Olmec Giant Stone Heads Mystery Solved?

reply to post by lostinspace


Why an elephant and not a tapir? These animals are native to South and Central America, as well as Southeast Asia. Elephants simply don't fit the bill.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Excellent theory, and the pictures of the natives with the large, flat noses does add to it. A very well thought out post and many pictures and evidence to boot.

Thank you for the post.

Originally posted by Hanslune
An interesting idea, I would suspect they made these over a long period of time and for many different reasons. Sports could certainly be one of those reasons.

I've been to that part of Mexico and that type of face isn't that unusual.




This is just one but if you look for tourist photos of faces in historic Olmec areas you'll get that same squat fat lips asian/native american look.

This is just a passing posting, sorry I don't have more time to comment further.

It's like a mix between african, asian and latin features.
i think.

[edit on 15-3-2009 by LucidDreamer85]

Just a quick question for those who like to believe in trans-oceanic voyages by sub-saharan Africans.

So these dudes were shipping over to the Americas - ignoring the carribe island and going directly to central American....

Explain why Madascagar was not inhabited until recent times - and first by Indonesians and later by Bantu tribes?

Explain why the coastal islands off the the western shore of Africa were not occupied by man until historic times?

Example: The islands of São Tomé and Príncipe were uninhabited before the arrival of the Portuguese sometime around 1470. They lie 250 kilometers off the coastline.

If their was a great martime power in Africa why no sign of them on these island or along their own coasts? Puzzling what?

reply to post by Hanslune


Very good point why would they completely bypass such locations in favor of a long distant location they could not have possibly known existed.



[edit on 15-3-2009 by SLAYER69]

reply to post by SLAYER69
Maybe I see where you're going now...I originally supplied a pre-Clovis link and deleted before posting. There's a very interesting discussion on Hall of Maat relating to the Valsequillo Region. There's a lot of replies but it's a very good read. There's more on it here. In summary, stone artifacts were found in the late 60s in a layer where they shouldn't be.

The original findings were controversial and largely ignored or discounted as misinterpretation. Subsequent analysis of diatoms in the same layer (second link) show that the layer must be 80 000 years old at the earliest due to the diatoms present becoming extinct in that time frame. You can understand the implication...

The discussion on Hall of Maat takes the findings seriously. There's no question that the Americas were heavily populated or advanced at that time but it suggests that at least one group of early Homo Sapiens had been present much earlier than currently accepted. There's a pdf by Steen-McIntyre that contains some interesting images you might use. I know there are questions about her credibility in archaeology, but I don't know enough to add an opinion.

There's a forum of pre-Clovis archaeology here. There's also the Topper site, but I remember Hans Lune linking a Hall of Maat review of the findings that wasn't very positive. I learnt on that thread that archaeologists are way less speculative than some like to think. The depth and speed of a water flow (stream, river etc) combined with it's gradient and surrounding debris and mineral composition is all calculated to set parameters of possible damage to a rock. This determines probability of natural or artificial creation of apparent lithics!

Based on that last fact, if you post the new thread on A&LC be prepared for an informed and polite debate

(I can't believe how much I've learned and retained on this section )

reply to post by Kandinsky


Thanks
Many of the above mentioned reasons are exactly why I'm holding what I have in reserve and only in the process of collecting data.

IT will be an interesting read if not explosive thread to say the least maybe you can help.
I'll U2U if I get stuck.
Thanks


[edit on 15-3-2009 by SLAYER69]

reply to post by SLAYER69


Howdy Slayer69

Naval power and route extension shows up in steps (in all known cases) it is interesting that no such steps, appear anywhere in Africa until historic times. The Arab/Indian trade along the East of Africa gives a good idea of the native naval capacity at that time as does the Portuguese movements down the coast in the 15th century. Could they have been more advanced earlier? Yes but absolutely no evidence for this exists.

Valsequillo, you might want to read Christopher Hardaker's book "The First Americans". He's a bit wooish but it does tell the tale.

The site is very interesting, and confusing, hopefully the new research there will answer the question, were we here earlier than thought? I would suspect that we were, but the evidence is somewhat weak at the moment.

More data is needed and that is being obtained as we speak.

[edit on 15/3/09 by Hanslune]

reply to post by Hanslune


There are some interesting locations in South America that may have some bronze age stone anchors but nothing conclusive as of yet.

reply to post by SLAYER69


I've not seen anything remotely compelling other than the wine jars from SA and those could have been 15th century

Originally posted by X-tal_Phusion
reply to post by lostinspace

 

Why an elephant and not a tapir? These animals are native to South and Central America, as well as Southeast Asia. Elephants simply don't fit the bill.

I think the point is to show an African connection, based upon putting animals in pottery that DON'T exist in South America. However, there is a lot of speculation that the pottery is not authentic.

