Ancient agriculture

The Andes

     In the majestic highlands of Peru lies the charming town of Huatu. It is a village centered around farming, but it has not done well in the past. Because of the high altitude, the growing season is normally short and the area is subject to unexpected killing frosts at the beginning and the end of the growing season.

The village of Huatu

That means that the crops are just as likely to fail as they are to produce.  Traditional farming methods and Western agricultural experts have been of little or no help.  That has made life very hard for the farmers that make up most of the population of Huatu, with little hope in sight. 

     Then an archaeologist came to Huatu.  He noticed that much of the surrounding countryside was covered with ditches, separated by raised mounds. 

     The native people of Huatu had lost all of their people's past history when the Spanish had conquered the area and wiped out most of their population. They had no idea about why the alternating ditches and mounds were there.  They only knew that they had always been there. 

     The archaeologist spent some time studying the area and he began to have an idea.  He went to some of the local farmers and told them that he had uncovered the meaning of the ditches and that he could teach them how to farm as their ancestors had done.

     As with most of the native peoples of the Andean mountains, the villagers had a great deal of reverence for the people who had come before them.  So the archaeologist was able to convince a few of the farmers to work with him for one season.

     His idea was that the ditches had once held water, making a canal between each of the raised beds.  He worked with the farmers to take one section of the fields and dig the ditches out, putting the soil on the raised mounds in between and then to flood the ditches with water.

     It worked!  The result was that the water held the heat that it collected from the sun every day and then released it as vapor during the night, providing a micro-climate around the crops that was several degrees higher in temperature.  That meant that the crops survived the frosts almost routinely.

     This meant several things.  The farmers could not only successfully raise the crops they had been used before, but they could now expand and raise other types of crops that they had never been able to raise before.  This was, of course, an immediate boost to their income and also lent predictability to their economy.

A Western experimental aquaculture system.

     In addition, the people were able to raise fish in the canals beside each bed.  This gave them yet another rich source of food.  In addition, the fish would feed on the insects that tried to reach the crops, along with the water providing a natural pest barrier.  

     Periodically, the farmers would dig the canals out again, putting the mud on the growing beds.  This was a natural source of fertilizer, since the mud was full of fish manure and offal. 

     All these things together resulted in a self-sustaining system that had been engineered by people thousands of years ago, without the benefit of Western agricultural science.  Indeed, it was far ahead of Western science.

Diagram of a modern aquaculture growing system.

     Modern agriculture has just begun experimenting with aquaculturally based systems and they are usually very small.  As you can see from the diagrams, the fish are kept in a tank.  An electric pump has to push water from the fish tank, laden with waste, up to the growing beds.  The beds filter out the wastes, which fertilizes the crops in the beds and purifies and aerates the water for the fish. 

     Of necessity, this can only be done on a small scale and requires a lot of electricity.  The Huatu system, on the other hand, is self-sustaining and self-balancing and requires no inputs of electricity, fertilizer or pesticide.  It is huge, operating on a landscape sized basis and functions well in an agriculturally difficult climate.

      And it was designed by people who lived thousands of years ago without any knowledge of Western type science.

Aerial view of Moray, Peru

      Then there are the people of Moray, Peru.  They have a different problem.  They have no large dependable source of water to use for their crops, as the Huatu people had, but they also live at a high altitude that makes it difficult to sustain crops.

For perspective, notice the four people standing in
 the circle's center.

     Someone long before them has employed a different strategy.  The large circles that you see on the aerial view photographs are gigantic holes that have been dug into the ground.  Around the edges of the holes, terraces, bordered by stone walls and with steps inset within them for easy access to each level, have been dug, each one about four of five feet lower than the next, making about 15 to 20 different layers.  The lower you go, the more protected the crops are from the high Andean cold and wind, making the micro climates of each level several degrees different from the one below or above it.

     Consequently, the people of Moray can raise about 66 different varieties of crops and vegetables that cannot be raised anywhere else for hundreds of miles.  An added benefit is that the holes provide the perfect amphitheater for special events.  Someone standing in the center of the hole can speak to people standing all around on the terraces and be heard perfectly, without amplification.

