Situated in southeast Türkiye, the neolithic ruin of Göbleki Tepe is part of an archaeological site known collectively as Taş Tepeler. Originally Mesopotamian territory, the site is estimated to be somewhere between 11,000 and 12,000 years old.1 There have been twelve sites uncovered so far in the area of Taş Tepeler2, each yielding one inexplicable archaeological treasure after another, including the site of Karahan Tepe. Recent excavations at Karahan Tepe have revealed what could be a link to the equally inexplicable Easter Island.
Standing Man
Karahan Tepe was first uncovered in 1997 (although British archaeologist David George made mention of it as early as 19323) but excavation of the site did not commence until 2019. In late 2023 it was revealed that a large human statue had been uncovered, dubbed the ‘Standing Man’. At a height of 2.3 meters, Standing Man was, to all appearances, emaciated and sporting a semi-erect penis. His skeletal state has been interpreted variously as being that of a starving, half-dead or entirely dead man, although the semi-erect penis injects a confusing whiff of fertility god. Not a likely prospect, unfortunately – if Standing Man’s physical condition represents a true state of affairs, he would be incapable of achieving a full erection, would not have the energy for coitus, and his starving state would not bode at all well for the viability of his sperm. If Standing Man was intended to represent fertility, it must have been the pathetic last-ditch effort of a dying world. And given that the area has produced other examples of emaciated human beings as well as a number of skeletonised animals, this could well have been the case.
However, and somewhat incredibly, on the other side of the world, another group of ancient people had also produced skeletonised and turgidly endowed statuaries for equally unknown reasons.
Left: After excavation, the Standing Man revealed a prominent nose, long head and goatee. The collar bones and rib-cage are protruding, and a semi-erect penis takes centre stage. Descriptions of the statue uniformly suggest that the Standing Man is clutching his member, although his hands are more probably resting on his abdomen. This hands-on-abdomen pose is a marked feature of Polynesian, and particularly Easter Island, art.
Right: Sketch of an uncovered Moai from Easter Island circa 1914, evincing a hands-on-abdomen pose similar to that of Standing Man. Image: Routledge, S. ‘The Mystery of Easter Island’, 1919, Public Domain
The Moai Kavakava
When Captain Cook visited Easter Island in 1774, he returned with a number of finely-carved artefacts, including some examples of Moai Kavakava – the ‘statues with ribs’4, which are not to be confused with the giant stone Moai for which Easter Island is justifiably famous. The Moai Kavakava are approximately 40 centimetres high, carved from wood, and depict unnaturally emaciated human beings with large noses, goatees and semi-erect penises. These miserable-looking creatures had sunken stomachs, prominent ribs, hips and vertebrae, goiters on their necks and, despite the healthy appearance of the face and genitals, are believed by ethnologists to represent deceased humans or decaying cadavers. Early researchers noted that the Moai Kavakava were not used by the population of Easter Island for ritual observances but were instead treated by the natives as ‘very valuable objects’,5 probably owing to their great antiquity and connection to the past. They were produced from a very strong and durable wood known as toromiro, and great care was taken with the carving to judge by the meticulous attention to detail. Mass spectrometer readings of one Moai Kavakava dated the object to 1390-1480 CE, although the authors of this 2001 study point out that this dating is not exact, and the Moai Kavakava could in fact be much older and be “contemporaneous with the giant monolithic sculpture of the first half of the 2nd millennium AD.”6
Left: Moai Kavakava collected circa 1730, showing goatee, wide-staring eyes and a stylised chevron-shape on the chest that was possibly intended to denote protruding collarbones. This chevron shape is also found on human statuary from Göbleki Tepe and Karahan Tepe, ie. Standing Man, where the chevron is undoubtedly collarbones, Urfa Man and the Sayburç relief. The facial features appear to be Middle-Eastern as opposed to truly Polynesian, and the round and wide-staring eyes could be a side-effect of the goiter.
Right: Easter Island Moai Kavakava collected circa 1730 demonstrating the goatee, goiter, protruding ribs, sunken stomach and semi-erect penis. The statue is approximately 40 centimetres tall, and the stand is a modern addition for display purposes.
