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Flooded Kingdoms (Graham Hancock)

I've just read "Underworld". :spinning
Graham Hancock has correctly identified a need for a clearly explained book on the possibility of compex societies existing long before our current age - ie at the end of the paleolithic.

Unfortunately he didn't write that book.

It rambles. There are bits and pieces about his childhood, his migraines, his hypothermia.

A huge section (100 pages) is devoted to Hancocks beliefs about portolan maps which carries his argument forward not at all. Sure there may have been a "normal portolan" of truly great age but unless it is found saying that portolans seem to have coastal features associated with ice age landscapes is pointless.

Another 137 pages are dedicated to a fruitless search for undersea remains in Malta, including attacks on the Maltese Archaeological service. Fine, we know that there are doubts about it's conclusions regarding the temples and human habitation of those islands but these doubts have no place in this book.

And another thing towards the end of the book I felt that if I read one more time that "of course, I'm no expert - just a reporter" (not a direct quote) I would throw the volume out of the window. It has the same grating quality as Uriah Heep's "I'm everso 'umble". Hancock has spent umpteen years investigating the idea of paleo-civilisations, it says little for his intelligence if he is not an expert by now.

Don't get me wrong, there are some excellent things in the book, what it documents and references makes it a good source book. The revelations about ice age coastlines and surge melting make it worth reading. Trouble is Hancock could have said what he has to say in about 200 pages. To takes 667 is a waste of woodland.
 
I was once privileged to do some work at the British Antarctic Survey at the time the "hole in the ozone layer" was discovered. I happened to be working in the "Ice and Climate" section and asked the question:
"who is to say that this is not a natural occurrence that we (mankind) have just added to/accelerated?".
The reply came back; "Actually I was one of the scientists who identified this".

My question was ignored and no response was ever received.

There are times when we must all take a step back and revisit some of our strongest beliefs, we may just be missing something. The use of an apparent ghost writer, it would appear, has done nothing to assist GH in furthering his beliefs, which may be correct. Our ancestors have much to teach us, if we are prepared to listen and think.....
 
...The reply came back; "Actually I was one of the scientists who identified this"...

You got a response, not an answer

I had the temetry to voice this question in the early days of this forum and got mauled a right-wing heretic who probably molested goats in my spare time... :D

8¬)
 
Most will still not admit that Global Warming is a natural thing.

But it is true, I have never heard of any evidence that the hole in the ozone layer should be man made.
 
If we take all the arguements for and against, I think it can be best summed up as follows:

Reviewing a list of health warnings:
1. you cannot eat anything grown on the land because of DDT/
pesticide contamination
2. you cannot eat shellfish because of red algae blooms/
contamination
3. you cannot eat beef, pork or lamb because of items like BSE
4. you cannot eat poultry or products thereof
5. you cannot eat dairy products.
6. you cannot drink water because of contamination/added
chemicals

There is only one thing that it 99.9% safe to pass your lips.

Domestos!!

The moral being, do we need an unbiased, independant analysis of the whole Ancestoral History?

:cool:
 
Graham Hancock has correctly identified a need for a clearly explained book on the possibility of compex societies existing long before our current age - ie at the end of the paleolithic.

It always baffles me how, considering that there has been very little change in Homo Sapiens as a species over the last 100000 years or more, we have only achieved anything in the last 5000 or so. What were we doing the rest of the time?
 
Could it be that, due to low numbers and a widespread distribution, mankind was concentrating on surviving?

Could it be that until the population had increased sufficiently, "Quality time", being the time not involved with day to day existence, simply did not exist? If QT was not available, then the time for creative endeavours and development would not exist?

:confused:
 
I have always been told just the opposite, that simple maybe nomadic hunter-gatherer types had loads of free time and were idle and happy, like cats, sleeping most of the day and forraging at dusk and dawn blah di blah.
Not that anyone can possibly know of course.
Maybe they just made everything from perishable materials that have not survived the millenia?
 
You still have tribes in the world of hunter gatherers that only work about 6 hours a week. And then spend the rest of the time doing other fun stuff.
 
Xanatic said:
...I have never heard of any evidence that the hole in the ozone layer should be man made.
Why else do you think the use of CFCs was banned in fridges? (CFC itself is not poisonous, or explosive - but it does react with ozone in the upper atmosphere under ultraviolet radiation.)

