World's Before Our Own . . .And What Became Of Them?
Housed in a warehouse in Ica, Peru is a collection of 20,000 stone tablets some of which carry pictures portraying advanced medical practice. The tablets were first seen and recorded by a Jesuit missionary, Father Simon, who accompanied Pizarro in 1525. Amongst other scenes portrayed there are pictures of what appear to be Caesarean surgery and blood transfusions as well as the use of acupuncture needles as an anesthetic and detailed images of what seems like open heart surgery.

It is becoming increasingly evident that our notions of human history are not simply mistaken but in need of a total overhaul. The evidence is beginning to mount to the point where it can no longer be ignored; all across the planet archaeological finds are being made that are distinctly at odds with the conventional notions of humanity's past and point to a revolution in the way we see ourselves and our origins.
Over the last two centuries various archeological finds have been unearthed which do not fit into the conventional time-scale of pre-history; these so-called archeological anomalies have largely been buried in site reports or left to gather dust in museum storage rooms. However the sheer volume of these finds and the very nature of some of them calls for another look at the world's before our own.
Academic consensus maintains that the ancestor of modern man emerged one million years ago. Whilst modern man, homo sapiens, only emerged as the dominant planetary life form some 40,000 years ago; this is generally the line held by conventional archeologists and anthropologists, in spite of the fact that there is considerable evidence to the contrary.
Thus we have the case of the metal spheres found by miners in the Western Transvaal, South Africa. Over the past few decades miners in the area have come across metal spheres, often grooved, in layers of sedimentation estimated at 2.8 billion years old. According to Roelf Marx, curator of the Klerksdorp museum where they are kept: "The spheres are a complete mystery. . .They're nothing like I have ever seen before." Moreover the spheres are so hard that they cannot be scratched, even with a hard metal point. In 1979 several were closely examined by J.R. McIver, professor of geology at the University of Witwatersrand in Jo'burg and Andries Bischoff, geology professor at Potschefstroom University. What they found only deepened the mystery; averaging 1 to 4 inches in diameter the spheres are usually coloured steel blue with tiny flecks of white fibers embedded in them. They were found to be made of a nickel-steel alloy which does not occur naturally, and is of such a composition that excludes any meteoric origin. Quite simply they do not fit into any conventional prehistoric time-scale.

Likewise an early Paleolithic skull on display in London's Natural History Museum would seem to defy all conventional archeology. Dated at 38,000 years old and excavated in 1921 in modern Zambia, the skull bears a perfectly round hole about a third of an inch in diameter on its left side. Opposite the hole, the cranium is shattered, and reconstruction of the fragments show that the skull was smashed from the inside out, as if from a bullet wound. Forensic experts who have examined the skull all agree that the cranial damage could only have been caused by a high speed projectile. So the fact that the skull was excavated from a depth of 60 foot, of mostly lead rock, only deepens the mystery.

Just as baffling is the case of an iron pot found in a block of coal. Thus according to an affidavit made by Frank J. Kenwood in 1912: "While I was working in the Municipal Electric Plant in Thomas, Okla, in 1912, I came upon a solid chunk of coal which was too large to use. I broke it with a sledge hammer. This iron pot fell from the center, leaving the impression or mould of the pot in the piece of coal. . .I traced the source of the coal and found that it came from the Wilburton, Oklahoma, Mines."
According to Robert O. Fay of the Oklahoma Geological Survey, the Wilburton mine coal is about 312 million years old.
In a similar vein, so to speak, we have this account first published in Brad Steigers 'World's Before Our Own: "In the year 1928, I, Atlas Almon Mathis, was working in coal mine No. 5., located two miles north of Heavener, Oklahoma. This was a shaft mine, and they told us it was two miles deep. The mine was so deep that they let us down into it in an elevator . . .They pumped air down to us, it was so deep." After blasting the miners came across what appeared to be some concrete blocks, according to Mathis: "These blocks were 12-inch cubes and were so smooth and polished on the outside that all six sides could serve as mirrors. Yet they were full of gravel, because I chipped one of them with my pick, and it was plain concrete inside."

