Patagonian monsters

Circling Antarctica and getting into America

2012-01-11T09:31:00.001-03:00

Yesterday's post mentioned the possibility that archaic humans may have crossed the Southern South Pacific Ocean from New Zealand or Australia to Southern South America or Tierra del Fuego. Lets take a critical look at this idea.

Why would a group of humans get into a boat and row 1,400 km (870 mi) south towards the South Pole (which they ignored was there in the first place) and then circle the continent eastwards until after another 7,100 km (4,412 mi) they reached the southernmost tip of South America?

The most obvious explanation is: Chance. They were cast adrift and the oceanic currents pushed them away all the way to America. But, is this possible?

Yes: a paper by Gastineau [2] "A northward displacement of the ACC and a relatively higher flux of lithogenic particles from Australian or New Zealand were found for the LGM." (the ACC is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, an oceanic current that encircles the southern continent in a west to east direction. This AAC however is a deep ocean current, the surface ones also flowed from Australia an New Zealand towards South America. Below is Fig. 12 of Gastineau's paper:

LGM currents South Pacific. From [2]

The image shows the surface and deep oceanic current, Iceberg trajectories in the Pacific sector of the southern ocean as well as the ACC during LGM. Notice the green arrows (surface currents) going towards America (the red arrow which was added by me, shows the general direction of these currents).

Could H. erectus, Denisovans or Neanderthals get to America following this route? Perhaps they took other currents further north, but note that the circulation in the South Pacific is counter clockwise that is, in the Equatorial part it flows west, then turns south next to Melanesia and returns east above Antarctica.

Referring to modern humans, Wyatt (2004) [1] suggests, regarding the peopling of America:

... a transpacific route from the Old World to the New World via the islands of Oceania has been essentially ignored. Of the many factors involved in completing such a voyage, besides an adequate watercraft, landfall frequency and prevailing winds and currents were most important. A chain of islands in the landless eastern South Pacific, with its consequent and possibly favorable modifications of regional sea surface currents, would have been particularly beneficial to eastbound mariners. Comparing present-day bathymetry with estimated late Pleistocene glacially induced sea level fluctuations suggests that latent islands may actually exist, especially when the effects of other geological phenomena are also considered. If exposed during the last glacial maximum (LGM), such a chain of islands could have provided facilitating layover points for ancient eastbound seafaring explorers, thus making a transpacific journey more plausible.

And may I add, during any previus Glacial Maximum and not only H. Sapiens, but any of our ancestors who managed to master the art of building water crafts.

Just as a point to ponder upon regarding primitive water craft, taken from a very interesting book that I recently translated for Carlos Pedro Vairo:

According to the historian Samuel Bennett, the Australian bark canoes were the most primitive appliances ever used by mankind for the purpose of navigation. [3]

They were named Bark canoes because they were made from bark stripped off gum trees in one piece and sewn together. Furthermore:

A canoe found in Arnhem Land by the anthropologist Sir Baldwin Spencer, during his 1901-1902 expedition to northern Australia, is kept at Victoria’s National Museum of. It is 5 m long [16.4 ft.]. It was brought there by eight Aboriginals the Pellew Islands, who went up the Macarthur River about 8 km [5 mi.]. This trip is interesting because it shows that they had to navigate about 16 kilometers [10 mi.] across the sea.
There are differences in the life spans of these canoes. Those for a single passenger which in case of an emergency were put together quickly, lasted a few days; however, large canoes built by several men and used to carry cargo apart from being used for fishing, could last a couple of years.[3]

These canoes are found in different parts of the world, and yes, you guessed correctly: the Fuegian natives made bark canoes too!:

After discovering islands such as Navarino and Lennox, the expedition under Admiral Jacques L’Hermite (1624) came into contact with the Yamanas on the southern shores of Navarino. Aboard the Amsterdam, flagship of the Nassau fleet, was the Dutch Vice Admiral Geen Huygen Schapenham, to whom we owe the first description of the Yamana bark canoe. In his journal, translated by historian Pablo Gallez, he wrote: “...their canoes are worth admiring. In order to make them, they take the whole bark of a thick tree; they shape it and cut off certain parts and later sew them so that it acquires the shape of a Venetian gondola.” [3]

The Yamana canoes were made from the bark stripped off southern Beech or Nothofagus trees.

Sources
[1] Steve Wyatt, (2004) Ancient transpacific voyaging to the new world via Pleistocene South Pacific Islands. DOI: 10.1002/gea.20008. Geoarchaeology. Volume 19, Issue 6, pages 511–529, August 2004.
[2] G. Gastineau Provenance of the terrigenous sediments of the pacific sector of the southern ocean and variation during the LGM
[3] Carlos Pedro Vairo, (2001). The Yamana Canoe. Zagier & Urruty Publications. My translation for Vairo's next edition of this book (2011).

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia
Copyright 2009-2011 by Austin Whittall ©

Getting to America (Neanderthals)

2012-01-10T18:30:00.004-03:00

LGM sea ice and possible routes of entry from
the Old World into the New World. Ice thickness in meters.
Adapted from [1]

A reader of this blog, Pablo Infantino and I exchanged several e-mails regarding possible entry routes into America for the Neanderthals.

Pablo suggests that they did not arrive via Beringia, they came across the North Atlantic, coasting the ice pack that covered that part of the world during the Ice Ages. This route, put forth by Stanford y Bradley to support their Solutrean migration into North America. Which, Pablo says could have been possible during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) some 20 kya or even before about 130 kya. He correctly asserts that the had the ability to build boats for coastal navigation, they were well adapted to the harsh cold conditions (clothes and physiology) and they also could have used the existing marine resources during the crossing (he cites Stringer and Finlayson to support the latter).

The North Atlantic route would have meant that they did not come across Denisovans or other pre-existing hominids in their coastal navigation.

It also explains why there are no traces of Neanderthal genes in Asia (they did not trek across Asia).

He points out two stumbling blocks:

1. The lack of evidence of Mousterian boats
2. The incorrect gradient of B006 haplotype and O blood group in Europe and America. Which should be higher in the Eastern seaboard and lowest in the West.
He -in my opinion- correctly states that later migrations pushed the Neanderthals towards the Western seabord. Pablo adds that: Otherwise the Neander may have diverged from the Denisovans in Ameria and moved across the Atlantic on a West to East course into Europe...).

I suggested that perhaps they had not "navigated" along the edge of the sea ice, but trekked across it. Believing that the ice extended from the British Isles all the way to America. Along the way they could have hunted seals, bears and the now extinct "aulk" or northern penguin. This would avoid the "boat" problem.

I also noted that the B006 gradient is similar to the situation found in Britain where the original Celtic genes were pushed into Ireland, Scotland and Wales when faced with the onslaught of Anglosaxons who displaced them from the best land.

Now, I have found an interesting map, shown above which shows that the sea ice did not extend from the UK to the US.

It changed between Summer and Winter. It actually had a deep indentation between Scandinavia and Iceland, so if the Neanderthals trekked across it, they walked a long way from C to D (note the word "ice" in blue shows the glacier cover in northern Europe). By boat the route would have been the same, unless they dared to go west and cross a large extent of open sea (southern red arrow) and then navigate along the ice pack.

It seems to me that the sea ice coverage in the North Atlantic is not suitable for the Neanderthal's Europe to America crossing.

By the way, I also looked at the South Atlantic recalling that in my book I had mentioned the following:

Portuguese anthropologist Mendes Correia (1888-1960) proposed a migration route via Tasmania, the Antarctic and Drake Passage, instead of trans-Pacific route, entering South America at Tierra del Fuego some 8,000 years BP, before the Antarctic ice cap formed. But this is conception is highly disputed and lacks archaeological proof.

So I took a look at the Southern Hemisphere's ice pack around Antarctica and traced the possible route as A to B. This could be the route taken by the modern Homo sapiens ancestors of Fuegian people from Australia to America. But also, the one taken by H. erectus long before modern men appeared.

Sources
[1] Bette L. Otto, et al. (2005). Last Glacial Maximum and Holocene Climate in CCSM3. Journal of Climate. vol. 19 pp. 2526- 44.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia
Copyright 2009-2011 by Austin Whittall ©

"Cabralito" a lake creature in Salta Argentina

2011-12-29T16:05:00.000-03:00

Cabralito lake Creature. From [1]

Todays news reports that in Northern Argentina, in the province of Salta, a mysterious lake creature was filmed. The photo above is a still from the video. The press quickly named it "Cabralito" after the lake it lives in (it is a cute diminutive of the lake's name similar to Nahuelito of Nahuel Huapi fame or Nessie of Loch Ness).

The footage was taken close to a pier known as El Préstamo by Leo Bonino, on the lake of Cabra Corral. The lake is man made, as a dam was built in 1972 on the Juramento River. It has a surface of about 127 km² (49 sq. mi.) and its water flows all the way to the Paraná River north of Buenos Aires.

The dam is 65 km from the city of Salta, captial of the province of Salta in Northwestern Argentina.

Jorge Santi, a diver of the Lake Division of the Salta Provincial Police, said that:
"There have been rumors about this for years. Some say that they have seen a reptile similar to a yacaré and others swear that they have seen a great snake moving with its head above the surface".

Nevertheless, a local named Roberto Eduardo Portal, says that "Cabralito" skeptically said that "'Cabralito' is nothing more than a family of otters who have lived in the lake for the last 30 years".

Below is the video (from Youtube) and the map showing the location of Cabra Corral dam.

The Video:

The Map:

View Larger Map

Since this may be my last post for 2011, I wish you all a very Happy New Year and an excellent 2012 (may the Mayan doomsday myth be proven wrong!).

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Setting the Stingray Hypothesis straight

2011-12-03T17:01:00.007-03:00

Rewritten on 14 Dec. 2011.

Ever since I was nine, I have been terrified of freshwater stingrays. I read a fable by Horacio Quiroga, "El paso del Yabebirí".

Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937), a Uruguaya author, wrote several books about his life in Argentina's Northeastern province of Misiones. A land covered with jungles, and where the marvelous Iguazú falls are set.

In this story a man, wounded by a "tiger" (the name given to the South American jaguar), was saved by the timely action of the stingrays who "stung" the jaguars as they tried to cross the river to kill the man. He had protected the rays in the past so they helped him. The river's name means "river of stingrays".

Stingrays have always been on my mind, when I swam in the brown silty waters of the Paraná River delta and the River Plate during my youth I always wondered if a ray would sting me when I stood in the muddy river bed.

I posted about them and included them in my book... and today, came across a strange online article:

An online article

It was published in an site (The Anomalist [*]) , and mentioned the Patagonian Cuero. I quote it below (Bold font is mine):

December 3

Capture of the Cuero Frontiers of Zoology
Dale Drinnon features an article about television fisherman Jeremy Wade of "River Monsters" capturing a 280-lb giant freshwater stingray in the waters of Argentina's Parana River near Buenos Aires. Photos of the fisherman and his catch are included, and Drinnon takes the catch further to reveal what it has to do with cryptozoology.
It turns out Drinnon had identified freshwater stingrays as the origin of tales of plesiosaurs in the freshwater lakes and rivers of Patagonia. Drinnon's original report on the Patagonian cryptid is included along with some excellent comments from other cryptozoology bloggers, including Austin Whittall of Patagonian Monsters whose comments had sparked Drinnon's stingray identification.

Some reviewers should get their facts straight

You can imagine my surprise, I believe that the story should actually record that it was a Catholic priest, Father Molina in the late 1700s wrote about manta rays as the explanation for Chilean Cuero myth. While researching my book, I came across his work, and I mention it in my book and in a post written Over two years ago, in my September 30, 2009 post on El Cuero - Nahuelito I jotted down that:

...The ray theory is the most reasonable explanation, in fact the shape and size of the cuero are similar those of fresh water stingrays.

However these apparently do not live in the Patagonian lakes or rivers, their habitat is in the Tropical to Temperate regions of eastern South America....
South America is home to the only exclusively freshwater stingrays in the world, the family Potamotrygonidae. The closest to Patagonia live in the Paraná River basin. These rays have a sharp spike on the rear of their tail which they use for self-defense and, interestingly, their disk can be covered with small denticles, small to large thorns which are thooth-like in structure, and covered with a tough enamel.

For those interested, my Jan 20, 2010 post on the Cuero goes into plenty details and even includes a map on South American freshwater stingrays and mentioned the Paraná River stingrays:

There are only on family of freshwater stingrays in the whole world, these are the Potamotrygonidae and they live in South America, but the closest that they get to Patagonia is over 1.600 km (1,000 mi.) to the north in the Paraná River basin...

What Molina wrote was that the Cuero was:

“a monstrous type of Manta ray”, or perhaps a squid with cat-like nails; the 'Seppia unguiculata'" (its Latin name means “clawed” Seppia)

As there are no known freshwater rays in Patagonia, this is a possible explanation for them being there (If and when they are found there)

But there is another intriguing option: Potamotrygonidae are related to the Dasyatid rays who often venture into fresh water in several parts of the world; one of these species can be found off the Chilean Patagonian coast. Maybe these Dasyatids swam up the rivers into the Andean lakes and their denticles were taken for claws.

However let me make it clear that my tirade is not against Dale Drinnon who is an honest researcher and writer, who gets his facts straight before publishing them. It is an outburst born from my surprise at how "reviewers" can sometimes distort facts!.

[*] Note: The Anomalist is a daily online review of world news on maverick science, unexplained mysteries among other subjects.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Gualicho & Kollon myths: based on Neanderthal?

2011-11-30T09:30:00.002-03:00

Image of Mapuche “Lightning Stones” or “Toki Kurá”. From [8]

The late Rodolfo Casamiquela wrote his En pos del Gualicho (“In search of the Gualicho”) in between 1975 and 1984, and published it (Eudeba, Fondo Editorial Rionegrino) in 1988.

It is in his own words "...a continuous juxtaposition of new topics, that rose from the central theme... the thing gets complicated because both the original core and the addenda were corrected and interpolated more than once... over a period of ten years".

The book is quite complicated to read as it is a blend of interconnected topics, where Casamiquela jumps from one to the next, branches out along a path, and, once he gets back to the fork, then forgets to carry on with the original thread, leaving the reader waiting for more information! It includes many complex etymological comments on the Mapuche and Tehuelche languages, which explain some things but, regrettably obscure others. If you are not into Patagonian natives and their myths, you will surely fall asleep reading it!.

Gualicho

However it is an interesting source for those interested in the Patagonian evil creature "par excellence", the Gualicho. It is a pan-Patagonian myth, a monster, night creature, child kidnapper, a creature that had to be appeased so that it took its evil powers somewhere else.

From Patagonia the myth spread out through Southern Chile and the Pampas, borne on the hordes of Mapuche and Mapuche language speaking Puelches, into Buenos Aires and Uruguay. The myth still exists today and is a common household word (for instance: lovers are often said to be "engualichados" -bewitched) in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.

The actual word “Gualicho” is Mapuche but its origin can be traced to the Tehuelche language for it is actually a Tehuelche myth. There are several Tehuelche words for this monster. One of its many names is Ajchüm, another is Elëngassën. The Mapuche blended their own “monster myth” of Kollón with Gualicho.

This is a genuine Patagonian myth. But, what is this creature supposed to be?
In my book, I mention the myth, and note that it has two different personifications, one human-like, the other, an animal:

As described by Claraz and Moreno, the Elëngassën at Segunda Angostura, excluding its armadillo-like shell, had several human traits: it had the face of a man, it could vocalize and insult, furthermore, it could throw stones, something no glyptodon or any animal other than a human or a hominid could do. This was no glyptodon.
In addition, Moreno likens it to the Huitranalhue (see chapter V), which was a being described both as a man and as an animal. Mythical Carcancho also shares this dual human-animal nature. It is very probable that Elëngassën and several varieties of Carcancho were some sort of animal while Huitranalhue and the Segunda Angostura cave creature were some kind of wild man. [4]

In today's post I will take some of the information given by Casamiquela in his book and focus on the "creature" behind the myth, the man-like creature (not the animal) and see if it sheds any light on a possible hominid origin for the myth.

Ajchüm

Casamiquela, reports that his native Tehuelche informant, José Qulchamal, told him that the creature was also known as ósüne, meaning "the ugly one". Below is a transcription of Casamiquela's interview:

"He had a hide like a guanaco [guanaco = relative of the llama and vicuña] , stole children and was hunchbacked... He was not people, he may have looked like people, but he was not people... He, who robbed children, yes... He was a male ... /what was his shape? or, had he four or two paws?/ no, no, he did not have paws, he was the same as a person... a very unsociable person / why unsociable?/ Because he had lived in those cliffs over there ... he would throw stones at you... and I have heard that thing cry out. /So the Ajchüm would still be alive/ yes, still.... that man does not have clothes like we have, seems like he was, or carries leather, of guanaco hide /Ah, he has a thick hide?/ "A thick hide I do not know, but the same color as the guanaco. .. he took [the children] and of course, killed them..." [1]

Called Kollón by the Mapuche Carmen Nahueltripay, a mix of Tehuelche and Mapuche, she said that Kollón "was like people, very big... its face very long, it has hair, speaks like people but is not tame".[2]

Another native informant, Liboria Crespo said that "Kollón was the ancestor of the [Tehuelche] race" [2].

What is more, these creatures have lived until relatively recent time, another native, Margarita Manquilef, of Ramos Mexía, Río Negro Province, reported that "until recently there was an "kollón" couple living at Garacán lagoon, towards Somuncurá in the Tambelén, Tapiluque area of Río Negro. They could be seen on a mountain top, on the prairie, of stone, with a child on their shoulders. They lived in a cave. One died and its bones remained..."[2]

Mariano Huala, from Alto Río Senguerr, in Chubut province, said that "his body was the same as that of a Christian [i.e. a human being]. Only his skull and his face was different... bigger... he lived in the Andean Cordillera, in the highest places" [2]

What is it?

Let’s check its main features:

Man-like (“a person but not a person”)
A hunch-backed person
Lived in cliffs, in the highest mountains
Unsociable, stole children, mated (lived in pairs and carried child on shoulders)
Different face (longer) and skull
Hairy, wore a hide or its hair was like the fur of a guanaco (light brown, soft and fluffy).
Vocalized (nobody mentions “speaking”).
Threw stones
Ancestor of the Tehuelche people (a primitive human being?)

The interesting part is the stone axe. Which may be an Acheulean axe!

The axe

In a previous post I mention Felix Oute’s article which reported an Acheulean-style handaxe in Patagonia and hinted that it may be the work of pre-sapiens humans. In his book, Casamiquela mentions [3] a Tehuelche phrase regarding Gualicho: "tauk ka ülüngásüm a újüch". That is, the “Axe of the Gualicho”.

Casamiquela says that this "axe of the Kollón" is also known by its Mapuche name ("toki" = axe). He drops the thread there but mentions on pp. 24 that the creature “owns a certain stone “axe”, he makes no further refrence to stone axes beyond some remarks on the “engraved stones” (placas grabadas) on pp. 73, which are not axes but fragile pieces of slate, engraved with lines and drawings. Their real purpose is unknown.

So, it is quite likely that the Gualicho is a primitive human (either Neanderthal or even H. erectus, making stone tools and living in secluded areas.
What follows deals with the Mapuche stone axes, which in my opinion have nothing to do with the Gualicho myth and Casamiquela’s attempt to blend them is mistaken.

The Mapuche stone axe, Toki-Cura

The “toki” or “toqui” (both kinds of spelling are valid) is part of the Mapuche (the Chilean Mapuche) culture.

According to Diego de Rosales, who wrote one of the first History’s of Chile’s in the late 1600s, there was a Mapuche “official”known as the “General Toqui”, (who got his name from? Or gave it to? The “toqui” ceremonial axes. He wrote that:

General Toquis are justices and just like the Romans used to carry ahead of them some axes and staffs that they called faces et falaces, these [natives] carry as a symbol, some axes , not of iron but of flint, with a handle fixed to them, like the consular faces, symbols of their dignity” [7]

They were military authorities and used these axes in their councils with other General Toquis. The axes were ceremonial, made of black stone, sometimes meteorites were used for this purpose (having fallen from heaven they were supposedly divine and conferred power to its user). They have also been described as [6] “a polished sub-cylindric neolithic axe”.

Trivia
1. By the way, [5] the Mapuche word toki, is taken as a possible link between the Polynesian cultures and the Mapuche, since the same word is used in Eastern Polynesian (Easter Island uses the word toki and the Hawaians ko’i pohaku) for “stone axe”. Coincidence or pre-Hispanic contacts?
2. The stone axe is also known as toquichen and Toqui curá (Curá is their word for “stone”) so it means “stone axe”.

There is also another name for the axe: Pillán Toqui, Pillán’s axe.

This last name is associated to their god Pillán, associated to volcanos and lightning / thunder, and is therefore very similar to the Roman god Jupiter and the Scandinavian Thor, both of which are linked to lightning.

Furthermore, the Mapuche axe is also known as “Lightining stone” and said to fall from the skies during storms (it also points at the “meteorite” stone used to make some of these axes). [6]

I am not implying that the Romans or Vikings transmitted their myths to the ancient Mapuches, I just want to point out how some beliefs appear in a recurrent manner over the years among different people.

Interestingly, an online source [8] says that “the lightning stones were NOT prehistoric axes but a product of nature. Lightning strikes and it penetrates the soil at high temperatures melting minerals on the way and dragging them to a considerable depth. These, when they cool down have the shape of an axe or a cone”. It mentions Darwin’s findings (read about it in his Beagle Voyage book) on a beach (in Uruguay) , of glass rods caused by lightning.

Sources

[1] Rodolfo Casamiquela, (1988). En pos del Gualicho. Eudeba, Fondo Editorial Rionegrino. pp. 84
[2] Op. Cit. pp.12-14
[3] Op.Cit. pp. 13
[4] Whittall, Austin. In print. Patagonian monsters : a guide to its giants, dwarves, lake creatures and mythical beasts Buenos Aires : Zagier & Urruty Publicaciones, 2011.
[5] Adolphe Wurm, Peter Mühlhäusler, Darrell T. Tryon, (1996). Atlas of languages of intercultural communication in the Pacific, Asia and the Americas. Walter de Gruyter, pp 1334.
[6] Oscar Barreto. (1996). Fenomenología de la religiosidad mapuche Editorial Abya Yala. pp 16.
[7] De Rosales Diego, (1674) Historia General del Reyno de Chilepp. 178 (Ed. 1877 Valparaiso)
[8] Tradición Espiritual Aborigen, Introducción de F. Schuon al libro
"La Pipa Sagrada" de Hehaka Sapa

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Lake Epuyen a Lake Creature sighting

2011-11-25T12:35:00.001-03:00

A few days ago I came across a comment posted on a blog entry about Nahuelito. The person who wrote it, is named Rocío (evidently a woman), who interestingly was initially skeptical but, is now a "believer" in Lake creatures.

See for yourself (I am quoting her comment from the above mentioned blog):

"Rocio said:
March 7, 2011 at 2:56 pm
I was born in Bariloche and I have spent nearly all my life in this beautiful place and have been lucky enough to navigate the Nahuel Huapi quite often.
I have never seen anything resembling the Cuero or Nahuelito. Furthermore I believe that there is an explanation for everything. That we ignore it is another matter.
But, I want to tell you that last weekend (Saturday 05-March-11) I saw something super incredible at Lake Epuyen (Chubut). It was very calm, not even one single wave, a lovely day. My friend and I felt as if somebody dived into the water on the coast opposite to us, then we both looked and saw two long [animal] backs, which could be seen on the surface and then submerged, creating waves that reached us.
Looking for an explanation, I wondered if they were not two scuba divers, but I dismissed the idea due to the large size they had. Now I do believe that there may be an unknown animal living in the Lake District."

Lake Epuyen is quite close to the lake where the famous Plesiosaur was said to have been sighted and which led to an expedition to hunt it back in 1922.

I posted on the Plesiosaur and included a map of lake Epuyen.

Comments:

So what did Rocío see? Huemul live on the northern part of the lake. There is a Provincial Natural Reserve just there, to protect them. Huemul (an endangered native Patagonian deer) like to swim in the lakes (more on Swimming Huemul. A calm day is the best one to notice waves and the lack of wind can carry sound better so a deer jumping into the lake would have been heard across the lake. Once in the water, the animal's backs would be seen.

I can't explain the "submerged" part of her comment. The animals dived under water! and did not surface again.

Maybe the creature is not a Huemul. Perhaps it is an otter? But Rocío said they were big. Otters (huillín) are not so big. Less than 3 feet long.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

My big "fish" at Millaqueo Bay

2011-11-25T11:50:00.001-03:00

This morning I was looking at the photographs taken during our recent trip to Bariloche, when we went up the chairlift to the summit of Mount Campanario, a solitary cone shaped mountain that lies on the southern shore of Lake Nahuel Huapi which is 1,030 m (3,377 ft.) high.

From the mountain top (which has a nice cozy restaurant where you can enjoy a hot chocolate laced with cognac!), the view is impressive. To the East, the city of Bariloche, 20 km away and beyond it, the Patagonian steppe and the eastern tip of Lake Nahuel Huapi.

