It is hard to make a case for or against Atlantis from what we know in Europe.  On the one hand, in the Cayce time frame there were major cultural advancements in Europe that in many cases appear to have been brought in from outside.  Green-
man's evidence for cultural parallels with North America suggest transatlantic contact. On the other hand, as in North America, these were Stone Age technologies, not the high technologies spoken of by Cayce.  Perhaps all that survived the destruction of a civilization was the basic knowledge and intelligence, but not the means to rebuild.

We have seen in this chapter that geologists and archaeologists completely un-
aware of the Cayce readings have in many cases com up independently with supporting evidence.  Yet, because Cayce was considered a psychic, his readings weren't used to guide research.  Many quewstions have been raised by the readings that have simply never been addressed scientifically.  A concerted effort has never been made to find Atlantean ruins on the mid-Atlantic ridge.  Most of the evidence supporting even the possibility of Atlantis has been found accidentally and
scientists are quite right in saying that it is ambiguous.

What would it take to prove Cayce right or wrong?  Where would researchers have the best chance of finding evidence of Atlantis?  These same questions were asked in Cayce's day and the readings were quite specific.  Records of Atlantis would be found in three places:  EGYPT, BIMINI and YUCATAN.  Cayce's listeners in the 1930s missed their chance to track down evidence from Yucatan, as it was carried to the United States. 

Neanderthal man is represented in several sites and lasts until about 35,000 years ago.  There is little evidence of art or adornment at this time and technology appears to have been limited to very simple stone and bone tools.

Some major changes begin to appear about 35,000 years ago, with the onset of the period known as the Upper Paleolithic and the appearance of anatomically modern people.  Although technology was still Stone Age, this was a time of growth in the roles of technology, social organization and planning.  Tools became far more sophisticated.  There is substantial evidence of human construction activity about 29,000 years ago in a site called Cueva Morin, including a large dug-out feature, postholes and graves with possible offerings.

Well-dated cultures in the late Upper Paleolithic - the Solutrean from 20,500 to 17,000 years ago and the Magdalenian from 17,000 to 11,000 years ago - show great development in both the well-known cave art and specialized technologies such as the spear-thrower and the arrow.  More than sixty caves with cave art have been discovered in the area.  The people also developed elaborate uses of fire.

The transition to the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age, comes around 11,000 years ago, near the time of the final destruction of Atlantis.  As we have seen in North America, there were major climate changes, the growth of new forests and the rising of sea levels.  The Neolithic, which we often think of as paving the way for civilization - with pottery and domesticated animals, began around 5,000 years ago, long after the sinking of Atlantis.

MIGRATIONS TO EUROPE


Before we proceed to the details of actual expeditons to Egypt and Bimini, let's take a brief look at the migrations to the eastern side of the Atlantic: the European area near the Pyrenees in France and Spain.  As noted earlier, Europe is the area in which Cro-Magnon man, the first appearance of anatomically modern people, was
discovered.  This sudden appearance with a culture far  higher than that of the Neanderthals has been cited by virtually every Atlantis writer since Donnelly.  Do we know any more that would tend to confirm or refute the Cayce readings?

The area of southern France, Spain and Portugal, and specifically the Pyrenees mountains of the border between Spain and France, was given in several Cayce readings as a major location to which Atlanteans fled.  In some readings, it was given as a way station on the trip to Egypt.

Another reading mentioned the chalk cliffs at Calais (no.315-4, June 18, 1934.)  This reference is an example of the type of discrepancy that occasionally appears in the transcriptions of the Cayce readings (which were taken down as dictation) complicates their study.  Calais is a well-known area in France, but it is not near the
Pyrenees.  Gladys Davis Turner, who stenographed the readings, thought later that Cayce may have been referring to another location.  A French ARE member pointed out that an area of Spain near Portugal and the Pyrenees is named Galice or Galicia, and that the two words rhyme.  Galicia or Galice is located in northern Spain, where all of Cayce's other readings place the migrating Atlanteans and has cliffs and mountainous terrains.  Calais, on the other hand has flat terrain and is
located 600 miles away in France, bordering on the English Channel.

