now that being said you remember
we were just talking about Waka Prieta
and this one that's almost 6,000 BC now
is the first one that one's a funny case
uh we just talked about all these lofty
goals but actually I'm pretty sure that
Waka peta's first pyramid was about
capping a smelly pile of trash I think
everybody piled up their trash in the
middle of town yeah and it's stunk it's
it's on the coast it's stunk like fish
and somebody said if we just bury this
thing with dirt it won't smell anymore
and then it was a big Mound where people
could get up and talk to everybody and
then said well it's squishy you know if
we if we cap it with Clay then it will
really not smell I really think that the
very first pyramids in Peru were about
trash
management talk about plating huh yeah
but then they probably saw it and they
were impressed and humbled by the sort
of the enormity of the construction and
then they're like oh we should maybe the
next guy thought maybe we should keep
building these kinds of things yeah yeah
in uh not not to jump ahead but in North
America you know where they also made
pyramids there's this interesting
evolution
where there were these piles of shells
along rivers and along the coastlines
people ate a lot of shells that was an
easy thing to collect and eat so these
piles of shells would be near
communities and they probably became
landmarks but eventually they started
burying their dead inside those too
probably again you know about stink and
about you know well we don't want the
dogs to eat them maybe we put them in
the middle of the shell pile but then
that all of of a sudden became this like
that's where my grandfather's body is
that's where great-grandfather's body is
and all of a sudden people started being
attached to place not just for the
resources but for the shared memories of
their ancestors so when the very first
pyramid was built in uh Ohio area by the
Adena people it was built out of dirt
but it's full of bodies and I think it's
an echo of a old thing where they used
to be putting bodies in Shell
Mounds so where and who were the first
civilizations in South America mzo
America well you know I think we're
still piecing that together coming back
to the first things we talked about I
think we're still missing a lot of stuff
uh especially in South America it just
keeps getting older and older part of
the reason it's hard to answer that
question is you know at what point do we
consider people a civilization or a
culture we have in the Americas this
long period of time that we call the the
the Paleo Indian time where they were
hunting megap and then when those went
away we get into this even longer period
of time called the archaic M where
they're just hunters and gatherers
sometimes somebody's coming up with a
cool different kind of Arrow Head they
go back and forth with different hunting
tools but really nothing changes for
thousands of of years and then finally
they start developing into these larger
groups which for the most part has to do
with
agriculture it used to be archaeology
that was just the end all be all
civilization starts with the invention
of agriculture and we can't have
sedentary communities until people learn
how to farm but that's been discounted
Peru was a big part of that that area of
Corral it's connected to another city on
a coast called aspero and aspero starts
about the same time but they're all
about fishing they have no farming and
coral who's up River from them is
farming but funny enough they're not
really farming food they're farming
cotton and they're making Nets and
they're trading the Nets with the people
on the coast for the
fish um so it's not as simple as it's
just agriculture anymore but it is I
think still rooted in
how can we feed more people than just
our family how can we together create a
food abundance so we're no longer know
scared about running out of food so is
it possible which is something you've
argued that Civilization started in the
Amazon in the
jungle I think so I think religion in
South America began in the Amazon I
think there were people there very old
there's actually
the earliest Pottery in all of the
Americas of all these places that we
have civilizations that grew up you know
where the oldest Pottery is the middle
of the Amazon so there's interesting
cultures developing in the Amazon so
religion you would say preceded
civilization in South America the uh the
coral and aspo that I was just talking
about it's weird what a dir of Art and
any evidence of religion we have we have
those pyramids and things that we call
temples but we don't really know what
went on in there and there's no hints of
uh religious
iconography uh ceremonies nothing like
that the first stuff that we get is
right when that culture ends about 1800
BCE this culture called uh shaveen
starts up and they their main Temple is
up in the Andes in this place of uh
least path of re least resistance
between the Amazon and the coast it's
about three days walk either way from