Images: British Museum circa 1886 – 1915, public domain. Reverse.
Dead, dying, or endocrine deficient?
To date, all interpretations of the Karahan Tepe Standing Man describe him as starving, near death, or actually dead. These were the same initial interpretations of the Moai Kavakava of Easter Island – a natural enough conclusion given the denuded vegetation of Easter Island, and the physique of the original Islanders when the Dutch first chanced upon them in 1722. The inhabitants were described generally as being “debilitated” and with “poorly-developed musculature”, although they “showed great endurance when moving on foot or swimming.”7
There is one important detail depicted on the Moai Kavakava that was overlooked by researchers until the 1930s when Dr Stephen Chauvet identified them as goiters, and from that extrapolated out that the Moai Kavakava depicted not dead or dying individuals, but a group of people who were suffering from an endemic endocrine disorder, possibly of the pituitary or thyroid gland.8 Chauvet coupled this with chronic low-level dehydration and ingestion of seawater, which was supposed to have been brought about by the limited fresh water available on the island. This dehydration would supposedly account for the hollow stomach, and a pituitary and/or thyroid issue would account for unusual morphology such as an irregular distribution and metabolisation of fat (despite the appearance of emaciation, the Moai Kavakava all have plump buttocks, and some have fatty deposits on the back of their necks called ‘wens’), thin and elongated fingers, heavy jaws (heavy jaws are also depicted on the giant Moai), thick lips and changes to other bones of the face.9
Carved by the original Easter Islanders, whoever they were and wherever they may have come from, the Moai Kavakava appear to have been representations of those very first settlers, who may well have been in a state of endocrine decay when they arrived on the island. The effects of either hyper- or hypothyroidism on the human body are, in all cases, deleterious,10 but under the direction of an over-active thyroid, not only the body but the brain goes into a fractured kind of hyper-drive. Metabolic activity is increased, weight loss occurs despite an increase in hunger, mental processing is faster, creativity goes off the charts, and changes in consciousness can ensue. In some cases, the brain can shrink, and mental fog can make thinking difficult.11 Unfortunately, anger and aggression also peak,12 and a civilisation beset by endemic and chronic hyperthyroidism could quite possibly self-destruct as a consequence of petty squabbles inflamed by hormone-driven responses getting out of hand. Given that the Easter Islanders, by their own admission, self-destructed in a long-ago war, can we ignore the role that the goiterous Moai Kavakava people and their out-of-control emotions may have played in that destruction? And while a true goiter is generally indicative of a hypo-thyroid state, which generally does not produce these kinds of overactivity, a thyroid that is enlarged from either a benign or a cancerous growth will externally mimic a goiter, and internally produce a marked hyper-thyroid state.
Thyroid imbalance of any kind can affect muscle mass, leading to poor muscle tone and weakened large muscle groups such as those of the arms and legs. In addition, growths on the thyroid will often impede swallowing, which could lead to an emaciated state. Chauvet suggested that these endocrine imbalances may have been caused by inbreeding – a danger in any small population. In modern times, thyroid conditions are more often brought about by dietary insufficiencies, and while iodine deficiency is the main culprit in thyroid disease, the Easter Islanders had access to bird eggs and seafood, which should have ameliorated this issue.
More tellingly, the thyroid gland is highly susceptible to radiation,13 and one could posit that at some time in the past, while the Earth’s magnetosphere was in a state of flux after a magnetic pole excursion or had been partially or wholly denuded by a micro-nova of our sun or a cometary impact such that the ozone layer was depleted by an increase in UV radiation, the ingress of increased solar radiation and high-energy cosmic particles would have had an incredibly deleterious effect on organic life such that mutations, cancerous growths and damage to organisms would have been endemic across any surviving populations of both humans and animals. In this scenario, the thyroid would have been particularly vulnerable to an increase in damaging radiation coming in from space.