 
     Again, so well designed is the system that it is completely self-sustaining, so that the poor, uneducated inheritors of this technology have only to use it.  They don't have to understand it.  It just works by the nature of what it is.

Notice the different crops on each level.

Built in steps to reach each level.

     Lastly, there are the people who live in the Llanos de Moxos area of Bolivia.  They are faced with a completely different agricultural challenge - water management.  

     Unlike Moray and Huatu, they live in a low-land savannah.  Their fields are routinely inundated by deep floods or parched during the dry seasons. 

     However, far in the past, someone of great technical skill landscaped almost the entire region with a system of ditches and raised growing beds that not only keeps the crops dry enough to grow by channeling the flood waters away.  The canals are also linked to large reservoirs that keep enough water in them to keep the canals full during the dry season, watering the crops when they would otherwise die.  At the ends of certain of the growing beds are raised platforms where the farmers used to have their dwellings and storehouses, to be near their fields.

     Again, the native people have no idea of who exactly built these landscape sized agricultural systems, meaning that it happened so far in the past - before they got there - that they don't even have any stories about them.  It is impossible to date.  The only way that all of the fields can be located is by seeing them from the air.  The locals don't even know where they all are. 

     Three completely different agricultural settings with unique challenges that have all been met by technical skill and a level of organization that modern civilization can barely envision, much less reproduce.

     Yeah, the ancient human beings were far inferior to modern people, just like the Darwinists say.

 
WARNING!!

This blog has been written with the sole purpose of using the ample evidence available to verify and support the biblical record, while refuting the copious propaganda that is shoved down our throats daily by materialistic uniformitarians.

It is my contention that the Bible describes God's original creation of people with extraordinary capabilities who subsequently built an advanced civilization that exceeds our own. That civilization was destroyed in the Great Flood and we have spent the last 5,000 years trying to re-build that civilization. I contend that science supports all this in multiple disciplines, but this information is ignored or suppressed by various people who have an opposing agenda.

Nothing that you see on this blog is original. Any fact that you see here is obtainable on a dozen different websites and books. I use these facts and photos, without violating their copyrights, under the legal principle of fair use practice. That is, I use them one time, for educational purposes only.

The point is, nothing here is made up. The only thing that I do (or need to do) is assemble this information in a discernible pattern.

You might want to read through the first entry posted on this blog (Past Remembering: Thoughts toward a coherent view of our ancient past, our present and our future) in order to understand my theoretical and theological underpinnings more clearly.

The truth is there. You just have to see it.





Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 (New American Standard Bible)

That which has been is that which will be,

And that which has been done is that which will be done.

So there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one might say,

“See this, it is new”?

Already it has existed for ages

Which were before us.

Considering prehistoric bullets

      Let me introduce you to Bos Primigenius, the Aurochs.  You've seen many of his descendants, because nearly all the cattle breeds that we now raise come from him, but you have never seen him.


 
      Native to the forests of Europe, this four-legged mountain stood 74 inches tall at the shoulder (that's 6 feet, 2 inches) and he weighed about 2,000 pounds (that's a ton).  Your average bull today stands about 4.5 to 5 feet tall and weighs 1,200 to 1,300 pounds.

     We know a lot about him because, until the 1100's A. D., this creature lived side by side with human beings.  Since that was still in the Dark Ages and Western Civilization had yet to develop an effective firearm, it was considered a great challenge to hunt these beasts, because while you were hunting him, he was hunting you!  With the hunters using only spears and arrows to attack him, the outcome of the conflict was none too certain. 

      Consequently, it was quite well known and recorded when the last of these mighty monsters passed off the scene, in the 1100's as we've said. 

The bullet hole is the darkest spot dead in the center of the forehead

      Why, then, do we find an Aurochs skull that has been penetrated by a bullet, right between the eyes.  It was a small caliber bullet and, while it did penetrate the cranium, the Aurochs survived after the shot, because the edges of the bone around the hole were starting to heal.