The area of northern Spain and the Pyrenees is well known as a rich source of archaeological finds.  According to archaeologist L.G. Straus, in a recent review article on the prehistory of northern Spain in SCIENCE, this area is considered to be one of the best sources of information on human physical and cultural evolution.
Research has been going on steadily since the 1870s, when rock art was discovered in an Altamira cave by M. Sanz de Sautola.  Virtually all known sites from the time Cayce gave for Atlantis are in cave; open-air sites have either been eroded or deeply buried.

Heyerdahl notes that shortly before 3000BC, exceptional cultural activity took place in the inner Mediterranean, with new dynasties suddenly coming into power and building up advanced local civilizations in Mesopotamia and in Egypt.  He correlates this with the zero year in the ancient Mayan calendar of 3113BC and suggests that it is evidence of transatlantic contact.

Ivan Van Sertima is another diffusionist.  In THEY CAME BEFORE COLUMBUS, he also makes a case that "tribes" from Africa arrived in Central America by boat.
 
The evidence includes Olmec stone sculptures and numerous Mayan carvings showing Negroid and Semitic features.  Much of Van Sertima's evidence comes from the work of Alexander von Wuthenau, professor of Mexican art history at the University of the Americas in Mexico City.  His thirty-five years of work produced hundreds of examples of other racial groups in Mayan art.

These diffusionist views are not in the mainstream of archaeology.  Most of the anthropology done on the racial characteristics of Native Americans has focused on the western side of the continent and the Pacific Rim.  It is clear that the Eskimos and the natives of the northwest United States and Canada are relatively recent immigrants from Asia.  Christy Turner has shown, based on tooth anatomy, that there is a substantial Asian component to the Native Americans of Central and South America as well.  Perhaps the original Atlantean genetic contribution was swamped by later immigrants from Asia.  But there has been little focus on work that could support the Cayce story.  Comparisons around the Atlantic rim will be necessary to fully test Cayce's concepts.

The Cayce readings are unique in that they reconcile both the diffusionist and the
Atlantean views in their proper time frames, with specific dates given well before these dates were known to archaeologists.  Whether either view will eventually become compatible with mainstream science is another question, but the groundwork appears to have been laid.  The debate is on a scientific level, rather than occult speculation.

Are Native Americans descended from any race other than Asian?  The answer is
not simple.  Even if there is evidence for more than one racial input, this can be ex-
plained by postulating successive waves of migration over the Bering Strait.  Some
of these migrations may have included ancestors of modern Caucasians who crossed Asia.

Cayce himself brings up one of the other problems with finding the Atlantean influence in Native American races: later transatlantic migration.  The readings refer to the "Lost Tribes".  One of the popular theories, not taken seriously by most anthropologists, was that Native Americans were the descendants of the "lost  tribes of Israel" captured in the eighth century BC by the king of Assyria.  A related theory comes from the Book of Mormon.  The Mormons believe in two other migrations of Jews to America.

Cayce was not specific as to what he meant by the Lost Tribes.  Although no scientists today believe that the Jews were literally the major ancestors of the Native Americans, there is some evidence for transatlantic contact.  Scientists con-
tinue to debate how important that contact was, or whether it was necessary to
account for cultural parallels.

Thor Heyerdahl is one of the major proponents of transatlantic diffusion.  Heyerdahl is a Norwegian explorer who has sailed primitive craft across the oceans to prove that ancient people could have done it as well.  In 1970, he sailed the RaII from
North Africa to the Caribbean.  RaII was a reed boat, similar to those used both in Africa and Lake Titicaca in South America.  In EARLY MAN AND THE OCEANS, Heyerdahl chronicles the history of diffusionist thinking, and lists a variety of cultural traits that he feels are best explained by diffusion.  These include some of Donnelly's parallels; but Heyerdahl feels that they are due to contact across the ocean, not to Atlantis.  They are consistent with the Cayce readings, however, which describe a time


.....during that period as would be called 3,000 years before the Prince of Peace came, those peoples that were of the Lost Tribes, a portion came into the land.

