There are likely many more cultures that parallel each other with certain characteristics in separate locations. What is interesting to see is that perhaps a more advanced culture first resided in an region that was ousted from the area by locals who commandeered the knowledge getting credit as "natives" for something an original culture of the region actually began.
Paracas: (also known as the elongated skull people of Peru)
an Andean society between approximately 800 BCE and 100 BCE, with an extensive knowledge of irrigation and water management. Interestingly, the Nazca culture took over the region after the Paracas (magically) right when the Paracas went bye-bye around 100 BC. Hmm (*an ousted race replaced by the ousters?)
HoHoKam: In North America, the Hohokam were the only culture to rely on irrigation canals to water their crops, and their irrigation systems supported the largest population in the Southwest by AD 1300 when they then disappeared off the radar. Archaeologists working at a major archaeological dig in the 1990s in the Tucson Basin, discovered their possible "ancestors." (source "what we’re doing now is stripping off those canals. We stripped below them to a lower cultural horizon that dates from about 1250 B.C. to around 1150 B.C., 1100. along the Santa Cruz River), identified a culture and people that were ancestors of the Hohokam that might have occupied southern Arizona as early as 2000 BC." (*Is it possible that this culture just found in the Tucson Basin referred to as possible ancestors for HoHoKam might have actually been predecessors?)
Lovelock Cave: Amazing tule woven duck decoys and other items were found in Lovelock cave in the early 1900s along with the giant skeletons the Paiutes reported their ancestors burning to death in the cave long ago. An unusual skull was hidden away in the basement of a museum and the tule items on display as reportedly Paiute work.
Source: Anasazi have been dated back to 12,000 BCE. The latter culture in this region were the Chacoan people who began in the mid 800s and lasted more than 300 years. We can see it clearly in the grand scale of the architecture. Using masonry techniques unique for their time, they constructed massive stone buildings (Great Houses) of multiple stories containing hundreds of rooms much larger than any they had previously built. The buildings were planned from the start, in contrast to the usual practiced of adding rooms to existing structures as needed. Constructions on some of these buildings spanned decades and even centuries. Although each is unique, all great houses share architectural features that make them recognizable as Chacoan.... What was at the heart of this great social experiment? Pueblo descendants say that Chaco was a special gathering place where many peoples and clans converged to share their ceremonies, traditions, and knowledge. Chaco is central to the origins of several Navajo clans and ceremonies. Chaco is also an enduring enigma for researchers. Was Chaco the hub of a turquoise-trading network established to acquire macaws, copper bells, shells, and other commodities from distant lands? Did Chaco distribute food and resources to growing populations when the climate failed them? Was Chaco "the center place," binding a region together by a shared vision? We may never fully understand Chaco.
Repeatedly, these things are found at the sites of ancient giant skeleton finds -
Intricate weaving
Animal effigies, both carved into bowls and pipes and as petroglyphs in rock and geoglyphs on the land
Copper mining areas
Waterways, major lakes/rivers with access to ocean often
Elongated skulls with prominent brow ridges
Mounds that appear like sawed off pyramids
Sarcophagi, stone burial coffins
Adornment with shells, freshwater pearls
Astronomical alignment stone structures
Unusually built structures ahead of their time
Bones found in caves
Heiroglyphs that to some look known languages around the world
Signs of cannibalism
Bodies adorned with red ochre at death
This all gets quite murky when one considers that native cultures have adopted almost all of these characteristics into their heritage. It becomes more difficult to pick apart where the giant culture began the process and where the tribes that moved in took over the giant culture's arts and technology and over time made it their own.
The ironic thing is that we see these universal features in "Native" groups around the globe and they cropped up simultaneously from stone megaliths to human sacrifice, language to use of metals. Either you can believe that, separated by continents, prehistoric man was developing nearly identical technology and arts, or they were influenced by something that was there when they arrived- a universally spread race of primitive-looking people who took their knowledge from perhaps Asia and spread it around the world as they took to the seas to conquer and settle.
My stand on this subject is that this ancient giant culture evolved ahead of homo sapiens (likely a branch of homo erectus) and began all this world travel by sea and industry, taking its knowledge to new places. Then, perhaps a hundred thousands years later, when homo sapiens arrived into these regions, they took on these sites of the giants, likely after skirmishes and wars with these carnivorous kind. This allows for newer and less "artful" versions of reverse engineering what the "originators" did.
What we are likely to see archaeologists mulling over is lesser creations beside better creations, half built sites, crude attempts at recreations nearby, or even "natives" taking on the building and adopting credit by their ancestors.
I believe such things have been found at places like the pyramids and Easter Island, as well as Mexico, Central and South America.
In fact, if you go down the list of characteristics of ancient giant cultures, you also come to realize, these were their contributions to mankind that followed.
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