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During the Ice Age of 340,000-330,000 years ago,
the Geminga supernova explosion irradiated Earth and the Neanderthals appeared. The low sea levels due to glaciation created land bridges for land migration of the Neanderthals. The next two Ice Ages with low sea levels creating land bridges were about 270,000-230,000 years ago and about 160,000-130,000 years ago, which was the beginning of the African/Oceanic Ice Age Civilization Ice Age Civilization, as Modern Humans displaced the Neanderthals in Africa and Oceanic areas.
In Nature 405 (4 MAY 2000) 65-69, Walter et al report
"... the 'out of Africa' hypothesis contends that modern humans evolved in Africa between 200 and 100 kyr ago, migrating to Eurasia at some later time ... the discovery of early Middle Stone Age artefacts in an emerged reef terrace on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea, which we date to the last interglacial (about 125 kyr ago) ... this is the earliest well-dated evidence for human adaptation to a coastal marine environment,
heralding an expansion in the range and complexity of human behaviour from one end of Africa to the other. This new, widespread adaptive strategy may, in part, signal the onset of modern human behaviour, which supports an African origin for modern humans by 125 kyr ago. ...". (Image is from News and Views article in Nature 405 (4 MAY 2000) 24-27.)
An article by Chris Stringer in Nature 423 (12 June 2003) 692-693 says
"... The idea that modern humans originated in Africa, with populations subsequently spreading outwards from there, has continued to gain support lately. But much of that support has come from analyses of genetic variation in people today1, and from fossil and archaeological discoveries dated to within the past 120,000 years2,3 &emdash; after our species evolved. Hard evidence for the inferred African origin of modern humans has remained somewhat elusive, with relevant material being fragmentary, morphologically ambiguous or uncertainly dated. ...
... the most securely dated and complete early fossils that unequivocally share an anatomical pattern with today's H. sapiens are actually from Israel, rather than Africa. These are the partial skeletons from Skhul and Qafzeh, dating from around 115,000 years ago. Their presence in the Levant is usually explained by a range expansion from ancestral African populations, such as those sampled at Omo Kibish [ Ethiopia ] or Jebel Irhoud [ Morocco ] ... around 125,000 years ago. ..
... So the fossilized partial skulls from ...[ Herto
image from New Scientist (14 June 2003, page 5) ]...
Ethiopia that are described ... by White and colleagues ... on pages 742 and 747 of this issue are probably some of the most significant discoveries of early Homo sapiens so far, owing to their completeness and well-established antiquity of about 160,000 years. ... The fossils are complete enough to show a suite of modern human characters, and are well constrained by argon-isotope dating to about 160,000 years ago. ...
... Because of Africa's great area and still limited fossil record, it is uncertain whether the pattern of H. sapiens evolution there was essentially continent-wide, or was a more localized - and perhaps punctuational - process.
The Herto finds shift the focus once again to East Africa. It seems from these crania and from possibly contemporaneous fossils, such as those at Ngaloba [Tanzania], Singa [Sudan] and Eliye Springs [Kenya], that human populations of this era showed a great deal of anatomical variation. So, did the early modern morphology spread outwards from East Africa ... ? ...".
About 115,000 years ago the Early Wisconsin Glaciation began in North America, and about 70,000 years ago the Early Wurm Glaciation began in Europe. About 35,000 years ago, the Geminga shock wave hit Earth, the Late Wisconsin Glaciation of Earth began, and the Cro-Magnons displaced the Neanderthals in Europe, beginning the European Ice Age Civilization.
Nicholas Wade, in a 7 December 1999 article in The New York Times, says: "Two genetic surveys of human populations bring new evidence to bear on a pivotal event in prehistory, the first dispersal of modern humans from Africa. One study, based on analysis of people in East Africa and India, suggests that the first emigration of modern humans was eastward, toward Asia, and not northward through the eastern Mediterranean. A second, drawing on DNA data from 50 ethnic groups around the world, concludes that the ancestral population from which the first emigrants came may have numbered as few as 2,000 people. Both studies suggest that the most recent common ancestor of the emigrants lived 60,000 to 40,000 years ago.