The bullet hole is the darkest spot right above the ear

     In addition, why are we finding ancient human skulls, (labeled "Neandertal" by the politically obedient researchers) that also had a bullet hole in the skull, made by a high velocity round, about .32 caliber.  As you can see by the photo with the rod running through the skull, the bullet went straight through this person's head, on an absolutely straight trajectory.   That means that this person didn't, for instance, fall and strike his head on a sharp object, nor was he struck by something like a war club with a big spike running through it.

Rod is showing entry and exit wounds for the same shot

Close-up of the human skull bullet wound

      When examined by German forensic medical examiners (the people who examine the corpses of crime victims, searching for evidence, like on CSI), they determined that this was indeed a bullet wound and could be nothing else.  No other impact, no other weapon, could have left such a clean and regular mark.

      For those who asked if the bullet hole could have been more recent, like someone using a skull they found for target practice or the result of a passing hunter's shot that accidentally hit the skull, the forensics experts say that this is impossible.  The hole had to have been made while the individual was still living.  Otherwise, there would have been a series of spider cracks surrounding the hole. 

     In other words, after death the bone becomes brittle as it dries out.  Any impact would have caused shattering. 

     An ancient beast and an ancient human, both undeniably struck by a high velocity bullet in the skull, hundreds (if not thousands) of years before such weapons were developed by Western civilization - what we call "modern man."

      Yes, of course, mankind has developed slowly and surely from half-apes to our own exalted status. 

       You shall know the truth....

  WARNING!!

This blog has been written with the sole purpose of using the ample evidence available to verify and support the biblical record, while refuting the copious propaganda that is shoved down our throats daily by materialistic uniformitarians.

It is my contention that the Bible describes God's original creation of people with extraordinary capabilities who subsequently built an advanced civilization that exceeds our own. That civilization was destroyed in the Great Flood and we have spent the last 5,000 years trying to re-build that civilization. I contend that science supports all this in multiple disciplines, but this information is ignored or suppressed by various people who have an opposing agenda.
 

Nothing that you see on this blog is original. Any fact that you see here is obtainable on a dozen different websites and books. I use these facts and photos, without violating their copyrights, under the legal principle of fair use practice. That is, I use them one time, for educational purposes only.

The point is, nothing here is made up. The only thing that I do (or need to do) is assemble this information in a discernible pattern. 

You might want to read through the first entry posted on this blog (Past Remembering: Thoughts toward a coherent view of our ancient past, our present and our future) in order to understand my theoretical and theological underpinnings more clearly.

     The truth is there. You just have to see it.


Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 (New American Standard Bible)


 
That which has been is that which will be,

And that which has been done is that which will be done.

So there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one might say,

“See this, it is new”?

Already it has existed for ages

Which were before us.

What happened to Hattusas and the Hittites?

 
     In what is now Turkey, about 95 miles east of Ankara, near the current city of Boğazköy, lies the site of Hattusas (or Hattusa, or Hattusha).  Hattusas was the capital city of a people called the Hittites, who built an empire starting around 1650 B. C.  You may remember the name "Hittites" from the Bible.

Aerial view of the ruins of Hattusas

     The Hittites had a pivotal role in ancient history, far greater than they are given credit for in modern history books.  We hear much about the Egyptians from ancient history, and rightly so.  However, at a time when the Egyptian Empire was at it's highest point under the famous Pharaoh, Ramses the Great, (around 1285 B. C.) and Egypt was one of the two or three superpowers of the ancient world, the Hittites were every bit their equal.

Partial excavations of the ruins of Hattusas

     We know this because we have records, etched in stone,  describing how they fought the mighty Egyptian Empire to a standstill, nearly killing Ramses himself, in the pivotal Battle of Kadesh.  The Egyptians confirmed this by doing something that they never did when they had the upper hand.  They made a peace treaty with the Hittites and Ramses married a Hittite princess to seal the deal.  

The remnants of The Lion Gate at Hattusas.

     The power of the Hittite empire eventually spread over a large part of what we now call the Middle East.  There were several reasons for the success of the Hittites.  

