The "Yonaguni Monument" southwest of Okinawa, Japan. "Yonaguni", as it is typically called, takes its name from the small nearby island of Yonaguni, the westernmost of the Ryukyu archipelago of islands that stretches from Kyushu to Taiwan.



In July of 1986, Kihachiro Aratake, a diveshop owner on Yonaguni Island, a small Japanese island southwest of Okinawa, strayed outside of the safety perimeter to dive the unknown areas west of the island. What he found was nothing short of astonishing, something that has baffled geologists, archaeologists, and historians alike ever since.

Not far outside the perimeter, only 200 feet off of a set of sheer cliffs called Iseki Point, he stumbled across a low, rambling, monolithic structure that appeared, at least at first glance, to be a large, manmade temple complex or similar structure. The structure itself is roughly 240 feet long, 90 feet wide and is apparently only one of a complex of structures that dot the sea bed for hundreds of miles. Masaaki Kimura, a professor at University of the Ryukyus, Department of Science Faculty, has dated it as being anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 years old, based upon fossil remains found on the monument. Since Earth's oceans have risen over 120 feet in the past 10,000 years, from 6,000-10,000 years ago the Monument would have been well above water.

Most historians, archaeologists and geologists, including Robert Schoch — who is known for his redating of the Sphinx — have dismissed the "Monument" as purely natural. Schoch believes that the sharp right angles to be found throughout the site are part of the natural process of erosion, where the soft stone of which the "Monument" is composed tends to flake off along parallel lines, over time creating the angular features of the Monument.

Kimura and others disagree, however, pointing out that numerous features around the monument, including what appear to be "post holes", clearly defined stairways, and the structure's similarity to other aboveground structures on the island of Yonaguni, make it unlikely that the structure was purely natural. In the end, both Schoch and Kimura come to the conclusion that the structure was most likely "terraformed", where the builders worked around the Monument's natural features to adjust it to suit their needs.

That would be my guess too - based on pictures and what I've read.

I've no problem with humans living in the area 10,000 years ago - when it would have been above sea level. Doesn't prove an advanced culture mind, just that they were of a similar technological level as people were (elsewhere in the world) 5,000 years ago......

You mean it isn't 10,000 years old
But graham hancock said that it must be the same age as mahalipuram ?
He was adamant
you're not saying that theres a possibility that he's wrong are you
after all he's the only person on earth that claimed that date for yonaguni.
It must be true though cos it fits in with his precessional idea that he's been flogging since he first put pen to paper.

see must be true if theres a photo of it.... right

You don't like Hancock, do you

As you know the mod team at ghmb says you shouldn't put personal opinions in your posts.
Got to keep it factual

so
No i don't like hancock
I'm still waiting ofr his retraction to appear about his claims for mahalipuram
all i've seen him do so far is mention the tsunami and then mention his book again in the same sentence
making money from misery
I don't like that either

where or what is mahalipuram ?

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=mah...+temple&spell=1

why didnt I do that,thanks

Well, I do like Graham Hancock. The reason he dates the Yoni____ Monument at more than 10,000 years is because it has to be that old to have been above mean sea level. The monument was submerged when the Laurentian Dam burst approx. 12,000 years ago. Just as the rediscovered underwater city off the coast of India was once above sea level before that dam break.

you obviously can read than.
but apparently have no free will of your own.
or common sense

there is a connection between Yonaguni Monument and Machu Pichu,according to the site I got the pictures.

http://www.altarcheologie.nl/index1.html?u...Near%20Cuba.htm

I think there might be a bigger connection actually
lol

like what

They've both been misinterpreted in order to fit in with a wild and wacky theory?

and we all know who's theory that is,
don't we Essan.
hehe

My first article was on the yonaguni monument. Very interesting subject. I agree with the terra-forming theory personally. This discovery may help to rewrite the history books

Suddentwist,

Read your article, and I hope it's old.

See, the only person on Earth with any scientific credentials that actually believes the Yonaguni formation is anything but natural, the Dr. Kimura mentioned in your article, has revised his estimates on when the formation was first covered by the sea:



He now believes that human manipulation of the stone in this formation occurred around 5,000 years ago - 3,000 BC IOW - if it occurred at all:



Source for both

If you would use the search function here at UM, you would have known this already.

Harte

Am i incorrect in thinking last year you made a post on this subject stating the formation was natural an not man made, have you switched, or just changing your point of view when the evidence changes.

No, the formation is, I'm certain, quite natural. I have never "switched" nor have I changed my point of view.

