Unknown History: An Alternative Historical Perspective

Disclaimer: This research paper was originally presented to the San Jose State University Anthropology Department, in 2007. In retrospect, a few of my views on the various subjects/sources mentioned have changed since writing this. I do realize a lot is considered borderline pseudoscience and does make a few small connections which may or may not necessarily be there. The reason for reposting this paper is so that it can serve as a small critical thinking tool to explore new historical perspectives which are contrary to the mainstream. It is up to the reader to pursue the topics further and decide for oneself. As long as a tiny spark of curiosity has been ignited, as it was for me at the time of writing this, then it has served its purpose. Take everything with a grain of salt.

Introduction 

Growing up we are taught a wide variety of subjects that have contributed to the overall advancement and knowledge of our known world.  We are taught the histories of the once great civilizations of ancient times from Mesopotamia through the Egyptians and the Romans.  We learn about their culture, mythology, beliefs and scientific advancements over a given time span, most of which has been gathered by endless archaeological research.  We also are taught our own modern scientific curriculum, most of which has been contributed by and evolved from the ancient sciences.  Subjects such as chemistry for example, had once split and evolved from Alchemy in the late 1700s.  Geometry as we know it today still uses the same principles taught within the initiated Mystery Schools of the ‘Old World’ (Mesopotamia, Egypt ,etc), which were once considered to be a secret philosophy.   The same goes for physics and many other subjects being taught in our schools today.

The empirical science of today is seen as almost infallible in every way possible.  It progresses within its own terms by constantly reevaluating, questioning and reassessing itself.  However, what happens when we stop taking into account alternatives or new systematic directions?  The modern scientific model ceases to truly progress.  Throughout history scientists ranging from Galileo Galilei to Isaac Newton to Albert Einstein have developed ideas that totally revolutionized the world as we know it.  And with such ‘radical’ and ‘revolutionary’ ideas come just as much opposition to prevent changing the institutional standards or views.  With that in mind, we must shift our focus to the most crucial and critically basic subject that helps better our understanding of the world as we know it- our history.  Through the scientific field of archaeology we have gathered together our historical conceptual view of our history as we know it.  And thus, like any other science it becomes taught to us through texts books, media, and so forth growing up through the educational system.  But what if our westernized view of history is radically different from the truth?  We must take into account all forms of conceptual history and apply them to our own.  For example, in most cultures history is seen as circular and not linear.  In other cultures mythology is not seen as mere fantasy but rather symbolic and very real.  Within the realm of science today we get pre-conceived ideas that everything must be either/or and nothing can be the alternative.  Either you’re a democrat or republican, either you believe in creationism or evolution.  Over time we start to lose alternatives and a sense of reality, because most of the world is not black or white (despite what many may think).  The science of today tries to define everything as clearly into categories as possible, leaving little-to-no room for the ‘grey areas’.  However, any one in today’s world clearly knows that these gray areas make up most of the world of today.  The empirical scientific institutions of today must take into account different alternatives and conceptual points of views so as to evolve and ‘perfect itself’ as a field the best it can.  Or else the institutional systems of today will become just as flawed as the Roman Catholic authority became in the past.

From the Realm of Myth into Reality

Myths have been around since the dawn of humanity with deep-seated meaning behind each myth.  Parallel myths ring out throughout various cultures spanning the globe telling of forgotten places, ethical/moral conduct, and deep psychological representations of the psyche at work.  Joseph Campbell best described this during his interview with Bill Moyers, which has been published in a book entitled The Power of Myth (1988).  In his interview Campbell described how myths are still around today, in various forms, and how we have totally disregarded the meaningful application of myth within our modern context.  Joseph Campbell gives a simple definition for what myths are; “Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life” (Campbell 1988: 5).  Myths are meaningful mysteries for each of us to decipher, to apply inwards and perhaps to our general understanding of our world.

In the 1870s Heinrich Schliemann, who had grown up hearing myths of ancient cities and wars, actually searched for the legendary city of Troy.  At the time Troy was considered nothing more than a myth; however, Heinrich Schliemann went searching for it despite harsh criticism and indeed ended up finding Troy by pure coincidence.  Imagine if such enthusiasm and effort was applied within the realm of science of today, what things we could discover.  He was not a certified archaeologist by any means and yet discovered something on such a grand scale.

