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NEWS September 2023
September 2023. Hi Atlantipedes, At present I am in Sardinia for a short visit. Later we move to Sicily and Malta. The trip is purely vacational. Unfortunately, I am writing this in a dreadful apartment, sitting on a bed, with access to just one useable socket and a small Notebook. Consequently, I possibly will not […]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 »
James Churchward
Hyperdiffusion
Hyperdiffusion is defined by Wikipedia(n) as “a pseudoarchaeological hypothesis suggesting that certain historical technologies or ideas originated with a single people or civilization before their adoption by other cultures. Thus, all great civilizations that share similar cultural practices, such as construction of pyramids, derived them from a single common progenitor. According to its proponents, examples of hyperdiffusion can be found in religious practices, cultural technologies, megalithic monuments, and lost ancient civilizations.”
Hyperdiffusion with Atlantis at its centre was argued at great length by Ignatius Donnelly when he proposed Atlantis as the mother culture, located in the Atlantic. Through colonisation and migration, their civilisation was brought to the Americas and the Mediterranean, particularly Egypt. The idea received widespread support at the time>>from people such as the Rev. Joseph Cook<<and has persisted until today(a), with Graham Hancock being currently the best-known proponent of hyperdiffusion. In 2022, Marco Vigato also advocated Atlantis as a hyperdiffusionist hub.
A similar hyperdiffusionist proposal was made by James Churchward regarding his Pacific island of Mu.
Angelo Mazzoldi expressed support for a form of regional hyperdiffusion that had his Italian Atlantis as the mother culture which seeded all the great civilisations of the eastern Mediterranean region.
However, even earlier, in the seventeenth century, Olof Rudbeck “purported to prove that Sweden was Atlantis, the cradle of civilization, and Swedish the original language of Adam from which Latin and Hebrew had evolved.”(i)
Since Atlantis in the Atlantic is considered by many to be highly improbable and Mu only existed in Churchward’s imagination, a more likely explanation is that diverse ideas emerged independently in different locations, possibly around the same time. These developments then diffused through trade and migration in various directions, sometimes returning in an improved format. The result is that today we are finding that most ancient civilisations show evidence of cultural influences from more than one source.
Lawrence Freeman is the American author of Beyond The Pillars: a search for Antediluvian civilizations(l) in which he reviews almost every civilisation and prehistoric mystery that you ever heard of. He refers to Atlantis throughout the book, but in rather sceptical tones, with the nearest to a conclusion being that – “Atlantis may well have never existed, but if it did exist, then it was likely only as part of a worldwide antediluvian civilization that is now coming to light.”
Richard Cassaro and Jim Allen have both published online large collections of images(b)(c)(d) that clearly demonstrate widespread diffusion. This is particularly so in the case of South America where influences from both east and west are clearly evident. While it is regularly claimed that Egypt influenced South American civilisations it is obvious that Asian inspiration was equally, if not solely, at work. The existence of pyramids in both Egypt and Mesoamerica is put forward as evidence of contact between them. However, the problem is that the American pyramids were constructed hundreds if not thousands of years later than the Egyptian ones. However, in spite of this separation by time and distance, the Egyptians and the Aztecs also shared feathered-serpent deities(g)! What appears to be overlooked is the fact that the Chinese pyramids are more like Mesoamerican examples and are dated to the second half of the first millennium BC, again closer to the development of pyramids in Mesoamerica.
Christian O’Brien contended that global cultural hyperdiffusion was centred in Southern Lebanon (the Garden of Eden) and was spread from there by ‘The Shining Ones’ leading to the establishment of some of the great civilisations of our ancient past!(m)
An even more unusual hyperdiffusionist opinion was expressed by the Argentine palaeontologist, Florintino Ameghino (1854-1911), who thought that mankind originated in South America(h) and spread globally from there!
In 2020, Anthony Woods [1775] attempted to prove that Atlantis was Ireland and also the source of the mother culture for the entire world. As an Irishman, when reading this, I did not know whether to laugh or cry.