To the North, the lake itself, majestic, with the forest covered hills that enclose it. Snow on the mountain tops as it is mid Spring. Far to the North, the peaks of the Andes that mark the border between Argentina and Chile. To the West, more mountains and a view of the Tristeza and Blest Arms of the lake. And, Behind us, to the South, Lake Moreno and the tall mountains (López, Capilla, Goye, Catedral -with its ski resort), and to the South East, the Otto and Ventana Mountains.

The forest, the deep blue lakes, the snow and clouds. A great scenery!
Anyway, one of the photos that we took, showed Millaqueo Bay. Behind it is Mount Millaqueo (1,800 m - 5,900 ft.) on the left, and Mount Vinagre (1,870 m - 6,131 ft.) and Colorado (1,900 m - 6,229 ft.) (center and right).

A large stream flows into the Bay's northern shore, Millaqueo Creek, this part of the bay is relatively flat and has a nice sandy beach. Its western shore is steep and forested.

Map of Millaqueo Bay. Based on Google EArth maps

The "big fish" incident

I was fishing here with my father in the early 1970s, I think it was 1975. We used to bring our boat all the way from Buenos Aires to fish for trout, trolling the lake if the weather allowed us to.

It was a 4.5 m (14.75 ft.) fiberglass speedboat equipped with a 90 HP Chrysler outboard motor. We used to troll for hours, leaving home early in the morning, at sunrise and getting back by midday.

On this particular day we decided to fish along the lake's western coast in the area by Millaqueo. We had equipped our lines (we used two canes, on on each side of the boat) with a flatfish lure. We added a small lead-sheet weight wrapped round the tip of the line to sink the lure even deeper (without the weight the lures sank to a depth of about 1 m - 3 ft., with the lures weighed down, they sank to about 3 m - 9 ft.).

With this method we had caught some big (5 kg - 11 lbs.) brown trout! Which we smoked and ate the following winter.

This morning, we began trolling at the mouth of the lake's Blest Arm, parallel to the coast, about 50 yards from it, going north. When we reached the mouth of Millaqueo Stream, I got a tug on my line. (the map shows our course, in red).

The usual sign of a bite was that the line began to run out from the spool. We had adjusted the fishing-reel's brake to allow the line to be drawn out if a fish took the lure. My Dad stopped the engine and I started to reel the line in. The brake was skidding even though the boat had stopped dead. This "fish" was pulling the line out faster than I could reel it in!

I tightened the brake a little (a delicate balance the tightness issue, I had lost some fish because the line cut due to an over-tight brake) to slow the "fish" down and kept on reeling in as fast as I could. But the line kept on running from the spool until it came to an end, tensed, became more and more taught, and cut!
We used a 0.4 mm mono-filament nylon line, which could withstand fish weighing up to 11 kg (24 lb.) so we were quite surprised at what had happened.

We had fished in the Patagonian lakes for many years, caught dozens of trout of all kinds and sizes (many were returned unharmed to the water). But not once did we lose a fish because it took the whole line and then cut it! We had big reels with over 150 m (491 ft.) of nylon line in them.

What bit my lure and drew all the line is a mystery. It must have been a very big fish. Which, by the way did not jump out of the water, not even once. Rainbow trout, once they bit the lure, jumped out of the water. But this trout stayed submerged.

We often wondered what "fish" it could have been. I don't know. It was not an underwater snag as the lake is deep there, and a rock or tree would not have taken the line from my reel.

Who knows! I only hope that it wasn't a Patagonian otter (huillín), though we never saw one of them in the lake.

2011 and the "big fish"

The reason I wrote about the big fish 36 years later, is because, if you take a good look at the photo above, in the central part of the image, close to the northwestern shore, by the mouth of Millaqueo Stream, you will see an odd thing on the lake's surface. Below is the zoomed image:

The lake is perfectly calm except for this circular shaped ripple, which is quite big considering how far away it is from my observation point!.

Perhaps the "big fish" is still alive and kicking!

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Sarmiento de Gamboa's UFO in Patagonia (1580)

2011-11-25T09:52:00.002-03:00

Spanish explorer Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa recorded a strange incident during his voyage of exploration to the Strait of Magellan, it happened on the evening of Sunday, February 7, 1580.

(Sarmiento de Gamboa founded two ill fated colonies on the Strait of Magellan whose inhabitants starved to death, one became known as Port Famine. Only one settler survived to be rescued and taken to Lima).

He recorded the event in his journal and the original text is shown in the following image

Sarmiento de Gamboa's Journal. From [1]

Below is my translation of the original Spanish text. My comments are in brackets “[ ]”:

"Tonight during the evening on the South East side, quarter towards the South [South south east] we saw a round thing, red as fire, like an oval shaped shield, rise; it climbed through the sky, perhaps on the wind. Above a tall mountain it extended [in time or in shape?] , and being as a tall spear upon the mountain, it became like a half moon, tinted between red and white. Its shapes were like these [2] [see fig. 4, in the plates]

The figure drawn in his journal is shown below:

The image of the UFO seen by Sarmiento de Gamboa. From [1]

What could it have been?

What was this U.F.O.? (not in the sense of an alien spacecraft, but as a natural phenomenon). A comet or an eclipse.

Well, there actually was a total moon eclipse with the full moon of Jan 31, 1580, at 21:36 U.T., which would be around 17:36 or 5:36 PM in the area close to Tierra del Fuego (Gamboa was close to the Strait's western mouth) and actually it was visible in that area (see map below).[1]

The Lunar Eclipse of Jan. 31, 1580. By NASA. From [2]

Yes, I know, the dates are wrong, the eclipse happened on January 31st while Sarmiento wrote about something that happened on February 7th!

At first I thought that as Sarmiento’s diary was kept following the dates used back then, in 1579, which corresponded to the Julian calendar introduced by Julius Caesar, the eclipse could account for his sighting.

As you all know, the Julian calendar was out of phase with the real motion of the Earth by about 11 minutes every year. So when Easter began falling behind the “real” astronomical date, Pope Gregory XIII modified the calendar in 1582 to compensate for these 11 minutes per year difference. The Council of Nicea in 325 AD had done a minor adjustment, but by these 11 minutes a day added up to about 10 days in 1582. So in October 1582, the calendar was adjusted and October 15th followed October 4th. Many people wondered what happened to those 10 stolen from their lives!

But this cannot explain the eclipse. Because: 1) Julian Calendar is used to reflect astronomical events prior to 1582 and the NASA website [2] says the eclipse happened on January 31st.

¿Could Sarmiento have mistaken the dates?

By the way, the images seem to show a moon changing shape due to the Earth’s shadow flitting across it. The reddish color is also typical of lunar eclipses.
But we have one week difference!

The answer to my question is NO, he did not mistake the dates, in fact he saw and recorded the lunar eclipse in his journal:

"This Sunday there was a lunar eclipse; and though Sarmiento observed it and it was a clear night, and the Moon appeared in the East while the Sun set, and when it rose, it appeared round and totally un-eclipsed, but its redness and darkness that came over the sky as it showed itself above the Eastern horizon...." [1] pp. 184

So we can forget about the eclipse! I could not find any comets during that period either.

Perhaps some distant volcano’s eruption reflecting on a cloud blown by Patagonia’s wind?

A mystery, but I don’t think it can be due to an extraterrestrial alien craft.

Then again, the image in Sarmiento de Gamboa's journal looks like the Moon during Last Quarter, and, on February 8th that was precisely the Moon's phase. Could a volcanic eruption have caused the Moon to appear red? This is quite a common phenomenon, "blood red" Moon due to volcanic ash in the air (I have seen it due to Puyehue Volcano's recent eruption).

Sources

[1] Sarmiento de Gamboa, P., (1768). Viaje al Estrecho de Magallanes por el Capitán Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa en los años de 1579 y 1580… Madrid: Imprenta Real de la Gazeta. Pp 205 and plates.
[2] NASA. Phases of the Moon: 1501 to 1600

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Dr. Wolff and the "tertiary skull"

2011-11-24T12:24:00.000-03:00

The prestigious journal Nature published [1] an interesting comment in the 1920s, which I quote in full below. It deals with a skull of alleged tertiary age which turned out to be a lusus naturae, a freak of nature, a stone shaped like a skull:

"In our issue of March 10, 1923, p. 336, we referred to a number of telegrams which had appeared in the daily Press reporting the discovery of a so-called fossilised human skull of Tertiary age in Patagonia.
At the time, we urged the need of caution in accepting such reports. Dr. Imbelloni has contributed to the Revista de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, t. li., under the title "Nota sobre los supuestos descubrimientos del Doctor J. G. Wolff en Patagonia" what may be regarded as teh final chaper in the history of hte alleged discovery. His object is to place the facts on record and at the same time to clear Argentine men of science of any suspicion of having lent support to the view that the find was genuine and of a high antiquity.
Dr. Imbelloni's account, which is written with an acid humor, makes it clear that the report was received from the first with scepticism. As soon as Dr. Eric Boman and others had an opportunity of cross-examining Dr. Wolff, they arrived at the opinion that the specimen was not a skull at all. It was not, however, available for examination. When it reached Buenos Aiers in May, it was immediately examined by a commission consisting of Dr. Boman, Dr. S. R. Dabbene, Dr. R. Lehmann-Nitsche, Prof. F. F. Outes, Dr. V. Vidakovitch, and the author, and it was at once pronounced to be a block of sandstone". [1]

This Dr. Wolff (others write it Wolfe) and the skull were mentioned by Riggs during his 1923 paleontological expedition to Patagonia. Riggs he had the misfortune of meeting Wolff and believing him: [2]

...a certain J. G. Wolfe introduced himself and offered his services to the expedition. Wolfe claimed to have been a museum curator in Rio Gallegos and to have held a commission in the Argentine army. But what aroused Riggs' interest, more than his credentials, was Wolfe's description of a "Tertiary human skull [...] They set out for El Paso de Santa Cruz, [currently this place is the town of Luis Piedrabuena, close to the mouth of the Santa Cruz River] the settlement where the skull had apparently been found. The proprietor of a local hostelry recalled that the skull had first attracted notice about 1916 and had been discovered in a roadbed near town. The first person to suspect that it might be of scientific value was said to have been an English nurse, a Mrs. Vendrino, who had worked in the area for some years. She obtained custody of the skull and it was in her possession when Wolfe had examined it earlier.
In El Paso de Santa Cruz, Riggs— who was becoming increasingly suspicious of the alleged skull— was told that Mrs. Vendrino had recently "gone mad" and had been taken to Buenos Aires for treatment. She had taken her treasured, 22-pound skull along as a trophy. Eventually, Riggs was able to track down the "skull," and his suspicions were confirmed: it was just a very curious stone, with a remarkable humanoid shape." [2]

Riggs later described Wolff or Wolfe as follows:

"He betrays no evidence of scientific training, [and]
is particularly lacking in ability to recognize and interpret natural objects and to derive data from them. His method ... has been to get theories from reading and then to cast about for some object to fit into the theory. ... Dr. Wolfe
has impressed us as an enthusiast with a wanderlust and no purpose beyond gratifying it. He studied law ... but found that profession too tame and colorless to suit his fancy. He ... apparently wrote extravagant stories in order to sell them. He is already, so he says, under fire of criticism of a leading scientist in Buenos Aires." [2]

Bear this in mind, because Wolff also discovered an ancient city in the heart of Patagonia, but I will deal with that in another post.

Unfortunately I have not been able to read Imbelloni's paper on the sandstone skull or seen any photographs of it. Why would everybody think that it was a fossil skull? was it disregarded because of Wolff's extravagant nature? or because prejudice veiled the reason of the scientists that inspected the "skull".

Sources

[1] Nature 113. 58-60 (12 Jan. 1924) News. Current Topics and Events.
[2] Larry G. Marshal, 1978. Adventures in Patagonia. Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin. March 1978 Vol 49 No. 3. pp 4+

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Yeti nests

2011-11-22T14:53:00.002-03:00

View Larger Map
Map showing Kemerovo. Altai is between it and Urumqi.

Recently, I have been following some articles online regarding the Siberian Yeti. I am skeptical about this particular Yeti, but I want to share it with my readers.

Siberia is quite far from Patagonia yet both places share some common features which may link any hominids in one place with those in the other:

Empty spaces - not crowded with human beings
A relatively unpolluted and natural environment
A similar environment: mountains, forests, lakes and steppes
Myths regarding ape-men
Similar people (Central Siberia is the alleged home of the native American people) - perhaps similar myths?

As Siberia is the home of Denisovans and Neanderthals also lived in Western-Central Asia, it is the likely source of American hominid cryptids.

Well, an online article published in the Daily Mail's November 15, 2011 edition, mentions "Yeti 'nests'".

The intertwined saplings shown in the photographs seem to be flimsy evidence and the footprint in the ice may be "man made". Personally I tend to believe that the authorities at Kemerovo Region are fishing for tourists interested in sighting the Yeti and promoting their region as a Yeti haven. (see my Oct. 2010 post about Cryptids and Tourism which mentions Russian Yetis.

On the other hand, as you can see in the map above or int the map of Kemerovo published in the article, that it is very close to Altai (where Russia, Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan meet), home of Denisovans.

They have also found some tufts of hair. Lets wait for the DNA tests to reveal who they belong to.

Well, that is all for now!

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2012 International Year of Sustainable Energy for All

2011-11-22T13:50:00.000-03:00

Forget the horrid Maya Apocalypse omens, 2012 is not going to be a bad year (if the global economy stays on track!), actually, next year is the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All (official Sustainable Energy For All website).

A great cause, sustainable energy, let's wake up now, while there is still time to revert Climate Change and reduce Greenhouse Gases. Otherwise start buying your tickets now to see Patagonia's Continental Ice Sheets and glaciers before they melt (until the next Ice Age). Let's preserve Nahuelito's ecosystem!

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Neanderthal Tools in Patagonia

2011-11-22T12:32:00.001-03:00

Acheulean Tools in Patagonia. From [1] Outes

In the early 1900s, Patagonia was still an unknown place, which held (it still does, one century later!) many unsolved mysteries. Furthermore, conflicting theories about the origin of human beings were confronted and one of their battle grounds was Patagonia.

Florentino Ameghino and Francisco Moreno, though implacable enemies, defended an American origin of mankind. Papers written at that time in Argentina, supported this idea.

It is refreshing to find one that dares to voice an opposing point of view, one written by Felix Outes.[1] (who published it in Ameghino's Museum's magazine), in which he analyses Patagonia's "stone age"

No ancient dolichocephalics!

He believed that the people of Patagonia were not autocthonous, yet he cautiously added:

“I believe that in those territories there has been a substratum, which has certainly been well defined, of a paleolithic type, whose osteological [bones] remains are still unknown to us, but whose primitive industry I will describe [later]” [1].

So it seems that he thought that Patagonia held, concealed in its vast empty spaces, the remains of ancient humans who were the authors of the Acheulean tools he found there. By the way, one of these stone tools is shown above, and was found in Santa Cruz province, at San Julián, and is 155 mm high, 102 mm wide and 31 mm thick (6.1 x 4.0 x 1.22 in.).

Acheulean tools are a very primitive variety of stone instruments which were the work of our more distant relatives, Neanderthals, Homo erectus, H. ergaster, etc. They were later replaced by more advanced lithic industries. Though, archaic modern humans did use later, more advanced kinds of Acheulean tools.

The interesting thing, from my point of view is that the Patagonian Acheulean tools do point at some “archaic” humans or Neanderthals in the region.

Outes then goes on to state that (Moreno’s) dolichocephalic people and the modern natives with brachicephalic skulls, were contemporary, the former never entered the heart of Patagonia beyond 41° S, and stopped on the shores of the Negro River, while the latter reached the Strait of Magellan and Tierra del Fuego.

He also says that “I believe that it is a mistake to consider as exaggeratedly ancient those dolichocephalic skulls that have been found until now. The long skulled peoples, I have reasons to believe this, still existed in large numbers at the historical time of the Spanish Conquest, not only on the Negro River, but also in the south of the province of Buenos Aires, and even in Entre Ríos province...”

And once again stated that the “Quaternary Patagonian man has not yet been discovered (rebuffing Moreno's "ancient" Patagons with dolichocephalic crania). 106 years later they still haven't been found (or, I would say, they haven't even been "looked for" by Argentina's poorly funded scientists).

Outes closed his article concluding that the “Patagonian Paleolithic industry compared to the European, has a great similarity in shapes, etc., with the one that defines the Acheulean period according to Mr. G.de Mortillet’s classification and corresponds to the Chelleo-Mousterian transition period ...”

He then added that this lithic technology is found in Patagonia in “undoubtedly more modern geologic formations than those in which their European counterparts are found” believing that this is due to the backwardness of the human groups that inhabited the southern tip of America.

A Typical mindset of those bigoted -not to say racist- days (classing people as primitive or advanced).

An intriguing thought... Could the relatively modern sites with Acheulean tools be due to a contemporary survival of ancient human groups in Patagonia? That is, they did not reflect "primitive" modern humans but Neanderthals with their traditional Acheulean technology?

Source

[1] Oütes, Félix F., (1905). La edad de la piedra en Patagonia. Estudio de arqueología comparada. Anales del Museo Nacional de Buenos Aires. Serie III. Tomo V. Buenos Aires, A. Alsina Impr. Aug. 10, 1905. Pp. 203.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Moreno and the American Neanderthaloids

2011-11-22T10:16:00.003-03:00

In 1880, Argentine scientist and explorer Francisco Pascasio Moreno disclosed in a series of conferences [3] he gave in Europe, his discovery of two new skulls, one was quite recent but the other was very peculiar and belonged to:

"a race represented by a neanderthaloid type, similar to the Botocudos [...] with a very pronounced flattening of the skull [3]

These Botocudos (from the Portuguese word Botoque - plug, due to the wooden disks they place in their ear lobes and lips), were deemed at that time to be primitive, and they also had dolichocephalic skulls (also a supposedly "ancient" feature).

Moreno's skull had been found close to the Negro River, in Northern Patagonia, at a depth of four meters [13 ft.] in association with the remains of large extinct mammals. After Moreno's lecture at the Société d'Anthropologie, Topinard, who had attended the session, openly suggested that "...that skull was the South American equivalent of the Neanderthal".[1]

An American origin for Neanderthals?

Paul Topinard (1830-1911), Broca's chief disciple, pointed out that ths skulls of both Neanderthals and primitive Paleo-Indians were dolichocephalic, with receeding foreheads and prominent brow ridges. Broca and Topinard supported the notion that the dolichocephalic skulls were ancient while brachicephalic skulls were a trait common to "modern" humans. Moreno's findings tended to support this idea.

Topinard suggested that "It makes us ask wether Neanderthal is not accidental in Europe during the Quaternary Period, and his real homeland is Southern South America" [2] Therefore upholding an American origin for Neanderthals. I believe that he was the first to suggest this idea.

He also believed that the Tehuelche were the remnants of this autocthonous human group, originated in America. German doctor, Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902), had the same ideas, however Italo-Argentine scientist Florentino Ameghino (1854-1911) believed that Moreno's skulls belonged to an extinct dolichocephalic group of humans, unrelated to modern Tehuelche natives which had been displaced and replaced by brachicephalic modern men.

The similarities between Moreno's skull and the remains found in Brazil, at Lagoa Santa, Brazil, by Lund between 1835 and 1844 led some scientists in the 1880s to believe that these belonged to a native American race, and an "OOA" (Out Of America) theory for the peopling of the world, very emphatically supported by Ameghino, but (even until today) opposed by the North American school led by Czech scientist Ales Hrdlicka (1869-1943) who attacked anyone who dared to suggest an autocthonous origin of humans.

Sources

[1] Leonardo Salgado, Pedro Navarro and Pablo Azar. Antiguos Craneos humanos de Patagonia: Observaciones sobre el significado evolutivo del "indice cefálico" en la literatura científica Argentina (1870-1915). ILUIL, vol 27, 2004 - 769-790.
[2] July, 1 1880, Session. Bulletin de la Société d’Anthropologie, Paris, pp. 490.
[3] Moreno, Francisco, (1880). Sur deux crânes préhistoriques rapportés du Rio Negro Bulletin de la Société d’Anthropologie, Paris, June 15, 1880, p.p 490-497.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Culebrón in Neuquén, Lake Polcahue

2011-11-05T20:42:00.004-03:00

During our recent four day vacation in San Carlos de Bariloche, we stopped by our favorite bookstore to take a peek at what was for sale (they sell second hand books as well as new ones, and they have a wide range of books on my beloved topic: Patagonia).

I managed to buy three jewels. Two old ones:

Gregorio Alvarez's El Tronco de Oro, Ediciones Corregidor, 1994.
Rodolfo Casamiquela's En pos del Gualicho, Fondo Editorial Rionegrino - EUDEBA, 1988.

And a new one on Rio Negro province's place names: R. Casamiquela (1998), Estudios de la Toponimia Indígena de la Provincia de Río Negro. Ed. del Autor.

The first two are especially interesting since they mention some cryptids. The second one focuses on the Ellengassen monster, also known as Gualicho.

But today I will mention something I found in Alvarez´s book, the Culebrón a snake-like aquatic creature.

On page 247 Alvarez wrote:

At lake Polcahue there is a culebón whose body must be about one meter [3.3 ft.] thick. It appeared after a herd that had rushed to the frozen lake to drink, sank in it. This lake is located close to China Muerta, in a place known as Pulmary. The locals say that Mr. César Fosbery saw it. [1]

Mr. C. Fosbery was a local pioneer (1898-1976)[2]. The name of the lake has two possible meanings:

Polcahue: Deformation of pulcu, a native alcoholic beverage and hue = place. So, it means "Place where there is pulcu". Alternatively, it may derive from "Polca = slippery. Hence: "Slippery place".[3]

You can see the lake at this link leading to Google maps or, at another scale below:

View Larger Map

The lake drains towards the east through the Arroyo China Muerta (China Muerta Creek) by the way this name (China Muerta) means "Dead" [Muerta] and "Native woman" [China]. Yes, China means Chinese in Spanish, but in the local Pampean and Patagonian dialect it means a native American woman (due to the oriental appearance of the American indians).

This stream drains into the Aluminé River, which flows from Lake Aluminé (to the north of Polcahue). Aluminé River flows throguh the Collón Curá River into the Limay River, and then into the Negro River and into the Atlantic Ocean.

Close by (south) is Lake Quillén with its Cuero lake creature.

Important. The bookstore is: La Barca Libros Usados, on Mitre street, 534. San Carlos de Bariloche.

Sources
[1] Gregorio Alvarez's El Tronco de Oro, Ediciones Corregidor, 1994.
[2] Fosbery Cesar Family tree.
[3] Juan Perón Toponimia Patagónica de Etimología Araucana, pp. 42.
Yes, the (in)famous former President 1946-1951(and then dictator 1951-1955, exile 1955-1972 and again President 1973-1974) of Argentina, whose wife was Eva Perón, (better known as Evita of musical fame). He left us his last wife as Vice President, who upon his death in office on 01.Jul.1974, swore in as President. Her job qualifications were poor (former cabaret dancer) so she lost the grip on things, and one tragedy followed another until on 24.March.1976 the military took over and ran the country until 1983. In the meantime they did horrendous things (disappearing people, torturing women, giving away the babies of people held in custody. Genocides and murderers). So yes, I do blame Perón for his ill choice of his running mate! He could have chosen someone with experience, but no, he left us his cabaret dancer wife "Isabelita" (yes, she even had a "nom de guerre") Marí Estela Martínez de Perón.
Enough history for today. It makes you wonder who are the real Monsters.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

My photos of "Nahuelito"

2011-10-23T16:13:00.004-03:00

In a recent post I wrote that during my trip to Bariloche I had taken some photographs of a strange thing in Lake Nahuel Huapi.

The sequence is shown below, the first photo shows the view, looking North,from the summit of Cerro (Mount) Campanario, a solitary mountain 1.050 m high (3,442 ft.), which gives a great 360° view of the Lake and its southeastern coast. It is located 17 km (10.6 mi.) from Bariloche and 3 km (2 mi) from my family's cabin. We took a walk on Oct. 8, and rode up the mountain on a chairlift. The day was lovely, slightly cloudy, not windy and sunny. The lake was calm and the view great.

We looked at the lake and the scenery and took some pictures. Then I saw what I thought was a boat on the lake, close to Huemul Peninsula, between it and Victoria Island. It stood out as a dark dot on the calm lake which moved slowly, too slowly for a boat. I took several photographs (numbered 1 to 4). Now, looking at them, they seem to show a rippled lake surface which reflects the mountains in the back, hence the dark reflection on the lake surface. It was not a boat, it was the reflected forest.

However, photo 5 shows something else (clearly seen in photo 5 and its zoom):

It is a minute dot, a triangular shaped dark object towards the right of the central part of the photo. It is seen in photo 6 and then it is gone, it does not appear in the remaining photos.

Options: Possible explanations and my estimated probability.

1. Another reflection of the mountains... 95%
2. Some sort of wave... 5%
3. Nahuelito surfacing... 0%

Sorry, but I am a skeptic, even if I see it myself. Perhaps, if I had taken my binoculars I could have seen it better and been able to give a better explanation.

The detailed photos are these:
Photo 1: General view of the area, the remaining photos concentrate on the region within the red circle.