[Q-1.]  How did the Lost Tribe reach this country?
[A-1]  In boats. (no.5750-1, November 12, 1933)

Has any evidence been found that would support Cayce by showing that these original ancestors of the Mound Builders arrived from the south rather than from the west, after crossing the Bering Strait?"  One of the more interesting pieces of evidence consistent with the Cayce story of Atlanteans in North America comes from linguistics.  The readings said, "the entity then was among the people, the Indians, of the Iroquois;  those of noble birth, those that were of the pure descendants of the Atlanteans."  (no. 1219-1, July 13, 1936.)

A recent linguistic study in a 1985 QUARTERNARY RESEARCH by Richard Rogers, an anthropologist from the University of Kansas, suggests that, before 18,000 years ago, when the glaciers covered much of North America, there was already a linguistically distinct population in the southeast.  As the glaciers melted, near the time of the final destruction of the Cayce Atlantis, the people migrated northward.  Their linguistic family, Algonquian, is distinct from the languages of the west
Iroquoian, another eastern language family, is also not related to the languages of the west.  The article does not discuss the Atlantean theory, but at the very least it shows that Native Americans are not descended from a single population that came over the Bering Strait in 10,000BC.

Once again, the scientific evidence puts Cayce in a relatively good light.  Whatever their origin, it appears that these people entered the region in the time frame given by Cayce, and eventually became the Mound Builders.  For thousands of years, their culture was at a higher level than anyone had thought possible.  This evidence does not directly support the Atlantis ORIGIN, but is consistent with it.

The Mound Builders, a term loosely applied to cultures called Adena, Hopewell and Mississippian by archaeologists, were the inhabitants of eastern and midwestern America from roughly 1000BC to AD 1673, when the first French explorers arrived.  The "mounds" are large earthworkd, often used for burials.  The most famous mound is the Cahokia mound in Illinois, 100 feet tall.  The earthworks of the Mound Builders, although not as impressive as the Pyramids of Yucatan, were thought by early explorers to be beyond the capability of the "primitive" local Indians.  Robert Silverberg, in his book THE MOUND BUILDERS, discusses the many fanciful theories of their origin, including the idea that Atlanteans or even Danish Vikings had built the mounds.  Carbon-14 dating has shown that the mounds were built by the imme-
diate ancestors of the Native Americans, and some were even built after the Euro-
peans arrived.  But this doesn't solve the problem of the ORIGIN of the Mound Builders.  How long had they been there and where did they come from?

The Cayce readings tell us, not that the Atlanteans were the Mound Builders, but that their descendants were.  A site called Koster in Illinois reveals the people that became the Mound Builders, and provides a record of a sophisticated culture that goes back almost to the time of the Cayce Atlanteans.

Anthropologist Stuart Streuver of Northwestern University, directing the excavation of this site, was amazed to find layer after layer of ancient occupations, over 30 feet thick and dating back over 9,000 years.  Prior to this discovery, people assumed that, for most of their history, the Native Americans had been primitive nomadic hunter-gatherers.  But at Koster, Streuver found evidence of sophisticated construction of buildings, possibly including plaster walls, going back thousands of years.  The builders of the famous mounds were in the area as early as 9500BC.  He
feels the later Mound Builders are descended from these early arrivals, since the later skeletons at Koster are very similar to the early ones.  The evidence tends to refute Donnelly, but to support Cayce.  Although some later cultural input from Central America influenced the construction of the mounds in later years, the original settlers could indeed have been "of the second generation of Atlanteans."