In March 2021, Hugh Newman published a paper drawing attention to the similarity of megalithic building techniques, using polygonal stones, found in America, Asia, Europe and Africa. He goes further, noting that “Peruvian relief carvings match those at Göbekli Tepe.” How much of this might be the result of coincidence or hyperdiffusion is a matter of opinion.(k)
Carl Feagans offers a paper that is highly critical of hyperdiffusion and its promoters, denouncing them as “willfully ignorant and grossly racist. Though they don’t say it directly, the message is still the same: “white people did it, not savages.”(j)
A 1986 paper(f) by Ben Urish entitled Cultural Diffusion[0969] should be read in this connection.
(a) https://www.africaspeaks.com/reasoning/index.php?topic=5106.0
(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20200629021253/http://www.atlantisbolivia.org/artefacts.htm
(e) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_pyramids
(f) Wayback Machine (archive.org) *
(g) See: Archive 2827
(h) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20180329154212/https://webs.advance.com.ar/lae_tor/teorias.htm
(i) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaus_Rudbeck
(j) https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2016/12/hyper-diffusion-archaeology/
(l) https://lfreeman.blogspot.com/2006/11/beyond-pillars-search-for-antediluvian.html
Macmillan Brown, John
John Macmillan Brown (1845-1935) although Scottish by birth, he spent his academic life in New Zealand, where he was a professor of Classics and English at Canterbury College in Christchurch. He had an enlightened attitude towards the education of women.
In 1924, he published Riddle of the Pacific[1155] in which he expressed the view that there had been a continent in the Pacific with some of today’s island groups its only remnants. This was some years before James Churchward started publishing his books on Mu.
Nan Madol
Nan Madol is a large stone city on the Micronesian island of Pohnpei in the Western Pacific. The entire site covers 170 acres and according to Frank Joseph is comprised of an estimated 250 million tons of basalt!(b) An article on the Smithsonian website offers very different figures(c).
The city 
has a series of canals connecting the structures, which were built on nearly a hundred artificial islands. It has been called both the ‘Venice’ and the ‘Atlantis’ of the Pacific. Conventional archaeology dates the site to around 1200 AD.
James Churchward claimed Nan Madol as part of his concocted Mu. David Hatcher Childress has proposed that the site was part of Lemuria, another invention. Erich von Däniken in his The Gold of the Gods was happy to claim that as a result of extraterrestrial intervention, the ancient Micronesians, had mastered flight and used this ability to transport the stone for the construction of the city!
In 1979, Bill S. Ballinger published Lost City of Stone [1920], following the author’s visit to the island a few years earlier. In common with other commentators, he could not offer any credible explanation as to the identity of the site’s builders or its purpose.
Recent archaeological research in 2017, led by Mark McCoy from Texas Southern Methodist University, has, not unexpectedly, regenerated foolish speculation that the remarkable site might in some way be connected with Plato’s Atlantis(a).
Dr Heinrich Kruparz, the Austrian author of Atlantis und Lemuria [990] has also penned a paper (in English) on the mysterious megaliths of Nan Madol(d).
Another site offers a series of interesting images from Nan Madol(e).
>The megalithic site of Pohnpaid is less than four miles from the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Nan Madol, and is the subject of a book by Carole Nervig, The Petroglyphs of MU [2087]. She featured as Author of the Month on Graham Hancock‘s website for December 2022(f). The author includes a lot of waffle about earth grids created by an ancient Mother Culture a la Hancock!<
(b) Atlantis Rising magazine #51 p.46 https://atlantisrising.com/product/issue-51-atlantis-in-the-bahamas/
(c) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/nan-madol-the-city-built-on-coral-reefs-147288758/
(d) https://migration-diffusion.info/pdfdownload.php?id=445&file=1 ·
(e) Scientists are puzzled by this mysterious ancient city (msn.com)
(f) The Petroglyphs of Mu: Pohnpei, Nan Madol and the Legacy of Mu – Graham Hancock Official Website *
Churchward, Albert
Albert Churchward (1852-1925) was a younger brother of James Churchward, the ‘inventor’ of Mu. Although trained as a medical practitioner,
his real passion was the study of the early development of religion[943] and the later development of Christianity from Egyptian origins. In that respect he was greatly influenced by the work of Gerald Massey(a)(c). He makes no reference to Mu or Atlantis, because he either disagreed with his brother’s views or just did not wish to tread on his literary toes! His book The Origin and Evolution of the Human Race[903] can now be read online(b).
