Archaeologists and government officials must jump through all sorts of hoops now, when human remains are discovered. The new laws are especially puzzling to European archaeologists, where ancient remains are considered part of a nation’s patrimony, regardless of their ethnic identity.
I am extremely busy now and far behind in completion of tasks assigned to me by the Principal Chief of my own tribe. However, I try to provide subscribers with a international perspective of the History of the Americas. Although this film never tells you that there are NO official DNA test markers for the Southeastern tribes, the issues discussed are still relevant.
We are moving forward with an appropriate solution for Ocmulgee. The Muskogee Creek Confederacy was literally formed at Ocmulgee Mounds in 1717. In 1805, the Muskogee Creek Confederacy was assured ownership of six square miles around the mounds for all time by the federal government in a major treaty. The reserve was promptly stolen from the Creeks. It is not only appropriate and in fact, legal, that the Muscogee Creek Nation share the stewardship of this National Park with the National Park Service.
In northern Georgia things are not as rosy. There are extremely important Creek heritage sites AND stone structures pre-dating a Muskogean presence in the Southeast on lands – owned primarily by the US Forest Service, US Army Corps of Engineers, Georgia Power Company and the State of Georgia. These lands were secretly given to the Cherokee Tribe in 1785. In fact, when the leadership of the Creek Confederacy found out about the treaty in 1790, they declared war.
These sites, long abandoned, were ceded back to the State of Georgia in 1822, 1824, 1828 and 1836. Cherokees could not have possibly built or occupied these archaeological sites, but now they are demanding control of them as “political trade-off for the MCN being directly involved in Ocmulgee’s operation.
Georgia’s citizens are outraged that they have been prohibited, since early 2021, from hiking at the Track Rock Terrace Complex by the US Forest Service. Someone vandalized the petroglyphs, which are across the county-maintained road from the terrace complex. That was the official reason, until the USFS let drop a statement that a group of Native American tribes, located outside of Georgia are now deciding what activities will be permitted on the half square mile archaeological zone.
“Someone” in Union County, GA, where Track Rock Gap is located, discovered that in the last days of the Trump Administration, the USFS signed an intergovernmental agreement (treaty) with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, giving them complete control of the archaeological zone, even though they never lived anywhere near there and only owned that land from 1785 to 1836 We shall see what happens.
The Americas Revealed 
Richard, I must thankyou for this wonderful video. I was very touched by it. I thought the gentleman that was doing all the research was also happy with his results because he also had help from the Native people themselves. What lovely people they are.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very interesting program and good for Eske for pressing onward. The bones often tell a story that the living are either afraid of or are unwilling to share. Of course the story will change once another much older bone is found that will redefine the origin stories once more.
Like
The geneticists are making very broad statements about the origins of all indigenous Americans and conveniently ignoring DNA results of non-Siberians being found in Peru, the Amazon Basin, Argentina, Chile, Baja California, central Mexico, southern Mexico and the Southeastern United States. Far more people lived in the lower Southeast than the rest of North America combined, yet there are absolutely no DNA test markers for the Southeastern Tribes. There are full-blooded Uchees showing up with almost no Siberian DNA. They are Western Asians or Eurasians.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I guessed as much as some of it struck me as being too convenient or overly simplified as much as they really draw you into the stress of his overcoming the attitudes from some of the elders or cultural politicians. Now that you’ve shared your remarks I can see that Eske in some of the scenes really seemed determined to have a pre-existing hope or goal in his mind of establishing them as “always having been here” and perhaps loaded with the desire to put his name on the “proof.” Not to get too conspiratorial but I feel the whole blockade of The Grand Canyon is more than just wanting to protect a natural wonder of the world and more about gold deposits and other “secrets of the ancients” hidden within.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Richard
What you said about the Forest service closing Trackrock archeological zone is interesting. When I was up there last February, the petroglyphs were closed, but I didn’t see anything closing the trail to the terraces. Of course, there are the trees ” blown down in a storm”
on the trail, but all 3 times I have been there, I saw no one on the trail or at the site. I’m not going to stop going up there until the park service posts signs and puts up better barriers, and may be not even then.
By the way, I did go see the petroglyphs when I was there, and yes, I went past the red tape, but I did not see where the vandalism happened. It was getting dark, and I wanted to get home after a day of hiking this huge site, so I only took a couple of minutes to look and probably missed the vandalism.
Thanks, and keep up the good work!
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s interesting. Was the parking lot for the hiking trail still closed? When people contact USFS offices, they are told that the trail and archaeological zone is closed to the public, pending recommendations from the USFS’s “tribal partners.”
LikeLike
I parked across the street because hikers on the Arkaqua (?) Trail had filled the small parking lot, but I have seen cars parked up and down the road and still see no one at the site. The trail is still not marked so most walk right past. I plan to go back in the fall after the leaves are gone. Are there any up dated maps of the site? Yours are still the best I have seen of Trackrock, but I think the site is much larger than we realize. Several years ago you wrote about a possible site on Thunderstruck Mountain, on the opposite side of Trackrock Gap Road from the Trackrock archeological Zone. The area you indicated seemed to look over the petroglyphs. What happened with that? Was anything found about this area you know of?
Thanks for your work
LikeLiked by 1 person
As far as I know, mine is the only map. The reason that I left Union County ASAP in spring 2012 was that there was a very serious attempt on my life by the Neo-Nazis, living primarily in northern Union County. I have returned once in 2014, with a large group of Georgia Creeks and not been in the county since then.
LikeLike
About ancient origins, I recently finished writing a book, with a co-author, Stars on Earth: TranPacific Navigation and the Settlement of the Americas. It presents evidence for early South Indian, Australasian, and Polynesian settlement of the Americas, via star mapping of the Pacific coast. It helps to explain a lot. I hope you like it. Lou-Anne
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Lou-Anne! How else would one explain the fact that my mother’s family think of themselves as Creek Indians, yet carry significant levels of Polynesian and Sami DNA markers? Those early peoples had to know transoceanic navigation.
LikeLike
My research conclusion was that South Indian, Australasian, and Polynesian peoples settled on the Pacific Coast of the Americas. Genetic research I used found that early migrations from the Indus Valley took their DNA both northeast to the Altai and southeast to South India. Altaic DNA then influenced the Sami, later Northern Europe, as well as the Beringian route to the Americas, while South Indian came cross the Pacific. When divergent populations like Northern Europeans and Indigenous Americans intermix, as they did in the American South, these pieces of genetic history can come to the forefront again.
I am also interested in the possible South Indian, Australasian, and Polynesian links to the Mayans in Central America and then north to the Creeks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Are you aware that the Maya Migration Legend begins in “as land of ice and snow, with access to the North Atlantic Ocean.” They migrated southward along the Atlantic Coast of North America then island hopped to Yucatan.
LikeLike
It’s available in digital format now. Here are links: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNLG7TVG http://books.apple.com/us/book/id6471462818
LikeLiked by 1 person
Despite these efforts, the post-independence period saw the rapid growth of forest-based industries, leading to continued exploitation of forest resources. The challenge of balancing economic development with forest conservation remains a critical issue in contemporary India.
https://www.indianetzone.com/51/history_indian_forests.htm
LikeLiked by 1 person