Dear WeatherCat armchair adventurers,
Some of you might have seen the 1998 documentary
?Quest for the Lost Civilization? written and presented by
Graham Hancock on Channel-4 in the UK or The Learning Channel in the USA. For those who haven?t seen it (or would like to see it again) it can be see on You-Tube. The three episodes are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1pN8UYrVRMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2Ri1f5_FH0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l4aPLVXhcoThere is a companion book that you can still find in places like Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Heavens-Mirror-Quest-Lost-Civilization/dp/0609804774/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439507746&sr=8-1&keywords=heaven%27s+mirror+quest+for+the+lost+civilizationIn these works, Hancock makes a passionate (if not always well reasoned) case for the existence of civilizations before the well known ones of Egypt and so on. In particular, Hancock attempts to argue that civilizations must have existed before the end of the last ice age (around 12,000 years ago.) This is an intriguing hypothesis, since at that time, sea levels were around 300 feet lower. Since human habitation is frequently near the ocean?s edge, much of the evidence of such settlements would be lost by the harsh actions of seawater.
Hancock?s main lines of evidence are twofold: 1.) An extensive collection of mythology from known ancient civilizations claiming that they had arisen from ?wise gods? that to modern eyes look more like survivors from a lost civilization. 2.) An odd similarity in architecture, customs, and beliefs to be found among cultures in different parts of the world and arising at different times. This by itself seems a weak line of inference. However, Hancock uses astronomical alignments of ancient monuments to make a claim that all these later cultures were venerating a date of 10,500 BC. Hancock concludes that these later civilizations were commemorating some past ?golden age? that ancients were harking back to.
All this may seem whimsical and foolhardy, but sometimes a dreamer turns out to be right after all. Archeologists has since discovered the G?bekli Tepe site:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_TepeThis site has been shown to be a religious center dating as far back as 14,000 years ago. Thus, there were civilizations before the end of the last ice age. G?bekli Tepe is an especially interesting site because it clearly dates to a period before agriculture. At that time and location, grains grew naturally so there was no need for farming. Without farming, there is no need for the organization normally associated with civilization. Yet, the monuments at G?bekli Tepe consist of monoliths weighing as much as tons. Such structures could have only been created by an organized civilization. Based on this, Dr. Klaus Schmidt, has argued that the people who built G?bekli Tepe organized themselves in order to venerate their religion. On this view, religion became the motivation for civilization. The common archeological view is that civilization came first, and with the leisure civilization provides, human beings
?invented? religion.
Recently Hancock?s key hypothesis, that these ancient civilizations would most likely be found under the sea has been vindicated. Off of Sicily, a 30 foot long monolith was found in 131 feet of water:
http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/underwater-stonehenge-monolith-found-off-coast-of-sicily-150806.htmThere is good reason to doubt Hancock?s dream of a global civilization of seafarers in ancient times, but there is now good reason to believe that the ancient mythology was once more based in fact, just as
Heinrich Schliemann used Homer?s Iliad to locate
Troy.There are two lessons to learn from this. One is a cautionary tale about trusting the judgement of the scientific establishment. When Hancock presented his ideas, he was dismissed out of hand. As was true when
Alfred Wegener presented his ideas on continental drift, Hancock was rejected because his views didn?t fit into the theories of the time. Eventually, Alfred Wegener would be vindicated by the theory of plate tectonics. Now Hancock is at least partially vindicated by these later discoveries. Science was founded by social outsiders who sought methodologies to avoid misconceptions that had plagued earlier world views. The very controversy behind early science encouraged a caution and discipline that ultimately overcame its sceptics. Today, Science is a powerful global institution with its own politics and economics. It is also self-policing and therefore just as vulnerable to the corruptions of the religion institutions it supplanted. We have a right to demand only the highest standards of scientific practice and we are not getting what we deserve.
The second lesson is about Hancock?s quest for sacred knowledge and the possibility of human spirituality in that very early time. Hancock?s perspective is of course modern, but his comparative sense of mythology does paint our ancestors as seeking the very same things we still seek. The spiritual mechanisms look vastly different, but even thousands of year ago, the quest for immortality already existed. Considering the crude and unforgiving conditions of those early civilizations, it seems very remarkable that the concept of immortality could even exist. Life was undoubtably short and harsh for even the best off. If immortality could have been sought by those earliest of faith-seekers, perhaps it should give us fresh confidence that this quest isn?t in vain. For to even have a concept of immortality would have required more than imagination, surely it was an inspiration that could not have come from their difficult surroundings. If tens of thousands of years ago, people could be inspired to seek immortality, is that not proof enough that the every possibility is divinely inspired?
Edouard
P.S. If you want to learn more about G?bekli Tepe site, the National Geographic documentary ?Cradle of the gods? is also available on You-Tube:
https://youtu.be/AkoVZ8uzygIP.P.S. If you have the technology to do it, definitely watch ?Quest for the Lost Civilization? on a big screen. It isn?t simply intellectually interesting, it is a wonderful example of the art of documentary making that is very rare these days.
