lizard23 said:
... and he lost my sympathy completely when talking about the underwater "road" in the carribbean and how thousands of tons of granite had been removed from it ..... he said the only evidence available for this was the memory of some old guy watching it happen as a kid .... but surely there would have been all sorts of paperwork etc associated with this if it were true ... ships' logs, bills of sail etc etc... it was only the twenties for god's sake ... so he ended up sounding a bit of a shyster
Documentation might be lacking if the removal of the granite might have been construed as an illegal act.
Bimini aside, there is now ample suggestive evidence in support of Hancock's arguments. The great difficulty, of course, for institutional archaeology, is the acceptance that architectural civilisation may be much older than supposed. Livelihoods and reputations rest on accepted dogma - which is a much stronger force than any new scientific evidence that might come along to challenge it, particularly if it arises in another discipline.
It seems to me that Geology is proving to be Archaeology's great nemesis, in danger of censure for overstepping boundaries - as with the case of Boston professor Robert Schoch, who offered geological weathering evidence of the Sphinx enclosure to suggest that that structure might conceivably have been carved as long ago as 10,500BC. Similarly, geological and geo-climatological evidence now gives dates for massive sea-level changes that may account for numerous drowned cultures, siding more with ancient flood legends than with land-based archaeological chronologies.
On the whole, I believe Hancock, a non-specialist, is doing a fair job. As he said on the programme, he doesn't have the resources of the archaeological institutes, but can merely point the way as best he can. The trouble is, those institutions are resentful of a maverick investigator embarassing them in their own area of expertise - which is why they will largely try to ridicule or ignore Hancock's findings rather than go look-see for themselves. Because if even one submerged site proves to be undeniably man-made, then it clearly demands a major revision of accepted archaeological history.
Like the Schoch-West case, I suspect this one will go the same course. It will be passed over, swept aside, - another instance of Damned data - until such time, at least, until the old archaeological guard dies off and is replaced with a new paradigm constructed by fresh minds that are not so fearful or constrained in their thinking.
Incidentally, I've visited some of the sites in Malta. Well worth a visit - for these and all-round.