hf-the rise od neo-catastrophism[1]

7/29/2019 Hf-The Rise Od Neo-Catastrophism[1]

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Uk) ; I 'UkHI f t & ~ . J ' l n J , ' u " , Val. 3, Issue Number 10, 2002

RlSE OF NEO-CATASTROPHISM AND CASE FORA POSSIBLY "ANTEDILUVIAN" PRlMORDIAL CIVILIZATION

by

Dr. Horst Friedrich

Summary

In the post-"Enlightenment" and post-French-Revolution er a Catastrophism had become tbeundoubted paradigm and "leitmotiv" of geology, whicb was still upheld in the second half of19tbthe century by great geologists like d'Orbigny and Prestwich. Only after 1830Catastrophism was slowly replaced by Lyell's "Doctrine of U niformity" wbich, however,today has to be classed, from tbe viewpoint of the "science of science", as a highlythesis, more ideology than science. Fo r tbis reason we are observing a slow return toCatastropbism ("Neo-Cata."ltropbism") by some prominent members of our geologicalEstablisbment.Quite evidently tbe answer to tbe problem, If mankind's past has been non-cataclysmic orriddled witb violent upbeavals of nature on a regional or even global sca]e, is of the greatestconsequences for considerations pro or con DitTnsionism. Part ofthis problem is the questionif we bave to reckon with pre-cataclysmic advanced c i v i l i 7 ~ t i o n s on our planet, whicb maybave later been annihilated by great upheavals of nature. This is e.g. postulated by tbe greatnon-mainstream Establi shment geologist Prof. A. Tollmann ofVienna, Anstria.

is shown that from epistemological considerations we bave indeed to regard tbe existence of"antediluvian" advanced an d possibly worldwide active civilizations a realistic possibility.The inferences ofsucb a scenario for the Isolationism-DitTusionism controversy would tend toregard Isolationism as a highly unrealistic world view.

IN POST-"Enlightenment" and postFrench-Revolution Napoleonic eraCatastrophism had become the undoubtedand "leitmotiv" of In thisworld-view it was the overwhelming presented amajority's opinion that, obviously, the famous work

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sur les revolutions de la surfaee du, published in 1812, the year ofNapoleon's disastrous eampaign in Russia.ONLY 1830 Catastrophism wasslowly replaeed by the opposite dogma orideology, to "Doetrine of, mainly by CharIesLyell (1797-1875). In this doetrine, it wassuddenly postuJated that all geologiealfeatures, gravel and other debris deposits,mountain ete. hadby those noneataclysmie forees whieh we seeat work today. Viewed the standpointthe philosophy of sciences, and also in

of the knowledge we have today aboutthe possible causes of cataclysmic theUniformity" appears toconstitute a rather suspect eonstruet, more

To und erstand itssueeess, we have to remember thatFreneh-Revolution and post-Napoleonicabhorred revolutions (and, obviously,being it only geological lasurface du globe"). Lyell was, it seemsadept in the moment thepresentation per se rather dubiousdoctrine, and it to prevailing

NEVERTHELESS during the of19th century, severalcontinued to upholdCatastrophism, among them especiallyAlcide d'Orbigny (1802-1857), and JosephPrestwich (1847-1888 professor of atOxford). In addition, mueh to theembarrasment of the now Lyellian

geology, Catastrophism wassuddenly enthusiastieally received, during thc19thof the and wholecentury, by a noticable segment of thepublie, to wit via books by non-Establishment authors like Donnelly,and Ve1ikovsky (to name only themost charismatic them), who postulated apast of mankind. In asense,especially in view this workIn Upheaval"(1956), Velikovsky eould

