“. . . For the Ocean that was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say ‘the Pillars of Heracles’ [Straits of Gibraltar] there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together; and it was possible for travelers of that time to cross from it to the other islands and from the islands to the whole of the continent over against them which encompasses the veritable ocean … .” Plato, 400 BC
Here are the facts. During the Bronze Age, 3500 to 1000 BC, five thousand copper mines were excavated on the south shore of Lake Superior. Millions of pounds of copper were extracted. Only a miniscule fraction of this copper can be accounted for among the artifacts of Native Americans.
So where did all of this copper go? Increasing evidence suggests that it went to Europe. Sound crazy? Bear with me a bit.
Last week, in Bronze Age Part I: Intelligence versus Accumulated Knowledge, I reviewed the massive trade in bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, at exactly the same time as these mines were being excavated around Lake Superior, and the extent of the Minoan trading empire which ranged from the Indian Ocean to the Orkney Islands north of Scotland. (If you did not read last week’s column, the Minoan Empire was centered on Crete and Santorini in the Mediterranean Sea during the Bronze Age)
Is it possible that the Minoans continued in their travels and crossed the Atlantic? In a word, yes. The north Atlantic crossing from the Orkneys to Canada was made in 1000 AD by the Vikings. It’s tempting to think that the Minoans, having existed two to four thousand years earlier than the Vikings, would have had more primitive ships and a less advanced knowledge of the science of navigation. But you would be wrong.
Recovery of Minoan sailing vessels shows that they were larger and more seaworthy than Viking ships. More importantly, the Minoans were in close contact with the Babylonian Empire which gave them access to very detailed and accurate star charts, allowing for accurate navigation at sea. The Vikings did not have comparable navigational resources. Thus, the proposition that the Minoans could have made the North Atlantic crossing is quite reasonable.
In his recent book, The Lost Empire of Atlantis, Gavin Menzies presents a very strong case that the Minoans were responsible for the extraction and export of the missing copper. The most compelling evidence from his book is listed below.
- The tools used for mining in both European mines known to be Minoan and the Lake Superior mines are identical.
- The pottery and utensils found in the Lake Superior mines are identical to those used in the Minoan civilization on Crete.
- The mines in Lake Superior are the only known Bronze Age mines to contain copper with a purity exceeding 99%. Many European artifacts from this time period contain copper of this purity.
- The mining of copper in Lake Superior ended abruptly and coincidently with the fall of the Minoan empire.
The last and best piece of evidence deserves a bit longer explanation. The descendants of the Minoans on Crete as well as the current populations in European and Middle Eastern countries where the Minoans were known to have significant interactions (yes the double entendre was intended) have a genetic marker on their mitochondrial DNA known as haplogroup X. The overlay of the geographic distribution of haplogroup X and the known Minoan trading empire is nearly exact, providing strong evidence that the Minoans were the source of this genetic material.
In surveying the globe for other populations which have haplogroup X, the Ojibwa and Chippewa tribes in the vicinity of Lake Superior were found to have this marker. Further, but studying the extent of mutations within the haplogroup, it is possible to determine that the introduction of this genetic material into the local Native American populations occurred contemporaneously with the copper mining. The immense amount of labor involved in extracting all of this copper would have involved employing local Native Americans. The close contact between Minoan men and Native American women, not surprisingly, appears to have resulted in the mixing of genetic material.
Historically, Plato was quite close to the Minoans. As he refers to in the quote at the top of the page, he knew that the Atlantic Ocean was beyond the Straits of Gibraltar and that a continent-sized land mass existed on the other side. It appears that the Ancient Greeks knew of the seafaring exploits of the Minoans and that this knowledge was misplaced during ensuring dark ages.
So, other than it being a great chance to share a potential answer to a great historical mystery with you, why am I reviewing the Bronze Age with you in Common Science®?
I expect in coming decades that the technical and cultural sophistication of the Bronze Age will gain prominence in our history books and force us to change our narrative of the development of human civilization. The key feature of our history is not steady unrelenting progress, but rather a boom-and-bust cycle of cultural flowering followed by descent into confusion and darkness. Our current cultural flowering has been largely uninterrupted since approximately 1200 AD. Is it soon time for another bust?
Have .a comment or question on this column? Log in below or send me an e-mail at commonscience@chapelboro.com. Furthermore, if you have a science question or a science dispute at the dinner table that needs a tie-breaking vote, send me an e-mail and I’ll see if I can help you out.
