Amateur Historian Finds Ancient City & Discovery Changes Human Timeline
The timeline of history changes again, as new evidence pushes the oldest known Homo sapiens in Africa back thousands of years.
In southwestern Ethiopia, a mystery nearly a quarter of a million years in the making has been solved. Homo sapien remains found near the Omo river, dubbed “Omo 1,” were originally found in the 1960s. Scientists struggled for years to establish a date for these remains, but in 2005 they determined Omo was approximately 195,000 years old.
Now, a new study by volcanologist Dr. Celine Vidal of Cambridge University pushes that date much farther back by more than 30,000 years, which places modern humans in eastern Africa more than 230,000 years ago.
Vidal was able to determine this by comparing the thick layers of ash left by an ancient volcano from the top of the remains of Omo 1 with ash known to be from a volcano that erupted about 230,000 years ago. Now that the minimum date for Homo sapiens in eastern Africa has been established, researchers are searching for the maximum.
As, Christine Lane, a co-author of the study stated, “[I]t’s possible that new finds and new studies may extend the age of our species even further back in time.”
Polish Diplomat Makes Rare Discovery
A Polish diplomat has reportedly found a long-lost, ancient city that professional archeologists and historians have been searching for two centuries.
Robert Rokicki, a Polish diplomat, and history enthusiast, stationed in Turkey, told the Anadolu Agency he found the ancient city of Thebasa by doing what he calls “histracking” or off-road hiking in historical places.
Rokicki believes the ancient city is in the Pinarkaya village of southern Karaman Province. Thebasa played a role in the five-centuries-long conflict between the Byzantine Empire and Muslim Caliphates, but was destroyed and apparently abandoned in the year 806 AD.
The Roman geographer, Pliny the Elder, had written of Thebasa saying it lay in the Taurus mountains but until now had never been found. But perhaps the best part is, Rokicki found the city by accident. He says he was looking for another place altogether when he stumbled on Thebasa.
Nevertheless, professor Stephen Mitchell a British Academy Fellow said of the amateur Rokicki’s discovery, “[A]dds a whole new chapter to the story of the conflict between the Byzantines and the Arabs in the 10th and 11th centuries,”
Now that the site has been located, expect to see many more discoveries as the “professional” archeologists will surely be there soon.
The Zone of Silence: An Ancient Mystery of Old Mexico
Because of Mexican engineer and chemist Harry De La Peña’s blond hair and blue eyes, since high school he had been called “El Luminaro,” the Luminous One. After a European education, De La Peña returned to Mexico to teach chemistry at the Instituto Tecnológico de Laguna in Torreon, Mexico. On a blistering day in 1966, he departed Torreon for a photo expedition with a group of friends.
On that day, El Luminaro would stumble into a zone of anomalous paradox. While native mestizos, the ethnically mixed descendants of Anglo and indigenous people, had long known the the area had strange and special qualities, it was now on the radar of a European-trained scientist. The locals believed that couples having trouble conceiving children could visit the Zone with a baby coming nine months later. Notably, Zone locals also had superior dental health with straight white teeth, and random blood samples from Zone residents show far greater health than those from outside the area.
Like the Bermuda Triangle, the Zone of Silence is located on the 27th parallel. Comprised of 1,500 square miles of inhospitable desert and extreme temperatures, there are no roads; only dirt tracks. And travel mishaps are dangerous as it’s difficult to call for help. El Zona del Silencio is an electromagnetic void; an anomaly, where compasses spin like dervishes and cell phone and radio signals are the definition of “hit-and-miss.” Even so, some view these odd reports as “deliberately invented to generate tourism and sold to the world via the mass media.”
Entering El Zona del Silencio
Ceballos, in the Mexican State of Durango, is the point of departure closest to the zone. In 1966 the town, comprised of dirt roads and shacks, was barely on the map. More than 50-years since, the roads are still some combination of dirt, dust and mud, but signs point the way to El Zona del Silencio, and a 16 kilometer rail spur provides access from the outside.
The wise enter the zone with as much ice and water as a vehicle can carry as well as extra gas. Only a fool would forget a hat. During monsoon season the ground becomes a slippery paste, and dry arroyos fill with torrential flood waters in an instant. Daytime temperatures can hit 120F and plummet to freezing after the sun drops below the horizon.
Nopal cactus grow in abundance — on the zone outskirts they have the typical green coloring, but change to pink and purple as one travels deeper into the region. What’s even weirder is that the purple and pink specimens are interspersed with green cactus plants.
Another rare species, the tailless Mapimí tortoise, is native to the area. Foot-long centipedes with purple heads and tails hunt anything they can catch, including mice and birds. Insects grow two to three times normal size, and albino reptiles and snakes are frequently sighted. Today much of the zone is within the boundaries of the Mapimí Biosphere Reserve — the inexplicable flora and fauna are subject to ongoing research.
