23.8 America: a.d. 801 to 900  (Page 2/3)

The Hohokams, living south and west of the Anasazi, had a much more extensive irrigation system. Fell (Ref. 66 ) agrees with most that the Pima Indians of today are direct descendants of the Hohokams but be believes that Hohokam relics in ancient Libyan language can be identified in the Pima chants, and this not all would concede. Fell believes that the degree of cultural advancement of these 9th century, southwestern Indians is not readily appreciated today. There is a petroglyph in the so-called Court of Antiquity in Washoe County, Nevada, which he interprets as Arabic Kufi, giving instructions on how to find the area of a circle by dividing it into six equal sectors and then rearranging them. The method gives an approximation of "pi" at 3.0. At that time painted pottery was becoming more and more complex in the Mogollon area of southern New Mexico and Chihuahua. (Ref. 64 , 66 , 210 )

Mexico and central america

Various small, non-urban centers of civilization continued in Mexico, with the Toltec period probably just beginning. The Zapotecs had deserted Monte Albans and the Classic Mayan central lowland sites were pretty well abandoned in this century. The northern part of this lowland culture did not decline as rapidly as the southern portion, but one by one the major ceremonial centers were abandoned and their stelae mutilated and calendars discontinued. Although the Yucatan cities lasted into the next century, the Mayan civilization was doomed to collapse as had the Olmec and Teotihuacan before them. Archeological studies give no real evidence of natural calamity, pestilence, massive slaughter or starvation and the real cause still eludes us. Some still feel that there may be some connection to the persistence of endemic, contagious disease, possibly yellow fever, which was called "black vomit" in the Maya pictograms. (Ref. 45 , 215 , 125 )

Further support to the possibility of disease factors is given indirectly by the works of John L. Stephens (Ref. 204 , 205 ), who explored the Yucatan peninsula in the early l9th century. He found that the entire area of the old Maya ruins was unbelievably infested with mosquitoes and severe fevers, undoubtedly both malaria and yellow fever. In addition, the area was made almost unbearable by a small tick-like insect, Garrapatas, which, in addition to the seriousness of their multiple bites, could well have been disease carriers.

Still another possible reason for the disappearance of the civilization is suggested by Stephens’s writings, in that the entire area is almost devoid of drinking water for several months each year. In place after place the only source of water which the Indians had was a well hidden away in the depths of a cave, sometimes several miles from the Indian village. For example: the village of Bolonchen, with 7,000 people, had to go down 1,400 feet into a cave to get their water during 4 or 5 months each year. It would seem within the realm of possibility that if two or three drought years occurred together, even such a difficult cave well supply system might have failed and the people would have had to leave.