Though it’s long been considered a fact that the earliest civilizations date back 5,000-6,000 years in places like ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, there is curious evidence suggesting that a highly intelligent, technologically advanced, and intensely social civilization existed much earlier—at least…
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Schoch, Ph.D. Though it’s long been considered a fact that the earliest civilizations date back 5,000-6,000 years in places like ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, there is curious evidence suggesting that a highly intelligent, technologically advanced, and intensely social civilization existed much earlier—at least 10,000 BCE (or 12,000 years ago). Boston University geologist and geophysicist Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D. didn’t seriously consider this second possibility until he saw Egypt’s Great Sphinx in person. Schoch—author of Forgotten Civilization—detected water wear on the iconic figure that led him to believe it was originally the work of an essentially unknown civilization predating ancient Egypt. “The Sphinx sits on the edge of the Sahara Desert, a hyper-arid region for the last 5,000 years,” he explains. Where would major water damage have come from? This initial discovery led Schoch to explore other evidence of early advanced civilization, which he’s placed at the last ice age. Schoch points to solar outbursts that he says ended the ice age and largely wiped out these civilizations. (Schoch argues that we’d be wise to learn from—and prepare for—similar forces of nature: “A lesson from geology is that natural events that have occurred in the past are destined to be repeated,” he says.) Schoch’s work has the potential to overthrow long-held beliefs about the origins of civilization and the lens through which we see our own modern society and its future course. His perspective on what gave rise to consciousness (he disagrees with Graham Hancock’s theory tracing it to plant medicine psychedelics), why it’s so hard to overturn a belief system, what we stand to learn from the past—and even the question of ancient extraterrestrial life—is fascinating: A Q&A with Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D. Q What evidence is there of an earlier civilization predating ancient Egypt? A The standard paradigm of the last century, which is still widely accepted among both academics and the general public, has civilization first appearing around 5,000 to 6,000 years ago; this is the scenario I carried in my head on my initial journey to Egypt in 1990. The writer, researcher, and self-styled “rogue Egyptologist” John Anthony West, had challenged me to study the Great Sphinx from a geological perspective, and at the time, I had no reason to question the standard story—that the rise of dynastic Egypt, circa 3,100 BCE, represented one of the earliest flowerings of civilization anywhere on our planet. As for the Great Sphinx, Egyptologists had dated the statue firmly to the reign of the Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khafre (also known as Chephren), circa 2,500 BCE. I also had no reason to doubt them—that is, until I saw the Sphinx. Within minutes of my first encounter with the Great Sphinx, I knew something was amiss. The erosion on the body of the monument and the walls of its enclosure (to carve the body of the Sphinx, the creators had to cut down into the bedrock, so the statue sits in a hollow or enclosure) showed evidence of water weathering—major precipitation, rainfall, and water runoff—despite the fact that the Sphinx sits on the edge of the Sahara Desert, a hyper-arid region for the last 5,000 years. Furthermore, the Sphinx’s head appeared, to my eye, disproportionately small for its body. My initial theory was that the original structure, which I refer to as the proto-Sphinx, dated back thousands of years prior to 3,000 BCE—to a time when the region had much more rainfall—with the head being a dynastic re-carving. (I thought that the statue might have originally had a lion’s head to match its leonine body.) Over the next few years, I made numerous trips to Egypt, collecting a wealth of evidence supporting the theory that the origins of the Great Sphinx went back to well before the founding of dynastic Egypt. I studied weathering and erosion patterns, as well as ancient restoration campaigns to the statue, textual evidence, archaeo-astronomical alignments, and perhaps most importantly, subsurface features. With geophysicist Dr. Thomas Dobecki, I carried out non-invasive seismic surveys around the Sphinx, allowing me to collect information on mineralogical changes and weathering below the base of the Sphinx. After considering all the new data, I revised my theory—and concluded that the original proto-Sphinx dates back to at least 10,000 BCE. It is a remnant of an earlier civilization that flourished before the end of the last ice age (which ended circa 9,700 BCE). Furthermore, the proto-Sphinx does not sit in isolation. When the original creators modeled the body, they carved out huge limestone blocks weighing tens of tons, which they assembled into magnificent buildings situated east and southeast of the proto-Sphinx. These structures, commonly known as the Sphinx Temple and Valley Temple, although somewhat ruinous and also reworked by the dynastic Egyptians, can still be viewed today. The Great Sphinx. Credit: Robert Schoch and Catherine Ulissey. Q How has your work been received? Have any subsequent discoveries, or refutations, been made? A I announced my initial findings regarding the re-dating of the Sphinx at the October 1991 annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. Many of my fellow geologists found my presentation enlightening and congratulated me on a job well done. Then, suddenly, I was under attack: Journalists reporting on the story phoned various Egyptologists for their opinions. Without having been present at the meeting, without having seen my data or analyses, the Egyptologists universally decried my conclusions, insisting that an older Sphinx was impossible, that at such an early date, humanity was in a hunter-gatherer stage and lacked the technology, the social organization, and even the will to carve the proto-Sphinx. My critics demanded further evidence of civilization existing at such a remote period. (Unbeknownst to me or them, such evidence would soon be forthcoming.) In 1995, the late Dr. Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute began excavating a site in southeastern Turkey, just a short drive from the modern city of Urfa (aka Sanliurfa), known as Göbekli Tepe. For years, Schmidt and his team quietly excavated the site, and only slowly did information make its way into the archaeological literature, and then into the public arena. In 2010, I first visited the site for myself (I have been back with others many times since)—and was awestruck. “Already one conclusion is inescapable: There is a disconnect between what conventional historians and archaeologists have been teaching all these years, and the evidence on the ground.” At Göbekli Tepe, immense, finely carved, and decorated T-shaped limestone pillars—many in the range of two to five and a half meters tall, and weighing up to an estimated ten to fifteen tons—stand in Stonehenge-like circles. Schmidt and his group uncovered four such stone circles or enclosures (as they are often called); based on surface finds, partial excavations, and geophysical methods, the site may contain another twenty or so still buried under debris. Various pillars at Göbekli Tepe are decorated with bas-reliefs of animals, including foxes, boars, snakes, aurochs (wild cattle), Asiatic wild asses, wild sheep, birds (cranes, a vulture), a gazelle, and arthropods (a scorpion, ants). The carvings are refined, sophisticated, and beautifully executed. Not only are there bas-reliefs, but also carvings in the round—including a carnivorous beast, possibly a lion or other feline—working its way down a column. Based on radiocarbon analyses, the site dates back to 9,000 to 10,000 BCE, possibly earlier, straddling the end of the last ice age. Furthermore, Göbekli Tepe is a record of the turmoil and chaos that marked the end of the last ice age and the demise of this civilization: pillars knocked over and broken, then hastily re-erected, crude secondary stone walls, along with evidence of intentional burial of the site. In addition to the proto-Sphinx and Göbekli Tepe, even more evidence is slowly coming to light. I am hesitant to announce findings prematurely, but some of the cases are relatively well-known sites that, like the Great Sphinx, will require re-dating in terms of their extremely ancient origins. 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Q What do you think gave rise to this much-earlier civilization? A This is fascinating to ponder: It is curious and perplexing that large-brained “humans” (including species that are separate and distinct from ours, but closely related, such as the Neanderthals) have existed on earth for well over 100,000 years (perhaps twice, or more, as long), yet apparently civilization appeared only within the last 20,000 years or so. Based on the evidence, I do not believe civilization resulted from early humans “turning on” their brains by ingesting psychedelics or other hallucinogens. Also, I haven’t seen convincing solid physical evidence behind the hypothesis of extraterrestrial alien intervention in ancient times, seeding civilization among brutish ape-like humans. So why did civilization first arise? Was it just by some chance event (perhaps a mental event in the mind of one person, or an invention), which may have seemed trivial at the time, that sparked something in a small group of humans, which then spread culturally? Did all of the right circumstances, whatever they may have been, somehow come together? Was it due to a favorable climatic regime that in turn had an effect on habitats and biotas, such as producing more abundant plant food and animal game? We do not really know when or where civilization was born. Neither the civilization that first constructed the proto-Sphinx and its associated temples, nor the builders of Göbekli Tepe, represent the beginnings of civilization; rather, they are a pinnacle of a previous cycle of civilization before it was decimated by a natural catastrophe. The origins of civilization must go back much further than 12,000 years ago, but we do not know how far back. Were there several cycles of civilization—with earlier civilizations taking various forms—prior to the one at the very end of the last ice age? Was civilization born several times, only to be snuffed out? Earth is subjected to numerous external influences, including changes in the overall electromagnetic background, variations in the flux of cosmic rays entering our atmosphere, solar outbursts, gamma-ray bursts, and many other types of factors. How such factors have influenced both the development of life on our planet, and the mental abilities and thus cultural attributes of humans, remain open questions. Classical ancient civilizations and traditional indigenous cultures around the world speak of cycles of the ages, such as the concept of Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages; the Yuga Cycle; or the Mayan concept of successive world ages. Could there be some truth to these ancient beliefs? It has been demonstrated that subtle changes in the electromagnetic/geomagnetic field can modulate mental abilities in humans. Might this be part of the reason civilization flourishes at certain times? Q Why did the civilization you’re studying, and the last ice age, end? A This early cycle of civilization was dealt a mighty setback. Based on various lines of evidence, including isotope studies of ice cores and sediment cores, geological and archaeological data, we can reconstruct the events that brought the last ice age to a close: Major solar outbursts and eruptions, the likes of which have not been experienced on earth in modern times, were the instigating factors. Electrical plasma discharges from the sun, driven to the surface of our planet, would have caused widespread incineration where they touched down, as well as wildfires. Solar outbursts not only warmed the planet overall—hitting glaciers, oceans, and lakes, through melting and instantaneous evaporation—they would have placed vast amounts of moisture into the atmosphere that subsequently came down as torrential rains. These rains, combined with rising sea levels, caused widespread flooding across the globe. The release of pressure on the earth’s crust caused by the melting of glaciers kilometers thick resulted in a cascading effect of earthquakes and active volcanoes. There is also evidence that solar activity can directly influence and modulate earthquake activity. A dark age ensued, which I refer to as SIDA (solar-induced dark age). For thousands of years following the end of the last ice age, humanity was reduced to hunting and foraging as people experimented with early forms of agriculture. Retreating to caves and underground or rock shelters enabled isolated pockets of humanity to survive the cataclysmic solar-induced onslaughts and high radiation levels. Many large mammals, such as mastodons, saber-toothed cats, and giant ground sloths, went … truncated (27,884 more characters in archive)