... Dr. Richard G. Klein of Stanford University and others believe that some major genetically based neurological change, like the development of language, occurred about 50,000 years ago. This transformation, he infers, was the spur that led behaviorally modern humans to innovate their characteristic suite of more advanced stone implements, develop the first forms of art and spread throughout the world. ... Dr. Klein's data suggest that the humans of 100,000 years ago, anatomically modern but not like modern people in their behavior, did not spread out of Africa at that time.[However, According to a Discover article:
"... people all over the world are amazingly similar. Some anthropologists believe that this genetic homogeneity is the result of a "population bottleneck"--that at some time in the past our ancestors went through an event that greatly reduced our numbers and thus our genetic variation. Based on estimates of mutation rates, Penn State geneticist Henry Harpending says the bottleneck happened sometime after ... 100,000 years ago and before a population increase ... around 50,000 years ago. Now archeologist Stan Ambrose of the University of Illinois has linked Harpending's theory with geologic evidence to explain what caused the bottleneck--a giant volcanic eruption. ... Mount Toba in Sumatra blew 800 cubic kilometers of ash into the air--4,000 times as much as Mount St. Helens--the largest volcanic eruption in more than 400 million years. Toba buried most of India under ash and must have darkened skies over a third of the hemisphere for weeks. ... a six-year global volcanic winter ensued, caused by light-reflecting sulfur particles lingering in the atmosphere. Average summer temperatures dropped by 21 degrees at high latitudes, and 75 percent of the Northern Hemisphere's plants may have died. ... A thousand-year ice age began ... caused perhaps by an increasing amount of snow that failed to melt over the summer. This snow cover would have reflected more sunlight off Earth's surface, making the world still colder. The effect on humans, who had been enjoying a relatively warm period, must have been devastating. ... Perhaps only a few thousand people ... survived. ...".]
A new genetic study, by Dr. A. Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti of the University of Pavia in Italy and colleagues, confirms the view that the first dispersal of modern humans was not until about 50,000 years ago, and that the direction was eastward toward Asia. The study, published in Nature Genetics last week, is based on mitochondrial DNA, the genetic material of the small energy-producing organelles inside every cell. Because mitochondria are inherited with the egg, from the mother alone, their DNA escapes the shuffling that occurs in sexual reproduction, and any changes reflect the occasional random mutation in the DNA.[However, the 50,000 year time may be too long, and the true time may be about 36,525 years, which rounds off to 40,000 years, because it has been shown by Awadalla, Eyre-Walker, and Smith, in Science 286 (24 December 1999) 2524-2525, that "... The assumption that human mitochondrial DNA is inherited from one parent only and therefore does not recombine is questionable. Linkage disequilibrium in human and chimpanzee mitochondrial DNA declines as a function of the distance between sites. This pattern can be attributed to one mechanism only: recombination. ... Many inferences about the pattern and tempo of human evolution and mtDNA evolution have been based on the assumption of clonal inheritance. These inferences will now have to be reconsidered. ...". Therefore I put a 40,000 year date in the map from the New York Times article.]
On the basis of these mutations, biologists can construct a family tree of mitochondrial lineages and, by estimating the mutation rate, figure out the time that has elapsed since the mutation at the root of the tree. Dr. Santachiara-Benerecetti and her colleagues studied a particular pattern of mitochondrial DNA that is well known in India. They found an earlier form of the pattern among people in Ethiopia, suggesting that East Africa was its place of origin. Signs of the pattern also exist among many people in Saudi Arabia, but not among inhabitants of the eastern Mediterranean. This provides the first genetic evidence, the Italian biologists say, that the human migration route out of Africa was from eastern Africa along the coast toward Southeast Asia and Australia.
