Theory on 75,000 year old African structures?

The link

75,000 years ago early humans built a stone calendar that predates all other man-made structures found to date. This ‘African Stonehenge’ has for the first time created a link to the countless other stone ruins in southern Africa and suggests that these ruins are much older than we thought.

This is an interesting document but suffers from having little real data, a hint of fringe and conspiracy by stupidity asides against academics. It is also a promotional piece for a book. Take it for a spin but beware.

get the oldest land mass map you can find; where the theory of the continents being one whole continent is shown and look at that last pic again. weird

Originally posted by xoxo stacie
get the oldest land mass map you can find; where the theory of the continents being one whole continent is shown and look at that last pic again. weird

Do you mean to say that the pictures shows something like Pangea??

reply to post by xoxo stacie


Thats what I was thinking when I first saw the picture also.

Odd

For comparison:

Originally posted by Hanslune:






From www-sst.unil.ch... :

Pangea in Carboniferous an Permian times


(edit): Images of Pangea, Permian through today

[edit on Wed Jan 28 2009 by Rren]

reply to post by whoshotJR


Okay it kinda, maybe, sorta, almost, looks like Pangea - on a bad day.

However that really isn't germane to the story now is it? LOL

Have to agree with Hans this time - it is just soooo remotely similar that you have to look at least twice to see it. And, of course, erase the whole chunk of Asia from the Pangaea map..

I also would like to bring up some stonecircles in North Africa for comparison - I wonder if there is anything in common between those two:
Nabta stones

I guess this was discussed to death (or debunked - can't use ATS search to look it up at work), but I think it is interesting in the light of these new discoveries.

[edit on 28-1-2009 by ilaruum]

Since I am a firm beleiver in the growing earth theory, pangae is too far fetched.
Nonetheless intresting.

Looks like, from the second pictur, like a hill made up of a harder stone and softr stone. With the softer stone having eroded quicker than the harder stone.

reply to post by ilaruum


Nabta Playa Stone Circle is older than the stonehenge and the pyramids.

By the 5th millennium BC these peoples had fashioned one of the world's earliest known archeoastronomical devices (roughly contemporary to the Goseck circle in Germany and the Mnajdra megalithic temple complex in Malta), about 1000 years older than but comparable to Stonehenge[2] (see sketch at right). Research suggests that it may have been a prehistoric calendar which accurately marks the summer solstice.[3]

en.wikipedia.org...

If this report is right (and I have my doubts) it just reinforces that mankind had a need for "clocks" knowing what day it was, or more pointedly, which season and what plants and animals were doing was critical.

Survival depended on knowing when they could harvest or the best time to move to a new area.

Originally posted by Hanslune
If this report is right (and I have my doubts) it just reinforces that mankind had a need for "clocks" knowing what day it was, or more pointedly, which season and what plants and animals were doing was critical.

Survival depended on knowing when they could harvest or the best time to move to a new area.

And there's one of the objections right there. They weren't agrarians... so they literally depended on the whim of the seasons. Africa doesn't have extreme seasons and knowing when midwinter comes is not terribly useful. Animals migrate through the area, but they don't wake up one day and say "OhMyGosh!! It's the 200th day of the year! Quick!!! Head towards Cape Town!!!"

The aerial photo looks like dried lake beds or impact craters. Before running off the edge of speculation, I'd like to know what the geology is and what it had been. We get lots of "hoodoos" in West Texas, so in some types of geology various groups of standing stones are really common.

reply to post by Byrd


Ah, but some of the animals do follow migration patterns and knowing when certain plants could be harvested would be useful. Yes no signs of agriculture at that time but keeping track of wild growing plants for hunter-gatherers was critical.

I suspect that the Transvaal has season, if I remember my Boer history correctly they have (now days) a distinct dry and wet season.

Another great find. We will probably never know much about it.
I don't see the pangea thing. Why is it when people reconstruct pangea they always leave antartica and the north pole area out of it?

Rhutt-Rhoo...the OP image looks like the stuff that 'Monuments on Mars'
author Richard Hoagland would design to Prove his theory.

What type of social order did humanoids some 75,000 years ago,
with no comprehensive language, decide the need to create a walk-thru
calendar ? ...
?so that nomadic, hunter-gatherers, would know that blueberrys were
ripe on the leward side of mountains...
or that the giant sloths up in the fertile Sahara (now a desert)
were even more slothenly when the 2nd circle after the 7 'steps'
reflected moonlight on circle 3....(see the geometry in the OP image)

with a permanant & profound structure such as an elaborate calendar, there must have been ancient latrines to accomodate the priests, or whomever, that frequented that significant place...

Fossilized poop is termed : Coprolites
and there should be a nearby, former 'privy' area where piles of that stuff should be discovered...
else wise, the supposed 'formation' is a wishful-thinking creation, imho



thanks,


[edit on 28-1-2009 by St Udio]

Unfortunately, I do not 'see' the correlation between the Op's second picture and the Pangea picture. Maybe, if someone would like to highlight/outline where the similiarity is, I might have an easier time seeing it.

Stone circles? Probably marked where a camp was/were used for worship/used to mark where certain people died/naturally formed into that position over the countless years, via various climate and weather factors/was used to mark territory boundaries/etc. I could easily come up with quite a few more ideas. Until we know the sizes and weights of the stone used, type of stone used, and have photographs to analyze (along with tons more of information about them) it is pretty much up in the air. Was it some early form of time-telling device? Doubt it.



[edit on 1/28/2009 by agent violet]

I think people put way too much astrological/religious significance behind these things. Maybe they were structures that were built just to be built. A place to live? A park to hang out in?
And why do people think that the ancients were dumb and had no language? Little people have smaller brains than other people and they are by no means lacking in IQ. Parrots have smaller brains than dogs and are much smarter. Just beause they did not write things in stone does not mean they did not write? Do you write in stone? How long do you think paper lasts left outside? There are ghost towns in the US that we have no explanation as to who lived there and why they left.

[edit on by YoungStalin]

[edit on by YoungStalin]

Yes they often do put too much emphasis on astronomical theories - just as Archaeologists over did the religious aspects of some artifacts a few decades ago.

The guys theory I'm presenting seems a bit shaky to me but it is worthy of notice. The same information is posted over at the Hall of Ma'at so we'll see what the professionals say.

Unfortunately the link starts of intelligently then degrades into hazy areas tinted with conspiracy and fringe.

Very interesting findings. Agreed, the link starts well before getting a little carried away with the possibilities. Estimates of over 100,000 similar sites are offered without any explanation. 500 million stones?! Some of the information seems a little random.

There's a video of Tellinger explaining the site here. Although the site doesn't appear to have been fully researched yet, he's ready to link it to pyramid builders across three continents. Nevertheless, does it matter if he enjoys the speculation as long as archaeologists gain access to the site?

Although they claim field studies have been conducted over 6 years , there's a notable lack of any academic literature. Why would that be the case? Surely the book would benefit from the support of reputable archaeologists? Maybe the book will generate interest in the area? If it's a genuine site with astronomical implications it deserves full studies. More info would be great

reply to post by Kandinsky


I'm not finding anything either. Don't know if this guy is a classic rogue or a free ranger. We'll have to wait for more information.