Man Corn in the Desert w/ Thomas Wayne Riley: Ep. 484

a true interest. And this idea of the death of history, the global homogenization of human culture and governance, that everyone will move to the same system because that is what's worked. We found out how to solve for the equation that is politics. It's kind of depressing if you think about it. We're all exactly the same, and there is a positive element to that sort of claim about human worth and

fair enough discussion for another day. But on the other end, do you want to live in a world where everyone is the same? Where everyone is simply a gear and a massive machine, completely and totally interchangeable, with nothing about them that makes them special or unique or different. This is what I enjoy about pulp right, the kind of mass market fiction of roughly one hundred years ago, the stuff that Indiana Jones was based on the serial lives

adventure novels. In my own case, I mentioned this later in the episode. I learned how to read on the old Tintin comics published in France in the early part of the twentieth century. They were adventure novels, adventure comic books. I guess for young boys. They're well done. The art's very good, incredibly well researched. He really cared a lot about guns and planes and the costumes people were in a country sidebar. Get it for your kid. You can

still find them on Amazon. The point is, what's exciting about that, what's exciting about Rudyard Kipling, what's excited about ga Hendy?

might use the language that's no longer appropriate. But nonetheless there is a recognition of difference, a recognition that all cultures are not the same, and this is impacted, to be honest, history and archaeology. I mentioned earlier in my discussion with memory medieval or the monologue before it, the narrative of guilt, right, the idea that because your ancestors did something wrong, that well, your dispossession is to be deserved to payback. It's historical karma, if you will, And

certainly the crusades are a part of that. The other I guess kind of more prominent, depending on what country you find yourself, is that of colonization, that of conquering other lands and building civilizations. Like yours, and it's always referred to as a uniquely white Western form of evil. But the problem is, this is just what people do. You or I could argue if colonization is right or wrong in any specific instance, but it's sort of like

arguing that cheating on your wife is bad. I mean, yes, it is. You shouldn't do it, but people still will do it. It's a part of human nature. It's something that comes up. It doesn't morally excuse it, per se. It doesn't make it good, doesn't make it okay. But the idea that that is unique, that certain cultures are uniquely guilty for what seems to be a general human activity, is faulty. And sure there are cultures where that is more common. Look at France or seemingly that the scandal

is that. Never mind, won't take aim at the French, but where you know, things like extramarital and fidelity are very normalized, and there are certainly societies as well where conqrest and war are much more normalized. I mean, just look at Genghis Khan, right, Cortez has nothing on him. But nonetheless, this is pulled back into a deliberate attack. And what's interesting is that many of these people sought

to combine these two trends. I'm talking about both the narrative of guilt and also the idea that everything is the same, that we found everything there is, and wherever we look, you are uniquely bad. There is no one like you, unique in your evil. Yet. One of the sort of hopeful things that the Internet did, and that's a vanishingly small list, I'll be the first one to admit, is that it sort of broke the stranglehold that academia

had on certain forms of knowledge. I mean. One of the first early popular podcasts, although he's sort of beclowned himself in recent years, is Dan Carlin, the hardcore History Guy. The first podcast I ever listened to when I was a teenager, and he did compelling pop history, bringing together multiple primary sources. You know a few of the most popular books written on a subject in dramatizing them right, telling them in a way that was accessible. And sure,

that's relatively light. But if you look at my guests today, my guest from a few days ago, you understand that, well, there are real experts out there, There are people who deeply know their subject matter, and you don't need to be honest, go and get a college degree in it. Yeah, sure, there's things you can't communicate over the internet. You can through a classroom, although depending on when you've gone to school,

you wouldn't have gotten to make that choice anyway. But also this has opened the gate for people to support themselves without being in veterate shit lips, to be perfectly blunted about that your politics are no longer contingent or are a contingent factor. And if you get a paycheck, you can be in a political or you can be a right wing historian. And sure, you may never get a job at Indiana State University, you may never get a position at Cambridge, but you can still support yourself.

There is a way to do that work. And the interesting thing is that sort of dim, dreary, dismal view that everything has been found, that everything is slowly being brought into the gray sludge, right, the villain from the never ending story of the Darkness, Right, that everything will ultimately fall to entropy and become part of this perfectly

optimized technical managerial system. Well, once you've broken that, and just a little bit, once you've pulled back the curtain and say no there's still adventure out there, there are still things undiscovered, these cultures that we know only a little bit about. They're both incredibly human and incredibly alien all at once. Well, that old lie that history is over,

we've done everything, well, it crumbles completely and totally. And this very much ties into sort of the negative version of the conversation about the Crusaders, and much the same way that there's a deliberate narrative that men were never heroic, that men never died for things they believed, and only for material causes on the confluence the way that the enemies of Europe, and when I say that, I don't mean like existential or civilization, but just anyone we got