Vol. 3, hrue Number 10, 2002

called of Neo-Catastrophism.WITH Diseovery of the impacteataclysm at theboundary L. & W. Alvarez (1980),Catastrophism returned to our universities. Atleast it a bridgehead there, amongotherwise still Lyellistie geological andpalaeontological Establishment.eatac1ysms du ring the age of man were stilltaboo. But then, in 1993, theDeluge book by A. E. Tollmann (1)exploded like abornbshell in the of theEstablishment. Alexander Tollmann washirnself a geology, on theprestigious ehair of Eduard Suess at Viennauniversity, corresponding member of theAustrian and Bavarian academies the"'""'v,,,,''',,, and and coauthor Edith auniversity leeturer palaeontology.openly and explieitly,demanded a r e t u r n to Cuvier'sCatastrophism, and called Neo-Catastrophism new ofHe reminds his colleagues that today weknow so much about the very realfrom asteroid and comet impacts that we willhave to diseard Lyell's "Doctrine ofUniformity" as highly misleading andin the Tollmann'sscenario the multiple comet impact, whieh(aroundthe biblical Deluge,legendary aeeording to some

"Mu" in the Pacific) the antediluvian,"primordial" mother and grandmother ofempires and civilizations. With dictum,traumatic du ring age ofcivilized man, up to 1993 andtaboo at ourreturned to our(although the majority opinion therenot exaetly about the

But what have prehistoric or protohistorieor (Neo-)

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to do with Diffusionism?has to do with theinterrelatedness of civilizations. Nowif we tentatively, in withthe Tollmann's scenario, that theresomewhere 8000 Re. anadvanced civilization on our planet, thatthere terrible cataclysms then,this will add a whole new dimension todiffusionism.

up to now we have been used todiffusionism considerationswith respect to the facts

are concerned, from aboutblown ancient civili7.ations) toA.D. (Polynesian migrations). Now wewou Id to add another millennia,during which span very many eventsand deveJopments of a diffusionist naturehave happened. Such an ofthe time scale by about 5000 additional yearswould, amount to an almostunsunnountable for attempt, toat realistic "evolutionary trees" thecivilizations. Diffusion oftraits, or ethno-Iinguisticthen occur, over 50 centuries and byunknown geographie intermediate stages, bytaking many which it wouldimpossible to pinpoint with accuracy."evolutionary trees" then, by

as hypothetical as

in impactevents or sud den pole displacementevents played awill have to reckon with cataclysms such amagnitude that whole civilizationsmay sunk to the depths of oceans.pole displacement caused bynear-collisions ofplanetary bodies, hadVelikovsky and "fastevents described in detai I by

Warlow alleged"stability seems adoubtful proposition, on theoretical groundsas weil as Sumerian tab lets seem todescribe a irregular behaviour of planetVenus. If ancient centers of civilizationshould have sunk to depths of the oceans,it would become an even more impossibletask to construct diffusion ist "evolutionary. The recent discovery, inwaters near a sunken advancedcivilization, with step pyramids reminiscentof ancient America(3), can seen as areminder in this reSIDeCL

if mankind's shouldhave been punctuated bynature, wou Idconsequences for any discussion about thepossible existence any "antediluvian" or"primordial" civilization (or civilizations, aton and wouldthereby add because the interrelatednessof this problem with more generaldiffusionist considerations to the

of our puzzle. will return tothis in a moment.

"Antediluvian" civiHzations?WE HAVE that, inan("Atlantis") is supposed to have been in fullblown as somewhere after8000 which is more or the samethe so-ca lied "End of

our Lyellian geologyis an astoundingcoincidence which, strangelyTollmanns never comment in their book.