Could this be what happened to the Easter Island Moai Kavakava people, and to the Standing Man and the other skeletal creatures depicted at carvings in Göbleki Tepe and Karahan Tepe? Is this why these beings appear to be not quite dead, but not happily alive either, as their bodies slowly succumbed to an inpouring of damaging solar and cosmic radiation? Was this the normal state of the human condition some 12,000-odd years ago, coincidentally around the same time as the Gothenburg magnetic field excursion,14 which may have been triggered by a cometary impact or solar outburst? This was a period of significant geological upheaval on our planet when any surviving humans would have been struggling with their greatly changed environment along with a deterioration of their health and physiology as a result of unprecedented and dangerous environmental factors. Continuation of a dwindling species would have become a significant priority – could this be why penises now loom so large and so desperately in human art, irradiated and ineffective as those penises must inevitably have been?
Left: Standing Man – similarities to the Moai Kavakava of Easter Island are immediately apparent. The hands are neither resting on nor clasping the well-crafted and semi-erect penis, and the forward-projection of the thighs compares markedly to the postures depicted on the Moai Kavakava. (source)
Right: Excavated Moai from the Routledge expedition, circa 1914, showing hands-on-stomach pose. The large square jaw, thin and elongated fingers, and backward curve of the thumbs could be taken as signs of an endocrine disorder. Image: British Museum circa 1914-15, public domain 1. 2 3
A penis by any other name
Also uncovered at Karahan Tepe was a dugout chamber containing ten pillars carved out of the bedrock, a single standing pillar, and a head protruding from the chamber wall.15 These columns have uniformly been compared to penises, however, if the columns in the ‘penis room’ are indeed penises and not a case of modern observers being sidetracked by all the willies on the statuary uncovered in the area, then the artists could have done better and were functionally able to do better.
These penis-columns are disproportional when compared to the average male member and are additionally misshapen and lacking final details. In effect, these penis columns look more like straw mushrooms than a human penis. Interestingly, some species of cordyceps mushrooms are elongated in this manner, and research has shown that some species of cordyceps can improve sexual function while others have been discovered to slow down tumour growth16 – both useful benefits on an over-irradiated planet with a population of endocrine-challenged and reproductively-impaired human beings. From our position in the 21st century, it is difficult to know exactly what the ancient builders originally had in mind, and the pillars could certainly be penises, but they could instead have been intended to depict mushrooms or could be nothing more than rough-hewn supports for a ceiling.
The ‘Penis Chamber’. Image: Mahmut Bozarslan, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
Cordyceps Capitala, detail from Marshall, N. ‘The Mushroom Book’, 1920. Image: Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
Birds, eggs, and birdmen with eggs
Apart from the correlations between Standing Man and the Moai Kavakava, other evidence suggests a case for some kind of cross-cultural connection between the Taş Tepeler sites and Easter Island.
As with many archaic civilisations, birds were held in high esteem in both of these civilisations and while this does not assist with the case for an Easter Island-Karahan Tepe connection, the carving of a bird found at Göbleki Tepe that is holding a ball in its outstretched wing bears a striking similarity to the Birdman carvings of Easter Island, which in many cases are holding an ‘egg’ in their anthropomorphised hands.
Left: Göbleki Tepe Vulture Stone depicting a vulture holding a ball in its outstretched wing. Image: Sue Fleckney, CCBYSA2.0.
Right: Birdman carving uncovered on Easter Island – the Göbleke Tepe anthropomorphised vulture with ball motif is redolent of the Easter Island Birdman with his ‘egg’. Image: Routledge, S. ‘The Mystery of Easter Island’, 1919, public domain.
To suggest that a link could possibly exist between a neolithic civilisation in Türkiye and another on Easter Island will no doubt be challenging to consider; however, more than one argument has been made in the past for a Polynesian connection to the Upper Indus area and a migration of these peoples from west to east across Asia to the Pacific, dropping germs of civilisation along the way. Back in 1929, Stephen Chauvet was of the opinion that a common Polynesian origin could be found in Central Asia, in particular areas of Pakistan and Iran, based on his contention that images associated with the Birdman cult are not found elsewhere in the Pacific, but that similar images can be found in Iran and on Assyrian cylinder seals,17 and also, seemingly, at Göbleki Tepe as described above. In addition, there is the Easter Island Rongo-Rongo script, which is supposed to be the only writing system found in Polynesia – although the Maori of New Zealand also possessed a script, which they used to sign the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and which has been compared to Rongo-Rongo.