this this place where this Temple is
that's where we start seeing the very
first religious iconography and it's all
over the temples there are things that
are definitely from the coast but the
iconography are all Jaguars and snakes
and crocodiles and those don't come from
the coast all of those things are are
coming out of the Amazon I mean religion
is a really powerful idea religions are
one of the most powerful ideas they're
the strongest myths that tie people
together and to you it's possible that
this
powerful uh idea in South America
started in the Amazon I do I do think it
did
um and you're right I know ideas are
more powerful than weapons but
archaeology can't see them at all we can
see sometimes we can see ideas
manifesting in the things they they
create and lead to but there's an
interpretation problem are we right
about what idea created this that those
are things that archaeology just can't
get at that's one of the challenges of
archaeology and looking into ancient
history is you're trying to not just
understand what they were doing in terms
of architecture but understand what was
going on inside their mind that's really
what what I'm in it for trying to
understand these people and it's real
detective work and we know we're dealing
with a a totally flawed record we only
have what could preserve the test of
time you know if we look around this
room here if uh if 2,000 years of
weathering happened in this room what
would be left and what would we think
happened
here right right right but there's not
in this room but if you look at
thousands of rooms like it maybe you can
start to piece things together about the
different ideologies that ruled the
world uh the religions the different
ideas uh tell me about this Fang deity
one of your more controversial ideas is
that you believe that the Rel the
religions there's a thread that connects
the different civilizations the
societies of the andian
region and the religion that practice is
more monotheistic than is currently
believed in the mainstream that is
exactly what I think and it's I think
it's all about this Fang deity who
somewhere thousands of years ago crawled
his way out of the Amazon up into the
Andes and a religion took hold that
could have been kind of a combination of
ideas from the coast and the Amazon but
he is the one Creator deity in my
opinion through all of these cultures
and the people the Amazon still talk
about him there his name is Vias in some
groups but they say that his uh his
emissaries on Earth are the Jaguars and
that he is the creator deity why is the
current mainstream belief is that a lot
of the religions are not monotheistic
well there are Bonafide uh pantheons you
know Greece had one Egypt had one
Mesopotamia had one lots of the early
religions of the old world were
pantheons and I think that was part of
the problem the earliest
archaeologists walked in there with a
preconceived notion that ancient
cultures have pantheons and so they went
to the art looking for them and they
came up with things like the shark God
and the moon goddess and uh the Sun God
and all these things but when I look at
the art and I was trained by a person
right here in Austin Texas as an art
historian you follow
certain uh diagnostic traits through ART
to see the development over time and
when I look at it and use that
methodology there's a single face with
goggle eyes and fangs and claws on his
hands and feet and snakes coming off of
his head and off of his belt he's he's
got really identifiable traits he also
likes to sever people's heads off and
carry them around but he's the fanged
deity and he's there he shows up in
chven De hantar the capital of that
shaveen
culture and he keeps showing up through
every culture even thousands of miles
away throughout the next two Millennium
right up to the Inca the Ina have a
Creator deity they call
veroa but veroa is the Fang
deity he is when we do see him by the
time you get to Inca they do this kind
of like almost uh Islamic thing where
they say you you can't understand the
face of farak COA so when they do put
him in a
cosmogram they'll make him just a blob
like he's just unknowable but he's at
the very top I think we're
misunderstanding a lot of things that we
used to say were deities as just
supernatural
beings if we flip the mirror on
Christianity and take a look at it which
of course Christianity monotheistic
right it would be heresy to say
otherwise but who are all these other
characters who are all these angels and
demons and you know Jesus Christ and I
mean I don't even know who the holy
spirit is but he's some sort of
Supernatural being but it's that
monotheistic system has lots of things
that have Supernatural powers that are
not God that's where I think the Crux of
us
misunderstanding ancient andian artart
is so what what is the process of
analyzing art through time to try to
figure out what the important entities
are for the culture you just see what
shows up over and over and over and
over well certainly without the uh
Advent of