     Firstly, the Hittites were not one people, but an amalgamation of several peoples, which allowed them to combine the strengths and skills of all of them, somewhat like the United States.  As the Hittites met other peoples, they adopted from those cultures whatever technology, skills or customs that were superior to their own, much as the Romans did in later years.

Carving of a Hittite priest and priestess making offerings

     The Hittites possessed the most superior technology, in their day, for the production and use of iron.  They were the acknowledged masters in the world in the use of horses, for war and industry.  They had developed the lightest and fastest chariots in the world.  Although they had an extremely authoritarian system of government, they had an efficient and fair legal system.  They developed good relations with the peoples that they conquered, so there was little political unrest.

Relief carving of a Hittite priest or noble

     The capital of this empire, Hattusas, was as impressive and as impregnable as the Hittites could make it.  It was protected by a stone wall 3.75 miles around, built of stones as large as 26 feet long and 20 feet thick, which would make each stone hundreds of tons in weight.  (There's that use of mega-stones among ancient peoples again.)

A relief carving of  Hittite troops

     Our modern day evaluation of the Hittites would probably lead us to think that these people were safe from all threat and able to outmatch all comers.  In spite of all this, however, someone (we don't know who) invaded and destroyed the Hittite Empire, almost overnight.  They destroyed every vestige of this gargantuan civilization so completely that scholars, until fairly recent times, regarded all references to the Hittites in the Old Testament as allegorical.  Researchers could find no evidence of them.

A modern full-scale reconstruction of a section of the wall surrounding Hattusas

     Mighty Hattusas itself, as you can see from the photos, was leveled to the ground.  Who could have destroyed a militaristic empire, firmly entrenched behind impenetrable stone walls, supported by a powerful and experienced standing army?  The entire Hittite Empire was literally erased off the face of the map by someone, not in a long struggle like you would expect, but with ease.

A model reconstructing Hattusas at its height

     Here's the scary part.  Today, if you visit Hattusas, you can see for yourself that all the stone and brick, in the remnants of buildings, have had their surfaces vitrified, or melted to a glass-like consistency.  None of the surrounding rocky outcroppings,and none of the ground shows any evidence of this vitrification phenomenon. 

     We have talked about such vitrification of stone and brick in previous posts regarding the buildings in Mohenjo-Daro of the Indus River Valley people in what is now Pakistan, the fields of Nubian glass in Egypt and the stone forts of Scotland.  

     It takes a sustained temperature of 1,300 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit to melt stone (depending on the kind of stone and it's structure).  Granted, the Hittites themselves could produce furnaces that could have produced that temperature, but who could have built one that could have systematically melted the exterior of every building in an entire city?  During an attack, no less!

An artist's vision of ancient Hattusas in all its glory

     What happened?  Short version - we don't know.  

     We will most certainly never find out from our politically correct, evolutionist archaeological friends.  They have no explanations - at least, none that match their carefully crafted myths to explain the time line according to their presuppositions!

WARNING!!

This blog has been written with the sole purpose of using the ample evidence available to verify and support the biblical record, while refuting the copious propaganda that is shoved down our throats daily by materialistic uniformitarians.

It is my contention that the Bible describes God's original creation of people with extraordinary capabilities who subsequently built an advanced civilization that exceeds our own. That civilization was destroyed in the Great Flood and we have spent the last 5,000 years trying to re-build that civilization. I contend that science supports all this in multiple disciplines, but this information is ignored or suppressed by various people who have an opposing agenda.

Nothing that you see on this blog is original. Any fact that you see here is obtainable on a dozen different websites and books. I use these facts and photos, without violating their copyrights, under the legal principle of fair use practice. That is, I use them one time, for educational purposes only.

The point is, nothing here is made up. The only thing that I do (or need to do) is assemble this information in a discernible pattern.

You might want to read through the first entry posted on this blog (Past Remembering: Thoughts toward a coherent view of our ancient past, our present and our future) in order to understand my theoretical and theological underpinnings more clearly.

The truth is there. You just have to see it.

 

 

Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 (NASB)

That which has been is that which will be,
And that which has been done is that which will be done.

So there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one might say,

“See this, it is new”?