Photo 2:

Photo 3:

Photo 4:

Photo5: "Nahuelito" is the tiny dot, a small dark "wedge" on the central right part of the image.

Zoom on Photo 5:

Photo 6:

Photo 7:

Photo 8:

If you want a copy of any of these photos, I can send you the originals.
The original high definition photo 5 is below:

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

100,000 hits! and Nahuelito

2011-10-11T12:34:00.001-03:00

Well, today is quite a day!, I have just checked the counter at the foot of the page and noticed that we have had more than one hundred thousand hits!

Thank you all for visiting this blog and reading what I have written. I am flattered and honored.

Volcano and ashes
By the way, I was in Bariloche (Lake Nahuel Huapi) with my wife and son, we went there for a few days as it was a long weekend here in Argentina (Columbus Day moved back to Monday 10th).

It was interesting because a volcano close to Bariloche has been erupting for several months now (our flight took us 3/4 of the way to Bariloche and we had to take a bus to cover the remaining 450 km) it is Puyehue Volcano, in Chile. My family's cabin, in the forest, was sprinkled with a talc-like ash and the whole garden and the area where the excess volcanic ash slid off the roof was covered with (I call it sand) volcanic ash. Between 5 and 10 cm (2 to 4 in.) covered the garden, pathways, roads. On Sunday the volcanic plume blew southeast and blanketed Bariloche. Amazing.

Nahuelito or a mirage?

By the way, I will post some pictures and an interesting set I took from the top of Cerro Campanario (a mountain whose Spanish name means belfry and which stands up, alone, above the lake close to our cabin) in it you can see a strange dark shape in the lake which vanished after a few minutes... Nahuelito? I don't think so, but it is a clear example of the strange things that can be seen (though, I had never seen something like that in the 40 years that I have spent gazing at Nahuel Huapi).

A preview:

The first image, above, shows a view looking north, across the narrow part of the lake, the circle is enlarged in the bottom image. It shows a dark shape floating in the lake, it later disappeared.

More photos and details in my next post.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Pleistocene Coalition

2011-10-01T18:36:00.000-03:00

The Pleistocene Coalition is a very interesting site and resource for those who are looking for another point of view regarding Prehistoric issues.

They are not afraid to challenge the orthodox status quo which tends to disregard anything that does not fit in with the neat model that "orthodox" scientists have built over the last century.

Check out their website and browse their "Pleistocene Coalition News" newsletter. It is very interesting:

www.pleistocenecoalition.com

In my next posts I will continue with the Neanderthals in America subject.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Neanderthal - Human admixture

2011-09-30T16:49:00.001-03:00

In America there are (according to the orthodox point of view) no Neanderthals, and there have never been any either. Neanderthals are Eurasian creatures. Yet, Amerindians have very high frequencies of haplogroups that are allegedly Neanderthal; some are even higher than many Old World groups. Some examples: the X chromosome’s B006, HLA-A*02 and HLA-C*07:02 among others. How can this be?

Furthermore, modern humans, Homo sapiens (HS) and Neanderthals (NH) do not share any mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) , we do not have any (NH) Y chromosomes in our genome but we do carry other kinds of (NH) DNA.

Today's post will begin to explain these odd situations, but first lets brush up on our genetic knowledge:

DNA, mtDNA, X, Y, genes, haplogroups, SNPs and chromosomes

Nuclear DNA. Is the chemical structure that encodes the information needed to build a living creature. It is made up of a double helix of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) linked by four bases or nucleotides: adenine (abbreviated A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). It is “nuclear” because it is found inside the nucleus of each cell in your body. It is inherited from both parents. These nucleotides (“DNA letters”) are arranged in “sequences”

Gene. It is a working subunit of DNA. Chunks of DNA (and RNA) that code a certain protein. There is a certain amount of reshuffling of genes in chromosomes.

Chromosome. The DNA molecules are packed, wound up, into minute structures known as chromosomes. Every cell in your body has two sets of chromosomes. You inherit one set from your mother and one set from your father. Each set has 23 chromosomes (total is 46). Of these, 22 are known as autosomes and 1 is a sex chromosome. Women have two X sex chromosomes, (XX) and men have an X and a Y sex chromosome (XY). The Y is transmitted from fathers to sons, who get their X sex chromosome from their moms. Girls get an X from each parent.

mtDNA, or Mitochondrial DNA is the specific DNA that small organelles called mitochondrion. These apparently were, eons ago, aerobic bacteria that established a symbiotic relationship with an anaerobic cell, taking up “food” inside the cell and providing it with energy. It lost its independent life, but retained its own DNA, which is not a double helix, but a circular shaped molecule. Although all cells in our bodies have mtDNA, you inherit yours from your mother, because it is her ovum or egg cell’s mitochondrion that passes on to you. Your dad’s sperm cells mitochondria remain outside the ovum, inside the flagellum (tail), and is discarded.

SNP , (pronounced “snip”), is a genetic variation in the DNA sequence in which one single nucleotide (i.e. A, T, C, or G) is modified and, kept through heredity. Let’s give an example: as you can see in the following three DNA sequences, there are variations in the second, fifth and ninth nucleotide. Each of these variations is a SNP, hence we name them SNP1, SNP2 and SNP3.

ACTTTGCTC    Haplotype 1 C  T  C
ACTTAGCTT    Haplotype 2 C  A  T
AATTTGCTC    Haplotype 3 A  T  C

SNP1 SNP2 SNP3

Haplotype, is a set of linked SNPs on the same chromosome

Haplogroup : A group which contains all the direct descendants of a single person (man or woman) who had, and passed-on a specific genetic marker (i.e. SNP) or mutation.

Getting the Neanderthal genes into modern humans
How did we, modern humans get the Neanderthal genes into our chromosomes in the first place? Yes, I do believe that there was sex involved, but whom with whom? And what was the outcome?

We can imagine groups of HS and NH living in overlapping territories and coming together occasionally perhaps for trade or to exchange articles. We can also envisage violent encounters with males killing males and raping the females. A more “romantic” setting would have a “one-night-stand” tryst during a get together around a camp site bonfire. The fact is that modern human beings and Neanderthals mated and had viable offspring (that carried the genes of NH parents in their bodies and managed to pass them on to their descendants so that it is still there, within our genes).

Lack of NH mtDNA. Mitochondrial DNA is passed on from mother to child. So if there were any Neanderthal mtDNA in humans, it could only have come from an ancestral Neanderthal woman. To survive until our days, since mtDNA is only transmitted by females, a continuous line of mother-daughters (who’s original “mom” was a Neanderthal woman), would have to span the 30,000 years that separate the last living Neanderthals from us.

However no Neanderthal mtDNA is found in humans, a paper [3] states that:

they estimate the maximum amount of admixture possible to observe no surviving Neanderthal mtDNA to be less than 0.1%, with no more than 120 admixture events during 12,000 years of overlap.[3]

In other words, one sexual encounter between a modern human man and a Neanderthal woman every century. Not very high frequency is it?

Anyway, since nowadays there is no Neanderthal mtDNA in HS, we can conclude that mating between HS men and NH women (was as limited as indicated by [3] : once every hundred years) or, if more frequent, it did not lead to a continuous lineage of hybrid N/HS women.

Possible explanations: (besides the “once a century” mating ratio), perhaps these trysts between HS and NH were few and far apart, and their outcome could have been sterile or they died without issue, in any case, they did not manage to survive long enough to pass on their genes to the next generations. Or if they did, these “generations” died out along the way, and the NH mtDNA died with them.
Or, since babies are brought up by their mothers (picture it: a HS male rapes or seduces a NH female and goes his way, with his HS clan. She gets pregnant and father is gone. So she brings up her HS/N hybrid son or daughter within her Neanderthal tribe or culture. The hybrid lives and has children and grandchildren, but the NH mtDNA, will stay within the Neanderthal tribe and will eventually die out with all the other Neanderthals, when these became extinct.
A male HS and a female NH breeding would therefore produce an admixture:

HS/N Hybrid boys: HS Y sex chromosome and NH X chromosome. NH mtDNA. Half of the autosomal DNA would be human, and the other half N.
HS/N Hybrid girls: HS X sec chromosome from father. NH mtDNA from mother, half the autosomal DNA from each parent, and NH X chromosome from mother.

DNA, the nuclear stuff
On the other hand, if Neanderthal men got human women pregnant, they would not pass on any NH mtDNA (the children would have their human mom’s mtDNA). But, the Neander-Dad would pass on his nuclear DNA . So, Man (N) and Woman (HS) would be a viable route to get Neanderthal DNA into our Homo sapiens cells.
This explains why we have Neander DNA (autosome chromosomes).

But there is more to it, we have not detected any Neanderthal Y (sex chromosome) in modern humans. A Man (N) would have passed his Y (N) chromosome to his sons, and they to theirs, forming a continuous lineage linking modern humans with NH Y chromosomes with their ancient NH relative 30 kya. So, why don’t we detect Y (N) in our modern humanDNA?

A 2006 paper found that the Neanderthal Y chromosome was “substantially more different from human and chimp Y chromosomes than are other chromosomes. This suggests that little interbreeding occurred, at least among the more recent Neanderthal species”[1].

But, even if there was little interbreeding, their “Y” chromosome should be present in modern humans together with their autosome chromosomes (snippets of which are part of our genes).

Why are there no NH Y chromosomes in the human genome?
One option is that all the male descendants of the original Neanderthal fathers died out (and their hallmark Y chromosomes with them).

Another option is given by Haldane’s law [2] which states that:

“When in the offspring of two different animal species one sex is absent, rare or sterile, that sex is the heterozygous sex ”

Heterozygous sex meaning the offspring with two different sex chromosomes: XY, that is, the male. In plain english Haldane is saying that a male (N) and a female (HS) would have had more daughters than sons (boys would be rare). These few, if any (absent) boys would be carrying their Neanderthal father’s Y (N) chromosome and, they would be very probably sterile and therefore did not have children and could not pass on their Y chromosome to their sons.

The hybrid daughters on the other hand would be healthy girls (being homozygous, and having the same kind of sex chromosomes: XX). They would also have received half of their autosomal DNA and the NH X sex chromosome from their Neanderthal father and half of their autosomal DNA and their other X sex chromosome from their human mother, and, not being sterile, they would have passed them both on to their offspring . This is how we got the (N) autosomal DNA and the NH X sex chromosome into our genes.

Furthermore, the human mother would bring up her hybrid child within her HS group, which survived (well, most of them did) until today.

Summary

The only viable way of getting NH X sex chromosomes and their DNA sequences into our genes is if a HS woman and a NH man mated and had children. They would all have their mothers mtDNA and a 50/50 mix of NH and HS autosome chromosomes, their mom’s HS X chromosome and dad’s NH X chromosome.

The image below shows the possible outcome of a male NH and a female HS:
We represent the sex chromosomes XX for the women and XY for the men.
Regarding the original couple, in red are both NH chromosomes, a X_n that he will pass on to his daughters, and a Y_n that will be inherited by his sons (who due to Haldane’s Rule will be few, absent or sterile), who won’t pass it on. The HS mom is shown as X¹ X². All descendants from this admixture will have the HS mom’s mtDNA (represented by a pale blue square placed under her). The NH mtDNA (pink square under dad) is lost and not passed on.

All possible offspring of a Neanderthal - Homo Sapiens mating.
Copyright © 2011 by Austin Whittall

The two possible combinations of X chromosomes (NH and HS) are women. And both of these daughters carry mom’s mtDNA. They will marry HS spouses and pass on their mtDNA to all their children. As you can see, the females of the line (mother – daughter) will all carry the mtDNA of the first woman to mate with a Neanderthal. The boys on the other hand will have children but their mtDNA will be the one of their mothers (i.e. the orange square). Nevertheless, the Xⁿ has an equal probability of getting transmitted along to the next generations.
As this happened when Humans and Neanderthal met, the window of occurrence is the time both NH and HS overlapped in the same habitat, it is the most likely way for Neanderthal males to come upon modern human women. But Where?

Was it in the original Neanderthal territory in Europe? In the Middle East? In Southwestern Asia? In Altai? Or (assuming that Neanderthals migrated into America), in America?

In my post Neanderthals in America some genetic proof I mentioned the B006 allele and O blood groups as a possible sign of Neanderthal presence in America. Are there other alleles belonging to Neanderthals and found in modern humans ( a sure sign of admixture)? Can we trace their source?

More markers of admixture, HLAs

A paper by Peter Parham [4] reports that a variety of Human leukoctyte antigens (HLAs) which help our immune system, such as the HLA-C*0702, quite common among Europeans and Asians but not found in Africa was also found in Neanderthal. The HLA-A*11 is shared by modern humans in Asia and... Denisovans, but it is nonexistent in Africa.

Parham suggests that HLA-C*0702 got into HS outside of Africa (hence its absence in Africa) by admixture with NH. And the same happened with HLA-A*11 (Denisovans bred with HS). As we were newcomers, these HLAs boosted our immune system to fight off illness (Denisovans and NH had evolved them over hundreds of thousands of years). Parham estimates that:

While only 6 per cent of the non-African modern human genome comes from other hominins, the share of HLAs acquired during interbreeding is much higher. Half of European HLA-A alleles come from other hominins, says Parham, and that figure rises to 72 per cent for people in China, and over 90 per cent for those in Papua New Guinea.[4]

The difference may be due to the hotter climate of the south having more diseases than the colder northern regions (i.e. Europe).

Where are these alleles found today: The maps below From [5] and [6] give a clear idea:

Some HLAs purportedly Neanderthal, found in modern humans: current distribution.
Maps From [5] and [6]

The post is getting long, but as you can see, the A*11 is very high in Papua New Guinea, China, South East Asia, and Southern Asia. C*07:02 is high in the same regions plus Scandinavia and Very high in America.

Another paper by Abi-Rached [6], which we will delve in deeper in another post, comments about Neanderthal admixture as follows:

Thus, Neandertal admixture contributed B*07, B*51, C*07:02, and C*16:02-bearing haplotypes to modern humans, and was likely the sole source of these allele groups[6]

More in my next post...

Sources

[1] Rex Dalton, (2006). Neanderthal DNA yields to genome foray. News. Nature 441, 260-261 (18 May 2006) | doi:10.1038/441260b.
[2] Haldane, J. B. S., (1922). Sex-ratio and unisexual sterility in hybrid animals. J. Genet. 12:101-109
[3] Jason A Hodgson and Todd R Disotell, (2008) No evidence of a Neanderthal contribution to modern human diversity, Genome Biology 2008, 9:206 doi:10.1186/gb-2008-9-2-206
[4] Peter Parham, (2011) Primate-specific evolution of NK cell receptor recognition of MHC class I June 2011.
[5] Map source: http://www.pypop.org/popdata/2008/byfreq-C.php
[6] Abi-Rached, et al. (2011). The Shaping of Modern Human Immune Systems by Multiregional Admixture with Archaic Humans Science 25 August 2011: 1209202DOI:10.1126/science.1209202

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Denisovans and America

2011-09-27T13:58:00.001-03:00

My previous post (first Asians were not erectus) concluded with a reference to a paper on Denisovans which stated that: “ modern humans acquired the HLA-B*73 allele in west Asia through admixture with archaic humans called Denisovan” [1].
Lets dig a little deeper into this HLA allele.

A very uncommon HLA allele

Among all the HLA-B groups (which add up to thirty six ( 36 varieties): B*07, B*08, B*13.... B*83) it is the one with the least quantity of specific HLA halotypes. In other words each of these thirty six groups have their own variations. For instance HLA-B*07 has 124 different allotypes, HLA-B*15 has 221 allotypes.

The one that we are interested in, HLA-B*73 has only two: B*73:01 and B*73:02 (which was detected in only one person in Abi-Rached’s study, so we can set it aside).

Globally its frequency within the human population is quite low, less than 1%, and in most of the world it is closer to zero. But, some places show a very high frequency in comparison to others.

The “raw” data is shown in the following table which combines data from [1] and [3]:

Frequency / Place – ethnic group
(Data from [1] unless indicated otherwise. )
4.90% Parsi
2.30% Israel Jews
2.00% United Arab Emirates
1.10% Cameroon Beti
0.90% Georgia Tiblisi,
0.90% Bulgaria
0.90% Morocco Casablanca
0.90% Burkina Faso Mossi
0.80% Russia Tuva,
0.80% Oman
0.70% Average for SW Asia [3]
0.60% Albania
0.60% Cameroon Bamileke
0.50% Mongolia Khalkha
0.50% Pakistan Pathan
0.50% Iran Baloch
0.50% Tanzanaia Dodoma Kongwa
0.50% Israel Druze
0.50% Algeria
0.40% Average for NE Asia [3]
0.40% Saudi Arabia
0.40% Turkey
0.30% Bangladesh Dhaka Bangalee
0.30% Jordan Amman
0.30% Uganda Kampala
0.20% Kenya Nandi
0.20% Kenya Luo
0.20% Zimbabwe Harare Shona
0.20% Rwanda
0.20% Greece
0.20% Macedonia
0.20% North America, Hispanic [3]
0.10% Europe [3]
0.15% Mexico Sonora, Seri [3]

Comments.

We see that it is strongly concentrated in the Middle East and SW Asia, across central and northern Africa and in the Balkans and Caucasus (home of the Dmansi people).
There are some local “islands” or “singularities”:
- in Mexico (the Seri natives). We will look into them later.
- in Mongolia (close to the Denisovans?)
- in the Russian republic of Tuva (right next to Altai, homeland of the Denisovans)
The highest frequency is in Pakistan (more later)
The Israeli Jews and Druze together are second highest.

Some maps

I love maps! As they show things more clearly than a table. Fortunately, all this data was placed in a map by Abi-Rached [1]. In which he shows the Current distribution “A”. Then, trying to explain the anomalously high Pakistan figure, he defines two models which take into account that the Parsi population now living in Pakistan came from Persia, escaping religious persecution. Figure “B” shows one of these models (they are both very similar) which considers the city of Nishapur as the refugee of the persecuted Zoroastrians. There is yet a third map, “C” which shows the global distribution of the HLA-B*73:01 allele, now including Australia and America, as it comes from another source [2] it differs slightly from the data given by [1]. Nevertheless, Maps “A” and “C” are very similar and show the same trend.

Map showing the global distribution and
frequencies of HLA-B*73:01 (adapted from [1] and [2].

Remarks

The maps clearly show some “hot spots” in Mongolia and the Altai Region and an anomaly in Western Mexico (the Seri natives land).

Could the swath across Africa be related to Arab slave trade and possible mixing with locals? Or is it more ancient and shows a returning flow of humans into Africa after acquiring the HLA-B*73 from the Denisovans.

The Balkans, may be due to the Turkish occupation of that area between the 14^th and the 19^th century.

We see tha China, SE Asia, Australia, Southern Africa and Mots of America and Europe have less than 0.5% frequencies.

So, what does all this mean?

If, as Abi-Rached contends, modern humans picked up the HLA-B*73 allele from Denisovans, they must have “trekked” through Denisovan terrritory. Perhaps the areas where the HLA-B*73 frequency is highest corresponds with the Denisovan homeland: because the humans who settled in the Denisovan territory would have had more time /chances to “mix” with them and breed future generations carrying Denisovan HLA alleles. And from there they would have dispersed to other locations taking the HLA alleles with them.

So, if the maps are correct, Iran is the homeland of the Denisovans. Pakistan’s high figures are just a coincidence, because it is there where the Persian Parsis moved to save their lives.

The Druze and Israeli Jews are also another hot-spot which we will look into later (they are linked to other genetic evidence) , but the high frequency in this region may have two possible explanations:

It probably indicates that Denisovans were living in that area along the Jordan River valley
Perhaps it reflects the comings and goings of the Jewish people (remember that they were held captive in Babylon (Babylonian exile) after Nebuchadnezzar forced them in o exile after conquering the kingdom of Judah ca. 590 BC. They probably picked up the “Persian” HLA-B*73 during their captivity there, Persia is right next to Israel. Furthermore, after the creation of the state of Israel, many Jews living in Iraq and Iran were forced to move out and migrate to Israel.

Map “C” clearly shows the hot spot centered in the Middle East and fanning out north west into the area where “late” Denisovan remains were later found (Altai). Suggesting perhaps that the Denisovans occupied this area and later were forced to less favorable lands such as Altai and Southern Central Siberia / Mongolia.

Coincidentally this region (Levant, Caucasus and Altai / South Central Siberia) is where Neanderthal remains have also been found. This may just indicate that it was an area where the last remnants of dwindling homind populations found refuge (i.e. Neanderthals and Denisovans).

Denisovans

Since those (H. heidelbergensi?) who would later become Neanderthals and modern humans split from the Denisovans about 1 million years ago, and Denisovans survived until about 30-50 kya, we can imagine that they lived for 1 million years in this same territory. Let’s put this in context and link it to our previous post.

We had said that about 2 million years ago, H. habilis left Africa, settled in the Caucasus and there evolved (1.75 M years ago) into the Dmanisi people Homo georgicus. These in turn led to H. erectus (which peopled Southeastern Asia and China, moved back to Africa and into Europe). The Dmanisi may have also moved on into America and into Flores Island, where they became the local Hobbits.

All of this happened before 1.5 million years ago. Then there is a blank space of half a million years. The next solid evidence is that 1 million years ago, the Denisovans split from the branch that led to modern humans and Neanderthals: the H. heidelbergensis.

What happened in the Dmanisi homeland during the period 1.5 to 1.0 million years ago? Had all the Dmanisi disappeared, becoming H. erectus and migrating to East Asia, Africa (or America)? Did any remain behind, to become the ancestors of both H. heidelbergensis and the Denisovans? Did they die out?

I have not read about any H. erectus fossils being found in South Western Asia, so if the Dmanisi stayed there, and did not become extinct, they had to become something else.

Getting back to Africa, H. ergaster is said to be the ancestor of H. heidelbergensis and of modern humans, so it is them, the H. ergaster who is the most likely common ancestor of Denisovans and the rest of mankind. And, on the “human - Neanderthal” branch, immediately after the Denisovan split, we can fit H. heidelbergensis, see below (it is a revised version of the tree published in yesterday's post):

Revised phylogenetic tree.

This does not tell us anything about the fate of the Dmanisi though. It says that Denisovans split before the appearance of H.heidelbergensis, and marched out of Africa towards the Middle East, settling in South Western Asia where, they would later mix with modern humans and maybe, Neanderthals.

The Seri natives in Mexico

The the Seri language is a linguistic isolate which has no apparent connection with any language in the United States or Mexico. They are only about six hundred Seri left, and a Genetic study [4] seem to link them to the Warao Indians of Venezuela and suggest that the Seri’s ancestors were part of a first wave of migrants into America.[5]

The paper [4] however does not mention HLA-B*73.

There is however more data in Abi-Rached’s paper:

Worldwide, ~98% of people carrying B*73 also carry C*15:05[1]

This C*15:05 (also known as Cw*15:05) as seen in the following maps, is also present in Mexico – see red arrow, as well as all the other Asian regions that have a high frequency of B*73. The maps are from [1] above and [2] bottom and show the same distribution (with the exception of SE Asia, where there is a spot with very high frequency of C*15:05 in Indochina which is not shown in the bottom map.

We have to understand why the Seri have such a high frequency of B*73 and Mexicans of C*15:05 in comparison to the rest of the American Indians.

That will be the subject of a future post.

Map showing the global distribution and
frequencies of HLA-C*15:05 (adapted from [1] and [2].

Sources

[1] Abi-Rached, et al. (2011). The Shaping of Modern Human Immune Systems by Multiregional Admixture with Archaic Humans Science 25 August 2011: 1209202DOI:10.1126/science.1209202
[2] Map showing B*7301 dispersion is from This page: Allele frequency net: a database and online repository for immune gene frequencies in worldwide populations. From: Gonzalez-Galarza FF, Christmas S, Middleton D and Jones AR Nucleic Acid Research 2011, 39, D913-D919 and based on Solberg et al (2008) the original is at: http://www.pypop.org/popdata/2008/maps/B-7301.gif
[3] dbMHC Home, NCBI
[4] Infante, E., A. Olivo, C. Alaez, F. Williams, D. Middleton, G. de la Rosa, M. J. Pujol, C. Duran, J. L. Navarro, and C. Gorodezky. ( 1999). Molecular analysis of HLA Class I alleles in the Mexican Seri Indians: Implications for their origin. Tissue Antigens 54:35-42.
[5] Jim Hill, David Yetman, A world revealed by language: a new Seri dictionary and unapologetic speculations on Seri Indian deep history

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

The first Asians were not Homo erectus

2011-09-26T19:10:00.000-03:00

Although I have been following paleoanthropology through scientific magazines for decades, recent discoveries have overturned what I have previously learned about human dispersion out of Africa. So, before embarking on our “Neanderthal in America” thesis lets brush up on what is currently going on in the hominid field so that we can put things in perspective.

The late Twentieth Century Hominid scenario

What I knew was this: after a long chain of Australopithecines, the first member of genus Homo appeared.
It was the primitive forbearer of mankind,Homo habilis (Latin for skilful man) who lived in Eastern Africa about 2.3 M years ago. They had a small brain (600 cm³) and were quite small (1.3 m - roughly 4.25 ft.) yet they developed a simple stone tool technology known as “Oldowan”. They disappeared about 1.4 M years ago.

