Author Description

The rivers, lakes and seas of the world were originally the highways of the ancients. It was too hard traveling overland unless one had to. It was also difficult to move large amounts of trade goods whereas you could load a fair few cattle or bundles of trade goods even on a coracle let alone larger watercraft such as rafts or boats. Our relics and ruins line the waterways of North America quite often with clusters along the river banks of different cultures and epochs but in the same areas. Why particular areas? Sometimes rivers had to be bypassed where there were rapids or waterfalls and other times at confluences of major rivers there were major trading ports with accompanying stone built forts and pyramids which are now called mounds which is a little derogatory as some of these mounds such as the main one at Cahokia were of a similar size to the Great Pyramid in Egypt. This was a North America of large cities and communities, amazing canal systems and mile after mile of farmland which reverted to wilderness after the death by European diseases of the original inhabitants. The wilderness was new and was a result of mass death and destruction. This was a different North America which only the earliest Spanish chroniclers such as De Soto saw though legends abound of Welsh princes, Romans and their contemporaries and Vikings abound. And so do their relics along the same waterways. Come travelling up the rivers, lakes and seas of the past around and on the continent and discover a North America that you never realized existed at all.