"As I started to timber the room up," Mathis continued, "it caved in; and I barely escaped. When I came back after the cave-in, a solid wall of these polished blocks was left exposed. About 100 to 150 yards farther down our air core, another miner struck this same wall, or one very similar." The coal in the mine was probably carboniferous which, according standard dating methods, would mean that the wall was at least 286 million years old.
Thereafter the mining company officials pulled the men out of the mine and forbade them to speak about what they had found. In a strange twist of fate the men were then sent to the Wilburton mine mentioned previously. According to Mathis the miners there spoke of having found "a solid block of silver in the shape of a barrel . . .with the prints of the staves on it."
As far back as the eighteen hundreds artifacts were being unearthed which defied conventional archeology. For example in 1871, William E. Dubois of the Smithsonian Institute reported finding several man-made objects whilst drilling a well in Marshall County, Illinois. Using a "common ground auger" a number of coin like objects were recovered from a depth of about 114 feet. At that depth the Illinois State Geological Survey estimates the deposits were made "sometime between 200,000 and 400,000 years ago."
Dudois concluded that one coin in particular could only have been made in a machine shop. Noting its uniform thickness, he said the coin must have "passed through a rolling mill; and if the ancient Indians had such a contrivance, it must have been pre-historic."
J.W. Moffat, who was working with Dubois at the time, reported to the Smithsonian that other anomalous objects were found whilst drilling in nearby Whiteside County, Illinois. At a depth of 120 feet, workmen discovered "a large copper ring or ferrule, similar to those used on ship spars at the present time. . . They also found something fashioned like a boat-hook." Moffat concluded that: "There are numerous instances of relics found at lesser depths. A spear-shaped hatchet, made of iron, was found embedded in clay at 40 feet; and stone pipes and pottery have been unearthed at depths varying from 10 to 50 feet in many localities."
The Illinois State Geological Survey noted in 1984 that the age of deposits at 120 feet in Whiteside County varies greatly; in some places, they might only be 50,000 years old, whilst in other places one would find Silurian bedrock 410 million years old.

And still, the evidence of world's before our own continues to grow.

On October 8,1922, The New York Sunday American ran a prominent feature by Dr W.H. Ballou: "while he was prospecting for fossils in Nevada," Ballou wrote, "John T. Reid, a distinguished mining engineer and geologist, stopped suddenly and looked down in utter bewilderment and amazement at a rock near his feet." What Reid had actually stumbled on was, it seemed, a fossilized footprint. According to Ballou it was, "apparently, a shoe sole which had turned into stone . . .there was the outline of at least two-thirds of it , and around this outline ran a well defined sewn thread which had, it appeared, attached the welt to the sole. Further on there was another line of sewing" . . .and . . "an indentation, exactly such as would have been made by the bone of the heel rubbing upon and wearing down the material of which the sole had been made."
Reid then took the fossil to New York where it was examined by a number of eminent scientists.
Their conclusions were unanimous, in effect "it was the most remarkable natural imitation of an artificial object they had ever seen." The scientists were also agreed that the rock formation was Triassic in origin whilst Dr W. D. Mathew of the American Museum of Natural History declared it a remarkable imitation, "a freak of nature."
Despite Mathew's dismissal, Reid persisted: "I next got hold of a micro-photographer and an analytical chemist" wrote Reid: "The micro-photo magnifications are twenty times larger than the specimen itself, showing the minutest detail of thread twist and warp, proving conclusively that the shoe sole is not a resemblance, but is strictly the handiwork of man. Even to the naked eye the threads can be seen distinctly . . .I will add that at least two geologists . . .have admitted that the shoe sole is valid, a genuine fossilization in Triassic rocks." It should be added that the Triassic period is now generally dated at around 213 - 248 million years ago.