The Easter Island Rongo-Rongo script – detail of the ‘Crescent Tablet’ from Chauvet, S. ‘Easter Island and Its Mysteries’, CCBYSA4.0, by Stéphen-Charles Chauvet, 1935.
To this day, the Rongo-Rongo writing has not been translated, and it is believed by some that rather than being a true script, it is nothing more than a series of mnemonic pictographs designed to propel an oral historian during his or her recitations. However, this idea does not detract from the apparent similarities between Rongo-Rongo and the styles of writing found in Pakistan and the Middle East. In 1932, Guillaume de Hevesy provided a report to the French Prehistoric Society that suggested the Rongo-Rongo writing possessed a large number of correlations with writings found at the sites of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, which so far remain untranslated. These included 130 symbols that de Hevesy believed were similar or nearly similar, as well as a ‘boustrophedon’ style of writing, meaning that alternate lines were written in opposite directions. Guillaume de Hevesy suggested that the writings of Easter Island, Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, as well as those of the Hittites, Elamites and Cretans, all had a single origin somewhere far back in the mists of time.18 Unfortunately, de Hevesy pushed his point too far for the orthodoxy when he suggested that the single origin of these civilisations could have been Easter Island itself.
The French ethnologist Francis Maziére reiterated the point that the only example of writing similar to Rongo Rongo was that found at Mohenjo-Daro.19 In 1962, Maziére undertook an extensive survey of Easter Island along with his Polynesian wife, Tila. Tila was the daughter of the last king of Tahiti and had been initiated in the sacred language of Polynesia. When speaking to the Easter Islanders, she was able to accurately translate what she was told, which previous ethnologists had seemingly failed to do. Further, because of her ethnicity and lineage, the islanders trusted Tila with information they had never imparted to anybody else before. Consequently, while Maziére busied himself with ethnography and archaeology, his wife spent time in the villages collecting the oral history of the Islanders. Every day, Maziére was startled by the information that Tila brought back, saying, “We were very much surprised by a strange piece of information… The first race invented the Rongo-Rongo writing: they wrote it on stone. Of the four parts of the world that were at one time inhabited by the first race, it is only in Asia that this writing still exists.”20
The first islanders
The history of Easter Island has been confounded by the fact that for several centuries, two races lived side by side – the Hanua Momoko (the Strong Men) and the Hanua Eepe (the Weakened Men). Maziére wrote that when the first Polynesian settlers arrived:
“The island was ruled by the Hanua Eepe [the ‘weakened men’]. It was they who built the Ahu (platforms). …The current inhabitants don’t know what happened to the Hanua Eepe, and they never did know. They are not the descendants of the sculptors. …The first men to live on the island were the survivors of the world’s first race. …They were yellow, very big, with long arms, great stout chests, huge ears, although their lobes were not stretched. …They had pure yellow hair, and their bodies were hairless and shining.”21
Even more information about the island’s early days was imparted to Tila:
- Easter Island was different once. …There was no rain, but water welled up from the ground;
- The island was the same shape….The climate was very hot and huge plants grew on it;
- The island’s first race was found on two Polynesian islands, in one part of Asia, and one part of Africa in which there are live volcanoes;
- There used to be animals on Easter Island;
- The volcanoes appeared in the days of the first race.22
While the origin of Easter Island’s settlers remains confused, what is not confused is that there were already people living on Easter Island when the first Polynesians arrived. According to Maziére’s sources, “very big men, but not giants, lived on the island…” He somewhat prophetically added, “…traces are apparent of a people who will call into question all the temporal and ethical notions that science has tried to force on us. …We have no doubt that they possessed a superior knowledge of an entirely different world.”23
Sadly, the notion that Easter Island could have a link back to the cradle of civilisation remains an idea that is still too difficult to bear and the theory has been generally discarded by modern researchers, although the central premise could very well be valid.
