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| MOUNDBUILDERS OF WISCONSIN Continued from Page Four THE COPPER TRADE IN NORTH AMERICA AND KING SOLOMON When the Canaanite-Beaker people rolled across Western Europe from North Africa, they knit that region together by a NETWORK OF TRADING POSTS. The Berbers were an active sea-going people, known for their long distance ocean voyaging. On the boats that they built they used animal skins for sails and, after a while, a great shortage of skins for the leather sails threatened to interrupt their maritime activities. This problem was solved by a group of Berbers who set up a large hunting camp in Arctic Norway near Mount Komsa in Finnmark. From here they annually took large numbers of reindeer out of the herds migrating through the area and sent the skins to the oak forests of southern Sweden and Conamara in Ireland for tanning with oak bark. Other trading posts appeared in the amber-rich areas of the Baltic. In their merchantile voyages and through their Megalithic contacts, the Berbers became aware of the presence of vast deposits of COPPER in the New World. "Beaker Groups, keen to exploit copper deposits wherever they could be found, began to navigate to the New World. They possessed a geographical advantage...the easiest route to North America was the Atlantic Current from Iberia or North Africa to the Caribbean (Kehoe, 280)....North America was...treated to a large and substantial wave of Berber immigrants who brought their culture with them when they settled around the copper mines of Lake Superior and northern Wisconsin" (The Berber Project, p. 12). The Canaanite/Berber/Beaker colonists were traders to the very core! They came in search of wealth and found it in copper -- huge amounts of it around Lake Superior and on Ile Royale, which is reputedly the best source of pure copper on the entire planet! The sudden emergence of what archaeologists have called the "Old Copper Culture" coincides with large numbers of Berbers who descended on the American Midwest and the St. Lawrence River valley to exploit these new-found riches. The chief artifact or product of the Old Copper Culture was, of course, the metal Copper. A vast number of copper tools suddenly appear in the archaeological record without any antecedent. Ronald J. Mason remarks: "Incredible numbers of copper artifacts -- tens of thousands in eastern Wisconsin alone -- attest to a use of the metal that is at variance with historical and ethnographic descriptions of Indian life" (Great Lakes Archaeology. N.Y.: Academic Press, 1981. P. 12). The amounts of copper mined from these areas is mindboggling -- an estimated 500,000 pounds! Since only a very small amount of this total can be accounted for in New World archaeological sites, WHERE did the rest of it go? To the Old World, to fuel the growing "chalcolithic" economies of the Mediterranean civilizations. The Berbers who settled the New World left records of their sudden appearance: sculptured stones closely resembling those found in the Berber-speaking Canary Islands have been found north of Lake Superior. The resemblance was so strong that some scholars suggested the Canary Islanders originated in America! The Old World Canaanite-Berber Culture and the New World Old Copper Culture can be directly compared -- New World Copper Culture 1/. Arose circa 1430 B.C. 2/. Flexed burials (Wisconsin Archaeologist, 67: 225) 3/. Burial in mounds (WA 67: 229) 4/. Cremation (WA 67:225) 5/. Burial with stone arrowheads (WA 67:221) 6/. Burial with copper daggers (WA 67: 220) 7/. Burial without pottery (WA 67: 234) 8/. Bow-shaped pendants (WA 67: 219f) 9/. Hunter-gatherers (WA 67: 227) 10/. Red ochre in burial (WA 67: 229) 11/. Wrist-guards (WA 67: 222) 12/. Copper mining using fire and water (WA 67: 220) 13/. "Annealed" (tempered) copper (WA 67: 220) Canaanite-Berber Group Culture (especially in North Africa) 1/. Driven out of Spain 1430 B.C. 2/. Flexed burials (Schutz, 120f) 3/. Burial in mounds (Cunliffe, The Oxford Illustrated Prehistory of Europe, 251ff) 4/. Cremation (Schutz, 120f) 5/. Burial with stone arrowheads (Harrison, The Beaker Folk, 92ff) 6/. Burial with copper daggers (Harrison, 111) 7/. Burial without pottery (Mokhtar, General History of Africa, 435). 8/. Bow-shaped pendants (Harrison, 51f) 9/. Hunter-gatherers (Harrison, 23 & 100) 10/. Red ochre in burial (Camps, Monuments et rites funeraires protohistoriques, 521ff) 11/. Wrist-guards (Harrison, 9) 12/. Copper mining using fire and water (Schutz, 127f) 13/. "Annealed" (tempered) copper (Schutz, 127f) Odin and the Canaanites The Adena Mound-builders The umbilical cord between Western Europe and North Africa was cut when the Israelite Celts invaded Europe circa 500 B.C. But, like the Phoenix rising out of the ashes, the Berber culture was revived -- and from a different quarter after North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula fell under the influence of Carthage. According to R. Ben Madison the remnants of the Berber-Beaker culture on the Iberian Peninsula -- now mixed with Celtic or "Celtiberian" peoples -- began to trade with Carthage. The remaining Berber economies such as Talseia (Tarshish) began to decline while, at the same time, the Poverty Point culture faded back into the Louisiana bayou country and its inhabitants fled to Texas. As a result of the situation in Spain, the Berbers returned to the New World in Carthaginian ships to begin regular trade with the American Northeast. By approximately 200 B.C. the Berber descendants of the Red Ochre Culture