Do the Georgia mountains harbor Mayan ruins?

Found this curious lil' article by one Richard Thornton at Examiner.com, as it was cited a number of times throughout this past day. If there's anything of merit to this thesis, there exists the possibility that the Maya civilization once stretched from the Yucatan as far north as Blairsville, Georgia!

From the article...

Archaeological zone 9UN367 at Track Rock Gap, near Georgia’s highest mountain, Brasstown Bald, is a half mile (800 m) square and rises 700 feet (213 m) in elevation up a steep mountainside. Visible are at least 154 stone masonry walls for agricultural terraces, plus evidence of a sophisticated irrigation system and ruins of several other stone structures. Much more may be hidden underground. It is possibly the site of the fabled city of Yupaha, which Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto failed to find in 1540, and certainly one of the most important archaeological discoveries in recent times.

According to the theory presented here, the age of these structures discovered in the Georgia wilderness corresponds to the sharp drop in the Mayan population of Mexico and Central America. Given how the Georgia sites bear striking similarities to Mayan irrigation canals and other constructs, along with some cultural and lingual evidence, it is the belief of some that there could have been a migration of Maya to the southern Appalachian region.

Wow!! VERY interesting, if there's any substance at all to this. It would go neatly hand-in-hand with a lot of the other stories that pervade this part of the country, like the massive Stonehenge-like megalith circle that once sat atop Stone Mountain (the Ku Klux Klan got ride of 'em about a hundred years ago when the likenesses of the Confederate generals were being carved into the rock face) and the local Native Americans said they had no idea who erected those boulders to begin with. Then there are the odd mounds and carvings here and there from South Carolina on up to the Ohio Valley.

Gonna be keeping a keen eye on this one. Stuff like this, it's practically like porn to me! :-P

Categories: archaeology, georgia, history, maya, mexico, native americans, united states