Another new genetic study, by Dr. Marcus Feldman of Stanford University and others, makes an interesting counterpart to the Italian study because it is based on a different kind of DNA but reaches similar conclusions. Dr. Feldman and his colleagues looked at segments of the Y chromosome, another part of the human genome that escapes the usual shuffling of the reproductive process. Studying Y chromosomes from around the world, they concluded that the most recent common ancestor of all these Y's was carried by a man who lived only 40,000 years or so ago. Even though all Y chromosomes can be traced back to a single individual, this does not mean a single Adam was the species' only male representative. The founding population from which the world's present population is derived consisted of about 2,000 individuals, according to the new data, Dr. Feldman said. One Y chromosome in such a population will eventually dominate in the descendants after all the other Y lineages are brought to a halt, whether because their owners have no children or beget only daughters. The 40,000-year date, which has a large range of uncertainty, is much more recent than others, in part because the earlier estimates were forced to assume, quite unrealistically, that the size of the human population remained constant throughout prehistory. Dr. Feldman assumed an exponentially expanding population, which yields a more recent date of origin. His study is published in the current issue of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. ...".
The two new studies represent a convergence of the genetic and archaeological data bearing on modern human origins, said Dr. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, a leading population geneticist at Stanford University, who was not an author of either study. ... These behaviorally modern humans "had three big improvements in culture -- language, boats or rafts, and Aurignacian technology," Dr. Cavalli-Sforza said, referring to the more sophisticated stone implements. ...".
The last Glacial Maximum hit its peak about 21,000 to 18,000 years ago. 11,600 years ago there was the Younger Dryas cold snap, with temperatures 14 degrees C below present-day, after which the Vela X supernova was seen on Earth and the Taurid/Encke comet fragmented, and a very sudden (50 years or so) warming event ended the Ice Age and marked the start of the HOLOCENE AGE of warm climate and glacial retreat.
If 11,600 years ago marked the beginning of the Rule of Mortal Humans on Earth according to Manetho (Egyptian historian ca. 343 BC), then
his immediately preceding period of 11,025 years of Rule by Demigods and Spirits of the Dead (followers of Horus) would have begun about 22,625 years ago, or about the time of the beginning of the last Glacial Maximum, and
his first period, preceding that, of 13,900 years of Rule of Gods on Earth would have begun about 36,525 years ago, or about the time of the Geminga shock wave, the Late Wisconsin Glaciation, and the appearance of Cro-Magnons.
The total period of the Mantho's Ice Age Civilization prior to the Rule of Mortal Humans is therefore about 36,525 - 11,600 = 24,925 years, which is approximately the Earth precession period of 26,000 years and the travel time of a light beam from the center of our Galaxy to our Sun, about 25,000 light years distance. It may have been the time of construction of the Giza Complex of the Sphinx and the Pyramids, including the Great Golden Pyramid. The Ice Age Civilization may have been more spiritual and less crudely technological than the present Rule of Mortal Humans.
This unconventional interpretation of Manetho's chronology is not inconsistent with his list of 30 Egyptian dynasties from about 2920 BC to about 343 BC, but it does extend his chronology from being a history of the past to a History of the Past and Future, in which we are now living near the end of the Rule of Mortal Humans.
Manetho's Rule of Gods, Demigods, and Spirits of the Dead, on Earth before 11,600 years ago, might then be called the Ice Age Civilization.
Before the Ice Age that began about 35,000 years ago, there had been about 95,000 years (95,000 years is approximately one long Milankovitch cycle of variation of eccentricity of the Earth's orbit) of mild climate since the end of the preceding Ice Age about 130,000 years ago. During 130,000-35,000 years ago the Neanderthals were replaced by modern (Cro-Magnon) humans, whose artifacts (especially art) can be found in places (such as caves) all over the world. The wide distribution of high-level cave paintings suggests that human culture world-wide had cultivated intellectual/spiritual dimensions to a high level, although material technology may not have been so highly developed. During 130,000-35,000 years ago the Earth was not continuously warm, as there were cold intervals such as one about 75,000 years ago possibly due to a large volcanic eruption at Toba, Sumatra, and generally the climate got cooler as time progressed. As the climate deteriorated, most of the humans migrated from the newly cold areas to the remaining warmer areas. It is possible that some of the more highly cultivated people did not relocate to the warmer areas, but stayed on in spiritual communities in such areas as the Abyssinian Highlands in Africa, near the Nile River Valley and the East African Rift Valley, and the Altai Mountains in the center of Eurasia, near Lake Baikal, Siberian Rivers, Lake Balkash, the ancient lakes of the Takla Makan and the Gobi, the ancient rivers of India, and the rivers of China.
