Special thanks to Main Man who contacted me all the way from 37 degrees South latitude with this outstanding infographic on Matariki, the Maori new year, published in the New Zealand Herald.
As you can see from the article, Matariki is the Maori name for the beautiful Pleiades, discussed in these previous blog posts, which all contain some discussion of how to find them in the sky (see here, here, and here).
The Herald infographic explains, "The reappearance of Matariki in the eastern sky before sunrise marks the beginning of the new year." The phenomena of a star or group of stars reappearing in the sky in the east before the sunrise is called the heliacal rise of the star or group, and it is caused by the fact that as the earth goes around the sun through the year, stars rise a little earlier each day due to the progress of the earth around its orbit. This means that they will be further and further along each night when you see them in their journey from east to west across the sky, and eventually a star will have set before the sun goes down and the stars become visible (unless the star is one of the undying stars, near enough to the pole to be visible all year around).
After that happens, the star or group of stars will be up during the day for a period, but it will still keep rising earlier and earlier and after some time of this, it will rise before the sun again, and there will be a special morning on which it will rise far enough ahead of the sun to be just visible in the east above the eastern horizon in the early morning sky, which will be lightening as the sun's rising approaches but still dark enough to perceive the returning star or stars. When this happens for Matariki (the Pleiades), it marks the new year for the Maori.
Currently at my latitude, Matariki rises around 5 am (and getting a little earlier each day). The sun rises about forty-five minutes later. Therefore, if you look to the east before the sun rises, you can find the beautiful cluster of stars above the horizon, before the rising sun fills the sky with his rays. So, no matter where you are on the globe (unless you are so far north that the sun is not currently dipping below the horizon at all), you should be able to rise early and take in the glorious spectacle of the glistening stars of Matariki, hanging in the deep blue predawn sky, signalling the start of a new year and the connection of heaven and earth.
In the previous post, we looked at evidence that the Maori of Aotearoa / New Zealand were aware of the rings of Saturn and had stories and traditions describing Saturn as a beautiful and wayward woman who wears a circlet in her hair -- truly amazing in light of the fact that the rings of Saturn are not visible to the human eye, or even with telescopes of the type that Galileo built in 1610. This evidence is very difficult to explain.
Equally mysterious is the question of where Saturn's rings came from in the first place. In this article from February, 2012 published on the NASA website entitled "The Real Lord of the Rings," planetary scientist Jeff Cuzzi of NASA's Ames Research Center explains: "After all this time we're still not sure about the origin
of Saturn's rings. But lately there's a growing awareness that Saturn's rings can't be
so old."
The reasons given for concluding that the rings are not the ancient remnants left over from the formation of Saturn or the solar system -- billions of years ago according to conventionally-accepted theories -- include
the fact that they are still shiny and bright, undarkened by accumulated dust,
the fact that small moons orbiting through the outermost regions of the ring system are gaining angular momentum at the expense of the rings, and thus . . .
the fact that the rings will probably collapse into the giant planet within a period of time measured in millions of years.
"This is a young dynamical system," Dr. Cuzzi says. Dr. Cuzzi won the prestigious Kuiper Prize in 2010 for his lifetime contributions to planetary sciences.
Another reason for believing that Saturn's rings must be young was given by Dr. Cuzzi in an article published in January, 1985 in Sky & Telescope entitled "Ringed Planets -- Still Mysterious II." In that article, he explained that expectations of "erosion" of the rings would suggest that they might be completely destroyed only 10,000 years after forming -- and that even if that figure is too low, the rate of loss poses a huge problem for explaining the existence of these rings for long periods of time. Dr. Cuzzi writes:
Yet nonstop erosion poses a difficult problem for the very existence of Saturn's opaque rings -- the expected bombardment rate would pulverize the entire system in only 10,000 years! Most of this material is merely redeposited elsewhere in the rings, but even if only a tiny fraction is truly lost (as ionized vapor, for example), it becomes a real trick to maintain the rings since the formation of the solar system.
The above passage was cited in a footnote by Dr. Walt Brown, the creator of the hydroplate theory, in a footnote to his discussion of planetary rings and their possible relationship to his theory. According to Dr. Brown, "Planetary rings form when material is expelled from a moon or asteroid passing near a giant planet."