writing uh depictions in art have all
sorts of meanings encoded in them and
there are certain you know what we call
diagnostic elements
like we can we can pull apart the same
sort of thing in uh like in the Greek
pantheon you know you know by their
dress and what they're holding what the
different gods are you can tell Hades
from from Zeus by the different things
they're holding you know lightning bolts
or Trident or whatever it is so they all
have these
diagnostic elements to them so that's
how art history goes about analyzing art
over time once once we can put it in a
chronological sequence then we can say
okay here's here's a deity here in
shaveen culture Now we move forward 500
years now we're in moch and nazka
culture you know who were who where are
the deities here and what I see is that
same guy with not just one or two traits
but a whole package of them that shows
up again and again and again for
thousands of years in each one of these
cultures he's got circular eyes he's got
a fanged mouth he's got claws on his
hands and feet he's a he's a humanoid
but he also has uh snakes coming off of
his head like hair and snakes coming off
of his belt and then not so much in
shaveen but as it goes forward he starts
carting
around uh severed heads human severed
heads so they're like in the old
literature uh the moch will call him the
decapitator
deity but then they have these other
like oh here's the crab deity and here's
the fox deity but if you look at them
like the crab deity is just that guy's
face coming off of a crab and the fox
deity is that guy's face coming off of a
fox so I think in on that particular
instance I explain it similar to what
Zeus did you know how Zeus was able to
like you know turn into whatever animal
he wanted to get with the woman he
wanted and he showed up in all sorts of
forms but he was always Zeus I think
that the uh the Fang deity manifests
himself through people and animals
throughout the art and that there are
missing stories of Mythology that we
don't have anymore and across hundreds
of years thousands of years from shaveen
to moja to Inca as you're saying right
wari has them too Tia wanako that's that
that famous place Puma kou he's all over
there I wonder how those ideas spread in
morph of this Fang
deity I think people walked and przed
and places like shevine there's a later
one in Inca times called uh Patak kamak
that are pilgrimage places where people
come in to be healed if they're sick but
also just to pay homage to the powers
that be so uh shaveen was a place where
people from the Amazon and people from
the coast were all coming together in
fact we saw it in the archaeology there
there's these interesting labyrinths
under the pyramids with the Fang de all
over them that have like one Labyrinth
they'll have all Pottery the next
Labyrinth will have a bunch of animal
bones the next one will have a bunch of
things made out of stone so people are
showing up and giving this tribute and
they're learning and then they're going
back to their community so I think it
dispers firsted from certain pilgrimage
spots and became just like pilgrimage
spots do somebody goes back and they
build a temple to the Fang deity do we
know much about the relationship they
had with the Fang deity and like their
conception of the powers of the Fang
deity is it were they afraid of the Fang
Dei is and all knowing god is it uh
something that brings Joy and harvest or
is it something that you're supposed to
be afraid of and sacrifice animals and
humans to to keep it keep a bay I think
he had two sides of the coin like a lot
of the the Hindu gods are you know one
aspect is terrible the other aspect is
lovely um I think he had that same sorts
of qualities cuz we do see him as a
fierce Warrior taking people's heads off
and he is a Jaguar which in and of
itself implies a certain power and
ferocity but but then there are other
funny things about him like he is
definitely involved in a lot of healing
ceremonies and a lot of those healing
ceremonies are involved with uh sex acts
when it comes to the moch there's this
whole group of sexual Pottery where
priests are having sex with women or
men um and some of them show their faces
transforming into that Fang deity like
he is acting through them MH but the the
thing that most cracks me up that shows
his softer side is the Fang deity has a
little puppy he has a puppy that's like
just dancing around his feet and like
jumping up on him in various scenes they
see him again and again sometimes he's
in these these healing sex scenes in
fact I tracked that puppy from other
contexts to these sex scenes where the
uh where a priest was having sex with
somebody in a house Fang deity and
there's a puppy just scratching at the
door like hey you forgot me and then
finally one day I found one with the
puppy having sex with the woman instead
of the Fang deity I was like oh he
really is very involved in this what is
this weird puppy so he's yeah he likes
to take heads off but he also has a
