Ancient Civilizations of North America

by Edwin Barnhart

Streaming video, 2018

Status

Available

Call number

970.01

Series

The Great Courses: History (3900)

Collection

Your library

Publication

Great Courses (2018), 24 lectures, 30 minutes each, 232 pages

Description

History. Nonfiction. HTML: For the past few hundred years, most of what we've been taught about the native cultures of North America came from reports authored by the conquerors and colonizers who destroyed them. 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 Ancient Civilizations of North America, Professor Edwin Barnhart, Director of the Maya Exploration Center, will open your eyes to a fascinating world you never knew existed�??even though you've been living right next to it, or even on top of it, for as long as you've been on the continent. The peoples of ancient North America were exceptionally knowledgeable about their environment, but their intellectual and artistic curiosity went much beyond the immediate need for food and safety. Beginning thousands of years ago, and without benefit of written language, native peoples became mathematicians, construction and soil engineers, astronomers, urban planners, and more. They developed thriving cities, extensive trade routes, canals to bring water to the desert, and earthworks we still marvel over today. In 24 exciting lectures, you'll learn about the vibrant cities of Poverty Point, the first city in North America, built about 3,500 years ago, and Cahokia, the largest city of ancient North America. You'll explore the many ways in which the Chacoan environment provided cultural and religious focus for peoples of the southwest. And you'll learn about the Iroquoian source of some of our most basic "American" val… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Bookmarque

A bit too basic for me in some ways. Really? You have to explain that a mammoth and a mastodon aren't the same thing? Seems like it's dumbed down.

1 more

LibraryThing member LisCarey

Many of us grow up with the impression that there were no significant Native American civilizations north of Mexico prior to European colonization. That's not correct. Much of what we usually think we know about North America prior to European contact is in fact a result of European contact.

Europeans brought Eurasian diseases even when they weren't violent and destructive on their own--as they so often were. Die-offs due to diseases the inhabitants had no prior exposure to and hence no resistance to, destructively violent raids and burning of cities and towns, changes created due to the horses and the pigs Europeans brought--all caused major changes, and in multiple ways wiped out much of what was here before, usually with few good records.

Barnhart is a very good lecturer, lively, interesting, informative. He has a self-deprecating humor about areas where he disagrees with his colleagues, and is respectful when talking about others' ideas that he is not wholly convinced of. This is an absolutely engrossing tour of pre-European North America, from what we've been able to learn of the earliest arrivals, to the nations and ways of life that existed when Europeans reached the various parts of North America. Farmers, astronomers, urban planners, engineers, all created great works only some of which survive even as ruins today.

I'd have loved to see more in-depth discussion of the bio-engineering of maize (corn) out of far less useful plants, or of the Iroquois Confederation, its formation, growth, and influence on the design of the US Constitution, but this is not that book. This is a tour, a survey, an introduction, and it's a fascinating one. The points on which you want to go chase down more information may be different from mine, but you will have them.

Highly recommended.

I bought this audiobook.

Show Less

Fewer

Language

English

Original language

English

Local notes

[01] The Unknown Story of Ancient North America [2] The First Human Migrations to the Americas [3] Clovis Man: America’s First Culture [04] The Archaic Period: Diversity Begins [05] Late Archaic Innovations [06] Poverty Point: North America’s First City [07] Medicine Wheels of the Great Plains [08] Adena Culture and the Early Woodlands Period [09] The Hopewell and Their Massive Earthworks [10] The Origins of Mississippian Culture [11] The Mississippian City of Cahokia [12] The Wider Mississippian World [13] De Soto versus the Mississippians [14] The Ancient Southwest: Discovering Diversity [15] The Basketmaker Culture [16] The Mogollon Culture [17] The Hohokam: Masters of the Desert [18] The Ancestral Pueblo [19] The Chaco Phenomenon [20] Archaeoastronomy in the Ancient Southwest [21] The Periphery of the Ancient Southwest [22] Late Period Cultures of the Pacific Coast [23] Late Period Cultures of the Great Plains [24] The Iroquois and Algonquians before Contact