A 200,000 Year Old Metropolis In Africa....

[jus_the_facts]

http://www.viewzone.com/adamscalendar.html

"When Johan first introduced me to the ancient stone ruins of southern Africa, I had no idea of the incredible discoveries we would make in the year or two that followed. The photographs, artifacts and evidence we have accumulated points unquestionably to a lost and never-before-seen civilization that predates all others -- not by just a few hundred years, or a few thousand years... but many thousands of years. These discoveries are so staggering that they will not be easily digested by the mainstream historical and archaeological fraternity, as we have already experienced. It will require a complete paradigm shift in how we view our human history. " -- Tellinger

We are about to start numerous scientific experiments at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University to get more accurate dating on many of the artefacts, predominantly, stone tools. I see this only as the humble beginning, as we hope to launch several archaeological digs, and invite international experts to get involved. Please support the MaKomati foundation (www.makomati.com ) to help us protect and preserve some of the more important ruins and do more research. Until now, all the research has been funded by Johan Heine and myself, from the sales of my previous books, Slave Species of god and Adam's Calendar.

We urge international donor organisations with an interest in ancient history to get involved and help speed up the research.

Michael Tellinger




....this is the first I've heard about this...don't know how credible this site is but thought it frightfully interesting nonetheless.

[AngryAmish]

1. I though Leng was in Antartica?

Though the Elder Things do awaken...

[NYC_SKP]

2. Their means of dating the ruins are, well, worthy of further study.

"The first rough calculation was at least 25,000 years ago. But new and more precise measurements kept increasing the age. The next calculation was presented by a master archaeoastronomer who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of ridicule by the academic fraternity. His calculation was also based on the rise of Orion and suggested an age of at least 75,000 years. The most recent and most acurate calculation, done in June 2009, suggests an age of at least 160,000 years, based on the rise of Orion -- flat on the horizon -- but also on the erosion of dolerite stones found at the site.

Some pieces of the marker stones had been broken off and sat on the ground, exposed to natural erosion. When the pieces were put back together about 3 cm of stone had already been worn away. These calculation helped assess the age of the site by calculating the erosion rate of the dolerite."

:shrug:

'wishes to remain anonymous' hmmmmm...

[old mark]

6. An anonymous "archeoastronomer" from an unnamed university?

Sounds as authentic as a poll quoted by Glenn Beck....

mark

[BurtWorm]

10. When the words 'fear of ridicule' appear in discussion of a 'scientific' research site

it's a pretty good indication that ridicule is probably in order.

[old mark]

12. I know several astronomy Drs. and they are not afraid of much of anything.

One of them used to regularly debate creationists at local colleges, but the "religious" folks stopped coming to debate him.

mark

[TheMadMonk]

32. Or we've hit one of those times of paradigm shift, where we have to wait...

...until all the crusty old bastards are dead.

Bit like with those poofter penguins everyone saw, but no one dared write up.


I'm inclined to trust these results. The researchers didn't trust their initial results so they tried again (more meticulously) and got an even more "ridiculous" answer. More meticulous again and got a result somewhere way on the far side of "What the ..." AND got confirmation via an independent method to go with it. Either something is fundamentally wrong with methods which have proven accurate in all other situations where they've been applied, or these results will stand and Fundie heads will Scannerize nicely.

[hobbit709]

3. Airhead 101 science

[eShirl]

4. is this the same Michael Tellinger?

http://www.slavespecies.com

hmmm.

[DavidDvorkin]

5. That's quite a site

It's hard to take the guy seriously. No, it's impossible.

[xchrom]

7. ...

:spray:

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. Same one......... I think the Stone Calendar for dating the site to

correlation to Orion's position 200,000 years ago is a bogus deduction based on supposition.

Hadn't heard of this angle before in any authentic archeological publications but I guess the Erich von Däniken's of this world still bring em in.

[theoldman]

8. He did not mention that the people who built the metropolis had to be Neanderthals.

It appears that the Neanderthals lost their intelligence since they never built any more cities. It is more likely that Tellinger lost his intelligence.

[itsrobert]

13. Maybe they all got lead poisoning

They were mining for gold, maybe they came in contact with lead. :sarcasm:

[eShirl]

14. they didn't live in that area of the world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_%28genus%29#Species

[csziggy]

31. Neanderthals never lived in Africa - they were in Europe only

There have been claims for decades of ancient megalithic ruins all over the world dating to 250,000 BCE, even before von Daniken and his whacko ideas. Unfortunately (for the proponents), peer reviewed archeological studies do not support these claims. Neither does physical anthropological data, especially DNA and RNA data. It makes for fun modern legends, which IS a entertaining anthropological study.

[tabatha]

9. Thanks so much for this.

I find this very interesting.

