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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New Evidence Ties Younger Dryas Impact With Gobekli Tepe
What could have triggered a sudden ice age 13,000 years ago, causing massive global destruction and dramatic cultural change? A new survey of decades of compelling scientific evidence strongly indicates that it came from the sky and gave rise to the very origins of civilization.
The Younger Dryas is the name given to a geological period that took place between 12,800 and 11,500 years ago. Marked by a suddenly occurring mini-ice age, this time was one of environmental catastrophe, worldwide animal extinctions, and major changes in human culture and population. While researchers have, for decades, been debating various explanations for these cataclysmic events, one controversial hypothesis now appears to be supported by evidence.
Dr. Martin Sweatman is a scientist at the University of Edinburgh who recently completed a thorough survey of this Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis.
“There is now this impact hypothesis, which was developed and first stated in 2007, and it suggested that this geological period—this mini-ice age that lasted for 1,300 years—was triggered by a cosmic impact with fragments of a comet,” he said.
“And so since then, since 2007, there’s been a lot of research published, some for and some against this idea.”