The difficulty of dating
The civilisations of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa have been dated to 2,500 BCE, Göbleki Tepe has been dated even further back to 10,000 BCE, and the first Easter Islanders are supposed to have settled on Easter Island only as recently as 400-800 CE.24 None of these dates dovetail, and this is probably the biggest sticking point when it comes to suggesting a common origin or migratory connection between the Pacific and the Indus regions, even more than the vast distances between these very disparate locations.
But dating ancient civilisations is a tricky art, and it gets trickier every day, particularly given the difficulties around radiocarbon calibration and dating. A major confounding factor that impacts carbon-14 (C-14) dating and which is ignored by the sciences that rely on this method relates to the waxing and waning of the Earth’s magnetic field – the production of C-14 from nitrogen in the atmosphere is decreased when the magnetosphere is strong, and the ingress of cosmic rays is reduced, and periods of weak magnetic field strength correspondingly increase the amounts of cosmic rays entering the atmosphere and spike production of C-14.25 This fluctuation of magnetic field and C-14 production means that any object, fossil, rock and ruin that has passed through one or more reversals of the Earth’s magnetic field will have been subject to an altered accumulation of C-14 for thousands of years, thus rendering the reliance on C-14 dating extremely perilous.
In 1955, Norwegian researcher Thor Heyerdahl identified three periods of civilization on Easter Island – ‘cultural period one’, apparently a very ancient period during which the first Moai were carved, followed by a ‘second period’ during which “the statues grew to vast dimensions.” In the ‘third period’, presumably the more recent 400-800 CE arrival of Polynesian settlers, “everything was pulled down.”26
Heyerdahl’s expedition was noted for the discovery of a number of ancient statues that were out of place in relation to the artistic context of the giant Moai. Heyerdahl also uncovered a Moai that had been buried to its neck by soil deposition to an approximate depth of 15-20 feet (4.5 – 6 metres). Given that the Moai were made to be seen and, in many instances, were placed on top of plinths to ensure optimal viewing conditions, we can assume that no Moai was ever buried intentionally upon its completion, and certainly not to depths of 15-20 feet.
Science tells us that it takes, on average, 500 to thousands of years to form just one inch (2.5 centimetres) of topsoil27. In jungles with an abundance of moisture and organic matter to facilitate chemical weathering, soil accumulates more rapidly, while in dry and desiccated parts of the world, and on volcanic basalts and lavas, it has reportedly taken 15,000 to hundreds of thousands of years28 to form a single inch. This would imply that in a difficult environment like the one currently on Easter Island – a volcanic island with little rainfall or organic matter to hasten the breakdown of the volcanic bedrock – it should take longer than average for soil to form. In addition, the island is small and by all accounts windy, so it can be expected that great amounts of dry and desiccated soil would be blown out to sea, not to mention the role that runoff on the slopes would play in carrying nascent soil formations into gullies or out to sea. Yet, as we can see in numerous images, Easter Island does indeed have a great depth of soil.
Unfortunately, it would seem that 15,000 years per inch to bury 15 feet of Moai is far too much in the accepted scheme of human development, not to mention scholarly estimations of island settlement, but given the current conditions on the island, 500 years per inch would certainly be too little. Unless, of course, the island was much hotter and heavily vegetated with large plants in the past, as the Easter Islanders themselves have contended. If vegetation and rainfall had been increased in the past, then soil deposition could have proceeded quite swiftly, as it does in rainforests with their moisture, mold and leaf litter.
Assuming the climatic conditions on Easter Island have never changed, and also assuming an arbitrary average soil depth of only 15 feet (180 inches/4.5 metres) across the island, at 500 years per inch, it would have taken 90,000 years to accumulate 15 feet of soil. If we reduce the timeframe for soil deposition to a generous 250 years per inch, and this time assume that the climate was greatly different, wetter and had more vegetation to promote the breakdown of rock, then we arrive at a figure of 45,000 years for 15 feet of soil to accumulate.
How long did it take for the wind and rain to bury this behemoth beneath the dirt? When Thor Heyerdahl excavated the Moai in the 1950s he described “centuries of blown sand and subsiding gravel had formed a deposit covering the old giants’ bodies.” Image: British Museum circa 1914-15, public domain.
Buried moai. Image: Sznegra, CCBYSA3.0, by Sznegra.