MIGRATIONS TO NORTH AMERICA

The Cayce readings mention people in North America as far back as 10 million years ago.  The most ancient scientific evidence found thus far, that of Leakey at Calico Hills, possibly goes back 500,000 years, but has not been generally accepted.  Most of the readings speak of much later migrations during the time of the Atlantean des-
tructions.
Perhaps the thorniest problem with the idea of Atlantean migrations from the point of view of anthropologists is that most of the evidence points to the descent of the Native American population from immigrants over the Bering Strait.  Despite cultural parallels with Europe, such as those of Greenman, Native Americans appear to be most closely related genetically to Asians.  What does this do to the Cayce story?

The readings acknowledge a complex mixture of immigrants to America: "....the en-
tity was in the land of the present nativity [Nebraska] during those periods when there were activities in separating the peoples in the southland from those coming in from the western lands or from the isles of the sea."  (no. 3179-1, August 26, 1943.)

Robert Wauchope, in LOST TRIBES AND SUNKEN CONTINENTS, has discussed extensively all the "crackpot" theories of the origin of the Native Americans.  Long before Cayce, dating back to the 1700s, many wild theories were popular.  It is difficult not to place oneself in their company by even bringing up the topic.  Clearly, Cayce's audience would have been familiar with some of these ideas.  Is there any support AT ALL for the idea that the Native Americans may have had multiple ori-
gins; that they did not simply arrive over the Bering Strait, but from Africa, Europe, or even Atlantis?  The Cayce readings seem to reflect these speculations, and mention both the Lost Tribes and an Atlantean origin for the Mound Builders: "The
entity was among the first of those of the second generation of Atlanteans who struggled northward from Yucatan, settling in what is now a portion of Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio; being among those of the earlier period known as the Mound Builders".  (no.3528-1, December 20, 1943)

The readings speak of a later time in Peruvian history as well, but still before the arrival of the Spaniards: "....in the land that now may be called the Peruvian, during those periods when there were the persecusions,not those known in the much later date as from the Spaniards, but rather from the breaking up from the meeting with those from the Mayan or Yucatan land."  (no.1637-1, July 12, 1938).

Even in Cayce's time, it was recognized that the Maya had penetrated into South America, and that substantial cultural interchange had taken place.  Samuel Lothrop, in 1940, discussed the diversity of opinion on exactly which cultural traits were exchanged.  Some authors (Max Uhle is cited by Lothrop as an example) felt that ALL manifestations of Andean culture were derived from Middle America, for the most part as a result of actual migration.  It is certainly reasonable that one result of cultural contact was persecution by invaders from Yucatan, as Cayce said.

The readings also speak of a destruction of Peru before the destruction of Atlantis, in a time when the Ohlms were the civilization: "In the one [life] before this, we find in the now Peruvian country, when the people were destroyed in the submerging of the land.  The entity then in that of the next to the ruler in Ohlm rule". (no2903-2, June 26, 1925).

As we have seen, geologists in general do not favor theories of catastrophic submergences.  Surprisingly, however, there is actually some evidence of deep submercence off the coasto of Peru, and even some possible sunken ruins.  Dr. Robert Menzies, director of Duke University's Oceanographic Program, was reported in the NEW YORK TIMES, April 17, 1966 and in the SCIENCE WORLD, April 15, 1966, to have discovered carved rock columns resting on a muddy plain 6,000 fet underwater, off the coast of Peru.  Menzies and his colleagues were looking for neoplinia, a type of sea mollusk, one of the earth's "oldest living fossils".  Their dredges brought up some of the desired specimens, but their deep-sea diving cameras showed photographic evidence of the columns, covered with what appeared to be some sort of writing.  Menzies is quoted as saying that although "the idea of a sunken city in the Pacific seems incredible, the evidence so far suggests one of the most exciting discoveries of the century."  We haven't been able to find any later reports confirming or refuting this discovery, and it is hard to tell whether it was ever taken seriously by scientists.  It was certainly made by a respectable researcher.