The above post was to report on the change of view of the only scientist that still believes the formation is man-made. The same scientist that Suddentwist cites in his article he linked us to.

Harte

Just wondering...what is wrong with changing your point of view if the EVIDENCE suggests that your initial assumption/theory was incorrect. That's pretty much how science works.

See, most skeptics will change if the evidence dictates. Problem is the evidence submitted to the skeptics. Needs to be verifiable, testable, etc.

Off topic but I thought it was worth emphasis.

HN

Thanks for pointing that out. I'll check out your sources and revise the article as needed. The last thing I want to do is misinform readers.

I wrote that article about a year ago and it covers all 3 possibilities(natural formation, man-made, and terra-forming). Some do believe that it may have risen from the sea in more recent times and been carved then. There are also other underwater structures that have been found in Japan and what appear to be roadways. I researched the subject in depth and at the time didn't see any information that Kimura had changed his views on the subject.

Ok I read the information you provided and see that it states that Kimura believes the structure to be "at least" 5000 years old. I did briefly cover this in the article

"Many believe that the structures are either a fully natural phenomenon, pointing to the fact that above the sea surface examples of erosion can be seen causing the rocks to form right angles, or that if indeed it is man made(will change to manipulated by human hands), it may have risen from the sea in more recent times and been carved then."

besides the above change, i see no reason to change anymore of the article. if you have anymore suggestions or see something i wrote to be completely false please point them out.



Suddentwist

No, your article was one of the better ones I've read on this formation, even though it is too pseudoscientific for my particular taste.

As you said, you did cover the possibilities. You just hadn't seen where even Kimura (now) no longer believes in the 10,000 y.o. "sunken monument" idea.

Regarding suggestions, I suggest you look into the Jomon Culture, a culture that thrived in the area (though not at Yonaguni) in a time period well earlier than Kimura's 5,000 year old hypothesis. For example, the Jomon were actually firing pottery in Korea (and Japan and China) in around 14,000 BC.

Yep, you read that right.

You might consider mentioning them instead of some unsubstantiated underwater "roads" off the coast of Japan. A great many Jomon villages were swallowed by the sea when the last Ice Age ended. Real, underwater archaeology is being done at several such sites today.

Harte

My memory tells me, that the global sea level rise was not 120 feet, but 110-120 meters (about 370 feet), and in the next 10,000 years it dropped back only about 10 meters. There were some civilizations definitely destroyed, as today's coastline is dozens of miles away from what it was before Deluge. Say, Australian East coast is at least 35 km inland from the coastline before Deluge. If the main cities were near the shores, they are now on the continental shelf.

Marabod,

I wish people would use the word "culture" instead of "civilization" when culture is the proper term.

These terms actually have well-defined meanings in anthropology and their misuse can easily confuse the uninitiated.

No "civilizations" were destroyed by the rising sea levels after the last Ice Age, and certainly not by any non-existent deluge.

Secondly, there was no "deluge," nor was there any sudden, destruction-bringing sea level rise in the past.

Third, it's well established that Australia (actually the Indo-Australian tectonic plate) has been rising and falling in various sections for millions of years. There are several "ancient" shorelines well inland in Australia. I'm sure there are also several ancient shorelines that are well off the coast today. Neither has anything (much) to do with any sea level rise, since Australia itself does not remain at the same elevation.

In fact, part of this tectonic plate has actually sunk beneath the ocean. Though it sounds familiarly like Atlantis or Lemuria it's not. This part of the plate has been submerged for millions of years, while it is passing over a subduction zone in the mantel. It is destined to re-emerge above the ocean in several more millions of years, once the plate gets past the subduction zone.

Harte

Sorry, but I can see blended apples and oranges in your view. I was talking about sea level rise of Great Deluge, which happend only some 12,000 or so years ago - and you are responding with message about tectonic shifts and level changes which took place millions of years ago. Do you yourself find this adequate? I am telling you what Australian geological survey says - that East coast 12000 years ago was 35 kilometers away from the present day coastline, what your dates have to do with this?

As for the differences between civilizations and cultures, I am aware of them, and used the word civilizations due to a certain reason. We do not know, if there were any civilizations before Deluge, but we can not deny them as well - simply because we ourselves managed to accumulate ALL our knowledge in a mere 5000 years, as 5000 years most of now advanced nations were just neolithic cannibals. In these 5000 years we passed from Stone Age to Nuclear Age - this is two times longer than the time since Deluge; but if we even count since Deluge itself, 12,000 years - we still started from clear slab, but humans existed BEFORE Deluge for at least 3 times of that. So, as soon as mental abilities of us did not change and we were not evolving, out present state is the result of accumulation of information; why would we deny the ability of older cultures to do the same?

