Mayans In Georgia

A recent claim has come from a fringe "scientist" claiming that Mayans once had a civilization in the mountains of Georgia. He sites an archeological site on the tallest mountain, Brasstown Bald, which he believes contains many architectural similarities to the Mayan ruins of Central America, and even believes it could be the fabled city of Yupaha.

Now theories get thrown out all the time so this shouldn't have really made a splash..but he cites an archeologist, Mike Williams of the University of Georgia, in his column that...well...doesn't agree.  In the comments section of the original article, he says

This is total and complete bunk. There is no evidence of Maya in Georgia. Move along now."

End of story? Apparently not. People following the story didn't like that flat-out denial and have hurled back accusations, even calling for the state of Georgia to cut funding for Williams.

Now, most of the accusers pointed out in the article say that it is irresponsible to simply dismiss a theory because it doesn't gel with accepted history...and that's completely true. Much information we have today was once based on "wild theories" that, if cut down when the "establishment" wanted, would never have come to light..but there is another thing scientists need to do other than be open minded...and that is to be responsible for the theories they publish.

Where Williams may be too quick to completely quash the claim, Thornton, the original theorist, is too quick to want to express his idea. If a scientist is supposed to keep an open mind to new ideas, those ideas presented should have the care and investigation required to back them up. While a scientist should keep an open mind, he doesn't need to accept claims that have no basis in reality. It may be irresponsible to dismiss a claim if the evidence backs it up, but it is equally or more irresponsible for a scientist to post a theory as fact when there is close to no evidence to support the claim...

I'm not saying that this claim is completely false...who knows...what I am saying is that you can't fault Williams for wanting to distance his name from the claim and express his view that the claim is incorrect when the original theorist has nothing but visual similarities as proof. It's not really up to the establishment to prove a new idea is false...it's up to the researcher to prove the idea is true...
http://gma.yahoo.com/mayan-ruins-georgia-archeologist-objects-222330576--abc-news.html