(a) https://www.peuplesawa.com/fr/bnlogik.php?bnid=759&bnk=&bnrub=&vip=581
(b) https://www.cedarcitylodge.org/books/origin_and_evolution.pdf
(c) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20180316022505/https://gerald-massey.org.uk/massey/cmc_churchward.htm
Swastika
The Swastika is a symbol that is said to have a 12,000-year-old history(I) and is occasionally suggested as having an Atlantean link. This is highly improbable as modern research has suggested that it was more likely to have originally represented an ancient cometary display in the sky(c), 
explaining the ubiquity of the symbol around the world. Fernando Coimbra wrote a paper(h)on this subject in 2011.
In 1896, the Smithsonian Institution published an extensive paper by Thomas Wilson (1832-1902), a curator at the U.S. National Museum, demonstrating the global spread of the swastika symbol[1466].
Another site demonstrates the widespread use of the swastika and its variants in commercial iconography(d). In April 2014, a well-illustrated report(k) revealed that a 7,000-year-old piece of pottery with a swastika on it was discovered in Bulgaria.
I recall that my native Dublin had a firm, founded in 1912 by a Mr. Brittain, called the Swastika Laundry, which had their vans liveried in bright red with a white swastika on a black background. The business lasted into the 1960s. However, the use of the swastika in Ireland goes back much further, perhaps to pre-Christian times. St. Brigid, one of Ireland’s patron saints, is generally thought to be a Christianised version of the Celtic goddess Brighid. St.Brigid’s Cross, a popular symbol of the saint found all over Ireland, is considered to be a variant of the swastika. One Indian gentleman was amazed when he encountered a swastika inside the Catholic church at Ballintubber Abbey in Co. Mayo(s).
James Churchward claimed that the swastika was a symbol of his invented civilisation, Mu, while Robert Stacy-Judd speculated[607.243] that it had originated in Atlantis. Others have attempted(e) to link the swastika and its presentation in red, white and black to be in some way connected with Plato’s reference to the colours of the rocks found in Atlantis. In a 1959 article in Sykes’ Atlantis magazine by Arthur Louis Joquel II declared(o) that the swastika had been the symbol of Atlantis! No evidence was offered.
Leaving conjecture aside it can be demonstrated that the swastika was an ancient Hindu symbol and also used in the Indus Valley civilisation(b). In fact, the use of the swastika has now been traced back to circa 10,000 BC. This image is included in the incredibly well-illustrated lecture by Robert M. Chapple, which also includes a large section with many images of swastikas used from early Christian times in Ireland until the present(r).
While Heinrich Schliemann was excavating Troy at Hissarlik, he discovered many hundreds of swastikas throughout the site and was responsible for bringing what had been, until then, a benign symbol back to Germany, where it was later hijacked by the Nazis and came to represent oppression(n).
The long honourable history of the swastika should not be erased because of its abuse at the hands of the Nazis. The residents of Swastika in Ontario, have for decades steadfastly refused to change the name of their community, which has been in use since 1907.
In 1925, the people of Panama’s indigenous province of Guna Yala adopted a flag having a black left-facing swastika, said to represent the four directions and the creation of the world(p). Also in the Americas, Gary A. David has highlighted the use of the swastika in a more benign way by the Hopi of northern Arizona along with its innocent use in other cultures including the Minoans, as well as in 20th century USA(q).
Jacques Gossart wrote a book[341] on the history of the swastika and in Denys Eissart’s now inactive website, L’épopée atlante (The Atlantis Epic) he devoted a page to a discussion on the subject(a). More recently Richard Cassaro has published two articles(f)(g) highlighting the extensive use of the swastika. The articles are well illustrated including some fascinating images. He also attempts, unsuccessfully in my view, to suggest a link between the swastika and Atlantis. A Reclaim the Swastika website(j) is campaigning for the promotion of the swastika as a spiritual symbol as it had been in the past.
A number of large swastika-shaped features have been spotted from the air(m). In 2007 it was announced(t) that “The Navy plans to spend $600,000 for ‘camouflage’ landscaping and rooftop adjustments so that 1960s-era barracks at the Naval Base Coronado near San Diego will no longer look like a Nazi swastika from the air.”
