M_1_04 — Costa Rica Stone Spheres (Las Bolas)

The stone spheres of Costa Rica (Las Bolas or petrosferas) are over 300 pre-Columbian stone sculptures found primarily in the Diquís Delta of southern Costa Rica.

A_4_26 — Aztec Codices: Borgia Group and Mesoamerican Ritual Manuscripts

The Aztec codices — particularly the Borgia Group — are a set of pre-Columbian and early colonial-period painted manuscripts from central Mexico, produced on deerskin or bark paper (amatl) in screenfold format. The Borgi

A_4_19 — Maya Codices: Dresden, Madrid, and Paris Manuscripts

The Maya codices are the only surviving pre-Columbian books from the Maya civilization — folding-screen manuscripts made of bark paper (huun) covered in lime plaster and painted with hieroglyphic texts and illustrations

W_4_04 — Mississippian Culture — Cahokia, Mound Builders, and the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex

Cahokia, located near present-day East St. Louis, Illinois, was the largest pre-Columbian settlement north of Mexico, reaching a peak population of 20,000 or more around 1050-1200 CE. The site features Monks Mound — the

W_5_13 — Mississippian Decline: Cahokia Collapse and Abandonment Theories

Cahokia — the largest pre-Columbian city north of Mexico, located in the American Bottom floodplain of the Mississippi River near modern-day St. Louis, Missouri/East St. Louis, Illinois — rose rapidly around 1050 CE to b

C_4_02 — Pacific Island Serpent & Sky-Being Traditions

The Pacific Ocean encompasses over 165 million square kilometers — the largest single geographic feature on Earth — and yet every habitable island within it was settled by human navigators using knowledge systems of extr

C_4_15 — Taíno and Caribbean Indigenous Mythology

The Taíno, an Arawakan-speaking people who inhabited the Greater Antilles (Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico) and the Bahamas at the time of European contact in 1492, maintained a complex cosmological system centere

C_2_03 — Viracocha & South American Knowledge-Givers

Across the ancient Americas — from the Andes to Mesoamerica to the Colombian highlands and Brazilian coasts — a recurring figure appears: a bearded, non-local teacher who arrives from afar, brings the foundations of civi

ZG_1_14 — Mesoamerican Writing Systems: Zapotec, Mixtec, and Aztec Codices

Beyond the celebrated Maya script (the only fully developed logosyllabic writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas), Mesoamerica produced a remarkable diversity of writing and recording systems that ranged from the ea

J_2_24 — Nazca Puquio Aqueduct System: Underground Hydraulic Engineering

The puquios of the Nazca (Nasca) region in southern Peru are a system of approximately 36 known underground aqueducts that tap into subterranean aquifers and channel water through tunnels and open trenches to irrigate on

INTERDOC_17 — Navigation, Seafaring, and the Lost Maritime Web

The Austronesian expansion — beginning ~3500 BCE from Taiwan and reaching Madagascar (~500 CE), Hawaii (~1000 CE), and New Zealand (~1250 CE) — represents the greatest sustained maritime achievement of the pre-modern wor

ZB_4_13 — Historical Ecology: Human-Ecosystem Co-Evolution through Time

Historical ecology investigates how human land use, management, domestication, exploitation, and settlement over centuries to millennia have shaped contemporary ecosystems, landscapes, and biodiversity patterns — reveali

D_3_02 — Paracas Trident, Candelabra, and Cross-Cultural Trident Symbolism

The Paracas Candelabra (also called "Candelabro de Paracas" or "the Trident") is a massive geoglyph carved into the sandy hillside of the Paracas Peninsula on Peru's southern coast, overlooking Pisco Bay. Measuring ~180

F_1_06 — Polynesian Contact with South America — Sweet Potato and Beyond

The question of pre-Columbian contact between Polynesia and South America has moved from fringe speculation to mainstream acceptance, driven by converging lines of evidence from botany, linguistics, genetics, and archaeo

F_1_04 — Viking Settlement in the Americas — L'Anse aux Meadows and Beyond

L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada, stands as the only confirmed Norse settlement in the Americas and definitive proof of pre-Columbian European contact with the New World. Discovered in 1960 by Helge and Anne St

F_1_02 — Cocaine and Nicotine in Egyptian Mummies — The Balabanova Controversy

In 1992, German toxicologist Svetlana Balabanova published findings of cocaine, nicotine, and hashish in Egyptian mummies held at the Munich Museum, igniting one of the most contentious debates in archaeology. Since coca

F_3_11 — Cotton and Textile Diffusion Across Ancient Oceans

The history of cotton (Gossypium spp.) and textile diffusion across the ancient world presents one of the most intriguing puzzles in the study of pre-modern connectivity, combining genetics, archaeology, botany, and tech

W_4_12 — Tiwanaku: Altiplano Civilization and Raised-Field Agriculture

Tiwanaku (also spelled Tiahuanaco) was a major pre-Columbian civilization centered at the site of the same name on the Bolivian Altiplano (high plateau), approximately 3,850 meters above sea level and 20 km southeast of

W_4_13 — Aztec Empire: Tenochtitlan, Sacrifice, and Cosmovision

The Aztec Empire — more precisely the Mexica-led Triple Alliance (c. 1428–1521 CE) of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan — was the dominant political and military power in Mesoamerica at the time of the Spanish arrival.

W_4_00 — Americas Pacific Indigenous: Subfolder Summary