expanded into what is now Ohio where, notes Madison, "Libyan Berber colonists were arriving in greater and greater numbers, perhaps to staff the trading posts that sprang up in the river valleys east of the Mississippi, especially the valley of the upper Ohio River in Ohio and West Virginia -- probably the colony Diodorus Siculus wrote about" (The Berber Project, p. 16). However, one Berber culture in North America survived -- the "Red Ochre" culture in Wisconsin. From this culture (along with the new influx of Berbers from Spain) a new civilization was beginning to emerge -- the ADENA CULTURE. The Adena Mound-builders The umbilical cord between Western Europe and North Africa was cut when the Israelite Celts/Danites invaded Europe circa 500 B.C. But, like the Phoenix rising out of the ashes, the Berber culture was revived -- and from a different quarter after North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula fell under the influence of Carthage. According to R. Ben Madison the remnants of the Berber-Beaker culture on the Iberian Peninsula -- now mixed with Danite/Celtic or "Celtiberian" peoples -- began to trade with Carthage. The remaining Berber economies such as Talseia (Tarshish) began to decline while, at the same time, the Poverty Point culture faded back into the Louisiana bayou country and its inhabitants fled to Texas. As a result of the situation in Spain, the Berbers returned to the New World in Carthaginian ships to begin regular trade with the American Northeast. By approximately 200 B.C. the Berber descendants of the Red Ochre Culture expanded into what is now Ohio where, notes Madison, "Libyan Berber colonists were arriving in greater and greater numbers, perhaps to staff the trading posts that sprang up in the river valleys east of the Mississippi, especially the valley of the upper Ohio River in Ohio and West Virginia -- probably the colony Diodorus Siculus wrote about" (The Berber Project, p. 16). Etowah Mound At this time a new, Canaanite/Berber-derived culture called "ADENA" began to flower in Ohio. The Adena culture emerged from the Berber-dominated "Red Ochre" tradition -- the descendants of the very people whose ancestors had first mined copper on Lake Superior. "Political leadership in Adena," writes Madison, "was probably provided by Berbers from Africa." The first well-known "Mound-builders" in American prehistory were the Adena and, explains Madison, "mound-building was an important art in both their Megalithic and Beaker phases." In both North Africa and Western Europe the Berbers buried their dead in stone tombs which were then enclosed in large earthen mounds. Across the Atlantic in North America this Berber custom was continued -- many mound-builder tombs are EXACTLY the same layout, a rock tomb covered in an earthen mound (Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, p. 55). The historic copper trade apparently continued -- or was revived. Copper ingots of IDENTICAL "ox-hide" shape have been found on both sides of the Atlantic, proving that around 200 B.C. there was a revival of the regular Atlantic trade between the Mediterranean and North America. This involved copper from Wisconsin, set down the Mississippi River and out to Europe. Bruce J. Trigger reveals that there were also Adena sites in Maryland -- suggesting traffic up thr Potomac and Monongahela rivers from the Atlantic into the American interior (Handbook of North American Indians, p. 29). At roughly the same time, claims Harvard Professor Barry Fell, waves of "Iberian Punic Colonists settled in North America" (Fell 1976, 169ff). "In 1838," writes R. Ben Madison, "a Talseian (Iberian) inscription was discovered in Mammoth Mound, an ADENA SITE at Moundsville, West Virginia. It was immediately pronounced by French and American linguists to be Berber, Libyan, or Numidian. The brief inscription explains that the mound was a burial site for a notable named Tadach, and that his wife had it built in his memory. Similar inscriptions are found in other Adena mounds (McGlone, 9ff). This, and another nearby stone inscription, was written in the PUNIC language, in Iberian letters (Fell 1976, 157f). In Oklahoma, a Punic inscription -- apparently some sort of "hymn to the sun" -- was discovered and dated to approximately the time of the first Carthaginian arrival in the New World, while a nearby inscription in Iberian script marks the grave stone of a notable named Haga (Fell 1976, 159f). The Anubis Caves in the Oklahoma Panhandle contains an inscription in Libyan letters which Fell claimed was "Arabic." However, most scholars point out that it is, in fact, Berber. The Iberian/Punic alphabet has also been found on inscriptions in Iowa, Massachussetts, Spain and Lebanon -- showing the Middle East origin of the Mound-builder Berbers. "Herodotus describes 'a place in Libya,' beyond the Pillars of Hercules (i.e. past the Straits of Gilbralta) where the Carthaginians traded for precious metals. He wrote that the local natives used SMOKE SIGNALS to communicate over long distances -- an obvious reference to the famous Native American custom (Herodotus, 4: 196). Later on, the Vikings, evidently on the basis of the profound and obvious similarities between North American and North African inhabitants, languages and cultures, formed the impression that North America was simply a peninsula of North Africa itself (Riley, 250). -- The Berber Project, p. 17. What the Mounds Tell Us The Adena burial mounds themselves give us an exceptionally clear indication of the Canaanite/Berber identity of the