Great article. I live in Northern Michigan and we know with all the evidence including ancient Minoan artifacts left here that Europeans were coming here a very long time ago. Evidence also points to there being a World wide seafaring system in place before and along with the bronze age miners. Check out the ‘Ancient American: Archaeology of the Americas before Columbus’ magazine, an excellent magazine with a decade or more of this kind of proof.
Yep, cuz Glaciers did the work of “stripping” the overburden and the deposits mined by “Minoans” were close surface AND to waterways, so it was “easy” to mine there. That closeness to water is why Marquette iron range developed long before the Menominee ranges that needed railroads (e.g,. Iron County area).
The World Empire of 3100 BCE is one of my books explaining the Akkadian/Egyptian/Minoan/Phoenician empire which mined copper
in Michigan and tin in Bolivia and brought the ore back to Crete and
Cyprus to be smelted into bronze. The emperor was Menes/Minos/
Manis/Manja, son of Sargon the Great, and grandson of Ziusudra
of Sumer (Noah). Much more to tell. Email me at spressman@
hotmail.com for a copy. There are a total of 60 books I have written
in this genre.
Dr. Saul pressman
I know you’re not going to want to hear this… Every single thing you said lines up perfectly with information contained in the text of the Book of Mormon published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints… It was first published in 1830 and these mines were first discovered between 1848 and 1864…
Just sayin’… People desperately want the Europeans to have mined the copper, for the Vikings… But the timeline matches perfectly with information in the Book of Mormon.
Not so.
Copper mining in North America was carbon dated by Dr. David Pompeani using Lake Superior sediments which contained heavy metals associated with copper mining activity. Mining began 9,600 years ago when copper began to be used in pre-dynastic Egypt.
Copper mining activity significantly increased 6,200 years ago. This corresponds to the Late Chalcolithic Cultural Collapse, when the culture of people who were making copper items in Southeastern Europe vanished and was replaced by aggressive patriarchal clans that worshipped the horse and buried their dead in kurgan mounds with weapons and rich grave goods. The increase in copper mining activity continued for almost 1,000 years.
5,300 years ago, copper mining activity peaked and began to decline. This year corresponds with the end of the African humid period. It appears that the copper mining activity in North America was dependent upon the grain that was being grown in North Africa.
Around this same time, people from North Africa, Bell Beaker people, Maritime Culture began to migrate into the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles. They replaced the original inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles who had built Stonehenge and Newgrange passage tomb. The Iberian Peninsula was named for these people who were the descendants of Anatolian farmers that constructed Gobekli Tepe, these people were the Iberians, the Iberu, Habiru, the Hebrews. The Hebrews vanished from Western Europe at the time that the Egyptians were constructing the Pyramids of Giza. This was the time that the Hebrews became the slaves of Egypt. The Hebrews had a story about the people who enslaved them, the story of Cain and Abel. Cain was a Canaanite farmer from North Africa, a Canaanite. Abel was an Iberian shepherd. The mark which God placed on Cain was the symbol of the triskelion. The triskelion is a three legged swastika with curved legs that look like three sixes, “666”, the mark of the beast. The Phoenicians who carried the symbol of the triskelion became the European Celtics.
The people who were traveling throughout the world during antiquity can be tracked by following the migration of the symbol of the swastika. The swastika arrived in South America when a group of Phoenician Canaanites who were sailing around Africa became lost at sea. The Phoenicians left a record of their voyage carved on the Pairiba Stone. The South America civilization of Chimu have an origin story that tells of their founders coming from a powerful lord across the sea to rule over the land. This is when the Chimu began to be ruled by people of inherited nobility, began to build stone pyramids, began to worship Canaanite gods, began to make gold idols, practice slavery and warfare, practice human sacrifice, practice cannibalism, and gather tributes from conquered people.
The symbol of the swastika came to North America around the time that the Romans invaded Britain and conquered the Celtics, and at the time that the Romans invaded Jerusalem. The swastika came to North America through the Saint Lawrence River to Lake Superior, then traveled across land to the American Southwest. The people who carried the symbol of the swastika probably migrated to Nevada’s Lovelock Cave. The Paiute tribe of Native Americans have an oral history of the people who lived in Lovelock Cave. They were large red haired people who were cannibals that were at war with the Paiute. Recently the remains of an ancient individual found in Lovelock Cave, carbon dated to 1,800 years before present, was found to belong to a Bronze Age haplogroup that originated in Central Asia and migrated into Europe, Turkic people known as Huns. It is at the time of the arrival of the symbol of the swastika that the Anasazi civilization of the American Southwest fell victim to cannibalism and warfare.
