Древние цивилизации Северной Америки / TTC - Ancient Civilizations of North America

Древние цивилизации Северной Америки / TTC - Ancient Civilizations of North America

Автор: Professor Edwin Barnhart, Ph.D.
Страна: USA
Тематика: Древняя история
Тип раздаваемого материала: Лекция
Продолжительность: 12:23:08
Год выпуска: 2018
Язык: Английский
Перевод: Отсутствует
на видеокурс на е производителя: thegreatcourses/courses/ancient-civilizations-of-north-america.html
Описание: Прибыв в 15-ое столетие и дальше, европейские исследователи прибыли в Северную Америку, надеясь открыть для себя другую цивилизацию, такую как майя или инка, чтобы разграбить. Не найдя горы золота или серебра, они не увидели ценности в том, что они нашли: множество сложных культур с сотнями ярких городов, дорог, каналов, обширных торговых сетей, искусства, религиозных традиций и тысяч земляных пирамид.
Arriving in the 15th century and beyond, European explorers came to North America hoping to discover another civilization like those of the Maya or Inca to plunder. Not finding mountains of gold or silver, they saw no value in what they did find: myriad sophisticated cultures with hundreds of vibrant cities, roadways, canals, extensive trade networks, art, religious traditions, and thousands of earthen pyramids.
Доп. информация: The people who shaped these civilizations-the engineers, political leaders, mathematicians, and astronomers-were also considered to be of no value, labeled by the Europeans as primitive and backwards, often enslaved or murdered. And because the native peoples left no written language, the narrative continued to be shaped by the conquerors, passed down as truth from generation to generation.
But now-with the technological advances of modern archaeology and a new perspective on world history-we are finally able to piece together their compelling true stories. In 24 exciting lectures supported by explanatory maps, beautiful photographs and illustrations, and 3-D models that bring it all to life, Ancient Civilizations of North America will take you on an eye-opening journey through thousands of years of unique and fascinating ancient cultures. Professor Edwin Barnhart, director of the Maya Exploration Center, will show you a world you never knew existed.
Astronomers, Engineers, and Hydrologists
The peoples of ancient North America were exceptionally knowledgeable about their environment; their lives required it. Professor Barnhart shows you how they used their detailed understanding of flora and fauna, landforms, geology, and water resources when developing strategies for hunting and gathering, locating villages, and farming. But their intellectual and artistic curiosity went much beyond the immediate need for food and safety. Beginning thousands of years ago, and without the benefit of written language, native peoples became skilled mathematicians, metallurgists, jewelers, construction engineers, astronomers, and more. In this course, you will explore:
The Sun Dagger of Chaco Canyon and other Chacoan features marking the solstices and equinoxes;
The ancient peoples’ use of the cycles of the heavens to align buildings in relation to the cardinal directions and in relation to each other across vast distances;
Their use of horizon-based astronomy to align structures to the lunar maximum and minimum standstill points in 18.6-year cycles;
The Hohokam hydrologists and engineers who provided water for large desert populations via the sophisticated manipulation of flow rates in some 700 miles of canals, pieces of which still exist today;
The ancient engineers and urban planners who designed master-planned communities, building them out in a single, intricate, and coordinated construction effort;
Numerous ancient earthworks and geoglyphs that reflect sophisticated engineering and cooperative construction-the Serpent Mound and Blythe Intaglios, among others.
Ancient Cities to Rival Those of Modern Times
About 3,500 years ago, a great and vibrant city existed in present-day northeast Louisiana. Built by a Late Archaic people, Poverty Point is considered by most archaeologists to be the first city in North America. Supporting a population of more than 4,000-40 times the size of an average village at the time-it existed for more than 1,000 years. With Professor Barnhart as your guide, you will understand how Poverty Point has been revealed as a master-planned community, with a 37-acre central plaza; earthen pyramids; and six semi-circular, concentric platform mounds holding hundreds of houses. Carbon-14 dating reveals that the entire set of concentric platform mounds were built in one single phase, requiring extensive leadership, planning, surveying skills, and cooperation from an enormous pool of laborers. Even with its compact organization, every single house had a view of the central plaza-a feat many modern planners would be challenged to accomplish.
In this course, you’ll learn about Poverty Point’s:
Vast trade network bringing raw materials from as far away as the Great Lakes (nearly 1,000 miles);
Mound A, one of the oldest pyramids on the planet, built over a period of only 90 days with more than 15 million hand-held basketloads of dirt, and still in existence today;
Mound E, 13 feet tall and larger than a football field; and
Recently discovered “woodhenges,” which could be linked to archaeoastronomy.
Cahokia, built about 1,000 years ago just east of present-day St. Louis, was the largest city in ancient North America north of Mesoamerica. With 3,000 acres and 50,000 people living in its interior and satellite communities, Cahokia dwarfed the contemporaneous populations of London, Paris, and Rome. At one point in its history, the ancient city was razed and replaced with a master-planned version more than three times its previous size. Although many of Cahokia’s features, such as large mounds, ritual spaces, and communal farming, had been seen elsewhere, its scale and level of social organization were unprecedented. In this course, you’ll learn about Cahokia’s:
Grand Plaza, covering an area greater than 35 football fields and containing council houses, elite homes, a charnel house, and more;
Monks Mound, the third-largest structure ever built in the ancient New World, and the largest north of Mesoamerica, with 25 million cubic feet of earth covering nearly 15 acres, and reaching 100 feet high;
Chunkey Court, the ritual and social heart of the city where the game of chunkey was played, a sport symbolizing warfare and the creation story; and
Mass graves indicating ritualized human sacrifice.
The Legacy of the Iroquois: North American Democracy
At the time of European contact, the Iroquois were a semi-sedentary farming people near Lakes Erie and Ontario whose villages were often in fierce conflict with each other. When three visionary leaders recognized that such continual warfare was holding the nation back, they proposed a tribal confederation known as The Great League of Peace. The League’s Great Council consisted of 50 chiefs, or sachem, each of whom was elected to represent a specific clan by the clan’s female elders. These women voted their representatives in-and could also vote them out. The Great Council settled all disputes and conflicts through dialog, debate, and consensus, guided by the 117 articles of confederation known as the “Great Law of Peace.”
Sound familiar? It should.
Not only did the Iroquois establish the first North American democracy, but the framers of the U.S. Constitution held the system in the highest regard. Two hundred years after establishing its own Constitution, the United States formally acknowledged this Iroquois legacy in Congressional Resolution 331, stating the “confederation of the original Thirteen Colonies into one republic was influenced by the political system developed by the Iroquois Confederacy as were many of the democratic principles which were incorporated into the Constitution itself.”
By journeying through Ancient Civilizations of North America with Professor Barnhart, you’ll recognize the legacy of the Iroquois and many more native nations that have influenced our lives today.
Качество: WEBRip
Формат: MP4
Видео кодек: H.264
Аудио кодек: AAC
Видео: AVC, 950x540, 16:9, 1250 kbps, 29.970 FPS
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