During the Ice Age from about 35,000 years ago until about 11,600 years ago, sea levels were lower due to the water in the glaciers. At the peak of glaciation, about 18,000 years ago, sea level was about 85 meters lower than it is now (which is about 50 meters lower than it was when the Ice Age ended about 11,600 years ago). At 18,000 years ago, the Earth looked like this map from Earth and Life Through Time, by Steven Stanley, (Freeman (2nd ed) 1989):
Glaciers of about 20,000 years ago
are shown in dark blue, blue, and light blue in this map from The Times Atlas of World History (Times Books (4th ed) 1993). Red shows the extended land area due to low sea levels about 20,000 years ago, and green and yellow show areas favorable for human habitation in wet and dry periods, respectively. The two turqouise squares show the locations ofthe Sphinx-Giza complex at the mouth of the Nile River, at the intersection of the favorable Asian and African areas, and Gora Belukha in Central Asia, which may be known in China as Kunlun Shan, home of Xi Wang Mu, the Queen of the West, and in India as Su Meru, home of Indra. In Eurasia, during the dry period of the Ice Age, most people probably migrated to the large land mass of Japan-Korea-China-Southeast Asia-Indonesia-South India, with some highly cultivated spiritual people staying in the glacier-covered Altai Mountains. Gora Belukha, 14,783 feet, the highest Altai Mountain, is in Siberia near Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan.
It is near the beginning point of the 9 March 1997 solar eclipse.
The Altai region is known as a cross-roads between China, India, the Mediterranean, and Europe. It could have been a common source for spiritual systems and languages. An Altai common source could account for similarities among such spiritual systems as Chinese Taoism, Indian Vedism, Tibetan Bon, and European Druids, as well as the similarities among the Ainu language of Japan, Sarasvati-Sindhu language of India, and Basque language and Ogam script of Europe that indicate the existence of a Global Early Language. As the Ice Age ended, the glaciers thawed, flooding such areas as the Takla Makan and the East Asia Lowlands, so many people were forced to migrate to India, IndoChina, or China. Flooding of the Persian Gulf and the margins of the Black and Mediterranean Seas would have been less extensive than the flooding of the East Asia Lowlands, but would have also forced some people to migrate to Persia, Turkey, and Greece. In Africa, during the Ice Age most people probably lived South of the Mediterranean, in the favorable Central African region that included the Abyssinian Highlands. The Ge'ez language of Abyssinia seems to be closely related to a Global Early Language. As the Ice Age ended, the Northern Nile River Valley became wet and productive, so people migrated there. The African situation would have been more Northward expansion into newly productive land, whereas the Asian situation would have involved more resettlement to the Interior of people displaced by floods.
In the Americas, during the dry period of the Ice Age, most people probably migrated to the Olmec region of Central America and the Northern Andes. The Olmec language seems to be closely related to a Global Early Language. As the Ice Age ended, Central Mexico, the Yucatan, and the Southern Andes became more habitable, so people probably moved there.
An interesting question is the extent of contact during the Ice Age among three major spiritual centers: 1 - The Altai Mountains, which probably did not ever have a large population due to climate and terrain. 2 - The Americas, which due to smaller favorable area probably did not have large population. 3 - The Abyssinian Highlands, which was probably the only one of the three to have a large population and favorable climate.