got in a fight with, are in some way more virtuous, more than human. Sort of demi gods is the alternative position. And much like the nation of Islam, Well, how can these dastardly, cowardly villains have defeated these brave, noble demi gods? Well through trickery, through treachery, through guns, Germans and steel, right as the line goes. And look, certainly there was a technological advantage in certain instances, although not nearly to the degree that you would have. Maybe you've been led

to believe. But look, as I say later in this episode, I have the controversial opinion that these people were human for good and ill. They may well have done great things, but also they went to war, they conquered, they killed, and they stole in pretty much the same way that everyone else did. Human history is one of conflict. Again, it's what we do, and defining a society is absent of these sort of human traits is almost bizarre. Right.

It's like if someone makes a claim that their religious group is absent from some sort of sin, right, some sort of thing that people do. I don't believe you sure greater or lesser rates. Right. I understand some cultures are better at some things than others, but that I simply do not believe that there is some group of people that exists like the Star children. Right, absent from

the curse simply doesn't add up. And that's another area where that sort of bizarre article of faith is falling apart. No one believes it anymore, at least no one who cares. Because the information was always tightly controlled. It required an iron clad grip to maintain the fact that you were evil and anyone who ever disagreed with your parents, your great grandparents, onto the generations was actually the good guys, right,

the sort of independent, fundamentalist Baptist view of history. Everyone who lost was great and they were us. Everyone who won was evil, dastardly and horrible, much like the classics. As I've said before, really these people are done. They're cooked. As the kids would say. They have institutional backing, sure, but they're preaching something that no one cares about. No one believes the ostensible populations they're arguing on behalf of

indigenous or whatever. They don't really care. I mean, just look at the flock of people claiming that every new infrastructure project encroaches on native lands and so they need to be paid money. Right, That's where it comes down to. You know, look at the people claiming that certain rocks in Australia are sacred and need to be reburied, like I don't believe you, you don't care, you drink gasoline.

And the actual progressive themselves are dying out because again you see the same dynamic where if you care about history for its own sake, you're not a progressive anymore. That series of lies that you were uniquely guilty, that historical rivals are uniquely good. That doesn't bear up under examination, That doesn't bear up to the truth. It is a lie. And if you actually care, that's not where you come down.

If you're actually interested in discovering the lost pyramids of the Amazon Jungle, you're not going to be able to kowtow to this sort of retarded state and civic religion. They're mutually incompatible goals. It has become like Mouldbugs Cat magazine. It is no longer about its initial subject matter. It is about the German cat, right, the spirit of the German race expressed in a feline form. Or it is entirely about progressive politics. It's eaten it right. It's sort

of like the blob or anything else. Everything must be pulled into that homogenizing whirlpool, right, the toilet bowl of modernity. We want to be a little less elegant about it. And I think that's another advantage of ours. Live in

a world of adventure. We live in a world from a certain perspective of enchantment, a world in which people and cultures are different, where the world is not simply made up of different countries, that don't know that they're American yet, And if we could just bomb them a little bit, export some some more hrt in condoms, that they would be just like us. No, the world is different,

The world is unexplored. There are things out there that you don't understand, that don't necessarily comport with what you were taught in your high school geography class. And sure I get it right, there are satellites with cameras on them. I'm not going to say there's an undiscovered continent, although who knows, maybe one day we'll get past the ice

wall and find the second see beyond it. But nonetheless, this idea that we know everything, that we have arrived at the end, everything that can be known is is completely and totally false, And to be honest, I think we're all the better for it. It's a world worth living, right, A world where there's nothing else to be done, where you've reached the summit and any other change simply makes it worse. Well, that's that's a nursing home, right, That's a world where any sort of striving, any sort of

differentiation isn't what can't be done. You've achieved a perfect system, and they don't actually think this at least in all situations, they have that drive to continue optimizing. But the idea that the only thing is sort of modern liberal democracy, that we've got it, and the only way we can make it better is by making it more modern, more liberal, or more democratic, it's like, well, that's It's kind of

depressing now, isn't it. You know, the idea that the great equation, the question has been solved, and I don't.

Obviously that's not true, but I think it's exciting, right, the idea that no, there is still work to be done, There are still things to be found out, discovered, Our understanding could change, and not just in the way where changing understandings means being more gay right, innovating new forms of advanced, political, social, and literal homosexuality right, But there's actually something there's an adventure.

do something which has never been done before. And so I think many of us have grown up in a context where you feel as if you've played the entire game with the gutter guards up, where realists you never really had agency, where it felt as if you were simply discovering or exploring I guess, a pre built adventure, you know, going down the mind cart, as it were.