M I G R A T I O N S   T O   P E R U


Cayce gave seventy-three readings mentioning incarnations in Peru, ranging from
before the destruction of Atlantis up until the Spaniards conquered the Incas.  The
historical periods seem to be consistent in the readings - he doesn't mix Spaniards
and Atlanteans!  His Incas, like his Maya, come much after the destruction of Atlantis.  Prior to the Atlanteans, Peru was inhabited by a people called the Ohlms or Ohums:  "In the one before this, we find in that land known as the Peruvian, during the period of the Ohlms, before the Incas and the peoples of the Poseidian land entered." (no.1916-5, 1931).  "In the experience the entity was a priestess, in those interpretations of what later became known as the Incas, the Lost Tribes, the people from the Atlantean land, the peoples who came west from the activities in the Lemurian land."  (no.1159-1. May 5, 19360.

What do we know about the Incas and their origin?  Anthropologist Loren McIntyre described their civilization in a book for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC in 1975.  The Incas
themselves are not at all ancient.  The first Inca emperor, Pachacuti, began his quest for empire in about AD1438.  At its greatest extent, the Inca empire spanned 2,500 miles, similar in size to the Roman Empire.  In 1532, the Spaniard Francisco Pizarro captured the Inca Atahualpa; this act shattered the empire at the height of its power.

It is the predecessors of the Incas who are of interest here.  Richard MacNeish, discussed earlier in connection with ancient dates, has made a study of early peoples in Peru published in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.  The Ayacucho valley high in the Andes of Peru has evidence of human occupation going back in unbroken sequence
that spans the millennium from 20,000BC to AD1500.  There is a progression from early hunter, to farmer, to subject of imperial rule.  Deep in a cave, MacNeish found an assemblage of rather crude stone tools he called the Pacaicasa complex, after a nearby village.  The people who fashioned these distinctive tools occupied the Ayacucho valley from as much as 22,000 years ago to about 13,000 years ago.  Were these the Ohlms?  Stone tools cannot provide the richness of detail we need to completely evaluate the Cayce readings, but once again we see that Cayce's statements about the predecessors of the Incas are not without some scientific
support.

This has been indirect evidence of the consistency and plausibility of the Cayce story.  But the reading containsa clue and plausibility of the story of Atlantis it-
self, as well as the Maya.  He referred to a buried temple of records, in which information on the construction of the "firestone or "great crystal" would be found:  "In Yucatan
there is emblem of same [the firestone].  Let's clarify this, for it may be the more easily found  - for they will be brought to this America, these United States.  A portion is to be carried, as we find, to the Washington preservation of such findings, or to Chicago" (no 440-5, December 19, 1933).  When asked, "Who is conducting this work in Yucatan?", the reading continued,"Would it be sent to any place than to those who were carrying on same?"

Has anything been found?  Many people have wished that Cayce had been clearer in some of his readings.  There were indeed expeditions to the area when Cayce gave the reading in 1933, but identifying a single artifact of unknown description is quite a challenge.

Unfortunately, the readings were not specific about the nature of the artifact, or about exactly where it would be taken.  "To Chicago" could mean the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, or anywhere else in that very large city.  "The Washington preservations of such findings" probably meant the Smithsonian, but there are other archaeological collections in Washington.

The "Pennsylvania State Museum" is also a problem, since there is more than one possibility.  Many people assumed Cayce was referring to the University of Pennsylvania museum.  Jeffrey Goodman, in his book PSYCHIC ARCHAEOLOGY, tried to trackdown the Cayce reference. He found that in 1933 the university museum WAS  excavating atthe site of Piedras Negras in Guatemala.  The site report had much in common with Cayce's description; there were superimpositions of several different periods and the site investigator, Dr. Linton Satterhwaite said that he was "tempted to see a mixture of Mayan and non-Mayan styles."  Was this the site Cayce described?  Perhaps, but the library at the Association for Research and Enlightenment has photographs and a catalog from the William Penn Memorial Museum in Harrisburg, showing other archaeological digs in Yucatan, with unidentified people, dating from the 1930s.  This museum was FORMERLY called the Pennsylvania State Museum.  Nothing has been found yet, that looks like the emblem of the firestone, however.

