There was a problem: they kept referring to Cahokia – site
of an ancient ‘pyramid’ in Illinois – as ‘America’s
oldest city.’ How do they know it’s the oldest? Couldn’t they have added the
word ‘known’ just to keep pedants like me happy?
There was a second problem: they explained in detail – with
graphics – how the builders of this ‘pyramid’ used an ingenious method to
retain the integrity of the clay core. Frankly, it made no sense at all, which
suggests that:
1. It was load of old baloney, or
2. It was badly explained, or
3. I’m even dumber than I look
The jury rests.
But then there was the question at the end. There’s always a
question at the end, usually several.
They claimed that this massively impressive site had lasted only about two hundred years before mysteriously vanishing.
Theory given for
mysterious vanishing:
1. A serious drought had left the local area with
insufficient food to sustain the population of around twenty thousand who lived
there.
2. This had precipitated civil war.
3. The cataclysmic circumstance which had finally driven
everybody out was a major flood of the nearby Mississippi
river.
The question (ahem):
In ancient Egypt they relied on the periodic flooding of the
Nile to provide ground water to sustain the growth of crops, especially after
drought, so wouldn’t the Mississippi flood have provided the desperately needed
opportunity to re-invigorate their agriculture? Why run away just when salvation is at hand? There might be an answer, of course, but...
... they didn’t offer one. They never do, and do you
know why? Because they insist on taking up valuable air time with an
investigation (so called) into… wait for it… the evidence that these people practiced human sacrifice!
Ah, good old human sacrifice. We love human sacrifice, don’t
we? Where would an archaeological documentary be without a bit of human
sacrifice? Mmm…
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