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NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Dennis Stanford
Pre-Columbian America
Pre-Columbian America continues to generate books and articles at an ever-increasing rate, fed by dramatic improvements and discoveries in many sciences. Nevertheless, the resulting theories still range from the serious to the silly.
This compilation has frequently touched on the subject pre-Columbian America as a number of Atlantis related theories have proposed what are only peripheral connections with America, although in the immediate aftermath of America’s rediscovery, some European commentators were content to designate America as Atlantis itself.
Since then a range of claims have been made as to the identity of European visitors to America, often long before Columbus, sometimes with an underlying suggestion of nationalism. Richard Callaghan, an archaeologist at the University of Calgary, In the June 2015 issue of the journal Antiquity, “presented the results of computer simulations of 1,200 voyages of small boats drifting with the currents from northern Africa to the Americas. About 82 percent of Callaghan’s simulated boats made landfall in the Americas, many in 70 to 120 days. Since watercrafts have been around for at least 8,000 years, Callaghan says there could have been a “significant number” of successful pre-Columbian voyages to America.” Another archaeologist, Bradley T. Lepper, ironically writing in the Columbus Dispatch, rejected Callaghan’s data as evidence(l).
John L. Sorenson writing in the Journal of the Book of Mormon Studies(m) identifies evidence for transoceanic exchanges of 98 plant species, including tobacco and peanuts! I assume that he was driven by a very different agenda.
The weight of evidence so far favours the idea that most of the earliest pre-Columbians came from Asia either by sea or over what is now the Bering Strait. See the Arysio Dos Santos article(a) about Americas peopled by from an Asian Atlantis.
The online World History Encyclopaedia outlines the prehistory of North America from 40,000 BC when the Paleo-Indians arrived until 8,000 BC(i). Of course this statement begs the question – where did they come from?
The discovery of further early trans-Atlantic links was announced in February 2012(n) by two archaeologists, Professors Dennis Stanford & the lateBruce Bradley, in a newly published book – Across Atlantic Ice [1516]. Their claim is based on ‘Solutrean’ tools recently found in Delaware and five other east coast sites dated between 26,000 and 19,000 years ago. They offered “archaeological and oceanographic evidence to support this assertion, the book dismantles the old paradigm while persuasively linking Clovis technology with the culture of the Solutrean people who occupied France and Spain more than 20,000 years ago.”
In 2014, Stephen Oppenheimer endorsed the work of Stanford and Bradley(s).
However, a sceptical view of their work should also be read(o). However, by 2016 the Soultrean Hypothesis had been contradicted by genetic studies(p). Nevertheless, a recent documentary on the hypothesis has raised some controversy, as the program failed to refer to the use of the Soultrean Hypothesis by white supremacists(q). Jennifer Raff, who appeared in the documentary, has also rejected the Stanford & Bradley theory in a new article(r).
In 2014 Michael J. O’Brien et al published another critical review of Stanford & Bradley’s theory on the Researchgate website and added a response from Stanford and Bradley(t).
Finally, I suggest that there may be more to Stanford & Bradley’s theory, when combined with the story of the Red Paint People.
Harry Bourne is the author of a series of lengthy papers(c) relating to African maritime history. Until I read some of his work I was unaware of the subject, with the only suggestion of Africans voyaging to the Americas was the existence of the mysterious Olmec stone heads. Bourne advised(d) that Columbus noted “that blacks were also trading on the far side of the Atlantic in the Caribbean”, but does not cite the reference.
Similarly, “According to renowned American historian and linguist Leo Weiner of Harvard University, one of the strongest pieces of evidence to support the fact that Black people sailed to America before Christopher Columbus was a journal entry from Columbus himself. In Weiner’s book, Africa and the Discovery of America, he explains that Columbus noted in his journal that the Native Americans confirmed ‘black skinned people had come from the south-east in boats, trading in gold-tipped spears’.”(x)
This whole subject could fill a library of its own and in no way is this entry intended to be a substitute for a comprehensive study of pre-Columbian America.
With their understandable Eurocentric view of the world a variety of commentators have advocated a range of pre-Columbian visitors to the Americas from this side of the Atlantic . There are a wide range of claims suggesting that such contacts included the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, the Sumerians, the Hyksos(v), the Sea Peoples(u), Phoenicians, Egyptians(k), Ancient Greeks, Minoans(j) and Romans(b)(e)(f). After that, there appears to have been an endless parade of transatlantic tourists proposed – Basques(g) , Scots [1769], Irish [2086] and Vikings [1824].
There is also a suggestion that Marco Polo visited America before Columbus(h) .