And that's why I think that idea of adventure, that idea that there is still something out there that we have not achieved, this sort of I guess you could say, kind of maximal point of human progress, if that's even an idea we believe in, which at least in my case,

it's really not. It is so intoxicated. And I think if we can add an addendum onto that great phrase from Dave Green, the one that says, you know, we have a monopoly on men who care, I think a secondary point as well, we've got a monopoly on adventure. Look that things are grant from a certain perspective, right, things aren't going well. I've said this a number of times, but what's better to either say well, this is as

good as it's ever going to get. You simply have to write it out, get to sixty two so you can you know your wife around on a Disney cruise once you retire, or to say, well, guess what the world is scary, evil is real, so gird up your loins, as they would have said back in the day.

history podcaster. Talk all about Indians, the undiscovered wilds of North and South America, and cannibalism. But before I start that, I think everyone should head over to my sponsor, Fox and Son's Coffee at their coffee this morning. I just had a little more of their coffee before I started this. As you can probably tell I'm a little hyped out, and that's in large part due to whatever the salvadoran. I think that's the correct form. That verb verb is

not the correct part of the speech. Coffee from Alsalador is good. You should try it. Alternately, you can throw me money directly. Just give me a few bucks on any of the platforms you get the episodes early in ed free. I appreciate it. Without further ado, Thomas Wayne Riley. All Right, Thomas Wayne Riley, welcome back to the Jay Burdon Show. How you doing man?

don't know a lot about. And when you and I were going back and forth talking about what we were going to discuss, the general conception of sort of westward expansion, right, this kind of cultural idea that it was, you know, a bunch of criminals, thieves and liars up against peace loving you know, hippies with feathers in their hair, just stomping them into the dirt. And obviously that's a cultural weapon, right,

That isn't a neutral view of history. But you particularly mentioned the idea of mancorn, which I'll let you explain. So what does that term mean Thomas.

they would burn the house down. That's how we have fossilized copper lights of people that were eaten by other people, normally sent by the central government, if you can call it that. A Chaco canyon, there was a giant empire we called the Anasazi. You can call it ancestral Puebloans. That's the correct term. But I don't I find that lacking.

And so the Anasazi ancient enemy are ones who aren't like us in Navajo because they are not related most for the most part to the people who built these all the ruins that you would go to and visit in New Mexico and Arizona, Colorado, Utah. These people were ruled by a rotating king almost so the families would share in ruling this massive empire of the Anasazi. And they got there about six hundred eighty and then they

left abruptly about twelve eighty eighty. First they went to Arizona and then they went down in New Mexico, and then they kind of disappeared. They probably probably became the Tarahumara. They continued eating people even down south in Mexico, but the people here it seemed like they had enough. And in the beginning there was a lot of cannibalism, and then it kind of died down for hundreds of years because I guess think you know, crops were growing, corners,

growing things weren't that bad. But when it got a little rough, maybe somebody didn't pay taxes in corn or somebody was practicing the wrong religion, the state most likely sent out a little army or a group of thugs to go eat every one of them. Not everyone in the Southwest, but whoever was committing a wrong. Well, the god sent a message no one would ever live in those houses again, and it there are a surprising amount of sites.

this is something completely different. Right, you mentioned this sort of intimidation tactic, and I'll be honest, if someone you know ate me, passed me and then burned my house down, it does send a message a strong it's you know, a little more than a strongly worded letter. I'll put it that way. That you were you know, you're not in favor with power. So, uh, what is other than the obvious? All right? The ritual significance of this? Was

there a religious element as well? Or was it simply yeah, we killed them and ate it like we're scary bad guys.

when stuff started. There used to there were like about one hundred years of every ten years there'd be a couple of year droft, and that started in about twelve hundred and so it got tougher and tougher over that those few or that century to rely on the crops because the rain didn't come or it came too late. In the Southwest, it's very delicate. If you plant your corn a week too early, that dies. If you plant in a week too late, it doesn't get enough rain.

So the rain has got to come like clockwork during the monsoons, and that wasn't happening during the twelve hundreds, and so it looks like maybe some people got upset that they had to continue to pay taxes. And this is just assuming, but and they didn't want to, so they didn't send their bushel of corn to Chocolate Cannon and they were taught a lesson. So I'm not sure if it's ritual, but it definitely was to be a sending message.