His theory proposes that most of the asteroids and asteroid-like bodies in our solar system (including many of the irregularly-shaped moons orbiting various planets, including Saturn, which are likely captured asteroids) originated as material violently expelled from earth during the events surrounding a cataclysmic flood, and that asteroids and comets generally contain quantities of ice, originating from earth as water that was jetted out of the earth at tremendous velocities during the same cataclysm. His discussion of the origin of asteroids and meteoroids begins on this page in his book and continues on for an entire chapter.
This previous post discusses some of the aspects of asteroids according to Dr. Brown's theory, and explains that:
Because larger asteroids are held together with a "weak glue" of ice
(which originated in the water blasted into space along with the rocks
during the violent explosion that initiated the global flood event),
impacts from other space rocks sometimes cause this water to melt and to
begin to vent into the vacuum of space. When this happens, asteroids
resemble comets: in fact, comets and asteroids are pretty much the same
animal, except that asteroids have spent most of their existence in
closer orbits to the sun and most of them have lost all of their ice --
with some of the larger ones retaining icy mantles below the surface
which are still subject to being released later on by impacts. Most
comets, on the other hand, have wider orbits and still retain ice, which
is still venting.
In fact, as Dr. Brown points out, material venting from Saturn's moon Enceladus has now been confirmed as contributing to the material in that ring. Here is a link to an article discussing evidence which suggests that the material coming from Enceladus does not originate from an "underground ocean" on that moon, as was proposed by some theorists. In that article, one scientist says of the material jetting out of Enceladus: "It could still be warm ice vaporizing away into space. It could even be
places where the crust rubs against itself from tidal motions and the
friction creates liquid water that would then evaporate into space." Such an explanation would certainly appear to fit in with the predictions of Dr. Brown's theory.
There is another proposal for the existence of Saturn's rings which, like Dr. Brown's hydroplate theory, stands outside of the pale of presently-accepted scientific orthodoxy (and remember that, in the words of the distinguished Dr. Cuzzi, orthodox theorists still have no settled explanation for the origin of Saturn's rings), and that is the idea that intelligent beings are creating them!
The above video shows some strange images of streaking objects cutting across Saturn's rings (in fact, the F-ring), including some objects whose path appears to turn back and forth a few times, taken by NASA spacecraft including Cassini. Here is an article on the internet by someone caustically "debunking" the UFO theory, calling it "BS," and "crap," and "transparent nonsense," and asking why alien spacecraft would want to fly around in Saturn's rings. The writer asks sarcastically: "So, aliens traveled across light-years to … circle Saturn for eons
playing in the ring system. No doubt that would be fun, but it’s hard to
imagine any other incentive."
However, those who propose the theory that some intelligence is actively creating the rings do offer an incentive. In the video below, David Icke discusses some of the same footage and argues that a reason that malevolent intelligences might want to construct such rings could be to transmit or amplify frequencies with inimical effects upon men and women on earth:
There are other reasons to be cautious before simply eliminating any theory which proposes the activity of extraterrestrials (see this previous post for a discussion, among others). While such a theory may strike some as absurd, remember that orthodox science still has no clear explanation for the existence of Saturn's rings at all. This fact alone argues that we should be open to alternative explanations, and carefully consider those that have been offered to explain the evidence that we find in the existence of Saturn's rings.
(mobile readers please scroll down to read the post)
image: Wikimedia commons.
Saturn is now rising each evening in the constellation Libra, a little before 10:30 pm and four minutes earlier each night. This week's Sky & Telescope "planet roundup" advises observers to look for Saturn "rising well to the lower left of Spica and farther to the lower right of
brighter Arcturus. Saturn shines highest in the south in the early
morning hours — more or less between Spica to its right and Antares
farther to its lower left."
Can you see the rings of Saturn with your naked eye, or even with binoculars? It seems impossible (I certainly cannot, nor do I know of anyone who claims to be able to do so). Modern awareness of Saturn's rings did not come about until well after Galileo (Galileo did observe Saturn and the rings in 1610 with his telescope, but not well enough to know what they were -- the world would have to wait another forty-five years before Christiaan Huygens described the rings as a disk around the planet in 1655).
However, there is evidence that the Maori of Aotearoa (New Zealand) were aware of the rings around Saturn. In The Astronomical Knowledge of the Maori, Genuine and Empirical, published by Elsdon Best in Wellington, NZ in 1922, there is preserved a host of accounts from the Maori themselves of their star-lore and planet-lore.
