Message #245

[Bianca]

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.