That's a whole lot of different people. But was this something that, you know, the white Westerners were prepared for, or was this something that they uh, to put it mildly, reacted negatively to.

that they lived on. They only live on three now, but they had four they lived on, and one of them was the one that was closest to the Spaniards. Because the Spanners didn't go over to the Hope because the Hopi or the Anasazi when they they had whatever reason, they left. When they left, they first went to Arizona. They left some of them in there in Arizona, that would be the Hopie, and the rest of them went

down to Mexico and the Hope. So they are still related to the Anasazi and the Spanish found this out. They during the Pueblo Revolt of sixteen eighty, the Puebloans kicked out all of the Spanners. They had to go all the way back down to El Paso or the other one, Juarez, but it used to be called something different. And so they all were sitting on the other side

of the Rio Grand waiting to come back. And when they did, they you know, took they reconquered New Mexico, and a whole bunch of Publoans fled to the Hope maces. Now these people historically didn't like each other, but by now, after over one hundred years of Spanish rule, they were like a lot of people would flee the pueblos and go with the Hopie and this one mesa, the furthest eastern mesa, was the only mesa that had a Catholic church on it, and they had priests and a lot

of these Hopie were Catholic. Well, the other Hope he didn't like that. So one morning the three Masas teamed up, went to the fourth mesa and killed everyone on it, pushed a bunch of people off the side of the mesa, mostly women. Then they walked down the side of the mesa went down to where these women fell and ate them. And the Spanish found out and they kind of put almost like we don't go to hope Masas anymore. That's

just too much. And the Hopies explain why they did this, and it was because that mesa was practicing witchcraft Catholicism, and so that was their way of dealing with it, slaughtering the entire mesa and eating a lot of people. And that when that was found, that was pretty disturbing because they were like, why are all these bottoms or I'm sorry, why are all these bodies at the bottom

of his wash at the below this mesa. And when they started looking, the bones had evidence of cannibalism, which you can see from the cup marks on the bones, and a big giveaway is pop polishing. So you just they disarticulated every bone. It's gross. They took out I mean they literally just tore every bone off and then put threw it in a pot to boil the meat. And when the meat is boiling, the bone scrapes against

the side and it polishes the bone. That is one major way to know if cannibalism happened, and.

It's also a good novel, again not related past the broad connection of a Catholic bishop going to New Mexico. But one of the I guess kind of dramatic, dramatic things about that story, right is the explicitly religious element right, that there was an antipathy on that kind of like faith level. And in pop culture when we talk about kind of indigenous American religion, it's basically like a synthesis

of fern Gully and Avatar. You know, it's kind of this like very vague concept of you know, animism or this kind of world spirit, the kind of things you can imagine being turned into like a like a felt painting of you know, a guy with a headdress and a wolf in the back. So again I realized we're talking about a very disparate group of people. But what were what was the religion of the Hope, right? What was the religion that they practiced?

holes and maybe a mouth. That is normally it was right there. I forgot it again, but that's normally this guy. And so I would imagine, because we can see the petroglyphs that the Onasazi made and the hope you are related to the Onasazi, that they probably practice something very similar. There was a lot of a lot of snakes in petroglyphs.

The Zuni also have a snake ritual where they would gather up all the snakes, and I don't remember if it's the same one, but they also had to take a scalp and stick and roll it up the hill, and the kids normally did that, and even into the nineteen twenties there were still scalps in jars at Zuni.

But so the Hopie, I mean, it's hard to tell because we didn't leave any written record, but their religion most certainly came from the south, or it came from the southwest and then went down south, influenced the southerners there as in what we would call like the Mexican Indians, and then it came back up That's probably actually what happened. But so they were very influenced with South meso American religions and their religions were focused on obviously water, bringing water,

because water is all important in the Southwest. Without it can't grow, you can't live, and so it was water. And if you've ever seen this is kind of a quick aside here, but you ever seen the picture, sorry, petroglyphs of like the spirit looking guys where the their bottoms like taper off and they're always like maybe they're holding snakes. That is to signify that they have power over life. If they're holding snakes. Sometimes it's cornstalks that

they are. But it's not sure why they're painted like that or chipped into the wall like that with the with the bottoms kind of looking all spooky, ghostly. But I really like I read that maybe it is if you've ever been to the desert and you can see a long distance and there's like maybe a storm and the rain is falling, and you can see the columns of rain. Sometimes if it's really hot, the rain never

even touches the ground. It's called virga. And so I like to think that those like spooky spirit guys are obviously they're they're holding life in their hands with the snakes or the corn, and it's water coming down, and so we're not too sure. But the Weblowins may or may not still practice some form of their older religion, but they keep that very close to the vest. They don't. They don't let foreigners come, outsiders come. So that is

you can get books about it. But it's yeah, it's it's they sit in a room and they hope that the rain comes.

into one talking about the Plains War. It's a great book. Highly recommend it, but let's talk about that, because I think it's something that is other than a few kind of cultural touchstones like those that I've mentioned, not particularly well understood. I mean, okay, the mechanics of it are relatively simple, right, you know, there's once you've had it described, you pretty mu you get it. But can you explain this practice? Right? How widely spread is it? Did it

serve some kind of social significance? Was there a kind of ritualistic or trophy element to it? And uh where do we see it? Right? Particularly I guess as you'd imagine, right in interactions with Westerns, right, our people right Obviously again I feel I'm saying this. No one wants to get scalp, that's an obvious one. But uh yeah, so how common practice? How common a practice was this?