Adena culture and its successor the Hopewell Mound-builder culture. Adena was a religious faith: while other tribes had their "earth-bound animal gods," Adena Berbers looked toward the sky. Around the mounds were "Sacred Circles" that served as holy "meeting places" for the people; and the mounds themselves, therefore, served as maraboutic shrines in the time-honored Berber/Canaanite tradition. Explains Madison: "Like Adena society, Berber society in ancient times (and even, in some places, today) was not an organized 'state,' but rather 'a state of nature mitigated by hereditary saints...anarchy mitigated by holiness!' The archaeologists have found that the men buried in Adena mounds were those who 'established their utility to the community through ritual powers and mechanisms of economic exchange, just like the Berber marabout'" (The Berber Project, p. 18). The dictionaries tell us that the French term marabout refers to a Berber "holy man." The definition adds that the marabout is a holy man with a holy genealogy -- but the genealogy alone does not guarantee his holiness. He can be "holy" if he has baraka -- divine powers, "charisma" in the theological sense. He has magical power, is good and pious, generous, hospitable and peace-making. He accepts donations from those who seek his blessing. "The marabout is not a warrior, but he provides political leadership in times of crisis or to resolve disputes between warring factions" (Ernest Gellner, Saints of the Atlas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. P. 74ff). This appears to be the PRECISE ROLE of those buried in the Adena mounds. The Adena burial rites were a mixture of the old and the new; and the bodies of the ruling class and other important people were usually sprinkled with RED OCHRE and laid to rest with a variety of artifacts such as flints, beads, pipes, and mica and copper ornaments. The red ochre aspect of the burials was a practice that extended back for generations through the Old Copper Culture and all the way back to North Africa's Capsian period. As the archaeologists have discovered, Adena marabouts were also buried with varying amounts of grave goods -- the amount indicating either the social inequities in their culture, or perhaps varying degrees of baraka. Tomb goods included engraved stone tablets (often with predatory bird designs); polished gorgets (throat armor of stones and copper); pearl beads; ornaments of sheet mica (also found in Maya graves); tubular stone pipes; and bone masks. Animal masks are common in late Adena sites. In addition to these grave goods the Adena people made a wide range of stone, wood, bone and copper tools, as well as incised or stamped pottery and cloth woven from vegetable fibers. For their "common folk," the Adenas cremated the dead bodies and placed the remains in small log tombs on the surface of the ground. Virtually all of these graves have been destroyed by nature and later settlement. Therefore, the more substantial mounds of the ruling class are our only physical records of Adena burials. The Adena civilization prospered for some time then finally collapsed. But it was not the end of Berber/Canaanite culture in North America -- far from it. The stage was now set for a fully indigenous American Berber/Canaanite civilization to appear: THE HOPEWELL CULTURE. The Hopewell Mound-builders At the same time the Adena culture faded, the power in the Berber/Canaanite-settled Midwest began to shift to a new force -- a culture known to the archaeologists as the "Hopewell." The base of the new culture was further west than the Adena, but clearly grew out of the Adena culture and absorbed the descendants of the Red Ochre people who survived in Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. According to Professor Barry Fell, the Hopewell people seem to have been "mainly Libyans" of Berber stock, with, he adds, some NEGROID admixture (America B.C., p. 189). This new civilization was bolstered by a new influx of refugees from Spain when, in 201 B.C., the Carthaginians were driven out by the Romans. Those who didn't cross the Atlantic fled back to Carthage for a safety that was short-lived. After Carthage lost the Punic Wars in 146 B.C., the Romans razed the city sending a massive wave of refugees to the New World. Among the fleeing Carthaginians were elements of Negroid blood -- including some remnants of the Anakim. While the name "Hopewell" was imposed on this culture by the archaeologists, there is evidence that this people referred to themselves as Tallegwi. And, as we have seen, the Lenni Lenape and their Iroquois allies remembered encountering these moundbuilders during their own eastward trek from across the Mississippi River. The 18th century missionary (quoted earlier) wrote: [The Lenape] discovered that the country east of the Mississippi was inhabited by a very powerful nation who had many large towns built on the great rivers flowing through their land. Those people (as I was told) called themselves Talligew or Tallegwi...Many wonderful things are told of this famous people. They are said to have been remarkably tall and stout, and there is a tradition that THERE WERE GIANTS [the "Negroid admixture"] AMONG THEM, people of a much larger size than the tallest of the Lenape. It is related that they had built to themselves fortifications or intrenchments, from whence they would sally out, but were generally repulsed...(Robert Silverberg, Moundbuilders of Ancient America, 54f). CLICK HERE TO GO TO NEXT PAGE |
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