I bought a now out-of-print book about Mapungubwe some years ago, because of its interest, but also because I lived close to where it is located for a short while many, many years ago. I cannot even find an image of this book, even on Amazon.



http://www.mapungubwe.com/cultural.htm

"Findings on Greefswald are typical of the Iron Age. Smiths created objects of iron, copper and gold for practical and decorative purposes – both for local use and for trade. Pottery, wood, ivory, bone, ostrich eggshells and the shells of snails and freshwater mussels indicate that many other materials were used and traded with cultures as far away as East Africa, Persia, Egypt, India and China. "

So, I wonder if they will find a connection between these two places. They are probably less than 200 miles apart, and Mapungubwe is about 200 miles from the ruins of Zimbabwe.

[tabatha]

17. I found this comment on another site:

"The age of the ruins were determined from back-dating Adam's Calandar, a "stonehenge-like" stone observatory (made from magnetically charged dolomite monoliths) discovered in Mpumalanga, South Africa four years ago. Researchers from the UK were called in to match and date the geographical layout of the stones with its corresponding astrological alignment. Just like they did before, when they dated Stonehenge in England. The results were conclusive in pointing to a period somewhere between 25,000 and 150,000 years ago."

[HamdenRice]

21. Mapungubwe is a very, very cool site!

The Bantu-speakers definitely mined gold in that area, which is what attracted white prospectors in the first place.

Ironically, Bantu-speakers never discovered the gold around Johannesburg, even though it was literally lying on the ground. Yet, Johannesburg was a mining center for pre-colonial Bantu-speakers -- an iron mining center. The iron smelting furnaces of the pre-colonial Bantu-speakers have been preserved in Joburg at "Melville Koppies."

Mapungubwe does seem to have been linked to Zimbabwe in some way -- economically or politically.

But Mapungubwe radio carbon dates to the Bantu Iron Age, not to some very distant past.

[HamdenRice]

15. Hoax alert: This is "neo-apartheid" nonsense. Those are "African/Bantu-speaker" iron age ruins.

This is a somewhat complex story, so bear with me.

I am very familiar with those kinds of ruins. They are typical towns and settlements built by Black/African South Africans before the arrival of whites and even after up to the 1800s. They are between 2,000 and 200 years old. These big towns were not unusual and it wasn't until the late 1800s that Cape Town was bigger than the largest African towns in the interior.

As I'm sure everyone knows, South Africa has many racial and ethnic groups. Broadly speaking, they are African/black/Bantu-speakers, Whites (English speaking and Dutch/Afrikaners), Coloured and Asian/Indian, plus a small number of remaining Khoisan/!Kung/Bushman/San.

The first modern human people in SA were the Khoisan, who arrived maybe 20,000 years ago. They were hunter gatherers and used stone tools.

The next group were African/Black/Bantu-speakers (odd to call them African, when everyone else in SA is also actually African). They arrive around 2,000 years ago. They were farmers, kept cattle, sheep and goats and made iron tools, and mined iron, gold, tin and copper.

Then came the whites around 1600 (Dutch/Afrikaners) and 1800 (Brits). Indians arrived in the mid 1800s.

Coloureds are the descendants of mixing between whites, mostly Afrikaners, and Khoisan, who were first almost destroyed by war and disease and then reduced to the slaves of the Dutch. There are almost no Khoisan left.

When apartheid came along, the Afrikaners tried to falsify African history and say that the Blacks did not arrive until around the same time the Dutch did, and that therefore the Dutch had just as much right to the land as the Blacks -- justifying wars of conquest. They said the Africans had just taken it away from the Khoisan so they could take it away from the Africans.

The problem was that there were these extensive towns and even more massive ruins.

The solution: Claim the ruins were created by people other than Black Africans. They were created by a lost tribe of Summarians; they were created by lost Phoenicians; claim they were created by some really, really ancient civilization that predates Bantu/African settlement by tens of thousands of years; anything but accept that they were created by the people whose land they were stealing.

When Great Zimbabwe ruins were discovered and explored the first white archaeologists went through the artifacts to "prove" it was created by Phoenicians but all the artifacts were clearly Bantu/African, so they threw them over the side of the mountain on which the ruins were located, as "useless" while they continued to dig down for evidence of the people who "really" created Zimbabwe. They destroyed thousands of priceless artifacts making future studies almost impossible.

During apartheid when radio carbon dating came out, archaeologists dated hundreds of these kinds of ruins and all dates showed they were clearly from the Bantu/African iron age. So the government for a long time banned radio carbon dating in South Africa.

This website is a new version of that same nonsense -- neo-apartheid nonsense.

Those extensive circular ruins are classic Bantu/African town ruins described in great detail as being inhabited by Africans by the first white explorers in the interior of South Africa, and sometimes abandoned and new ones built. (The frequency with which town water sources dried up necessitated whole towns and kingdoms to move, as did the Zulu wars of the early 1800s.)