So and who knows how long they've been doing that. But the Apache were they would scalp, but they wouldn't keep it. So they would scalp and maybe carried around for a day or two, put it on their horse, but it was bad luck to keep it for too long as a trophy forever. It's just kind of a look what I just got kind of thing. Don't mess with me. They would tie it to their the mains

of their horses, but they wouldn't keep them. They would just toss them out because the Zuni, I'm sorry, the Apache believe like however you die is how you wander the afterlife forever. So it's kind of like an fu you're going to be scalpless for eternity. I'm not sure if the Pueblowins did it really actually I should know that.

But of course the Plains Indian is the commanche. The Apache and the Apache were from Texas to i mean the Colorado River bordering California and Colorado in Utah, so they had and obviously way down in Mexico too, So they had this vast empire that they took from the Anasazi and then the commands she took it from them. But scalping was something that I think the white man witnessed and it was shocking, and so they were like, all right, this is what we're gonna have to do

to our enemies because they do that to us. It's about I need to get my hands on this book. That.

So you know, you have a lot of uh cavalry scouts, you know, getting separated, and then you know three guys vainly trying to make it back to camp and then you know, getting butchered in view of their friends. It's it's grim. Believe me. My buddy's reaction is uh, I would say typical for most people reading that. Probably that should be your reaction. It is, you know, extraordinarily grim.

But if you've read Blood Meridian, a lot of people have a lot of those stories and primary sources are referenced. I don't necessarily know if it was direct, but they're pulling from the same material, right, So if you're interested in the actual history behind it, I recommend it. Uh one of the And it's funny you you bring up the Spanish because one of the kind of constant canards

is oh, well, of course the Europeans won. They had guns, they had all this technology, and so it wasn't even a fair fight, right, it was just endlessly kind of punching down. And look, certainly there is a technological difference. But what I thought was interesting I did a little bit of research. And this is not your area of expertise. You don't feel like you have to, like, you know, have a bunch prepared on this, but is in the Conquest of Mexico, the Spanish conquest of Mexico, I radically

overestimated how many firearms were present. It effectively was swords and shields, which you know, you do the math on when it happened. You're like, okay, that makes sense, But again, not the image portrayed. So in these battles, right, these kind of conflicts, what was typical, right was it? You know, kind of an immense technological advantage to what degree? And you know, when these conflicts are happening, like how do

these people fight? Right? How did this shake out? And again we're talking about a lot of people over a lot of time. You know, I realized we're talking even just in the Southwest about you know, half a dozen different cultures and ethnic groups. But what did that shake out?

and you know, pike you or slash you. And a lot of times when the Spanish had to put down a rebellion or had to go fight some Puebloans, the pub Blowans would leave their pueblo and they always had a secondary pueblow or a secondary area where they had stored river rocks. Essentially or some arrows, and they would run up to this high spot and just rain down rocks and arrows and push over boulders on the Spanish who had to come climb up and go get them.

And so that happened pretty much almost every time, and when the Spanish finally would get to the top, they almost always won and they punished those who were pushing boulders down on them. The puebloins themselves, they got attacked a lot by the Apache, and the Apache would sneak in and they would pretty much just bash them or ax them, normally in Lack in the night or when they were sleeping. They were just coming to the pueblo

and just carnage. A lot of times they would gather people up into the kivas, which was like a bedroom or I guess like a ceremonial center, and they would just light it on fire and just burn everyone. And that happened. That actually happened like the moment the Apache got here in the late thirteen hundreds, So that was one of the firs that did is gather up everyone who was fighting them, put them in a building and light the building on fire. That happened. So the Puebloans

also did that. The Anasazians did that up in Mesa Verde. You know the very famous cliff dwelling in southern Colorado that was built for defensive purposes. So that's the only I mean, and those are all over the Southwest, and they were mostly built after things started to deteriorate a little bit. Not may Severia necessarily, but it did expand

a lot. And I mean they would build there'd be one pathway up to this sandstone cave, and they would put walls and they were always there, and they would have holes to shoot arrows from or throw rocks from, and so a lot of the fights here were I don't know. I mean, there are some petroglyphs of two sides like throwing stuff at each other, like spears at each other, and we know that they had shields because