(a) Svastikas (L’épopée atlante) (archive.org)
(b) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/IndusValleySeals.JPG
(h) https://www.academia.edu/2951519/The_astronomical_origins_of_the_swastika_motif
(i) https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/symbol-swastika-and-its-12000-year-old-history-001312
(j) https://web.archive.org/web/20201108132629/http://reclaimtheswastika.com/
(k) https://atlanteangardens.blogspot.ie/2014/04/7000-year-old-swastika-pottery.html
(l) https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/symbol-swastika-and-its-12000-year-old-history-001312
(m) https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2016/04/another-giant-swastika-spotted-this-time-near-roswell/
(o) Atlantis, Vol.12, No.3, March/April 1959.
(p) http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180813-guna-yala-the-islands-where-women-make-the-rules
>(q) https://www.academia.edu/8661508/The_Four_Arms_of_Destiny_Swastikas_in_the_Hopi_World_and_Beyond
(s) https://deshika.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/a-swastika-in-a-catholic-church/
(t) The New York Times, Sept. 27 2007
Stacy-Judd, Robert B.
Robert B. Stacy-Judd (1884-1975) was born in London where he trained as an architect. He moved to Canada before going south and establishing a 
practice in California in 1920. He was totally fascinated by Mayan culture, particularly its architecture which led him to promote the ‘Mayan-Revival’ style of architecture in the United States.
His interest in the Maya went further leading him to write a number of books on the subject including The Ancient Mayas: Adventures in the Jungles of Yucatan 19340902] and the still very impressive Atlantis: Mother of Empires[607], in which he produced a chart (p.254) showing many parallels between the ancient cultures of the Americas and those of the Old World together with the suggestion that many of these perceived common features had their origin in Atlantis.
He suggested that Atlantis was situated in the Atlantic and that it suffered three major inundations in 23,000 BC, 14,000 BC and 9,600 BC (p.174/5) leading to a succession of migrations and cultural diffusion. He believed that the Akkadian civilisation of ancient Mesopotamia was founded by colonists directly from Atlantis or by Cro-Magnons from Spain (p.162)!
He also totally rejected Churchward’s claim that the lost continent of Mu was ‘positively’ the birthplace of the Mayan civilisation, saying that Churchward’s arguments “lack corroboration, are illogical and unconvincing.”
A biography [596]of Stacy-Judd has been written by David Gebhard. An aspect of Stacy-Judd that I had not been aware of, was his psychic abilities, revealed in an online article(a) by Franklin Loehr, a Congregational minister.
Churchward, Jack E.
Jack E. Churchward is the great-grandson of James Churchward, the creator 
of Mu. In 2011 Jack republished what he describes as the definitive edition[773] of James’ 1926 The Lost Continent of Mu which includes a new index and added appendices. It is still just the concoction of a fertile mind. My scepticism and that of many others is reflected in a recent blog from Dale Drinnon(a).
>For the record, Jack is quite sceptical of his great-grandfather’s theories and has republished some of the earlier material in order “for the reader to evaluate the basis of his argument,”<
Jack has also a promotional website(b), where he candidly wrote(c) that “the Troano Manuscript, as a reference for the sinking of Mu, must be removed from the list, if there is to be any legitimacy accorded to an evaluation of Churchward’s theories on Mu.” Jack was highlighting the unreliability of James’ translation of the Troano Manuscript, influenced as it was by the earlier seriously flawed attempts by Bishop Diego De Landa (1524-1579), Brasseur de Bourbourg and LePlongeon. Jason Colavito has added further comments(d) regarding Jack’s blog.
Jack continued to explore his great-grandfather’s misguided ideas with the publication of The Stone Tablets of Mu [1577] in August 2018.
>In 2019, Jack published Crossing the Sands of Time: An Examination of the History and Legends of the Great Uighur Empire [1778]. We are told that “This book was motivated by the author’s interaction with Uyghur scholars and the marked difference between the real history and that espoused by his great-grandfather, James Churchward. During the research, other theories surfaced and are addressed as well. Included are appendices containing all the elder Churchward’s mentions of the Uighurs allowing the reader to judge for themselves the veracity of his pronouncements.”<
(b) https://www.my-mu.com/bstore.html
(c) https://blog.my-mu.com/?p=2272
(d) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-weird-case-of-atlantis-mu-in-the-madrid-codex
Dorofatti, Carlo (t)
Carlo Dorofatti (1970 – ) is an Italian New Age, or as he calls it New Era, researcher. In 
2010 he addressed a conference in Dubai on the subject of Atlantis(a). His ideas on the subject were rather similar to those of Ignatius Donnelly – Atlantis in the Atlantic with the Azores as its remnants. Not content with that he then proceeded to discuss Lemuria and Mu citing the discredited James Churchward. While denouncing conventional scientists for their self-interested conservatism, he is happy to rely on speculation. Dorofatti has a website in English and Italian(b).
