Georgia’s Ancient Native American Civilizations Revealed at New Interactive Museum

LostWorlds.org, the Interactive Museum of the American Indian, has completed a new online exhibit entitled Lost Worlds of Georgia which covers the past 4,000 years of the state's Native American history by focusing on the six most important archaeological sites in the state: Sapelo Shell Rings, Rock Eagle & Rock Hawk, Fort Mountain, Kolomoki Mounds, Ocmulgee Mounds and Etowah Mounds.

(PRWEB) November 24, 2005 -- November is Native American Heritage month and to celebrate LostWorlds.org, the Interactive Museum of the American Indian, has completed a new online exhibit entitled Lost Worlds of Georgia. This interactive exhibit covers the past 4,000 years of Georgia’s Native American history by focusing on the six most important archaeological sites in the state: Sapelo Shell Rings, Rock Eagle & Rock Hawk, Fort Mountain, Kolomoki Mounds, Ocmulgee Mounds and Etowah Mounds. The exhibit may be viewed at: http://www.LostWorlds.org/georgia.html

The exhibit uses state-of-the-art 3D computer animations to recreate these historic sites and show how they might have appeared when they were first constructed. The website also has short, mini-documentaries featuring interviews with historians, scholars, archaeologists and others who help tell the story of these important sites and dispel the stereotypes of Indians made popular by Hollywood movies. (For instance, Georgia’s Indians never lived in teepees.)

Did you know that the Sapelo Shell Ring complex on Sapelo Island is older than the pyramids in Egypt and contains some of the oldest pottery ever discovered in North America? (Yes, older than anything found in Mexico!) Did you know that Rock Eagle and Rock Hawk are the only bird effigy mounds to be found east of the Mississippi River? Did you know that the Temple Mound, a great earthen pyramid, constructed by Indians at the Kolomoki Mounds site in southwest Georgia has a base that is larger than a football field and rises seven stories into the sky? And this mound complex was the most populous city north of Mexico during its height over 1500 years ago? Did you know that the earthen pyramid at Etowah Mounds in north Georgia is even taller, rising to a height of over eight stories high and is one of the four most important earthen pyramid sites in North America? Did you also know that the residents of Etowah carved large marble statues of important ancestors which they placed in the great temples atop these pyramids? These and other facts are revealed on the website.

If your only familiarity with Native Americans is teepees and dreamcatchers, be prepared to enter an entirely new world of Indian art and architecture. All of the sites featured on the website are open to the public, thus the site is part historical documentary and part travelogue.

About LostWorlds.org: LostWorlds.org is an online museum created by Gary C. Daniels. Mr. Daniels received his BFA degree in Film & Video from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1996 and his MA degree in Film & Video from Georgia State University in 2005. Lost Worlds began as his Master’s thesis project.

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