Oldowan stone tools were of the “core and flake” variety, in which a stone core was hit with a hammer stone chipping it to produced flakes and leaving a “chopper core” both flakes and core were used to cut, bash and scrape.
It is the earliest (oldest) stone tool industry dating back to about 2.6 M years ago. It was replaced 1.7 M years ago by the more advanced Achulean technology.

If Oldowan tools are found, you can be certain that they predate the discovery of Acheulean tools and therefore belong to a group that predates the inventors of these tools.

About 1.8 M years ago, Homo erectus (upright man) appeared, bigger and brainier (850 to 1,100 cm³) . They were the first humans to leave Africa, as their remains have been found mostly in Indonesia and China. They, in turn were replaced by an out of Africa wave of modern humans some 70- 30 kya. H. erectus produced a more “advanced” stone technology, the “Acheulean” and also learned to use fire.

Acheulean stone tools were also flakes knocked off a core, but these flakes were reworked several times, chipping their edges, to produce a sharp blade. The worked core resulted in a pear-shaped “axe”. The working of the core produced tools which were more symmetric than the Oldowan ones.

The H. erectus stock that remained in Africa is known as Homo ergaster (working man)kept on evolving, producing a group that left Africa and peopled Europe via the Middle East, the H. heidelbergensis (Heidelberg man – where its remains were first found, in Germany), who then evolved ino H. neanderthalensis (After the site of Neanderthal in Germany).

Those that remained in Africa continued evolving, becoming Homo Sapiens, (wise man), modern humans.

The changing picture

That was the neat former picture, but science evolves with new findings at new sites and novel techniques (genetic ones) which have somewhat altered it. Fossils found in Spain, Georgia and Russia plus genetic analysis of hominid remains have redrawn this nice picture.

To make it worse, you should bear in mind that there is little consensus among scholars regarding the relationship between all these hominids as dates are sometimes uncertain or, the fossil evidence is lacking.
Anyway, as I am not a scholar I can allow myself to speculate freely!

Dmanisi hominid

A variety of human dating to 1.75 M years ago, it is also known as Homo georgicus, (Man from Georgia – where it was found). Their small brain size and rounded shape of their skulls places them closer to H. habilis than to H. erectus, and their discoverers wrote:

We suggest that the ancestors of the Dmanisi population dispersed from Africa before the emergence of humans identified broadly with the H. erectus grade.[3]

Furthermore, their tools were “Oldowan” [4] (“primitive”).

Did H. habilis leave Africa first?

The discoverers of Dmanisis suggest that these hominids are a variety of Homo habilis that left Africa, crossed the Middle East and moved on into the Caucasus (Europe and Asia) about 2 M years ago. If so, they were the first “humans” to do so.[2]

H. erectus originated in Asia

They also suggest that the Homo habilis “Dmanisi” evolved in Asia, becoming an “early” variety of H. erectus.[2]

And now things get interesting: they split into different branches of H. erectus, some stayed in Asia and walked east, the ancestors of later Java and Peking men (the H. erectus remains found in Indonesia and China). Others went back, south and returned home to East Africa, originating a more slender African erectus, H. ergaster, who would eventually give rise to us, modern humans.[2]

The map below shows the path out of Africa (from Olduvai gorge) towards Georgia (Dmanisi) of our tiny African H. habilis with his Oldowan tool industry (Red arrow).

At Dmanisi they evolved into H. erectus, who acquired the Acheulean stone tool technology and took it with them back to Africa, but, surprisingly they did not take it along with them in most of their journeys:

Eastwards into China and Indonesia (no tools found in Java though, perhaps they used bamboo cane for their tools). Their bones have been recovered from the sites at Sanigran (1.66 M years ago) and Yuanmou Man (1.7 M years ago) , and their tools at Nihewan (1.65 M years ago) however they were “more comparable to Oldowan localities in Africa”. Close to Beijing, later H. erectus remains have been found but the only Acheulean tools found in China are much more recent (ca. 800 kya). Pale blue arrows across southern Asia.
West, into Europe, where H. antecessor was found in Spain (Sierra de Atapuerca) where they lived between 1.2 M years ago and 780 Kya. They also used “Oldowan” tools (perhaps they moved west before acquiring the Achulean know-how?). Pale blue arrow through Europe.
A third group walked back, through Israel (Ubeidiya site’s Acheulean tools 1.5 M years old) into Africa, across the north (Algiers site at Ain Hanech 1.8 M years ago with “Advanced Oldowan tools”.) the rest moved south back towards East Africa. Pale blue arrows into Africa.

Map showing the possible dispersion of H. habilis across the globe.
Copyright © 2011 by Austin Whittall

Hobbits and American ape men

The minute Flores Island “hobbit”, Homo floresiensis is also more primitive than h. erectus, which leads us to ask: Was he the outcome of an H. habilis group that split from those moving north, and migrated east, into South East Asia and Indonesia?

And, for us, keen on finding out more about the possible origin of our Patagonian ape-like creatures, could tiny H. habilis have kept on walking across Asia and reached America via Bering? (both the Hobbit route and the American path are shown with green arrows in the map above).

There is some evidence of human presence in the Indian Subcontinent: “hominid-struck stone artefacts [...] ca. 2 million years old”[1] In artifacts near Riwat, northern Pakistan, on the Indo –Gangetic floodplains. No bones have been found, so it is not possible to identify their makers, but we know that they are “Oldowan” so they are pre-H. erectus.

Similar tools have been found in China, and date back to 2 M years at Renzidong in Anhui, Eastern China. But, again, human bones are lacking.

So we have ancient human presence in India and China, 2 million years old, contemporary to the H. habilis out of Africa event. These probably kept on moving into America (the north group) and to the southernomost island, at Flores.

Archaic modern men

There is a clear differentiation between those “primitive” H. erectus, H. ergaster and H. antecessor and the more “modern” variety that later spread out across Africa, Europe and the Middle East. The latter had a larger brain, and have been found at different sites.
The transition between both “varieties” is unclear because the period covering it (1,000 to 600 kya) is not very abundant in hominid fossils all across the Old World.

We know that something happened at that time, we are not quite sure where it happened, but the outcome was a brainier mankind.

Europe . H. heidelbergensis. Their remains at Atapuerca, Spain date back to about 600 kya. Their tools are Acheulian. Where they replaced the H. antecessor people. They had Acheulean assemblages. They are also found at Heidelberg and Steinheim (Germany), Arago (France), Petralona (Greece), Sima de los Huesos (Spain), Boxgrove (UK) and Ciampate del Diavolo (Italy).
Africa. Bodo and Kabwei sites (which some group within Homo rhodesiensis).
Asia. Dali and Jinnishuan in China

Some 300 kya, they gave rise to Neanderthals in Europe and the Levant, and Modern Humans in Africa some 150 – 200 kya. But there is another mysterious group, the Denisovans:

Denisovans

The site located in Altai, Russia, produced a fossils of a new species of hominids. The Denisovans.

These Denisovans differ from both H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens but share a common ancestor with them about 1 M years ago. The Denisovans may represent an unknown homind that left Africa and originated the human and Neanderthal ancestors. They managed to survive until 40 kya.

Using DNA extracted from a finger bone found in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia, we have sequenced the genome of an archaic hominin to about 1.9-fold coverage. This individual is from a group that shares a common origin with Neanderthals. This population was not involved in the putative gene flow from Neanderthals into Eurasians; however, the data suggest that it contributed 4–6% of its genetic material to the genomes of present-day Melanesians. We designate this hominin population ‘Denisovans’ and suggest that it may have been widespread in Asia during the Late Pleistocene epoch. A tooth found in Denisova Cave carries a mitochondrial genome highly similar to that of the finger bone. This tooth shares no derived morphological features with Neanderthals or modern humans, further indicating that Denisovans have an evolutionary history distinct from Neanderthals and modern humans [5]

The paper also showed that Neanderthal and modern humans share a common ancestor 800 kya and that they split apart between 270 and 449 kya. The Neanderthals and Denisovans diverged 604 kya and 804 kya from modern humans.[5]

A possible cause for these exceptional genetic traits in Denisovan remains of people who lived 30 to 50 kya, may be the following:

Denisovans retained features that Neanderthals and humans lost

The Denisovans acquired them from "some even more diverged hominin[5] that is, extant out of Africa H. habilis or their later descendants.

Reversal to ancestral traits.

The molar that was recovered from a Denisovan shows that it was much larger than those of early modern humans and Neanderthals but similar to those of H. erectus and H. habilis. Could they be some relict descendants of H. habilis?

Denisovan, Neanderthal and humans.From [7]

The Image above is “Phylogenetic tree” adapted from Paabo.[7] The actual dates are 1.3 Mya – 779 kya for the divergence between Denisovans and Neanderthal / Humans, and 321 – 618 kya (mean 466 kya) for the Neanderthal – Sapiens cleavage.

Though some disagree [6] and interpret the data differently.

The HLA-B*73 allele and Denisovans

Human leukocyte antigens (HLAs), are a family which has roughly 200 genes which are crucial for our survival as they allow our bodies to fight off diseases. They make up our immune system. They are also among the most variable of human genes: there are hundreds of variations (known as alleles) of each of these genes in the human population. And thanks to them, we are tweaked to react to different diseases and adapt to new ones.

Modern humans walking out of Africa in small groups had, most likely a very limited quantity of HLA alleles, and these were specially adapted to those diseases found in Africa.

When these modern humans reached Asia, with two million years of parasite-human host adaptation, between the first waves of hominids leaving Africa and the native Asian disease agents, they were in deep trouble. But, if they “mingled” (i.e. mated) with a native Asian hominid population, their offspring would have inherited Asian HLAs, well adapted to indigenous diseases.

A study has proven just that, and guess who passed on the HLAs to modern humans? Yes, the Denisovans (below is an abstract from a paper –bold face mine):

Whole-genome comparisons identified introgression [genetic input] from archaic to modern humans. Our analysis of highly polymorphic HLA class I, vital immune system components subject to strong balancing selection, shows how modern humans acquired the HLA-B*73 allele in west Asia through admixture with archaic humans called Denisovans, a likely sister group to the Neandertals. Virtual genotyping of Denisovan and Neandertal genomes identified archaic HLA haplotypes carrying functionally distinctive alleles that have introgressed into modern Eurasian and Oceanian populations. These alleles, of which several encode unique or strong ligands for natural killer cell receptors, now represent more than half the HLA alleles of modern Eurasians and also appear to have been later introduced into Africans. Thus, adaptive introgression of archaic alleles has significantly shaped modern human immune systems.[8]

Now this is really interesting, moreso because this HLA-B*73 allele is not very common and appears at very low frequencies among the modern human population.
But this post has got too long! Next post will look into the B*73 and its current global distribution (yes, it is found in America, but in very strange locations, and with very odd natives! Also it is found in ... Altai, the Denisovan enclave and the Middle East, home to the Druze, which also are linked to America... but more in my next post).

Sources
[1] R. W. Dennell, H. M. Rendell and E. Hailwood, (1988). Late Pliocene Artifacts from Northern Pakistan. Current Anthropology. Vol 29, No. 3. Jun. 1988. pp. 495-498.
[2] John g. Fleagle. Out of Africa. pp 249 – 277
[3] Abesalom Vekua, David Lordkipanidze et al. (2002). A New Skull of Early Homo from Dmanisi, Georgia. Science 5 July 2002: Vol. 297. no. 5578, pp. 85 - 89 DOI: 10.
[4] Deborah Barsky, (2009), An Overview of Some African and Eurasian Oldowan Sites: Evaluation of Hominin Cognition Levels, Technological Advancement and Adaptive Skills. In Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Oldowan . Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology, 2009, 39-47, DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4020-9060-8_4
[5] Reich, David, et al. (2010). Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia
Nature 468, 1053–1060 (23 December 2010) doi:10.1038/nature09710
[6] Caldararo, Niccolo and Guthrie, Michael. A Note On The Denisova Cave mtDNA Sequence. Available from Nature Precedings (2011).
[7] Krause, Johannes; Fu, Qiaomei; Good, Jeffrey; Viola, Bence; Shunkov, Michael; Derevianko, Anatoli and SvantePääbo. (2010) The complete mithocondrial DNA genome of an unknown hominin from southern Siberia doi:10.1038/nature08976. Letters. Nature 464, 894-897 (8 April 2010)
[8] Abi-Rached, et al. (2011). The Shaping of Modern Human Immune Systems by Multiregional Admixture with Archaic Humans Science 25 August 2011: 1209202DOI:10.1126/science.1209202

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Yaguaru or Water Tiger, another description

2011-09-23T16:13:00.002-03:00

Below I copy the text written by an Englishman, Samuel Hull Wilcocke (ca. 1766 - 1833), who quotes unknown sources in his book about Buenos Aires (very likely he embellished the description given by father Faulkner) and descripes the Yaguaru.

Nevertheless, the donkey sized wolf headed animal, with talons, tusks and shaggy hair is quite odd, and gives us another depiction of this creature:

Yaguaru an Indian name signifying water tiger is the appellation given to a kind of amphibious animal inhabiting the river Parana which is very seldom seen and of which no accurate description has been given It is vaguely described as being of the size of an ass with a head like a wolf and stiff erect ears sharp talons and strong tusks thick and short legs long shaggy hair and a long tapering tail

The book's text is:

The above text is from: Samuel Hull Wilcocke, (1807). History of the viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres London. pp. 466.

The upright (Stiff erect) ears are quite different from those of other Patagonian animals said to be a "Water Tiger", such as the "tiny eared" Iemisch.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Neanderthals migration to America - Part I

2011-09-22T16:53:00.001-03:00

The map above shows what I drew in a previous map but puts it in context. You can see the entry route of modern humans (H. sapiens) into Asia through Sinai and the southern tip of the Red Sea and the tip of the Persian Gulf (see the lower sea level and the coast line during Ice Ages).
Ice sheets covered the high mountains of Eurasia and blanketed the northern part of Europe and central Asia.

These ice fields cut off the drainage of Siberian rivers (which flow north) and acted as ice dams, forming the biggest lakes that the world has ever seen Lakes Komi and West Siberian Lake. The water backed up and found a southern outlet into the Aral Sea and from there to the Caspian Sea, which filled in its current depression (nowadays this "sea" is below sea level) and led it to flow west into the seas of Azov and from there into the Black sea, at that time a lake as were all the others (freshwater due to glacial ice melt and not salt water as they have now).

These rivers were mighty barriers to Neanderthal and would have been uncrossable, they were a barrier to further expansion, as was the northern glaciers.

We have seen that Neanderthal reached the mouth of the Indus River, on the border between Pakistan and India. Why did they stop there? Perhaps ancient H. erectus population in India impeded it, or the weather / vegetation was too balmy for the Neanderthals, used to living in the icy tundra.

They would have gone north, from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran towards Altai, where their most distant remains have been found (to date).

I see nothing that would have made them stop there. They could have gone southeast, into what is now China, but perhaps there was no game to hunt or, again, H. erectus blocked the way.

They would have followed the southern edge of the tundra, just north of the mountains that separate Mongolia from Russia, on and on, towards Beringia, and once across it, into America.

Lets go into details! in my next posts.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Neanderthal in India?

2011-09-19T15:08:00.001-03:00

After writing my last blog, I wondered if Neanderthals reached India or Pakistan (since their tell-tale B006 and O blood group is found there), and though the maps I have seen and most articles I have read place them in Europe, the Middle East and the Caucasus (see the map that I posted in my first post on this series on "Neanderthals"), I decided to check out if there were any traces of them elsewhere.

Guess what? Yes, they have been found in the Indus river delta area!

A paper by Biagi and Starnini (2011) [1] clearly states this:

The Levalloisian assemblages discovered in Sindh, which display very characteristic features, among which are faceted and "chapeau de gendarme" butts, can be attributed to Middle Paleolithic human activity in the area, most probably related with the south-easternmost spread of Homo neanderthalensis. This species might haver reached the Indian Subcontinent either from the Anatolia-Caucasus-Mesopotamia corridor or across the southern regions of the Arabian Peninsula"[1]

They conjecture that the Indus delta was a geographic barrier.

These "Levalloisian" assemablages are a lithic technology (stone chipping) which is characteristic of Neanderthal stone working or Mousterian tool culture which dates to the Fourth or Würm Glacial Period some 40,000 years ago. Mousterian tools spanned the period between 300,000 and 30,000 BP, and disappeared with the demise of the Neanderthal.

Was the Indus a barrier?

Biagi and Starnini cite Stock, who wrote about "Potential geographic barriers [...] The Himalayas form a natural barrier between India and norterh Asia while the Indian subcontinent is bound on the West by both the Sulaiman Mountain Range and the Indus river delta which was likely comprised of salt flats and marshes during OIS4 [...]"[2]

The OIS4 mentioned in the article is a distinctive warm and cold period called "Oxygen Isotope Stages" (OIS), the OIS 4 - 73,000 to 63,000 years ago was a cold one.But it is likely that Neanderthal crossed the area before OIS4. Or, did not find it such a challenge after all (hadn't they walked out of Africa, crossed the Rhine, the Danube, the Volga and the Bosphorus?).

An expanded Neanderthal territory

Further north, identifiably Neanderthal bones have been found in Uzbekistan (Anghilak cave) [3]. Also in that same region bones were found in the 1930s at Teshik Tash cave in Uzbekistan and the Okladnikov cave in the Altai Mountains region of Siberia, they had not been clearly identified until now, because the fragmented remains were hard to classify. However modernt technology allowed them to be subjected to DNA testing which confirmed that they were Neanderthal remains3.5*350 [4].

By the way, there is a Mongolian "wild man" allegedly living in the Altai Mountains, the Almas... perhaps an extant Neanderthal. A place which is strikingly similar to the Bigfoot habitat in North America or the Southern Andean temperate forest.

Some 33,000 years ago, the Neanderthal also moved north into the Arctic regions of Russia, north of the Urals, and 1,000 km north of their "accepted" territory, is a site at Byzovaya, where their stone tools have been found [5].

So I have re-drawn the map based on these findings (it is shown above, at the beginning of this post).

Out of Asia?

So here we have a Neander who has gone well beyond its formerly accepted territorial boundaries. Who lived in the lower Indus river and in the Altai Mountains as well as northern Russia.

He seemed adapted to survive under harsh conditions. Could he have walked up the Indus, across the Himalayas or, across Siberia towards Beringia and entered America?

Man did. And Neanderthal was so similar to us. Maybe he did it too!

Sources

[1] Paolo biagi and Elisabetta Starnini, (2011). Neanderthals at the South-Easternmost edge: The spread of Levalloisisan Mousterian in the Indian Subcontinent. Published in "Papers in Honour of Viola T. Dobosi", ed. by K. T. Biro & A. Marko, Hungarian National Museum, Digital publication, Budapest, pp. 5-14.
[2] Jay T. Stock and Marta Mirazón Lahr (2007). Cranial diversity in South Asia relative to modern human dispersals and global patterns of human variation
In Petraglia, Allchin, eds. The Evolution and History of Human Populations in South Asia, Springer, Berlin, pp. 245-268
[3] Michelle Glantz, Rustam Suleymanov, Peter Hughes,Angela Schauber, (2003). Anghilak cave, Uzbekistan: documenting Neandertal occupation at the periphery
Antiquity Vol 77:295 March 2003.
[4] Johannes Krause, Ludovic Orlando, David Serre, Bence Viola, Kay Prüfer, Michael P. Richards, Jean-Jacques Hublin, Catherine Hänni, Anatoly P. Derevianko & Svante Pääbo (2007). Neanderthals in central Asia and Siberia Nature 449, 902-904 (18 October 2007) | doi:10.1038/nature06193; Published online 30 September 2007
[5] Bruce Bower Stone Age cold case baffles scientists Neandertals, or possibly ancient people, took polar express June 4th, 2011; Vol.179 #12 p. 8.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Neanderthal - index

2011-09-19T11:32:00.003-03:00

Neatness makes it easier to find things, so I am making this index to list all Neanderthal / Neandertal posts, for future reference, I will link to this post from the links on the sidebar.

Neanderthal - Human gene admixture,some information on the genes that we share with Neanderthals, and why we do not carry their Y chromosomes or their mtDNA in us despite carrying part of their DNA sequences...

Minnesota skulls In 1968 two Neanderthal-like skulls with low foreheads and large brows were found in Minnesota. As for dating, University of Minnesota scientists said they were reluctant to destroy any of the material, although carbon-14 ...

Part 1 Neanderthal in America. Some genetic proof to back the presence of Neanderthals in America: X chromosome B006 and RRM2P4 mutations....

Part 2. Neanderthal in America. A link between the Indian Subcontinent and America regarding B006 and RRM2P4.

Neanderthal in the Indian Subcontinent, a look at "Neander's" territorial range and recent findings that place them in Pakistan, Altai, Arctic Russia and Central Asia.

Migration to America Part 1, a new revised map of Neanderthal's range and possible route to America. More to come in next post...

More to come!

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

More on Neanderthal in America

2011-09-19T09:40:00.001-03:00

Continuing with the "American Neanderthals"... I took another look at the map showing the B006 haplotype in the X chromosome which I had posted in my previous entry, and was surprised to notice that there is a high "density" of this mutation in the Indian Subcontinent.
So I focused on the regions with high concentration of this haplotype and marked them on the map, which you can see below:

Worldwide distribution of B006 haplotype based on a worldwide sample of 6092 X chromosomes. Areas with high percentage are highlighted . From [1]

As you can see, there are three areas within America that have a high density of B006 mutation:

1. Amazon: northern Bolivia, south western Peru and western Brazil. A relatively out of the way place, which due to its isolation could account for a high ratio of a rare mutation.
2. Meso America and northwestern South America, from Colombia to Yucatan.
3. Western Canada and the US (British Columbia, Oregon, Washington and California. (The "odd" Yuki live in California).
4. Europe excluding the Balkans and Southern Italy.
5. Indian Subcontinent.

The Indian Subcontinent's oddity

Why India and Pakistan? The map shows that the percentage of humans with B006 mutation drops off as you move out of Europe into Asia and across Asia (in China it drops to 0% of the population).

It picks up in Beringia and increases dramatically in America.
But, why so high in the Indian Subcontinent (yes, I also saw the Australian increase after dropping off to zero in Indonesia. What can that mean? Perhaps the "Kow Swamp" people took it there: they were robust hominids which survived until about 10,000 years ago in Australia, co-existing with modern humans).

Getting back to India and Pakistan. I recalled that I had posted about another mutation in the X chromosome known as RRM2P4.

It is rare in Africa and so it is probably of non-African origin or, belongs to some group that moved out of Africa with it (where it later disappeared) and passed it back into the modern human lineage (this is known as "introgression"),
So I decided to take a look at the data on RRM2P4, and came across a Table from [2] shown below:

Table 1. Shows RRM2P4 sequence in different populations. From [2]

I was expecting American sequences to resemble Western Asian ones (after all that is where the Amerindians are supposed to have come from), but no. No similarity whatsoever.

The only Asian sequence that is identical to American ones, is from Pakistan.

So here we have a link between: Pakistan and America with an X chromosome mutation RRM2P4 and the previous one, another mutation in the X chromosome (B006) linking America and the same region of the Indian Subcontinent.
Two links that completely by-pass the rest of Asia that lies between Pakistan/India and America.

Both in an X chromosome, one which we all inherit from our female ancestors (if you are a man, your X chromosome is your mother's and your Y is your father's. If you are a woman, you got an X from your mom and another X from your Dad, but his came from his mom - your paternal grandmother).

So this means that these mutations introgressed into the human (H. sapiens) lineage from Female H. erectus or Neanderthals.

But is there any other linkage between both regions?

O blood allele, as I mentioned in my previous post has been linked to Neanderthals and, has its highest frequencies in America. Most of Western Asia has relatively low ratios of O allele, and B is predominant (you would expect the opposite if Asia was the cradle of Amerindians).

But, surprisingly, a study indicates that O blood group is higher in Sindh and Baluchistan (Southern Pakistan), see table below from [3]:

And the data from [4] indicates that in eastern Pakistan, just above Sindh the percentage of O allele is even higher, as it ranges from 54& to 57.6% (Punjab, Gujrat and Wah Cant).

In India, the area just east of those mentioned in Pakistan, have a very strange blood group, the "O Bombay Blood Group", first discovered there, and found in about 1 every 17,600 persons in India.

It is found on the western coast of India and in Maharashtra, Gujrat (India) Karnataka, Goa and Andhra Pradesh.

So we have a higher percentage of O allele in this part of the world, and, a strange variety found only here!.