"Great Deluge?"
Is this the melting of the ice at the end of the Pleistocene? The end of the last Ice Age?
I ask because it's well known that many islands off Australia's coasts were part of the Australian mainland prior to this last sea level rise. So far, no evidence of any ancient civilization has ever been found on them either.

Let's not forget that the sea level increased over a long period of time, far too slow to hamper the development of any civilization and certainly too slow to "destroy" one.


"We do not know..."
Yet:

How is it that there were some "civilizations" definitely destroyed if we do not know they even existed?


Maybe because there is simply no evidence whatsoever of any civilization (using the term properly) prior to that of the Sumerians, whose culture arose sometime around 5,000 BC and matured into a civilization around 3500 BC?

Harte

Just like the Bimini Road, I will continue to hold that these are all natural formations. The evidence to prove otherwise would be in the form of artifacts, middens, bones, anything to show human habitation. Right now all we have is zip.

It is just we can not even expect to find some building or equipment dated 12,000 years ago, specially after a catastrophic flood. The most long-lasting product we ourselves can leave after us would be metals like titanium, stainless steel and plastics. But even plastics deteriorate in 300-800 years under UV, while the metal parts would be re-used by our successors, as in the absence of mining they would be a commodity, and would also dissipate. One can not really expecting to find any traces because they are not meant to be - except for these occasional underwater structures and bizarre Nazca symbols. Therefore the lack of proof in this case does not account for the absence of civilizations, in fact we have plenty of indirect evidence that they were existing, like those mammoths shot with a shrapnel made of advanced alloys, impossible fossils (I myself have a piece of petrified wood with traces of metal tools on the surface), megalithic structures, occasional evidences of super-high temperatures used in prehistoric period and even direct information like Plato's message.

We know that civilizations are appearing practically as a result of continuous wars, which stimulate development of technology and social structures - and we know that we ourselves only operate mostly in Northern hemisphere and in 12,000 years passed from a stone ax to a thermonuke; why would we discard such possibility before Deluge? The same Plato nearly directly points that Deluge itself may have been the result of the war - and we are now able to repeat this experiment, but only 100 years ago no one would even think of the possibility, that some huge island can be destroyed with no traces and global climate changes can be provoked by human action. In general I would put 3:1 that there were indeed advanced civilizations in the past, they were supposed to be!

I find it close minded that some people completely deny the possibility of advanced civilization prior to what orthodox history currently claims. Alot of the facts have obviously been lost through time, and we are only able to piece together bits and pieces of the actual truth.

You find evidence and I think you will find that many of those that you refer to as "close minded" will be the first in line to study...whatever.

Really that simple. Evidence.

None of the below -

I think
It could be
Maybe if
What if
I heard
Some guy/gal

etc.

HN

I can not find English text on that, but I can find a link to a Russian article, which gives a general review of the available findings related to the period of 25,000-12,000 years ago. They are talking about South Siberia to Spain area, and among all other things there is a proof of very highly organized societies with developed international trade and even with manufacturing industry. Thus in Baikal area a prehistoric factory was found, where at least 200 labours were working, producing flint arrowheads in a conveyor settings, so it involved the split of technological process into separate operations, which were carried by different workers - from crude chipping the rock to further shaping, sharpening and polishing. Items made of sea shells are found in the settlements 1000s km off the coast, flint tools are found well away from the areas where flint is available. Also there were findings of large buildings over 200 sq meters and multistoried structures built inside the caves, these discovered from Urals to Moravia.

Some of the technologies of those days were lost and are unavailable now - for example 25,000 years ago they had some means to soften the bone, as many bone pictures previously thought being made in a scrimshaw technique, occurred to be made by impressing on softened surface, not by carving; also the darts are available made of a whole mammoth tusk, specially straightened for this purpose.

The above does not account for a civilization, however the areas of archaeological diggings are so negligible by size that these findings do not exclude existence of more advanced cultures in some periods, as we do not need to forget that our own hitek "period" is hardly longer than some 300 years. What so far archaeology confirms is that in Europe alone there were at least 5 different races co-existing, each with its own cultural level, plus in Crimean area there still were Neanderthal tribes. This means there was comparatively dense population living in constant contact with each other - and this suggests wars, which are stimulating the technology and developing of social structures. The age our type civilization can be very short, as competition may drive the people to wars for the available resources, and the wars can destroy the civilizations themselves. Moreover, Deluge shows the possibility of such wars to leave no carriers of the accumulated knowledge, so the survivors may need to start from the very beginning. Mind you, even among us those who know how to find the metal ores do not know how to extract metal from them, and those who know how to make a processor have no idea of how to get pure materials for it or even how to produce electricity, so you remove only one skilled group and the entire chain would be broken.

