Finally! The last assignment!

Sue Cartledge wrote an article called "Mayans sought wine not chocolate" where she describes how archaeological research found out that the Mayans made wine out of the fruit of cacao plants before chocolate. In the article she explains that Cornell University Department of Anthropology discovered some pottery shards in northern Honduras that date 5oo years earlier than the first chocolate evidence, which was 3000 years ago. So, this is the earliest evidence of cacao consumption. Cartledge then explains the pottery shards archaeologists found and what substances they had that made especialists think it was an alcoholic beverage made of cacao. Finally, she explains that knowing about how to work the pulp and seeds perhaps made them discover accidentally chocolate, while they were trying to make their drink more powerful.

Something I like: Models of migration to the new world.

This semester I had a Prehistory class where I studied a topic I liked a lot: the arrival of Men to America.

This is a topic I'm very interested in because I like History and I like the mystery that surrounds the first peopling in this continent. In general, I like all prehistoric subjects, like the first human being, how he evolved, peopling routes and how great civilizations were created. I guess history is what I like the most right now.

So far, about the peopling of America, I've learnt that there are different hypothesis, like the one that's most accepted that establishes that men first arrived through the Bering land bridge, which joined what we know as Alaska and Siberia. So, according to that hypothesis men came from Europe, entered through North America and then peopled the rest of the continent.
There are other hypothesis, like one that's not very different than the above, but the difference is that this one establishes that the peopling was realized through the coast of the American continent. Another hypothesis is that not only men arrived trough the Bring land bridge, but also from the sea, from Europe or Australia for example.
All this hypothesis have some archaeological proof, some more than others.

I would love to work on this, because it's not all said about how it happened, so sometimes I imagine myself being an archaeologist so I can work on finding the answers that are missing. Of course this is just a dream because it's not that easy. But, anyway, I would love to work on prehistoric related subjects.

I felt attracted to this topic of the career I'm studying because since I like history and I like great civilizations I also liked what's before: the first human beings.
Actually, I don't know another reason why I like this subject, I just like it, I don't have another reason because it has been kind of a struggle for me to decide what I want: social anthropology or archaeology so, since I haven't decided yet I can't say nothing more, because honestly, I don't have a clue.

some websites:

• http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/EntryDate.html

It's a very simple web site that compiles everything that's been said about the topic. It's brief and clear.

• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/stoneage/

This is web site has some interactive material about the first Americans. It's very interesting and clear too. They have videos of how to make a stone weapon or how they could have arrived.