Sources:

[1] Yotova et al., (2011). An X-linked haplotype of Neandertal origin is present among all non-African populations 25.01.11.
[2] Michael F. Hammer, Daniel Garrigan, Elizabeth Wood, Jason A. Wilder, Zahra Mobasher, Abigail Bigham, James G. Krenz and Michael W. Nachman, (2004), Heterogeneous Patterns of Variation Among Multiple Human X-Linked Loci, The Possible Role of Diversity-Reducing Selection in Non-Africans.
doi: 10.1534/genetics.103.025361 Genetics August 1, 2004 vol. 167 no. 4 1841-1853
[3] Imranud Din Khattak, Taj Muhammad Khan, Purdil Khan, Syed Mukhtar Ali Shah, Sania Tanveer Khattak, Anwar Ali. (2008). J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad 2008;20(4). Frequency of ABO and Rhesus blood groups om district Swat, Pakistan
[4] Mohammad Anees and Mohammad Shabir Mirza, (2005). Distribution of ABO and RH Blood Group Alleles in Gujrat Region of Punjab, Pakistan Proc. Pakistan AcaMd.. SAcnie.e s4 2&(4 M):.2 3S3ha-2b3ir8 M.2i0rz0a5

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Neanderthals in America some genetic proof

2011-09-16T15:27:00.001-03:00

I have already written about the possible entry of Homo erectus into America and its colonization of the New World until the arrival of Modern humans some (45? to 15? thousand years ago [kya] - the actual date is still uncertain).

Today I will look into the possibility that our distant "relative", Neanderthal (or Neanderthal) colonized America long before modern humans appeared on scene. And it will back up a previous post on Neanderthals in America.

Neanderthals some background

Actually little is known about their origin. In fact, the human family tree is still being drawn. Each expert has his or her own theory and read the facts differently. After reading different articles and papers, I believe that we can outline the following "sketchy" timeline:

1. Homo erectus left Africa and settled in Asia about 1.8 Million years ago. Most of their fossils (and, by the way, very old ones) have been found in the Far East (China, Indonesia), but more recent ones (800,000 years old) have been unearthed in the Caucasus.
2. Europe's oldest fossils were found by Bermúdez de Castro in 1997, at Atapuerca, Spain, the Homo antecessor it is an "archaic" hominin, and differs from the mor primitive H. erectus. They date from 780 kya ago.
3. Then there is the Homo heidelbergensis found in Europe, where it lived 600 to 400 thousand years ago. This leads to some questions:

Did they originate in Europe from H. antecessor, and later moved back into Africa?
Did they originate in Africa and migrate to Europe, replacing H. antecessor?

4.In either case, we, modern humans (Homo Sapiens) and Neanderthal evolved from H. heidelbergensis .
5. The Neanderthal split about 300,000 years ago We do not know where they split. Modern Humans did so in Africa about 200,000 years ago.
6. Scientists do not know where Neanderthals evolved; there are several possibilities:
Did some African H. heidelbergensis migrate from Africa into Eurasia and evolve there into Neanderthal? or did the European H. heidelbergensis evolve there into Neanderthals?
The outcome was the same, Neanderthals lived outside of Africa and occupied a range which covered most of Southern Europe, the Middle East, Caucasus and the Iran, Afghanistan area. See map below.

Neanderthal homeland.

None lived in Africa. They were encountered by modern humans when our ancestors moved out of Africa and took over the world, condemning Neanderthals to extinction.

Did we mix with them?

Research published in early 2011 by Yotova et al. [1] which focused on a very small part of a gene which is found on the X chromosome and known as B006 haplotype has come up with some interesting conclusions:

We share B006 with Neanderthals. And it is clear from the map below (taken from [1]) that it is very common outside of Africa and, non-existent in Sub-Saharan Africa, which suggests that it comes from a non human gene pool. That is, some hominin living outside of Africa and that later passed on this haplotype to modern humans: Neanderthal.

Worldwide distribution of B006 haplotype based on a worldwide sample of 6092 X chromosomes. From [1]

Notice that America has the highest prevalence of B006 in the whole world! (centered on Canada's west coast).

Let me qute Yotova:

" the evidence for Neandertal origin of B006 appears very strong. [...] Outside Africa, B006 is found in all habitable continents including Australia, as determined from a remote community of isolated indigenous Australians living in Central Australia [...] The ubiquity of B006 lineage reflects a worldwide contribution of Neandertal lineages to non-African genomes. It indicates very early Neandertal admixture prior to successful range expansion of the population ancestral to virtually all contemporary non-African populations" [1]

A previous paper (Zietkiewicz, Yotova - 2003) [2] on B006, stated that "this lineage could have left Africa before the expansion (as early as 160,000 years ago) and admixed, outside of Africa, with the expanding [human] lineage".
The map included in that paper is interesting, and I include it below, and as you can see it repeats the same pattern as the map above but, adds some interesting data:

B006 distribution map. From [2]

"Different colors, if present, indicate different Tn alleles shared by the same B haplotype."[2]

The map shows that America and Europe share the same Tn allele (in green in the map), which according to Table 1 in [2], is T16 (out of the 74 cases of this T16 allele, 47 appeared in America, 14 in Europe, 10 in Asia and 3 in Africa. It is predominantly American. On the other hand, the other allele (T15) did not appear in America at all.

Notice how the "green" T allele in the Old World is concentrated in the Neanderthal homeland!

But, believing in the "out of Africa" theory and the relatively recent population of America, the authors of paper [2] however disregarded American data in their analysis: "(disregarding the exceptionally low S2 value of 0.2 in the Americas)." The formula they use in their calculations was:

E(s²) = g_e x μ

Where g_e is the number of generations (at approx. 25 years per generation) since the population began to expand rapidly and, μ is the rate of mutation, and s² is the standard deviation.

They took the mutation rate μ=2.3×10^-5 and "estimated the time of the non-African lineage expansion (ge from eq. [5]) to be 4,040–4,260 generations, or 101–107 kya." [2] . That is, the time since humans emerged from Africa.

The same formula, applied to America gives: 188 kya!! Nearly 190,000 years. In other words, The lineage had all that time to evolve in America.

Discussion no the meaning of this. Lets highlight the main points:

The highest frequency of B006 occurrence is not in Neanderthal's homeland (Map 1) but in America : 25% approx. prevalence in America vs. 10% approx in Europe.
B006 has two Tn alleles. One of them, T16 is found in America: almost exclusively there, with 64% of the world's T16. That is followed by 19% in Europe, and the rest in Asia (14%) and Africa (of American Origin or Arabe Slave trade). T15, the other allele is not found in America, it is mostly (88%) Asian.
So there is clearly a Europe-America link and, as T15 is not found in America and it is very common in the supposed homeland of Amerindians (Asia), there is a clear Asia - America "gap" or disconnection.

Devil advocate: Orthodox science explains the loss of the predominant B haplotypes found in Eurasia and the increase of B006 as follows:

"However, the loss of two haplotypes frequent in Eurasia (18.8 and 7%) and the rise in frequency of a third haplotype rare elsewhere, indicate a major population bottleneck in the peopling of the Americas. Although genetic drift appears to have played a greater role in the genetic differentiation of Native Americans than in the latitudinally distributed Eurasians" [3]

In other words the cause is either :

A "founder effect" is the cause: a small group of Asians entered America and so they had a limited "gene pool" to begin with, all other Amerindians derive from this small group.
or "population bottleneck" : a large diversified population is drasticall reduced (illness, famine, etc.) and the few that survive, and repeople the region, have a limited or restricted gene pool

We side with an opposite point of view which can be supported with the previous data:

Neanderthal had the B006 T16 lineage, and wandered into Asia, well beyond his European-Levantine homeland. There, he crossed into America, perhaps finding Eastern Asia unfriendly or already peopled with H. erectus.
America was empty, unpeopled so they expanded into a new continent free from competing hominids.

But we have evidence from another source, Blood, Amerindians and Neanderthals have a very high frequency of O blood group:

Neanderthal blood groups.

The blood of two Neanderthal individuals has been analyzed and found to belong to the O blood group. So it dates back at least to their days, and it may even be much older: "The results however suggest the presence of the human O01 allele already in the common ancestor of Neandertals and modern humans and thereby confirming an emergence of the O01 allele more than 1 Mya predating the divergence of the modern human and Neandertal populations".

Furthermore, they concluded that there was " a potential selective advantage of the O allele" [4] within the Neanderthals, meaning that it was a very common blood group in that population.

Unsurprisingly, Amerindians belong, almost exclusively to the O group (85.5% in North America and 90.9% in South America vs. a global average of 69.2% ). A group of Neanderthals migrating to America would have taken their O group with them.

"All major ABO blood alleles are found in most populations worldwide, whereas the majority of Native Americans are nearly exclusively in the O group [...] in all American populations, the same set of haplotypes O1, O1v, and O1v(G542A) was present" [5]

The authors believe that this is due to a founding population effect and suggest that the O1v(G542A) mutation found only in Amerindians, "could have emerged in Beringia, probably during the differentiation process of Asian lineages that gave rise to the founding population of the [American] continent"[5]

Ahh, the out of Asia and into Americas theory is so ingrained! please le me point out that: (O1v(G542A)), have not been found in Asians, suggesting an Ameri can origin of the allele or, perhaps a Neanderthal (pre-h. sapiens) origin.
It is interesting to point out that O blood allele appears in a large quantity of variations, this must clearly indicate that it evolved selectively and diversified, lets read about this diversity:

"Far from being monomorphic, at the sequence levels Native Americans present a variety of O haplotypes, some isolated geographically (such as O05 and Ov7 in the Cayapa, O32 and O33 in the Aymara), some shared with other human populations (O1 and O1v), and one haplotype called “O1v542” which has been found in all Native American populations screened at this level (Nahua, Mazahua, Maya, Mexican Mestizo, Cayapa, Aymara) and may very well be unique to the Americas (Estrada-Mena et al., 2009). [6]

The alleged "cradle" of Amerindians, Asia, is the highest in the world for type B blood allele (America is the lowest - and mainly in Western Alaska). Furthermore it is the rarest blood allele (only 16% of mankind has it).

Closing comments
Perhaps more research and field activities will unearth Neanderthal remains in America or, as genetic studies advance, they will provide more evidence and let us settle this issue.

Sources

[1] Yotova et al., (2011). An X-linked haplotype of Neandertal origin is present among all non-African populations 25.01.11. You can read it here:
http://operatorchan.org/z/src/molbev.msr024.full.pdf
[2] Ewa Zietkiewicz, Vania Yotova, Dominik Gehl, et al. (2003), Haplotypes in the Dystrophin DNA Segment Point to a Mosaic Origin of Modern Human Diversity Am J Hum Genet. 2003 November; 73(5): 994–1015. Published online 2003 September 25.
[3] Bourgeois, S., Yotova, V., Wang, S., Bourtoumieu, S., Moreau, C., Michalski, R., Moisan, J.-P., Hill, K., Hurtado, A. M., Ruiz-Linares, A. and Labuda, D. (2009), X-chromosome lineages and the settlement of the Americas. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 140: 417–428. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.2108
[4] Carles Lalueza-Fox, Elena Gigli, Marco de la Rasilla, Javier Fortea, Antonio Rosas, Jaume Bertranpetit and Johannes Krause, (2008) Genetic characterization of the ABO blood group in Neandertals BMC Evolutionary Biology 2008, 8:342
[5] Benito Estrada-Mena, F. Javier Estrada, Raúl Ulloa-Arvizu, Miriam Guido, Rocío Méndez, Ramón Coral, Thelma Canto, Julio Granados, Rodrigo Rubí-Castellanos, Héctor Rangel-Villalobos, Alejandro García-Carrancá, (2009). Blood Group O Alleles In Native Americans: Implications In The Peopling Of The Americas. American Journal of Physical Anthropology; 142(1): 85 - 94
[6] Fernando Villasnea, (2010). Evolution of the ABO Blood group locus in Pre-Columbian Native Americans.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Nahuelito in Google Earth?

2011-09-15T10:02:00.000-03:00

Odd shape in Lake Nahuel Huapi. Google Earth

Above is a screenshot from Google Earth. The coordinates of the white blob inside the red circle are given in the image. It is a spot in the middle of the lake, between Huemul Peninsula and San Pedro Peninsula, just east of Victoria Island.

It is about 8 m (25 ft.) long and big enough to appear in the satellite photograph.

What is it? Jokingly I could say it is Nahuelito. But it is more likely a train of waves which, in that part of the lake can be quite big on a windy day. Frothy rolling waves may appear on a satellite image. However the shape is odd. Could it be a boat? (not too clear an image to let us decide if it is or it isn't). It could also be a burst of bubbles issuing from the fault that lies below, on the lake's bed (see my post Bubbles and Nahuelito).

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Sexton Blake and the Plesiosaur

2011-09-15T09:49:00.000-03:00

During the first half of the 20th century, a now relatively unknown comic book detective, Sexton Blake was a very popular fictional character. Blake (who was modeled on Sherlock Holmes) ran until 1978 in different comic books, radio shows and movies.

In one printed episode: New series · Issue 988 · 16/9/1922 by Amalgamated Press, Blake goes off to Patagonia in "SEXTON BLAKE IN SOUTH AMERICA". The illustration below is from its cover (Fred Bennet) and in this story, which takes place in Patagonia, Sexton with Sir Richard Losely and Lobangu hunt the Plesiosaur at laguna Negra.

This goes to show the media coverage that the "plesiosaur incident" got back in 1922. The image is quite interesting, Blake is shooting at the monster which is quite unlike a plesiosaur, and is emerging from a very "tropical" lake (not at all like the temperate Andean forest setting of the real lake).

Book Cover:

Detective Sexton Blake taking a shot at the Patagonian Plesiosaur.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Phoenicians in Patagonia? The wishing tree

2011-09-14T14:05:00.001-03:00

The Patagonian natives had a strange custom of tying “rags” or “threads” to a certain tree that grew in the northern part of Patagonia. Naturalist Charles Darwin wrote about a Sacred Tree which he saw as he rode through this part of Patagonia in August 1833:

Every where the landscape wears the same sterile aspect; a dry gravelly soil supports tufts of brown withered grass, and low scattered bushes, armed with thorns.

Shortly after passing the first spring we came in sight of a famous tree, which the Indians reverence as the altar of Walleechu. It is situated on a high part of the plain, and hence is a landmark visible at a great distance. As soon as a tribe of Indians come in sight of it, they offer their adorations by loud shouts. The tree itself is low, much branched, and thorny. Just above the root it has a diameter of about three feet. It stands by itself without any neighbour, and was indeed the first tree we saw; afterwards we met with a few others of the same kind, but they were far from common. Being winter the tree had no leaves, but in their place numberless threads, by which the various offerings, such as cigars, bread, meat, pieces of cloth, &c., had been suspended. Poor people not having any thing better, only pulled a thread out of their ponchos, and fastened it to the tree. The Indians, moreover, were accustomed to pour spirits and maté into a certain hole, and likewise to smoke upwards, thinking thus to afford all possible gratification to Walleechu. To complete the scene, the tree was surrounded by the bleached bones of the horses which had been slaughtered as sacrifices. All Indians of every age and sex, made their offerings; they then thought that their horses would not tire, and that they themselves should be prosperous. [1]

Phoenicians?

This strange custom is shared by, of all people, those of the Middle East, home of the Phoenicians:

The custom of rag tying is practiced throughout in the Moslem world (Goldziher 1971 ) [...] In the Moslem world, rags, used clothes, yarn, and threads are tied on the shrines or tombs of holy figures (vilis ) and on objects around them such as sacred trees [...] Rag tying on sacred trees is quite common in the Middle East and surrounding areas (Drower 1941 ; Merril 1883 ) as well as in Cyprus (Diamandopoulos and Marketos 1993 ; Grinsell 1990 ), Turkey (Yassin et al. 1998 ) and Morocco (Westermark 1968 ). The present field study surveys the reasons for tying rags to sacred trees as a ceremonial part of tree worship, as actively practiced today in rural areas of Israel, especially by the Druze and Moslem Arabs [...] In the 10th century a Karaite, Sahel b. Matsliakh, who lived in Palestine, complained that Jews tied rags to sacred trees as votive offerings (Vilnay 1963 ) [...] Some Bedouin in Lower Galilee (4) commonly hang green rags of special quality (stâra) on the trees of the Mt. Tabor oak (Quercus ithaburensis ) to ask permission of the saint to use the fruit without being harmed. [2]

The Patagonian tree, now lost, was located [3] at a place which bears its name "Arbol del Gualicho" (Gualicho Tree) "38°55'10" S. and 64°15'46" W.",

Sources

[1] Darwin, C. (1839). Narrative of the Surveying voyages of his Majesty's ships
Adventure and Beagle (...). Journal and remarks. 1832-1836. Colburn, London. Vol. III. pp 79+
[2] Amots Dafni (2002). Why Are Rags Tied to the Sacred Trees of the Holy Land. Economic Botany (Vol. 56, No. 4, pp. 315-327) Online
[3] Dehais, Francisco J., (2006). Contribución a la cartografía de Patagonia o Chica desde 1519 a 1900: Río Negro Argentina.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Yaguarón or Yaguaru

2011-08-30T21:02:00.000-03:00

Some time ago, I posted about the yaguarú, a Guaraní myth about a river monster that is related to the Patagonian Water Tiger.

My wife and I spent last weekend 230 km (144 mi) northwest of Buenos Aires, at San Nicolás de los Arroyos, a small and quiet city with about one hundred thousand inhabitants set on the banks of the Paraná River. Its main attraction is a Sanctuary dedicated to the Virgin Mary, who is said to have appeared here on September 25, 1983. The shrine attracts over three million pilgrims every year. (We just went there to relax).

While we were strolling around the downtown area, I took the photo shown below:

It is a painting on a wall by a street that goes down towards the river. It says: "Yagua" = dog head and "Rón" = serpent body. Which sounds very similar to many "slender" Patagonian creatures water creatures such as the Guruvilu or fox-snake. Once again I am surprised at the similarity between the Mapuche and Guaraní myths, as both groups live so far apart.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

On Phoenicians and Fuegians

2011-08-30T19:51:00.004-03:00

A comment posted by one of my readers put forth an interesting suggestion (thank you Linda Zambanini), which I copy below:

I was just reading your excellent blog about Phoenicians in South America after searching for more info about the Paraibo stone. I was fascinated by the horned Halaháches creature which was painted with broad red and white stripes. It came to my mind that the Phoenician sails were composed of broad red and white stripes. (The stripes were vertical but it would be difficult to paint a person with broad red and white stripes). Could it be that they were emulating the sails that they saw on Phoenician ships? Just a thought. Not sure if their “horned fish” it this conjectured to have been based on had red and white stripes.
Linda Zambanini

Halahaches or Kotaix, a Selknam creature. Black and white image from the Internet colored red by A. Whittall

Striped sails, true or false?

So I wondered: do we know if Phoenician sails were striped red and white? So... I did a bit of reading and I did not manage to find anything mentioning red and white striped sails. But, I did find some other remarks about Phoenician sails:

Phoenician ship. From the Internet

"The sails were made of strips of woven flax or of papyrus, bound at the edges with strips of raw hide”[1]

So perhaps "white" (is flax or papyrus white? or brown?) in strips with their edges of a reddish brown color (raw hide). So this could be taken for red and white stripes. But there is more:

The Holy Bible [2] mentions the Phoenician city of Tyre and her riches, and talks about;

“Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; 'blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee

It seems that the Egyptian linen, embroidered, would be too luxurious or maybe even too heavy to be used as a sail, so some Bible translations (i.e. Vulgate) interpret this not as sails but instead, as flags.

However this description seems to refer to the luxury boats of the nobles of Tyre and not the usual run of the mill commercial ships. But, if the snobs used embroidered sails, could the traders have used sails with red and white stripes?

The reference to "blue and purple" from the isles of Elisha may sound mysterious, but actually Elisha was one of the sons of Javan (which means Greece) so Elisha is a part of Greece. And, the purple from Laconia (where Sparta used to be) was a very fine dye, nearly as good as the Phoenician dye but cheaper and thus used to cover the awnings of their ships.

The biblical text is:

So, maybe they had colorful sails, blue, purple or flax and raw hide. But I have not found any reference to red and white sails (though, if you google images of "phoenician sails" the boats depicted have red and white sails!

Why? I will keep on reading.

Sources
[1] Astley John Hilary, (1937). Communication has been established Author Goodwin Publisher Methuen, pp. 135.
[2] Ezequiel XVII : 7. The Bible.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

On Homo Erectus and the Mayas

2011-08-28T20:07:00.002-03:00

Some time ago, a reader posted a comment about my post:
Toluquilla Footprint. Is it erectus?, this anonymous comment was the following:

Anonymous said...
"It just comfirm the story from the Mayan creation history, Popul Wuh, where it is told that before now adays human came to america there was another kind of humans who where more clomsy build and that the gods did not like what they had created in the first place. So they wyped out the first primitive humans and created some new ones that where better. (something like that, out of free memory :-)) The Mayas where clever!
April 24, 2011 1:34 PM

Of course I thanked her/him and started looking for the Mayan text, which I found. So I posted a reply:

Austin Whittall said...
"I have actually found the text in Google Books at the following link: Chapter II pp. 32 and following. The text is in Spanish, but I will post it translated later. Very interesting.

Today I will post the translation (sorry for the delay!):

"And at that instant they made the dolls carved in wood. They resembled humans, they
spoke like humans and they peopled the surface of the earth.
They existed and they multiplied; the dolls had daughters, had sons, of wood; but they had no soul, no understanding, they did not remember their Creator their Shaper; they walked around aimlessly and crawling.

They no longer remembered the Heart in the Sky and so, fell in disgrace. It was only a trial, an attempt to make humans. At first they spoke, but their face was emaciated, their feet and hands lacked consistency, they had no blood, no substance, no humidity, no fat; their cheeks were dry, dry their feet and their hands and yellow their flesh.
[...]
They were soon annihilated, destroyed and the stick dolls were undone and received death.
A flood was produced by the Heart in Heaven; a great deluge was formed and it fell upon the heads of the stick dolls."

But, gods are stubborn, and don't give in easily, So a second attempt was carried out trying to improve on the primitive men:

"Out of tzité (a kind of plant) he made the flesh of man, but when the woman was made by the Creator and Shaper, the flesh of woman was made of rushes. [...] But they did not think, they did not speak to their maker [...]

So they too were exterminated, however they were not as primitive as the first guys, these tzité men had dogs, pots and hearths they had homes too. Fortunately not all were destroyed:

"People made to be destroyed and annihilated: all of them had their mouths destroyed and their faces.
And they say that the descent of those people are the monkeys that now live in the woods; these are a sample of them, because out of sticks was their flesh made by the Creator and Shaper."

So here we have some primitive mannikins which gave origin to monkeys!.

The story above, from Popol Vuh is also recorded in the Annals of Cauhtitlán, which also mentions a "Fourth Earth" during which "many persons drowned and others were cast upon the mountains and became monkeys".

The Mayan text clearly points towards pre-humans who, were not as primitive as may seem, they had pets, homes and lit fires: they could have been erectus.

By the way, these Annals of Cauhtitlán or "Chimalpopoca Codex" were written 50 years after the Spaniards razed the Mesoamerican Civilizations. They speak about four "eras" before our current "fifth" period:
During cycle 1, the gods made men from ash. The next generation of men became fish. They were followed by "giants" then fire rained down on earth and the fourth period began:

"all [men] became monkeys and into the woods they went, they went to live as ape-men".

This is indeed interesting, they did not turn into monkeys, but into "ape-men", which is exactly what the Spanish words: "hombres-mono" means. Or should we say "Homo erectus"? Wouldn't a Mayan or Aztec human believe an erectus was some kind of ape man?. Surely.

Once again my apologies for taking 4 months to post the translation. I will catch up with my posting in the next few weeks.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Lakuma the fuegian sea monster

2011-08-28T19:11:00.002-03:00

It has been quite some time since my last post, and I sincerely apologize! I have been very busy, but nevertheless I have kept on researching.

I have found another reference regarding the Fuegian Lakooma, the only other one that I had found had been written by Lucas Bridges (the first "white" person born in Tierra del Fuego), and he did not say too much about it. This new reference was recorded by a Catholic priest, Martin Gusinde, who visited Tierra del Fuego in the early 1900s.
He wrote several books about his trips to Fuegia and in one of them [1] about the native "canoe" people, the Yamana, he writes about Lakuma (as he spells it):

It threatens evry canoe, lifts out the occupants, and sucks them down into the depths. Each Lakuma has the habit of flattening himself out on the surface of the water so that his back protrudes a little. He waits in this fashion until a canoe approaches. It is hard to recognize the Lakuma from a distance. People often say that outwardly he is like a whale; others compare him to the calamary hilka (Loligo subulata or squid) which is not which is not uncommon in those regions; still others to the ray. He is also said to be large and very strong, "a great monster like a huge worm" [cited in English]/, according to Spencer:80. If the occupants of a canoe have unwittingly come within reach of the monster, they rarely succeed in escaping disaster, and only if the Lakuma is sleeping or in a good mood.
... The people in the east eat the meat of the Lakuma, which is something we in the west would never do... Lakuma seriously harm everyone who comes within their reach

Spencer, quoted by Gusinde, said the following:[2]

Yaghan[i.e. Yamana] showed us special belt of kelp which natives are too frightened to cross because a great monster like a huge worm, called Wongara, drags them and their boats under water. Wongara is a general word for worm.

So it seems to be some Fuegian Kraken, which has some similarities with the Cuero creature which peoples the lakes and rivers of Northern Patagonia. But Spencer's deptiction: a worm, rings a bell! I have posted about maps published before Columbus discovered America which mentioned Giants fighting against Dragons:

The Nova Cosmographia per totum circulum map reconstructed by the scholar Dana Durand from a manuscript compiled by Brother Fredericus ca. 1450, has the legend “dy Risen vechten und streiten wider dy lint wurm”—Giants fighting and quarreling against the lindworm [*] ; once again a reference to giants and ‘dragons’. The
[*] Note on the Lindworm: A wingless dragon of Northern Europe, from Swedish ‘lind’ (flexible body) and ‘orm’ (serpent).

