dry land discoveries – news archive 2000

archive is about the various discoveries in 2000 which have helped to

create the ‘paradigm shift’

in the historical sciences that characterises the ‘new

Morien Institute welcomes contributions

from everywhere in the world. Wherever you are, if your traditional prehistory

has been challenged by new discoveries, please

send us the press reports

webpage URLs and magazine stories …

headline of an article in The

Guardian newspaper for February 10 2000,

writen by James Meek. It told of a tiny black terracotta head which had

artifact was indeed lost in the place where it was originally discovered,

it could prove that the Romans reached the new world some 1,200 years

‘before’ Christopher Columbus,

is as simple as it first appears, and when it was originally unearthed,

the artifact, which is only a few centimetres high, was found in a burial

chamber under three floors, which arch?ologists concluded could not have

been sealed earlier than 1510, a decade before the first known European

first broke in the New Scientist, and James Meek’s report of that tells

that according to Roman Hristov, a US anthropologist, this is the first

real proof of human contacts across the Atlantic before the arrival of

past, scientists have suggested that the Vikings, Celts and Africans may

have crossed the Atlantic before Columbus, Meek told Guardian readers,

and also that remains of a settlement in Newfoundland have been identified

As ever in these cases it seems, the New Scientist reportedly left the last word with a sceptic:

not exactly a Roman “discovery” of the New

you wonder just how many similar artifacts are still locked away in the

underwater discoveries news archive

headline appeared in the North Wales Daily Post

on Thursday, March 16 2000, and, alongside

a picture of St. Mary’s Church in Llanerchymedd, and a bemused-looking

vicar’s warden, it told the story of an author, Graham Phillips, whose

controvesial theory has recently been slammed as “ridiculous”

and “far-fetched”. The claims

are made in his recently published book,

“The Marian Conspiracy”, in which Graham Phillips puts

forward the idea that after the crucifixion Joseph was persecuted, and

she died in Wales and was buried in Anglesey, probably on the site at

Llanerchymedd where the St. Mary’s Church was later built. But a retired

Church in Wales priest, Edgar Jones, told the North Wales Daily

Phillips has studied documentary evidence from the 5th and 6th centuries

AD, which he claims show that Joseph did indeed flee persecution after

the crucifixtion, and he also claims that he has researched a letter from

St. Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, who wrote to the then

Pope in AD 597, claiming to have found Mary’s tomb in a church on an island

admits that his claims may not go down too well with the Catholic Church:

underwater discoveries news archive

reported in The Times newspaper on

September 9 2000 that arch?ologists

working in the Guatemalan jungle have uncovered the ruins of an 8th century

Mayan palace known as ‘Cancu?n’,

or “the Place of Serpents”,

which experts are calling one of the largest an dmost splendid structures

Independent on the same day also carried the story, and further

reported that the palace was made of limestone and is full of jade and

mirrors. “What is most incredible about this

site is that most of the palace is buried virtually intact,”,

Arthur Demarest, a Tennessee scientist overseeing the historic dig sponsored

by Vanderbilt University, the National Geographic Society and the Guatemalan

had flagged the story the previous day, but also ran a longer piece on

the BBC

News Online website on September 9 2000,

which reported that arch?ologists had known about Can Cuen for around

100 years, but it was recently discovered references to Can Cuen’s importance

as a trading centre that had forced researchers to look more closely at

Times commented that the discovery will help to shed light

on the Mayan civilisation of Central America, and said that scholarly

thinking had traditionally held it to have been a predominently warfaring

society. But that at ‘Cancu?n’

arch?ologists had have found evidence of unexpectedly rich craftsmanship,

suggesting that the Mayans were also capable of more sophisticated pursuits.

site is said to rival ‘Tikal’,

80 miles to the north, which had previously been regarded as the greatest

discovery of the Mayan presence in Guatemala to date. But, Dr Demerest

second major archaeological find in this region this year. Earlier, a

different team of arch?ologists unearthed the ruins of a city known as

‘El Pajaral’, which seems to

have been an important pilgrimage destination for the whole of the ancient

above is of a Mayan artifact discovered by the arch?ologists at Cancuen,

who say it will take them at least 10 years to excavate the entire city,

which covers 13 sq km. It’s discovery has already forced scholars to review

their ideas about the ancient Mayan mines. Arch?ologists have reported

finding jade and pyrites (better known as

Fools Gold) littered all around the site, including, in

very rich city, which appears to have survived for hundreds of years without

the warfare that has previously been thought to have covered the whole

of the Mayan areas. Also absent from Cancuen are any signs of the traditional

religious displays that were used as symbols of power by the Mayan kings.

we have it again. It seems that yet another whole ‘accepted’

history has to be reviewed in the light of a new discovery …

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