Of course this discovery does not mean that the other accepted datings should be abandoned: we know that Stonehenge was built in stages, it just appears that the earliest stages were built thousands of years earlier that previously identified.

Yet up until around 4000BCE, the prehistoric people of southern Britain were still living in scattered groups, surviving on hunted game and fish, and eating wild plants. They lived in skin tents, neither growing their own crops nor keeping animals. Tools were still being made out of flint, bone or deer antler.

It is difficult to understand why such a people would have built an astronomical calculator four thousand years even before this Neolithic lifestyle at a time when the ice-age was finally drawing to a close – unless it was built by a civilisation which predated them.

Further evidence of such an earlier civilisation was found in 1985 when a Japanese diver came across a curiously shaped stepped pyramidal structure off the coast of Yonaguni Island, close to Taiwan. This structure predates the earliest known signs of Palaeolithic settlement of Japan by over 5000 years.

The find was one of a number hidden under the sea with the best documented of them being named the ‘Monument’. This structure has the general appearance of a vast underwater structure with steps or platforms and has been compared, although overly generously, with the various pyramidal and temple structures in the Americas. (33)

The Monument is over 160ft long in an east-west direction and over 65ft wide on a north-south direction. The top of the structure lies a mere 16ft below sea-level, however the base of the structure is approximately 80ft below the surface.

Schoch does not agree however admits "we should also consider the possibility that the Monument might be a natural structure that was utilised, enhanced and modified by humans in ancient times … On Yonaguni Island and elsewhere there is an ancient tradition of modifying, enhancing, and improving on nature. On Yonaguni there are very old tombs (right) that stylistically appear to be comparable to the ‘architecture’ of the Monument." (38) Schoch concludes, "Since last September [1997] Professor Kimura has seemingly softened his position somewhat regarding how much of the Yonaguni Monument is ‘man-made’ or ‘artificial’ and how much is ‘natural’. He is now referring to the Monument as being ‘terraformed’ – that is, natural geological features that have been manipulated of modified by human hands … This is essentially the position that I have come to, so perhaps Dr Kimura and I are converging in our opinions of the Monument." (39)

With the Sphinx in Egypt and the Yonaguni Monument off Japan both indicating the possibility of an ancient and lost civilisation, a similar find from prehistory in the Americas would appear to confirm its former existence. And indeed high on the Peruvian and Bolivian border lies the evidence. The mystery starts with an ancient waterbed that covers an area of 3200 square miles, being 70 miles wide and 138 miles long.  

The inland waterway is called Lake Titicaca and is littered with millions of fossilised seashells. The lake also features a range of oceanic types, as opposed to freshwater marine life. Creatures brought to the surface in fishermen’s nets have included examples of seahorses. (40) During the 19^th Century Professor P. M. Duncan, studying the lake, noted the existence of siluroid, cyprinoid and other marine fishes in the lake. (41)

According to legend, Lake Titicaca (right) is the birthplace of the Inca civilisation. The sun god instructed his children, Manco Capac and his sister-wife Mama Ocllo, to travel until they found a place where a golden rod would sink into the Earth.

Having discovered such a place on an island in Lake Titicaca, they gave birth to the Inca race, the ‘children of the sun’. This island, known as the Island of the Sun, remains one of the lake’s most scared places and the local Indians still celebrate this ‘birthday’ with a festival every November 5^th. (42)

Close by the lake is the ancient city of Tiahuanaco. There is evidence that the city was once a port, having extensive docks positioned right on the earlier shoreline of the now inland waterbed. One of these wharves is big enough to accommodate hundreds of ships. (43)

There would be nothing at all remarkable about Lake Titicaca nor its city were it not for the fact that the lake, resplendent with fossilised sealife and its nearby port city is now situated some12,500 feet above sea level. At some point in its past, the lake was at sea level, and some immeasurable force has pushed it skywards to rest high in the thin mountain air of the Peruvian Andes where now ‘only the graceful reed boats of the native people who still fish its depths and the restless winds of the past disturb the calm surface.’ (44)

The City of Tiahuanaco is also full of mystery. Lying at a height of some 13,000 feet, it lies on a plateau that looks like the surface of a foreign planet. The atmospheric pressure is nearly half as low as at sea level and the oxygen content of the air is similarly small. This isolation and altitude makes the very construction of the city all the more remarkable.

The ‘enormous stones’ weighed 100 tons and were topped with other 60-ton blocks for walls. Smooth surfaces with precision accuracy join the blocks of stone which were held together with copper clamps (right), a masonry technique not known to have been used anywhere else in South America, but in use in Ancient Egypt. There isn’t much left now of this ancient city. In the 1500s the Spanish systematically destroyed the buildings, and later many of the stone blocks were looted for houses in a nearby village. More recently some of the remaining stone was taken to lay a railroad right-of-way.