Could Lakooma and Wongara be the mythical lindworm?

Lucas Bridges father, Thomas, compiled a Yamana - English dictionary [3] in which he has one entry on "Wongara": "Wön-gara(nda) (A) spider(s), justt like a spider". So is it a worm or an aqutic spider?

Sources

[1] Gusinde, Martin, (1961). The Yamana: the life and thought of the water nomads of Cape Horn. pp. +1167
[2] Sir Baldwin Spencer, (1931). Spencer's last journey: being the journal of an expedition to Tierra del Fuego. Clarendon Press. pp 80.
[3] Bridghes, Thomas, (1933). Yamana-English: a dictionary of the speech of Tierra del Fuego. pp. 625.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Awurwur - ostrich men

2011-04-23T11:07:00.002-03:00

Today, as promised, a new post, on the mysterious awurwurs, the ostrich men.

Ostrich Skeleton, the "knee" is actually the "ankle".

Mateo Martinic in his book on the Aonikenk natives of Southern Patagonia [1] wrote about the awurwur as follows (bold mine):

The Patagonian hunters' mythology transmitted by tradition and compiled by some informants and modern & contemporary austors, mentions a "semi-legendary aboriginal group", as Escalada defined it, known under different names such as agongures, agougures, awurwur, aawurwur or auwurwan, aire or airre. They ,according to a legendary aboriginal belief (accepted by authors such as Francisco P. Moreno and Thomas Hrrington), a "Fuegian" group (occidental boat men or kawéskar) settled on the mainland of oriental Patagonia in the southern sector comprising the regions of Santa Cruz and the Strait of Magellan, whose distinctive features were that its members were very fast, because they had their knees facing backwards, like those of ostriches, and they used a tail of feathers

This is very interesting indeed, however I must point out, as you can see in the image above, the things that point backwards are not the bird's knees, they are its ankles!.

The question of the awurwurs is treated by Martinic in a very scholarly manner, and he, of course sets the bird-men aside and goes on to analyze the fuegian boat men.
However, in this blog we can afford to be a bit more extremist, and propose outlandish ideas such as the following:

Could the awurwur myth go back to the days of terror-birds? Do they embody fearful monstrous man eating predators? After all, a ñandú or South American ostrich is a very harmless creature that hides from sight camouflaged by its brown speckled feathers, which blend it into the steppe's vegetation, and its tail is not all that memorable. But what about a gigantic terror bird? (see my posts on them:
Terror birds and some images).

Could this hint at a relatively recent extinction of these giant carnivore birds?

Ok, enough for today! but it is an interesting thought isn't it?

Sources

[1] Martinic, Mateo, (1995). Los Aonikenk, Historia y Cultura. Ediciones Universidad de Magallanes. pp. 93

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

I have been away for some time

2011-04-18T15:31:00.002-03:00

I want to apologize to my followers because I haven't been very active lately and my posts have dropped to zero during March 2011. Of course I have a great excuse: I simply have no time!

Since 2011 began, the company where I work (yes, bloggers have to make a living too) was acquired by a very big (BIG would be more appropriate) multinational concern and since then I have been immersed in the ongoing process of merging our operations, including my own job's activities with those of the now larger company.
Please don't be mistaken, the change is very very positive, and in the long run will be the best thing that has happened to both companies.

However, it has all been quite hectic, and the days are very busy, reports, visits (here and there, at the HQ). Though the whole thing is very positive, it has taken its toll on me, I am worn out at the end of each day and simply have nothing left in me to go ahead with my blog.

Add to this my BOOK, or, more appropriately "THE BOOK", which is now being edited for publishing. The publisher's editor asks questions, points out typos and mistakes, needs me to read the proofs, check the images, read both the Spanish and English versions... it is thrilling and delightful, but in the context of my job and its changes is quite exhausting.

So, I do apologize, because, despite all these absorbing events, I have been reading Gravier's "Argentina Bíblica and Bibilónica" (1980. Ed. Albatross), which my wife has kindly given to me as a birthday gift!. And it has opened up some new paths to follow... (soon! please don't despair). I also have managed to write a draft on some strange indians in southern Patagonia (the arwurwur's), which, I promise, will be posted during Easter.

So, thank you for putting up with me, and, once again, please feel free to get in touch with me at: austinwhittall@gmail.com.

I thank those who have written (I will post a very interesting mail which links the "horned Fuegian beast" Xalpen with the Phoenicians - strange but interesting link suggested by one of my blog's readers)...

And last, but not least: April 22^nd is EARTH DAY, find out what YOU CAN DO, to help poor Mother Earth here: EarthDay.org and their "Billion acts of Green".

Have a great Easter and, to my Jewish readers: Jag Sameaj for Passover which begins tonight.

Austin

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Location of the "Phoenician" stones in Patagonia

2011-03-04T14:36:00.002-03:00

Map showing where the Patagonian "Phoenician" inscriptions were found.

See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.

Let's take a look at the places where the "Phoenician" inscriptions were found. As I mentioned in my previous post, they are very different to the authentic native (Tehuelche) rock inscriptions, though they appear in the region which was the former homeland of these natives.

The places

Garcés [3] says that he bought (paid for, purchased - this is interesting as we will see in the next post) an inscribed stone from a Mr. Miguel Terraza, who told him that these stones come from the central part of the province.

Terraza indicated that they came from the area between Cerro Negro, Sierra Nevada, Sierra Rosada and the Chico River. A barren area. Just to the south of this region are lakes Colhue Huapi and Musters, fed by the Senguer River, which provides water to irrigate an agricultural colony settled by Boers who fled from the war that was raging between them and the British in South Africa in the last years of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. They settled around the current town of Sarmiento in southern Chubut.

According to Garcés, the custodian at the Rawson Museum (in 1943), [3] told him that there were over one hundred of those stones and that the Boers collected most of those stones and took them back to South Africa with them. He also noted that many foreigners also took them abroad.

To the east is Comodoro Rivadavia, an oil city, on the coast, which housed the "Lady of Elche" of the Patagonia, now lost.

Just north, along the coast is Punta Visser, where one of the Phoenician stones was found.

Still further north, is the original Welsh colony, at Madryn, Trelew, Rawson and Dolavon. The Museo Salesiano at Rawson, holds many of these "Phoenician" inscribed stones in its collection.

To the northwest of Rawson is Sierra Colorada. This is where I have managed to locate the site of another stone, which was said to come from "Chullucurá".

The name does not exist, there is no "Chullu" anywhere in Chubut. And regarding the second part of the place name, "Curá", fortunately there is only one place with the word "Curá" in it, and it is known as "Quelle Curá". [2]

This sounds very lie "Chullu", so it may be a typo or a spelling mistake. The place name means, in Mapuche language: "Quillá" or "Clá" = three, and "Curá" = Stones; therefore it is "three stones". [1] It is described as being located about 50 km to the northeast of the small village of Telsen, in northern Chubut. Exactly where I marked it on the map.

Garcés also mentions some stones that were collected by the wife of Dr. Elizagaray, the District Attorney at Trelew, one of which came from a place close to Puerto Lobos dug up when they laid the natural gas pipe from Patagonia to Buenos Aires. This place (which I did not mark on the map above) is located where the northern border of Chubut (white dashed line) meets the ocean, to the east of Sierra Colorada.

Then we have the inscription with the Yaz symbol (ⵣ) at Lake Puelo, in the western part of the province, in the Andean foothills, just to the north of the second Welsh colony (they moved west as their population grew in the late 1800s), at Esquel and Trevelin.

Remarks

The stones seem to come from two distinct areas. One along the northern part of the province, just north of the Chubut River, at is western sources (close to Lake Puelo) and on the coastal area north of its mouth on the Atlantic. The other is the central part of the province, a barren desolate place. What would people be doing there sculpting stones? Is there mineral wealth there?

I do recall however reading a remark by a Welsh explorer, Llywd ap Ewan who returning from an expedition to the Andes of Chubut and Santa Cruz, cut across from the fork where the Mayo and Senguer rivers meet and followed a route that lies roughly along the blue line (see map) that joins the Sierra Nevada and Sierra Rosada, and he wrote in his diary that he saw a strange stone columns or monoliths. I, just like the editor believed that it was some natural artifact, a rock carved by erosion (sandblasted by the relentless Patagonian winds) but, now, I am looking at it with another point of view. It may have been man made.

I will check the book and quote him here later.[4]

The City of Caesars and the Phoenicians

The “City of Caesars” was an “El Dorado” which is a tale that deserves a book of its own, yet it can be summarized as follows: The legend of the City of Caesars began in the mid XVI^th century. It revolved around an incredibly rich city set in the hidden mountains of western Patagonia (i.e. its roads were paved with gold) and was inhabited by people of European origin who led secluded lives there. Several expeditions were sent to find it, and it was not until the late XVIII^th century that it lost credibility and searches were discontinued.

So you can imagine my surprise when I came across a map drawn by French scientist Martini de Moussy [5] showing it!

He had been commissioned by the Argentine government to study the geography of the country. After traveling throughout the country he produced his Description Geographique et Statistique de la Confederation Argentine (1860-1864) and an Atlas (1869). This Atlas contains several maps, and I reproduce part of one below:

Map showing the City of Caesars in 1869, Patagonia. Adapted from [5] by Austin Whittall

To the left (West) and quite far from its usual location in the Andes, is the City of "Los Cesares" (of Caesars), on one of the rivers that flows from the Andean foothills to form the Chubut River (in those days also known as Chupat). The Welsh colony figures in the map as a project. Note that above the colony are the "Calli he ches" Indians (exactly where the "Quelle" or "Chullu" site is). In Spanish, "Calli" "Quelle" and "Chullu" sound very similar.

What is the City of Caesars doing so far away from the Andes and the forests? Why is it set there in the middle of the steppe? Perhaps there was some mineral resource there?

Yes, actually, close to the sources of the Chubut River, at the town of Esquel there is gold, and the locals have been battling large mining concerns for years, to keep them from ruining the scenery and polluting the area if they ever get the necessary permits to mine the stuff.[6]

Could the City of Caesars by a Phoenician mining village? Were these wealthy people of "European" origin actually surviving "Phoenicians" or "Carthaginians"?
Intriguing, and something that I haven't seen written elsewhere. So it is an original idea! and backed by some (though I must admit tenuous) evidence.

We still have to look into the authenticity of these stones and consider the possibility that they are fake.

Sources.

[1] Lázaro Fleury, (1944). Guiliches, Tradiciones, leyendas, apuntes gramaticales y vocabulario de la zona pampa-araucana. Universidad de Córdoba. pp. 61.
[2] Rodolfo M. Casamiquela, (2000). Toponimia indígena del Chubut. Author's edition. pp. 213.
[3] Antonio Garcés,(1951). Libro del Cincuentenario de Comodoro Rivadavia, 1901-1951. Aspectos de la Arqueología Patagónica. Chap. 29.
[4] Roberts, T. and Gavirati, M., (2008) Diarios del Explorador Llywd ap Iwan. Villa Adelina: Patagonia Sur Libros; Gral. Roca: La Bitácora Patagónica.
[5] Martin de Moussy, (1865). Carte de la Patagonie et des archipels de la Terre de Feu, des Malouines et des cotes occidentales jusqu'au Golfe de Reloncavi.
[6] Gold at Esquel

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Tehuelche rock inscriptions. Comparison to "Phoenician" stones

2011-03-04T13:13:00.001-03:00

The authentic Tehuelche rock inscriptions look very different to those of a supposed "Phoenician" origin.

See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.

Cover of Diseños nativos de la Argentina (Clásicos y Actuales), by Juan José Rossi. From: [1]

Above is the cover of a very nice book which reproduces traditional designs of the different native Americans who peopled Argentina. Its name: "Diseños nativos de la Argentina (Clásicos y Actuales)", by Juan José Rossi (Ed. Galerna, 2000). The idea of the book is to introduce the motifs used by our natives to modern designers so that they can use authentic designs in modern artifacts (clothes, handicrafts, art, etc.).

It is part of my library, so I decided to check if it had any references to the Tehuelche and their inscribed stones. Well, it does. Below (click to enlarge) is a photograph that I took of two (out of three) pages with images depicting their inscriptions: [1]

Inscribed Stones by Tehuelche natives. From: [1]

You can clearly see that the style of these genuine Tehuelche inscriptions is completely different from the one used in the "engraved stones" of alleged "Phoenician" inspiration or origin:

Tehuelche : Small size. Thin and with a rectangular shaped.
Phoenician: Large size. Thick. Any shape.

Tehuelche : Scratched or etched on a "soft" surface such as slate.
Phoenician: Carved or sculpted in bas-relief on a hard granite or basaltic or porphyric rock.

Tehuelche : Simple lineal or geometric patterns. Only one out of eighteen stones depicted has a representative image: a crude drawing of the sun.
Phoenician: Complex drawings that combine geometric figures (generally as a border or fringe around a central area that is clearly representative and has well drawn images of: hearts, arrow heads, natives, animals -guanaco, cryptid, ñandu, snakes, sun and moon. Some even include symbols that appear to be letters.

The "Phoenician" stones were definitively not made by native Tehuelche or Mapuche people, they are very different. And we can therefore conclude that they are either:

Fake. A forgery, a hoax. That is: someone deliberately crafted these stones with "native" motifs, with the intention of making them appear as authentic native or Phoenician crafts (hence the use of Semitic letters), to sell them to gullible amateur archaeologists.
Genuine, made by some non-native people. By genuine I mean that the persons who made them, did so for some religious, cultural, social reason, and left them behind when they returned to their homeland or disappeared (famine, illness, war).

My analysis and opinion in the next post.

Sources.

[1] Juan José Rossi, (2000). Diseños nativos de la Argentina (Clásicos y Actuales). Ed. Galerna, 2000,

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Ancient Greeks in the River Plate!

2011-03-03T14:49:00.003-03:00

This post is about a farmer who, in the early 1800s, lived close to the Uruguayan town of Dolores. He made an amazing finding: an inscribed stone and some ancient body armor, which was supposedly identified as belonging to a Greek explorer from the days of Alexander the Great. This story, sounds like a hoax, but since I have been posting on Phoenicians in America, I thought, ok why not! So here it is:

The original text is worth quoting from its source (a local magazine published in Soriano, the Uruguayan District where Dolores is located), a 1963 article:

A farmer [...] had discovered an ancient stone, sunk in the ground, on which some unknown letters were written. Picking up the stone, he came across a small stone chamber , inside of which were two very ancient swords, a helmet and a shield, very rusty, and a regular sized amphora. He took those pieces to Montevideo, and the priest Martínez managed to decipher the coarse and worn greek characters, whose translation was: "During the reign of Alexander king of Macedonia, son of Phillip, on the 63 olympics, here Ptolemy...", the rest of the phrase could not be read. On the hilt of one of the swords, whose blades were completely destroyed, a relief with the head of Alexander could be made out. The helmet still displayed a delicate work of metal craftmanship, representing in relief Aquiles dragging Hector's body around Troy. [1]

The sources

Text about Ptolemy, the "Greek" from 320 BC whose remains were found in Uruguay. From [1].

The above text was originally published in 1835 in the Montevideo newspaper "El Universal", who in turn took it from the December 9, 1934 issue of the "Jornal do Comercio" of Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian journal informed that it had got the news from the "Gaceta de Francia" of Paris, which had taken it from the "Le Temps" of April 11, 1832, and this paper from the "Messager des Chambres " of March 22, 1832.

The article seems to have been published before that date in the "Giornale del Regno delle Due Sicilie" on June 11, 1829 and before that, in the "Gaceta Universal" of Bogotá Colombia.

Criticism and comments

The first flaw found in the story was the date. The 63^rd Olympic games took place around 528 - 524 BC, long before Alexander's regin (Alexander died in 323 BC).

However, if instead of 63, you read 113, the Olympic games date would fit neatly within Alexander's reign over Macedonia and most of the "known" world.

The thing is that at the time (1829) Uruguay was just coming out of a war against Brazil, in which it won its independence (with the help of Argentina), and political turmoil would have covered up the news, which was disclosed through a distant paper in Colombia instead of locally, in Montevideo.

What would a Greek ship be doing at Dolores? In those days, the delta of the Paraná River was several tens of kilometers up stream from its current position just 20 km (12.5 mi.) north of Buenos Aires.

The delta advances at about 25 to 100 m/year (82 to 328 ft/year),[2] so over the last 2,320 years it would have been located between 58 and 232 km further north (36 to 144 mi.), upstream. See the map below.

The Uruguay River lacks a delta and drains into the eastern side of the River Plate as a wide river.

Dolores, the site of the finding, is located on the San Salvador River which drains into the Uruguay River. Perhaps it offered a good port for the Greek sailors. Actually, Sebastian Cabot, the first to explore the region after Magellan and Solis, actually built a fort on the mouth of the San Salvador. He must have chosen it for some strategic reason. This fort is the first Spanish settlement in Uruguay (1527). He would later sail up the Paraná and establish Sancti Spiritus at Carcaraña, Argentina.

Could the Greek soldier be a dead member of Cabot's expedition?

Map showing coastline in 320 BC with the possible maximum and minimum area covered by water. This area in now occupied by the Delta of the Paraná River.
Copyright © 20011 by Austin Whittall

The map above shows the maximum and minimum extent of the River Plate in the days of Alexander the Great. The delta did not extend beyond Rosario or Zarate based on the max. and min. advance of the delta (58 and 232 km) mentioned above.

Sources.

[1] Un Enigma histórico. Ptolomeo fue enterrado en Dolores. Revista Histórica de soriano. May 31, 1963. No. 8. pp. 8.
[2] Marcos Pittau, Alejo Sarubbi, Angel N. Menéndez Analisis del avance del frente del delta del rio Parana

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Phoenician inscription at Rochedo dos Arvoredos

2011-03-03T13:32:00.001-03:00

A "Phoenician" rock inscription in the south of Brazil.

See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.

We have already written about the Phoenician inscriptions on the Pedra da Gavea, at Rio de Janeiro. They are not the only ones in Brazil. Thera are more: according to an article published in 1829 [1], there are Phoenician inscriptions at the mouth of the Amargoso River, in Rio Grande do Norte (though the article does not describe them), and it also mentions those at Arboredo.

Rochedo dos Arvoredos

The article says the following:

Arboredo [sic], whose alleged Phoenician characters are deeply etched and measure no less than 40 feet [12.2 m] tall and can be seen from half a league away at sea.[1]

This crag, a rugged rocky island, is known, in Portuguese as the “Rochedo dos Arvoredos” (or "rock of the groves"). It is located at a short distance from the entrance to the Bay of Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil.

The island, now known as Ilha do Arvoredo(27° 17'S, 48° 21'W), is located about 12 km north of the large Island of Santa Catarina, where Florianopolis, the capital of the state of Santa Catarina is located.

It was depicted by the French artist Debret, [2] and his painting shows the characters. The image’s caption says that it “has an inscription in Phoenician characters very similar to others noted by Humboldt around America.”. (I should look up what Humboldt wrote about the Phoenicians in America!).

The following image [3] shows the “inscriptions”:

"Phoenician" inscriptions on the Rochedo dos Arvoredos, Santa Catarina, Brazil. Arrows show the inscriptions and a detail of them. Image by Debret [2][3].

Interestingly, Santa Catarina was during the period of conquest and discovery of South America, a key port, from which the Spaniards reached Asunción in Paraguay, by cutting across Santa Catarina (Brazil), Misiones (Argentina) and eastern Paraguay. It was shorter than going through the River Plate and Paraná and Paraguay rivers.

Sebastian Cabot and Sol&is (who discovered the River Plate) were shipwrecked there. It is likely that Phoenician sailors, moving south along the Brazilian coast would have found a safe port here. It also conforms to their chosen layout for settlements: a coastal island close to the shore with a well protected harbor. Santa Catarina Island is just like that.

Sources.

[1] Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País (Cuba), Cuba. Real Junta de Fomento de Agricultura y Comercio, (1829). Memorias. pp. 27
[2] Debret. Voyage pittoresque et historique au Brésil: ou Séjour d'un artiste français au Brésil, depuis 1816 jusqu'en 1831 inclusivement, epoque de l'avénement et de l'abdication de S. M. D. Pedro 1^er, fondateur de l'Empire brésilien Re-edited by Livraria Martins, 1972>Vol 2. pp 228
[3] NYPL Digital Gallery:

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Cryptid on Phoenician - Tehuelche carving

2011-03-03T11:28:00.000-03:00

A cryptid on a Tehuelche engraved stone with Phoenician symbols.

See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.

The strange "engraved stones" of Patagonia, which are unlike any other artistic expression of the Patagonian natives, besides having odd symbols that seem to be of Semitic (i.e. Phoenician or even Hebrew letters) origin, also depict animals. Some stones portray snakes (we will post on them separately, from a cryptozoological point of view) which I have already dealt with from a historical point of view (celtic or phoenician intertwined snakes)

The image shown above is form one of the stones from the Museo Salesiano at Rawson, Chubut, Argentina.

The stone, is a round boulder, which has several engravings. In its central part, a mammal, of unknown origin. Just above it, three symbols or letters. Above right an arrow head and below it, a geometric fringe or border with triangles.

This is not the usual native style, as already mentioned (Genuine Tehuelche inscribed stones), and all these "Phoenicians in Patagonia" posts aim at trying to validate if they are genuine, and if so, are they native or made by ancient Mediterranean mariners.

The Cryptid

The animal is shown sideways, only one fore leg and one back leg are depicted. It has a triangular shaped head with upright ears. Its legs are short in comparison to its body, and its tail is also short and bulky.

The local fauna, includes pumas (which as the engraving is definitively not a feline, we will discard), foxes (the animal seems dog-like), and guanacos.

I have included, just because the creature also has a horse-like air, an image of a Trapan (a rare Eurasian wild horse), officially there were no native horses in Patagonia until the arrival of the Europeans who brought horses with them to America, however I have posted elsewhere about the possible survival of prehistoric native American horses, so I decided to include one, just in case. (Also see: Patagonian donkeys)

I also included a wolf (nowadays there are no wolves in Patagona, and the maned wolf has long legs, so it is not the animal portrayed on the stone), because it may be a representation of an "Andean Wolf", another Patagonian cryptid.

In my opinion, the animal is some kind of canid. It may be an Andean Wolf, or even a variety of "warrah" (Falkland Islands / Malvinas fox-wolf).

The stone was apparently found in Chubut province, in the northern part of Patagonia. It is unusual for the Tehuelche to depict a dog. They usually painted guanaco or hunters, as well as pumas of feline looking animals. I have not seen any dog - wolf - fox in their rock paintings. So, this is indeed a very peculiar stone which differs from the standard native artistic expression.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Phoenician symbol at Lake Puelo, Chubut, Argentina

2011-03-02T15:36:00.003-03:00

An unusual symbol ⵣ (Yaz) found in Patagonia. A link to Phoenicians?

See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.

Phoenician symbol found at Lake Puelo, Chubut, Patagonia.
Adapted by Austin Whittall from [3]

The location of Lake Puelo is shown in the following map:

In previous posts I pointed out a symbol that appeared in several stones supposedly carved by “Phoenicians”, which were found in the Patagonian province of Chubut in the early 1900s.

The symbol is the following: ⵣ.

Although it looks like a drawing of a person (anthropomorphic), it is actually a letter, known as "YAZ", which sounds like our letter "Z", and belongs to the ancient Tifinagh alphabet of North Africa.

It appears in Patagonia, as can be seen in the following composite image:

The images [a], [b] and [e] are part of some strange "Tehuelche" sculptures said to have a Phoenician style or influence.
Image [c] was painted on a rock wall in Neuqueén province, probably Tehuelche or Mapuche. [2]
Image [d] is from the Museo Etnográfico UNBA, it is a small Leather bag painted red and blue (I omitted the crosses that are in between the Yaz symbol.

Phoenician not ET

While browsing the Internet I came upon a website (Reference [3] below) that deals with the paranormal (UFOs and that sort of stuff), something that I am definitively not into. However, something caught my eye, the YAZ symbol.

The book deals with some strange extraterrestrials, the Ummites. If you are into the extravagantly unusual paranormal junk, check out this site Ummo, Ummite physics and metaphysics it is, literally (ha, ha) "out of this world". It is decorated with the ⵣ symbol as its favicon (the one that appears in the browser tab).

Among all the concocted fantasies in the book [3], the image appeared, in relation to Patagonian rock art. Which naturally drew my attention.

The text does not mention a word, but the photograph's caption says the following: "sign engraved in granite. Stone found close to Lake Puelo, in Argentina. The relief may have been sculpted by the native Indians of the area (Mapuches, Tehuelches, Araucanos) [Araucano and Mapuche are the same people! so much for accuracy]..." [3]

It attributes the image to Sergio Oscar Rinaldi's work published (?) in 1984. No references given so I can't trace the source. The image gives some details which I included above: it was found in 1906 some 6 leagues (30 km roughly 18 miles) south of the lake by a local farm hand.