The entire book is available online for your edification here through The Knowledge Basket, founded in 1994 by two former librarians to provide access to archival content from New Zealand, and although Mr. Best indulges in some unfortunate condescending and paternalistic sentiments (such as his reference to "uncultured races" and "puerile superstitions"), the book itself contains a wonderful treasury of Maori astronomical lore, including Maori names for many of the stars and planets, as well as discussions of celestial navigation.
Among the many fascinating revelations contained in the book is the fact that the Maori name for the sun, found in many of the hakas which are reproduced in the book, is Ra.
Another amazing discussion concerns the celestial body known to the Maori as Parearau. Mr. Best explains that this name was given to an important bright planet, either Jupiter or Saturn, said to be the leader or "puller" of the Milky Way, and described as having a ring!
Mr. Best explains:
Parearau, say the Tuhoe people, is a wahine tiweka (wayward
female), hence she is often termed Hine-i-tiweka. One version makes her
the wife of Kopu (Venus), who said to her, "Remain here until daylight;
we will then depart." But Parearau heeded not the word of her husband,
and set forth in the evening. When midnight arrived she was clinging to
another cheek, hence she was named Hine-i-tiweka. Parearau is often
spoken of as a companion of Kopu. Of the origin of this name one says,
"Her band quite surrounds her, hence she is called Parearau."
This planetary knowledge is certainly remarkable, in that even with a telescope, Galileo could not perceive that Saturn has a ring or rings!
Of this amazing perception, Mr. Best writes that it "looks as if our Maori friends can see either the rings of Saturn or the bands of Jupiter with the naked eye." Back in 1922, when he wrote his book, Mr. Best could not know that astronomers would later determine that Jupiter has rings as well, and so he speculated that if Parearau represented Jupiter, then the "ring" must refer to the bands of clouds across the face of that planet (which are also not visible to the naked eye, or even to the eye aided by binoculars). While the bands of Jupiter can be seen with a telescope, only the most powerful modern earth-bound telescopes can detect the rings of Jupiter, which were not discovered until unmanned spacecraft passed by the planet in the 1970s.
Another quotation from the Maori about Parearau found in the discussion in Mr. Best's book is cited: "That green-eyed star is Parearau; that is the reason why she wears her circlet." It certainly seems to have been part of Maori lore that Parearau wears a ring!
Could the Maori really see the rings of Saturn or the bands or rings of Jupiter with the naked eye? Or, did they have some other way of knowing that Saturn or Jupiter are ringed planets?
If you go out tonight and have a look at Saturn rising in the starry sky, it is certainly something to think on and wonder at.
Yesterday's post examined the fascinating subject of "proprioception," a word apparently introduced in 1906 by English neurophysiologist and Nobel laureate Charles Scott Sherrington to describe the awareness of the body's position based on the feedback mechanisms of the body, and discussed some of the implications raised by a thoughtful Radiolab program which delved into the interface between brain and body (or perhaps mind and body).
That Radiolab program was all about the sense of location conveyed by the body to the brain, and issues arising from hitches or disruptions in this sense of location and body-awareness. After continuing to think about this concept of "proprioception," it occurs to me that it might be valuable to expand the examination a little bit and think about the idea of our awareness not simply of the location and relative motion of our own body but our awareness of our position on the earth and our awareness of the motion of the earth.
In other words, how aware are we of the giant spinning ball upon which our point of consciousness is located (in its attendant body)? How aware are we of the direction it is spinning and the way that this motion causes the objects that we see "out the window" (the sun, moon, stars, and planets, in other words) to travel past as we spin around? How aware are we of our location on that ball and the orientation of the ball relative to the direction we are facing at any given moment? Do different people have different levels of this awareness? (It seems clear that they do). Is there an inborn or innate ability of some people to perceive these things more readily than others, or is such awareness more learned than innate?
These all seem like interesting questions that are something of an extension of the concept of bodily proprioception elucidated by Charles Sherrington and other researchers.
We might call such awareness in different individuals "planetary proprioception."
To help focus on your own "planetary proprioception" at any given moment, it is probably best to start outdoors somewhere. Then, you can start to imagine the earth that you are standing or sitting upon turning with you on it towards the east (knowing which way is east would certainly be part of this concept of planetary proprioception, as would knowing which way is north and west and south). So far, that's probably pretty easy and constitutes a level of proprioception that most people have most of the time (to greater or lesser degrees at different parts of the day and to greater and lesser degrees depending on whether they are in a very familiar or a very unfamiliar location).
But to really get a good feeling for the planet that we are standing or sitting upon, it is necessary to have a bit of an idea of where we are in terms of latitude north or south of the equator, and how our location impacts our mental image of the planet that is turning in space (with us on it).
