Free Republic

The straits that separate the Lesser Sundas from Bali and Java are deep, and powerful ocean currents run through them: so significant is this barrier that it has contributed to the development of what is termed the Wallace Line, a biogeographical boundary that divides the floras and faunas of Australasia in the south from the Asian ecosystems to the north. Currents might be more favourable if one approached from the north-east, through Borneo and the island of Sulawesi, and intriguingly, recent findings indicate archaic hominid settlement there reaching back over a million years. Even the approach to Sulawesi itself, however,...

Is this the real-life Atlantis. A 90-foot “pyramid” submerged just off the coast of Japan is turning heads — and could shake up everything we thought we knew about ancient civilizations. Sitting 82 feet below sea level near the Ryukyu Islands, the Yonaguni Monument has baffled scientists and divers since it was first discovered in 1986. The enormous stone structure, complete with angular steps and flat terraces, looks uncannily like the ruins of a man-made temple — despite being over 10,000 years old. That timeline, if proven accurate, would date it thousands of years earlier than Egypt’s pyramids or England’s...