No investigation of early visitors to America should ignore the work of the controversial epigrapher Barry Fell, particularly his two books, America BC [1769] and Saga America [1770]. However, the more critical reviews of Fell’s work should also be read(w).
(a) Atlantis in the New World. – Atlan.org
(b) Ancient Romans May Have Discovered Americas Before Columbus | Gaia
(c) Black History WEB – African Maritime History Archive (50webs.com)
(d) West Africa & The Sea In Later Antiquity: Short intro. & plan (modernghana.com) (4/5ths down page)
(e) http://mexicolesstraveled.com/comalcalco.html
(f) http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/mysteries/deccott.htm
(g) https://www.archyde.com/did-the-basques-arrive-in-america-before-columbus/
(h) https://www.dailygrail.com/2014/09/did-marco-polo-discover-america-in-the-13th-century/
(i) Pre-Colonial North America – World History Encyclopedia
(j) Minoans have been to America before Columbus (bristolgreeks.com)
(l) Bradley T. Lepper The Columbus Dispatch • Sunday September 20, 2015
(m) https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1383&context=jbms
(u) Earth is my witness… Sea peoples reached Mesoamerica – COGNIARCHAE *
(v) (99+) PLUTARCH, THE OLMECS & THE HYKSOS SETTLEMENT OF AMERICA | The Mumble – Academia.edu *
Cro-Magnon Man *
Cro–Magnon Man, who emerged around 37,000 years ago and disappeared at the end of the Last Ice Age. He is often described as having a dome-shaped cranium and broad forehead and a brain capacity of 1,600 cc, which is greater than modern man. His skull has thick eyebrow projections and a bony protrusion at the back that is characteristic of both Neanderthal man and Homo erectus. Blavatsky(c), Sepehr(d) along with a number of investigators(e) have suggested that they may have been the original Atlanteans. They have pointed to the physical traits listed above together with blood grouping and linguistic similarities to be found in the same regions of Western Europe and North Africa.
Robert John Langdon also claims that “Cro-Magnon/Atlanteans colonised America” based on a study of blood group distribution(b). R. Cedric Leonard is another supporter of the idea of Cro-Magnons in America(h), citing the work of Dennis Stanford & the late Bruce Bradley [1516]. Leonard offered a more complex view of Cro-Magnons on his now-closed website, but excerpts are available elsewhere(j).
Physical anthropology has identified the modern remnants of Cro-Magnon Man in the Berbers and Tuaregs of North Africa, the Basques of Northern Spain together with small population pockets in the Dordogne Valley and Brittany in France. The highest incidence of Rhesus-negative blood in the world is to be found among the Basques. Similar high levels of Rhesus-negative blood are to be found among the inhabitants of the Canaries and the Atlas Mountains of Morocco; areas where Cro-Magnons lived. This fact is seen as evidence for claiming that the Basques are directly descended from Cro-Magnon Man.
On the basis of skull shape, William Howells[268] and Bertil Lundman[269] have supported this view. The regions that were home to Cro-Magnon Man, in Upper Paleolithic times, were comparable with those occupied by their latter-day successors such as the now-extinct Guanches of the Canaries and the Basques.
R. Cedric Leonard is probably the best-known modern proponent of the Atlantean Cro-Magnon idea(f), he refers to the work of Oliviera Martins[270], who in the 1930s, pointed out that many of the Cro-Magnon people have given themselves distinguishing names with the suffix ’tani’ from the Mauritani of North Africa to the Bretani of Brittany and Britain. Leonard also insists that an analysis of the languages of these groups of people points to a relationship with each other while being quite different from the other languages of Europe or the Near East. He thinks that it is quite possible that these ancient languages date back to the cultures of the Ice Age. Leonard also refers to what he calls “an anomalous Cro-Magnon/Atlantis outpost” in northern Palestine(a).
Alexander Marshack (1918-2004) was an American journalist turned archaeologist, who, in the 1970s, offered evidence[1633] that markings on a number of bones from the Upper Paleolithic were used as lunar calendars to mark the passage of time. Similar markings have been identified on the painted walls of the famous Cro-Magnon Lascaux caves in France(g).
At the Paleolithic site at Little Salt Spring in Florida an antler incised with 28 notches was reported in 2011(i). Commenting on this, Caleb Everett has proposed [1776.30] that “In fact, the marks suggest that this piece of antler is the oldest known New World artifact used for calendrical purposes.” If confirmed, it will go some way towards vindicating the much-criticised theories of Marshack!
This combination of date, geographical spread, language and physical similarities offers a reasonable basis for postulating the idea of a coherent civilisation along the European and North African Atlantic seaboards and in the Atlantic itself, at the end of the last Ice Age that could be accommodated by one interpretation of Plato’s Atlantis. Lewis Spence was a supporter of this possibility.