If the Mormons came to ancient North America by boat, they would have been related to cannibalistic red headed people that brought the symbol of the swastika who were eventually defeated and eradicated through warfare.
The symbol of the swastika, as well as people who spread warfare and slavery, spread throughout the world during antiquity by boat.
The Saint Lawrence river to Lake Superior is (now) blocked by Niagara Falls … but … that long ago, 1000s of years BC, as Plato? describes, there was “Atlantia”, a combo of islands leading to (Now) North America, which sunk. Perhaps that sinking event dropped the St Lawerence basin creating the falls such that prior to then the entire basin was navigable?
Possibly, or they portaged around the falls.
Niagara falls would not have presented a huge obstacle to portage around since the vikings found it easy to travel all the way to kiev.
I so want to believe that the great lake area has always been a global trading site, but I will wait for firther archaeology to prove it.
I have read Menzies’ book” Lost empire of Atlantis” and followed it up with “Stone circles and Minoan navigation” by Richard De Grasse. This culture was way ahead of its time technologically speaking. They knew trigonometry and the Pythagorean triangle thousands of years before Pythagoras. Their shipbuilding and palaces are the very definition of advanced technology. They had the first roads. Drainage systems. Toilet systems with both hot and cold water. They ofcourse knew everything about metallurgy and fueled the bronze age. Connect all the dots about them (of which there are many) and it points to this sophisticated civilization being the brains behind the international system of trade or first ever globalization. The masters of the sea. (oceans) Thalassocracy.
If Plato is correct and “Atlantis sunk”, (or the developed part did), then prior to that sinking there could have been many different navigable waterways between Europe and America than there is today … currently, the only route from Atlantic to Lake Superior is blocked by Niagara Falls and the Welland Canal system around the falls is needed for shipping.
About Atlantis: Plato wrote about it as a made up place, using it to prove a point about hubris. He compared this fake city of Atlantis to Athens, with Athens being a “perfect society,” or at least what Plato thought of as a perfect society. He compared it to Atlantis, which was the opposite of Athens. It was meant to be an example of what not to be. We know this because before Plato, no one had ever written about Atlantis. If there was a huge land mass, as big as North Africa and Asia combined, that sunk, lots of people would have written about it. Also, there would be remains of Atlantis just beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. Another reason is Plato was a philosopher, not a historian. He didn’t write about things that happened in real life, just scenarios he made up to prove his own points. One last reason is that, in Plato’s allegory where he tells the story of Atlantis, he portrays Athens as just as advanced as Atlantis. If Athens was as advanced as it was in Plato’s allegory, we would have proof of it by now, artifacts, paintings, or something else. I hope this was helpful, and thank you for reading.
Atlantis was likely the North American continent to which some seafarers traveled. The island sinking into the ocean was likely a small island ruined/overtaken by earthquake/tsunami.
Ok, this is interesting, but copper wasn’t so scarce to have to travel half way around the world to get it. Tin was the metal that was harder to find, not copper. An obvious use for copper would be to burn it in a hot fire to change the color of the flame. Since the Native Americans didn’t craft the copper into tools after that Minoan time is suspicious. The people involved would not loss that knowledge. More likely, it would be used for ceremonies and traded across the Americas for that purpose. Then lost forever after being burned to nothing.
The technology of smelting copper did not exist at the beginning of the Copper Age. The only copper that was used for 6,000 years was native copper, copper in it’s pure form. The only place to find native copper was Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Isle Royale.
I was raised in the UP (son of iron ore miner) and went to “college” at Michigan Tech in “the copper country”, so I know about the native ores of that region. Today I work for a copper mining multinational. There is Native Copper in other places (AZ and NM) in USA, where I work, and in great abundance there and elsewhere, but, the purity is not the same as the UP of MI stuff. The glaciers did the work of “stripping” the overburden, so the UP copper was easy to find and mine, and it was located on waterways so it was easy to ship, vs. other places such as NM-AZ.
7,500 years ago the Northeastern Americans shared the same culture as the Northwestern Europeans. They were carpenters that used identical polished stone tools to make seaworthy ships for deep sea fishing, they used identical toggling harpoons to hunt for sea mammals, they used identical stone fishing weights for deep sea fishing, and they had an identical burial culture that included burying their dead in kurgan mounds with grave goods and red ocher. The people who were transporting copper from North America to the Old World became some of the first Europeans.
