Ancient Civilizations of North America

Overview

Join the Director of the Maya Exploration Center to discover the astounding accomplishments of the ancient North Americans and their significant legacy. 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.

Course Structure

• Course No.: 3900

• Lectures:

• The Unknown Story of Ancient North America

• The First Human Migrations to the Americas

• Clovis Man: America’s First Culture

• The Archaic Period: Diversity Begins

• Late Archaic Innovations

• Poverty Point: North America’s First City

• Medicine Wheels of the Great Plains

• Adena Culture and the Early Woodlands Period

• The Hopewell and Their Massive Earthworks

• The Origins of Mississippian Culture

• The Mississippian City of Cahokia

• The Wider Mississippian World

• De Soto versus the Mississippians

• The Ancient Southwest: Discovering Diversity

• The Basketmaker Culture

• The Mogollon Culture

• The Hohokam: Masters of the Desert

• The Ancestral Pueblo

• The Chaco Phenomenon

• Archaeoastronomy in the Ancient Southwest

• The Periphery of the Ancient Southwest

• Late Period Cultures of the Pacific Coast

• Late Period Cultures of the Great Plains
• The Iroquois and Algonquians before Contact