As we enter the 21st century technological advances are coming to the aid of scientists of all descriptions. But it will likely be the Marine Archæologists, whose discoveries on the continental shelves that were once the coastal plains of the archaic world that will most significantly change our picture of the past. We cannot go on thinking of the past from the scant knowledge available to us from excavations of the remains of ancient peoples discovered solely on the dry land we now live on.
This dry land comprises just 29% of the total surface area of our planet and the remaining 71% is currently ocean. Over the last 15 years The Morien Institute has been carefully documenting as much information about new discoveries underwater as we can find, and The Morien Institute Marine Archæology Archive gives just a glimpse of the many recent discoveries showing evidence of sometimes vast coastal settlements that were inundated by the seas in ancient times.
During the last Ice Age the sea-levels were more than 300 feet lower than they are today, and a wide band either side of the equator enjoyed a pleasant enough climate for human civilisation to have flourished in many parts of the world. When the sea levels rose as the ice sheets melted many coastal settlements disappeared under the waves – forgotten except in the oral traditions of peoples in every land. These oral traditions represent an invaluable archive of knowledge from the archaic world, but they are almost always dismissed by academic archæologists and prehistorians who have traditionally regarded them simply as ‘quaint myths’ which they claimed have no bearing on reality.
But that is a very foolish perspective. What remains of the oral traditions of the many ancient societies that once developed on our planet must be preserved at all costs so that future peoples can study the wisdom of ancient peoples with an open mind that was sadly absent from 20th century academic thinking. These oral traditions are now acknowledged as being the invaluable “Indigenous Knowledge” of ancient peoples, and represent a collective understanding of the natural world that had developed through careful observation over countless millennia. Despite the scepticism expressed in some academic disciplines, we cannot afford to let this ancient knowledge die out simply because the supposed “experts” of today cannot understand it.
Neither can we continue to look at the prehistory of human societies and civilisations as if our planet somehow stands alone in empty space. Nothing could be further from reality. Our immediate solar system environment is more of a cosmic shooting gallery’ than a vast expanse of emptiness, and a great body of evidence is building which shows that the environmental impact of encounters with comets, asteroids and cometary debris has been responsible for the destruction of numerous ancient civilisations on many occasions in the archaic world over the past 10 to 20 millennia.
Throughout the last few hundred years, and quite probably before that, individual researchers ranging from the eccentric ‘Gentleman Antiquarians’ of the 17 & 1800s to the so-called ‘dissident professors’ of the 20th century have pursued lines of enquiry which has horrified general academia. Those individuals were ridiculed and vociferously opposed by academic archæologists and prehistorians who had often invested a lifetime’s work in what the more honest amongst them might reluctantly admit in private company to have been a totally inaccurate view of human prehistory.
Theories that many megalithic sites began life as some form of observatories acting as ‘early-warning systems’ for imminent impacts of cosmic debris from the break up of a giant comet have been emerging over the last 30 years or so. Evidence supporting these theories is helping not only to date some of these monuments, but also illustrates how well their builders were oriented in time and space. A new appreciation that our ancestors were acutely aware that the Earth orbited the Sun, and that it periodically encountered streams of cometary debris, suggests that ancient peoples understood the dynamics of the solar system to a far greater degree than has previously been acknowledged.
Dr. Duncan Steel, then of Spaceguard Australia, presented a paper to the Society for Inter-Disciplinary Studies conference at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, in July of 1997, in which he gave details of his research suggesting that the earlier ‘henge circle’ which preceded the stone circles at Stonehenge could have been deliberately constructed to function as a ‘cosmic impact early warning system’. His paper, “Before the Stones: Stonehenge I as a Cometary Catastrophe Predictor” is must reading for all serious students of ancient astronomy, astro-archæology and prehistory.
The Cambridge Conference focussed primarily on the effects of natural catastrophes resulting from the impacts of cometary debris. These impacts were presented as being the likely causes of the sudden collapse and in many cases the total destruction of various Bronze Age civilisations, giving rise to radical cultural changes, and to a number of new religions with accompanying astro-mythologies that had hitherto been impossible for academia to understand.
The simultaneous collapse of these civilizations has long puzzled archæologists and prehistorians as the vast areas affected ran right across the ‘fertile crescent’ destroying the most advanced societies of the time, ranging in distance from Greece and Anatolia through to Mesopotamia and Afghanistan and continuing eastwards to encompass India and Central Asia.