Possible evidence of Ice Age Civilization in the period of 35,000 to 12,000 years ago include large stone structures under the sea near Japan, known as the Japanese Pyramids and called Hiramitsuto, as to which Shun Daichi says "There are six places they found structures in the Okinawa area. One is located in Taiwan. All of them are under the sea. All the geologists agree that the underwater structures are at least 12,000 years old." and a possible dressed masonry structure site, now under the sea, off the Bimini coast near Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico - Caribbean Sea region. However, it is possible that both of those sites are natural geological phenomena, perhaps similar to basalt prisms or naturally fractured coral. Clear evidence of Ice Age Civilization in the period of 35,000 to 12,000 years ago is found in Fukui Cave of Northern Kyushu Island, the southwesternmost island of Japan, in the form of Jomon pottery containers, which (according to Joseph B. Lambert's book Traces of the Past (Addison-Wesley 1997)) have been dated as slightly later than 12,750 +/- 500 years old, and therefore consistent with coinciding with the end of the Ice Age about 11,600 years ago, so that the Jomon pottery could have been taken to Fukui Cave of Kyushu by Jomon people of the Ice Age Civilization when they fled the flooding of the surrounding lowlands after the Ice Age ended around 11,600 years ago.
The Jomon people, according to Jared Diamond's article Japanese Roots (Discover Magazine June 1998, pp. 86-94), survive as the Ainu of Hokkaido and northern Honshu, the northeasternmost Japanese islands. They were displaced by Yayoi invaders from Korea around 400 BC.
Jomon pottery containers are the oldest known, and the only ones known to exist before the end of the Ice Age about 11,600 years ago. In the rest of Europe, Asia, and Africa, the oldest are Turkish, about 10,500 years old. In the Americas, the oldest from Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, and the Southeastern United States, and are only about 4,500 years old, according to Joseph B. Lambert's book Traces of the Past (Addison-Wesley 1997).
Water-tight Jomon containers made it possible for people to boil and steam food. As Jared Diamond notes in his article Japanese Roots (Discover Magazine June 1998, pp. 86-94), the Jomon Ice Age Civilization could expand their diet to include boiled or steamed leafy vegetables and shellfish. Boiling could detoxify such toxic foods as acorns, and soft-boiled foods could be eaten by infants and toothless old people. They could live well in and near their own villages by hunting and gathering, with no need for agriculture or warfare. They got along quite well without metal tools, writing, weaving, and social/political class structure.
The Ice Age Civilization could have occupied the large land mass of the Sunda Shelf
(Times Atlas of Archaelogy, Crescent 1995)
of Japan-Korea-China-Southeast Asia-Indonesia-South India, much of which is now under water.
Although the pottery was too bulky for everyday travel, it could have been carried to Fukui Cave in the high ground of Northern Kyushu Island, now the southwesternmost island of Japan, by Jomon people when they fled the flooding of the surrounding lowlands after the Ice Age ended around 11,600 years ago.
Since the water that covers much of the area of the Ice Age Civilization is not clear water like Bimini, but is in seas heavily silted by rivers like the Yellow and Yangtze in the northern Sunda Shelf between China and Korea, and the Mekong in the southern Sunda Shelf, and since a lot of the remaining area has a lot of tropical jungle, not to mention being subject to active volcanism and earthquake activity, and since the American and Congo regions are now tropical jungles, artifacts in the 35,000 to 12,000 year age range, such as Jomon pottery in the northern Sunda Shelf, may now be very hard to find.
The art of the Ice Age period indicates that the Ice Age Civilization may have been more advanced, especially in social structure and relations with higher intellectual/spiritual levels, than any later civilization including our present one.
For instance, our present civilization is just now beginning to understand the levels of reality related to Many-Worlds quantum theory; to discover how quantum computers work; and to utilize other promising New Technologies.
As it is possible that the Ice Age Civilization was more advanced socially and intellectually/spiritually than ours, it is also possible that the Ice Age Civilization could have been the builders of the Sphinx-Giza complex, particularly in light of the facts that:
the only area that clearly had favorable climates in both the Ice Age of 35,000 to 12,000 years ago (see map above on this page) and in the period of 11,000 or 12,000 to 6,000 years ago (see map on that page) is the homeland of the African Abyssinian Highlanders;
the Asian part of the Ice Age Civilization, evidenced by Jomon pottery, was so disrupted by flooding at the end of the Ice Age about 11,600 years ago, that only the Jomon people of the Japanese Islands (whose remnants today are the Ainu) could continue their Ice Age Civilization without severe conflict with others fighting over limited resources (on the Asian mainland, the repository of Ice Age Civilization was probably individual Taoists living in remote forests and mountains); and
the Sphinx-Giza complex is located at the intersection of the Asian and African areas of the Ice Age Civilization.
