... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Oklahoma's ornate flints: "eccentric" or fraudulent?Some Mayan eccentric flints were of extremely complex and delicate design. The first of the accompanying illustrations shows some of the ornate flints dug up in Delaware County, Oklahoma, in 1921 by M. Tussinger. The second picture is of a genuine Mayan "eccentric" flint from Quirigua, Guatemala. These exquisite examples of flint knapping evoke two questions: (1 ) Why bother turning out these highly labor-intensive objects by the thousands? (2 ) What are typically Mayan artifacts doing so far north in Oklahoma? Many of the flints, whether from Mayan sites or Oklahoma, are incredibly complex. Some are up to 20 inches in length. Countless hours must have been invested in delicately chipping away at flint blanks. Apparently, ornate flints were an art form of great importance to the Maya. They are found in large numbers in the burials of important personages. Archeologists too often explain puzzling artifacts by saying they had "ritual value." But, this answer may be correct here. Mayan eccentric flints are probably the equivalents of Christian stained-glass windows and elaborately illuminated manuscripts. The less "practical" they are, the higher their ritual value! Purpose aside, did Mayan influence and trade really reach far north into Oklahoma? Many archeologists doubted this at first. They claimed that Tussinger knapped the Oklahoma flints himself and sold them during the Depression for ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Picture Speaks Louder Than Words We hardly need more than the accompanying drawing to amplify our brief item (in SF#103) on that remarkable 7th. Century Mayan suspension bridge at Yaxchilan, in Mexico. Its three spans stretched 600 feet. The wooden deck was 10 feet wide and was suspended by large-diameter hemp ropes - probably bundles of six 1-inch ropes, according to modern calculations. The towers of the two bridge piers were 35 feet across and built up from large, flat stones (4 x 4 feet) set in bedrock. European engineers did not build a larger bridge until 1377! The following reference contains much more information. (O 'Kon, James A.; "Bridge to the Past," Civil Engineering , p. 62, January 1995. Cr. S. Jones) The precocious Mayan suspension bridge at Yaxchilan. Temples and other city buildings in background. From Science Frontiers #105, MAY-JUN 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... , biting bugs, and primitive tribes. That there is much of scientific significance hidden under the lush greenery is just now being realized. For example, A.C . Roosevelt has already proven that surpringly advanced cultures did inhabit the Amazon Basin for thousands of years. ( SF#71 ) We are now learning that some of these Amazon peoples were extraordinary earthmovers. Having little stone to work with, they matched the achievements of the Inca in the mountains just to the west with many miles of earthen causeways. Canals just as long were dedicated to fish-farming. Huge mounds rising above the flood plains supported villages. Even the mounds hold mysteries. One of them, named Ibibate, has been described by anthropologist W. Balee as being: .. .as close to a Mayan pyramid as you'll see in South America.... Beneath the forest cover is a 60-foot [18-meter] human-made artifact. Ibibate is only one of many such mounds in the Bolivian Amazon. Called "lomas", they are obviously quite distinct from any Mayan pyramid we know of. Rather, the lomas are enormous islands of pottery sherds mixed with black soil. Hundreds of these mounds prove that a large population once occupied this region of Bolivia called the Llanos de Mojos (Plains of Mojos). Anthropologist C.L . Erickson and a team from the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that the Llanos de Mojos once supported a Precolumbian complex of societies linked together by networks of communication, trade, and alliances. Erickson asserts that these cultures ...