Here in the west country there is a great storage problem with old fridges awaiting processing - one suggested site was an old airfield!

But the hole in the ozone layer and global warming are not necessarily part of the same package (although they could be). Global warming may be part of a natural cycle, perhaps related to the sun, but that doesn't mean that human pollution is not accelerating the process. Reducing pollution makes sense for all sorts of reasons.
 
It does appear that there have been very many events in the earth's history, that are of a cyclical nature. It is understood that sea levels have fluctuated, massive events have happened which affected the planet and all may well happen again in the future.

Is it not stated in the Bible, "Man shall not covet the heavens"? I believe that is correct.

Could it be that our rapid knowledge expansion, including Power Generation, Rainforest destruction, nuclear weapons & testing, flight, space travel, motorised travel in general and general "civilisation" as well as the formation of compunds like CFCs has affected a natural cycle?

GH may be right, only time will tell, but as we have been very close to self destruction in our civilised time, could a previous civilisation have reached a state of advancement that affected this cycle causing their downfall??
 
Ice Age Article

Whilst this may be at conflict with scholastic perceptions, it does seem to fit in nicely with GH AND the Chinese mummies that appear to be of European origin.

The big question one would suppose is:

"Was mankind spread from a single source, or were there groups of indigenous tribes that gradually merged?"

;)
 
diplock could you please mention what you're linking to so that we might get an idea as to what we're going to be seeing... I happen to be eating here!

As way of explaination and warning the diplockg's link is to site about mummies.
 
Quite simply my dear Niles, following up on the original topic of Flooded Kingdoms.

Why should there not have been, one or more major civilisations living along the now submerged coastlines if:

1. a question mark over the origin of mankind itself exists. Did
we evolve from a single point, or did the origin of man
follow the accepted "branch" theory of natural selection?
2. accepted history of races, i.e. Native Americans, Chinese etc
is currently being challenged by discoveries such as the
Mummies you questioned
3. at the end of the last ice age when sea levels rose significantly
and inundated such large areas of land, is it not possible
that an advanced civilisation was destroyed to the point where
it only survives in a collective memory, passed down in Myths?

I hope this does not give you indigestion,enjoy your meal..
:rolleyes:
 
Whoa! Easy Tiger.
:)
diplock I was refering to the deadpeople, everything else I'm aware of. :rolleyes:

One of the reasons I gave up Archaeology was I discovered that I was slightly necrophobic so perhaps you can understand my distress :eek: Another reason was the inflexibility of the field (as I'm sure Mr. Hancock will be glad to rant about at length) :)

Niles ":p :eek!!!!: :eek: :blah:" Calder
 
My apology Niles.

My personal experience of very high ranking and notable scientists, along with MOD and UK Central Government hierachy over an extended period, has reduced both my sense of humour and my respect for them. Too many of these people will deliberately bury an idea if it does not conform to accepted criteria.

Too often we focus on a symptom and not the cause. As in GH's program, the symptom is these supposedly ancient structures of unknown origin, but what of the cause?

As for death and the physical remains, well that is for each individual to handle in their own way. Having been VERY close to several exploding IRA bombs in London, maybe the dead are better off than the injured..
 
I'm afraid this is all going to be unconnected

The Takla Makan mummies are only 3000 years old and, as I recall, fit well with the idea of the migration of Celtic type peoples they certainly seem to have little to do with the last ice age (10,000 yr before present).

The idea of the Chinese circumnavigating the world is unsurprising, but I suspect that they may only have travelled the Pacific/Indian Ocean circle route. Again this has little to do with a paleocivilisation.

The mapping problem as a whole is an irrelevance. There are just too many suspects for who could have produced such maps. Remember Roman amphorae have been found in South American waters.

Much more to the point are the finds at Kenosha. Taken together with Kenewick man they would point to an occupation of the Americas before the Amerind migration and this certainly is pre-inundation.

To my mind what Hancock might have done was to use not just a model of ice-age coastlines but models of climate in the interior of the ice-age continents. That would have given him a reason for the non-occupation of continental interiors. I think he is right that there were paleocivilisations, the Gulf of Cambay finds make that a racing certainty. Where he is wrong is in his approach to the problem
 
Good reply, intaglio.