In a blog about alchemy, Dorofatti offers the following two gems;
“The existence of ‘something’ is always preceded by the idea of its absence, or else by its non-existence. After all, in our daily lives is it not true to say that we only realize the value of something when it is missing?
When a universe is born a counter universe, is also born as compensation (0 = (+1) + (-1)): the shadow universe, or ‘universe B’. It has nothing to do with anti-matter and is a profound and complete antithesis: an immaterial universe.”
(a) https://www.carlodorofatti.com/English/DUBAI_2010_Conference_Carlo_Dorofatti.pdf
(b) https://www.carlodorofatti.com/
(c) https://mindbreathmeditation.blogspot.ie/2012/12/thoughts-on-alchemy_16.html
Diffusion *
Diffusion is the anthropological term used to describe how similar customs, beliefs and artefact designs are spread between cultures through migration, invasion or trade. Diffusion is not just a ‘one-way street’ as history has shown that ideas have travelled in all directions, while in fact most ancient civilisations can be demonstrated to have absorbed cultural elements from a multiplicity of foreign societies. Today, globalisation has increased exponentially the variety of influences that all societies now experience. Not only is the number of these influences greater but the rate of increase is apparently accelerating. The ubiquity of Coca-Cola, T-shirts, Irish pubs, Japanese cameras, German cars, English language, Guinness, Chinese toys, ABBA, AK-47s etc., etc., etc., are indicative of the global reach of commercial ‘empires’ today. In older civilisations trade was more concerned with commodities such as metals, olive oil, wine, amber, obsidian, or timber, so the technologies involved in their production or exploitation were also exchanged.
The development of agriculture also saw techniques spread, which had to be modified to suit different climates, although recent studies indicate that agriculture started around the same time in a number of centres(I).
In the Fertile Crescent as far north as the Zagros Mountains and further north, on the steppes of Russia, horses were domesticated and apparently there also the use of chariots originated. A book by David W. Anthony also attributes the region as being the source of what is known as the Proto-Indo-European family of languages[1356].
Societal concepts, religious or legal were no different as their geographical spread can also be tracked over time. Consider the different strands of the Abrahamic faiths, beginning with Judaism, which spawned Christianity and later was joined by Islam through Muhammad, who claimed to be a descendant of Abraham. Similarly, democracy has slowly evolved and spread over time and still has a long way to go.
Since early man left Africa, he has had ample time to settle all over our planet and exploit its resources, moving from being a hunter-gatherer to becoming a settled farmer, developing urban centres (city-states), then empires and the inevitable wars. Wars, then like today, led to the development of new technologies, chariots, longbows, and armour, to be copied and if possible improved upon, by each side.
My view is that initially, technology and techniques were freely exchanged between peoples, until gradually the idea of monopoly entered the human psyche, eventually leading to the paranoia and greed associated with the ownership of ‘intellectual property’ today. I would speculate that a freer and possibly gentler diffusion of ideas lasted until, at the earliest, the first millennium BC.
In 2014, the University of Connecticut published the result of studies that demonstrated that human technological innovation occurred intermittently throughout the Old World, rather than spreading from a single point of origin, as previously thought(j).
Egerton Sykes, a leading 20th-century Atlantologist, was a committed diffusionist, describing it as “the lifeblood of civilisation”(h). Atlantisforschung has published a 1967 paper by Sykes supporting diffusionism with particular reference to pyramid building on both sides of the Atlantic(ad).
Andrew Cutler published a paper on cultural diffusion in August 2023 that should be studied by anyone interested in the subject. He discusses themes such as the Pleiades, Snakes, Finger Removal and Linguistics among others. He expresses the opinion that while many assume that such common features can be traced back to before the 100,000 BC Out of Africa migration, Cutler suggests a much later time circa 40,000-30,000 BC(ae).