One problem with your hypotheses. Haplogroup X is matrilineal DNA, meaning it is passed from mothers. Unless the ancient Minoan seafarers were women, it doesn’t add up.
That is an interesting thought. I’m quite intrigued by it, I hope someone with more knowledge than myself will post a follow up.
Easy. Slave trades have been around a long time, so has “the oldest profession”. Easy to believe they from Europe brought many women of many purposes with them and not only mingled with the locals but for mixing it up in both directions.
Yup, and there’s more evidence that that against it. Here’s a more recent study since this article was published: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1179/2055556315Z.00000000040 . Basically, the halpogroup in question can be just as easily explained as coming from somewhere like Siberia as from Europe. X2a, the halpogroup that is actually found in North American indigenous populations, is descended from X2, which IS ancestral to West Eurasia (ie. the are of the Near East). However, “because X2 dispersed from the Near East and became widely distributed throughout the world, its descendent lineage X2a need not have evolved in the same place.” X2a is not found ANYWHERE other than North America, and there is literally no reason to think it came to North America from the Near East. Here’s the conclusion:
“Thus, at this time, there is simply no evidence that X2a evolved in the Near East, Europe, or anywhere in West Eurasia. Stanford and Bradley (2012) and Oppenheimer et al. (2014) argue that the absence of evidence for X2a in West Eurasia is not evidence of absence, but of course, the same holds for Siberia. There is no compelling reason to think that X2a is more likely to have come from Europe than Siberia.”
I’m afraid this is all nonsense. There was copper all over western Eurasia and the Middle East. It was not scarce. And there are many, many known Bronze Age copper mines, and thousands of rough copper ingots have been found.
There is no mystery.
Then where did the copper mined around Lake Superior go?
There is plenty of evidence for copper artifacts made by the indigenous peoples of this region. The fact that there appear to be “fewer” than one might expect from this area is easily explained by the fact that widespread trade networks existed throughout eastern North America – copper artifacts from the Lake Superior mines have been found at least as far as New England, so making such an extreme claim as “Minoans came to North America in the Bronze Age when they could have very easily gone next door instead” based on there not being “enough” copper artifacts locally at Lake Superior doesn’t hold up as an argument. Also, how many copper artifacts one might “expect” to find at a site is complicated by a lot of factors, like how likely the climate is to preserve metals, whether the society in question used them for grave goods (much easier to find than just sitting in the soil), what the metals were used for (copper can be used to change the colour of flames in a fire and other more transient purposes), etc. It’s really not that mysterious when you take those things into account, combined with the massive trade network that meant a good number of these artifacts wouldn’t remain in the local area to be found thousands of years later.
Article states:
“Millions of pounds of copper were extracted. Only a miniscule fraction of this copper can be accounted for among the artifacts of Native Americans.”
You state:
“..these artifacts wouldn’t remain in the local area..”
I state:
Who besides yourself is setting up a “local area” straw man to knock down? The article is including ALL Native America artifacts, so is already accounting for the vast trade networks. It never states anyone (but you) is expecting to find it all locally, you dope.
HI! Actual archaeologist here, and I have questions. Where are the sources and bibliographies for all the research and information accessed to create these findings? Also, can anyone answer the following, considering the scale of these mines and trade networks:
Can anyone explain the lack of archaeological evidence in the region for the following:
o Burials, bodies, grave goods
o intact pottery
o broken pottery sherds
o tools made of metal stone and wood.
o broken and discarded tools.
o processed food remains.
o butchered animal bone
o trash pits and middens
o fire pits hearths charcoal
o worked bone shell and stone debitage.
o privies/toilets/human waste
o water systems/channels/canals/ditches wells
o stone quarries and cut stone.
o tailing piles associated with excavation of silver/gold/copper/tin.
o Evidence of smelting/making Bronze
o Fuel harvesting for smelting/food prep.
o Lumber resources for shelter/construction
o Roads/trails/trade networks
o land clearing for construction and farming practices.
o remains of domesticated animals & the keeping of them
o marketplaces/forges/tool makers
Where is the influence of culture, technology, DNA, agriculture, religion, clothing, etc. On the indigenous peoples in the Americas from the Euro-Mediterranean peoples who mined the copper and vice-versa?