In my opinion, about 11,000 to 6,000 years ago was the latest reasonable time for construction of the Giza Sphinx and Pyramids. After about 6,000 years ago, the level of technology of the Great Pyramid at Giza could not be maintained by the economic and social structure of the indigenous population.
From about 11,000 to 6,000 years ago the Abyssinian Highlanders of the African Nile Lake were the most highly organized remnant of the Ice Age Civilization. They were the probable source of ways to cope with the changed circumstances of the post-Ice Age world, including agriculture, mining,written communication, and organized armies, thus forming a Global Early Civilization with a Global Early Language.
Diodorus of Sicily, author of Bibliotheca Historica, lived in the time of Julius Caesar and Augustus (Encyclopaedia Britannica). Richard Poe, in Black Spark, White Fire (Prima 1997), quotes Diodorus as saying:
"Now the Ethiopians ... were the first of all men. ... ... the Egyptians are colonists sent out by the Ethiopians, Osiris having been the leader of the colony ... ... Osiris ... gathered together a great army, with the intention of visiting all the inhabited earth and teaching the race of men how to cultivate ... ... for he supposed that if he made men give up their savagery and adopt a gentle manner of life he would receive immortal honors. ..." Diodorus said that Osiris then went from Egypt and Ethiopia to Arabia, Greece, and India.
Poe also cites linguists who think that AfroAsiatic Languages originated in the Abyssinian Highlands, and radiated out therefrom about 12,000 to 10,000 years ago, which is consistent with the Abyssinian Highlanders being the repository of a Global Early Language which they reintroduced to the post-Ice Age world.
The Giza Sphinx and Pyramids may have been built by the Ice Age Civilization.
When the Ice Age ended about 11,600 years ago, the Jomon people may have moved from the flooded Sunda Shelf lowlands to high ground, such as Fukui Cave of Kyushu, Japan, where Jomon pottery of that age has been found. On what then became the Islands of Japan, the Jomon established a culture that lasted for 10,000 years, and may have been a continuation of the Ice Age Civilization. According to Jared Diamond's article Japanese Roots (Discover Magazine June 1998, pp. 86-94), the present-day remnants of the Jomon are the Ainu of Japan. Characteristics of the Jomon Ice Age Civilization include:
What the Jomon Ice Age Civilization did NOT have is equally revealing:
From the end of the Ice Age about 11,600 years ago until about 6,000 years ago, the Nile River Valley was a good place to live where the people of the Ice Age Civilization could continue their high culture without much disruption, in marked contrast to the situation in China where the end of the Ice Age brought great turbulence
At the end of the Ice Age about 11,600 years ago, many people of the Ice Age Civilization were displaced from the flooded Sunda Shelf and came into China, where they began to compete for food and resources. A few of those people refused to abandon their high culture that was balanced with nature. They isolated themselves from the fierce competition for resources by living in the forests and mountains, and became the Taoists that we know today. Throughout the years, according to Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel, W. W. Norton 1997), the Taoists revealed to the general population such techniques as canal lock gates, cast iron, deep drilling, animal harnesses, gunpowder, kites, magnetic compasses, movable type, paper, porcelain, printing, sternpost rudders, wheelbarrows, and more. In China, unlike the Nile River Valley, the transition at the end of the Ice Age was turbulent.
The end of the Ice Age may have also been turbulent in many other areas of the world, such as Vedic Indus-Ganges, Sumer, and Mesoamerica, where the main heritage of the Ice Age Civilization may be legends of Gods and Early Men.
This page on human civilizations from about 35,000 to about 12,000 years ago is based in part on the WWW materials of Mark Hammons. Although his views about the history of the past 35,000 years or so are different from mine in many details, we agree that the Great Golden Pyramid looks like a device, not just a tomb.
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