If you’re like me, September 20th’s post on the Indiana Jones-like activities of South African airplane pilot Johane Heine, his (unmentioned in the article) cohort Michael Tellinger, and their collective of against-the-establishment archaeologists aka The MaKomati Foundation, you may have finished reading still hungry for more answers. Truly, you may have found yourself with such a hunger even if you’re not even vaguely like me; there’s plenty of wtfage to go around with a theory like the one MaKomati is putting forth.
On the one hand, you’ve got the brotherhood of conventional Archaeology, Paleontology and Anthropology, who collectively agree the earliest traces of civilization can be found with the Mesopotamians, circa 5,000 BCE, in an area modern folk not terribly interested in Archaeology, Paleontology, Anthropology or, for the most part, Geography, refer to as The Middle East.
On a second, third and possibly fourth hand, there’s evidence of other primitive-yet-intelligent humans spread about here and there: Paleolithic tools 2.6-2.5 million years old; remnants of a migration across the Bering Strait during an interval between 50-9,000 years ago; and the reasonably well preserved remains of cave paintings in modern France and Germany commonly believed to be 15-20,000 years old. All of which boils down to this: there are plenty of gaps in the historical record. MaKomati believe they’ve found a hunk of history to spackle into one of the gaps.
Personally, I’m skeptical. No, wait; that’s not quite the right word. Dubious is probably closer to the fact. I admit that’s in part due to my comfort with what I’ve come to accept as fact through years of reinforcement by, well, every source of factual authority I’m exposed to. But I also acknowledge that the factual authorities with which Aristotle, Copernicus and Galileo had their comeuppance weren’t entirely dependable; I freely admit that much of my understanding of how the universe works is founded on the baby-talk summations of consensus of passionate, hard core geeks who take great pains to make sure that I’m handed as best-we-can-tell-fact has been tested, hypothesized, checked, rechecked, challenged, refuted, modified, shot down, rechecked again, confirmed, reviewed, published and subsequently checked by classrooms full of aspiring hard core geeks. Honestly, I don’t think it’s such a bad system.
The question then is, are Johan Heine, Michael Tellinger and the MaKomati Foundation a modern day archaeological Galileo? Or are they a couple of guys with a plane and some ruins in a remote corner of the globe looking to boost local tourism? Okay, unfair comparison on at least three counts: 1) everyone has already heard of Galileo, 2) hard science is by definition easier to validate than soft science, and 3) the establishment Galileo was up against was going to burn him for what he was saying. But I couldn’t think of a suitably foundation-shaking foundation shaker. Maybe Alfred Wegener.
Lucky for me, Michael Tellinger stopped by the site a couple of weeks ago. I followed his initial comment on the September 20 article with a list of questions, to which he graciously responded. Here are his answers in their entirety:
- First, according to makomati.com, conventional wisdom explains the ruins as cattle kraal built and used by the Bantu people within the past 1,000 years. The Makomati Foundation dates these structures as being far older: somewhere between 75,000 to 250,000 years old. This is actually the basis for several questions:
75,000 – 200,000 years seems like a pretty broad estimate, given what little I personally know of dating techniques. What accounts for the 125,000 year discrepancy?
We are dealing with a very complex site that covers over 500 square kilometres and makes up the largest and oldest city on Earth that has almost completely eroded.
We have gathered artifacts from the same site that date back from 300,000 yrs and 600 years. This points to a very long occupation of these sites.
BUT we deal with Archaeoastronomy mainly to determine the deviation from today’s cardinal points. 3 degrees; 17 min. and 42 sec deviation.
The presessional cycle of 25,800 years has almost been completed – this means that we are in essence working with chunks of 25,000 years.
Now we have to look for other clues as to how many years it actually is.
The main indicators are the alignment with Orion – which could have only happened 75,000 years ago and more.
And Geology – erosion.
Dolerite erodes very slowly and the erosion patterns on most monoliths indicate that they were brought there a long, long time ago.
Lichen growth is also a reasonable indicator. We have lots of evidence there.
- What techniques have been used? What are the advantages of these techniques?
Archaeoastronomy; Geology – alien rocks brought from elsewhere; astronomy; and what most of us often forget about – logic and reason.
- Did the Bantu in fact use these structures as cattle kraal, as recently as the 13th century? If so, were they making use of what at that time were already ancient artifacts, or were additional structures built by the Bantuu (or other indigenous peoples) in the intervening time?
Many examples indicate that the Bantu people used the existing materials to build their own dwellings and kraals and sometime simply occupying existing structures.
They were also used by the British and Boer soldiers in the South African War around 1900. This has introduced many contaminants into the original sites but many still remain pristine.
- If not, would you care to theorize on how this wrongful theory came to be accepted as doctrine?
This incorrect doctrine was adopted by ignorant and lazy historians who have done very little research themselves into ancient human history – and simply accepted the stories taught in mainstream academic institutions.
I know this sounds conspiratorial but unfortunately it is so. When ill informed people deal with the current finds they simply cannot see the bigger picture.
It is as if there was no history in South Africa before the Bantu people arrived. This is obviously a very ignorant and arrogant stance – but it doe hold a firm grip an many academics in this part of the world. It is called political correctness and is doing us all a great disservice.
- The ruins cover a considerable piece of real estate. When I think of empires or civilizations with both a) similar geographical spread and b) an inclination to build durable structures ( for example, the Egyptians, Romans, Incans and Greeks, as opposed to the Sioux or Aborigine), I typically picture a display in a museum that includes all manner of ‘household items’: pots, tools, earthenware, jewelry and so forth. Has Makomati discovered any such artifacts?
We are dealing with the largest and oldest city on Earth with many thousands of habitants over an extended period of time.
With ancient terraces; roads; wells; irrigations systems; dwellings, temples and work places.
Many artifacts that show a habitation period of over 300,000 years. With specific items pointing to various incidents.
We also have what we now believe to be the OLDEST pottery in the world – maybe as old as 50,000 years. But the academics that dated it from WITS university in 1986 were so freaked out by this discovery that they returned the fragments to the owner with a short message – “They are about 10,000 years old.”
Other archaeologists recall this find and attest that the ash heal in which the potter was found was around 30 – 50,000 years old.
- Same question as 1, above, applied specifically to Adam’s Calendar.
Adam’s Calendar is the flagship among all these because it is unique in the world today and can be dated with some accuracy to a great time in antiquity.
- The people who built these structures: do they have a name? Beyond their architectural capabilities, what else do we know about them?
We know very little about them except what we are discovering on a daily basis in the expansive ruins.
They were most likely all involved in gold and other metal mining.
My thanks to Mr. Tellinger, and my invitation to anyone who’d care to contribute constructive input.
Into All That 