Forbidden History: Prehistoric Technologies, Extraterrestrial Intervention, and the Suppressed Origins of Civilization by J. Douglas Kenyon Read Free Book Online Page B

demarcation layer of clay between the geological strata of two different, major epochs in Earth’s history.
     
    After eliminating volcanic activity as a possible source of this anomaly, the researchers concluded that the only other explanation for such high concentrations of iridium would be an asteroid, or, more precisely, the collision of one with Earth. Confirmation of this theory seemed to appear with the discovery, in 1990, of a large impact crater at Chicxulub in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, dated as being of the same vintage as the K-T boundary.
     
    These findings helped give rise to a new model of Earth—and species—change, known as punctuated equilibrium. This theory proposes that our planet’s chronology can be likened to a sequence of steady states regularly interrupted by periods of rapid, often radical, change, caused by such catastrophic events as massive volcanic activity, an asteroid impact, and a change in planetary temperature occasioned by various means.
     
    Schoch’s personal work in redating the Sphinx to the Neolithic period (which encompasses the 7000–5000 B.C.E. time span, an expanse of time conventionally associated with only very rudimentary societies and building skills), led him to question traditional notions of the linear, uniformly progressive rise of human civilization from approximately 3100 B.C.E. forward, and to postulate the existence of sophisticated cultures far earlier than had been previously supposed.
     
    Countering the claimed absence of evidence for any such notion, he cites some intriguing evidence of technical flint mining from 31,000 B.C.E. ; sophisticated Neolithic villages in Egypt dating to 8100 B.C.E. ; and, most recently, the astronomically aligned Nabta megalith circle found in the Nubian Desert of the southern Sahara dating to 4500–4000 B.C.E. . Remains of ancient cities elsewhere in the Near East, such as Jericho in Israel from 8300 B.C.E. and Äatal HÅyÅk in Anatolia, Turkey, from the seventh millennium B.C.E. , serve to buttress his argument that peoples of even earlier antiquity possessed impressive organizational skills, technical knowledge, and engineering prowess. Additional evidence exists outside of Egypt—in the Americas and Europe—as well: in particular, the astronomically correlated painted imagery discovered on cave walls in Lascaux, France, which has been dated to ca. 15,000 B.C.E. —stunningly earlier still.
     
    Pursuing the thread of inquiry into sophisticated ancient civilizations further led Schoch to confront the reputed existence of the lost continents of Atlantis and Lemuria (or Mu). In his book, he makes short work of Lemuria, dismissing it as pure fantasy after a short review of the associated literature. Reviewing at greater length the accounts of Atlantis proffered by Plato in his dialogues
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and the later accounts of the Roman historian Diodorus Siculus, Schoch finds them thoroughly lacking in their ability to help us locate that sunken continent today.
     
    In surveying the list of supposed sites for the sunken landmass, he deftly and methodically disassembles the arguments supporting claims for Atlantis existing in the mid-Atlantic Ocean, on Minoan Crete, or in the South China Sea. With respect to the claim for Atlantis being situated under the ice cap in Antarctica, advanced by such writers as Professor Charles Hapgood, Graham Hancock, and Rand and Rose Flem-Ath, Schoch devotes more time to discounting their shared theory.
     
    Ultimately, Schoch finds no evidence to support the notion of Antarctica being ice-free during the period claimed by Plato for its existence, and notes further that, denuded of the massive weight of its icy covering and surrounded by higher water levels, Antarctica would look a lot different as a geological landmass than has been posited by the modern authors cited.
     
    Last, he marshals evidence that disputes the accuracy of the maps on which these authors rely for their suppositions of advanced