Jason Colavito has unearthed late 19th-century attempts to link the Cro-Magnons with the Nephilim of the Bible(k).
Johan Nygren believes that Cro-Magnon man lived in Atlantis(c), which he claims had existed in the vicinity of Iceland(l), he also drew attention to the similarities between Greenland and the 17th-century map of Atlantis offered by Athanasius Kircher(m).
The possibility of a Cro-Magnon connection with Atlantis has inspired an American writer, Ernest Warner, to produce a number of novels based on this concept starting with The Cro-Magnon Archipelago: Atlantis Reborn, in 2021.
(a) https://www.atlantisquest.com/Outpost.html (offline March 2018) See Archive 2260
(b) The Post Glacial Flooding Hypothesis: Cro-Magnon/Atlanteans colonised America (archive.org)
(c) Cro Magnon Man And Atlantis – blavatsky.net (archive.org)
(d) https://atlanteangardens.blogspot.ie/2014/04/the-cro-magnon-invasions.html
(e) https://differentpast.wordpress.com/2012/05/19/cro-magnon-and-atlantis/
(f) https://atlantisforschung.de/index.php?title=Atlantis_und_der_Cro-Magnon-Mensch
(g) https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/975360.stm
(h) https://web.archive.org/web/20161126063206/https://www.atlantisquest.com/America.html
(i) Budget Cuts Close Florida’s Little Salt Spring – Archaeology Magazine (link broken) *
(j) new illuminati: Atlantis and Cro-Magnon Man (nexusilluminati.blogspot.com)
(k) An Early Argument that Cro-Magnons Were the Nephilim – JASON COLAVITO
(l) https://steemit.com/atlantis/@johan-nygren/iceland-as-atlantis-2-0
Red Paint People
The Red Paint People, sometimes referred to as the Maritime Archaic culture of the north Atlantic coast of America, particularly Labrador, got their name from their habit of covering their dead with red ochre. They were a seafaring people who lived around 5000 BC. Similar discoveries have also been made in the State of Maine(e), where they flourished until they disappeared around 1800 BC , according to Hilary Nangle in a guide to Arcadia National Park.
A similar culture existed in northern Europe and both are 
claimed, by ‘imaginative’ writers such as Shirley Andrews and Frank Joseph, to have been established by refugees from Atlantis after the destruction of their homeland.
Slate tools of a similar type have been identified in Scandinavia and North America dated to around 3000 BC(b). Skara Brae in the Orkneys ha been claimed as an outpost of the Red Paint People(i).
Ivar Zapp & George Erikson recount[244.309] how bones discovered in similar stone chambers in Labrador and on the island of Teviec off France were both covered with red ochre and both dated to around 5500 BC. Richard W. Welch refers[630] to the Red Paint People as just part of a range of evidence to suggest that the Americas were originally settled by Europeans in prehistoric times.
There are also suggestions that the use of red ochre at burial sites may go back much further and would have been even more widespread.>Recently, ochre mining has been identified in a cave in the Yucatan and dated to 11,400-10,700 years ago(k).<
The Paviland Cave in south Wales held the skeleton of a young man dated to at the latest 19,000 BC. The most recent investigation has now pushed that date back to 33,000 BC(g).
The skeleton of a young child found at Abrigo do Lagar Velho in Portugal, was also discovered with red ochre and dated to 22500 BC(a). Further examples have been found across Europe and as far as Mesopotamia.
The discovery of further early trans-Atlantic links were announced in February 2012(c) by two archaeologists, Professors Dennis Stanford & Professor Bruce Bradley, in a newly published book – Across Atlantic Ice[1516]. Their claim is based on ‘Solutrean’ tools recently found in Delaware and five other east coast sites dated between 26,000 and 19,000 years ago. A sceptical view of their work should also be read(d). However, in 2016. the Soultrean Hypothesis was contradicted by genetic studies(f). Nevertheless, a recent documentary on the hypothesis has raised some controversy, as the program failed to refer to the use of the Soultrean Hypothesis by white supremacists(h). Jennifer Raff, who appeared in the documentary, has rejected the Stanford & Bradley theory in a new article(j).
The most ancient pyramid found in Mesoamerica at Chiapa de Corzo in Mexico contained the bodies of two rulers, coated in red pigment from head to toe. The pyramid is dated to around 700 BC. This may indicate a continuance of the same sacred custom over thousands of years.
Marcel Homet also discovered red painted skeletons in the Amazon region[813.180].
(a) See: Archive 2855
(b) See: Archive 3589
>(e) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1913.15.1.02a00050/pdf<
(i) https://historysmysteries.yolasite.com/red-paint-people.php