Explorers View 'Lost City' Ruins Under Caribbean

Reuters ^ | December 6, 2001 | Andrew Cawthorne

[spycatcher]

HAVANA (Reuters) - Explorers using a miniature submarine to probe the sea floor off the coast of Cuba said on Thursday they had confirmed the discovery of stone structures deep below the ocean surface that may have been built by an unknown human civilization thousands of years ago.

Researchers with a Canadian exploration company said they filmed over the summer ruins of a possible submerged ``lost city'' off the Guanahacabibes Peninsula on the Caribbean island's western tip. The researchers cautioned that they did not fully understand the nature of their find and planned to return in January for further analysis, the expedition leader said on Thursday.

The explorers said they believed the mysterious structures, discovered at the astounding depth of around 2,100 feet and laid out like an urban area, could have been built at least 6,000 years ago. That would be about 1,500 years earlier than the great Giza pyramids of Egypt.

``It's a really wonderful structure which looks like it could have been a large urban center,'' said Soviet-born Canadian ocean engineer Paulina Zelitsky, from British Columbia-based Advanced Digital Communications (ADC). ``However, it would be totally irresponsible to say what it was before we have evidence,'' Zelitsky told Reuters.

Zelitsky said the structures may have been built by unknown people when the current sea-floor actually was above the surface. She said volcanic activity may explain how the site ended up at great depths below the Caribbean Sea.

In July 2000, ADC researchers using sophisticated side-scan sonar equipment identified a large underwater plateau with clear images of symmetrically organized stone structures that looked like an urban development partly covered by sand. From above, the shapes resembled pyramids, roads and buildings, they said.

``ULISES'' ASSISTS UNDERWATER ODYSSEY

This past July, ADC researchers, along with the firm's Cuban partner and experts from the Cuban Academy of Sciences, returned to the site in their ship ``Ulises.'' They said they sent a miniature, unmanned submarine called a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) down to film parts of the 7.7-square-mile area.

Those images confirmed the presence of huge, smooth, cut granite-like blocks in perpendicular and circular formations, some in pyramid shapes, the researchers said. Most of the blocks, measuring between about 6.5 and 16 feet in length, were exposed, some stacked one on another, the researchers said. Others were covered in sediment and the fine, white sand that characterizes the area, the researchers said.

The intriguing discovery provided evidence that Cuba at one time was joined to mainland Latin America via a strip of land from the Yucatan Peninsula, the researchers said.

``There are many new hypotheses about land movement and colonialization, and what we are seeing here should provide very interesting new information,'' Zelitsky said.

ADC's deep-water equipment includes a satellite-integrated ocean bottom positioning system, high-precision side-scan double-frequency sonar, and the ROV. The company currently is commissioning what it calls the world's first custom-designed ocean excavator for marine archeology to begin work both at the Guanahacabibes site and at ship wrecks.

ADC is the deepest operator among four foreign firms working in joint venture with President Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s government to explore Cuban waters containing hundreds of treasure-laden ships from the colonial era. The Canadian company already has discovered several historic sunken Spanish ships.

In an earlier high-profile find, ADC was testing equipment in late 2000 off Havana Bay when it spotted the century-old wreck of the American battleship USS Maine. The ship had not been located since it blew up mysteriously in 1898, killing 260 American sailors and igniting the Spanish-American War.

The rush of interest in Cuba's seas in recent years is due in part to the Castro government's recognition that it does not have the money or technology to carry out systematic exploration by itself, although it does have excellent divers.

American companies are prohibited from operating in Cuba by the long-running U.S. embargo on the Communist-run island.

[Rippin]

Its funny how the most educated among us are so sure of things they can't possibly observe with their eyes. Furthermore they seem totally oblivious to their own presuppositions.

For instance, we know that the east and west hemispheres didn't communicate with each other. Say what? Did they read that in the Atlantis times or what? How do they know there WAS an east and west hemispheres? Why because tectonic plates have had a uniform motion for the last 5 million years of course. And they know that because? Well, because their not stupid fundies that's why!

I just love the way the creator blows our categories constantly. Yes fundies need to learn to get their categories blown, but modernists are just a trip. No matter how many times scientific theories that were supposedly bullet proof get completely discredited they think they've got the origin of things in the bag.

Oh well.

Rippin

[katana]

Plato was not known for fantasy stories (we aren't talking Middle Earth here) and I've never heard of anything which indicated that he was not just repeating a legend which existed in his time. If you have any evidence to the contrary, a lot of us would be interested in hearing it.

[jrhepfer]

We should keep our minds open to the possibility that civilization existed before recorded history. Right now, we are to believe that, all of a sudden, some folks decided to build cities in the Tigris and Euphrates river vallies in Iraq. Does this strike anyone as odd? All of a sudden large cities of thousands of people pop up at once?

I don't buy that, but no other explanation has yet to arise. But the possibility that there is another explanation (Atlantis-like civilization) is available to us and demands some investigation. The world currently has vastly advanced civilizations living a scant few hundred miles from mud brick villages and grass roofed shacks, why not then?

Another curiosity is that we are led to believe that moder humans appeard little more than 30k years ago and we have advanced to our current stage since. By Darwinian theories of evolution this is not possible. By biblical histories, this is not possible. Yet again though, another option has not yet surfaced. We should keep an open mind to possibilites that do explain these events with more logic though.

Atlantis may not be a "missing step" in this logical process but a previously unrecorded civilization would be a logical step.

But, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong.

