[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. Pre-history simply means before a written history. Nevertheless, archaeologists have developed a significant record from artifacts. History is not static.

We have followed the parallel development of the American Indian culture and the Cradle of civilization. Up to circa 1300-1100 BCE, their development and technology were very much parallel.

What happened?

A maxim of failure analysis is seldom does one event cause a failure, it takes at least two for a catastrophe.

The same principle applies to historical events. Major societal transitions result from multiple circumstances. Following the scientific method, we have evaluated and discarded many hypotheses. In discussions we have developed four viable hypotheses. Reality likely encompasses all these.

In discussing our observations, other academic historians remain open to the arrival of American Indians up the Mississippi River settling in the Watson Brake neighborhood, before eventually spreading across the region. Discussions this week with other historians evoked two questions, who were the Sea Peoples?  followed by were they settlers from North America?

We well realize this discussion deviates from tradition about Original American arrivals, but so much discovery about the Watson Brake and Poverty Point cultures have disproven long accepted concepts, which we learned in elementary school. Both Middle East and North American recent research is changing perceptions.

First, from earliest history, people have been seafarers. My co-author reminded me from coastal excavations, that early sea-going vessels assembly involved pegs rather than nails. So ancient cultures could easily build ships.

She often comments, during our research, that modern society has lost so much knowledge from prior civilizations. Let’s think about that. In our consortium discussions this week, a colleague made a similar observation, we think in our technological society that we are so much smarter, when actually individual knowledge is decreasing

My late dad, who continues to grow in my intellectual perception, often quipped, people now know more and more about less and less

A simple illustration is adequate. Did the first settlers to this region take complete care of their family, building a house, farming, and living from the land? I challenge any of the hyper-computer geeks to move out of their air-conditioned apartment and live off the land. They know a great deal about computers, usually just software, but little about life, relationships, and living. Do I hear agreement from the young ladies?

Our older son, a PhD in engineering, was bemoaning the reality last week. He commented he is the last generation which will have general knowledge. He has taught the Professional Engineering exam for years. His observation that the educational process and the exam is so specialized that now an electrical engineer may become licensed as a computer expert and know nothing of the power grid or petro-chemical industry. That reality is across professions.

The Second Law of Nature (Thermodynamics) avers that energy runs downhill with each generation or conversion. We even know the shape of the decay curve or loss. If that is true, and it has been validated in every situation tested, then my co-author, colleagues, dad, and son are correct.

We have lost knowledge from the first people. Earliest records show people as jewelers, leather craftsman, metal workers, scribes, musicians, carpenters, masons, architects, medical authorities, geometry users, navigators by stars, celestial observers, sea-farers, extensive travelers. They lived off the land and sea while operating in community with patriarchs without hierarchal authority.

Recall our articles about the training provided by and to early missionaries at American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Cornwall and at other outposts to the Cherokee, Creek, Osage, and Hawaiian people circa 1817-1837. This was the epitome of Eastern education. The course outline is very similar to the list of skills just tabulated for the first recorded people.

As an interesting anachronism to technology, the Boeing 747 still has a sextant port for celestial navigation. A variation of the skills of the Original Americans persisted a generation ago on one of the most sophisticated aircraft.

In deciphering stories about the earliest patriarchs and provincial leaders, too-often their identifier translation was king, not having a better term. These were often small business ventures, ranchers, and ship captains with maybe a hundred employees, but were very unlike the vaunted rulers of large domains. Hence their community was town-states.

Our point is, these Stone Age people were intelligent, not Og, the Grunter. Strangely, modern-day stone-age Fred Flintstone era is likely a more accurate depiction with a little wry humor thrown in.

Do not misunderstand. I do not want to get rid of air-conditioning, computers, communications, or any of the other eases of our technological society.

Think about: building the case that the Original Americans were very intelligent and adept at travel and navigation. We have technology, they had broad knowledge. Consequently, they accomplished things we cannot comprehend and have difficulty accepting.

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Excerpts from our books:

Where Indians, Outlaws & Oilmen Were Real, ISBN: 9781658834643.