It one of famous statement byprofessor CharIes Hapgood (in his workthe subtitle "Evidence AdvancedCivilization In the Tee Age"), where ISimplications of verymaps for prehistoricto wit this evidence"takes the civilization of original

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M igration & Diffusion, V ol. 3, IssueN umber 10 , 2002

mapmakers back to a time contemporaneouswith the end of the ice age in the northernhemisphere"(4). Among others, he isespecially alluding to a world map drawn byOronteus Finaeus in 1531.In contradistinction to the Tollmanns, thepossible interrelatedness of the cataclysmicdestruction of "Atlantis" with the so-called"End of the Ice Age" had already beencommented upon by another non-mainstreamscholar, professor Emilio Spedicato of theUuiversity ofBergamo (Italy), under the title:"Apollo Objects, Atlantis and the Deluge: ACatastrophical Scenario for the End of theLast Glaciation"(5). Here it is not a multiplecomet impact, but an impact by a member ofthe "Apollo" group of asteroids. This asteroidgroup constitutes a very real, and everpresent, danger for mankind on our planet.The effects of such impacts have beenstudied, at professor Spedicato's institute, byway of computer simu lations, for impacts oncontinental land as weil as into the oceans.And it has been found that impacts oncontinental land would tend to produce an (atleast regional) "lee Age", whereas an oceanicimpact would bring an existing "lee Age" toa sudden end, by incessant downpours ofwarm rains, and mega-tsunamis of warmocean water. Spedicato' s scenario has led thepresent author to tentatively explore thepossibility that, what our LyellisticQuaternary geology Establishment sees as anabsolutely noncataciysmic "lee Age", mightconceivably as weil have been aperiod ofrepeated cataciysmic events(6).WITHIN the conceptual framework of N eoCatastrophism we may then end up with thepossibility that, viewed backwards from ourtime, such a scenario of a guasi-coexistenceof advanced civilizations with greatcataclysms, as described by the Tollmannsand Spedicato, could extend far beyond the"End of the lee Age", all through the "leeAge" (whatever its true nature) itself, andeven into the Tertiary epoch. But would notsuch a scenario have to founder on the "rock"

of the great paradigm of Lyellism-cumDarwinism, to wit that anatomically modernhumans evolved (from "apemen") only aslate as during the alleged "Great lee Age"?Not necessarily, it seems.Epistemology and the antig uity of modern!lli!!!EPISTEMOLOGY is defmed as the theory ofknowledge, especially the critical study of theorigin, nature, validity, methods, and limitsof knowledge. When engaged in the study ofso-called " scientific evidence", one shouldhave a goodly competence in this field,otherwise one will fall into one of the "traps",which is accepted "common knowledge" of"majority opinion" sometimes amounts to.Today it seems we should keep thisespecially in mind when we come uponsynopses of the evolutionary history ofmankind, and upon statements about thealleged, only very late appearance of modernman.THERE ARE good reasons to suspect thatnot all and everything, wh ich ourEstablishment prehistorians andanthropologists tell us in this respect, must benecessarily true. There is e.g. thatvoluminous, pioneering work by M. Cremo& R. Thompson(7) which has, incidentally,been published in that same year 1993 as theTollmanns' Deluge book, and whichpresents, rather convincingly, guite anotherscenario for the history of the human race.And there can be no doubt that this workmeets the highest possible academicstandards. Neo-Scholasticism' s myth thatmodem man evolved from "apeman", as lateas during the "Great lee Age", seems to havebeen exposed, and definitely disposed of, as agreat ideological deception by these tworemarkable nonconformist, nonEstablishment scholars.In the Cremo-Thompson scenario modernman existed already in former geologicalages, above all during the Tertiary epoch,

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Migration & Diffusion, V of. 3, IssueNumber 10,2002

an

And if there should indeed have been manycataclysms during the history of mankind,there may have been many Palaeolithicepochs.

The problem of "antediluvian"civilizationsIF WE ACCEPT, again tentatively, thatmodern man existed already in formergeological ages, he woul


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Migration & Diffusion, VoL 3, fsStie Number 10, 2002

I FOOT OF EARTH

9 FEET OF BOULDERS,CRAVEL, SAND WITH

POTTERY

FIRST PAVEMENT/.) rEET OF SMALL nOULDERS.

CRAVEL AN D SAND

SECONO PAVEMENT

T4 FEET or SMALLBOU LDERS C R A V E ~

VOtCANIC ASHE!

UROKEN

SAND

I I I ~ I I I ~ = 1"HIRD PAVEMENTNz"ven's M exican Buricd Cities

Figure 2

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Migration & Diffusion, V ol. 3, Issue Number 10, 2002

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1) ToUmann Alexander & Edith: Und die Sintflut gab es doch; Munich, 1993.2) Warlow Peter: Geomagnetic Reversals; in: Journal of Physics A (Math. & Gen.), 11,

No.10/1978.3) Joseph Frank Cf.: Underwater City Discovered in Japanese Waters; m: Ancient American,

VoI.3IN0.17, 1997.4) Hapgood Charles H.: Maps ofthe Ancient Sea Kings; PhiladelphialNew York 1966 (p.149)5) Spedicato Emilio: Apollo Objects, Atlantis and the Deluge: A Catastrophical Scenario for the

End ofthe Last Glaciation; in: NEARA JOURNAL Vo1.XXVIIN0.1-2, 1991.6) Friedrich Horst: Jahrhundert-Irrtum "Eiszeit"?; Hohenpeissenberg, 1997.7) Cremo Michael A. & Thompson Richard L.: Forbidden Archaeology - The Hidden History of

the Human Race; San Diego/California, 1993.8) Sanderson Ivan T. Cf.: Abominable Snowmen - Legend Come to Life; PhiladelphiaJNewYork, 1961.9) Holmes W.H.: Review ofthe Evidence Relating to Auriferous Gravel Man in California; in:Smithonian Institution Annual Report, 1898-1899, Washington D.C. (ppAI9-472).10) Churchward James: The Lost Continent ofMu; London 1959 (p.229). Churchward does not

inform us if he himself, or his friend Niven, had been the originator of this illustration.

Correspondence address:

Dr. Horst Friedrich Hauptstr.52 82237 Wrthsee

Germany Tel: 0049-8153-7433

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http:///reader/full/VoI.3IN0.17http:///reader/full/Hauptstr.52http:///reader/full/VoI.3IN0.17http:///reader/full/Hauptstr.52


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& 3, JJJue Number 10, 2002

Im wissenschaftlichen Zeitalter nach ,,Aufklrung" und Franzsischer Revolution wa r de rKatastrophismus das und "Leitmotiv" der Geologie geworden,dem noch in der 2. Hlfte de s 19. Jahrhunderts groe wie d'Orbigny un d Prcstwichanhingen. Erst nach 1830 wurde der nach und nach durch "Doctrineof Unifonnity" (,,Aktualismus") heute, aus de r Sicht der "Wissenschaftvon der Wissenschaft", als eine These, mehr Ideologie als Wissenschaft,werden mu. Aus diesem Grunde beobachten wir heute, da bereits vonprominenten Mitgliedern unseres geologischen Establishments eine Rckkehr zumKatastrophismus als geologische Leit-Doktrin gefordert wird.

Offensichtlich ha t die Antwort auf die Frage, ob die Menschheitsvorgeschichte im Sinne desleugnenden Lyellismus oder durch ftere gigantische Naturkatastrophen

unterbrochen verlief, Konsequenzen ft' die Isolationismus-Diffusionismus-Kontroverse. dieses ist die ob wir mit vorkataklysmischen Hochkulturenzu rechnen haben, die spter durch Erdkatastrophen vernichtet wurden. Dies wirdbeispielsweise durch einen groen ,,Abweichler" im Prof. A.Tollmann in postuliert.

Es wird gezeigt, da aus wissenschaftsphilosophischer un d erkenntnistheoretischer Sicht dieAnnahme "vorsintflutlicher" Hochkulturen in de r Tat legitim erscheint. Solche Hochkulturenwren mit Sicherheit weltweit aktiv gewesen. In einem solchen Szenario mu die ,.., ______Isolationismus-Diffusionismus-Kontroverse in neuem Licht erscheinen, und mu derIsolationismus als gnzlich unrealistisch vetworfen werden.

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hf-the rise od neo-catastrophism[1]

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