By: Dennis Cassinelli
I have always been interested in archaeology and anthropology. In some of my writings I combined the two scientific disciplines into the the word “Archaepology” since they are so similar. At an early age, I was following my older cousin around getting into mischief in Sparks, Nevada where we lived about the year 1945. This was when I was first exposed to witnessing graves being dug up for a ditch at the Nevada State Asylum Cemetery on Hymer Avenue. Many years later, I was working as a contractor at the same cemetery removing and relocating some of the graves to make room for future construction projects.
My family and I lived on a ranch on Glendale Road in Sparks where I attended school. The ranch was located along the Truckee River. In the 1950s, there were two floods that scoured the topsoil from the adjacent fields. After the floods, I walked along the river to see the damage from the floods. To my surprise, hundreds of arrowheads and other Indian artifacts were exposed for me to find. I passed a cigar box full of these for show and tell at school and the box cane back only half full.
The Indian artifacts I found encouraged me to expand the collection and donate them to a museum where they can now be seen at the Douglas County Museum in Gardnerville. I have always donated Items I have found to museums. In my book, Uncovering Archaeology, i tell about some digs not often talked about. This includes activities by individuals who have done things that are beyond acceptable archaeological practice.
There are many examples where unscrupulous individuals have participated in a unprofessional activity. I can tell about only one of these in this short article, but I mention many more in my book,  “Uncovering Archaeology,” available on-line.  (See below for instructions to order)  When I wrote “Preserving Traces of the Great Basin Indians”, I employed a fellow NDOT employee and photographer for the Nevada State Highway Department named Adrian Atwater to take photos of the artifact collection I was donating to a museum. Adrian then told me he had taken similar photos of artifacts before. He then gave me a 1956 Nevada Highway Department map that had photos of many arrowheads.
When I asked Adrian where they came from, he told me he had dug them up from Washoe Lake when he as digging up an Indian skeleton. There are more things Adrian Atwater did that I tell about in my book, such as taking photos of the skeleton he dug up to have postcards made and trips he made with Nevada State Museum employees to photograph some Indian caves that he had already ransacked..
Did you know that Jacques Cousteau used high explosives to blast a channel through miles of the famous Belize Reef so he could film his ship, the Calipso, anchored in the beautiful “Blue Hole?” Did you know that, when hundreds of classic Greek statues stolen from the Parthenon were placed on display in in London’s Crystal Palace in 1851, the private parts of all the male statues were removed so Queen Victoria who presided over the grand opening would not be offended?
Now that I have told about several things involving Indians in Nevada, I want to tell about a trip I made in to Central America to explore and photograph ancient Mayan Indian cities in Mexico, Guatemala Honduras and Belize where there were many ancient Mayan pyramids, At one time, I had climbed the tufa pyramid at Pyramid Lake Lake, Nevada. My wife and I visited and photographed the cities of Cancun, Chichen Itza, Tulum, Tikal and Copan, among others. When I arrived in Central America and saw the many Mayan Pyramids, I vowed to climb every pyramid we saw.
The most impressive feature of Chichen Itza was “The Castillo.” This is a beautiful stepped  pyramid with a temple, or “Castle” at the top. I have seen this pyramid many times when watching “Ancient Aliens “on the History Channel. The Mayan name for this pyramid is the Pyramid of Kukulcan. The Pyramid was square and I climbed the steep stone steps to the castle at the top. Off in the distance I could see other buildings and pyramids.
The Holy Bible has gained acceptance as a historical document after many places and events described in it have been confirmed through archaeology. Similarly, the Book of Mormon can be looked upon as a source of information. In the Book of Mormon, it is written that several early Christians came to Central America in the first century AD to continue the spread of Christianity, even perhaps even Jesus Christ himself if he had survived the crucifixion.
In Copan, there is a large arena where the Mayans played a game, similar to basketball except it involved throwing the ball through a hole in a stone on one side of the arena. On the 4 corners of the arena, there were stone statues of elephants. This is truly an enigma, since the closest elephants are in Africa, across the Atlantic  Ocean from Copan. These things make me wonder if there was some trans-Atlantic travel long before we ever knew.
There is so much to tell about Central America, this short article is the best I could do, except to tell about the tallest Pyramid in the Central American Jungle. The Mayan City of Tikal, has a pyramid called Temple IV. This was the tallest pyramid in the Americas at a whopping 212 feet high, There is a photo of it towering above the jungle in my book. I thought climbing pyramids would be a piece of cake. Temple IV is tall and slender and extremely dangerous. Part way up there is a metal hand rail, but I found the sun had made it almost too hot to use. Somehow, I completed the climb, but was told later that people have died making this climb.
 
This book contains 10 illustrations in the Nevada section and 35 illustrations in the Mayan section
This article is by Dayton Author and Historian, Dennis Cassinelli. You can order his books at a discount on his blog at denniscassinelli.com  Just click on ”order books”