This date is roughly coincident with the Laschamps Excursion of approximately 42,000 BCE, although admittedly, this connection is somewhat tenuous. However, a review of the Laschamps Excursion reveals, like the Gothenburg Event of 12,000 years ago, another period of geomagnetic field excursion and consequent weakening that resulted in “global climate shifts that caused major environmental changes, extinction events, and transformations in the archaeological record.”29 Again these changes were brought about by a bombardment of solar protons into our atmosphere as well as an increase of high-energy cosmic radiation, all penetrating through a greatly weakened magnetosphere. This extra incoming radiation will, in all cases, bring about an increase in atmospheric ionization and deplete the ozone layer, resulting in increased heat in the atmosphere and intensified weather extremes. It has been identified that these effects are more concentrated in the lower latitudes, with a number of climatological changes recorded in the Pacific region that can be dated to the Laschamps timeframe, among them being changes to rainfall and, in some cases, aridification.30
Unfortunately, none of this tallies with the estimated 400-800 CE dates for the first settlement of Easter Island, accepting that the first settlers could only have arrived in 800 CE and commenced carving the very first Moai the moment they set foot on shore, and assuming those first Moai were buried by natural soil deposition 15 feet to their necks between the year 800 and the year 1955 when Thor Heyerdahl dug his specimen up.
Soil can be deposited very rapidly by floods, which has not been possible during Easter Island’s recorded history but floods did submerge great parts of the globe at the end of the last Ice Age approximately 10-12,000 years ago. Could there have been a civilisation carving Moai on Easter Island 12,000 or more years ago, and could the Moai carved by those first people have been covered to a depth of 15-20 feet of soil by a catastrophic rise of sea levels after the last Ice Age? This is possibly the only practical mechanism to explain the gross burial of the oldest of the Moai, although it would imply a civilization on Easter Island prior to the Ice Age. It would also suggest that every Moai that was carved after the Ice Age are mere imitations of the originals, manufactured by a group of wayfarers who arrived after the floods and found a greatly weakened people that had produced art forms (the Moai, Moai Kavakava and Rongo-Rongo writing) that they greatly admired and continued to propagate down to 400-800 CE when the final phase of Polynesian settlement occurred and put an end to it.
Too many questions
Ten to twelve thousand years ago, when the sites of Taş Tepeler were being sketched out in the dirt of south-eastern Türkiye, the Ice Age was in the process of ending, having been precipitated by a planetary magnetic field shift or possibly an Earth crust displacement brought about by the effects of a passing cometary body, a solar micro-nova, or some major change intrinsic to the Earth itself that comes along like clockwork. In every case, this event depletes the Earth’s magnetosphere sufficiently to allow damaging, unfiltered high-energy solar and cosmic radiation to penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere, where it causes DNA mutations, cellular dysregulation, endocrine disruptions, and even brings about extinctions in some species.31
Considerations of the effects of global catastrophes on civilisations have generally been limited to the physical – climate changes sufficient to destroy food sources, rising sea levels prompting mass migrations, and terrain changes that erased the footprints of earlier civilisations. However, the cataclysms that periodically scour the Earth can have a more insidious and pathological effect on a population that also needs to be considered if the artwork of Karahan Tepe and Easter Island are to be taken at face value. Due respect to Charles Darwin, but mutation is rarely a good thing. In the case of the apparent endocrine disruptions witnessed at Karahan Tepe and Easter Island, the mutagenic effects that occurred during the last great global catastrophe were manifestly disastrous.
The curious correlations between the artistic styles found at Karahan Tepe and Easter Island suggest a cultural link between both civilisations in the prehistoric past. Easter Island remains the ultimate of mysteries, but perhaps a connection between this lonely outpost and civilisations on the other side of the globe should once again be considered, and as more artefacts are unearthed in the Taş Tepeler region, we could very well end up with all the evidence that we need. At the very least, we can agree that the artworks of both of these civilisations are realistic depictions of long-term radiation exposure leading to endocrine disruption, which could, in turn, be used to support arguments for a series of cataclysmic Earth cycles that periodically scour civilisations from our planet. Sometimes, those scourings are physically violent, but at other times, they are physiologically insidious and work to destroy a species – and a civilization – from within.