... World Early Agriculture Easter Island Decline: Plant Evidence Sunflowers in Old World New World Hybrid Cotton Cowry Shell Diffusion Dyes, Diffusion of Coconut, Bottle Gourd, Sweet Potato Diffusion MG GRAPHIC ARTIFACTS MGC COINS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES Egyptian in Australia Egyptian in Martinique Roman in North America Roman in Iceland Chinese in North America Carthaginian in United Kingdom Hebrew in North America Coins in Coal Deposits Phoenician in Bahamas MGG GEOFORMS Effigy Mounds, Emblematic Mounds Boulder Mosaics Serpent Mounds, Wide Distribution Blythe Ground Figures British Hill Figures Nazca Lines Gravel Effigies Santa Valley Geoglyphs Georgia Eagle Mound Australian Ground Figures Panamint Valley Ground Figures [MSH6 Stone Meanders] Candelabra of the Andes South American Ceques U.S . Giant Circles [MSE8 Geographical Zodiacs] MGK CALENDARS AND ZODIACS Calendar Mosaics Lozenge Calendars Lunar and Solar Notation on Bones and Stones Karanouo Zodiac Mayan and Western Zodiacs Are Alike [MSE Geographical Zodiacs] MGM MAPS Turin Papyrus Vineland Map Stick Maps of Oceania Piri Re'is Map Carthaginian Maps Tibetan Maps of New World Ancient Atlantic Maps, Disappearing Islands Zeno maps Chinese Maps of America, Fusang Claim MGP ROCK ART, PETROGLYPHS, PICTOGRAPHS Tattoos Australian Bradshaw Paintings Paisa Petroglyphs Maze Stone Viking-Boat Tablet in America Chinese Motifs in America [MGS] Lascaux Cave Paintings Australian Rock Art, Strange Figures (Wandjina Drawings) Penguins in Mediterranean Mammoths and Elephants in America Michigan Tablets Rabbit-in-Moon Motif: Its Diffusion Rock Art and Echoes Anubis Cave Art Egypt in America Elephant Slabs Stone Age Art Sophistication Ostrich Domestication as Shown in Art Serpent Motif: Diffusion Pedra Furada Rock Art Holly Oak Pendant Fraud Tennessee Cave Art Red Bands in Caves Egypt ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 77: Sep-Oct 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Paper Trail From Asia To The Americas Stone beaters used in making bark paper from Mesoamerica (left) and Southeast Asia (right) The Mayan codices were made from bark paper as opposed to ordinary paper. To make bark paper, one first takes the inner layer of bark, or bast, from a tree. This material is then thinned, widened, and made flexible by soaking it in water and beating it. The final product retains much of the bark's structure with its interconnecting fibers. Ordinary paper today is also made of wood fibers, but the original fiber interconnections are destroyed in the pulping process. The manufacture of bark paper requires characteristic grooved beaters, specimens of which have been found in both Mesoamerica and Southeast Asia. Were bark paper and the tools required to make it invented independently on both sides of the Pacific, or were they transported across the Pacific by early navigators? If the latter, the flow was probably from Asia to America because the paper-making tools first appeared in Southeast Asia 4-5000 years ago and in Mesoamerica only 2500 years ago. Even so, trans-Pacific voyages 2500 years ago are definitely not part of acceptable archeology. Anthropologist P. Tolstoy, swimming against the mainstream, has surveyed the manufacturing technology of both bark paper and ordinary paper on a worldwide basis. He identified some 300 variable features in the process, 140 uses of the final products, and ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ancient egyptians in the new world?In issue #8 of The Ancient American , G. Thompson translated a few paragraphs from Mariano Cuevas' 1940 book: Historia de la Nacion Mexicana . We now summarize that translation. In August 1914, Professor M.A . Gonzales was excavating Mayan ruins in the city of Acajutla, in Mexico. The two illustrated statuettes were uncovered. On the male, the headdress, the beard, and the cartouche are all typically Egyptian in style. The male is thought to represent Osiris, the female Isis. (Thompson, Gunnar; "Egyptian Statuettes in Mexico," Ancient American, 2:12, no. 8, 1995.) In the same issue of The Ancient American , the issue of whether the ancient Egyptians reached the New World is joined with pro and con articles. The first is entitled: "The Egyptians Were Here!" It is written by R.A . Jairazbhoy, like G. Thompson an ardent diffusionist and author of the recent book Rameses III: Father of Ancient America . No need to ask what Jairazbhoy's position is on the issue! The second article is a rebuttal to the whole Egypt-in-America business by E. Lurio. His title: "Point: No Egyptians in Ancient America." Lurio is also the author of the 1990 book: A Fractured History of the Discovery of America . Lurio concludes: " ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Recent Survival Of The Elephant In The Americas Mayan "elephant motif". Elephants were supposed to have disappeared from the America about 10,000 years ago as the Ice Ages waned. This date is another of those "consensus" scientific facts that no one dares challenge if he or she wishes to get published or win research grants. Although this subject remains "closed off" in normal scientific intercourse, there remain tantalizing hints that elephants roamed the Americas until very recently - perhaps even a few hundred years ago! The following snippets are culled from two articles written by G. Carter, Texas A&M , now emeritus, but always heretical: Numerous folk memories of the elephamt were retained by American Indians. A mastadon was killed, cooked, and eaten by humans in Ecuador circa 1500 BC. Indians told Thomas Jefferson that elephants could still be seen in the region of the Great Lakes. In Florida, a cache of extinct animals, including elephants, was carbon-dated at 2000 BP. Elephant heads are prominent in art and sculpture from Mexico, Central American, and northern South America. (Carter, George F.; "A Note on the Elephant in America," and "The Mammoth in American Epigraphy," Epigraphic Society, Occasional Publications, 18:90 and 18:213, 1989.) Reference. The evidence for the recent survival of the mammoth is presented in BMD10 in our catalog ...