For instance, if we are located on the equator or just five or ten degrees of latitude from the equator, then our minds can think of the fact that as we orbit the sun we are standing up almost on the same plane that the earth is orbiting upon, and thus the path that the sun takes as we spin towards the east will be nearly vertical as we spin towards it in the morning and as the western horizon rises up to obscure it in the evening. If we are located instead near the north pole or the south pole, or just five or ten degrees of latitude from it, then our "proprioception" of the planet beneath us should be very different: we then should be able to envision ourselves spinning along a little circle that sort of "skull-caps" the globe, and if we can envision that then it will help us to understand why the apparent path of the sun through the sky looks the way it does (arcing very close to the southern horizon for a viewer at the north pole, for instance).
Much of the world's population lives in the northern hemisphere in the latitudes between the tropics and the extreme arctic, and so the sense of the position on the globe must be adjusted to an awareness that is in between the above two descriptions. One "mental image" to help those located in the temperate latitudes of the northern hemisphere is to imagine what the earth's turning would be like if you were standing right on the equator, and what the sun, moon, stars and planets would look like, arcing across the sky, as the earth turned with you on it towards the east. Keeping this image going in your mind, imagine turning towards the north pole and literally reaching out with both arms to grasp the north pole (if there really were a pole there) and pulling it towards you, as the earth continues to spin, until you are standing on the spinning globe about halfway between the equator and the pole. Now keep imagining the sun, moon, stars and planets arcing through the sky, but realize that their paths will have been altered by the shift in your latitude.
Additionally, to try to get a feel for what the globe is doing with you on it, the video above might be helpful. Although it is discussing the impact of the tragic Japan earthquake of March 11, 2011 upon the earth's axis and rotational speed, it also contains a very helpful animation of the rotating earth (especially between 0:25 and 0:45 in the video). If you watch the spinning earth -- tilted on its axis -- and try to see the spot where you are located on the globe and focus on that spot as it spins, it can help you to imagine what the view of the heavens from that spot should look like, and thus help you to engender a greater level of this planetary proprioception.
For instance, if you are located somewhere on North America, you can closely watch as North America spins around, focusing on one point on North America rather than just watching the whole globe spinning. You might even "pause" the video at about 0:28 and then think carefully about what a person on a specific point on North America should see the sun do each day, based on the angle of the axis and the rotation of the earth. Then, press "play" again and keep thinking about it.
Another helpful tool to help develop increased planetary proprioception are the diagrams and discussion in previous blog posts about the Polynesian Voyaging Society(especially this post). The incredible navigation accomplished by the wayfinders of the Polynesian Voyaging Society is done without modern instrumentation -- meaning that it is done by maintaining constant and very accurate "planet proprioception," based upon knowledge of the angle that the sun and stars should be rising out of the ocean and the point at which they should be rising out of the ocean based on where the ship and the wayfinder are located at any given moment.
The PVS has an excellent discussion of the motions of the heavens here, complete with circles that show the paths traced out by the stars each night, and the angles those circles would have at various latitudes where the PVS voyages. If you can go outside and envision these circles in the sky (you can do it during the day or the night, although it might actually be easier to do at night), then this can aid you in envisioning the turning planet beneath your feet.
If you think of the circle centered around Polaris (for those in the northern hemisphere) and then think of the arc traced out by stars further and further from Polaris (such as the arc traced out by the stars of the Scorpion, far to the south), then you can envision your latitude on the rotating, tilted planet and envision in your mind the reason that the circles are tilted the way they are tilted for an observer where you are. From there, you can envision in your mind the rest of the spherical globe that you are standing on as it rotates towards the east. Bingo! Enhanced planetary proprioception!
Once you start thinking this way, you can practice focusing on your planetary proprioception at various times as you go about your daily (and nightly) activities. It may help to enhance your awareness of the globe you are spinning upon, and eventually it may even expand your consciousness. Perhaps analysts will do some study in the future to see how much expanded planetary proprioception can be achieved using various techniques, and whether there are any positive benefits to expanding one's awareness of the position and motion of the planet.
It may be advisable to exercise caution if you focus on the motion of the planet too intently while you are driving or operating heavy machinery.
For more discussion of the impact of the Japan earthquake on the earth's rotational speed etc., see this previous post.