Despite this, what is left is still impressive, boasting a pyramid 700 feet long, 5feet wide and 50 feet tall. There is also a temple 440 foot long, topped with columns up to 14 feet high that might once have supported a roof.

The precision accuracy of the buildings that remain led to a puzzle that was later to be solved by Professor Arthur Posansky (1874-1946). Posansky (below) had spent much of his life studying the ancient city, including the enclosure known as Kalasasaya, one of the main ritual areas of the city. Posansky realised that this area was an astronomical observatory, however the points, which should have marked the winter and summer solstices, appeared to be slightly misaligned. Posansky concluded that if the ancient builders had demonstrated an ability to create this magnificent city with its precision engineering, it would be unlikely that they would have botched such a fundamental and important feature.

Science, as ever, lent a hand to solve the puzzle. Today, the two tropics are 23.5° north and south of the equator, however, over a cycle of 41,000 years, the position of the tropics changes along with the Earth’s roll in space (the obliquity of the ecliptic) from 22.1° to 24.5° .

Posansky therefore set about establishing at what point in history the two observation points were correctly aligned with the enclosure. His result did not make for comfortable reading, for he concluded that the Kalasasaya was constructed some 15,000 years BCE. (48) Actually he was wrong. But not very wrong.

Of course it may well be that the ancient builders, whoever they were, (remembering that the city was constructed before the distant memory of even the Incas) simply made a clumsy attempt at building the enclosure. This appears unlikely, and together with information that the Sphinx and the pyramids have already pushed back our accepted view of when mankind was in a position to undertake vast construction and astronomical projects, an early date may well be valid.

Posansky’s work was rejected at first, however his research and conclusions came to the attention of a four man German Astronomical Commission whose purpose was to study archaeological sites in the Andes. This team, led by Dr Hans Ludendorff of the Potsdam Astronomical Observatory studied the Kalasasaya between 1927 and 1930. The team concluded that Posansky was basically right, although they considered that construction probably took place 9300 years BCE rather than Posansky’s favoured 15,000 years. (49)

There was also other evidence to support the early dating of the city. One of the most famous features of the ancient city is the ‘Gateway to the Sun’. This feature, nearly ten feet high, 12.5 feet wide and carved out of a single block of stone is adorned with pictures of various animals. Two of which are intriguing.

One of the pictures is of an elephant, for elephants were unknown on the American continent; there have been no such animals since about 10,000BCE when a creature with tusks and trunk, the Cuvieronius, became extinct. Yet someone had seen such a beast and carved it’s image onto the Gateway, supporting Posansky’s and others redating of the founding of the city.

The second picture was recognised by Professor Denis Saurat of France. He noted what was quite clearly the head of a toxodon, a prehistoric animal now extinct. According to old (Linnean) classification, the Toxodon and the family Toxodontidae were South American notoungulates of the Pliocene and Pleistocene eras. (The Pliocene Epoch preceded the Pleistocene and ended about 1.6 million years ago).

The Toxodon itself is described as rhinoceros-like, about 2.75 meters long fully grown, and probably a mixed browser and grazer.

It is unlikely that Saurat misidentified the animal for images of toxodons are also featured on ancient Tiahuanaco pottery and even in nearby sculptures. (50) But how could mankind have drawn pictures of such ancient and extinct creatures unless he had seen them?

The answer to this puzzle may lie in a prehistoric waterbed in Texas, USA. But first, a quick resume of time.

(C) Violations 2004

References

(1)   Lehner, M National Geographic April 1991.

(2)   Mellersh, H E ‘Chronology of World History ' P2, Helicon Publishing Ltd., Oxford 1994

(3)   Schwaller de Lubicz, R A, ‘Le Temple dans l’Homme’ Cairo 1949 and ‘Le Temple de l’Homme’ Paris 1957.

(4)   Said, R (ed.) ‘The Geology of Egypt’ pp 487-507, Rotterdam 1990

(5)   West, J A, ‘Serpent in the Sky: the High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt’ New York 1978; Wheaton, Illinois, 1993.

(6)   ‘Great Sphinx Controversy’ Fortean Times, P37 Ed 79 March 1995.

(7)   Schoch, R M, ‘Redating the Great Sphinx of Giza’ KMT, A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt, 3:2 (Summer 1992) p52-59, 66-70.