they're depicted everywhere. So I imagine a lot of the warring before Monit, maybe before the Spanish got here, was kind of lining up throwing spears. I mean, we've seen the videos of this, you know, and like pop on New Guinea, they kind of just throw the stuff at each other until someone gets hurting and they run away and it's like, oh, let's go get them now, or maybe all right, we won and so, but a lot of the warring and the fighting I think was just sneaky sneaking into the

pueblo at night and killing everyone. A lot of times they could cover, they could plug the whole of the kiva, and so they got a fire in there, everyone's sleeping,

they plug it, then they don't wake up. I mean, there's a couple instances of that in the archaeological record, and so I don't think it was like full scale fighting until the Spanish got there, and so they had to they had to get together with other pueblos, go to a high point and defend as long as they could, which sometimes it was a couple of days, sometimes not very long.

There isn't necessarily a text you can point to. So what is the history of studying these people look like? Because seemingly if you're working off of a sort of a number of petroglyphs, right, that doesn't leave you with a ton of information, right, So how has this like study progressed? Right? How have people been able to dig into this? Are they leaning on accounts from this Spanish? I'm just curious. So nobody cared until about the eighteen eighties.

Spanish didn't care. There were there's a very famous exploration by the Spanish to Franciscan Friars, Dominghes and Escalante. They didn't even right in their journals except one time about the many ruins they saw.

just got my degree in it. But archaeologists have found cloaks with turkey feathers, and the turkey feathers are still perfectly fine. It's eight hundred years old. Just because it was sitting in a cave. They found mummies, mumm of five people, wrapped them up and then put them in the cave to you know, I guess stay there forever.

And yeah, they pretty much did. So. A lot of it that we know of about the people that were here is from archaeology, digging into the the pits, digging into their trash, digging into the actual ruins, deconstructing the ruins, and also the Puiblowins have oral history, so it's not written, but it's oral. One of my favorite archaeologists said, I

think it was actually Christy Turner, the Mancin guy. He said, oral history isn't worth the paper it's written on, which is funny because it's not written down, but there is. You can't ignore it all. There is definitely some kernels of truth and some knowledge to be gained and gleaned from oral history, but a lot of it's oral history.

A lot of it is physical stuff we've found in the ground and we've recreated, and a lot of it is looking at nearby people like the Mississippians and the Mexicans, the various Mexicans, the toll Techs, the Zappo Tech, the Maya, the Inca Lator which not Inca, sorry, the Aztec and the az Tech. This is this is I am going to say. It is not in anywhere any record, but it's kind of starting to be thought of.

and lived there. So the people that lived there definitely became the Tara Humara, you know, the amazing runners that can run for a week in high altitude barefoot, and some of them probably went down south to the Valley of Mexico and started a new civilization there, the Aztec. Now that is I could be wrong, but I believe that they spoke a similar language Udo Aztec, and and

there's a lot of similarities, including the man corn. They found a tech poddle is a heart carving knife, and they found one up here, and that was the Aztec ceremonial. Put you on top of the pyramid, carve your heart out, cut your head off, throw you down, and then add the head to the pyramid of heads. That we've gotten the center of town, which was denied that Corte has

made that up. But now they found in Mexico City doing some like construction on a subway, they found the side of the of the temple head pyramid temple thing, and in Chaco Canyon it was assumed they were just peblo like style. Enormous, I mean it was the large Peblo Benito was the largest structure in the America's until like the eighteen hundreds. It is enormous. But they said that is unrelated because there's no pyramids. Well now we

found pyramids. Archaeologists have found pyramids in Choco Canyon, two of them at least, and they're finding more at various places in the desert around the four corners. So it's kind of getting tough to say. Actually, I think it's impossible to use the Tortilla Curtain, which is the US Mexico border, and say that they had the same border.

I think that the Mississippians and the Puebloans and the people down south in Mexico were all in communication, probably all modeled after the same government, probably had very very similar religions, like the horned serpent, serpent ketzel coadal. They have found there's a Ketsa Couadal carved into sandstone half an hour from my house, and it was very cool to see.

and we see that. You know, other places in the world, right, you have dominant cultures, and okay, I realize Chinese and Korean culture aren't the same, but they're heavily influenced, right, you can see things that carry over one to another. I was going to apologize to my Korean viewers, but I don't think I have any So if that does offend you, okay, deal with it. But in all seriousness, right,

that is it. It's a logical examination of it. And one of the things that I've become aware of living in the American South is that often times it becomes very difficult to have an honest conversation about history. Anyone who's been to Monticello can tell you this is the fact the political consideration sort of overwhelmed the actual scholarship. Right, It isn't a real discussion anymore. And so I'm curious, as someone who's passionate about this topic, as someone who

was interested in it, have you noticed something similar? Have you noticed that there is a desire to sweep certain things under the rug, or to emphasize or deemphasize certain things, to sort of, you know, promote a narrative. And if so, what is if?