puppy he adors this actually this is
awesomely makes sense now cuz I I saw
the opening of a paper you wrote 30
years ago on Shamanism and the moocha
civilization it reads the moocha of the
major focus of this paper sex puppies
and head hunting will be shown to be
related to ancient mocha
Shamanism uh so now I understand I was
like well the puppies puppies yeah it's
true uh and the head hunting that's the
decapitator and I've added rock and roll
to that list since actually which as
rock and roll or Know music is also a
big part of it they they oh interesting
they they call Spirits down there's this
whole spirit world there's the
ancestors and the the people that drink
San Pedro cactus juice kind of they
don't talk about the Fang deity anymore
I think Christianity in 500 years has
somewhat put him in the back you know it
was unpopular to have a pagan deity so
they don't talk about him much anymore
though he's still around they're in like
around troo they call him I
ipek but
um music play in the Amazon they play
flutes sometimes A Chorus of women sing
and that's supposed to bring the spirits
down into the ceremony there's a spirit
that's hurting the person that's sick
and then the the priest or the shaman or
the corander whatever you want to call
him has his own posi
of spirits that are going to help him
figure out what's going on so when the
music
starts that's bringing those Spirits in
and people don't see them unless they've
imbibed the San Pedro cactus juice which
is is this
hallucinogen which is in the Amazon side
it was iasa on the on the coast it was
San Pedro cactus MH but that's what
allows you to actually see that other
world yeah I I went to the Amazon
recently did iosa very high dose of it
bold
moo um when in
Rome well how far back does that go oh I
I think longer than anybody can remember
but I mean it's a natural plant that's
been there forever I think that it's
thousands and thousands of years that's
another thing uh shavin de juara was
talking about where I think the things
came the religion came from the
Amazon there's this wall on the back
side that faces the Amazon side so if
you're entering the city from the Amazon
path you see this wall first and it's a
bunch of faces that some of them are
human some of them are total Jaguar are
and some of them are
transforming in between but there's a
group of them that are Midway through
transformation and they show their
nostrils leaking out this snot that's
coming like down their face San Pedro
doesn't do that to you but aasa does
aasa traditionally theyd take a blow gun
and just shoot it up your nose or up
your ass but it would a lot of times up
your nose and when it shoots up your
nose the first thing that happens is
just this gush of snot comes out of you
and there are
Stone uh depictions of people
uncontrollably snotting on the back side
of this temple from know 3,000 years ago
so that you think could have been a big
component of the development of religion
and Shamanism I think that
hallucinogens opened the mind then like
they open the mind now do you think that
you know the Stone ape Theory uh do you
think that actually could have been an
actual Catalyst for the formation of uh
civilization in the Americas yes I do
though you know hallucinogens are not
part of every uh ancient tradition in
the world in fact strangely the majority
of plants that that are actually
psychotropic not just mood altering are
from here in the
Americas there there are very few uh
drugs that will make you hallucinate
outside of the Americas of course now
they're Global and you know they they
can be grown all over the place but
originally speaking very very few were
outside of the Americas so they were
part of the experience here in a way
that they just couldn't be in other
places I wonder to what degree they were
just part of a ritual and the creative
force behind sort of art versus like
literal
the method by which you come up with
ideas that Define a civilization it's
like the degree to which they had a role
in the formation of civilizations it's
kind of fun to think about psychedelics
being like a critical role in the
formation of civilizations I think in
terms of South America they probably
really were um in North America where
we're in a more Northern climb here and
there are less of them not so much at
least in terms of psychedelics things
like uh know tobacco was always a big
part of it but a lot of the you know
there's there's more than one way to
meet to reach a hallucinatory state the
hard way is
starvation uh sleep deprivation and for
the the Maya for example would go sleep
deprivation starvation and then they'd
cut themselves very badly and that loss
of blood We Believe triggered
hallucinations and
nothing to do with
drugs I much prefer the drugs R it's the
it's the result not the uh the tools
aren't the thing that creates Insight
it's the the result so that getting to
you know it's hallucinogens are
poisoning us they're killing us that's
you know it's a it's a near-death State
and people of the Americas believed
