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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 »
John B. Newman
Landbridges
Landbridges, in biogeography, are described by Wikipedia as “an isthmus or wider land connection between otherwise separate areas, over which animals and plants are able to cross and colonize new lands. A land bridge can be created by marine regression, in which sea levels fall, exposing shallow, previously submerged sections of continental shelf; or when new land is created by plate tectonics; or occasionally when the sea floor rises due to post-glacial rebound after an ice age.”
In the distant past, landbridges are believed to have played a critical part in early human migration. Similarly, 
landbridges, both real and speculative are important components in many Atlantis theories. There is no doubt that the ending of the last Ice Age and the consequent rising sea levels led to the creation of islands where continuous land has previously existed. The separation of Ireland and Britain from each other and from mainland Europe is just one example, the latter leading to a number of writers identifying ‘Doggerland‘, which lay between Britain and Denmark as the home of Atlantis.
>The two most discussed landbridges were at the Bering Strait, where it is thought that it provided the gateway for humans to enter the Americas from Asia and an Atlantic landbridge, which was proposed as early as the 17th century when Francois Placet, a French abbot, who, in 1668, wrote “The break up of large and small world’s, as being demonstrated that America was connected before the flood with the other parts of the world.” A Scientific American article relates how “He argued that the two continents were once connected by the lost continent of “Atlantis” and the flood of the bible separated them.” (d)<
Later by John B. Newman in 1849 [488.8], who wrote that “in former times an island of enormous dimensions, named Atlantis, stretched from the north-western coast of Africa across the Atlantic ocean and that over this continental tract both man and beast migrated westward.“
>Charles Frédéric Martins was a French botanist and geologist who was so intrigued by the similarity of geology as well as plant species on the Azores, Spain and Ireland that he suggested in his 1866 book, Du Spitzberg Au Sahara [1440],that these were physically linked in the distant past and that they may have been part of Atlantis(c).
Martins also said, in the Revue des Deux Mondes for March 1, 1867, “Now, hydrography, geology, and botany agree in teaching us that the Azores, the Canaries, and Madeira are the remains of a great continent which formerly united Europe to North America.”<
The Atlantic landbridge idea became quite popular by the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries and even as late as the 1970s when espoused by Rene Malaise(a), but is now completely abandoned. Ignatius Donnelly referred to such a landbridge as a ‘connecting plateau’ linking Europe, Africa and America that allowed plants and animals to cross in both directions.
Although there was only one suggestion that the Bering Strait was in any way connected with Plato’s Atlantis, several commentators identified an Atlantic landbridge as the ideal location for Plato’s Atlantis, particularly as he placed it in the Atlantic Sea. However, this should not be confused with the Atlantic Ocean, a word that had an entirely different meaning for the ancient Greeks.
The idea was initially put forward in order to explain the floral and faunal similarities shared by the Old World and the New World of the Americas. The hypothetical Atlantic landbridges or a series of steppingstone islands. also offered possible routes for the peopling of the Americas by Europeans and/or Africans. It was not long before the discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge(b) seemed to confirm this idea. Then it was suggested that Atlantis existed on this landbridge, which was destroyed by rising sea levels after the last Ice Age, leaving just the Azores, Madeira and a few other islands as remnants.
A number of landbridges have been proposed for the Mediterranean and linked to a variety of Atlantis theories, the most notable being proposed for the straits of Gibraltar, Sicily, Messina and Bonifacio. Although it is evident that landbridges existed at most of these locations, to associate them with any particular Atlantis theory requires that the date of their existence is compatible with Plato’s narrative.
Less popular theories have been constructed involving landbridges in locations, such as the Caribbean and Indonesia.
(a) Atlantis, Vol.27, No.1, Jan-Feb 1974.
(b) From the Contracting Earth to early Supercontinents – Scientific American Blog Network
Toltecs, The
The Toltecs were the predecessors of the Aztecs in central Mexico. It is generally accepted that they ruled between the 10th and 12th centuries AD. Some rather pathetic attempts by Theosophists and New Agers have been made to link the Toltecs with Atlantis. Annie Besant, the theosophist, informed us that the Toltecs were 27 feet tall!
William Scott-Elliot, also a theosophist, described the Toltecs as “averaging about eight feet during the period of their ascendency, but of course dwindling, as all races did, to the dimensions that are common today.”(a)
In the Toltec city of Tula, in the Mexican state of Hidalgo are 15-foot high statues known as Atlantes, which is also an architectural term used to describe supporting columns carved in the shape of a man.(b)
Nevertheless, Dominique Görlitz has written two-part article for Atlantisforschung in which he offers the suggestion that the Toltecs had been influenced by Basque visitors(c). “In addition to the well-known cultural parallels between the peoples of the Old and New Worlds, many Native American cultures have old myths about foreign culture bringers that relate to the beginnings of their culture and agriculture.”
John B. Newman, writing [0488.31] decades before Ignatius Donnelly and drawing on comments by Marco Polo, speculated that what became known as Toltecs had originally been part of a Chinese fleet intent on invading Japan that had been blown off course and ended up on the western shores of what is now Mexico. The settled there although in regular conflict with the native Aztecs. Unfortunately, Newman and Marco Polo have their chronologies mixed up as the the fleet in question was dispatched by Kublai Khan, long after the Toltecs arrived in Mexico.
(a) https://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/soa/soa17.htm
(b) Tula – Mysterious City of the Toltecs – The Maritime Explorer (archive.org)
Newman, John B.
John B. Newman, was a 19th century American physician who produced a short volume[488] purporting to demonstrate connections between the Phoenicians, Atlanteans and Native Americans. He was one of the earliest proponents of a large island stretching across the Atlantic from northwest Africa towards America, providing a stepping-stone or landbridge between the Old and New Worlds for animals and humans.
It is worth pointing out that his book was written in 1849, over thirty years before Ignatius Donnelly published his influential work. >>Newman, drawing on comments by Marco Polo, speculated that what became known as Toltecs had originally been part of a Chinese fleet intent on invading Japan that had been blown off course and ended up on the western shores of what is now Mexico [p.31]. The settled there although in regular conflict with the native Aztecs. Unfortunately, Newman and Marco Polo have their chronologies mixed up as the the fleet in question was dispatched by Kublai Khan, long after the Toltecs arrived in Mexico.<<
Couissin, Paul
Paul Couissin (1885-1932) was a French writer on ancient history who wrote[245] of his conviction that Atlantis existed in
the Atlantic, offering a stepping-stone between the two continents. He based his views on the similarity between the flora and fauna to be found on both sides of the Atlantic(b).>This linkage was popular in Couissin’s time having been promoted by Ignatius Donnelly and others such as J.T. Short.<
>The concept of an Atlantic landbridge was proposed as early as the 17th century and later by John B. Newman in 1849 [488.8], who wrote that “in former times an island of enormous dimensions, named Atlantis, stretched from the north-western coast of Africa across the Atlantic Ocean and that over this continental tract both man and beast migrated westward.”
The Atlantic landbridge idea became quite popular by the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries and even as late as the 1970s when it was still espoused by Rene Malaise(a), but is now completely abandoned.<
(a) Atlantis, Vol.27, No.1, Jan-Feb 1974.