(8)   For an abstract of their presentation, see R M Schoch and J A West ‘Redating the Great Sphinx of Giza, Egypt’, Annual Meeting, Geological Society of America, Vol. 23, No 5 (1991) p. A253

(9)   Los Angeles Times 23^rd October 1991.

(10)   The Boston Globe 23^rd October 1991 p8

(11)   Lehner, M, ‘The Egyptian Heritage Based on the Edgar Cayce Readings’ Association for Research and Enlightenment Press, Virginia Beach, 1974 (14^th Printing, 1991.)

(12)   Wilson, Colin, ‘From Atlantis to the Sphinx’ p43, Virgin Books, London 1996

(13)   Nat Geographic April 1991.

(14)   Wilson, Colin, ‘From Atlantis to the Sphinx’ p48, Virgin Books, London 1996

(15)   Ibid p47.

(16)   Ibid p48

(17)   Topical Debate: ‘How Old is the Sphinx?’ Abstracts of Papers 1992, AAAS Annual Meeting (Washington, 1992), p. 202. The New York Times, 9^th February 1992, p.34. ‘Sphinx Riddle Put to Rest?’ Science, Vol. 255, No. 5046, 14^th February 1992, p. 793.

(18)   New York Times, 9^th February 1992 p. 34.

(19)   ‘Great Sphinx Controversy’ Fortean Times, P37 Ed 79 March 1995.

(20)   Germer, R, ‘Problems of Science in Egyptology’ in [R A David, ed.] Science in Egyptology’, Manchester University Press 1986 p521-525.

(21)   See the remarks of Lanny Bell of the University of Chicago in The Boston Globe 23^rd October 1991 p. 8 and John Baines of Oxford University in The Independent (London), 14t^h October 1991 p. 17.

(22)   Wilson, Colin, ‘From Atlantis to the Sphinx’’ p40, Virgin Books, London 1996

(23)   ‘Great Sphinx Controversy’ Fortean Times, P39 Ed 79 March 1995.

(24)   Bauval, R and Gilbert A, ‘The Orion Mystery’ pp180-181, Mandarin, London 1994.

(25)   The Sunday Telegraph, 1^st January 1995

(26)   Ibid

(27)   Ibid

(28)   Egyptian Gazette, 20^th April 1993

(29)   The Sunday Telegraph, 1^st January 1995

(30)   Ibid

(31)   Bauval, R and Gilbert A, ‘The Orion Mystery’ p120, Mandarin, London 1994.

(32)   Mystic Places p. 82

(33)   Joseph pp. 4-5, 1997

(34)   Kimura 1997; see also Minato et al, 1965.

(35)   Barot, Ytushar, ‘Divers Find World’s Oldest Building’ p. 4, Sunday Times, 26^th April 1998.

(36)   Schoch, Robert, ‘Secrets of the Deep’ p. 42 Fortean Times #114, September 1998.

(37)   ‘The Work of Nature or a Lost Civilisation?’ p. 28 The Unopened Files No. 7 1998.

(38)   Schoch, Robert, ‘Secrets of the Deep’ p. 42 Fortean Times #114, September 1998.

(39)   Ibid p. 43

(40)   Posansky, Professor A, ‘Tiahuanaca, the Cradle of American Man’ Vol. III p 192, Ministry of Education, La Paz, Bolivia 1957.

(41)   Duncan, P M, ‘On Lakes and Their Origins’ Vol. VII pp298-315, Proceedings Geological Association.

(42)   Mathews, R, ‘The Atlas of Natural Wonders’ p184, Guild Publishing, London 1989.

(43)   Wilson, Colin, ‘From Atlantis to the Sphinx’’ p118, Virgin Books, London 1996

(44)   Flem-Ath, R & R, ‘When the Sky Fell’ p56, Orion, London 1995

(45)   Pedro Cieza de Leon, ‘Chronicle of Peru’ Hakluyt Society, London 1864 and 1883, part I Chapter 87 as reproduced in Hancock, ‘Fingerprints of the Gods’ p72

(46)   ‘Feats and Legends of the Ancients’ p.55 Time Life Books, Virginia 1990.

(47)   ‘Royal Commentaries of the Incas’ Reproduced in Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods, pp72-73.

(48)   Posansky, Professor A, ‘Tiahuanaca, the Cradle of American Man’ Vol. II pp90-91 Ministry of Education, La Paz, Bolivia 1957.

(49)   Wilson, Colin, ‘From Atlantis to the Sphinx’ p121, Virgin Books, London 1996

(50)   Saurat, Professor D, ‘Atlantis and the Giants’ page Faber and Faber, London date

Stonehenge Facts