[freehunter]

For the most part we don’t learn about them because we don’t know a lot about them. Many of the pre-Colombian civilizations either didn’t build permanent structures or built them from wood that’s long since rotted away. With a few exceptions they also didn’t congregate in large stationary cities where we can dig to find hundreds/thousands of years of artifacts in the same place . Again with a few exceptions, they also didn’t write down their history for us to read it.

As an American we only learn fairly superficial details about the people who were here before us, because we know they existed but there’s just not a lot of historical record. Look up Cahokia, which was a massive city (at Cahokia’s peak it likely had more residents than London did at the same time). And yet all that remains is some piles of dirt.

[thaumaturgy]

There is an additional complication too: North American archaeologists have to contend with modern descendants of indigenous cultures, who frequently insist that digs be halted and filled in, remains be reburied, and artifacts be repatriated to private owners.

The efforts by assorted tribes against archaeology culminated in NAGPRA, which has hamstrung researchers quite severely.

(Potential HN argument defuser: I'm not making a statement here on cultural values, merely observing that North American archaeology has an additional unique hurdle to understanding cultures of the past.)

[RobertoG]

That made me smile because it's a little the opposite of what happen in many places in Europe. When somebody try to build something new, they have to contend with the archaeologists, who frequently insist that the construction is halted and they start to dig there.

[AlotOfReading]

As someone that's an archeologist in North America and has dealt with NAGPRA... Every country ought to have something similar. It's not ideal and I could go on for as long as anyone about its flaws, but giving people control over their heritage is a non-negotiable position for me.

[derbOac]

Many remains of the mound building civilizations in the present-day US were plowed away, as they were in prime farming geography. You're right that many of the structures were made of wood and dirt that are less lasting than stone, but there were a large number of them that were lost through field preparation. The reasons for this are complex, including a disregard for Native American structures, but in many cases people just didn't know what they were.

The mound building civilizations of North America are fascinating to me, not the least of which is because of the pyramidal-mound structures of Central America.

[lock-free]

There are several piles of dirt in Cahokia. Part of the trouble is there has never been a serious attempt to uncover and restore the site. But unlike say Machu Pichu or Chichen Itza, it's on the shore of the Missippi with a highway cutting through it and a few centuries of both flooding and human development on top of what could be there.

What's sad is that it's barely outside St. Louis and isn't a part of their tourist identity, despite basically being on top of one of the oldest settlements in North America.

[jcranmer]

> one of the oldest settlements in North America

Cahokia is actually among the newest settlements among North American civilization: it peaks around 1100, fully collapsing by around 1350. The earliest mound building site I'm aware of is Poverty Point, which begins to be built around 1800 BC. The Southwest cultures (e.g., Ancestral Pueblo) are developing clear settlements by around 750. Moving into Mesoamerica, Teotihuacan collapses sometime in the 500s, and dates back to perhaps 1-ish. Contemporary with them is the Classical Maya. San Lorenzo is the oldest Olmec center, dating back to 1200 BC-ish.

[ashtonkem]

And what cultures that did survive the Colombian exchange were massively changed to the point where it’s very hard to determine what they looked like before. This means that a lot of the traditions that survived into the 1800s (when good written records start) are probably not terribly representative of what might have existed in the centuries prior.

The horse in particular changed everything, and created the archetypical Buffalo hunting nomad of the Great Plains, a cultural arrangement that did not exist in North America before the introduction of the horse.

[JoeAltmaier]

We've infested our continent pretty comprehensively. My wife who grew up around Los Alamos remembers exploring mesa tops as a kid with other kids. The boys would look the ruins and toss everything over the side to see it smash - pots, stones, whatever. The structures got pushed over and scattered.

We've only fairly recently gotten to value antiquities I suppose. In the US anyway.

[geggam]

In Casa Grande AZ there is a 2k yr old dirt house. If you go visit you see vandals carving their initials and dates from the 1800s

[AlotOfReading]

The Casa grande ruins aren't 2k years old. The main structure is a classic Hohokam pueblo, from around the 13th century as I recall with a few hundred years of earlier canal systems and villages nearby. You have to go a bit south to Tucson to see the 2-4k year old stuff.