The cause of this most perplexing ‘Bronze Age Event’ around 2350 – 2300 BC has only recently become clear as a wide variety of assorted ‘ologists from various disciplines have begun reviewing the mythologies of the time. What they have found throughout numerous inter-disciplinary studies are the accurate observations of ancient skywatchers describing cosmic bombardment and flooding which in every case, and in every region, came directly from the ancient skies.
These natural cosmic catastrophes were recorded by all ancient societies and passed down through many generations to become the oral traditions that are held sacred by the peoples whose ancestors directly experienced them, but which are often dismissed as being ‘quaint myths that have no bearing on reality’ by so-called scholars who have never even tried to understand them. Bombardment of our planet by cosmic debris is, like all things in the natural world, a cyclical phenomenon. It has happened many times in the past, and if we dismiss the records kept by ancient peoples simply because they were recorded in a language that our modern scientists cannot understand, then we will not be prepared when it happens again.
The sophistication and unprecedented accuracy of the astronomical phenomena that was an integral part of almost all of the megalithic structures that have been discovered on most continents suggests a long period of development, yet academic archæologists and prehistorians have been at a loss to expain them. Most have simply ignored the astronomy, or made idiotic statements about ancient peoples not being capable of that level of understanding, but there they are for all the world to see.
In October 1900, Captain Dimitrious Kondos was leading a team of sponge divers near the island of Antikythera off the coast of Greece. They noticed a shipwreck about 180 feet below the surface and began to investigate. Amongst the artifacts that they brought up was a coral-encrusted piece of metal that later archæologists found was some sort of gear wheel. The rest of the artifacts, along with the shape of the boat, suggested a date around 2000 years ago, which made the find one of the most anomalous that had ever been recovered from the Greek seas. It became known as “The Antikythera Mechanism”.
In 2006 the journal “Nature” published a letter, and a full paper about the mechanism was published in 2008, detailing the findings of Prof. Mike G. Edmunds of Cardiff University. Using high-resolution computed tomography to study the fragments of the anomalous Antikythera Mechanism, they found that it was in fact a bronze mechanical analog computer that could be used to calculate the astronomical positions and various cycles of the Moon – as seen from the Earth.
This incredible discovery is indisputable evidence that ancient peoples were far more capable of understanding the cyclical nature of heavenly bodies than they had previously been given credit for, and
“The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project” showed they could also construct devices which could predict them. There was much discussion about its supposed anomalous nature, but it is only anomalous if viewed in isolation or in the context of a completely inaccurate view of prehistory. In the context of the astronomical knowledge embedded into megalithic structures a long period of development becomes evident, and is deserving of radical review in light of the discovery of The Antikythera Mechanism.
Over the past 15 years The Morien Institute has archived new archæological discoveries as well as new interpretations of old archæological discoveries. In our news pages we list many items that may not seem directly related to a better understanding of what our ancestors saw and experienced in ancient skies. But astromythology and its interpretation, and constant review of our poor appreciation of the scientific achievements of our ancestors remains the common theme that we feel ties most of them together. It is only an open-minded approach to prehistory, and a willingness to accept what is found rather then attempting to make new discoveries fit into some pre-conceived paradigm, that will help us gain a better understanding of our ancient past than is currently taught in our schools, colleges and universities.
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“The discovery of an “early modern human” dating from 40,000 years ago in a cave outside Beijing, and a comparison of the individual’s DNA with that of populations around the globe, are providing new pieces in the puzzle of how Homo sapiens left their African origins to expand across the continents.
DNA extracted from the Tianyuan Cave dweller indicated he was genetically related to today’s Amerindians, said Fu Qiaomei, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, one of the scientists who led the study at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
This Tianyuan fisher-gatherer is one of the earliest H. sapiens ever uncovered in China, she said in an interview.
Fu was part of an international team that sequenced DNA from the anatomically modern human, created a genetic profile, and matched it against profiles of people now living in Africa, Europe and Asia.
‘The Tianyuan individual’, Fu and colleagues wrote in a scientific journal, ‘derived from a population that was ancestral to many present-day Asians and Native Americans.'”
“Several pieces of Viking jewelry, some of which contain gold, have been uncovered at a farm site in Denmark that dates as far back as 1,300 years.
Although the Vikings have a popular reputation as being raiders, they were also farmers, traders and explorers, and the craftsmanship seen in this jewelry demonstrates their artistic skills.
Archaeologists working with volunteers used metal detectors to find the jewelry in different spots throughout a farmstead on Zealand, the largest island in Denmark. The remains of the site, which is now called Vestervang, date from the late seventh to the early 11th centuries.
Finding such lavish goods at such a modest farm site poses a puzzle, the archaeologists said.
The reason why the farm site would hold such treasure may lie in a legendary site located nearby .”