sleeping was entering that other world
uh death you entered this other other
world and that when you took this Mighty
dose of poison it was helping you enter
that other world for a period of time
yeah as Tom Wade said in that one song I
like my town with a little Drop of
Poison so maybe that poison is a good uh
Catalyst for invention so who
were the early first sort of mother
cultures mother civilizations in South
America and like what what is if we look
Chron
logically is there a label we can put on
the first peoples that
emerged that picture is evolving I mean
forever it was just the shaveen people
that we've been talking about the ones
with all the first depictions of
religious art were the mother culture
and they certainly did transmit a lot of
stuff but then all of a sudden we find
uh Coral the next one that we've barely
even begun looking at but it's probably
older than Coral is saen culture I was
just poking around there last year and
just just from the bus on the highway I
could see like that's a pyramid out
there what oh there's another one and I
know how old the stuff we have studied
there is it's again 3,000 BC we're just
barely beginning to understand them
Coral frustrates me to no end the lack
of art there that's we've got you know
stones and bones and not even Ceramics
to go on and they didn't have the
courtesy to leave me a bunch of art I
can interpret so I don't know what those
people believed right so one of the ways
to understand what people believe is
looking at the art the stories told
through the art and then hopefully uh
deciphering if they were doing any kind
of writing that's our most fruitful
place to try to get at this elusive
ideas yeah and it sucks when they don't
have art if we just go back to the
Amazon you've mentioned that it's Poss
ible that there's a law civilization
that existed in the Amazon so it's
carried a lot of names law city of Z or
elderado do you think it's possible it
existed well city of Z and El Dorado are
in pretty different places the one El
Dorado the the ideas of where it is kind
of center around towards Colombia okay
and city of Z is named after a region of
Brazil called the shingu mhm and so
those those are
uh a an America worth of distance apart
you know the entire people don't really
think about it on the map but the entire
United States would fit inside the
Amazon that's how big that place is yeah
and these two are on either end but both
of them have evidence of civilizations
these big you know it's it's it's
lowland and it floods all the time so
what they did is they'd make these big
mounds and then they'd make huge C
causeways between Mounds so they could
walk through their cities while they
were seasonally inundated and a bunch of
that stuff has been found in the shingu
area like huge areas that would support
tens of thousands of people again you
know it's not stone-built
and it's been under the forest forever
so it's very torn up but it's there now
you know Brazil is big on uh cattle
farming more than ever now and a a thing
that I think is completed now was Brazil
and Bolivia partnered together and built
a highway all the way
across and opened up a whole bunch more
land which has found more of these what
we call like uh geometric Earthworks so
there's more and more evidence of these
civilizations it's not a it's not it
could be there it's there for sure by
the way the people who are trying to
protect the rainforest really hate the
highway one of the things I learned is
if you build a
Road uh loggers will come yep and they
will start cutting stuff down now from
an archaeology perspective if you cut
down trees you get to discover things
but from a sort of protective very
precious rainforest perspective it's
obviously the opposite way but it is
interesting I've seen where loggers cut
through the forest and then they uh and
when they leave the forest heals itself
very quickly so quickly and you know you
just think that across
decades you expand that to
centuries and it's like you could see
how a civilization can be completely
swallowed up by the
rainforest and it happened for sure in
the Amazon yeah you know there one of
the ways that we're trying to push the
frontier of where people were in the
Amazon cuz yes the uh the trees and just
the biomass
eaten so much evidence but they're
finding more and more of these places
that they call uh Terra Preta which is
Black Earth and they're huge swaths of
it so uh I guess the anthropology term
is anthropogenic
Landscapes and what they're saying is
that that really dark Earth couldn't
have just got that way through natural
Forest processes that sometime in the
distant past that for Forest wasn't
there and there was Major farming and
human activity to the point where they
totally turned the soil Black and it's
much more
enriched and uh when I when I took a
trip into the Amazon I took I went from
manous up the river the Black River a
couple of days and went and met some
different communities and I asked them
about this black