I read something earlier in this thread - and have read it in the past pertaining to other civilizations - about introducing the concept of zero. I believe the reference was that the Olmecs were the people who brought this concept to this region. Although it may not pertain directly to this discussion - but to help my growth as a logical thinker - I have a problem understanding how any society wouldn't understand the concept of zero. If my dog has a treat, and I then take it away, believe me, he knows he has zero. I think chimpanzees understand zero. What is meant exactly when it is stated a civilization does not understand the concept of zero? (Maybe this should be a different thread?)

reply to post by Tippys Dad


Well that's pretty interesting
i think they were referring to it in math though.

This would be worth watching. This guy would think you smashed face theory a certain hoot.


video.google.com...

So these dudes were shipping over to the Americas - ignoring the carribe island and going directly to central American....

If you had read the replies/sources made earlier you would have read they did not travel directly from Africa to South America, but thru Asia and the South Pacific. They did not make an Atlantic crossing.

Explain why Madascagar was not inhabited until recent times - and first by Indonesians and later by Bantu tribes?

This has nothing to do with the Olmec, you're asking a completely irrelevant question.

Explain why the coastal islands off the the western shore of Africa were not occupied by man until historic times?

Again, irrelevant. Why should the Olmec occupy those islands? You have no idea of what their goals or ambitions were.

If their was a great martime power in Africa why no sign of them on these island or along their own coasts?

Their migratory route is well documented, visit those links to understand where they were, and weren't. It's flawed thinking to say "they weren't here, so it's impossible for them to be there."

You can't ignore the DNA evidence either. Olmec and their descendants such as the Mayans have an African Y chromosome. Eurocentric thinking seems to ignore African contribution to ancient history.

[edit on 15-3-2009 by Blackmarketeer]

As an African American I've always thought that the Olmecs were African just from looking at the pictures. But after seeing the pictures posted of the Natives with the broad noses and full lips makes me think that ancient Olmecs were Natives Americans.

But I also think that it might be possible that maybe Africans and Native Americans lived together in Ancient South America. Not to take away from the Natives accomplishments. My Grandmom is a Native American so I'm not biased as to who the Ancient Olmecs were. But excellent evidence presented.

reply to post by Teeky


Howdy Teeky

Yep a sensible approach

Blackmarketer

If you had read the replies/sources made earlier you would have read they did not travel directly from Africa to South America, but thru Asia and the South Pacific. They did not make an Atlantic crossing.

Hans: I was responding not to you but to the more common theory of how Africans are thought to have gotten to the Americas. Yes Asians who were once Africans (we we all were Africans actually if you go back far enough) did go to the Americas thru Asia. The evidence for the Polynesians making it the Americas is inconclusive (although I believe they might have made it) but only after the Americas were already populated

This has nothing to do with the Olmec, you're asking a completely irrelevant question.

Hans: As noted above I wasn’t talking to you

Their migratory route is well documented, visit those links to understand where they were, and weren't. It's flawed thinking to say "they weren't here, so it's impossible for them to be there."

Hans: The route of Africans to Asians, becoming Asians who then moved to the Americas and becoming Native Americans is accepted. I’m not quite getting you point. What time frame are you saying this occurred in?

You can't ignore the DNA evidence either.

Hans: Whose ignoring it? Native Americans were once Asians, Asians were once African, that is your source of the Y. By this measure all native Americas are ‘African” is that your point?

Olmec and their descendants such as the Mayans have an African Y chromosome. Eurocentric thinking seems to ignore African contribution to ancient history.

Hans: I’m not Eurocentric, I was born in Japan and have lived most of my life in the Middle East, LOL

Speaking of the Y chromosome - I think you are misrepresenting the data don't you?

The Y chromosome


[im][atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f1974b7fa89c.png[/atsimg][/im]


So your point was??



[edit on 15/3/09 by Hanslune]

reply to post by Hanslune


Hey Hans thanks for the information.
I also have a gene track I'll post later which basically shows the same thing.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Howdy Slayer

Blackmarketer is mixing his information from different sources, the classic cherry picking. Taking information on reports dealing with the mixing of the native americans with slaves brought from Africa and implying it deals with ancient migrations.

He is right about Native Americans coming from Africa, just his time frames are just off by multiple 10s of thousands of years, probably around 70-80,000 afaik.

Interesting question at what point in time do people who moved out of Africa to Europe, Asia, the middle east and India become identified from being from that new region?

Not sure there is a criteria for that.

Edited to add a chart showing Mitochondrial DNA "travels"

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0678c55c49ee.png[/atsimg]



[edit on 16/3/09 by Hanslune]

reply to post by Hanslune


AAARRRGGHHH

That's the one I was going to post thanks.
Yeah like I said in my opening post not much in the way of DNA proof for that one.