In contrast to the story of Heinrich Schliemann is Eugène Dubois, who was educated as a scientist.  In 1891 he discovered what was known as ‘Java Man’ which was considered the missing link, which consisted of a skullcap, a femur, and a few teeth.  At the time there was a scientific need to find the missing link so as to prove Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.  It was interesting to note that the skullcap and femur were found more than 40 feet away from each other, which led him to conclude that they were of the same creature-which he dubbed ‘Java Man.’ “The important point to make about the Java Man discovery is that it’s based on a speculative leap in which two pieces of evidence are put together in way that is not really warranted” said Dr. Richard L. Thompson in the 1996 NBC documentary The Mysterious Origins of Man.  Before Eugène Dubois’s death he realized that the skullcap belonged to a large ape and the leg bone was that of a man, despite this fact it was proudly displayed in the Museum of Natural History in New York until 1984 when it was removed. 

A good example of a parallel myth is that of the world-wide flood.  The accounts of a Great Flood have its origins in the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh, the Biblical tale of Noah, and even the Sumerian tale of Ziusudra.  Although we are familiar with those stories, we don’t take into account that almost every Native American tribe has its own version of the Great Flood.  How could this be?  When the Spanish ventured forth converting the Native Americans they made this realization, that they too had their own version of the Great Flood.

In the Native Mount Shasta culture, for example, there seems to be a strong belief (as well as many of other tribes up through Washington state) that there was once a race of ‘animal people’ as they call them.  The following story is taken from the neighboring Shasta tribes on their version of the great flood (which was recorded by Joaquin Miller).  Once Coyote was traveling around, carrying his bow and arrows with him.  He then approached a body of water, where an evil spirit dwelled.  Upon seeing him the evil spirit said that there was “no wood”, and then caused the water to overflow the land.  Once the water went down, Coyote got up, shot the evil spirit and ran off.  But the water followed him until he reached higher ground.  All the way to the top of Mount Shasta the Coyote ran, and the water didn’t quite make it to the top.  Coyote then built a fire, and over a period of days many different animals swam to Coyote.  All the animal people stayed on top of Mount Shasta until the flood was over.  Once the water level went down it left a series of lakes and marshes, and the animal people came down to rebuild their homes.  They scattered everywhere and became the ancestors of all the animal people on the earth.

It is to be noted that during the Late Pleistocene (126,000 ± 5,000 years ago) the sea levels were hundreds of feet lower than they were today due to the glaciers.  And by the end of the Late Pleistocene, the glaciers (which covered most of the northern hemisphere) melted away, but could it be possible that a massive amount of glacier melted so quickly that it could have cause a world-wide flood?  Or perhaps even Plato’s tale of Atlantis being swept overnight by violent quakes and flood could have taken place during this time? 

Opposing Evidence

On July 28, 1996 a few boating enthusiasts tried to get close to a boat show that was taking place on the Columbia River near Kennewick Washington, they soon found something sticking out of the eroded river bank.  On closer inspection they realized that they were skeletal remains.  Soon thereafter Forensic Scientists came in to investigate and to their surprise turned out that the remains dated back to around 9,000 BC (Swedlund & Anderson 1999).  In 1959, archaeologists on Santa Rosa Island California discovered skeletal remains dating back to 10,000BC and nearby signs of stool tools which date back 12,500 to 29,700BCE (Orr 1962).   What makes these skeletons so interesting is that they do not really match up with the Bering Strait Land Bridge Theory, which is when the first Native Americans are said to have crossed across from Asia into North America.  There is also something else that makes these two skeletons unique, besides being some of the oldest skeletons found, they are considered to have “Caucasian-like” features (quite similar to the indigenous Caucasian-like race of Ainu in Japan and not European).

On January 10^th, 2007 a London-based newspaper reported an amazing find in the middle of the Amazon.  82 feet below the surface they uncovered a burial vault containing Caucasian mummies.  They are known as the Chachapoyas, which is a name given to them by their conquerors the Inca, meaning ‘Cloud-People’.  When the Spanish ventured through the Americas in the 1500s they came across many “strange white Indians” with beards.  There have also been Caucasian skeletons found in Alaska and eastern parts of Asia some even with distinct red hair.  There was even a Roman account by Pliny in Seres (once the northwestern territories of China) to Emperor Claudius (10BC- 54AD) saying that people there “exceeded the ordinary human height, had flaxen hair, and blue eyes, and made an uncouth sort of noise by way of talking”.