If you would like to learn more about these fascinating ruins, look into the work of SA's greatest archaeologist, Revil Mason, (white guy, University of the Witwatersrand), who fought a long, lonely academic battle against the apartheid government to show that all those ruins were of African origin.

[jus_the_facts]

16. Thanks...I stated my skepticism...

....will definitely check out Mason. :)

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. Thanks HR, excellent summary. n/t

[tabatha]

23. See #22

[tabatha]

20. Did you know that the Mapungubwe ruins

were hidden by the Apartheid government because they, as you said, did not want White people in the country to think that the Bantu had any skills.

The Mapungubwe ruins are valid and well recognized as belonging to the Bantu/African iron age.

However, what they have found at these new ruins are very interesting - they may be connected to both Zimbabwe and Mapungubwe.

Another Wits person weighed in: "Prof Guy Charlesworth of Wits University concurs that if these were the original heights of some of the walls, it would have taken thousands of years to erode to knee-height through the effects of nature alone."

Google Guy Charlesworth.

So while there may be a dispute about the ages, they are important ruins and hopefully will be preserved. They are trying for a World Heritage Site status.

[tabatha]

22. Hmmmm

I found this - so I wonder if the quote about Revil Mason is true:


One Saturday in the early 1960s I helped the archaeologist Revil Mason map Iron Age kraals on the Melville Koppies. I was the puzzled little boy holding the long pole, while Mason operated the theodolite. You can find the kraal walls if you venture into the grassland and the now almost impenetrable forest.

Our kraals are rather modest, but you can see better examples at Klipriviersberg and Suikerbosrand. There are thousands of these ruins all over the Highveld and into Mpumalanga. They are the remains of an Iron Age culture dating back two to three centuries. The Koppies has one of the best preserved iron smelting furnaces in the country, excavated by Mason.


A reconstructed Iron Age Kraal on Melville Koppies. We prefer to think that it is 200 or 300 years old. The argument for 75 000 years seems rather thin.
Photo: Gena Orfali

To archaeologists these ruins represent a style called the "central cattle pattern", for the daisy-shaped design enclosed the all-important cattle kraal. Settlements are not built like this today, but cattle are still valued, even revered.

Stone walling goes far back in Southern Africa - the beginnings of Great Zimbabwe probably date to the 11th Century AD. The first scientific excavation there, in 1929, was unpopular in attributing it to Africans. Many would have preferred a mythical Phoenician origin.

There is a book doing the rounds now which has a very different view. All these ruins are apparently evidence of a "higher culture" dating back 75 000 years, 71 500 years before even the Phoenicians.

Decide for yourself. Compare these two books:

Huffman, T, 2007, Handbook to the Iron Age, University of Kwazulu Natal Press, Scottsville.

Tellinger, M, Heine, J, 2008, Adam's Calendar Zulu Planet Publishers.

http://www.mk.org.za/mkcolumns10.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mysterious ancient ruins of southern Africa.

It is estimated that there are over 20,000 ancient stone ruins scattered throughout the mountains of southern Africa. Modern historians have been speculating about the origins of these ruins, often calling them 'cattle kraal of little historic importance'. The truth of the matter is that closer scientific inspection paints a completely different and astonishing new picture about the ancient history of these stone ruins of southern Africa. The scientific reality is that we actually know very little about these spectacular ancient ruins and it is a great tragedy that thousands have already been destroyed through sheer ignorance by forestry, farmers and development.

After my personal explorations on foot and by air over the past year in 2008, I can confidently estimate the number of ancient stone ruins to be closer to 100,000.

This figure was confirmed by Prof. Revil Mason in January 2009.

http://www.ufodigest.com/news/0109/adams-calendar-print.html

[HamdenRice]

27. A few things about the dates -- sorry we're responding to each other in several different subthreads

This guy is confusing different kinds of sites and what Revil Mason was "confirming."

As I wrote upthread, Mapungubwe is a very cool site. It is theorized to be connected to Zimbabwe.

The area has been settled by humans for 20,000 years at least -- but the very big towns are of the Bantu Iron Age.

The smaller kraals are stone age kraals of the Khoisan. I did not say there was no human settlement. I acknowledged the Khoisan have been there for 20,000 years.

I said the big towns are Bantu origin. That's because the Khoisan did not form big towns or mine gold.

Mason's earlier career was focused on South Africa's "Later Stone Age" (ie very small scale Khoisan settlement archaeology). His later career was on the Bantu Iron Age, which overlays in some places the Stone Age sites.

So you could "misread" Mason and say he confirms settlement from 20,000 years ago, but he definitely does not "confirm" there were big towns 20,000 years ago, which is what this site (incidentally also about UFOs) is trying to say.