On where the stone was found, in what circumstances, where it is now, no information is given.

Trivia

This is the region where the "plesiosaur lake" is located.

Further reading on the ⵣ "yaz" symbol and more here on "yaz"!

Sources.

[1] Image from fig. 30. of Los Cueros pintados Tehuelches.
[2] Image Source.
[3] Planeta Benitez, excerpt from the book: Benitez, J. J., El hombre que susurraba a los Ummitas. pp. 218.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

The “Phoenician” inscriptions from Paraiba, Brazil

2011-03-02T11:08:00.005-03:00

Second part on the "Phoenician" inscriptions found in Brazil.

See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.

The Paraíba Inscription is a very interesting story which involves mystery, gullibility, deceit and, perhaps forgery. The inscription itself is lost, and all that exists (if there ever was a stone) is a transcription of the text. A text which tells of “Sidonian Canaanites”, that is, Phoenicians, who set sail around Africa and wound up on the shores of Brazil during the nineteenth year of the reign of King Hiram, some 500 years BC.

Today I will tell you the story of the Paraíba inscription.

It all began in 1872...

On September 13, 1872, the Instituto Historico – Geographico do Brasil (IHGB) at Rio de Janeiro received a letter posted in Rio de Janeiro addressed to the Vicecount of Sapucahy, President of the Institute. [7]

It was signed by a man named Joaquim Alves da Costa . He said that at his place at “Pouso-Alto on the shores of the Parahyba”, [7] one of his slaves had found a stone with some strange inscriptions which were transcribed by the son of Alves da Costa, who had an artistic vein.[7] The letter enclosed a paper on which the characters had been drawn.

So, it seems that the stone was not sent to Rio de Janeiro, only a transcription of the characters. The stone must have remained at Pouso Alto.

The director of the Rio de Janeiro National Museum, Ladislao Souza Mello Neto quickly disclosed this information to the local newspapers adding a translation of the text. The news was picked up by other papers around the world. And quite soon it was subjected to deep scrutiny by other scientists.

In the meantime, the IHGB attempted in vain to locate Alves da Costa and the stone. They did not appear.[7]

The site Paraíba

Actually, all references that I have found regarding the inscription assume that Parahyba is actually Paraí a small state in northeastern Brazil (on the tip of the easternmost part of the country).

I think that among the different options regarding Paraiba, they placed it here because it was closest to Africa, and the most likely place to be visited by Phoenician sailors. In my humble opinion, it is a big mistake. But we will get back to that later.

Criticism and denial

The original text of the inscription and his translation is shown in the following image:

Netto's transcription of the Parahyba (or Paraíba) stone inscription, and his translation. From [7]

Of course, Netto was not an expert, and his knowledge of ancient languages was rudimentary to say the least (he had some working knowledge in Hebrew, which is very similar to the Phoenician symbols used in the inscription). So, as could be expected, in 1874, two epigraphists (those who study inscriptions as writing) S. Euting and K. Schlottmann claimed that it was a hoax.

Schlottman’s paper, “Die sogenannte Inschrift von Parahyba"( ZDMG xxviii, (1874) pp. 481-487) included a facsimile of the inscription (which you can compare to the one shown above).

In view of the relentless criticism, Neto himself, had the moral courage to admit that he had been carried away by his enthusiasm, and was mistaken. So he wrote a letter to his mentor (Renan) in 1885 –you can download the pdf document at the site indicated in our Source number [7], it is written in French.

Netto admitted that he had believed it was original due to the excellent navigation skills of the Phoenicians (Hanno, Aritoteles’ island), the possible action of sea currents (like the ones that took Cabral on his discovery voyage to Brazil in 1500), but that as there were several Parahyba rivers, and many places named Pouso Alto in Brazil, he could not track down Mr. Alves da Costa.

He concluded that: “The Phoenician inscription of Parahyba is a apocryphal inscription”.[7]

A hoax?

Currently many investigators believe that Neto had been the author of the hoax.

Though some believe that it was done by the French epigraphist Count de La Hure in revenge for the IHGB's the lack of financial support of his investigations. [1] (More on the Count, below)

Netto, had studied in Paris, under Enerst Renan “at that time, an authority on Punic archaeology” and had become imbued in Phoenicia and its wonderful culture. He was therefore predisposed towards them (he himself admitted this in his letter).[7] After studying, upon his return to Brazil, he was appointed as Director of the Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, and was eager to promote investigations into Brazil's mysterious past.[2]

The stone: reviewed again in the late 1960s

So, the inscription remained ignored, having been classified as a forgery until the 1960s, when it was inspected once again.

Dr. Cyrus Herzl Gordon (1908-2001), was a leading Semitic languages scholar, who besides publishing hundreds of "serious" or "orthodox" papers, also used his knowledge to comment on strange anomalous Middle Eastern-style inscriptions found in the Americas such as the Metcalf stone and the Paraíba Inscription which he backed and for that received plenty of criticism.

Gordon believed that the text followed the pattern of similar known commemorative inscriptions and that it included information that was unknown at the time that it was found, and that therefore could not be a hoax. [3][4] Nevertheless he received criticism. [5] Gordon’s translation is the following:

We are Sidonian Canaanites from the city of the Mercantile King. We were cast up on this distant shore, a land of mountains. We sacrificed a youth to the celestial gods and goddesses in the nineteenth year of our mighty King Hiram and embarked from Ezion-geber into the Red Sea. We voyaged with ten ships and were at sea together for two years around Africa [Ham]. Then we were separated by the hand of Baal and were no longer with our companions. So we have come here, twelve men and three women, into New Shore. Am I, the Admiral, a man who would flee? Nay! May the celestial gods and goddesses favour us well!

Comments

So, we have a letter with a transcription of inscriptions found on a stone, that was never actually seen by scientists, it was posted from an unknown place on an ambiguous river by a person who could not be found later. It's text was, according to some scholars badly written and therefore a hoax, but, according to others (i.e. Gordon), genuine.

It is up to each of us to analyze the information and decide.

But why forge the inscription?

One of skeptic explanations about the forgery suggests that the "paper" was a remnant of some Freemasonic ritual in the nineteenth century Brazil.

Freemasonry. Is a worldwide fraternal organization, formerly a "secret society" fashioned after the Middle Ages guilds. Its members believe in a Supreme Being and share other beliefs of moral and metaphysical nature. Many aspects of its internal work are not generally revealed to the public; it is a "a peculiar system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols." [9]

Gordon, in his analysis, dated the inscription to the period of Tyrian King Hiram III who reigned between 554 and 533 BC. [6] The Freemason theory points out that Hiram inspired the character Hiram Abif in the Freemason initiation rituals, and this is the (in my opinion tenuous) link between Masons and the inscription. [6]

The other reason, already mentioned above could be revenge, by the Count de la Hure,

This is an interesting option because he was intimately involved with Brazil and had plenty of information to commit the "crime".

Monsieur Baril, V. L., comte de la Hure, knew Brazil quite well, as he wrote two books about the country, one of them, curiously mentions the name “Parahyba”: Voyage sur le rio Parahyba (Douai, 1861). This is the southern river, the one that flows through the state of Rio de Janeiro, into the Atlantic Ocean.

The other book, a detailed geographic report on the country, L’empire du Brésil (Paris, 1862) mentions both Parahyba rivers, but, and this is remarkable, only one village named Pouso Alto. [8]

This place, which still exists, and can be seen in the map below:

View Larger Map

Pouso Alegre, Minas Gerais. Map.

It is a town, also known as Pouso-Alegre, located three hundred and sixty kilometers south- south west of Ouro Preto, in the state of Minas Gerais, which, as I mentioned in a previous post Phoenicians Part 5 (The Gold of Ophir), could have been the place where the Phoenicians got their gold from (the mythical biblical land of Ophir).

The Southern Paraíba River runs parallel to the Atlantic seabord, a few miles from the border between the states of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais and very close to Pouso-Alto.

The town of Pouso-Alto is a few kilometers to the west of the Paraiba river, but not on it.

And, although a river (the do Mandu and Itaim rivers meet at Pouso Alto) runs through the town, it does not drain towards the Atlantic (Paraiba Basin), but to the west (Paraná River Basin) because it is separated from the former by a high mountain range (1700 m altitude - 5575 ft.) the Serra da Mantiqueira, that runs parallel to the coast.

Nevertheless, it would be likely that a settler at Pouso Alto would have mentioned the Paraiba River as a place where he found the stone. He probably lived at Pouso Alto and owned land on the Paraiba.

I believe that the "Paraiba" mentioned in the letter is this river and not the northeastern state of "Paraiba". Why? For the following reasons:

Paraiba river offers a clear inland route from the Atlantic coast towards the Serra da Mantiqueira and Minas Gerais Region.
Minas Gerais has gold and diamonds. Something that would have interested the Phoenicians.
A landlord at Pouso Alto would have been able to visit Rio de Janeiro and post a letter there as they are very close to each other.
Other Phoenician evidence was found in Minas Gerais:
"Another Jesuit reported that in 1641 gold prospectors had located some strange buildings in the area that is now the state of Minas Gerais. They brought back to Salvador several strange ceramic pots and three bronze figurines with undecipherable inscriptions on them. These objects were sent to the Jesuit headquarters in Rome and three years later, after careful study were declared to be Phoenician.”[10]

I frankly don't believe that the Count de la Hure forged the text. He was a well known scholar, employed by the Brazilian government. Though he knew the place, he had no real reason to forge a Phoenician text. In my opinion the inscription may be genuine.

More posts are on the way regarding Phoenicians in Brazil. Some are very flimsy and lack proof, but I will include them just to provide a thorough background on the subject (that is what this blog is all about: reliable references and substantiated evidence).

Thank you!

Sources

[1] Langer, Jhonni, (2002). Fenicios No Brasil. 20.06.2002
[2] Gabriela Martin, (2008). Pré-história do Nordeste do Brasil Editora Universitária UFPE. pp. 26
[3] Cirus Gordon, (1968). The Authenticity of the Phoenician Text from Paraiba. Orientalia, No. 37, 1968, pp. 75-80,
[4] Cirus Gordon, (1968). The Canaanite Text from Brazil, Orientalia, No. 37, 1968, pp. 425-436,
[5] Frank Moore Cross, Jr. (1979). Phoenicians in Brazil?, Biblical Archaeology Review, Jan/Feb 19 79, pp. 36-43.
[6] Richard Flavin. Online. Fell and Egyptian
[7] Ladislau Netto, (1885). Lettre a Monsieur Ernest Renan a propos de l’inscrioption Phenicienne apocryphe soumise en 1872 a l’Institut historique, geographique et ethnograpicque du Bresil. Rio de Janeiro, Lombarts et Comp. Online at the: Biblioteca Digital do Museu Nacional, UFRJ.
[8] V. L. Baril (Comte de la Hure), (1862). L'empire du Brésil: monographie complete de l'empire sud-am&eaucte;ricain.... F. Sartorius, pp. 443.
[9] Freemasonry.
[10] Robert F. Marx and Jenifer Marx, (1992). In quest of the great white gods: contact between the Old and New World from the dawn of history Crown. pp. 308.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

The “Phoenician” inscriptions in Brazil. Pedra da Gavea

2011-03-01T13:39:00.003-03:00

First part on the "Phoenician" inscriptions found in Brazil.

See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.

Pedra da Gavea in Rio de Janeiro. The "Phoenician inscriptions" seen from afar. Adapted by A. Whittall form a photograph by Paulo Afonso de A. Teixeira

In the southern part of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, right beside the beach, there is a steep mountain that rises 842 m (2,760 ft.) above sea level. It has a sheer rock face and is known as Pedra de Gávea (“topsail” rock, in Portuguese).

Besides being a beautiful sight, with rugged face and its base covered with lush tropical vegetation, it is also intriguing, because it has some strange marks on its face that have been said to be man-made inscriptions.

This is just one of the many alleged pre-Hispanic inscriptions found in Brazil. Today’s post will review them with a critical eye.

LAABHTEJRABRIZDABNAISNEOFRUZT

In 1839, Januário da Cunha Barbosa and Araújo Porto-Alegre published a paper in the Intituto Histórico e Gegráfico Brasileiro (IHGB) journal on the possible existence of ancient inscriptions on the Pedra da Gavea.

In their article (Relatório sobre a Inscricao da Gávea”, RIHGB (1): 77-81), they concluded that after an “in loco” inspection that their were not sure if these inscriptions were real or not, and suggested that the Institute should undertake a deeper investigation.[1]

Neary one century later, in 1920 the matter was taken up again by a "scholar", actually a retired industrial magnate (who of humble origins, and became an orphan at a young age, later made his fortune as a natural rubber tapper) named Bernardo Azevedo Silva Ramos (1858-1931).

Silva Ramos was a self educated archaeologist and historian, president of the Instituto Geografico de Manaos. Living in Manaos, in the Amazon, he compiled several hundreds of “Phoenician inscriptions” from that region, which [2]

He published, with government support a book on the native inscriptions in Amreica: “ Inscricoes e Tradicoes da America Prehistorica — Especialmente do Brasil”, in two volumes ( R. de Janeiro, 1930-39), in which he dealt with Gavea's inscriptions. Below is an image of these inscriptions and their translation according to Silva Ramos:

Pedra da Gavea "Phoenician" inscriptions.

Ramos interpreted the inscriptions (which, by the way, the Brazilian government and most scholars consider the work of erosion and natural weathering of the mountain's rock face) as follows:

LAABHTEJ - RAB - RIZDAB - NAISINEOF - RUZT

And, considering that the Phoenicians wrote from right to left (like modern Hebrew, the opposite to the way Western languages are written), he inverted the phrase:

TZUR - FOENISIAN - BADZIR – RAB - JETHBAAL

Which, he translated as:

Tyro Phoenicia, Firstborn Jethbaal”.

A cryptic phrase which has a historical backing: Badezir ruled Phoenicia from 855 to 850 BC, and he was the son of Jehtbaal, who ruled from 887 to 856 BC.

This would be so neat and nice if, (there is always an if!) it had said “Canaan” instead of “Phoenicia”, because, “Phoenicians” is a name given to them by the Greeks, and as Western science derives from Greece, we use their words as our own. But, real Phoenicians didn’t call themselves that way. They used the name “Canaan”.

This may hint at (if the "letters" were not formed by natural weathering) a "forced" interpretation of symbols.

You may expect that Badezir was some name made up by Silva Ramos, and therefore lacking evidence to back it up. However, the name is true and it exists, in a list of the “Kings that had reigned at Tyre” published by Romano-Jewish historian Josephus (37 – c.100 AD), and he in turn cites a Phoenician author of the second century BC, Menander of Ephesus:

...Pheles who took the kingdom and reigned but eight months though he lived fifty years he was slain by Ithobalus the priest of Astarte who reigned thirty two ye ars and lived sixty eight years he was succeeded by his son Badezorus who lived forty five years and reigned six years he was succeeded by Matgenus his son...[6]

Text mentioning Phoenician kings Ithobalus and Badezorus. From [3]

Where Ithobalus is Jethbaal and Badezorus is Badezir (by the way, I have seen in the Internet an outlandish comment suggesting that the name Brazil comes from Badezorus!).

By the way, the biblical Jezebel is the daughter of Jethbaal (she married the King of Israel Ahab, and led him astray from Jehova inducing him to tolerate the cult of Baal - 1 kings 16:31).

Closing comments.

As I said above, the marks according to most "reliable" sources are natural. And I tend to believe the same thing. Why would the Phoenicians climb up a sheer rock face to carve a strange phrase there?.

Then we have the use of the word "Phoenician" instead of "Canaan". It is as if an American expedition after reaching the Moon would have left a plaque there and signed it "Gringos" instead of "Americans".

The historical / biblical part of the translation is coherent, and neat (too neat in fact), which makes me wonder if the symbols were interpreted with the intention of finding what was in fact found: the name of Jethbaal, father of Jezebel and Badezir (aka "Brazil").

It is wishful thinking. Not the work of Phoenicians.

Next post will deal with some other inscriptions and, the famous Paraíba (or Parahyba) inscription.

Sources.

[1] Manoel Luiz Lima Salgado Guimarães, Carlos Fico, (2006). Estudos sobre a escrita da história: anais do Encontro de Historiografia e História Política : 10 e 11 de outubro de 2005. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Programa de Pós-Graduação em História Social. 7 Letras , pp 103
[2] Stone inscriptions and escutcheons. American Anthropologist vol. 22. pp. 388+
[3] Flavius Josephus, William Whiston, (1810). The genuine works of Flavius Josephus: containing five books of the Antiquities of the Jews : to which are prefixed three dissertations, Volume 6. Printed for Evert Duyckinck, John Tiebout, and M. & W. Ward pp. 216

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Phoenician gods in Patagonia: horned demons

2011-03-01T09:59:00.003-03:00

Seeking a link between horned Phoenician gods and the horned deities of Patagonia

See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.

Baal, supreme Phoenician god. Note the horns sprouting from his head. Source: Internet

Biblical "Molech" horned god revered by the Ammonites and also the Phoenicians. Source: Internet

We have mentioned the possibility that the Phoenicians or their Carthaginian descendants reached America some 2200 – 2700 years ago, trading Brazil wood dye, precious metals and gems of American origin in their Mediterranean markets. Perhaps they even set up colonies here (in future posts I will keep on providing “evidence” on their alleged presence in South America). In today’s post we will take a peek at their gods and review the possibility that these deities could have left an indelible impression on the local natives, especially in Patagonia, which is where there is evidence (in the form of Phoenician inscriptions) of their presence.

See my post on the Cattle like creatures in Patagonia (cows and bulls were unknown in Patagonia until they were introduced by the Spaniards in the early 1500s): the options are that (a) there was some now extinct "bovid" in Patagonia or (b) they came across cattle brought by pre-Hispanic mariners, either in effigy (such as a horned-god cult) or in person, with cattle on board these sailor's ships.

Horned gods. Molech

Molech was the main god of the Ammonite pantheon, he was also worshiped by the Phoenicians as we can see from inscriptions bearing his name “Melek. A name that meant “king” (that is, the great leader, or “top” god).[3]

Moloch derives from the word Melkarth and is abbreviated in the Phoenician inscriptions as Melkar, Mokarth and also Mokar.[3]

Each of the independent city-states of Phoenicia had their “male” deity which despite having different names, shared the same features: at Tyre he was Melqart, at Sidon Eshmun and at Byblos, Baal. They also had a female partner (who is most commonly known as Astarte). The name Baal, in Phoenician meant “lord” or “master”, and may have been referred to as adonai (my lord), which was adopted by the Greek as Adonis, their young hunter god.[4]

We find juicy references to Moloch in the Bible, who mentions it in reference to the hated enemies of the people of Israel, the Ammonites, whose religion included the worship of Moloch or Molech whom they represented as a horned bull-like deity.

Ammonites: People of Semitic origin who lived on the eastern side of the Jordan River (Transjordan), just to the northeast of the Dead Sea in what is now Jordan. [1]

We find reference to him in the Bible, in 1 KingS 11:7: “Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon”.

According to the Bible, the cult of Moloch was bloody and demanded the sacrifice of children. As the Jewish people sporadically took to adoring Moloch (abandoning the worship of Jehovah), God’s word, as recorded in the Bible, strictly prohibits this horrible kind of sacrifice.

For instance, in Leviticus 18:21 God orders: “Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.”.
His ban is repeated in Leviticus 20:2-5 (Where he tells Moses: “Say to the Israelites: 'Any Israelite or any alien living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the community are to stone him…”) and in 2 Kings. 23:10; Jeremiah 32:35, Isaiah 30:33 and 57:5, etc.
However not all agree with this monstrous behavior:

Some are of opinion that the devotees contented themselves with making their children leap over a fire sacred to Moloch by this action consecrating them to that false deity and as by a lustration purifying them this being a usual ceremony on other occasions among the heathen. Others believe that they made them pass between two fires opposite each other with the same intention...[2]

There is even a place mentioned in the Valley of Hinnom, on the hill where Jerusalem is built, this site is known as Topheth, or “fire pit”.
The burning took place in a brazen idol (depicted above), which had the head of a bull and arms of a person. They would build a fire, and heat the idol until it was red-hot and glowing, then they would take their newborn babies and place them in those searing arms, so that they burned to death. [2]

Apparently the Carthaginians also sacrificed children, though there are many who doubt this (read both sides of the story - external link.)

Baal the other horned god

There is a stele of Baal, from a site in modern Syria, Ugarit. It dates back to the period between the 1500 and 1800 years BC. If you are in Paris, drop by the Musee du Louvre and take a look at it. Baal has two cow-like horns sprouting from his head.

Sources.

[1] Watson E. Mills, Roger Aubrey Bullard, (1990). The Mercer dictionary of the Bible. Mercer University Press, 1990. pp. 23.
[2] Agustin Clamet, (1832) Dictionary of the Holy Bible. Crocker and Brewster, pp. 677.
[3] George Rawlinson, The Religions of the Ancient World. pp. 146.
[4] Glenn Markoe, (2000) Phoenicians. Vol 2 of Peoples of the past. University of California Press, pp. 117.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Analysis of Tehuelche - Phoenician - Celtic (?) intertwined snakes

2011-02-28T14:09:00.001-03:00

Strange snakes of alleged Celtic or Phoenician origin found engraved on Patagonian rockss. Native or Semitic - Celtic art?

See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.

Alleged Tehuelche engraved stone with several intertwined snakes. Source: Internet

Above, is an image of an engraved stone, found in Chubut, Patagonia, which is attributed either to Phoenicians navigators who somehow reached the region or to Celtic mariners who somehow strayed and landed in Patagoina, or, an imitation crafted by local Tehuelche natives, who based their art on originals that the new arrivals (either Celts or Phoenicians) showed them.

Far fetched? Yes indeed. But, the stones exist, and they are either fakes, made in recent times (we will look into this option in a future post), or authentic stone carvings, crafted by some “ancient” people who lived in Chubut, Argentina.

Writhing Celtic snakes

The “Celtic” link is due to the fact that “Celts” represented intertwined snakes in their art. And, this is indeed so, as can be seen in the following examples.

The oldest is from Sutton Hoo, a village in East Anglia, England. Where an Anglo-Saxon king was buried around 625 AD. His burial included several gold jewels, among which is his buckle, shown below:

"Celtic" Buckle with intertwined snakes. Sutton Hoo, England. ca 625 AD. Souce: Internet

Another example is the beautiful cover of the Lindau Gospels (St. Galle Abbey, Switzerland. Circa 875 AD), which depicts snake or lizard-like creatures, intertwined, interlaced; which is shown below:

Lindau Gospel, ca. 875 AD. Intertwined snakes. Source: Internet

Both are beautiful examples of Germanic snakes (in my opinion they are not Celtic).

The "real" Celt examples found on the Internet are usually Irish crosses or symbols related to them. These are interesting images with intricate designs fashioned from knotted ribbons, but I have not been able to find one ribbon that resembles a snake. The Celts and their druid priests worshiped the snake (as a kind of phallic symbol), and they drew on their banners a snake intertwined around a wooden staff.[2] And this, in an island withoug snakes! (the myth surely came from the Celtic homeland in Europe or beyond).

However, none of these images resembles the writhing Patagonian snakes shown in the image that begins this post.

We will have to look at the Phoenician snakes to see if they can offer some clues.

Phoenician snakes (with a touch of Greece and Egypt)

In the ancient Middle East, in Babylon, two intertwined snakes were the symbolic representation of healing, wisdom, and fertility. From its place of origin in Mesopotamia, it migrated west, reaching the Mediterranean, where it was adopted by the Phoenicians. It is depicted in the image below, of the Phoenician Deified Serpent, or Serpent of Fire. [1]:

Phoenician serpent of fire. From [1]

In turn, besides adopting the Phoenician alphabet, The Greeks also took this god from the Phoenician pantheon, as their own god Asclepius or Asklepios.

He was symbolized by a wooden staff with a serpent wrapped around it. And that symbol originated from a Phoenician god, that had an ophidian origin:

"the word apah or epah, (frequently written apa or epa or epe in the Talmud) signifies a viper, a basilisk, a serpent. This word may have been often conjoined with that of Escul". [3]

Then there is also the symbol of the Caduceus which is a wand with two (not one –as was the case of Asclepius), belonging to Hermes, another Greek God. Which is no other than the Roman god Mercury, the god of trade and commerce. [4]

The serpent god is a very ancient myth, and the Phoenician one also has links to its Egyptian counterpart, Thoth:

The Egyptian god Seth, whose name, in Egyptian (and in Hebrew) means, “pillar”, that is, erect, tall, high is a phallic god. Interestingly, the Egyptian Book of the Dead also calls Seth, “Tet” , which is one of the names of the Egyptian god “Thoth”. Furthermore, Tet was the Phoenician god “Taaut, which is the one who originated the ophidian Esculapius.[5]

This "Taaut", according to Eusebius [*] also invented the alphabet!:

Taautus was the first who thought of the invention of letters, and began the writing of records: and he laid the foundation, as it were, of his history, by beginning with him, whom the Egyptians called Thoyth, and the Alexandrians Thoth, translated by the Greeks into Hermes. [7]

[*] The Bishop, Eusebius of Caesarea, (c. AD 263–339), quoted extensively from a previous historian, Philo of Byblos (c. AD 64-141), using material from Philo's Phoenician History.