built these civilizations. That used to be a no go. The fact that another civilization helped these people build this, because that takes away from the Pueblowen's history of doing it themselves. I don't know how we're all influenced by another culture somehow, And so even that, the fact that someone would suggest another culture came up and either ruled them or helped them build it or co ruled with it. That used to be verbotan the Mancorn used to be

talking about. Nowadays it's talking about their religious practices at all. We shouldn't be talking about that because it's not our religion. I see that all the time. I used to go to conferences. There's a major one in Santa Fe, and I used to go The hell Hold talks every Monday, and I would go to see my favorite archaeologists. But after about a year and a half of doing that, I kind of there's new stuff all the time, and

just kind of look it up now. But of course every time before every meeting you had to have a land acknowledgment and then an apology and this isn't our culture, but you know, we're just trying to share it with them. It's also silly the violence that used to be. Of course, you know, the Engines were just peace loving people, you know, kumba Ya sitting r on fire, mining their own business. Now it was complete and constant warfare. If not with

your neighbor, then with the other tribe. If not with that, then another nation that's maybe one hundred miles away. You would rate them every now and then. And so even the violence is now a known fact. People don't like to admit it. But just about everything that is exciting and fun and new is immediately now it's wrong. There's another big one. The Clovist people, the first people in

the Americas. They came over from the West when Peninsula or the whatever, well, I don't even know the thing in the last what was it, the land bridge yes, yeah, the Landbridge. I just forgot was called because I don't I don't quite. I mean, I know for a fact some people crossed over the landbridge. The Apaches and Navajo's ancestors were one of the last ones to get to the New World before it melted, so they're probably the newest people here and they it took over pretty well

as soon as they did. But that used to be.

in the Americas. Well, that is even being completely looked at again now because there's very good evidence that they also came from Europe down into the Americas that way, And there's also very strong evidence that they would build little boats kind of like a turtle shell and have just a little little hood on it, and they would cast off and then go for a little bit and they needed to eat or to drink water or something when they ran out of supplies, and they would just

paddle back to shore, and they just hopped the entire Pacific and probably the Atlantic coast like that. So this would have been two separate people's possibly because it doesn't matter, So there's multipleys. I mean, there are sites in South America that are almost as old as the oldest sites

in North America. So to me, it's they got on a boat and they just kept going all the way until they got to Icy Mountains again after going the entire coast down and get into like Peru over there, And so even how people got here is being reimagined, and for a long time to even study that was a no now and now the big debate now is I guess if you talk to some march I'll just say it's not a debate. We've already decided that this

is true. But there are still books being published saying no, it's not all boring you know stuff, but that the Clovis people were not they were here. There were people here before them, which is very interesting because there are extremely old sites in the US and in South America, which is just strange. But say suggesting that they've been here for a lot longer than the Clovis, which is about fifteen thousand, so they probably probably have been here

for over twenty thousand. And they just uncovered footprints at White Sands National Park down in southern New Mexico, in the in the big valley there, I forget to the Rosa basin and underneath this footprint. So it was real wet and muddy back then because all the glaciers were melting,

So just the whole continent was wet. Hundreds of lakes that are no longer here, like the Bonneville and all of If you've ever been to California, you've driven from eastern California to the coast, you're just constantly going in basin and range. Well, every one of those basins were lakes at one point. There's millions or billions of birds, mammoths, groundsloths, just all the really cool creatures that we should bring back probably, And so White Sands was like that. It

was just a real marshy area. And these people walking they're following a giant groundsloth because when they stepped on it, it hardened and then stuff sentiment went on top of it,

and I guess it was softer. And so now we're just finding footprints that are like twenty thousand years old, and one of them we found that out I keep saying we, but archaeologists discovered that because under one of the footprints was a seed and so you can't measure the age of a footprint, but you can look at when that seed, how old that seed is, and they've just discovered it's like twenty thousand years old.

a man outside of society. It's like, we'll find me one, right, Like, okay, sure it may not have been as developed and hierarchical as you know, you'rope er China at you know, a contemporary time, but there was a civilization there. There was structure, there was order to it. But also people do bad things, you know, they go to war with each other. It's sort of you know, part of the deal. And you see that of course, you know everywhere there is human

civilization or humans at all. I didn't know actually about that that twenty thousand year old set of footprints. But having seen things like it, it is sort of eerie, right to literally see the footprints of someone twenty thousand years dead, you know it sort of SAIDs a shiver

down your spine. I'd. One of the things that I notice is not at all an archaeology, just as someone interested in this, has been the proliferation of light ar technology, right, this kind of satellite imaging which has enabled us to find, you know, a lot of previously undiscovered sites. So again, I didn't ask you to prepare for this. I don't know if you know anything about this. I'm just interested

in it, Thomas. But have we seen any major developments from that, right, the ability to find previously hidden sites?