Alfred Kidder, another prominent archaeologist, said that earlier, fundamental aspects of the origin of the Maya are still lost in antiquity.  He noted that the belief in a bearded white culture hero - Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs, Kukulkan of the Maya,
Bochica of the Chibcha of Columbia and probably also Viracocha of the Peruvian Indians - is a widespread conception, but its origin is impossible to assign to any area.  Donnelly had used this white hero/god as evidence for Atlantis, but that was not the accepted explanation either in Cayce's time or now.

If Cayce had intended to support Donnelly's theories, he wasn't even close to the
accepted time frame in his day. 

How has our knowledge of the Maya changed since Cayce's time?  Have scientific discoveries made the readings' story more or less likely?  Once again, modern methods of dating, combined with extensive excavation, have revealed much about the history of the Maya.  In this case, there is little to confirm Cayce directly, since only a few potentially very ancient sites like Hueyatlaco have been found.  The readings refer to a period of time long before the major Maya monuments that excite the fantasies of the public.  Yet, what the readings do say is at least not inconsistent with the findings of archaeology.

Gordon Willey, in a chapter in SOCIAL PROGRESS IN MAYA HISTORY in 1977 discussed the progress in Maya archaeology since 1940.  By 1977, the earliest date for early pre-classic Maya had been pushed back to about 2000 BC.  The first construction of large ceremonial centers began after 300BC.  The classic civilization
flowered between AD 300 and 900.  By the time the Spaniards arrived with Cortes in 1541, the Maya had been long in decline.  A more recent article by Willey, published in SCIENCE in 1982, cites evidence gathered by Richard MacNeish for even earlier pre-Mayan inhabitants going back to 9000BC.  It is no longer thought that the Maya appeared full-blown.  Furthermore, this evidence was found in Belize, formerly Bristish Honduras, a location on the south side of the Yucatan Peninsula, specifically given in reading no.364-3, in 1932.  Although there was substantial migration in and out of the area, the pre-Maya can now be traced back almost to the time given by Cayce.

We can find further evidence of consistency in the Cayce time frame in his description of the climate:  "Rather than being a tropical area it was more of the temperate...." (no.5750-1, November 12, 1933.)  Our knowledge of the climates in the area in 10,000BC confirms this statement.  The glaciers were still melting and all of North America was substantially colder than it is now.

MIGRATIONS TO THE YUCATAN


Forty one Cayce readings mention the Yucatan area of Central America, most in connection with migrations from Atlantis.  When asked to give a historical treatise on the origin and development of the Maya civilization, Cayce responded, "Yes.  In giving a record of the civilization in this particular portion of the world, is should be remembered that more than one has been and will be found as research progressess....we would turn back to 10,600 years before the Prince of Peace came into the land of promise."  (no.5751-1, November 12, 1933.)  The reading continues with a description of the beginnings of a civilization in Yucatan, which was event-
tually to become the Maya civilization. 

Still other readings mention the Yucatan.  "....the entity was in the land now known as or called the Poseidian land, or Atlantean land, during those periods in which it was braking up and then the children of the Law of One (to which the entity was enjoined) journeyed from the land into portions of what is the Yucatan land". 
(no.1599-1, May 29, 1938).

Thus the Cayce readings discuss, not the Maya as they eventually developed, but their pre-Maya origins in 10,600BC.  Did the readings make sense according to Maya archaeology in Cayce's time?  By the 1930s, Maya archaeology had made major progress since the mid-1800s, despite the continuing popularity of books like Donnelly's.  Explorers had ncovered much of Maya civilization, including the three "books" that survived the Spanish, lofty pyramids, huge monuments and courts used for ball games similar to basketball.

LePlongeon's translation of the Mayan book called the TROANO CODEX, alleging Mu-
the "evidence" for Donnelly and Churchward stories - was throughly discredited,
and about one-third of the symbols of Mayan writing would be read.  Sylvanus Morley, a noted Mayan language expert, wrote in 1940 that two archaeologists,
Ernst Forstemann and G.T. Goodman, had independently proved conclusively by
1900 that the DRESDEN CODEX was an astrological treatise based on the sun, moon and Venus.  There was clearly no resemblance of the Mayan language to Greek, as Donnelly had stated.