A more extreme view is the concept of ‘hyperdiffusion’, which is the idea that there was a single ‘mother culture’ that led to the development of all major civilisations. Ignatius Donnelly was a hyperdiffusionist, advocating Atlantis as the mother culture. His ‘heretical’ views were highlighted by the range of similarities between structures around the world in apparently unrelated cultures, which seem to greatly exceed what could be expected by mere coincidence alone. This is explored further in a recent illustrated article on the Malagabay website(v).
Similarly, James Churchward proposed his invention, Mu, as an alternative hyperdiffusion centre. Perhaps better known is the work of W. J. Perry who was convinced [1353] that an archaic civilisation had begun in Egypt and gradually spread eastward through Asia and Polynesia, eventually reaching the Americas. Ben Urish published a paper(d) in 1986 that offers a critical overview[969] of hyperdiffusion.
Alice A. Storey and Terry L. Jones commented that “Hyperdiffusion, in which diffusion is used to explain all phenomena observed in the archaeological record, implies that independent invention was the property of only a select few in prehistory; it is this extreme view that tarnished early diffusionists and led mainstream archaeologists away from the concept” (ah).
Konrad Kulczyk promotes a hyperdiffusionist theory that places his proto-civilisation, New Atlantis, just south of the Aral Sea(e).
Ivar Zapp proposes the existence of a global seafaring civilisation thousands of years before the Greeks, Egyptians or Sumerians(k) in an as-yet-unpublished book, Babel Deciphered.
Hyperdiffusion is clearly a seductive theory that has attracted the attention of researchers such as Richard Cassaro, who has produced an impressive collection of visual cultural similarities between ancient Egypt and pre-Columbian America(a). While the idea is not new, Cassaro’s images highlight the concept of diffusion very effectively, although he has, in my opinion, overinterpreted the evidence in order to support hyperdiffusion.
Cassaro published The Missing Link[1208] in 2016 in which he expands on the widespread distribution of what he refers to as the ‘godself icon’. Although he clearly demonstrates that the motif has an extensive geographical spread it is equally obvious that the appearance of the icon is spread over a vast period of time apparently coinciding with the emergence of civilisation in different places at very different times, which, in my view, is not fully compatible with the concept of hyperdiffusion, as I would have expected a ‘mother-culture’, if such existed, to have spread its global influence far more rapidly.
A comparable discovery has been made by Ozgür Baris Etli, who has drawn attention(o) to carved hands at Göbekli Tepe that have counterparts in many other parts of the world where hands meet at the navel are similarly depicted. I recently came across an image of(q) a megalithic statue in the Indonesian Bada Valley(u) showing its hands in a similar position. Also in Göbekli Tepe, we encounter what has become known as ‘the handbag of the gods’(y) which has been found depicted in many locations such as Turkey (Göbekli), Iraq (Assyria), Mesoamerica (Olmecs)(w), Egypt and New Zealand(x). These images are not only spread over thousands of miles but thousands of years.
However, Andrew Gough is the only researcher who seems to have come anywhere near to explaining the purpose of the ‘handbag’. In a lengthy article on his website, he explains how a British Museum guide confirmed that the bag was a pollen carrier(ac). This dovetailed with Gough’s belief regarding the importance of the bee in ancient cultures.
Having mentioned Indonesia, I must draw your attention to a recent book by Dhani Irwanto, entitled Sundaland: Tracing the Cradle of Civilizations (1618), in which he makes a strong case for considering his native land as an ancient diffusionist centre, which experienced waves of emigration at the end of the Younger Dryas period that influenced the great civilisations of the Indus Valley, Egypt and Greece. Irwanto also claims that their cultural impact included the transference of the story of Atlantis from its original home in Sundaland.
Equally intriguing is the ‘Three Hares’ motif, found across Europe, the Middle East ad as far as China(p) and now the subject of a book by Greeves, Andrew & Chapman[1210]. Another stylised symbol is that of the rosette found in the Mediterranean and spread as far as India(r)(s).