The beautiful and distinctive constellation of the Scorpion is one of the landmarks of the summer sky. In the northern hemisphere, the Scorpion makes his way across the southern portion of the sky, with most of the constellation below the plane of the ecliptic, which itself is below the celestial equator at night (and above it during the day for observers in the northern hemisphere between the March and September equinoxes -- see diagrams and discussion here). This southerly position means that for observers in the mid- to upper latitudes of the northern hemisphere, the Scorpion stays low in the south and never gets very high above the southern horizon, even at his highest point during the night.
The constellation Scorpio (or Scorpius) is not difficult to find, following in a line behind Virgo (there is another zodiac constellation between Virgo and Scorpio, the faint but interesting constellation Libra, which we can ignore for this discussion, because you have to really be looking in order to find it). To find Virgo, see this previous post. Virgo follows directly behind the unmistakable and majestic constellation of Leo, which is currently high overhead after sunset and still graced by the presence of the red planet Mars (no longer in retrograde and now heading back towards Virgo), easily visible with the naked eye. For a post discussing the important connection between the Lion and the constellation Virgo, see here.
The constellation Scorpio is described in this previous post, which contains an embedded video with gorgeous high-definition time-lapse photography of the night sky as it circles through the night (due to the rotation of the earth), much of it featuring the brilliant and sinuous form of the Scorpion. It is easy to spot, currently rising up vertically from the eastern horizon beginning about an hour or two after sunset.
About a third of the way down the Scorpion's long body (before the amazing hook of the tail) is the bright red star Antares (the "anti-Ares" or rival to Mars, presumably because of its dazzling red color), shown on the diagram above as the largest circle connected by the lines that form the constellation. Antares currently rises above the horizon shortly after 9 p.m. for observers in the northern hemisphere at latitudes around 35 degrees north. By the time Antares is above the horizon, the forward part of the constellation (including the formidable claws, which really look something like an arcing bow, as you can see from the diagram above) should be clearly recognizable if you know what you are looking for and where to look.
As that previous post with the time-lapse video explains, scholars Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend -- the authors of the influential and controversial Hamlet's Mill (1969) -- found connections in the Scorpio legends stretching from ancient Sumer and Egypt all the way across the oceans to the Native Americans of both North and South America, and then across the Pacific into Polynesian legend as well.
They note that ancient sources including Orphic and Pythagorean tradition and the writings of Macrobius all attest to a belief that the souls of the dead travel across the sky in the Milky Way before being reincarnated (at times it is also explained that they are given a drink of forgetfulness either as the enter the Milky Way or before they leave it to return to a new incarnation). Because the Scorpion is located at one of the "gates" of the Milky Way (the southern gate, the northern being located near the Twins and the "Gate of Cancer" -- see discussions here and here), various mythologies and traditions from around the globe seem to have a scorpion goddess who greets the souls of the departed as they enter the next world.
De Santillana and von Dechend identify the goddess Ishara (found in the Gilgamesh series of ancient Sumer and Babylon) with this tradition -- she was a love goddess as well as a goddess of the underworld, and she was associated with the constellation of the Scorpion. The Egyptian goddess Selket or Selqet (also Serket or Serqet) was also clearly associated with this tradition according to evidence cited in Hamlet's Mill.
Interestingly, de Santillana and von Dechend also cite Maori tradition of the souls of the dead entering the Milky Way on one end and emerging on the other, as well as Native American traditions from widely separated geographical locations. The direction of travel sometimes varies (either south to north or north to south), but the role of a scorpion goddess who receives the souls of the dead or nurses them before they are reincarnated is a motif that resonates across many cultures around the world. They explain:
Among the Sumo in Honduras and Nicaragua their "Mother Scorpion . . . is regarded as dwelling at the end of the Milky Way, where she receives the souls of the dead, and from her, represented as a mother with many breasts, at which children take suck, come the souls of the newborn." [H. B. Alexander, Latin American Mythology (1916), p. 185.]. Whereas the Pawnee and Cherokee say [S. Hagar, "Cherokee Star-Lore," in Festschrift Boas (1906), p. 363; H. B. Alexander, North American Mythology, p. 117]: "the souls of the dead are received by a star at the northern end of the Milky Way, where it bifurcates, and he directs the warriors upon the dim and difficult arm, women and those who die of old age upon the brighter and easier path. The souls then journey southwards. At the end of the celestial pathway they are received by the Spirit Star, and there they make their home." One can quietly add "for a while," or change it to "there they make their camping place." Hagar takes the "Spirit Star" to be Antares (alpha Scorpii). 243.
