Ice Age and Human Migrations
After about 20 years of continuous research, travel and exploration, also talking to other scholars, archaeologists or simple enthusiasts, I have become definitively convinced that we are now at a fundamental and final stage in trying to comprehensively understand the History of Man. It is necessary, dare I say vital, that we make a final joint effort to break down the centuries-old orthodox archaeological paradigm that sees exclusively the Middle East and the Mediterranean as the cradle of the first great civilizations (Sumerian and Egyptian). If we fail to break down this "great wall" of prejudice the battle of frontier scholars, to which I feel I belong, will be lost for the time being.
Never before have I realized more than at this time how those who have power in the media can very easily make certain (normally futile) news items to be discussed all the time, while other (fundamental) news items are never talked about. Just to give an example: the translation of some foreign texts into Italian. Some extremely important essays have not been nor will ever be translated into our language (2). These are deliberate and imposed choices in order to make sure that we only have pale distorted images of certain topics. But let us return to the real purpose of our writing.
In the first part of my book I had set out the argument concerning the mystery of the Peopling of the Americas: in various circles of "alternative" archaeology it is thought that, in addition to the accepted immigration to the Americas of Asian peoples across the Bering Strait, there were two other, probably earlier immigrations: one from the Atlantic/European areas and another via the Australian/Antarctic route. For now I will deal with the first migration from Europe, and then deal with the second "Austral" migration in a later article.
What will be expounded below is based, as I always do, on starting conceptions that are known and accepted by the international archaeological/anthropological community, and then arriving at conclusions that instead (and it is not quite clear why) have not yet been considered valid. I believe that this is more due to the fact that the so-called "dominant culture" always needs a great deal of time before taking under its capacious protective umbrella innovations, of any kind, presented by scholars who, so to speak, are ahead of their time.
The human species to which we all belong is represented on Earth presently by Homo Sapiens Sapiens: we have called ourselves so, and now is not the time to stand meditating too much on whether we are really "Sapiens" or rather "Suicidal Fools," given the present situation on our Planet.
In any case, and I adopt a prudential view, Homo Sapiens Sapiens is thought to have been present on Earth with these same characteristics as us for at least 50,000 years-practically fifty thousand years ago a being equal to all of us and with the same potential intellectual abilities could have already been born. Up to this point everyone agrees, however, from this point on, opinions in the international community begin to diverge starting with this question: where did the first Homo Sapiens Sapiens originate? Some scholars argue, like Cavalli Sforza, that the "Out of Africa" principle must be adopted here as well: the first Homo Sapiens Sapiens was African and then distibuzzed across continents, changing his skin color according to the places where he arrived. Mind you, I am not talking about the first being that had human characteristics (the Australopithecus of a few million years ago) but rather the last: in the very case of Homo Sapiens in fact, the "Out of Africa" theory is not accepted by all. In particular, some Chinese scientists are more inclined to think of another hypothesis called "Multiregionalism": different "Homo Sapiens Sapiens" developed in various areas of the Earth, more or less at the same time, with the peculiar racial characteristics we all know well, such as skin color, yellow, white, black, red, etc.
This hypothesis is probabilistically exactly alternative to the one supported by the scholar Cavalli Sforza but, because we are in Italy, as good parochialists we support, especially in the press, only the thesis of our compatriot. The other possibility is never mentioned, as if it did not exist, and this at least does not seem correct to me. In any case, these different opinions I have put forward only out of a need for greater completeness to readers because what I am about to tell you cannot be invalidated by either the first or the second hypothesis: I can accept both.
The Wisconsin Wurm Frightful Glaciation began about 70-80,000 years ago. It was the coldest in History, as far as is known, and it affected our Planet very deeply.
As for its causes we still do not know much about it and I do not want to venture into conjecture, however, one thing we do know: when it began, our race Sapiens Sapiens was not there yet while our "cousin," Homo Sapiens Neanderthaliensis, had already existed for a few tens of thousands of years and behaved really like the "tough guy" that he was because he faced the glaciation without practically moving and staying where he had always been, in Europe. This last Ice Age was not uninterrupted but had a fairly long and warm "interglacial" phase, from about 40,000 to 30,000 years ago. This was precisely the phase in which Homo Sapiens Sapiens took over the Earth, contributing in fact to the elimination of its unwieldy "cousin" Neanderthal who was already disappearing on his own because he was incapable of withstanding these strong climatic changes. Let us say, in no uncertain terms, that our killer instinct sadly began from then on to manifest its full potential at the expense of our competing human relative. Since then we have evidently taken a liking to it, but it is perhaps best for now not to get too caught up in these thoughts and move on.
From this point on my assumptions diverge considerably from the official historiography so brace yourselves.
I start from a simple assumption, by the way enunciated and supported by the most famous Italian media representative of official science, Piero Angela (3), and that is that in purely probabilistic terms it is thought that intelligent beings, under favorable conditions, are capable of establishing a kind of "civilization"- I am not talking about a technological civilization equal to ours but still of an "organized" type like the Egyptian one, for example, - in about 15-20,000 years. Fantastic!", I say. This means that, in probabilistic terms, Homo Sapiens Sapiens could have reached a degree of civilization of the "evolved" type at least three times already (today, 15-20,000 years ago, 30-40-thousand years ago) and not only in the current post-glacial era! This very simple reasoning has literally put more than one luminary on edge: moreover, since the "date of birth" of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, with the most recent findings, is slowly receding to almost 100,000 years ago (4), there might be room for a couple more possibilities of civilizations (three times to five). Of course, Statistics speaks to us of probability and not certainty however, thanks to this discipline we are now ready to answer in the right terms when the orthodox challenge us on the possibility of the existence of an evolved Ice Age Civilization.
