Mysteries of the Ancient Americas. The New World before Columbus

Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader's Digest Association, 1986. — 320 p. — (Reader's Digest). — ISBN: 0-89577-183-7.History's most surprising encounter, perhaps, was that between the Europeans who followed in the wake of Columbus and the native inhabitants of the New World. The conquering Spaniards viewed the complex, sophisticated Aztec and Inca civilizations with disbelief; surely these people could not have achieved such cultural heights without outside inspiration — from other, earlier European visitors or transpacific wanderers from Asia. The native Americans, for their part, too often regarded the intruders with haughty disdain and paid for their unwariness by falling easy prey to superior technology and clever strategy.
The reasons for such misconceptions have puzzled historians for centuries, and the answers have been sought in an avalanche of books, pamphlets, and commentaries. The editors of Reader's Digest here take a fresh look at the story. Unlike most histories of the New World, this book ends — not begins — with Columbus and follows a topical instead of a chronological approach.
"Voyagers of Legend," the first of seven major sections, presents the confusing evidence and lingering doubts about pre-Columbian visitors — Egyptians, Phoenicians, Israelites, Welsh, Irish, Japanese, Chinese, and, finally, the Vikings, who we now know arrived 500 years before Columbus. "In Search of Early Man" reviews the highly controversial timetable for the arrival of the first Americans from Asia, at least 27,000 years ago, and outlines their development of hunting and farming skills. As long as 3,000 years ago, we learn in "Stirrings of New World Civilizations," people as far apart as the bayous of the lower Mississippi Valley, the Andean highlands of Peru, and the humid forests of Gulf Coast Mexico were fashioning distinct cultures — two of which, at least, would leave substantial legacies to their successors. The flowering of the Maya culture in the first millennium A.D. in the region anthropologists call Mesoamerica (parts of modem-day Mexico and the Central American states) and the impressive accomplishments of the Adena/Hopewell/Mississippian peoples of North America over some of the same centuries are described in "Pyramid Makers and Mound Builders."
Some breathtaking achievements of New World peoples are featured in "Ancient Artisans and Master Builders," two picture portfolios that serve as showcases for works of high artistry and astonishing engineering skill. "Lost Cities" offers in-depth studies of Mexico's Palenque, New Mexico's Pueblo Bonito, Colombia's Buritaca 200, and Peru's Chan Chan. "Of Gods and Men" reveals some shocking facts about the Aztec religion and highlights the persistence of ancient mystical beliefs.
By no means are the mysteries all solved, the wonders all discovered; tomorrow's headline can announce a newly discovered Maya tomb or a previously unknown Andean culture. Nor are scholars and scientists agreed on the record of the past, for this is a field rife with conflicting evidence and passionate controversy — all of which makes for fascinating reading.
Read this book from cover to cover, savor it a chapter at a time, or dip into its profusely illustrated pages at random. You will find fascinating stories, startling facts, enduring puzzles, imaginative solutions wherever you turn. This is history — but not as you learned it in school.(Introduction by The Editors).