Archives    The Mother City: All About Fear   Published: 01/17/2004   Taking a break from an endeavor usually results in a lengthy stay in the land of the Lotus Eaters. It has been far too easy to put off the necessary research and writing necessary to keep this site up and active as there are more important matters to be attended to.   Anyway, welcome back to the Anthropogene. We are now one year closer to 2012 AD and the End of the Fifth Sun, if the Mayans are correct in that respect. Perhaps they are: On December 26th 2003, a 6.6 magnitude earthquake struck one of the old cities of Persia. Arg-e-Bam, a city built in the traditional sun-dried mud-brick fashion that has been in use since the time of Eridu crumbled and fell with enormous loss of life. The last count I had was over 25,000 dead, the final count will probably top 40,000. Amazingly enough this is no longer news, natural disasters have a way of fading from the human consciousness in a rapid manner. Here is a picture of the old citadel before the quake: Here is a picture of the old citadel afterwards:   A quake killed 36,000 people in Iran in 1990, and in 1988 Armenia suffered an earthquake that left 25,000 people dead.   Historically (and with some dispassion) cities made out of mud have been collapsing since the time of Eridu. Tacitus writes that in the time of the Emperor Tiberius, earthquakes devastated Anatolia - and we have the myth of Tantalis which was located just north of the ancient port of Smyrna.   Even more alarming is this following account from Reuters news service:  "A meteorite has hit northern Iran causing minor damage to property but there were no  immediate reports of casualties, state radio has said.    "It said the impact sent locals in panic onto the streets in the northern town of Babol in  Mazandaran province.   ' "A meteorite which hit Babol on Friday morning caused only some minor damage to residential  units," radio said, without giving further details or citing any source.   "It said the impact was felt up to one kilometre away." Fri January 02, 2004 10:48 AM ET   If there is anyone out there who doubts that events like this never happened in the past, well guess again. Not that I'm trying to imply anything! <wink, wink, nudge, nudge>   As usual, we must stay on the move. So after watching a National Geographic special a couple of weeks ago and discovering that the origin of civilization in the Americas has now been set even further back in time, it is worth reviewing the most recent finds.   Most everyone is familiar with the Inca Empire of Peru and it's demise at the hands of the Spaniards in 1530 AD, but few people are aware that the Empire of the Tahuantinsuyo was a relative newcomer to the region, supplanting the kingdoms of the Chachapoyas and Chimu.   (It was the Chachapoya Cloud People who built some of the most impressive stone fortifications in Peru, specifically Kuelap. To give an idea of the size of Kuelap, it is estimated that as much stone went into the construction of this mountaintop citadel as was used to build the Great Pyramid of Egypt! However, the Chachapoya neglected the elementary precaution of providing awater supply for the citadel, making it an easy target for a siege by the Inca legions...)   Peru and the accompanying regions have more remnants of ancient cultures than even the Iraqi floodplain. The Chachapoyas and Chimu were themselves preceeded by the Moche and the still mysterious culture at Tucume recently investigated by Thor Heyerdahl as the Amerindian culture that may have had potential contact with Polynesians, or vice versa.   Kapi Krakatau (see november 2003) wreaked havoc on the Moche state and those people took extraordinary and savage measures to placate what they saw as the actions of the gods. In an act that only the Mongols have equalled, they used the dismembered bodies of a mass sacrifice as mortar for one of their temples.   But who was first? The Moche were contemporaries with the late Romans and we know that Peru has been occupied by humans for well over 20,000 years, but it wasn't until 1930 that archeologist Julio Tello proposed that the Mother Civilization of the Andes were the Chavin.   Chavín has been interpreted as either a culture, or a civilization or a religion. Since there are numerous sites with "Chavin" characteristics spread from Ecuador to Argentina, it is somewhat hard to pin down this culture that spanned 2000 years. The Peruvian landscape also is a determinant with far different ecological zones in close proximity. What developed along the coast has no similarity at all to the highlands.   The Chavin site reached it's height around 300 BC as a trading and religious center and then faded under the rise of the Moche who were more unified as a culture. The artwork and ceramics of Chavín iconography show a lack of homogeneity. It was a time more of proto-city states rather than an empire.   Tello's theories about the Chavin presented the Chavin site to be older than the coastal sites, but more recent discoveries have upset this hypothesis. We now know that the maritime culture that developed in the Casma Valley was far larger in size and also far older.   The Sechín Alto monument complex in the Casma Valley is one of the largest archaeological sites in the world. The entire Chavin site is barely big enough to fit into one of the central plazas of Sechin Alto! Another site in the Casma Valley, Las Haldas is five times larger than Chavin at it's height. One of the biggest pyramids in the world, easily rivalling the Egyptian and Chinese pyramids is located in the valley. The pyramid is so large that for over a century archeologists ignored it, believing it to be a hill.   In 1999, Dr. Thomas Pozorski unearthed wooden poles from inside this pyramid and was able to carbon date the wood to 1500 BC.  Further digging revealed all the signs of a civilization at it's earliest stage. Pottery shards found indicated a simplicity and crudeness at a basic level. These finds instantly made Casma the oldest city in the Americas - indeed was Casma the mother city?   The concept behind a mother city is simple. The nomadic hunter gatherers or the agrarian villagers around 7-6,000 years ago suddenly began to create cities. Or as archaeologists call it, the great divide. The mother city would be the very first city. In Europe and Asia there has been too much rebuilding or recycling on the sites and a clear picture couldn't be developed of how that earliest stage of civilization developed.   But what causes civilization to occur. Irrigation? Trade? Extraterrestrials? <blech>   One theory proposes that all civilization has an origin in fear. Fear of the other. This is the warfare theory and archaeologist Jonathan Haas has been the primary proponent and investigator of this belief. Warfare causes people to come together for protection creating new ways of societal organization and leadership. So far in every early civilization examined by Haas there have been the trademark signs of violence. Casma was no exception as proved by Haas, who quickly found carvings of warfare and sacrifice at one of the temples.   And there the matter would have stood. All the trademarks and benefits of civilization, the numeracy, mathematics, architecture, writing, etc. had their genesis in war. This theory brings to mind the Kubrickian image of apes bashing in each others heads in front of a black obelisk.   Thus Sprach Zarathustra!   Last revised: January 17, 2004    Back

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