In a similar vein, Jim Allen has devoted chapter three of his latest book to outlining what he entitled Bolivia and the Sumerian Connection(b). Arguably, even more impressive us the array of images presented by Allen(b) suggesting that the civilisations of America were greatly influenced by ancient cultures in both the east and the west . Although some artefacts can be developed independently, at some point , the number of similar items produced by two separate cultures can exceed the number that can be reasonably attributed to coincidence. The number of similarities presented by Allen alone clearly exceeds that threshold suggesting that the Americas were influenced by different sources, ruling out the Americasas the home of a mother culture!
In the August 2019 edition of National Geographic magazine there is an update on the results of the latest genetic studies relating to the origins of European peoples(ag). “Their findings suggest that the continent has been a melting pot since the Ice Age. Europeans living today, in whatever country, are a varying mix of ancient bloodlines hailing from Africa, the Middle East, and the Russian steppe.” One item that caught my attention was that about 5,000 years ago “Farther north, from Russia to the Rhine, a new culture sprang up, called Corded Ware after its pottery, which was decorated by pressing string into wet clay.” and “Many Corded Ware people turned out to be more closely related to Native Americans than to Neolithic European farmers. That deepened the mystery of who they were.” Does it imply that prehistoric transatlantic travel took place then and if so, in which direction? As I read it, the NG article offers nothing to endorse hyperdiffusion, if anything, it does the very opposite.
An extensive website managed by Erich Fred Legner offers a wide range of evidence to support the view that the Americas had been visited and settled by people from both Asia & Europe before Columbus(aa).
Similarly, Gary A. David proposed that Votan was a diffusionist deity with counterparts known by other names such as Kukulkan, Quetzalcoatl or Viracocha in the different American civilisations. However, he goes further placing Votan’s origins in the Old World suggesting that he may have been Phoenician or Hebrew, citing Adrian Gilbert and Andrew Collins in support of this(af).
The whole subject of diffusion is wide-ranging and complex and well beyond my competence to do it justice in this short entry. However, for those interested in pursuing the subject further, I would like to recommend a 1997 paper(l) by David H. Kelley (1924-2011), available on Dale Drinnon’s website.
Egypt is frequently mentioned in this regard being seen as the influence behind Neolithic megalith building AND the pyramids of Central America, in spite of the fact that Newgrange was constructed before the Egyptian Pyramids and the New World pyramids were built thousands of years after those in Egypt. Atlantis is regularly suggested as another mother culture but without a single piece of evidence to support this speculative contention. For decades the idea that the pyramids of Egypt and those in the Americas were the consequence of diffusion from a common source, namely Atlantis situated in the Atlantic was heavily promoted. However, we can now more closely identify the pyramids of America with the step pyramids of China!
Consequently, for me, hyperdiffusion is not convincing. History has clearly shown that inventions have frequently been independently developed at the same time in different countries, while even in prehistoric times it has been demonstrated(f) that the evolution of stone tools took place as a result of the innovative abilities of local populations, addressing the same needs.
A word of warning; “recent research published in Nature by a team led by Tomos Proffitt at the University of Oxford shows that capuchin monkeys regularly produce sharp-edged flakes indistinguishable from those made by early hominins.”(t)
Even today technologies are developed independently throughout the world, but not in complete isolation, because of the instant worldwide communications available.
As a result of global marketing, in Ireland now we drive German, British and Japanese cars, use US computer technology and play with Chinese toys. However, being generous by nature, we gave the world the Irish pub, Riverdance and Guinness.
A two-part blog(m)(n) highlighting the many weaknesses in the concept of hyperdiffusion should be required reading for anyone interested in the subject.
Although Donnelly and his contemporaries, focused on the possibility of Old World influences in the New World, today, there is less of a Mediterranean-centred or Eurocentric approach to diffusionism. Instead, there is greater acceptance that the Americas have also had extensive cultural influences from Asia.
In March 2021, Hugh Newman published a paper drawing attention to the similarity of megalithic building techniques, using polygonal stones, in America, Asia, Europe and Africa. He goes further noting that “Peruvian relief carvings match those at Göbekli Tepe.” How much might be the result of coincidence is a matter of opinion.(ab) In January 2022, Marco M. Vigato published a new book, The Empires of Atlantis [1830], in which he offers a hyperdiffusionist view of Atlantis. He “traces the course of Atlantean civilization through its three empires, as well as the colonies and outposts formed by its survivors in Egypt, Göbekli Tepe, India, Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, and North and South America” and “reveals how the first Atlantean civilization lasted from 432,000 to 33,335 BCE, the second one from 21,142 to 10,961 BCE, and the third Atlantis civilization–the one celebrated by Plato–collapsed in 9600 BCE, after the Younger Dryas cataclysm.”(z).