Can anyone explain why evidence and an archaeological footprint exists for the indigenous people dating back well over 10,000 years in that area, and yet no influence of a population of Egyptians/Celts/Minoans on them?
Can you explain how the Egyptians/Phonecians/Minoans/Celts/whoever even knew where to go? If they found it by exploring, where is the archaeology of these explorations?
HOW did anyone calculate the supposed amount of copper in this region prior to human activity?
I would love to have a debate and discussion with folks who postulate and support this conspiracy. There are so, SO many holes and issues and things that people NEVER address that would be required for these events to have occured.
Finally someone who gets it. Many fanciful theories have been advanced as to who these early copper miners were, some both incredible and unbelievable. These fanciful theories run the gamut from Phoenicians to Berbers to Minoans, Bronze Age Europeans to Vikings, but there is no empirical archeological evidence to support any of these theories. While almost anything is possible, I will wait for the demonstration of empirical evidence before believing any of these unproven theories.
Our own Euro-centrist racial bigotry allows some to ignore the obvious, that being that this copper was first discovered, mined and fashioned into tools, weapons and ornaments by the indigenous peoples of the region. Rather than admit that indigenous peoples could have mined native copper and fashioned items for everyday use, some “scholars” would have us believe that the copper was mined and worked by a “virtually unknown race of people” or Euro-Mediterranean peoples. There is, in fact, unbroken continuity in indigenous peoples, based upon artifact and skeletal evidence, in the Upper Great Lakes Region.
One has to ask the obvious question, where did all this mined copper go? Some scholars would have us believe that the vast majority was taken by Phoenicians, Berbers, Minoans, Bronze Age Europeans or Vikings in a huge international copper trade centering in the Lake Superior Region. Logically one has to ask how these foreign miners/traders knew that this copper existed in the first place? Where is the archeological evidence to support these theories and claims? The truth is that the archeological evidence does not exist. There are no identified community or camp sites, no burial remains, and no identifiable artifacts to support any of these theories. Are we to believe that these foreign miners were so environmentally conscious that they took all their garbage from daily living back with them, along with the copper, and what about their dead, did none of them die here? If there had been mining operations on a scale sufficient to produce 500 million to 1.5 billion pounds of copper there would be significant archeological evidence to substantiate that work. All of this evidence does exist to demonstrate that the indigenous peoples were the ones who mined the copper and fashioned it into implements, weapons and ornaments, over a period of as much as 7000 years. One need only analyze Michigan copper and Bronze Age European copper for common trace elements to see if they have the same point of origin. I have yet to see published information on this analysis.
Sodders’ figures of 10,000 miners laboring for 1000 years in an estimated 10,000 pits are pure unsubstantiated bunk. Who counted the 10,000 miners, what archeological evidence exists to show that foreign people were here in any substantial numbers, who estimated the 10,000 pits and on what evidence was this estimate made? The Copper Complex copper pits were actually worked much longer than 1000 years, as proven by archeological evidence. As for the estimated 10,000 pits, who estimated that number of pits and based upon what data? There has never in recorded history been a comprehensive study and tally done of the number of pits, what is the evidence for this “estimated” number of copper pits?
The estimates put forth by Drier and Du Temple are easily debunked. They start with the erroneous and unsupported assumption that the average pit was 20 feet in diameter and 30 feet deep. An average diameter and depth based upon what sample of copper pits? No study of these ancient copper pits has ever determined an average size. Few, if any, pits have ever been reported as deep as 30 feet, (and this is Drier & Du Temples average depth, so some must be even deeper), when in fact many ancient pits or trenches barely scratched the surface by more than a few feet. Twenty feet seems to be the limit on depth of known ancient copper pits and these are few in number.
I am not attempting to denigrate their important landmark work, but I am questioning the validity of some of Drier & Du Temple’s assumptions. Their assumption of 5000 pits has no supporting documentation as a comprehensive study of the number of pits has never been undertaken and published. Their 5% to 15% copper content is flawed since copper content can run from zero to 100% (mass copper). The amount of copper in the country rock isn’t constant or regular, a very expensive fact learned by many early modern mining companies. All of the numbers offered up by Drier and Du Temple are based mainly on conjecture, with no basis in fact.