In Cayce's time, the foundations from which the Maya sprang were still obscure.
Archaeologist A.L. Krober summarized the state of Maya archaeology in 1940, based
upon evidence collected at the time Cayce was giving his readings:

"It is now generally accepted that wherever we have been able to work out continuous archaeological sequences, as in parts of Mexico and our own Southwest, these carry us back about 2000 years but no more.  The older views which placed the first discovered stages in the second millennium BC, or even earlier, seem no longer able to withstand criticism.  In Peru also, though an absolute chronology is still altogether lacking, conservative estimates incline to see the whole course of known development as having taken place since the beginning of the Christian era."  (THE MAYA AND THEIR NEIGHBORS).

Even more ancient, and more controversial, is the Calico Hills site in California, excavated by Louis Leakey (SCIENCE, 1970).  Leaky's estimate for the age of the stone tools from the Calico Hills site is as much as 500,000 years!  Such a concept was unthinkable to other archaeologists, who quickly came up with the alternative explanation that the stone tools were simply naturally weathered rocks.  Vance Haynes of the University of Arizona has been amajor proponent of the natural geological artifact theory, and this is now the most commonly held belief (SCIENCE
1973).  Leaky died soon after excavating the site and was unable to carry on the debate.  The site remains controversial; but, as with the Hueyatlaco site, the controversy is between mainstream archaeologists, not between science and the
occult.

For the Cayce story, the evidence is quite consistent.  A major population explosion, in conjuction with a pole shift, climatic change and extinction of large animals, occurred around 12,000 years ago, at the time of the final migration from Atlantis.  Evidence of early human occupation prior to this date exists not only in the Southwest, where it had been found in Cayce's time; some of the oldest re-
mains have been found in Mexico, South America and the eastern United States
(western Pennsylvania), other locations given by Cayce for migrations from Atlantis.
Richard Shutler's conclusion in 1983 was that the most significant recent advancement in early human archaeology is that we can now place the minimum time for the first occupation of North America at least 20,000 years ago, with the possibility that it occurred as long ago as 50,000 years.  Archaeologists in Cayce's time would not have even thought of looking for ancient people in these locations or in this time frame.  Whether or not the first Americans came over the Bering Strait or from Atlantis is a question still to be answered; but the Cayce statements, and especially his dates, are certainly no longer outside the realm of science as they were in his time.

What happened to the Atlanteans after their flight from Atlantis?  Cayce's answers,
when taken literally, provide little support for the Donnelly and occultist views, but are consistent with some recent scientific evidence.

One of the best sites in North America is the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in southwest Pennsylvania.  As the depths of the shelter were excavated, archaeologists led by James Adovasio of the University of Pittsburgh recovered over 400 stone artifacts from a level dated at 15,000 years ago from charcoal in
a fireplace.  These included slender "bladelike" items similar to those found at European Cro-Magnon sites.  From an even deeper level came a radiocarbon date from a possible basketry fragment of over 17,000 years ago.  Adovasio's work
was published in American Antiquity in 1977.

In an even more recent discovery, reported by Bruce Bower in SCIENCE NEWS in
1986, a rock shelter in Brazil known as the Pedra Furada has been radiocarbon dated to 32,000 years ago.  A hearth in the shelter dated at 17,000 years ago contains a rock with two red painted lines, suggesting that cave art began in Americas about the same time it appeared in Europe and  Africa.  The walls and ceilings of Pedra Furada are still covered with prehistoric paintings.

Other, more controversial sites, argue for even earlier dates.  The Hueyatlaco site in Mexico may be as old as 250,000 years.  Virginia SteenMcIntyre of the U.S. Geological Survey showed in 1981 that layers containing artifacts were 250,000
years old.  A date this old was hard for archaeologists to accept, since it was ten times older than any other date in the Americas.  The debate in the journal QUATERNARY RESEARCH is ongoing.