On the next page, the authors also make note of the tradition of the "Old goddess with the scorpion tail" among the Maya, and her similarity in role to Selket-Serqet of ancient Egypt (244).
All these traditions regarding the constellation Scorpio and the Milky Way as the pathway of the dead may have arisen in complete isolation among the ancient Orphic and Pythagorean traditions (which many astute analysts have shown to have strong hints of Egyptian ancestry) and the pre-Columbian cultures of the "New World," as conventional historians are bound to insist, but the harmonies between them are extremely strong.
Nor are these parallels the only data points which hint at an ancient connection between cultures separated by the world's mighty oceans (or perhaps between some unknown forerunners of those cultures). For other startling connections between the traditions of the Maya and the events of the Gilgamesh epic, see this previous post, and for a list of numerous other pieces of evidence suggesting ancient contact not acknowledged by the conventional narrative of human history, see this previous post.
In light of the above discussion of the widespread tradition of the scorpion goddess as the one who receives and nurtures the souls at the gate of the Milky Way, the image below of the gold-covered statue of Selket guarding the burial shrine that contained the nested mummy cases that held the body of Tutankhamun is significant. Note the scorpion on her head. This intimate location nearest to the body of the departed king surely is important confirmation of the themes discussed in Hamlet's Mill about the importance of the constellation of the Scorpion.
In the previous post, we looked at some of the amazing (and not yet widely-studied) ancient megaliths of India, and noted some remarkable parallels with constructs around the globe -- including in places quite unexpected based on the assumptions of conventional history, New Zealand in particular.
We noted three undeniable similarities between constructs in India and constructs in New Zealand:
first, these ancient stones draw lines pointing to significant events in the sky, such as the rising of the sun on the solstices and equinoxes, and probably to important lunar and stellar rising points as well.
second, these ancient stone structures are sometimes found in conjunction with "V-shaped notches" in the natural horizon, such that certain stones give the observer the correct place to stand in order to see the sun rise (or set) through the notch on significant days.
third, the ancient builders of these stone complexes apparently enjoyed doing a little manipulation of large stones nearby in order to create monumental sculptures, which themselves are often oriented towards the rising sun, such as the lizard shown at a site in India, and a craggy, bearded face in New Zealand.
These correspondences are remarkable enough just between India and New Zealand, two parts of the globe generally considered to have developed without ancient cultural exchange between the two of them, according to conventional "isolationist" theory. However, what is equally remarkable are the similarities this list of elements suggests to a site in yet another supposedly isolated part of the globe -- this time in Peru, at Ollantaytambo, near Machu Picchu.
In a series of articles published on Graham Hancock's website, author and researcher (and skilled boatwright) Brien Foerster argues that the megalithic structures conventionally supposed to have been built no earlier than the 12th century AD may be far more ancient than that (although the Inca may well have extended the most ancient sites with later construction and terracing of their own). For Mr. Foerster's discussion, along with plenty of impressive photographs, see:
As can be seen from the articles above, Ollantaytambo contains solstitial alignments (to the June solstice, which is winter in the southern hemisphere where Peru is located), V-shaped notches, and a massive craggy face carved into the mountainside (see page three of Mr. Foerster's article on Ollantaytambo). That face, shown below as well and also seen in other photographs on the web such as here and here, is about 300 feet tall and traditionally believed to represent Tunupa or Viracocha.
Mr. Foerster's important arguments about the ancient origins of many of the most massive megalithic structures go beyond the scope of this particular blog post, but they are well supported with extensive evidence. He will be discussing some aspects of his work at the upcoming Eternal Knowledge Festival at the end of this month in England.
The scope of this post, however, is to point out the clear connections between the stone sites in India, New Zealand, and now Peru in terms of the presence of solstitial and equinoctial alignments, the use of V-shaped notches, and the presence of massive stone sculptures utilizing the natural surroundings.
This particular confluence of features is not something I have seen specifically discussed previously, especially in terms of its recurrence in widely-separated locations such as India, New Zealand, and Peru. While isolationists may continue to argue that these features just happened to crop up in widely-dispersed cultures which had no contact with one another whatsoever, the specificity of these features argues differently and their concurrence in all three locations is very difficult to dismiss. Moreover, they are just one more set of evidence among piles of other evidence -- these recurrences do not occur in a vacuum.
Taken together, anyone who examines all this evidence would have to be extremely biased to dismiss out of hand the possibility that the true timeline of ancient history is very different from what we have been taught.