Leaving unsubstantiated theories, let’s examine how the Old Copper Complex people produced their copper implements, weapons and ornaments. Unless copper is cast, and no empirical evidence yet exists to demonstrate that the Old Copper Complex possessed the technology to cast copper, it must be cold hammered, which produces brittleness in the copper, or annealed (worked, then heated to prevent brittleness). Small stone hammers could be used to form basic shapes and then edges could be sharpened or shaped by being stone-ground. Given the primitive means of working the raw copper, the workmanship on many of these artifacts must be judged as excellent.
The chunks of copper were first pounded into “preforms” which were basic shapes that could be used for more than one type of implement. These were followed by “blanks” which were the overall size and shape of the finished item but were not completed for use. Finally, there was the finished artifact which had all the characteristics of a usable implement, weapon or ornament which might include such features as a sharpened edge, as in the case of a knife, scraper or spearpoint, a sharp point, as in the case of an awl, fishhook or spearpoint, or a socket, as in the case of some types of spuds, harpoons, knives, spearpoints and atlatl dart points.
As copper becomes brittle when pounded repeatedly, it must be heated to a red-hot state (annealed) to again make it malleable before it can be worked further. Modern experimentation with this process has shown that as many as 30 pound/anneal cycles are necessary to produce some tools. Once formed, tools requiring a sharp edge or point could be honed using fine-grained local sandstones or other uniformly abrasive flat stone surfaces.
We have artifacts in our collection in which as many as six distinct overlapping folds appear to exist. This folded appearance can be found in all types of copper artifacts – spearpoints, knives, awls, atlatl dart points, crescents, spuds, and others. The experience of modern day artisans who have produced tools through the use of native copper heated (annealed) in wood fires is that some copper, when worked, splits apart and appears as though folded. While this does not disprove that folded copper was used to make tools, it does bring its use more into question as more research is conducted and more items are produced by old methods.
We have self-collected hundreds and hundreds of worked and scrap pieces of copper associated with artifact finds that point to the presence of numerous manufacturing, or workshop, sites. We have also found worked copper “bars” (for lack of a better term) which are up to 1 1/2″ square and 8″ long which were most likely used as trade items as they were easily transportable in that form. These bars also demonstrated that the specific piece of copper could be worked, giving it more value in trade. Modern experimentation in manufacturing copper tools and weapons has shown that many pieces of copper are not suitable for manufacturing purposes due to natural impurities and flaws within the copper. Thus, a worked copper “bar” would demonstrate the workability of a specific piece of copper, increasing its trade value. Phase I worked copper is copper that has been worked on a single plane, that is, copper that has been pounded flat. Phase II worked copper is copper that has been worked on more than a single plane, copper that has been pounded flat and pounded on the sides.
The presence of gas bubbles on the surface of a few Copper Complex artifacts has been taken by some as evidence that these artifacts were in fact cast from molten copper. I have yet to see empirical evidence to support this copper casting hypothesis, no molds, no furnaces, no copper drippings and no slag as found with ancient or historic foundry operations and no partially completed artifacts with a casting sprue still in place. What has been shown to be true through modern day experimentation is that gas bubbles are routinely formed in the pound/anneal process. Gas bubbles have been shown to form when copper is heated to a red-hot state in the annealing process due to gas expanding and attempting to be released. The vaporization of impurities in the copper can account for these bubbles. There would actually be more surface gas bubbles observed if it were not for the highly oxidized condition of many copper artifacts which has obliterated them. This phenomenon has been observed numerous times in the process of copper tools being fashioned by modern day artisans using the pound/anneal process. These are all facts, where are the facts from those espousing their flights of fancy?
Which archaeologist are you. Please share your actuality.
Farming? Domesticated animals? Bronze smelting on-site? Absolutely none of those things are required by this hypothesis. You know this. Do you pretend not to understand this so that your longer list makes you look smarter? Or are you in such a hurry to “DEBOONK” ideas that you don’t bother to read the claim that is being made?
“Conspiracy”? Do you think this is a magic word? Who is conspiring anything in this scenario? Have we dumbed the word down to mean “an idea I don’t like”?
No, you wouldn’t like to have a debate. You’ve made that clear. You sound like a redditor.
If there were islands in the mid Atlantic that sunk would they show up now?
Does anyone know of any under ocean land masses that fit that description?
The Azores
Yes, and the Spanish report finding a cairn or stone with mysterious writing on it in Azores but this rock subsequently was destroyed or disappeared.
“Native American” friend from Nebraska stated that their oral history (tribe unknown to me) stated that they came to America from the east on islands that were squishy. Marianas Trench barf? +