So, as we can see, Thoth, Tet, Taaut and Esculapius are all the same god.

Regarding this “Egyptian” connection, intertwined snakes also appear in predynastic times in Ancient Egypt. [6] as can be seen in the following images dated to about 3.200 BC:

Predynastic Egyptian intertwined snakes ca. 3200 BC. From [6]

These snakes look more like the Patagonian one, being undulated and rounded, however they are not knotted into a circular mat, instead, they are "parallel" to each other.

Anyway, there is a link between Phoenicia and snakes, so if (a big if) the Patagonian engraved stones are authentic and not the work of some forger, then, they could have a Phoenician origin.

Sources.

[1] From Phoenician Coin. Maurice’s Indian Antiquities, Vol. VI, p. 368. London, 1796.
[2] James Bonwick, (1894). Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions. Forgotten Books. pp 144.
[3] Sir. William Drummond, (1826). Origines: Or, Remarks on the Origin of Several Empires, States and Cities. Baldwin and Co. Vol. 3. Phoenicia, Arabia. pp. 223.
[4] Keith Blayney , (2002). The Caduceus vs the Staff of Asclepius (Asklepian).
[5] Staniland Wake, (1870). Influence of the phallic idea in the religions of Antiquity. Chapter: The Hebrew Identified With Ethnic Religions.
[6] Archae Solenhofen , (2003). The tomb of Sabu and the tri-lobed "schist" bowl. August 25, 2003.
[7] Canaanite Resources. Eusebius of Caesarea: Book 1 - Chapter X. From Eusebius of Caesarea: Praeparatio Evangelica From Book 1. Chapters 9 and 10.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Genuine Tehuelche "inscribed or engraved" stones

2011-02-28T11:48:00.000-03:00

What real Tehuelche native engraved stones look like

See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.

Tehuelche stone engraving. By Outes (1917). From [1].

When looking at the "inscribed" stones of Patagonia, you should compare them with the "engraved stones" (in Spanish "placas grabadas") that are of an unquestionable native American orign (Tehuelche or Mapuche).

The image shown above depicts an example of a real Tehuelche "engraved stone". As you can see, they are flat surfaced stones that have been etched, by scraping with some sharp element. The drawings are crude and lack the artistic style of the allegedly "Middle Eastern inscribed stones" of supposed Phoenician origin.

Sources.

[1] Outes, Felix, (1917). La Materialización del Cherruve Araucano. Anales de la Sociedad Cientfica Argentina, Buenos Aires Vol. 83, Jan-Feb, 1917. pp. 81.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Aristotle on America: the "island" of the Carthaginians

2011-02-28T11:25:00.000-03:00

A mysterious island in the Atlantic, is it America?

See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.

Aristotle, his text on the mysterious island of the Carthaginians in the Atlantic: America. From [1].

Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC, in the book that is attributed to him, "De mirabilibus auscultationibus", wrote the following:

In the sea outside the Pillars of Hercules [beyond Gibraltar, that is, in the Atlantic Ocean] they say that an island was discovered by the Carthaginians, desolate, having wood of every kind, and navigable rivers, [this can only be America as no other island in the Atlantic has navigable rivers] and admirable for its fruits besides, but distant several days' voyage from them. But when the Carthaginians often came to this island because of its fertility, and some even dwelt there [a Colony], the magistrates of the Carthaginians gave notice that they would punish with death those who should sail to it, and destroyed all the inhabitants. lest they should spread the report about it, or a large number might gather together to the island in their time, get possession of the authority, and destroy the prosperity of the Carthaginians. [1]

This is very similar to Diodorus' version. And referrs to a Carthaginian colony in America.

I would like to point out however that the work is certainly not by Aristotle, and may even include additions dating to the second century AD. Nevertheless a very curious and useful compendium of ancient myths.

Sources.

Aristotle, De mirabilibus auscultationibus. Dowdall, Laurence. (1909) Oxford : Clarendon Press

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Phoenicians: Aramaic inscriptions in Chubut

2011-02-28T10:51:00.000-03:00

On the strange inscriptions found in Chubut.

See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.

Article on stones found in Chubut, Patagonia, with Aramaic inscriptions. Aug. 1987.l

Argentine investigator Enrique Garcí Barthe and photographer Julián Knopp found several stones that they attributed to ancient migrants from the Middle East, with "Aramaic" inscriptions.

These were uncovered "from a depth of several meters during excavations done to lay a natural gas pipeline".[1] They were found in the Argentine province of Chubut.

Barthe also said that the Boer immigrants (many had come to Chubut province during the Boer War in South Africa against Britain) who returned back to South Africa in the early 1900s once the war was over, took "hundreds of these stones back with them as a souvenir of the Mapuche [natives]" [1]

The finding was confirmed by father Román Dumrauf, Director of the Don Bosco Catholic Foundation. The stones were found in the province of Chubut, and many come from Gan Gan. He said that several investigators had visited the Museo Regional Salesiano at Rawson and speculated on the origin of the stones. Some said that they were made by the Inca, others by the natives of Easter Island. All agreed that they were not made by the local Patagonian natives.

Sources.

[1] Victoria Azurduy, (1987). Descubren Nexo entre Patagonia y Oriente Ambito Financiero, Buenos Aires, 04 Aug. 1987. pp. 23
[2] El Chubut, Salesiano confirma existencia de piedras talladas. 05, August, 1987. pp. 10.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Phoenicians in America: an index

2011-02-25T11:51:00.031-03:00

After six posts on the subject of the Phoenicians in America, I am beginning to lose track of the posts, (they are all called the same "Phoenicians in Patagonia X". So to tidy things up and make it easy to find what we are looking for, this post will be the index and will appear as the link in the left sidebar menu.

Every time I post on Phoenicians, it will appear here in this index:

The inscriptions in Patagonia.

Phoenicians in Patagonia. The first post. A strange stone with a giant snake and semitic symbols on it, hints that the Phoenicians may have visited Patagonia.
Newspaper Articles dated on the stones dated 1987. On the strange inscriptions on stones kept at the Museo Regional at Rawson, Chubut, Patagonia. Apparently they are "Aramaic".
Tehuelche rock art with Phoenician symbols (such as ⵣ). There are strange engraved stones with symbols resembling the Phoenician alphabet in Patagonia. Could they mean that Phoenicians visited the region? Could they have transmitted their myths to the locals and therefore impact on cryptozoology?
Yaz symbol (ⵣ) at Lake Puelo Chubut. The symbol was found carved on a rock at Lake Puelo in 1906...
Tehuelche sculptures with Phoenician symbols. (Cont). Tehuelche sculptures with Phoenician symbols.
Patagonian Lady of Elche. Patagonian Lady of Elche similar to the original one found in Spain dated to 500 BC, and its link to Phoenician symbols such as Yaz (ⵣ).
A genuine Tehuelche sculpture. The real Tehuelche engraved stones are much coarser and lack the refined bas relief style of those mentioned above.
Tehuelche rock inscriptions, comparison to the alleged "Phoenician" ones. Genuine Tehuelche rock inscriptions are very different to those of a supposed Phoenician origin as can be seen in these images...
Map and details on the location of Patagonia's Phoenician stones. The stones were found in Chubut, at different locations. Could these sites give us some clue on their origin?

Phoenicians in America

Phoenicians, an introduction. Phoenicians an introductory summary: their home base, trade and navigation skills.
Phoenician colonies across the Atlantic. Ancient historians and geographers (Diodorus and Strabo) wrote about Phoenicians sailing across the Atlantic towards an "island" far from Africa, and setting up colonies there. Could it be America?
Phoenician navigation skills and Brazil. Did they have the ability to sail across the Atlantic? Brazil and the red dye connection to the Phoenicians. Ophir and the gold trail between King Solomon and Brazil.
Aristotle on America. Aristotle wrote about a mysterious island discovered by the Carthaginians in the Atlantic Ocean, it seems to be a continent. Is it America?
Phoenician inscriptions in Brazil. Part 1. At Pedra da Gavea in Rio de Janeiro there are some alleged Phoenician inscriptions.
Phoenician inscriptions in Brazil. Part 2. The mysterious Paraiba (or Parahyba) Phoenician inscription telling about some stranded Phoenician mariners who on their way around Africa landed in Brazil.
Phoenician inscription at Rochedo dos Arvoredos, Brazil. Closer to Patagonia, an alleged Phoenician rock inscription at Santa Catarina, Rochedo dos Arvoredos island...

Cryptozoology and the "Phoenicians" in Patagonia

Analysis of Phoenician or Celtic? - Tehuelche snakes in Patagonia. Snakes depicted in engraved stones found in Patagonia are usually given a Celtic or Phoenician origin. In this post we review the snake cult of Celts and Phoenicians.
Horned Gods of the Patagonian natives, a link to the Phoenicians. The Patagonian natives had horned gods (despite the fact that there are no cow-like creatures in the region. These bear an uncanny resemblance to Phoenician gods...
Tehuelche inscribed stone with cryptid and Phoenician characters. An engraved stone shows a strange crytpid, dog or horse-like as well as Phoenician characters...

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Phoenicians in Patagonia - Part 6

2011-02-25T11:39:00.002-03:00

Ancient historians and geographers (Strabo and Diodorus) mention Phoenician colonies across the Atlantic: America perhaps?

See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.

The notion that the Phoenicians reached America is not at all new. In 1652, a distinguished German historian, George Horn also known as Hornius (in those days they preferred to Latinize their surnames to dignify them) published a book in Hague “De originibus americanis libris IV”, where he expounds that America had been peopled by successive waves of immigrants among which he placed the Phoenicians.

This notion was quite accepted at that time, and we see it again in several books, such as the one published in 1785, which said that not only the Phoenicians but also the Carthaginians or even navigators from their Spanish colonies could have reached America: [1]

A 1785 book suggesting Phoenician migration to America. From: [1]

In today’s post we will look into some ancient sources that may prove that the
Phoenicians actually sailed to America.

I have already mentioned two voyages of exploration, one around Africa, and the other along its Atlantic seaboard. For those interested in more information, these two links are excellent:

Hannos voyage: http://www.livius.org/ha-hd/hanno/hanno02.html#Kerne
And neccos http://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodotus/hist01.htm
title="External link" target="_blank"

Strabo and colonies beyond the Atlantic Ocean

Strabo (63 BC – 24 AD), a Greek historian and geographer wrote about the Phoenicians navigation skills in the Atlantic Ocean, stating that after the Trojan War (approx. 1200 BC), they sailed beyond Gibraltar and established colonies in those regions and in the central parts of the Libyan sea-board. So, if Libya is Africa, then where were the other colonies established along the Atlantic? Below is Strabo’s text : [2]

Strabo's text on Phoenicians crossing the Atlantic towards America. From: [2]

Diodorus and the island across the Atlantic

But, much more interesting is a story jotted down by Diodorus of Siclily (historian), who in 56 BC wrote about a strange island in the Atlantic Ocean, which resembles a continent (America). First he mentions the islands within the Mediterranean, and then others beyond Gibraltar (Pillars of Hercules). As the text is very interesting, so I will quote it extensively even though you may find it boring: [3] (in bold I will include some comments)

We shall give an account of those which are in the ocean. [The islands in the Atlantic] For there lies out in the deep off Libya an island of considerable size, and situated as it is in the ocean it is distant from Libya a voyage of a number of days to the west.

[west of Africa: this excludes the British Isles or Western Europe, which could have been mistaken for an island.]

Its land is fruitful, much of it being mountainous and not a little being a level plain of surpassing beauty. Through it flow navigable rivers [None of the islands in the Atlantic Ocean have navigable rivers. He is evidently talking about a continent: America]. which are used for irrigation, and the island contains many parks planted with trees of every variety and gardens in great multitudes which are traversed by streams of sweet water; on it also are private villas of costly construction, and throughout the gardens banqueting houses have been constructed in a setting of flowers, and in them the inhabitants pass their time during the summer season, since the land supplies in abundance everything which contributes to enjoyment and luxury.

[The costly villas are either Mesoamerican (Mayan, Aztec) buildings or, as we will see further down, the buildings of expat Phoenicians. They aren’t the straw huts of Brazilian natives or the leather tepees of Patagonian Indians].

The mountainous part of the island is covered with dense thickets of great extent and with fruit-trees of every variety, and, inviting men to life among the mountains, it has cozy glens and springs in great number. In a word, this island is well supplied with springs of sweet water which not only makes the use of it enjoyable for those who pass their life there but also contribute to the health and vigour of their bodies. There is also excellent hunting of every manner of beast and wild animal, and the inhabitants, being well supplied with this game at their feasts, lack of nothing which pertains to luxury and extravagance; for in fact the sea which washes the shore of the island contains a multitude of fish, since the character of the ocean is such that it abounds throughout its extent with fish of every variety.

And, speaking generally, the climate of this island is so altogether mild that it produces in abundance the fruits of the trees and the other seasonal fruits for the larger part of the year, so that it would appear that the island, because of its exceptional felicity, were a dwelling-place of a race of gods and not of men.

[Sounds like the “very best” Hy-Brazil Island mentioned in my previous post].

In ancient times this island remained undiscovered because of its distance from the entire inhabited world, but it was discovered at a later period for the following reason. The Phoenicians, who from ancient times on made voyages continually for purposes of trade, planted many colonies throughout Libya and not a few as well in the western parts of Europe. And since their ventures turned out according to their expectations, they amassed great wealth and essayed to voyage beyond the Pillars of Heracles into the sea which men call the ocean. […]

The Phoenicians, then, while exploring the coast outside the Pillars for the reasons we have stated and while sailing along the shore of Libya, were driven by strong winds a great distance out into the ocean. And after being storm-tossed for many days they were carried ashore on the island we mentioned above, and when they had observed its felicity and nature they caused it to be known to all men.

[So, a storm pushed them across the Atlantic. Just like it did to Cabral in 1500s, when he discovered Brazil –see previous post.].

Consequently the Tyrrhenians, at the time when they were masters of the sea, purposed to dispatch a colony to it, but the Carthaginians prevented their doing so, partly out of concern lest many inhabitants of Carthage should remove there because of the excellence of the island, and partly in order to have ready in it a place in which to seek refuge against an incalculable turn of fortune, in case some total disaster should overtake Carthage. For it was their thought that, since they were masters of the sea, they would thus be able to move, households and all, to an island which was unknown to their Conquerors. [1]

This last paragraph, is very interesting, as we have skipped from the ancient Phoenicians to their colony, Carthage and to the Tyrrhenians, which is the name that Diodorus applies to the Etruscans.

The Etruscans lived in Italy, north of Rome, in Etruria – Tuscany, and gradually declined until around 500 BC, when they became part of the growing Roman “empire”.
It seems that the Carthaginians had other schemes regarding the “island”, perhaps they wanted to keep it all for themselves. Or, as Diodorus mentions, they decided to keep it as an ace up their sleeves as a escape route from the growing Roman influence (which, actually let to the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage and to the ultimate destruction of Carthage).

Did they manage to flee to America before their final destruction?

Finding them

If we were to seriously look for a Phoenician settlement we would have to take into account their typical colonizing pattern: they chose a coastal island, close to the shore, or a headland by the mouth of a river with a protected harbor. These were easy to defend and unassailable from the land by eventually hostile locals. This is what they did at Tyre in their homeland (until Alexander the Greate joined the island to the mainland with a causeway and then stormed it at will), Mogador in Morocco, Gades (modern Cadiz) in Spain.

Perhaps some island along the coast of Brazil may have been used as a base by the Phoenicians.

In Patagonia it is an easier matter, the lack of freshwater would have led them to settle near the mouth of one of the Patagonian rivers: Colorado, Negro, Chubut, Deseado, Santa Cruz, Coig or Gallegos. Let’s look into this in a future post on the Phoenicians in Patagonia.

Survival of a Phoenician Colony in America

What impact would a boatload of Phoenicians or a small commercial establishment peopled by a few hundreds of Phoenicians have on the native Americans? Would they leave a permanent mark? Would their lore be absorbed by the onlooking locals and blended with their own?

Regarding the first question, there is the pessimist point of view:

"... with primitive means of migration, there seems small chance of the arrival of wayfarers in any considerable numbers on the American shores, and the evidence of such arrivals must be far to seek and difficult of evaluation. A primitive boat's crew reaching the western continent as voluntary voyagers or as wayfarers brought unwillingly by the winds and currents, even if hospitably received by the resident population, would leave no physical trace of their presence that would last beyond a few generations, and the culture they happened to represent might not find even a temporary foothold..."[4]

Not very supportive of our Phoenicians in America theory!

But, genetic data may give us some evidence, as well as archaeological remains. But this, will be the subject of another post.

Sources

[1] Joan Francesc de Masdéu, (1785). Historia critica de España y de la cultura española: obra compuesta y publicada en italiano. Publ. don Antonio de Sancha pp.118
[2] Strabo. The Geography of Strabo. Eds. Jones, Horace Leonard, Sterrett, J. R. Sitlington (John Robert Sitlington), London Heinemann , vol 1. pp. 177 (1:3-2)
[3] Diodorus of Sicily. Bibliotheca historica , Harvard University Press (Loeb), Cambridge 1968. Book V, 18. 2-19 pp. 145+
[4] American anthropology, 1888-1920: papers from the American anthropologist The problems of the unity or plurality and the probable place of origin of the American aborigines: A symposium. Vol. 14, 1912 1- 59. Univ. of Nebraska press.(2002) pp. 189

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Phoenicians in Patagonia - Part 5

2011-02-24T16:08:00.004-03:00

Phoenician navigation skills, red dyes and gold: Brazil and Ophir.

See Index on all my posts on Phoenicians in America.

The Phoenicians had to be able to reach America otherwise we can't go ahead with our analysis. So today we will look into their navigation abilities to see if they were capable of crossing an ocean.

Phoenician sailors

Despite the belief that the Phoenicians hugged the shores and sailed close to them, Aubert [1] mentions that they sailed the high seas, in long voyages, that lasted several days. This type of voyage involved sailing by night, which in turn meant that they had to be able to get their bearings by astronomical means.

Opposing currents, dangerous shores or just to cut distances and shorten trips meant that they did not only use coastal navigation between their settlements, they also went out into the open sea.

However, bad weather (winter) did not allow this kind of sailing, which was restricted to good weather during the spring-summer-early autumn period.
Their basic vessel was the Merchant ship, a "wide and spacious [ship]", called

Phoenician merchant vessel. Polish Stamp.

They had high bow and stern and though moved mainly by wind in their heavy square sail, they had up to twenty oarsmen for maneuvering. They could carry between 100 and 500 tons of merchandise. (Note that the caravels that Columbus sailed on to discovered America, the Pinta, Niña and Santa María displaced 60, 50 and 100 tons respectively). However the early sixteenth century Portuguese used 400 ton vessels in their trade with the Far East.

So, these ships were at least the same size or bigger than the Iberian boats used during the period of exploration and discovery that began in the early 1400s.
They advanced at about 5 knots (9 km/hour) and could cover 160 km (100 miles) a day.

Their main obstacles were the sea currents and head winds. The Phoenicians navigated during the season when the winds favored them and also, along coasts with currents that went in their same direction.

Crossing the Atlantic

There is a North Equatorial current flowing in a westward direction at about 0.7 knot/hour , from the Cape Verde Islands by Africa. To the south of the equator is the South Equatorial current, flowing from the African Gulf of Guinea towards Brazil, where it splits in two. The southern branch runs along the coast of Brazil all the way to Argentina. The northern branch reaches the Caribbean.

These would drag a ship from Africa towards America. The return trip could be done on the the weak eastward North Equatorial counter-current, which flows between those mentioned above.

Actually, Brazil was discovered in 1500 by Pedro Alvarez de Cabral, who trying to avoid the calms of the Gulf of Guinea, went further to the west en route to India and was driven by trade winds and currents towards the west, becoming the first European to set foot on South America, in Brazil.

It is likely that the Phoenicians, who sailed along the Western coasts of Africa for several hundred years, also found themselves under the same circumstances. It is probable that they also went out into sea, because like the Portuguese, they also knew that hugging the coast was not a good policy when faced with winds that blew towards the shore. These could dash the vessels against the rocks and destroy ship, cargo and crew.

But likely and probable don't mean that it did happen. Can we find proof in some other sources?

Yes, we can.

Brazil, what is in a name?

There are several theories surrounding the origin of the word "Brazil", I will mention them below:

The Celtic one. Before Cabral reached Brazil, Ancient maps depicted an island in the Atlantic ocean called Brazile (see Angelino Dulert's map of 1325). It was also spelled Breasail, Brasil and Hy-Brazil. The word is said to derive from the Gaelic words Breas and Ail, which mean "Great" and "Wonderful"; these were the "Very Best" Islands.[3]
Red: The dye. The Portuguese word "braza" (in Spanish Brasa) is an ember, a live burning coal. And it was used to refer to a strong red colored dye obtained from a variety of tree that grows in Brazil. [4]
Red: Molten Iron and Phoenicians. A variation of the above. This version says that the burning coal is related to molten red-hot iron, a metal which is abundant in Brazil, which the Phoenicians called BRZL in their language (which lacked vowels).
The Phoenicians again.. This one links Hy-Brazil to the Phoenicians. It states that the island "Figures in the Phoenician legends of 3,000 years ago, with the name Braaz". And that it was a land of plenty and peace. [5]

Red Phoenicians and Red Brazil

The interesting part of these theories is the red dye because, as I mentioned in my previous post, was the origin of the Greek name for them, "Phoinix" which meant "red".

The Phoenician's main trade product for the Phoenicians was a purple dye obtained by crushing mollusks (sea snails). It was expensive and scarce. But purple is not red.

It is likely that they also made and sold red dye.[6]

If so, the "Brazil tree" and its glowing ember-red colored wood could have been a raw material for red dyes just like it was for the Portuguese one thousand years later in the 1500s AD.

The Bible also gives us some information about Phoenicians and a strange kind of tree, the "almug":

King Solomon had a fleet built which sailed from the port of Ezion-geber to Ophir, manned with Phoenician seamen. They came back with large quantities of gold, gems and almug wood[7]. The exact location of Ezion-geber (Red Sea? Eilat? or Mediterranean Sea?) and Ophir are unknown. [8]

This "almug wood", also known as "algum", is a tree which is " a wood commonly called brasil in Arabic albaccam of a deep red colour used in dyeing ". [9]

Text that links the Biblical Almug of King Solomon to the Brazil dye wood.. From [9]

So it seems that the red "brazil - algum" wood dye comes from Ophir.

The gold of Ophir

Solomon also brought gold from Ophir. We know that Phoenicians traded in gold, and we even have an account by Herodotus on how the Carthaginians traded in gold:

"There is a country in Libya [Africa] , and a nation, beyond the Pillars of Hercules [Gibraltar - that is, on the Atlantic Ocean] which the Carthaginians are wont to visit, where they no sooner arrive than forthwith unlade their wares, and having disposed them in an orderly fashion along the beach, there leave them, and returning aboard their ships, raise a great smoke. The natives, when they see the sample, come down to the shore, and laying out to view so much gold as they think the wares are worth, withdraw to a distance....[2]

But, as we said, they were secretive about their trade routes and sources. Was this gold trading place really in Africa? Or, on the other side of the Atlantic in Brazil?

One of the states that make up the Brazilian Federation, is Minas Gerais (Portuguese for "General Mines"), which as you can imagine was named after its great wealth of gold and diamonds.

Gold was discovered by the Portuguese in Minas Gerais state (General Mines) in the late 1600s when explorers from Sao Paulo went inland and found alluvial gold in its streams. As can be imagined, this led to a gold rush, and vast quantities of gold were extracted and transported to Europe, generating plenty of wealth for the Portuguese empire.

Minas Gerais is just inland a few hundred kilometers from the Atlantic seaboard, north of Sao Paulo and West of Rio de Janeiro, bordering with both of them.
Could the Phoenicians have sourced their gold from here?

And, did they manage to sail beyond the coasts of Africa?

We will see that in our next post.

Sources.

[1] Aubert, María Eugenia, (2001) The Phoenicians and the West: politics, colonies and trade. Cambridge Univ. Press. pp. 167+
[2] Rawlinson, George, (1889). History of Phoenicia. Kessinger Publishing, reprint, 2004 pp. 139
[3] Marina Leslie, (1998). Renaissance utopias and the problem of history. Cornell University Press. pp. 36.
[4] Richard Stephen Charnock, (1859). Local etymology: a derivative dictionary of geographical names. Houlston and Wright, pp. 42.
[5] Geraldo Cantarino, (2004). Uma ilha chamada Brasil: o paraiso irlandes no passado brasileiro. Mauad pp 91.
[6] Roelof van den Broek and Inez Wolf Seeger, (1971). The myth of the phoenix. Brill Archive. pp. 65
[7] Bible, I Kings 9:26-28 , 10:11-12.
[8] John Haralson Hayes, (1986). A history of ancient Israel and Judah. Westiminster John Knox Press. pp. 213
[9] Sir William Smith, (1863). A dictionary of the Bible: comprising its antiquities, biography, geography and natural history. Little, Brown and Co. Vol. 3. vi.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia