When did Indigenous Americans discover Europe?

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect & City Planner

This title sounds like a joke, but now in the 21st century, we know that the oldest burial mounds, stonehenges and copper tools have been found in North America, not Europe or the Middle East. Humans were building large earthen mounds in Louisiana, probably elsewhere in the Southeast, while the Ice Cap still covered much of northern Europe. There were villages with as many as 1000 residents on the Shenandoah River in Virginia, when the first small bands of nomadic hunters were re-entering recently thawed southern Scandinavia and Britain.

I am using a chart of Scandinavian Bronze Age writing symbols from Lund University in Sweden to translate petroglyphs in the Georgia Mountains and a big book on archaic European languages to analyze the Muskogee-Creek language. The core words of Muskogee are from the archaic Illyrian, Italic, Iberian and Gaelic languages. Itza Maya, Totonac and Shipibo dictionaries are my main references for the Itzate-Creek language. LOL The Colonial Period in eastern North America feels increasingly like a Lost World, when compared to the history taught us in high school.

You can see why I feel that there is not enough time in the day to accomplish what I want to learn and do.

During the era, when I received my formal education, most historians and anthropologists had deluded themselves into thinking that they knew everything there was to know. Fortunately, as an architect-planner, I was not required to submit myself to their authority in order to make a living.

Two very special archaeologists of the late 20th century, Dr. Román Piña Chán of Mexico and Dr. Bill Gardner of Thunderbird Associates in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia were my key mentors in anthropology. Both taught me to never assume that I knew everything there was to know and to question what most everybody else assumed were the facts.

So, as we continue our study of the Early Colonial Period in the Southeastern United States, don’t feel too threatened, if we say things that contradict your high school Social Studies textbook.

PS – The original spelling of the Shenandoah River was “Shanontoa.” Those words are Archaic Gaelic and mean “Wise or Ancient River – People or Tribe.” The ancient word was “Shionone” which was also the name of the Gaelic Goddess of the Sea. So, an alternative translation could be “Sea Goddess People” River. Of course, there is also a Shannon River in Ireland.

“Toa” was also the word for “People or Tribe” in Uchee Language. Chestoa (Rabbit Tribe) was the name of several Uchee villages in the Nottely River Valley of the Georgia Mountains. One site is still a community, now known as Choestoe. See what I mean?