(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20200629021253/http://www.atlantisbolivia.org/artefacts.htm
(d) https://soar.wichita.edu/bitstream/handle/10057/1746/LAJ_v11_no1_p75-87.pdf?sequence=3
(e) https://blog.world-mysteries.com/mystic-places/new-atlantis-the-source-of-civilization-on-earth/
(g) Stone Age site challenges old archaeological | EurekAlert! (archive.org) *
(h) https://web.archive.org/web/20190430181930/http://www.seachild.net/atlantology/fields/socialsci.html
(I) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130705101629.htm
(j) Stone Age site challenges old archaeological | EurekAlert! (archive.org)
(l) See: Archive 3563
(m) https://skepticalcubefarm.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/hyperdiffusionism-a-blog-in-two-parts/
(n) https://skepticalcubefarm.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/hyperdiffusionism-part-the-second/
(r) https://aratta.wordpress.com/the-rosette-symbol/
(s) https://www.sophia-project.net/conferences/HeavenAndEarth/presentations/pdfs/CherylHart.pdf
(u) Atlantis Rising No.110 March/April 2015 p.41
(v) Ignatius Donnelly: Trans-Atlantic Architecture | MalagaBay (archive.org)
(aa) E. F. Legner vita and websites (ucr.edu)
(ac) https://andrewgough.co.uk/articles_pollen/
(ae) https://www.vectorsofmind.com/p/evidence-for-global-cultural-diffusion
(af) http://www.viewzone.com/votanx.html
(ag) Genetic testing reveals that Europe is a melting pot, made of immigrants (nationalgeographic.com)
Strath-Gordon, Alexander E.
Alexander E. Strath-Gordon (1873-1952) was born in Scotland and graduated with 
the highest honours from the Edinburgh medical School. After a career as a medical officer in the British army he became head of the British passport control service in New York until retirement in 1934. For some time he was head of British intelligence in the United States or in plain language, a spy.
Christopher Volpe, a landscape artist, is the great-grandson of Strath-Gordon and in a recent blog on his website he described his ancestor as “Mystic, Linguist, Lecturer, Doctor, Spy”(a). In 1904 Strath-Gordon began a medical practice in Seattle, Washington and remained there until 1914. He then served as a medical officer in the British army in France until the end of the war.
Volpe records that in 1906 Strath-Gordon founded the Atlantean Research Society, in East Orange, New Jersey. This date conflicts with the foundation date of 1928 proposed by Frank Joseph[104]. A book published by Strath-Gordon in 1934 confirms the 1906 date on its cover(b) and records him as the founder and life president of the Atlantean Research Society. The same cover shows that in 1907 he addressed the Atlantean Research Society in Seattle. I suggest that this contradiction can be explained if we accept that the Society was originally founded by Strath-Gordon in Seattle in 1906 and that in 1928 he established the “eastern division” of New Jersey.
A further interesting fact is that Strath-Gordon met Edgar Cayce on a number of occasions in the 1920’s(d) prompting speculation that he may have ‘influenced’ some of Cayce’s Atlantis readings, an idea that must appeal to any rationalist.
Strath-Gordon had James Churchward as an associate in the Society, again with the probability that there was a cross-pollination of ideas between them!>Egerton Sykes noted that James Churchward was vice-president of the N.J. branch(e) .<
A rather bizarre reference to Strath-Gordon is to be found in The New Yorker magazine of March 28th 1936 in which he is reported(c) to have predicted the end of the Depression on September 16th that year, based on a study of measurements in a gallery within the Great Pyramid at Giza!
(a) https://christophervolpe.blogspot.ie/2010/09/imagining-atlantis.html
(b) See Archive 3921
(c) https://www.newyorker.com/archive/1936/03/28/1936_03_28_015_TNY_CARDS_000162802
(d) https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/alt.legend.atlantis/muQ7l9XDu3E
>(e)Atlantis, Volume 11, No.6, Sept/Nov 1958 <