Ancient Cave Painters Starved Themselves of Oxygen to Hallucinate
Did pre-historic man communicate with non-human entities? An exciting new archeological study may have just found an answer.
Caves have always been a source of fascination, as have the paintings drawn in them by the earliest humans. There’s been much debate among archeologists over the meaning of the paintings as well as why so many were made in the deepest, hard-to-reach parts of the caves.
A team from Tel Aviv University set out in search of the answer.
Archeologist Ron Barkai led the study which focused on caves painted in Spain and France some 40,000 years ago.
“We were wondering about human relationships with caves. Caves are not only shelters from the elements. We believe that caves had much more deeper meanings for early humans. And the riddle why people entered deep, dark caves was always on the table. “Barkai said.
“And then we came to realize that the use of torches must have reduced the level of oxygen inside the caves, which brings a well-known phenomenon which is called hypoxia. And one of the consequences of hypoxia is an altered state of consciousness,” he said.
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The Legend of Crystal Skulls Emerges From the Mayan Jungle
Fighting the jungle heat, insects, oppressing humidity, and twisted vines, British adventurer Frederick Mitchell-Hedges wended through the Yucatan in 1924, with the rest of his expedition trailing behind, headed for an ancient Mayan city in what is now modern-day Belize.
Suddenly, the team stopped dead in its tracks and beheld an ancient Mayan pyramid. The adventurers slowly made their way inside. What came next is reminiscent of a scene from an Indiana Jones movie: Mitchell-Hedges’ daughter, Anna, came across a gleaming crystal skull, reflecting the sparsity of light.
The skull seemed so out of place, so advanced in its design and craftsmanship, juxtaposed against the Mayan ruins of ancient stone and earth. Fashioned out of a single solid piece of clear quartz, the adventurer and his daughter immediately realized that they had stumbled upon one of the most mysterious objects in the history of archaeology.
This was how the legend of the crystal skull began.