“Colleagues of influential rock art researcher Mike Morwood have described his death as a sad day for the archaeological community.
The University of Wollongong archaeologist was best known for his discovery of an ancient, dwarf-like species of pre-humans, known as “hobbit”, on the Indonesian island of Flores.
Professor Morwood had more recently been working with traditional owners analysing rock art on the Mitchell Plateau in Western Australia.
He died this week after a battle with cancer. He was 62.”
“Archaeologists have unearthed what is believed to be one of Europe’s oldest decorative wood carvings – dating back more than 6,000 – on a Valleys hillside.
The decorative carving was exposed by workmen during the construction of Maerdy Wind Farm in the Rhondda Valley.
The timber – with intricate pattern on one side and oval motif at one end – is thought to be a marker post for a tribal boundary, hunting ground or sacred site
Richard Scott Jones, an archaeologist from Heritage Recording Services Wales, said the piece of wood was “priceless†and would be unveiled to the public at the National History Museum in St Fagans next year.
He said the wood is likely to date back 6,270 years to the Late Mesolithic/Early Neolithic period.”
“The DNA from medieval skeletons allows the identification of ancient plagues such as the pathogen responsible for the Black Death.
This has come about following major breakthroughs in DNA technology. One is next generation sequencing where billions of DNA molecules can be created in just a few days.
Another is the ability to separate a required DNA from mixtures of DNA from many biological sources, as happens in ancient burials.
Johannes Krauser describes his application of these techniques to the remains of those killed by the Black Death in Europe in the middle of the fourteenth century, and now to the bodies of a mass burial from Roman times, where a plague wiped out much of the population.”
“A team of Polish and Peruvian archaeologists had to lift more than 30 tons of crushed stone to find a mausoleum in a town on the northern coast of Peru containing 63 pre-Inca mummies belonging to the Wari Culture, along with an impressive set of 1,200 ornamental pieces of gold, silver and ceramic.
The discovery of the funerary mausoleum, whose age is estimated at 1,200 years, revealed the presence of the Wari Culture – originally from the mountains of southeastern Peru – the coast of the Ancash region, hinterland of the Moche culture in northern Lima, which was unknown.
The Moche culture developed between 200 and 800 AD while the Wari did between 500 and 900 AD in the region of Ayacucho.”
“A rich assemblage of fossils and artifacts in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains in Iran has revealed that the early inhabitants of the region began cultivating cereal grains for agriculture between 12,000 and 9,800 years ago.
The discovery implies that the transition from foraging to farming took place at roughly the same time across the entire Fertile Crescent, not in a single core area of the “cradle of civilization,” as previously thought.
Until recently, political pressures had limited excavations of archaeological sites in the eastern Fertile Crescent, or modern-day Iran, while findings to the west-at sites in Cyprus, Syria, Turkey and Iraq, for example-provided detailed clues to the origins of agriculture.
Now, Simone Riehl from the University of Tübingen in Germany, along with colleagues from the Tübingen Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoecology, have analyzed plant remains at the aceramic (pre-pottery) Neolithic site of Chogha Golan in Iran, and their results show that people were growing and grinding cereal grains like wheat and barley at the same time as their counterparts to the west.”
“An ancient archaeological structure has been ruined by private construction companies.
Archaeologists blame two building companies for destroying part of ancient pyramid in the Lima district of San Martin de Porres.
The pyramid El Paraiso, located near the river Chillon, is one of the oldest structures constructed in the Americas, made up of 12 pyramids and covering over 64 hectares.
Despite its obvious importance to Peruvian culture, this pyramid was knocked down and later burned by several clandestine groups that entered the site on Saturday.”
[In October 1900, Captain Dimitrious Kondos was leading a team of sponge divers near the the island of Antikythera off the coast of Greece. They noticed a shipwreck about 180 feet below the surface and began to investigate. Amongst the artifacts that they brought up was a coral-encrusted piece of metal that later archaeologists found was some sort of gear wheel.
The rest of the artifacts, along with the shape of the boat, suggested a date around 2000 years ago, which made the find one of the most anomalous that had ever been recovered from the Greek seas. It became known as The Antikythera Mechanism.
In 2006 the journal “Nature” published a letter, and another paper about the mechanism was published in 2008, detailing the findings of Prof. Mike G. Edmunds of Cardiff University. Using high-resolution X-ray tomography to study the fragments of the anomalous Antikythera Mechanism, they found that it was in fact a bronze mechanical analog computer that could be used to calculate the astronomical positions and various cycles of the Moon – as seen from the Earth: – Ed]
