After World War II, anthropologists and archaeologists confirmed the discovery of a former land bridge between Siberia and Alaska called Beringia. This land, now lost to the ocean, seemed to vindicate Acosta’s original idea that people came to America by land. After World War II the idea of the land bridge route became the official explanation for the peopling of America and as with all things “official,” it soon became sacrosanct. Any suggestion that people came from anywhere other than Siberia was ignored.
Initially, the land bridge theory did dovetail with the physical evidence unearthed that characterized the first Americans as big game hunters. These supposed “first” Americans used a “clovis” blade (named after an excavation site near Clovis, New Mexico). A paradigm, known as the clovis first theory,13 soon gripped the archaeological establishment. It assumed that at approximately 9500 BCE the earliest native people of America arrived as big-game hunters from Asia. They traveled across the Beringia land bridge through an ice-free corridor that passed between the massive ice sheets that otherwise blocked their way (see figure 10.1).
Let’s consider these ice sheets and the possible ice-free corridor. At the same time that arctic Siberia was full of life and largely free of ice, two vast ice sheets bore down on North America. At its height the Laurentide Ice Sheet, centered on Hudson Bay, was larger than Antarctica’s current ice cap. It covered most of Canada as well as the states that border the Great Lakes. In the west, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet lay along the Rocky Mountains, covering southern Alaska, almost all of British Columbia, and a good share of Alberta, Washington State, Idaho, and Montana. The lower ocean level created the Beringia land bridge, which connected an ice-free Alaska with an ice-free Siberia.
Figure 10.1. The long accepted theory of the peopling of America states that 11,600 years ago an ice-free corridor opened between the western and eastern ice sheets of North America allowing people from Siberia to make their way between the ice sheets to reach the central plains. A more recent theory suggests that people in boats may have followed the Pacific coast to arrive in America.
At that time, an ice-free corridor between the ice sheets was believed by archaeologists to be the sole avenue of entrance to America by people coming from Siberia. While we do not subscribe to this theory, we note that the existence of the ice-free corridor has never been explained. Why should this region be ice-free? Archaeologists and geologists have no idea. Hapgood supplies a simple answer: The crust was in a different position when the corridor was formed. The sun would rise from the direction of the Gulf of Mexico and set toward the Yukon. This arc of sunshine cut a path through the ice and melted the snow that fell there. The appearance of the ice-free corridor is no longer so “odd” (see figures 10.2–10.5).
Figure 10.2. Before 91,600 BCE, the Arctic Circle was centered on the northwest corner of North America. In the Southern Hemisphere, that part of Greater Antarctica that lies toward Africa was under ice. Much of Lesser Antarctica was ice free. The Cordilleran Ice Sheet of northwest North America was created at this time.
Figure 10.3. After the first displacement, in the years from 91,600 BCE to 50,600, the Arctic Circle contained much of Europe and all of Greenland. Passage from Asia to America was open. Northwestern Siberia, Beringia, and Alaska enjoyed a mild climate. In the Southern Hemisphere, the part of Greater Antarctica leaning toward New Zealand was under ice.
Figure 10.4. After the second displacement, between 50,600 and 9600 BCE, North America felt the grip of the Arctic Circle. Most of Greenland remained in the polar zone. The massive Laurentide Ice Sheet on North America was created at this time. Lesser Antarctica, the site of Atlantis, along with Siberia, Beringia, and Alaska, was ice-free except at high altitudes. During this time migration from Asia to the New World was open.
Figure 10.5. After the third earth crust displacement in 9600 BCE, North America was freed from the icy grip of the polar zone, which left the Great Lakes in its wake. Greenland was for the third straight time trapped inside the Arctic Circle (except for the southern tip), accounting for 90 percent of the ice in the Northern Hemisphere. Siberia, for the first time, was brought into the polar zone. All of Antarctica was encapsulated by the Antarctic Circle, causing a “dire winter” on the island continent, as recorded in the Vedic story of the lost island paradise of Airyana Vaêjo.
So after consideration of these earth crust displacements, was there an alternate ice-free corridor into America, rather than a corridor down the center of Canada? Consider this: In the March 1994 issue of Popular Science, Ray Nelson reported on an important archaeological find in New Mexico. Dr. Richard S. MacNeish, along with his team from the Andover Foundation for Archaeological Research, excavated a site at Pendejo Cave, in southwestern New Mexico. They found eleven human hairs in a cave about one hundred meters above the desert. Radiocarbon testing dated them at fifty-five thousand years ago.14
MacNeish’s find is important because it confirms that migration to North America from Siberia was possible between 91,600 BCE and 50,600 BCE (see figure 10.3) and again after the next earth crust displacement at 50,600 BCE (see figure 10.4). This displacement dragged eastern North America into the polar zone but left islands off the Pacific coast free of ice. The Arctic Circle then lay over Hudson Bay. Greenland remained in the polar zone. Theoretically, from 91,600 BCE to 9600 BCE, people travelling in boats could have moved from Siberia to America along the Pacific Coast where they could navigate between the ice-free islands (see figure 10.6).
