The study of lithic technology is remarkably poorly developed despite the fact that humans have used the craft for about a million years. This site provides some glimpses into what can be learned from experimental replication of ancient techniques. Even the most "crude" of stone implements requires the craftsman to become an integral part of the production system. Flintknapping is a popular hobby that opens a view into ancient lifeways by making and using spearpoints, arrowheads, and scrapers by the same tools and methods used by our ancestors.

   

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Measuring Time and Space

Investigation of fantastic chert eccentrics made by the Maya reveals numeric information coded by standard units of measurement that has been found to be inextricably tied to development of the Mayan calendar. Tracing developments back in time led to finding the same knowledge base represented in 6,000-year old Archaic mounds in Northern Louisiana. The links touch on just some of the studies underway, including the possiblity of a North American origin for the Mayan calendar.

Decrypting the Sacred

An intuitive insight into intricate, stone-carved designs— once thought merely decorative— may have revealed something far more profound: a sophisticated system for encoding explicit meaning through linear measurement. This discovery could lead to the recognition of a previously unknown method of communicating numeric information, embedded within ancient works.

Tracing this system backward through time connects it to the Olmec civilization and even further to Archaic-period mound sites in Louisiana dating back as far as 7,000 years. Continued exploration of these mound geometries shows that the numbers used to measure time in Mesoamerica correspond to cardinal positions of the 18.6-year lunar cycle at that latitude— suggesting a geographic origin for Mesoamerican calendric science.

The implications of these findings are profound.

They extend the known duration of the Mesoamerican calendric system by a factor of two and suggest an origin as early as 10,250 years ago. As the geometric conventions underlying this system of linear measurement are examined, they reveal how and what people were thinking (long before the advent of writing) while also providing a traceable path for how this knowledge may have moved from one culture to another. The apparent persistence of societal and cultural continuity is unprecedented.

You are invited to join the author on this journey of discovery... and perhaps to contribute your own insight to what may be one of the most exciting opportunities of our time: uncovering the workings of the ancient human mind.