reading what people are discovering. So the big ones are to go to the jungles of Central and now South America and kind of poining the laser down and seeing if those are hills or if those are man made structures, and almost always it's a man made structure, and there are multiple ones around it. I think I did my archaeological dig in Belize back in two thousand and eight. It was a lot of fun. I got malaria. Other

than that, it was a lot of fun. And it's very flat, like surprisingly flat, and it's all limestone, and a lot of times that limestones will cave in. And then you've got a sinote like a circle, really cool, very deep pond without a bank. It's just like you're just looking down into the depths of the water. But it's very flat, and maybe it's rolling sometimes. So if there's like a hill in front of you, that's where

archaeologists went there. I got to take a shovel and you just start digging until you hit rock and then that's pretty much it. That's how it used to be. Dumb. And now you can focus these lasers. I guess they're in space. I actually don't even know. I guess you can put them on actually you know, you can put them on drones. So you got these lasers and you just shoot them down and just just every day they're finding more and more structures, more and more cities that

are lost in the was On. That was a big news a couple of years ago, when they just were like, well, let's let's check and see if there's anything over here in the Amazon, and of course there were like thousands of structures. So I think they're going to send out archaeologists to go hopefully look at that. And now they're using it to great effect. In the East, they're not jungles, but you live in the East. I grew up in

northern Georgia. It's almost like a jungle sometimes. And so through these in these forested areas in the East now and even in the south they are like the south and southeast and Louisiana area, and they're pointing these lasers down over there and finding there are way more mounds than we have mapped right now, walls, effigy mounds like snakes or birds and stone and then they would cover

it up. Well maybe they didn't, but over time it got covered up and now it's just a mound, a hill, a little thing in the which you step on and over, and now we're finding out, oh that's a that's a bird. But they laid stones on the ground to look like or a snake, or here's a wall that we didn't know or are we just assuming it was natural or who knew it was even there? And so that's a I think linear is extremely fascinating. I would love to get my hands on some and just go out here.

There's a peblo, there's an eight hundred year old pueblo at the base of my mountain. I don't know, there's no water. I don't know what they were doing, but so, I mean there's got to be stuff up here too.

Another great one is that we have now reached a certain technological level to confirm a lot of the cool old stories that were dismissed as wives tales, you know, massive cities in the jungle or your cannibalism, your pyramids in the desert. For a while, it was like, oh, all that cool stuff, it's fake, you know, the real science is just everything's boring and gay. And it's like, oh, well, now we have space lasers and it turns out it's

all true. And I realize I'm massively oversimplifying it. But it is a much more exciting world to live in, right. It's a sense of adventure, you know, instead of just the kind of like cold drismy, cold dismal science of previously presented. I don't know. I think it makes the world more fun to be in.

about the answer, we all know it's not real. Recently, it seems like, especially with people who aren't in the field, like I can do whatever I want and say whatever I want because I'm not going to be punished academically, I'm not going to lose a job. And I think that's part of it. But also maybe the mindset is changing, like there is stuff out there left to be discovered and explored, and I don't know, maybe we can find

new curses, new treasures. I don't new. Yeah, it's very exciting and I don't think it's going to slow down anytime soon. I think it's just going to pick up with more and more that we're uncovering and finding and it's just gonna make again, it's gonna make life more exciting. I should start writing dime novels, honestly, Yeah, I.

where the different countries are very different. You go across the world and you see men, you know, wearing their costumes. You know, it feels as if you're going to a different culture and it's incredibly exciting. And to that point about discovering that spirit of adventure, I think there's a part in every man's brain. It's like, you know, what if I get crushed by a boulder in a tomb in the middle of the South American jungle, not a bad way to go, right, there's parfew that just that

wants to do it. And I think another element, if you can forgive some chin scratching here, is that, you know, one of the real advantages to the Internet is it has allowed people to monetize being interesting. And so if you're able to make history interesting, the pinnacle of your career isn't you know, lecturing at a regional state school anymore.

You can just go out and be entertaining. You know, you can actually push forward right knowledge, it's fun, it's it's genuinely a very interesting space to look at it. And I am not a historian. I don't pretend to know very much about history, but there are half a dozen people, yourself included, that provide very very high quality historical content to normal people right who don't necessarily have the time or inclination to dig through you know, mountains

of research. And speaking of that, Thomas, where can people find you?

have all his links down in the description. Thank you, this have you, Thomas, and everyone knows, keep your head up. Good night,