(Nothing else to add at present - this post is a test because I'm having trouble getting my mail through my ISP, although I can get online and then get mail via http://www.twigger.co.uk.)
 
I know people talked all about the freon and CFC gasses some years ago. I was just saying I never actually have seen any evidence to show we did the hole in the ozone layer.
 
Apropos of little... Ozone is a Greenhouse gas, i.e. it is opaque to long wave reflected IR

8¬)
 
Kennewick Man is believed to be some 9,200 years old, lived to approx. 45 years and was wounded/killed by a stone implement. Since being found back in 1996, Kennewick Man, I believe has been caught in a bitter dispute between Native Americans and Will Thomas the finder. I have not kept up to date on this, but I believe the State impounded the skull before any scientific work was undertaken. Is this still the case?

:confused:
 
Floods, origins etc

Have just contributed my two penn'orth on the "Old Thrad" thread on this board.

Here's the relevant text from that other thread ...

... [M]y pet observation re the Ark (howzat for straying back on to thread? who needs mods..) to wit: if the entire planet was covered in water (and let's take it as read that it was) then the all-encompassing ocean would have been subject to tidal surges, there would still have been prevailing winds, etc, so why would the Ark have stayed where it was presumably built, i.e. in the Middle East? OK, so the Bible says atop Ararat, but then the Bible says lots of other dubious things (probably lost a bit in translation, from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English..). The Ark could well be in the Himalayas, the Andes, even under a glacier in the Antarctic for all we know.Or, and how's this for a wild speculation, up in the mountainous bits of Central Africa, from whence it's theorised the proto-female "Eve" came all those years ago?
Nobody's looking there for Ark relics, I'll bet..
 
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I've just finished reading Hancock's 'Underworld'. It is too long, but it's fascinating none-the-less.

I tend to agree with the basic premise of a fairly advanced sea-going civilization which was destroyed when sea levels rose, but his comments on ancient sacred sites being spaced at 'significant' numbers of degrees of longitude seems to smack of numerology to me, and depends on which sites you include or exclude.

This page is an online appendix to the book, where latest news can be posted. It includes three rambling articles by Christofer Ash (who he?) which attempt to show why this ancient civilization settled predominently on low-lying deltas which were later flooded (and hence have left no recognizable remains on land which was still dry then). It sounds plausible, but, like Hancock's book itself, could have been much more concise. Just read the third article if pressed for time - that's where he finally comes to the point!
 
Before Hancock

Has anyone read Eden In The East - The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia by Stephen Oppenheimer?

This book pre-dates Hancock's Underworld though they appear to be talking about much the same thing. Maybe Hancock has better PR!

I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read Oppenheimer's book yet:eek: . It's quite long, >500 pages including notes and an index but not a proper blibliography/further reading list. He discusses geological, physiological and archaeological evidence along with loads of myths including, of course, the multiple flood myths.

Oppenheimer isn't an archaelogist, he's a medical docter specialising in tropical paediatrics. For most of his career he's being living/working in the Far East and Pacific region.

It may be worthwhile taking a look at this book before Hancock's. I wonder how they compare too:rolleyes: :p :)

So, is anyone already familiar with it?
 
No, I've not heard of Oppenheimer's book before, but the maps Hancock presents do show that the biggest areas of flooded lands are in that part of the world. (The areas around Britain are pretty big too...)

What date was O's book published?
 
Oppenheimer's book was first published in 1998. I've got a paperback edition which was published in 1999, ISBN 0753806797.

Here is the blurb from the book's back cover:

The biblical flood really did occur-
at the end of the last Ice Age.
The Flood drowned forever the huge continental shelf of Southeast Asia, and caused a population dispersal which fertilized the Neolithic cultures of China, India, Mesopotamia, Egypt and the eastern Medittanean, thus creating the first civilizations.
The Polynesians did not come from China but from the islands of Southeast Asia.
The domestication of rice was not in China but in the Malay Peninsula, 9,000 years ago.
In this groundbreaking new book Stephen Oppenheimer reveals how evidence from oceanography, archaeology, linguistics, genetics and folklore overwhelmingly suggests that the lost 'Eden' - the cradle of civilization - was not in the Middle East, as is usually supposed, but in the drowned continent of Southeast Asia.

'Nuff said:)
 
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