Some Speculation   

Where else are stoneworks like these found?
 

It may be that the only other place on earth is Easter Island. The most remote inhabited place in the world, this barren speck of land boasts over 500 gigantic, long-eared stone statues called Moai. There are curious connections between the Andes and Easter Island. For as long as we know, Easter Island has had the potato and the totora reed, both of Andean origin. In the oldest legends, Easter Island was called "The Navel of the World." Cuzco was called the same. Thor Heyerdahl explored the island in an ongoing effort to prove his theory that people came to Easter Island from the East, sailing the prevailing currents. He believed that the walls there of the Andean style were not built by those who carved the Moai, but by an earlier civilization. A study of underwater topography and plate tectonics suggests a startling possibility.

Look at a map of the Pacific ocean floor just off the western coast of South America. There is an underwater ridge that connects to the coast of Peru at the fabled Nazca Plain. From there it extends out in a jagged line to Easter Island. These two locations are at the opposite edges of the Nazca Plate. (From the NOAA map Measured and Estimated Seafloor Topography.)

The Nazca Ridge is on the Nazca tectonic plate. This plate is sliding under the South American Plate. As this happens the edge of the Nazca plate pushes under the South American plate, lifting its edge. This is usually a smooth and steady subduction, but a global catastrophe of Noachean magnitude would call off all bets. The most-accepted current scientific model for earth change today is uniformitarianism. According to this model, geological changes are now and always have been a gradual process. This theory is being challenged by the proponents of catastrophism, which posits that sometimes sudden and dramatic changes occur on our Terra-not-so-firma. (The pummeling that comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 gave Jupiter in 1994 gave Catastrophism a good boost.) There is ample evidence that Lake Titicaca, now at an elevation of 12,500 feet above sea-level, was once at sea-level. I am suggesting that the Nazca ridge, or part of it, might once have been above sea-level. This would have provided a partial  land bridge between Easter Island and South America.

The Nazca Plain, which is directly inland from the juncture of the Nazca ridge and South America, is as strange as Easter Island. It is covered with a jumble of lines and drawings so huge that they can only be comprehended from the air. Many theories have been proposed to explain these markings, but none of them that I know of has taken underwater topography into account. Both the markings of the Nazca Plain and the statues of Easter Island seem the work of peoples possessed. Could it be that these extraordinary efforts are the reaching-out of those whose ancestors' connection had been severed?

The Catastrophe What may have been the cause is a matter of debate, but it is widely agreed that something earth-shaking occurred around 9,600 B.C. It was then that large numbers of flora and fauna species (among them the Mammoth and the Mastodon giant sloths, saber-toothed cats, camels, lions, tapirs and the incredible teratorn, a condor with a 16-foot wingspan) disappeared. It has also been theorized by respected scientists that the axis of the earth shifted at that time. There are flood legends recounting world-wide catastrophe in almost every society on earth.  And recently scientists have  provided evidence that an asteroid impact likely caused the sudden climate changes that killed off the mammoths and other majestic beasts of prehistory. If such a world-wide jolt occurred, it is quite possible that the Nazca Plate could slip suddenly under the South America plate, drastically lowering the one and raising the other.

LINKS Evidence of an asteroid impact Walls of the Andean style found on Easter Island. (look to bottom of page) Map of tectonic plates of the world with a brief description of tectonics. More detailed info on tectonics. Summary of "When the Earth Nearly Died...(Compelling evidence of a Catastrophic World Change 9,500 B.C.)" Great Flood Myths Information on pole shifts. Information on Uniformitarianism. Extensive links re Catastrophism. Information on the Nazca drawings.

Home