EDITORIAL PAGE

Ancient archaeology is one of the fields where two extremes of the human mind come to the fore. At one end of the spectrum there are the short-sighted and frightened cowards who react at things that may challenge their inner world with great stubbornness. At the other end there are the dishevelled dreamers that see in every little thing that cannot be explained immediately as prove of the existence of gods, ghosts, or travellers from outer space. Now this does not mean to say that there may not have been gods, ghosts, or travellers from out of space on earth, merely that the evidence has to judged by the usual scientific method, and not prejudged by one of the mentioned attitudes.

Archaeology is a science, so one might think that this matter would take care of itself. However, scientists are vulnerable to the same weaknesses as other human beings, see the description in Bad science; in our case of ancient archaeology, the list of fallacies in Bad Science splits the first attitude into numbers 18, 19, 23, and 25, and the second attitude in 4, 6, 7, 9 and 13. 

Here we are going to apply the good method of doing science to the controversial part of ancient archaeology. The method is known well enough, see for an independent source see here, and an application by the author here. The first thing it requires is the possibility of thorough and repeated examination of its findings, preferably by more than one individual. To facilitate this, much of the information that is spread all over the web is copied and collected here. Having this information at the same place also makes it easier to see possible patterns, and to make inferences. Another important argument to make a separate website is that much of the material comes together with all kinds of theory that is only strenuously related to the known facts. In this collection, most of the theory is dropped, leaving the pictures, because pictures are by necessity of artefacts, which in turn satisfy the requirement of repeated examination.

Of course, at some stage theory becomes a necessity in order to systemize our findings. But systemization is possible only as a result of common traits the collected artefacts may possess. And this is a big challenge in archaeology, since the most exciting findings are exciting because they are rare. However: having found some example is an inspiration to look for more. If our theory says the “more” will look like this, and the “more” we find does indeed look like this, than obviously we’re on the right track. The author does give his own interpretation of the data available, but this is clearly separated, most of it having its own pages called 'analysis'.

Now, to get specific: the more exciting claims of the last decades are those of travellers from space by Von Däniken, and that of the antediluvian civilization. The latter is in fact a modern day continuation of the Atlantis theory, but the latter was a forbidden word for a long time, due to first process described above.

The ultimate proof of travellers from out of space is an ancient spaceship, and the ultimate proof of the antediluvian civilization is the find of correspondingly ancient city remains. The first has not materialized yet, but about the second one can have discussions.

Ancient city remains can be found all over the world, but since they are really ancient, what remains are stones. And stones are notoriously difficult to date, at least to date the time they were cut by hand or tool. So one has to revert to other methods. One of the really good methods is to link the artefacts with geological phenomena. If you find your ancient artefacts under water, you can link them to ancient sea levels, assuming the ancients did not have the capability of sustained underwater activity.

So the equivalent of the ancient spaceship is the ancient underwater city. Remarkably, several excellent possibilities have been found, most notable that being at Yonaguni Island, Japan. Following the method outlined above, the clues have been gathered on this website, so that everyone can make his own judgement.

Related subjects are other underwater finds which for ease of reference have been retained under their familiar names like "Binimi road", "underwater pyramids", "underwater cities", "Andros temple", while the author does not necessarily support the interpretations that lay behind these words.

The two major sources until now have been ordinary tourist sites in the case of the data from Peru, and for the underwater sites the diver teams of Greg and Lora Little, Graham Hancock and Santha Faiia, and Michael Arbuthnot (more on this here). At the moment of writing (June 2004), the site is still in development, so it may be useful to look again later. If you find other related interesting material and care to share this with others, or have comments of suggestions, please mail to the author.

Finally a remark with respect to the position of the sceptics. While a part of their position is validated by the demands of the good scientific method, some of them are plain silly (see here), or stubborn (see here). Here we have followed the scientific method to the best of our ability. Yet we get results that seem to confirm some claims made by the supporters of theories that say that there must have been ancient civilizations and relations between civilizations that are not part of the tree of civilizations known to regular archaeology. Where the sceptics lend from good science, they are also obliged to openly recognize results that are based on good science, or invalidate the claim to these results. As long as such a recognition is lacking, the sceptics show ill-faith to the method of good science, and the attitude of decency in general.