Already it has existed for ages

Which were before us.

The Klerksdorp spheres: Defying physics

     This is all cut and pasted again. 

     I hope everyone understands that, while I enjoy a weird story as much as anyone, my purpose with these posts is to make sure more people know about the evidence that points to the de-volution of mankind, instead of the evolution that the Darwinite minions try to force down our throats.  I am firmly convinced that we began our history as a race of beings far superior to what we are now and that traces of a superior technology developed by our ancestors can still be found.  I believe that, instead of starting as some half-animals and working our way up to the heights we now enjoy, we were created capable of doing far greater things than we can now imagine and, because of several processes, have become weak and sick and retarded, comparatively.  We are only now beginning to get glimmers of what we once achieved.  This truth has been systematically hidden from us by those who profit from our ignorance, both human and non-human.

The truth will set us free.

Randy

 

     Over the past several decades, South African miners have found hundreds of metallic spheres, at least one of which has three parallel grooves running around its equator.

The spheres are of two types--"one of solid bluish metal with white flecks, and another which is a hollow ball filled with a white spongy center" (Jimison 1982). 

     Roelf Marx, curator of the museum of Klerksdorp, South Africa, where some of the spheres are housed, said: "The spheres are a complete mystery. They look man-made, yet at the time in Earth's history when they came to rest in this rock no intelligent life existed. They're nothing like I have ever seen before" (Jimison 1982).  

      "We wrote to Roelf Marx for further information about the spheres. He replied in a letter dated September 12, 1984: "There is nothing scientific published about the globes, but the facts are: They are found in pyrophyllite, which is mined near the little town of Ottosdal in the Western Transvaal. This pyrophyllite (Al2Si4O10(OH)2) is a quite soft secondary mineral with a count of only 3 on the Mohs' scale and was formed by sedimentation about 2.8 billion years ago. On the other hand the globes, which have a fibrous structure on the inside with a shell around it, are very hard and cannot be scratched, even by steel." The Mohs' scale of hardness is named after Friedrich Mohs, who chose ten minerals as references points for comparative hardness, with talc the softest and diamond the hardest" ...Forbidden Archaeology 

     Stones, which are found in rock scientists say are billions of years old- and which rotate on their axes, captured the attention of Mr. John Hund of Pietersburg fifteen years ago....

 
     While playing with the stone on a very flat surface at a restaurant one day, Hund realized it was very well balanced. He took it to the California Space Institute at the University of California to have tests done to determine just how well balanced it was. "It turned out that the balance is so fine, it exceeded the limit of their measuring technology and these are the guys who make gyrocompasses for NASA. The stone is balanced to within one-hundred thousandths of an inch from absolute perfection," explains Hund. Nobody knows what these stones are.

     One NASA scientist reportedly told Hund that they do not have the technology to create anything as finely balanced as this. He said the only way that either nature or human technology could create something so finely balanced would be in zero gravity.

WARNING!!

This blog has been written with the sole purpose of using the ample evidence available to verify and support the biblical record, while refuting the copious propaganda that is shoved down our throats daily by materialistic uniformitarians. 

It is my contention that the Bible describes God's original creation of people with extraordinary capabilities who subsequently built an advanced civilization that exceeds our own. That civilization was destroyed in the Great Flood and we have spent the last 5,000 years trying to re-build that civilization. I contend that science supports all this in multiple disciplines, but this information is ignored or suppressed by various people who have an opposing agenda.

Nothing that you see on this blog is original. Any fact that you see here is obtainable on a dozen different websites and books. I use these facts and photos, without violating their copyrights, under the legal principle of fair use practice. That is, I use them one time, for educational purposes only.

The point is, nothing here is made up. The only thing that I do (or need to do) is assemble this information in a discernible pattern. 

You might want to read through the first entry posted on this blog (Past Remembering: Thoughts toward a coherent view of our ancient past, our present and our future) in order to understand my theoretical and theological underpinnings more clearly.

     The truth is there. You just have to see it.


Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 (New American Standard Bible)

That which has been is that which will be,

And that which has been done is that which will be done.

