linford86 wrote:I have to confess that I know next to nothing about archaeology and even less about anthropology.
That means you know more than 99% of the professionals in the field.
But I saw a few documentaries recently about Amazonian tribes. I also understand that there are various sites in Mexico and South America, for example, where there are ancient stone ruins (sites like Tenochitlan, Machu Pichu, or Chichen Itza.) I was wondering if there were any indigenous peoples that had cultural memories of some kind of the civilizations that constructed those structures?
Unfortunately, most of the literature was burned by conquistadors and therefore the memories are forever lost.
"In 1549, a young overzealous monk, Diego De Landa, discovered a large library of Mayan codices in Mexico. 'We burned them all because they contained nothing except superstition and machinations of the devil,' he wrote. ... When De Landa had become older and received the title of bishop, he realized what a barbarian crime he had committed. He made a search for Mayan scripts but without success." -- Andrew Tomas, author, 1971
However, fortunately, there are some conflicting accounts that survived.
For example, we are told that perhaps Viracocha founded Tiahuanaco.
"In the life of Manco Capac, who was the first Inca, and from whom they began to boast themselves children of the Sun and from whom they derived their idolatrous worship of the Sun, they had an ample account of the deluge. They say that in it perished all races of men and created things insomuch that the waters rose above the highest mountain peaks in the world. No living thing survived except a man and a woman who remained in a box and, when the waters subsided, the wind carried them ... to Tiahuanaco [where] the creator began to raise up the people and the nations that are in that region." -- Cristóbal de Molina, priest, 1572
"They [the Inca] make great mention of a deluge, which happened in their country ... The Indians say that all men were drowned in the deluge, and they report that out of Lake Titicaca came one Viracocha, who stayed in Tiahuanaco, where at this day there are to be seen ruins of ancient and very strange buildings, and from thence came to Cuzco, and so began to multiply." -- José de Acosta, priest, 1590
Although others proclaim ignorance.
"... the natives say ... they do not know who made it [Tiahuanaco]." -- Garcilaso de la Vega, historian, 1609
If there are South American tribes around Chichen Itza, for example, what do they believe about Chichen Itza?
Chichen Itza was constructed by the Maya.
The Mexicans say they came from an island continent known as Aztlan.
Aztlan corresponds to the Platonic Altantis or modern day Antarctica.