References
1 Wikipedia, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe
2 Arkeonews, 2024. https://arkeonews.net/karahantepe-will-shed-light-on-the-mysteries-of-the-prehistoric-period/
3 Bianet, 2023. https://bianet.org/haber/the-controversy-over-the-phallus-in-karahantepe-285739
4 Chauvet, S. Easter Island and Its Mysteries, 1935, on-line translation by Ann Altman (2004), http://www.chauvet-translation.com/carved.htm
5 Ibid
6 Forment, F., et al. “AMS [sup.14]C age determinations of Rapanui (Easter Island) wood sculpture: moai kavakava ET 48.63 from Brussels.” Antiquity, vol. 75, no. 289, Sept. 2001, p. 529. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A79026187/AONE?u=anon~95acce6d&sid=googleScholar&xid=100cefd
7 Chauvet, S. Easter Island and Its Mysteries, 1935, on-line translation by Ann Altman (2004), http://www.chauvet-translation.com/carved.htm
8 Chauvet, S. Easter Island and Its Mysteries, 1935, on-line translation by Ann Altman (2004), http://www.chauvet-translation.com/easterisland.htm
9 Ibid
10 Hyperthyroidism, Mayo Clinic 2024. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hyperthyroidism/symptoms-causes/syc-20373659
11 Newly Discovered Effect of Hyperthyroidism on the Brain, Neuroscience News & Research, 2022. https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/newly-discovered-effect-of-hyperthyroidism-on-the-brain-358386
12 How Thyroid Disease Affects Your Mood, Very Well Health, 2022. https://www.verywellhealth.com/thyroid-imbalance-mood-swings-anger-what-to-expect-5525842
13 Nagayama, Y. Radiation-related thyroid autoimmunity and dysfunction, National Library of Medicine 2017, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5941148/
14 Mörner, N. The Gothenburg Magnetic Excursion, Cambridge University Press, 2017. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/quaternary-research/article/abs/gothenburg-magnetic-excursion/17B25AEC7351A029824A7B8F33EB6C63
15 Newman, H & Ainsworth, JJ. Secrets of Karahan Tepe: The Discovery of a Stunning Winter Solstice Alignment Part 1, https://grahamhancock.com/newmanainsworth1/
16 The Health Benefits of Cordyceps, Remeday, 2022. https://www.remeday.com/mushrooms/benefits-of-cordyceps
17 Chauvet, S. Easter Island and Its Mysteries, 1935, on-line translation by Ann Altman, 2004, http://www.chauvet-translation.com/talking.htm
18 Ibid
19 Maziére, F. Mysteries of Easter Island, Tower Publications, New York, 1968, p.171
20 Ibid, p.173
21 Ibid, p.53
22 Ibid, p.182
23 Ibid, p.180
24 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Easter_Island
25 Howe, G.F. Speak to the Earth: Creation Studies in Geoscience, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1975, p.310
26 Heyerdahl, T. Aku-Aku, The Secret of Easter Island, Unwin Brothers Ltd, London, 1958, p.209 opposite
27 Soils Matter, Get the Scoop!, Soils Matter, 2013. https://soilsmatter.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/soil-formation/
28 How long does lava have to sit before it becomes useable soil for planet life? QUORA, 2021. https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-lava-have-to-sit-before-it-becomes-usable-soil-for-plant-life See also: How do soils form? ISRIC World Soil Information, 2024. https://www.isric.org/discover/about-soils/how-do-soils-form
29 Cooper, A. et al. A Global Environmental Crisis 42,000 Years Ago, 2021, https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.abb8677
30 Ibid
31 Welsh, J.S. ‘Mass Extinctions and Radiation’, Astrophysical Origins, Radiobiological Effects and Implications for Space Travellers, IOP Publishing Ltd 2024, Chapter 30. https://iopscience.iop.org/book/mono/978-0-7503-5444-8/chapter/bk978-0-7503-5444-8ch30
Very interesting, Lee. Thank you.