[thinden]

thanx for the link to the fascinating article.

[RayChuang88]

Looks like I have to throw in my US$0.02 on this subject. :-)

Let's consider the issue of Plato's works. There is potential proof what Plato may have been referring to was the Minoan civilization that suffered a catastrophic setback when the island of Thera was destroyed in a spectacular volcanic eruption circa 1200 B.C. that destroyed the volcano in the center of the island and caused it to collapse into the sea (that's why Thera today is three islands, not a single one).

When Thera was destroyed, it set up a massive tsunami that travelled all over the Aegean Sea. We do know that the northern coast of Crete suffered massive damage from a tsunami about the same time as the Thera eruption, so what happened was that the major Minoan outposts all over the Aegean Sea were destroyed. Once the Minoan civilization suffered that disaster, they were easy pickings for the Myceneans (the people described in Homer's works) and the later Dorians.

When Plato talked about Solon's story, he said the civilization was destroyed some 9,000 years ago as described by Egyptian scholars. However, there are some scholars who said that Solon may have mistranslated what the Egyptians said, so what Solon may have described happened in reality only 900 years earlier, which closely matches the fall of the Minoan civilization as result of the Thera disaster.

[Ridin' Shotgun]

Thanks. Made a note to look for it.

[Channel_Islands_EANx_Diver]

You appear to be horribly misinformed.

[d4now]

bump

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks, I'm sure you're right. That whole region seems to have been an active area in the distant past.

[walden]

Wow, interesting stuff, thank you!

[gnarledmaw]

Thought you might like this...

Mission Statement:

The purpose of Ancient American magazine is to describe the prehistory of the American Continent, regardless of presently fashionable belief-systems, and provide a public forum for certified experts and nonprofessionals alike to freely express their views without fear nor favor.

Our task is to translate often complex research into accessible, attractive language in a visually appealing format ordinary readers can understand and enjoy. Ancient American writers and artists appeal as much to the imagination as to the intellect in the conviction that mankind's past belongs to all inhabitants of the Earth; it is not the exclusive property of establishment academics. Each issue features articles submitted by the world's leading authorities on prehistory in clear, non-technical language, and illustrated by a wealth of original color photographs and artwork published nowhere else.

Features include reports of Scottish mariners who sculpted the images of New Mexican cactus in a Highland church nearly a century before Columbus was born, and Vikings who left evidence of their visits behind in Minnesota and Oklahoma. Our research traces influences from 4th Millennium BC Japan in Ecuador, and prehistoric African themes throughout the earliest Mexican civilizations. We describe Semitic visitors, whose trek across ancient South Dakota is commemorated by native American Indians in four bluffs still referred to as "the Hebrew Brothers". Our writers examine a huge stone wall underwater 55 miles east of Miami, Florida, together with a Phoenician altar for human sacrifice found in Chicago, Illinois. These are only some of the puzzling enigmas showcased in every issue of Ancient American magazine.

[The Bolt]

As Art Bell would say, he broke this story six months ago. All the news that printed to fit.

[mvscal]

Personally, I don't think the Minoan theory is very credible. It's based on wishful thinking. I suppose 9,000 years could possibly have been mistranslated as 900 years, but not likely. I find it curious that that would be the only mistranslation. Minoan civilization also does not match any of the physical descriptions of Atlantis. Have all of these descriptions been poorly translated? That's a pretty thin reed. I don't know for certain, but I'm willing to bet that Minoan culture was known to Plato. Certanly Plato knew exactly what he was talking about when he references Atlantis being beyond the Pillars of Hercules.

[GretchenEE]

bttt

[spycatcher]

From National Geographic:

Today Ballard, famous for finding Titanic, confirmed that his research team, sponsored in part by the National Geographic Society, has identified a wooden structure on a gently sloping shelf near the convergence of two submerged ancient river beds [under the Black Sea].

“This is an incredible find,” Ballard said in a telephone call to the National Geographic Society from the expedition ship Northern Horizon. “It consists of [the remains of] a single building with a hewn beam and wooden branches that formed the walls and roof of a structure—most likely a house. We have also found and photographed stone tools, possibly a chisel or an axe, and ceramic storage vessels, all untouched since the flooding of the Black Sea.”

The find represents “the first concrete evidence for the occupation of the Black Sea coast prior to its flooding,” says expedition archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert, of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. “This is a major discovery that will rewrite the history of civilizations in this key area between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.”

"...During the 1999 expedition, Ballard’s team discovered a submerged ancient shoreline with a flat beach area beneath about 550 feet(168 meters) of water—evidence supporting Ryan and Pittman’s theory."

[spycatcher]

Fascinating submerged megalith site near Japan

Lots of pictures of this one...origin still inconclusive

[Marysecretary]

Oh, those Vikings! They raped and pillaged EVERYWHERE!

[NewHampshireDuo]

The explorers said they believed the mysterious structures, discovered at the astounding depth of around 2,100 feet and laid out like an urban area, could have been built at least 6,000 years ago

How did these guys come up with 6000 years? How can they tell?

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

Yikes. This is what happens when one thinks the Bible was written in any other language than English.

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

Seems to coincide well with the age of the Flood. More evidence!

Actually, it doesn't...by a longshot. The historical dating of pre and post-Noah era has been pretty well established with some certainty. The flood of Genesis dates back to 2300 BC...*after* the pyramids of Giza were built. Think about that.

This city, if it was 6,000 yrs old, would be 1,700 yrs older than the flood.