[Why our area has its unique political and religious attitudes.]

We are continuing to pursue the first people in our area from pre-historic time.

Archaeologists have developed a significant record from artifacts. The history of these Original Americans is just now being written.

What does the number 60 have to do with the Original Americans? 4000 BCE. So far, we find apparent Sumerian/Phoenician influence about 4000 – 3500 BCE in the Americas at the Inga Stone and Watson Brake. There is more to come. But how is that possible?

The layout of ziggurats (mounds) was very mathematical and oriented with the stars. The people were skilled in astronomy, navigation, geometry, and trigonometry well before traditional perceptions of the Greeks. Astronomy was so much more than for the seasons, time of planting, and weather.

Cuneiform tables of triangle calculations used a system of ratios for the sides. Later the system of angles came into use by the Greeks, but it is simply a different approach. The ratio of sides is equally effective, and much more conducive to calculating in your head.

The Sumerians built their mathematics on the number 60, called a sexagesimal base. The beauty of the 60 is being whole-number divisible by so many numbers including 1,2,3,4,5,6,10,12,15,20, and 30. Simple ratios incorporate many more. Contrast that with the decimal system of 1, 2, and 5.

What difference does that make? It provides a simple way to divide a circle. A circle has 360 degrees. Why such an unusual number? It depends on the number of symmetrical triangles that can exist in the circle. Precisely six will fit, each with 60-degree angles.

That pattern structure became the circle which divides into 60 minutes then 60 seconds. For the same circle, how much easier is it to precisely tell time, than if the circle divides only 10 times?

How does that impact navigation? A globe which is a solid circle divides into degrees. The GPS location of any point on the earth has a sexagesimal latitude and longitude expressed in degrees.

5500 years after the Sumerians developed the mathematics, the entire planet still uses their sexagesimal system for time, navigation, trigonometry, and geometry. They used a rational, mental process without any electronics or computers to do the work for them.

They understood.

But could they navigate? One reason astronomy and the stars are so important is they provide navigation. For the entire time since the Sumerian existence, stars provided

navigation anywhere on the planet. Simply by measuring the angle between a known reference, like the North Star, and the horizon, the latitude is known. A very simple tool does that.

4000 years later, Admiral Christopher Columbus used a predecessor of the sextant to precisely navigate and re-navigate across the North Atlantic.

Celestial navigation ports for sextants occupied a place of prominence in many aircraft including the B-52 bomber, C-130 cargo aircraft, early 747 airliners, and the Apollo

Command Module. They are still on naval warships. Stars do not go out, like the routine interruptions of GPS or EMF risks.

Notice even the name of the sextant is a derivative of the sexagesimal number. The operator of the sextant is a navigator, even on aircraft.

How does the development of the sexagesimal system at the same era as the settlement of Watson Brake play out?

Watson Brake is located at coordinates 32.359 -92.140. Look around the world. On the other side at the same latitude is the present day Babil (Babel) governate in Iraq.

Coincidence? That is a word used when events appear inexplicable.

Following the latitude west, it intercepts the Mediterranean coast at Caesarea, in the region of the Phoenicians, who Greek history affirms migrated from the Sumerian (Iraq) region. From deciphered artifacts in South America, the inscriptions are in proto-Sumerian and Phoenician.

Many academics are now open to the idea that cross-Atlantic travel to the Americas began occurring 5500 years ago, a position which would have been ridiculed 40 years ago, by the unknowing.

The more we learn about ancient history, the more certain that the traditional hypotheses were erroneous. They developed without as much data and with improper analysis. The scientific method demands that as new data becomes available, after analysis, then new hypotheses arise.

To paraphrase an old aphorism, our technological society knows more and more about less and less. Even with all the information, much of contemporary society does not know how to think rationally, which is the balancing mechanism for emotions. Without rational reasoning, technology necessarily collapses.

Clearly these ancient people were incredibly intelligent with much more advanced skills than expected from Stone Age cavemen. The premise that society evolved from cavemen appears erroneous. We know they did not live in caves, but were architects who laid out communities and built edifices and artistry. From known data, the better hypothesis is that society devolved from these early mathematics, astronomy, and architectural giants.

We have their record in our everyday happenings. Think about 4000 BCE: How many Sumerian tools do you use daily?

Are they for the same purpose as the Sumerians used them?

How much knowledge have we lost?