Ed Barnhart on Ancient American Civilizations, Lost Cities, and the Deep History of Human Settlement

This podcast episode features archaeologist Ed Barnhart discussing the deep history of human civilization, focusing on ancient American cultures, lost cities, and the origins of complex societies. A central theme is the re-evaluation of human migration patterns, particularly to the Americas, with new DNA evidence pushing back the timeline for the first arrivals significantly, from 12,500 years ago to potentially 30,000 or even 60,000 years ago. Barnhart highlights the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to sedentary communities, often triggered by environmental pressures like the end of the last Ice Age and megafauna extinction, which necessitated new subsistence strategies like intensive gathering and agriculture.

The conversation delves into the concept of "lost civilizations," with Barnhart asserting their existence, citing examples like recent discoveries in the Amazon (geoglyphs) and the potential for many more hidden under dense jungle, deep underground, or beneath the ocean. He discusses Akrotiri on Santorini as a plausible model for Plato's Atlantis, noting its advanced hydraulic engineering and the catastrophic volcanic event that buried it. A key distinction is made between the common perception of civilizations (like Rome) and the reality of ancient Amazonian societies that built with earth and organic materials, which are less likely to leave stone ruins.

Practical insights include the immense power of natural forces (water, volcanoes) to erase or preserve historical evidence, making archaeological discovery challenging and often serendipitous. Barnhart reinterprets archaeological findings, such as the presence of infant burials in ceremonial contexts, suggesting they reflect high infant mortality rates and mourning rather than ritual sacrifice. He also offers a pragmatic explanation for the widespread appearance of pyramids globally: a simple, stable structural design for building large, tall structures without modern materials, initially serving purposes like trash management or burial mounds before evolving into monumental symbols of collective achievement and a desire for remembrance.

The broader implications of this discussion underscore the humbling impermanence of human achievements and the continuous, dynamic nature of archaeological understanding. The episode emphasizes that South America, particularly the Peruvian coast, hosts some of the earliest cradles of civilization, with pyramids predating those in Egypt by millennia, and that the Amazon may have been a very early center for religious development. The idea of multiple, independent cradles of civilization and the debate between shared deep cultural origins versus parallel human development are explored, highlighting the ongoing quest to understand the fundamental drivers of human societal complexity.

Beauty and blood went hand in hand for the Aztec.

Do you think there are lost civilizations in the history of humans on Earth which we don't know anything about? Yes I do.

I think a lot of things there I mean wherever you are on the planet you use your natural resources and in the Amazon there's not a whole lot of stone.

The power of nature and geology is really kind of magical and when it comes to you know ancient civilizations that could be from a long time ago there's probably a lot that are just under the ocean.

I don't think that Atlantis existed I do think it was one of Plato's many parables talking about you know putting it in an interesting story as a teaching device in his school.

It's humbling to think that entire civilizations with all the dreams the hope and the technological innovation the the wars the conflicts the the political tensions all of that uh the social interactions the hierarchies all that the art can be just destroyed like that and forgotten completely lost to ancient history.

Once humans figure out how to stay in a place I think there that's the initial trigger to what would become civilization.

DNA has been a total GameChanger for archaeology.

I think that uh when people wanted to build a big building without rebar or cement you end up building something with a fat base that goes up to a skinny top and that turns into a pyramid.

I really think that the very first pyramids in Peru were about trash management.

It used to be archaeology that was just the end all be all civilization starts with the invention of agriculture and we can't have sedentary communities until people learn how to farm but that's been discounted.

I think religion in South America began in the Amazon.