Btw, one of the coolest ways that Mapungubwe is dated is because they and Zimbabwe were engaged in long distance trade with China. There were extensive finds of fine Chinese porcelin at both Mapungubwe and Zimbabwe. Because Chinese porcelin can be exactly dated as fashions changed, it's possible to date the layers of artifacts at these sites to corroborate the radio carbon dates. Iirc, the earliest dated Chinese pottery is Ming Dynasty.

The Mapungubwe you link to is perfectly accurate and correct and refers to the Bantu Iron Age. The UFO link is not correct.

The big towns are all Bantu Iron Age.

[tabatha]

28. Yep, I treasure the Mapungubwe book.

It has cool photos of the artifacts discovered and which were hidden; that is probably why they are preserved. I once lived in Musina, copper mining town, and could have climbed koppies near that site.

[HamdenRice]

29. **"central cattle pattern", for the daisy-shaped design**

Yeah, that's the key. That design is a design for a large scale, cattle keeping kingdom or chiefdom -- ie Bantu origin.

At the center of the town and the kingdom was the circular royal cattle kraal, abutted by the circular royal house. Since other big families also had cattle kraals, you get that daisy pattern of circles of circles expanding outward.

That's exactly what is shown in the aerial photos in the OP.

20,000 years ago, no one was keeping cattle and there were no big towns or kingdoms.

[tabatha]

34. Actually, there may be two eras going on here.

I am really happy this brought me to the revamped Melville Koppies site - the last time I was there, it was not that great.

From their site - there are stone age camps and iron age settlements - some on top of each other.

Mason believed that "archaeology is not limited to the distant past but recorded wherever human action leaves its mark on the landscape..." (p. 24) He identified seven archaeological sites on what we call Melville Koppies Central:

1. Stone Age camps 250 000 and 100 000 years old. Ancestral Tswana Iron Furnace 500 years old.
2. African Iron Furnace Models.
3. A second Tswana Iron Furnace.
4. Tswana hut floor and pottery - 300 years old.
5. 1880s gold prospecting.
6. 1900s gun emplacement.
7. Early 1900s quarries.

The Stone Age camps were revealed in the same excavation, in 1963, which uncovered the 100 year old furnace. The furnace is on a living floor about 50cm below the present ground-level. The 100 000 year old camp is about a metre below that, and the 250 000 year old floor another metre below that.

Part of the excavation was filled in on completion. The furnace and small parts of the older living floors are preserved under glass in a shelter near the lecture hut.

The artefacts discovered are housed at the University of the Witwatersrand. We have Stone Age artefacts on display but they are part of a collection donated to us over the years.

Mason's 250 000BP date places these remains in the Middle Stone Age. He himself uses the term "Fauresmith", which is not common parlance today. The tools would have been made by people called "Archaic Homo Sapiens", meaning that they were anatomically similar to modern humans, but that the remains they have left do not make it clear whether they were like us in mind and consciousness or not. Their way of life would have been that of hunter-gatherers and scavengers.

The 100 000 year old evidence is that of fully modern humans. The commonly accepted "out of Africa" theory today proposes that humans left Africa perhaps 80 000 years ago, equipped with the full human "toolkit" - tools, language, art, control of fire, song, and sociability.

Some of the buildings could be very old, but they would not be associated with metal working of more modern times.

Edited for link:
http://www.mk.org.za/mkhist1.htm

[malaise]

25. Super post HR

Truth will out.

[AngryAmish]

26. well done

[Moochy]

19. Their cited dates *are* ridiculous

Would-be Paradigm Shifters are often shifty.

This section strikes me as particularly egregious:

The first rough calculation was at least 25,000 years ago. But new and more precise measurements kept increasing the age. The next calculation was presented by a master archaeoastronomer who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of ridicule by the academic fraternity. His calculation was also based on the rise of Orion and suggested an age of at least 75,000 years. The most recent and most acurate<sic> calculation, done in June 2009, suggests an age of at least 160,000 years, based on the rise of Orion -- flat on the horizon -- but also on the erosion of dolerite stones found at the site.

Hmmm.....
'Archaeoastronomy' or radio-carbon dating & good site stratigraphic analysis.

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to which one of these disciplines is more authoritative for positively dating archaeological sites?

[tabatha]

24. See #22

[JonQ]

30. I find that very unlikely.

So they had a stable civilization 200,000 years ago that disappeared and was not duplicated for 190,000 years? Unlikely.

Unless it's called atlantis, then this all makes sense.

[Orsino]

33. Baloney.

This ranks right down there with the face-on-Mars folks' imaginings.

They're not competent to date the sites, period, and won't be publishing in any peer-reviewed journals.