Figure 10.6. Directions change with each earth crust displacement. Before the last catastrophe, the Pacific side of North America was actually the south, while the Arctic Circle was centered on Hudson Bay. Seen from this perspective, the migration of people from Siberia, across Beringia, and along the Pacific coast would be a movement from west to east. Seen from Haida Gwaii, the sun would appear to rise from the direction of California and set in the direction of Alaska.
This Pacific waterway to America was open and inviting and has, since the publication of the first edition of this book in 1995, become the prevailing theory of how people arrived in America. But these archaeological theories have a serious blind spot. None of them take any account of what the people themselves say.
If we listen with respect to the tales that the people of the First Nations of America tell then we find no stories of ice walls or traveling through ice. Instead, we discover an entirely different scenario from that favored by archaeologists. It is a scenario of violent upheaval from a homeland that was destroyed (see chapter 5). There are stories of arrival in ships and others that tell of ancient ancestors who were already in America and were forced to climb mountains to save themselves from the rising ocean.
In the past decade the clovis first theory of the peopling of America has fallen apart as each of its assumptions was challenged by physical evidence. This evidence has come primarily from South America, which has more “pre-Clovis” sites than North America.15 The contradictions between the physical evidence in South America and the theories from North America have only recently come to light because a whole new generation of Latin American archaeologists has entered the field.
It was Plato who first commented on the conditions that permit the exploration of the past. “The enquiry into antiquity are first introduced into cities when they begin to have leisure, and when they see that the necessaries of life have already been provided, but not before.”16
The prosperity of North America gave its theorists an advantage in archaeology for it allowed universities in the United States and Canada to turn out waves of archaeologists whose focus was North America. The far fewer numbers of Latin American archaeologists were at a disadvantage. Theories were developed primarily in the United States and were applied to Central and South America even before excavations had been carried out. Argentine archaeologist Vivian Scheinshon complained in 2003, “South American huntergatherer archaeology has been strongly influence by North American archaeology. Automatic application of North American mo
dels in South America and a tendency to overemphasize similitude on both continents were the consequences.”17
The most notable site, only accepted after some nasty squabbling by the defenders of the clovis first theory, is in Chile and has been clearly dated to at least 14,500 years ago.18 The Monte Verde site broke through the wall established by Clovis and opened up the possibility that people had been in America long before 9500 BCE.
The clovis first theory has been falsified, and we who have long believed that the First Nations of America origins date to much farther back than 9600 BCE have been vindicated. But the prevailing paradigm that assumes that all the first people of America came from Asia has yet to be challenged.
Physical evidence increasingly points to South America as the first entry point to America. Could these people have come from Antarctica? The idea is as unacceptable today as pre-Clovis entry-point sites were just a few years ago. But if we listen to the mythology of the people of Lake Titicaca, we learn that their ancestors came from the south at the time of a Great Flood (see chapter 6). If we take seriously the mythology of the Okanagan people, who say their ancestors came from a vast island in the middle of the ocean (see chapter 3), then we might just begin to look at the ancient age of South America in a new light.
ELEVEN
FINDING ATLANTIS
There has been a cycle in the quest for knowledge. We began in humility, appealing to the gods to protect us from the unknown. Later, we imagined a world perfectly ordered by God’s divine will. But it was faith in reason that transformed us from believers in supernatural intervention into followers of the creed of progress. And now we have come full circle, once again humbled by the immensity of the universe. We no longer cast spells to protect us against the unknown. We cast spacecraft into the void.
The story of our search for order and pattern has been lost in the mute, unwritten past. For before science, there was magic. Magic was a tool of the hunter when he drew stark images of animals over firelit walls. Through magic the shaman hoped to secure the future, but a future that never dared to challenge the elder’s myths. It was taboo to doubt the gods. This inhibition was the fatal flaw in the design woven by these early magicians. All was explained, but little was truly understood. The power of magic was destined to flounder, for without the freedom to cast doubt on an idea, there can be no genuine inquiry. And without inquiry, magic could not evolve into science.
The hunger to command and the need to pilot our own fate have been among humankind’s most persistent traits. Science has shone a great light along the shadowy road, but it has been a bumpy ride. Unlike shamans or the priests, scientists must by the very nature of their calling be willing to tamper with taboos. From this struggle there emerged a new way of seeing the world and a new way of learning and knowing.
For millennia, our worldview was clouded by the mist of magic and myth. But then, quite suddenly, six centuries before the birth of Christ, came a clearing. On the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, the Ionian Greeks burst forth with a fresh and energetic way of seeing the world. They heralded the death of magic and the birth of science.