I wonder if the mushroom was consciously invoked or emulated, symbolised or fetishised, partly because mushrooms spring up seemingly out of nothingness after wet weather? Perhaps the survivors of a cataclysm sought to be as mushrooms, to prosper and renew themselves in that way, out of the ground.
Hiya Bob, Thanks so much for your kind words, and for your very interesting suggestions re the mushrooms. You are correct – mushrooms DO spring up out of nothingness, and they also form out of death and decay, and if you were a dying or decaying civilisation you might well hope that a new and future generation could spring out of the dying generation. Hmmm… I think you are on to something here!
Great article…!!
Always thought that the “excursions” our planet experiences (regularly) might have some logical impact on our DNA, and given our relatively short lives and slow changes this exposure induces trough generations spanning thousands of years… we simply lose any meaningful connection. The only things left are scattered remnants of stone which leave us puzzled on their construction methods, significance or at times purpose. To believe we are the first and only civilization to have reached this level of awareness.. is a mistake in my humble opinion. 🙂
Hello Renzo – thank you! And yes, definitely, DNA impacts must be occurring during excursions as you say, and I don’t think they are always going to be ‘good’ impacts unfortunately… In regards to your comments I think we share the same hope that one day humanity will wake up and realise we are not the first, nor the greatest, nor even the last technologically-advanced race to occupy Planet Earth. That’ll be the day!
What a wonderfully informative article. Thank you for this, Lee. If only we would find absolute proof (in some cases DNA will one day bring proof) of these & many other connections/ travels / brain power / other “power” perhaps / ingenuity & perseverance & strength / – imagine if there was undeniable proof! But it is doubtful that will ever happen; too much time has passed, too many changes have occurred. However, we can “infer” from the evidence that exists, as you and other researchers show. Not to do so, to put blinders on, I believe, is a reaction born of some sort of fear. I am not a scientist nor an academic but from what has been revealed ( a very great deal in books and articles by independent researchers and others of good faith and open mind), I draw the conclusion that this Earth and all on it have undergone many bouts of solar radiation, as well as many other catastrophic events, with horrific suffering & even mass deaths ensuing, some on a global scale. I think that people have risen to levels of high achievement & “civilization “ more than once because it can even happen very quickly sometimes. (The Dark & dirty Medieval days of Europe were not so long ago – surprised it wasn’t wiped out then – but look at us now, we can even cure plague, can’t we? Oh but we have COVID – it’s always something !) Some thinkers from extremely ancient times tried to show what happened and it would be a crime to dismiss what these dying/failing ancestors have left as evidence. Use good science to find and follow the evidence, interpret the evidence with an open mind so as to “see” whatever it leads to. Try not to get in the way, haha. Right? Thanks to you & to the great Graham Hancock for this kind of research & information that you make available to the entire world. Now if we can only convince others to expose the incredible secrets they’re keeping ………
Hello Margo,
Thank you for your interesting insights and also for your kind words. I share your sentiment about finding proof, even though it seem as though we might already have the proof, but it remains hidden in the backrooms of museums and universities. It is becoming obvious that the Earth has many times suffered through bombardments of solar and cosmic radiation, but there are probably other things in our cosmos that work on cycles of thousands or millions of years that could affect our planet and that we haven’t even had an inkling of yet. For example, there is a dust cloud that periodically passes across our solar system and it is currently heading in our direction, and when it hits our Sun there is speculation that it might possibly be the instigator of a solar outburst or micro-nova that could precipitate the next major global catastrophe here on Earth. We can’t even imagine the kinds of suffering that man and animal will endure if this should happen. Because we are physical beings who are grounded in our material environment, we tend to think only in terms of environmental catastrophe – earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal waves, rain and deluges etc, but imagine what it will be like for those who are the targets of those things we can’t see, like high-energy radiation from the Sun. For survivors of the physical catastrophes who have also been irradiated, or whose bodies can’t fight off the effects of irradiation, it will be a slow, painful and probably a hideous death. I actually shudder to think. And you are right – ancient civilisations have been trying to show us what can and will happen during these times, but their artworks and monuments are written off by modern man as nothing more than abstractions or religious motifs. It’s time to change that, don’t you think!
Thank you again for your comments, I very much appreciate them!
Lee