I would be the first to cheer if someone found an unknown ancient civilization. It's ok to keep an open mind, but not too open so that your brains fall out.

Seriously, it depends on what your definition of civilization is. There are 10,000 year old towns with buildings, i.e. Catal Huyuk, Jericho, and the ancient monuments on Malta. But as for Yonaguni, we have no evidence. If you look at the rock formations on the shore where Yonaguni lies off from you can see the similarities. All natural.

If science waited for evidence before considering the "possibility" of anything unproven, we'd still be riding in a horse and carriage. I'm just saying keep an open mind.

Umm...SCIENCE is what got us out of the horse and carriage. Not aliens.


My mind is open. I'm just careful about what I'll put into it.

HN

How advanced are you talking about?

What would be the capablilities of the civilization you have in mind.

HN

Except for the very real fact that there have been artifacts from that time period found all over the world, and continue to be so. None of which exhibit even the slightest hint of any anomalous qualities.


The fact that you can type these things does not make them true, you know.


How about because there was no "Deluge?"
Forcing your belief system onto archaeological evidence says nothing about archaeology but it says much about you.

At any rate, there is a difference between saying the possibility should not be discarded offhand and saying "There were some civilizations definitely destroyed."

Harte

I dont know how aliens got into this conversation



Archaeologists have long believed that civilization as we define it -- intelligent, tool-making, monument building, social humans -- began about 5,000 years ago.

so we're not talking hover crafts and genetic engineering. we're talking an intelligent culture with an advanced social infrastructure.

I'm not this guy who wants to believe in everything they show on x-files. I agree that there is a lack of evidence to prove anything at this point. I also realize that at the shoreline, step like formations are occurring naturally. I do find it hard to discredit some of the obvious carvings they've found on the structure. It seems that a reasonable hypothesis is that the area was indeed terra-formed. The question here is; was it 5000 years ago or 10000-12000 years ago? If its the latter then we need to rethink our current beliefs of when human culture started to advance into social "civilization" building people.

http://www.mentalfuzz.com/Yonaguni-Monument.php

Ok. My bad on the aliens. Knee jerk reaction to the words "advanced civilization".

Apologies.

HN

That is not Archaeology's definition of civilization. If it were, then Archaeology would say civilization began over 50,000 years ago.

Harte

dictionary.com

1. an advanced state of human society, in which a high level of culture, science, industry, and government has been reached.
2. those people or nations that have reached such a state.
3. any type of culture, society, etc., of a specific place, time, or group: Greek civilization.
4. the act or process of civilizing or being civilized: Rome's civilization of barbaric tribes was admirable.

LOL

I believe in ancient genius individuals, but not entire advanced civilizations.

Specific items or sites can be attributed to the intellect of individuals whos techniques may then have been lost when they died, but it would be extreamely hard for an entire civilization and widespread technologies to disappear.

Yonaguni is mostly natural in my opinion. The local shoreline has many examples that are similar in levelness and angle of faulting.

Engels draws the line between Late Barbarism and Civilization through the literacy and ability of the state to keep annual records. From this point of view Israelites were already a civilization in 900s BC while Greeks and Romans became civilization in 400s BC. This point of view was also existing in antiquity, as for example Livy draws the line between Rome before Gallic invasion and after it through the regularity of publishing of Senate decisions (Linen Books) and all time before he regards as pre-historic.

Ive recently added some underwater video's taken of the Yonaguni Monument to my site. There definitely worth a look

http://www.mentalfuzz.com/yonaguni-videos.php

But men have been making tools for hundreds of thousands of years. Men were intelligent enough 80,000 - 100,000 years ago to domesticate the wolf. Human monument building is now back to at least 9,500 BC.

quote]
Archaeologists have long believed that civilization as we define it -- intelligent, tool-making, monument building, social humans -- began about 5,000 years ago.[/quote]


OTR,
The poster is using their own definition of "civilization" and applying it to what anthropology tells us.

Civilization started in that time frame, but the experts that tell us that do not use the above definition for civilization.

Harte

I agree that it's a vague definition....I've posted dictionary definitions. I'd like to get a clear definition of civilization from an anthropological standpoint, anyone?

Wiki

Harte