The first “immortal” to be struck down by the new sword of science was the Olympian god of the sea, Poseidon. As master of the ocean he commanded the respect, awe, and honor of all seafaring Greeks. Poseidon was a violent god who carried within his arsenal the dreaded weapon of the earthquake. Since the land of the Greeks had often fallen victim to earthquakes, Poseidon was not only worshipped but also feared. It is not surprising then, given this fear, that the Greeks were disturbed when one of the seven wise men, Thales (ca. 636–546 BCE), dared to suggest that the fearful rumbling of the earth was not controlled by the powerful Poseidon.
Thales may have acquired his materialistic explanation of the cause of earthquakes while visiting Egypt. We are told, “He went to Egypt and spent some time with the priests there.”1 Thales set no bounds on his curiosity and delved into the enigmas of the soul as well as solutions to the mysteries of the universe. These lines attributed to him touch the depth of his intellect: “Of all things that are, the most ancient is God, for he is uncreated. The most beautiful is the universe, for it is God’s workmanship. The greatest is space, for it holds all things. The swiftest is mind, for it speeds everywhere. The strongest, necessity for it masters all. The wisest, time, for it brings everything to light.”2
But above all Thales dared to doubt. He argued that the island-earth was like a great ship at sea that, as it rocked on the waters, experienced earthquakes. Thales had proclaimed the unthinkable. He had usurped the role of a god by providing a physical explanation for a natural phenomenon. Thales thus became the world’s first acknowledged scientist.a He began the long, relentless battle that, even in our time, is waged between faith and reason, myth and science.
It is accepted opinion today that mythology and science are like oil and water: they don’t mix. But like Thales we should always be willing to cast doubt on accepted opinion. If we use science as our torch, a pathway can be made through the darkness of mythology: myth and science need not always collide.
Thales found order within the universe: he showed that gods and goddesses were no longer needed to unravel the powers of nature. Human beings could do it alone. However, it would take centuries before this radical notion was to find its proper place in history. Until then another explanation for the mystery of the actions of the gods was needed.
In the fourth century BCE, a Sicilian by the name of Euhemerus wrote Sacred History, in which he argued that the exploits of the gods and goddesses of ancient times were simply exaggerated tales of the real deeds of former kings and queens. Thus was born the first school of mythology. The idea was simple but provocative. Myths were signposts to the past. They might be used to recapture the lost lines of history. They were disguised truths that might lead us to hidden treasures, lost cities, perhaps even lost continents. But this “lost history” school of mythology never became widely accepted. The people of Rome preferred to believe in the reality of their gods and goddesses. Later, Christians would seek paradise in the afterlife, not on earth.
The first great mythologist of the modern age was the son of an Italian bookseller. Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) was a selfeducated scholar who saw myths as valuable keys to understanding human culture and the workings of the mind. Vico believed that societies move through various stages of development and that each stage produced a corresponding level of mythology. He wrote, “The fables originating among the first savage and crude men were very severe, as befitted the founding nations emerging from a state of fierce bestial freedom.”3
In this anthropological approach myths are vital keys to understanding culture. Each culture is seen as a unique and self-contained unit. Vico recognized the limitations of his interpretation and augmented it by comparing myths from around the world. “Uniform ideas originating among entire peoples unknown to each other must have a common ground of truth.”4
Also, Vico offered the prospect of finding common ground in the nature of the human mind. “There must in the nature of human things be a mental language common to all nations, which uniformly grasps the substance of things.”5
This psychological school of mythology found forceful proponents in the English anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917) and the psychiatrists Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and Carl Jung (1875–1961). More recently the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss (born 1908) and the American mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) have enriched this approach to myths.
For Tylor the fascination lay within the commonality of myths from around the world. “The treatment of similar myths from different regions, by arranging them in large compared groups, makes it possible to trace in mythology the operation of the imaginative processes recurring with the evident regularity of mental law; and thus stories of which a single instance would have been a mere isolated curiosity, take their place among well-marked and consistent structures of the human mind.”6
Freud believed that the mind filters memories to suit its present state and distrusted myths as an inaccurate representation of real events.
One is thus forced by various considerations to suspect that in the so-called earliest childhood memories we possess not the genuine memory-tree but a later revision of it, a revision which may have been subjected to the influences of a variety of later psychical forces. Thus the “childhood memories” of individuals come in general to acquire the significance of “screen memories” and in doing so offer a remarkable analogy with the childhood memories that a nation preserves in its store of legends and myths.7
Jung took the idea of myths as doorways to the mind even further than Freud. Like Vico, Jung was fascinated by the appearance of similar myths around the globe. “Although traditional transmission by migration certainly plays a part there are, as we have said, very many cases that cannot be accounted for in this way and drive us to assume the existence of a collective psychic substratum. I have called this the collective unconscious.”8
Like Freud and Jung, Levi-Strauss seeks clues in myths to the workings of the mind. “The purpose of myth is to provide a logical model capable of overcoming a contradiction.”9
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