The civilizations of the ancient Americas

27:33Aztec and the Inca, those are very new. Those are around 1300 1400 AD. Um so, that's 1,000 years after this stuff. Right? It just tells you how rich the human history in South America and the Americas in general is. We've got the Olmecs, which is around might even be preceding this in Mexico. The Maya The Maya is like this giant civilization. It goes anywhere from like 3,000 BC to 900 AD. So, they've The Maya is like whenever archaeologists like see stuff that looks kind of >> Yeah. Like Maya. >> But it's like there's no way there's a same civilization that went on for 3,000 years, right? Maybe.

28:14>> Maybe. >> Maybe, but it it it could also just be our lack of granularity. >> Right. In in seeing the differences. >> right? >> Can I make a small side note? For all my Nickelodeon heads who are listeners, you mentioned Olmecs. Have you ever seen the game show in the '90s on Nickelodeon Legends of the Hidden Temple? >> No. >> It So, there there is the the the whole the kind of the stick was that the Olmecs had this hidden temple and these kids would come on the show similar to Global Guts and they would have to like traverse this like you know, mystery path like these little mazes in the hidden temple, and they had

28:55different they had like the silver snakes, and they had like the purple iguanas, and you'd be on a team, and you'd traverse this hidden temple of the Olmecs. >> That's pretty cool. >> And for the the connection there is like I actually never knew that it was a related to a real thing. >> Yeah. >> I thought it was they kind of just, you know, took something that was real and you know, did their movie magic to it. Um, but Olmec, real thing. >> A real Olmecs are a real thing. They're kind of like, you know, in Halo we have we've been talking about Halo a lot >> have a lot. >> on this podcast. Um, but you know in Halo there's like the race called the Forerunners that came before humans and the Covenant.

29:35>> Yes. >> Um, the Olmecs are kind of like that for Mesoamerica. They came before they might have been the same time as the Maya, but they definitely came before the Aztecs >> Mhm. >> and the people of Teotihuacan. >> Mhm. >> And the the people of Teotihuacan and the Aztecs regarded the Olmecs as kind of like the the forerunners of their civilization. And if you look at like the Olmecs, a lot of the what we have remaining from the Olmecs is a crude writing system because we don't have a lot that's survived, and we also have faces. Olmec faces where a lot of the Aztec art, you know, the characteristic like Aztec art with the 2D >> Yes. Sort of

30:16>> that's derivative of Olmec art because they were, you know, descendants of the Olmecs, or at least they tried to say they were. I mean, the Aztecs were kind of a messed up people, right? With all the human sacrifices and the uh subjugation of all the other tribes and but but like they thought of themselves as like descendants of the Olmecs. Kind of the same way it reminds me of Halo where it's like the humans and the Covenant they we both thought that we were descendants of the Forerunners, right? And it turns out we're just like fighting each other. >> I I just want to say, literally on the show they had Olmec was a face carved in stone. >> So those are the famous faces of the Olmecs yeah. >> that was the main like person giving you the hints on the show. Someone please in

30:57the comments let me know that you have seen this show so I don't feel like a crazy person. It was such a classic. I wanted to be on all the game shows on Nickelodeon. But it's the connection to real history here. >> Yeah. >> And understanding the the I think the Halo reference is actually a helpful to kind of contextualize how these different Mesoamerican >> Yeah. >> ancient civilizations relate to each other. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's it's really cool. Like in humanity we always we always seek continuity, right? We always seek a story that we're a part of in the past. And uh and and that's invariant of whether you're from Europe or Asia or even the ancient civilizations of the Americas. I I think it's I think it's really cool.