Again, by analyzing the parallel myths and legends we find there is a common story to be told.  According to many indigenous people across Polynesian islands, throughout many indigenous Native American tribes to Tibet and Indian esoteric teachings there are stories of a once great civilization/continent which once existed in what is today the Pacific Ocean.  Known by different names such as Mu, Lemuria, Hiva, and Hawaikia the great civilization (supposedly before Atlantis) had a great cataclysm that caused the continent to gradually sink to the bottom of the Ocean.  Off the coast of Yonaguni, Japan they found ruins spreading throughout the Ocean floor, there is still a lot of archaeological debate going on presently towards is being linked to a lost civilization (Joseph 2006: 306-320).  On Santa Rosa Island there are also unique Flora and Fauna which is not found anywhere else in the world (Moody 2000), could Santa Rosa Island have once been a part of this great continent?  It is also interesting to note that during the 16^th century when Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo ventured through these islands off the coast of California he notes in his captain’s log that the indigenous Chumash women as having “fine forms, beautiful eyes and a modest demeanor” and the children as being “white, with light hair and ruddy cheeks” (Heizer & Whipple 1972: 273).  These Channel Islanders were even classified as “proto-Caucasoid” by Dr.  Jeffery Goodman who extensively studied human crania and states that modern man may have occupied southern California up to 500,000 years ago (Goodman 1981: 178-191).

Where do we separate the supposed myth from fact?  Perhaps it is not as easy as we could imagine.  When the Spanish first ventured through the Americas they went in search of ‘El Dorado’ and the mysterious cities of gold.  They were told legends in California, which they thought was once an island, about a mysterious and beautiful Empress who ruled over the whole of the island who came from a lost land.  In 1510 Garcí Ordóñez de Montalvo wrote ‘The Exploits of Esplandián’, which was a fictional novel about an Amazonian Empress named Queen Califa who ruled over an island (Reynolds 1998).  The Spanish probably made the correlation between the fictional novel and Native American legend and thus California was born. According to the indigenous Yurok of northern California (a few miles from Mount Shasta), they proclaim before their ancestors inhabited the Klamath River, there were white-skinned people who occupied the land.  And who were considered very moral, civilized and even shared what little they possessed with the Yurok.  They were known as Wa-gas, meaning literally “white person” (Thompson 1991: 81-87).  Even well known anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber recorded stories regarding these ancient people from the Yurok, spelled also wo’gey and also known as the ikhareyev to the Karok and kixunai to the Hupa.  Perhaps their physical remnants lay within the obscure collections of a museum in California or Nevada?  Truth be known, there are physical remains of these ancient people within various museums and the question is then asked, why haven’t we heard about this?

Anomalous Archaeological Evidence

In 1998 Michael A. Cremo, and Richard L. Thompson released a 914 page controversial book entitled ‘Forbidden Archaeology’ which consist of hundreds of anomalous artifacts that seem to tell a different story of mankind.  These are carefully documented cases in which certain artifacts seem to point to a different story than Darwin’s evolutionary model states.  Skeletons dating back as far as 280-320 million years ago, hundreds of documented primitive eoliths, a gold chain dating back 260-320 million years ago, a metal vase dating up to 600 million years ago, to even odd metallic grooved spheres found in Ottosdalin, South Africa dating to 2800 million years ago in the Precambrian Era (Cremo & Thompson 1994: 267-279) .

A well-documented case study is that of Table Mountain, Tuolumne County, in California.  Several mines were dug into a huge plateau in order to uncover possible gold and other mineral resources.  180 feet below the surface they uncovered a mortar and pestle.  Investigators were called into to date the artifacts and were quite astonished to reveal that they dated back between 33 and 55 million years.  Every possible explanation to debunk this artifacts were all inconclusive, in other words there is no reasonable explanation for these artifacts to have ended up there.  Among other artifacts found were those of human skeletal remains (Cremo & Thompson 1994: 94-101).

In a recently published book the now well-known and well-respected archaeologists are coming forward to state up front that yes, there is a great injustice taking place within the field of archaeology.  The book is called ‘The First American; The Suppressed Story of the People who Discovered the New World’ by Christopher Hardaker.   In Vaslsequillo, Mexico they have uncovered some of the oldest spearheads in the world.  Harvard University started to investigate closely along side of the United States Geological Survey geologists.  Their first estimates were thought to be around 12,000 years old, and was considered to be the ‘official date’.  But the archaeologists estimated that it could be 40,000 years old, which is 3 times as much of the official date.  However, after USGS geologists and researchers came in, they dated the remains to be 250,000 years old!  Among the things recovered lays a mastodon bone with detailed carved depictions of various animals dating further back than the Pleistocene era.  Because many of the dates from the site are considered to be ‘too ridiculously old’ they were put aside.  Afterwards, the site was blocked off to prevent any further investigation.  Two questions are then asked; Why is all this evidence being ignored?  And second, how long have humans really been inhabiting the Americas?

The forward to Christopher Hardaker’s book was written by Charles Naeser, a geochemist, of the United States Geological Survey who stated the following:

As a scientist I am embarrassed that it has taken over 30 years for archaeologists and geologists to revisit the bone and artifact deposits of Valsequillo Reservoir.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, data were presented that suggested Early Man had been in the New World much earlier than anyone had previously thought.  Rather    than further investigate the discoveries, which is what should have been done, they were buried under the sands of time, in the hope that they would be forgotten.  Now we have at least five independent geological age estimates that all indicate an old, pre-Clovis age for the Valsequillo site.  We have the choice of accepting the results as correct and concluding that the artifacts are greater than 200,000 years old or arguing that there is something significantly wrong with each of the geological age estimates.

Retrospect (Reflecting on our Unknown History)

There seems to be now a sort of ‘knowledge filter’ put within the realm of institutional science.  No more room for reevaluation of the standards put into place by our system.  On one hand you have the logical and educated scientist who is lecturing on the theories put in place by Darwin, and on the other hand you have the bible-loathing Christians preaching creationism, both being like different sides of the same coin.  There have been recent studies that have been published, by well respected scientists, in regards to Darwin’s theory of Evolution.   Dr.  Aaron G.  Filler, M.D., Ph.D., a well known neurosurgeon, has collected support from various leading Biologists and Anthropologists supporting a new alternative take to Darwin’s theory.  In his recently published book, The Upright Ape: A New Origin of the Species, through rigorous analysis and investigations he, and several other people, conclude that if anything apes evolved from humans from a common upright ancestor! Imagine the implications within our institutional views if this turned out to be true, we would have to completely restructure our whole preconceived views of our history as a human species.

There is a growing fear of Eurocentrism, which is view that European people are the superior culture.  And when it comes to cases such as the Arlington Springs Woman, and Kennewick Man many people are in fear of this supporting that white people are somehow more superior then the Natives, and to the point that they were the first ones to reach the Americas.  This dangerous ideology is very much flawed, be it through ‘institutional racism’ or some other factor, we must acknowledge and understand the fact that we, as a human species, are all one and the same.  Despite our various physical looks, and inherent traits we are all very much one and the same.

Many of the findings, as mentioned before, have been pushed aside and dismissed through various means.  But many archaeologists are also in fear of being ‘blacklisted’.  A prime example of this is Dr. Virginia Steen-McIntyre, who in 1966 had discovered sophisticated stone tools dating back as far as 20,000 years old in Mexico.  The USGS was brought in to date the site, and several of the artifacts were sent to labs to undergo analysis.  The results clearly showed they were about 20,000 years old.  Once the data was collected, she sent in the results to get published.  She was ridiculed because of her statements, lost her job and hasn’t been able to find another within the same field of archaeology ever since.  She was in a sense ‘blacklisted’ because of her work and there are many cases in which this is true, that is why you have many scientists being careful of what the say in order to prevent loosing their reputation.

Conclusion

 So to conclude I must directly urge people to investigate the information for themselves and to avoid listening to biased opinions over the given matters.  Science is a field in which must continue to progressively question itself in order to improve its ideals, and structure in order to have a more perfect and clear representation of reality.  Certain theories have been made in the past given with the assumption that within the next few years there would have been discoveries to fully support and conclude the theories.  However, like in the case with the missing link, the theory must deliver that piece of archaeological evidence to make it complete.  But, because we have yet to discover such a piece of evidence, the theory should become a thing of dispute, though it is quite the opposite.  It has now then been internalized as law.  We must continue to reevaluate our progressive measures in order to ensure a more accurate portrayal of history.  And if we do not, then we become just like any other corrupt institution of power (politically and of education) that has been and will always continue to be until we break the cycle.

Bibliography

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Cremo, Michael A. & Thompson, Richard L.
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Cremo, Michael A.  & Thompson, Richard L.
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Goodman, Jeffrey Ph.D.
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Heston, Charlton and Cote, Bill
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Joseph, Frank
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This is London News
2007 Moment 600 years ago that terror came to Mummies of the Amazon. Electronic document, http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23381234-details/Moment+600+years+ago+that+terror+came+to+Mummies+of+the+Amazon/article.do

Thompson, Lucy
1991 To the American Indian: Reminiscences of a Yurok Woman. California: Heyday Books