Most historians and archaeologists maintain that civilization as we know it began about 5,000 years ago with the emergence of the earliest Egyptian dynasty. But, a small yet persuasive number of scientists believes that a highly advanced civilization, nearly twice as old, flourished during the last Ice Age. Solid evidence of this 10,000-year-old civilization is difficult to produce, but some feel a recent discovery off the coast of a tiny Japanese island, Yonaguni, may be the proof they seek.
View Pyramids in Japan documentary. Video hosted on Guba. On the picture: Ariel Sharon with Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, On May 19 2001 a report on Whitley Strieber's Unknown Country brought news that Frank Joseph, editor of "Ancient American Magazine", would speak that night on "Dreamland" about a conference he recently attended in Japan at which Japanese geologists and archæologists argued that the sunken pyramid structure off the coast of the island of Yonaguni near Okinawa, Japan, has been found to be man-made. It reported that:
"The structure was found by dive tour operator Kihachiro Aratake in 1985 and has been a source of controversy ever since. It appears to be a construction made of wide terraces, ramps and large steps. However, American geologists have contended that the structure is not manmade, but a natural formation.
According to the report, Japanese scientists have documented marks on the stones that indicate that they were hewn. Not only that, the tools used in this process have been found in the area, and carvings have been discovered. A small stairway carved into the rocks appears to render the theory that this is a natural formation implausible."
The report that this enigmatic underwater structure has shown more evidence of being man-made, also offered the opinion that 'American geologists' have claimed that the structure is not man-made, and is a natural formation. But this contention was itself out-of-focus:
"It appears to be a construction made of wide terraces, ramps and large steps. However, American geologists have contended that the structure is not manmade, but a natural formation."
Presumably, they were referring to Dr. Robert M. Schoch, a geologist who has dived on the structure for inspection a number of times since 1997, and whose comments seem to have been misunderstood by some academics, while being dismissed totally by increasingly desperate Atlantis-seekers.
Dr Schoch has made it clear that he feels the structure was primarily a natural structure that people in ancient times had carved out of the 'living bedrock' and enhanced to suit their purposes. His actual comments in 1999 were:
"We should also consider the possibility that the Yonaguni Monument is fundamentally a natural structure that was utilized, enhanced, and modified by humans in ancient times."
This type of activity seems to have been widely used in ancient times all over the archaic world, and has become known as 'terra-forming' - nature suggests a shape, and human hands go to work to modify it as they want or need it to look. This could have been done for ritual purposes, or for purely practical ones. No-one can yet say for sure ...
According to the report of the 2001 conference in Japan, there have been a number of discoveries recently that add a great deal of weight to the theory that the structure was certainly 'terra-formed' at least by ancient people:
"Japanese scientists have documented marks on the stones that indicate that they were hewn. Not only that, the tools used in this process have been found in the area, and carvings have been discovered. A small stairway carved into the rocks appears to render the theory that this is a natural formation implausible.
The problem with all of this for western scientists is that it implies that an unknown eastern culture had developed a high degree of organization thousands of years before the earliest western civilizations. Geologically, the Yonaguni pyramid sank into the ocean at the end of the last ice age, around ten thousand years ago. Some western geologists have theorized that, if it is manmade, it must have risen from the sea in more recent times, and been carved then.
However, the discovery of other, similar structures beneath the sea of Japan was also announced at the conference. If these prove to be similar to the Yonaguni pyramid they may rewrite the history of early man."
Studies of the structures, such as that conducted over the past ten years or so by Professor Masaaki Kimura, a marine geologist at the Department of Physics and Earth Sciences at the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, were responsible for initiating the debate that currently rages about the Yonaguni 'monument'. In September 1997 Dr Schoch dived on the structure for the first time. He had been invited there by Graham Hancock, who was then researching "Heaven's Mirror", filming a series of TV programmes, and presumably laying the groundwork for his recent book "Underworld".
(From: morien-institute.org)
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