Graham Hancock: America Before

[enjoypolo]

Hey y'all,

Wanted to spotlight Graham Hancock's latest book, America Before (2019), which I'm still in the middle of reading, but is an incredibly well-documented account that puts the currently held theory about the History of Human civilization on its head.
I would say, that the main premise of the book seems to follow the archeological traces of an advanced civilization(s) from Siberia to South America, including DNA analysis that seems to point towards a migration in the last Ice Age (13,000 AD) from Melanasians/Australians to South America, and particularly in the Amazon. In fact, the Amazon native population has the most similar trait, dismissing, or at least questioning the Bering-strait hypothesis that's been assumed for a long time (Migration from Asia to Americas via Bering and progressively down to Argentina)

Thus, these people were not just nomadic and seafaring, but also very much advanced in technology, astronomy, agronomy, spirituality (i.e., ayahuasca).
My favourite chapters are those talking about the Amazon, mentions of Terra Preta (Black Soil), Plant shamanism, Sacred Geometry and Astronomical alignments of buildings.

I also wanted to point out that incredible advances made in excavation, notably the use of Lidar (Light-Radar) which is basically a sonar based on pulsed-laser lights. Thanks to this, we are now able to have impressive maps of the the jungle penetrating into the dense canopy.

Check out the pictures below from National Geographics below of Tikal, Guatemala using this process.
The thought of using that to uncover artifacts and pyramids from the Amazon gives me goosebumps.

It's quite a massive book, but filled with great photographs taken by Hancock's wife, Santha, documenting archeological sites like the Serpent Mound in Ohio, and elsewhere, as well as places down in South America.

Most importantly, I think Hancock writes eloquently, and presents us a well-crafted case for much older civilizations that used to live on the Earth for long-periods of times (I think the oldest traces go 100,000+ yrs; possibly millions, let that sink in).

The book is available here in ebook here as well (consume with moderation)

More footage using Lidar in various heritage sites across the world:

 

[shamangineer]

Very interesting.

 

[enjoypolo]

So I finished reading the thick-ass book that it is, and a couple things to debrief:
- The second half of the book contains lengthy details regarding earth mounds present in the US.
- Some notable passages included analyses between American First Nations lore, and those of the Amazons, with Egyptian texts, notably about Death and the Afterlife (Duat). Hancock goes on to talk about Shamanistic practices that are deeply connected with the afterlife journey, as also described in The Book of The Dead of Egypt, as well as the Tibetan Book of the Dead and its concepts of the Bardos.
I recently read Popol Vuh recounting the Mayan myth of K'iche people and the concepts in that book are very similar to those texts.

If I got this right, Hancock is not suggesting that there was a universal civilization prior to the cataclysm that occurred 12,800 years ago (Old World), but that cultural rituals were passed down from one civilization to more recent ones up until recently (New World).

A good chunk is spent analyzing the younger dryas extinction event of ~12,000 yrs through soil stratas (and ice core samples from Greenland) clearly demarcated by a thick layer of charcoal with rare minerals like platinum, iron and other rare isotopes which seems to indicate a massive cataclysm that not only got rid of megafauna and biomass, but massive floods. Also, these traces were found on all corners of the planet, corroborating the theory of a global cataclysm.


Ultimately, he's pointing finger at a comet from the Taurid meteor belt that struck Earth, and that borrowing from First Nation lore, these are cyclical events.

Couple notes:
- I buy the comet theory that struck Earth and pulverized a good chunk of Earth. I also wonder if this wasn't a planet in our solar system that exploded, for whatever reasons (incl. man-made disaster) sending fragments to Earth. I forget if it was Velikovsky or someone else who suggested this, but I thought its worth mentioning, although no allusions to it in the book.

- It took Hancock frigging 475 pages to admit, in his old age, that the huge megalithic sites like Baalbek stones or the Great Pyramids of Giza, used some kind of forgotten technology, including ESP.

What's regrettable, is the omission of that dude, Edward Leedskalnin, and his Coral Castle. Sadly, I never got into that rabbit hole (yet), but the little I know suggests that that guy was on to something. However he did it, he was able to move massive stones that defy our common-sense.
Yet, I don't recall seeing that name, or place, being mentioned once. I guess, in his defence, Hancock really wants to keep his book, and his work, as solid as possible, which is why I think it took him so long to admit to believing in ESP.

One thing he keeps emphasizing is how much the mainstream establishment is hostile to anything that questions its apple-cart. Most THC listeners are aware of that I guess, but it's worth noting.

Overall though, I think this book offers solid, detailed evidence for a massive catacylsm scenario that occurred 12,000 yrs ago, as well as the fact that these people were much more advanced than most people realize, as well as seafearers that would explain why Australian-Melanisian genes linking them to Amazon folks.