So there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one might say,

“See this, it is new”?

Already it has existed for ages

Which were before us.

Gobekli Tepe: Haunting hill

     In 1995, nine miles northeast of the town of Şanlıurfa (formerly Urfa / Edessa) in southeastern Turkey, just north of Syria, a Kurdish shepherd noticed a stone sticking out of one of his fields, located on a hill called Gobekli Tepe.  Charmingly enough, the name means “Potbelly Hill” in the local language.

The shepherd was aware that many lucrative ancient artifacts were being found throughout the region, so he began to dig around the stone.  He dug and he dug and he dug.  When he finally had the dirt cleared away from the stone, he had revealed a 19 foot tall pillar –expertly crafted and carved with strange images of extinct animals and birds, bizarre humanoid images and other designs as yet undeciphered.

 
     A German archaeological team has been working at the site for 19 years.  In that time, they have excavated only about a thousand square feet, perhaps 10% (if that) of what they think lies beneath the surface. 

I don’t really give a lot of credence to the accuracy of their dating techniques, but the comparative results are stunning.  This may be the oldest man-made construction in the world!

And it is huge!  Monolithic pillars linked by coarsely built walls form circular or oval structures. In the center of each structure there are always two taller, T-shaped pillars, which are set in very shallow sockets carved out of the bedrock.  These 19 foot tall stones would have never stood upright by themselves, indicating that there must have been some sort of supporting roof structure.  

Artist's rendition of what archaeologists think might lie beneath the sand at Gobekli Tepe.

So far, four such buildings, with diameters between 10 and 30 meters have been uncovered. Geophysical surveys indicate the existence of 16-50 total structures.

 
Around all of this expertly carved stonework, not one stone working, cleaning or even agricultural tool has been found.  In addition, the evidence indicates that this huge complex was deliberately buried.

What is relevant for our discussion, is that the dating shows the oldest structures are the ones that are most advanced, most skillfully made.  There is no indication of a progression, an evolution, from simpler, more primitive designs to the more complex and more skillfully made.  Quite the contrary, there is a devolution. 

This is disconcerting and embarrassing for the politically correct archaeologists. 

It is in no way surprising to those of us who are not bound by the narrative of the evolutionary proponents.  Civilizations, cities and temple complexes all over the world, including the valley temples of Gaza, Egypt, the ancient cities of Sumer in Mesopotamia, ancient cities and structures in China and the great Indus River Valley cities all show the same thing.  Peoples suddenly showing up in the archaeological record with complex skills (tool-making, math, medicine, science, architecture and construction, city planning, astronomy), fully developed and complex,with no sign that there was a development of those skills.  There are no evidences of earlier, simpler attempts at these skills.  The ancient peoples just have seemed to have them, at levels that still sometimes exceed our own, from the beginning.

Why?

WARNING!!

This blog has been written with the sole purpose of using the ample evidence available to verify and support the biblical record, while refuting the copious propaganda that is shoved down our throats daily by materialistic uniformitarians. 

It is my contention that the Bible describes God's original creation of people with extraordinary capabilities who subsequently built an advanced civilization that exceeds our own. That civilization was destroyed in the Great Flood and we have spent the last 5,000 years trying to re-build that civilization. I contend that science supports all this in multiple disciplines, but this information is ignored or suppressed by various people who have an opposing agenda.

Nothing that you see on this blog is original. Any fact that you see here is obtainable on a dozen different websites and books. I use these facts and photos, without violating their copyrights, under the legal principle of fair use practice. That is, I use them one time, for educational purposes only.

The point is, nothing here is made up. The only thing that I do (or need to do) is assemble this information in a discernible pattern. 

You might want to read through the first entry posted on this blog (Past Remembering: Thoughts toward a coherent view of our ancient past, our present and our future) in order to understand my theoretical and theological underpinnings more clearly.

      The truth is there. You just have to see it.
  

Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 (New American Standard Bible)





That which has been is that which will be,

And that which has been done is that which will be done.

So there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one might say,

“See this, it is new”?

Already it has existed for ages

Which were before us.