So much for a "far-fetched" possibility, as we are continually fed! It is a PLAUSIBLE hypothesis, and we have proved it using the very information that official historians provide us.
But let us continue in our reasoning. It therefore seems most plausible that, during the Wisconsin-Wurm Ice Age, there was the basis for an early form of evolved human civilization to develop: but when and, more importantly, where? These are not easy questions to answer, but we will try anyway.
There are basically two currents of thought among scholars favoring the existence of a " glacial " civilization: let's start with the first.
It is "The Polar Hypothesis": conditions may have been created for the emergence of an evolved culture as early as 30,000 years ago in the Northern parts of the World,then warm, during the INTERGLACIAL PHASE of the Wurm. We talk about Arctic Zones but actually the ice is there now, not then, firstly because we were, as I said, in a warm-interglacial phase, and secondly, probably because of a different location of the Terrestrial Axis (this second hypothesis is weaker, however).
In essence, this is the theory supported by that great forerunner of Frontier Archaeology, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, already masterfully described in the early 1900s (5), with the difference, however, that more recent studies by enthusiasts have moved this possibility far ahead of the period hypothesized by the great Indian scholar (10,000 B.C.) It is the "Atlantis of the North," it is "Thule."
With the end of the interglacial phase and the sudden resumption of a terrible glaciation (from 25,000 B.C. to about 10,000-8,000 B.C., the coldest known) the Ario- Thuleians were forced to abandon their Arctic home and migrate to areas further south: To Asia, Europe, North and South America. These are the migrations of the Northern Ario described in the novels of the forgotten German writer-explorer Edmund Kiss (6), never translated into our language.
The second hypothesis is Plato's traditional "Atlantis," which can be placed between 12-10,000 years ago, in a geological period just before the end of the Wurmian Era. Precisely the abrupt and stormy end of the Ice Age, brought about perhaps by a catastrophic event exogenous our planet (Impact of the Earth with a Comet or Asteroid of considerable size) would have caused the collapse of the Atlantean civilization, already sorely tried by the disastrous failure of the expedition aimed at the conquest of the Mediterranean. Again there were migrations by the survivors, who from the "Atlantic" areas would have reached Africa, and America.
As you have been able to read, both hypotheses consider a peopling of the Americas in an "alternative" sense to the usual migration from the Bering Strait: this does not, of course, exclude this Asian route of immigration, which there certainly was, however, it also lends credence to a hypothesis of immigration to the Americas by Homo Sapiens Sapiens Nordic/Atlantic-Europeans.
Regardless of the willingness to accept either the first or the second hypothesis (Thule or Plato's Atlantis), and already this would perhaps be a false problem because to my way of thinking one hypothesis does not exclude the other, as we shall see later, the main point is to gather serious clues of these plausible Atlantic-North European migrations to the Americas.
In fact, between Central and South America it is possible to find prehistoric petroglyphs and pictographs whose representations (usually cosmological-cosmogonic and symbolic depictions) are very similar to the pictographs and rock carvings that can be admired between England and France. A striking example concerns the famous Pedra Pintada in Brazil and the petroglyphs of Pusharo in Peru, already described in my essay (7).
In addition, recently, scholar Andrew Collins found other pictographs very similar to these at the Island of Cuba (8).
Considering also the enigmatic depictions of unquestionably white and bearded men found in different areas between Central and South America, even of considerable size, existing on the rocks of the Andean mountains (see as an example the bearded face of Ollantaytambo that appears on the cover of my book) and the recent help given by DNA studies of Amerindians that have found at least one haplogroup of very ancient Caucasian/European derivation (30,000 to 15,000 B.C.) (9), here it is possible to hypothesize a strong "glacial" migration also coming from the Atlantic/European context.
Thus, we can think of a satisfactory solution for all: the settlement of the northern "Polars" had to be forcibly abandoned with the onset of the new, last glacial phase (25,000 B.C.). This millennia-long migration led these peoples to ice-free territories in the Atlantic areas (where the sea was lower by at least a hundred meters and enough ample space and islands could be found to establish a kind of "Atlantis" culture).
The subsequent catastrophe that caused the end of glaciation and the sudden rise of the seas forced the survivors to attempt to establish a new social order in Central and South America as well. Thus, with the Indian brothers from Bering, that "Amazonian Empire," long sought by explorers and myself, described in my essay and a contemporary of the other post-glacial cultures that had formed in other parts of the world over the millennia by others who had escaped the deluge: in India, China, the Middle East and Egypt, was formed.
Notes
- Marco Zagni, "The Amazonian Empire," Mir Editions, Florence, 2002.
- In this particular case I consider it incredible that Posnansky's essay on Tiahuanaco has never been translated. See Arthur Posnansky: "Tiahuanacu: Cradle of American man," ed. J.Augustin, New York, 1945.
- Piero Angela: "In the cosmos in search of life," ed. Garzanti, Milan, 1983.
- Alan Alford: "The mystery of the genesis of ancient civilizations," Newton-Compton publishers, Rome, 2000.
- B.G.Tilak: "The Arctic Dwelling in the Vedas," Ecig, Genoa, 1994.
- See for example the book by Edmund Kiss: "Die letze Konigin von Atlantis", Koehler &Amelang, Leipzig, 1931.
- "The Amazonian Empire," op. cit., ch.4 and 6.
- Andrew Collins: "The Gates of Atlantis," Sperling and Kupfer ed., Milan, 2000.
- See the article by Antonio Aimi: "Those navigators of prehistory," in Il Sole 24 Ore, June 25, 2000.