Some of the archeological anomalies discovered, like the above, are quite prosaic and certainly not the product of a hi-tech civilization. However some very obviously are the vestiges of a technically very advanced culture; like the minute spiral shaped objects unearthed in the
Eastern Urals which bear a remarkable resemblance to contemporary cutting edge nano-technology, as detailed in the 2nd issue of the Seeker.
Some other anomalies are quite literally monumental, such as the ziggurat found off the Coast of Okinawi, Japan.
Over 600 feet wide and 90 feet high the edifice was initially thought to be a natural formation on its discovery, nearly 10 years ago. However, closer inspection prompted a reassessment. Thus according to Professor Kimura, a marine geologist at the University of Okinawa: "This could only have been done by a people with a high degree of technology . . .There would have been some sort of machinery involved to create such a huge structure."
Elsewhere similar evidence has been unearthed which points to scientific and technical knowledge existing long before it was previously assumed.
In 1938, Dr Wilhelm Kong, an Austrian archeologist, was rummaging around the basement of a Baghdad museum when he came across a six inch high pot of clay. The pot contained a cylinder of sheet copper which was soldered with a 60-40 lead-tin alloy, whilst the bottom of the cylinder was a crimped-in copper disk sealed with bitumen. Another insulating layer of bitumen sealed the top and held in place an iron rod suspended into the centre of the copper cylinder. With a background in mechanics, Dr Kong immediately recognized that what he was looking at was, in effect, a battery. What was unusual though was that it had been unearthed from an archeological site dated 2000 years old, whilst other similar artifacts had been recovered from sites dated as far back as 5000 years.
These latter were unearthed from Sumerian remains in southern Iraq and dated to at least 2,500 BC. That's long before Michael Faraday is said to have discovered electromagnetic induction and the laws of electrolysis in the early 1800's. So the million dollar question is: were these artifacts the forerunner of Faraday's discovery . . . or the vestiges of a technically advanced civilization? And if these artifacts were the remnants of an advanced civilization then there follows the Billion dollar question: what exactly happened to this civilization?

Could it have been that it was engulfed in some kind of nuclear Armageddon? Evidence indicative of nuclear explosions has been discovered across the planet in the form of "fused green glass" found deep in the strata of various archeological digs. Usually only found at nuclear testing sites, the glass has been unearthed at various archeological digs as far apart as Gabon, Africa, the Gobi Desert and Scotland.
Is it possible that a previous civilization was destroyed by a nuclear conflict? Could it be that a handful of survivors emerged from the ruins of a nuclear apocalypse and then, over millennia, slowly rebuilt civilization?
Or could there be another reason for these anomalies. Whilst we accept that the above may well be a possibility we would suggest that there maybe other explanations.
We would suggest that shifting crustal displacements could be a critical factor here.
The theory of crustal displacement, first postulated by Charles H. Hapgood and subsequently backed by no less than Albert Einstien, was outlined by Richard Noone in the 'Hammer and the Pendulum', featured in the previous issue.
More than that though we would suggest that this scenario has occurred not just once but on a number of previous occasions; indeed what we are looking at is a cyclic pattern, a pattern that has embossed itself across the face of unrecorded human history.
As Richard Noone described in his article the crustal displacement would be dramatic and cataclysmic, triggering a geological Armageddon; across the planet there would a wave of earthquakes, floods and volcano's as the planets rigid crust suddenly shifted and tore itself asunder. And for those few who were not killed in the initial shocks there would only be a desperate struggle to survive in the ruins of a shattered civilization.
Stripped of everything that they had taken for granted they would be left with nothing but memories of the former civilization. And then a few generations later there would little else but stories of a golden age and a great flood that had destroyed everything in its path. As the millennia passed so too would the memories and stories fade, until one day millennia later there would be little else but legends of a fabulous civilization and stories of a mythical flood. And maybe, just maybe, a few archeological anomalies that would one day baffle future scientists.
Sources include: The Hidden History of the human race, The condensed edition of Forbidden Archeology, Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson, World's Before Our Own, Brad Stieger. 5-5-2000, Richard Noone.
www.GrahamHancock.com