The
Valley of Fossil Bones, By Ernest Sawyer (a
summary example of weird history) also an update
110 miles from Cape Town, South Africa there is a large airport of Langebaan. The writer (as a
pay master) during WW2 visited a army construction
works every week and on one occasion he unearthed a large tree branch that had
been calcified. This was from an excavation made for an underground fort and
the discovery was made 67 feet below ground level and possibly 100 feet above
sea level. Within a few miles of SaldanhaBay
('Salt of Life') and near Langebaan airport,
extensive deposits of rock highly impregnated with animal phosphates have been
found and annually now give thousands of tons of phosphate rock which is turned
into fertilizer.
A few months ago a farmer of Hopefield reported
to a University Professor that, on a very isolated part of his farm, there were
huge quantities of bones, which he thought, were fossilized. He produced some
specimens and they were considered of such importance that an expedition of
university professors and other scientists spent several weeks in this valley. This
find was kept very secret and even archaeologists living in Cape Town were kept in ignorance of the find.
I have mentioned that the neighborhood is pure sandy desert, yet a spot
less than four miles from the valley there are groups of curious rocks, one at
Oliphant (Elephant Hill) about 550 feet elevation resembles the rumps of
several elephants. The others look like tall columns in clusters.
Within a quarter of a mile from the sea at Langebaan,
at an elevation of about 250 feet, there is a typical raised beach covered by
an overlay of three feet of earth showing signs of phosphatisation.
The Langebaan Lagoon should be considered as
the focal point of several remarkable manifestations. In the first place the
Lagoon is fed by Saldanda Bay and the whole of its
eight or ten miles is surrounded by very steep precipitous hills running up to
about 6-800 feet, these start right at the water's edge. Scientists believe
that the lagoon is a submerged valley, whether this is so, or not, the fact
remains that at the head of the lagoon (marked 'OB' on plan) there is an
immense bed of fossilized oyster shells that go down for 40 feet. For many
years a firm have been loading these shells on barges
to a mill where they ground into grit for birds and exported to America. The
supply seems inexhaustible, for the contractor told me this had been going on
for 20 years, to his knowledge.
At a spot (marked 'FV' on plan), 300 feet from the surface of the lagoon,
from which it is distant about four miles, there is a valley surrounded by
hills from 351-580 feet in height above sea level.
This valley is a huge sand bowl, without vegetation,
while the hills around are of ferrocrete and
other iron stone formations. Strewn all over this valley, which measures about
one mile long by half a mile wide, are hundreds of thousands of fossilized
bones. All of them are of animals and birds. There are no bones of Homo Sapiens or of reptiles.
Large quantities of these bones have been brought to the Cape TownUniversity where they fill four large
rooms. I have been permitted to inspect these bones and this is what I found.
Remains of elephants, rhinos, hippos, buffalo,
antelopes, horses (not of cloved hoof variety),
zebra, ostrich, and many others. Perhaps the most notable are the
elephants and the buffalo, in fact first place must be
given to a head of a giant buffalo complete with horns that stretch out almost
seven feet. How did these ancient bones get to this confined space? No similar
deposit has ever been found in South
Africa, neither in quantity, variety, or in
good preservation. They are literally in heaps and are not underground, no
excavation is necessary. In this small space of one mile by half a mile it is
estimated that there are still hundreds of tons to be removed. Had similar
deposits been found elsewhere some solution could have been afforded.
But no, this is a unique deposit. To add to the mystery very large quantities
of artifacts lie around dating from the Stellenbosch industry (60-65 thousands
of years in age) to the late Stone Age of less than ten thousand years. It
could not have been a hunting ground, if this were so the bones would have been
more scattered. I am going to suggest that here we have another proof of our Atlantean theory. These bones are in a solid assemblage
less than five to six miles from the sea level is at present. The valley is at
an elevation of 300 feet and to get to the sea a climb down rocky steep
precipices is indicated, except at one point.
The land around SaldanhaTown
is the only land that slopes gently into the sea. For my argument I have shown
the phosphate rock deposits by dotted lines to the east of Saldanha
from which they are possibly about 200 feet higher in elevation. It can be
assumed that if these animals came from the land that is now submerged and
which we can say was the most eastern part of Atlantis their natural instinct
would make them seek out higher land. This they found in what is now a
phosphate area of the district.
Something happened, what it was we do not know that drove them in great
herds to the higher ground from which there was no escape. What caused the
final holocaust we do not know, but every thing points to starvation and death. As I before mentioned the patch of
Phosphate rock is extremely rich in animal phosphate. One scientist has
suggested that there was a large island lake at this point and around its
shores were plenty of grass and trees that sustained life for a long period.
Here is set a problem. Did these creatures escape from the terrible submergence
to meet their death on the inhospitable shores of the continent? Failing that
suggestion what caused hundreds of thousands of animals to die in this confined
space without making any attempt to escape?
An Update by webmaster to prove the overlooked point-
The Blade Newspaper article Dec. 2 2001 "South Africa discovery dispels
prior beliefs about Modern Homo Sapiens"
Capetown more than 70,000 years ago
people occupied cliff facing the Indian Ocean.
They hunted grysbok, springbok and other game. They ate fish from the waters
below them. In body and brain size were definitely human beings like us. They
were taking another important leap toward modernity. They were turning animal
bones into tools and worked finely made weapon points, a skill more advanced in
concept and application than making stone tools. They also were engraving some
artifacts with symbolic marks- manifestations of abstract and creative thought
and, presumably, communication through speech. The new discoveries at BlombosCave, 200 miles east of Cape Town, are turning long held-beliefs
upside down. Until now, modern human behavior was widely assumed to have been a
very late and abrupt development that seemed to have originated in a kind of
"creative explosion" in Europe. This
showed up in Europe before 40,000 years ago, in Africa
now pushed back to 70,000 years ago. This is starting to effect a conclusion
that man may have been experimenting with this level of culture 200,000 years
ago. A group led by Christopher S. Henshilwood of South Africa is
publishing a comprehensive report in the Dec. or Jan. issue of 2001 "The
Journal of Human Evolution". The report includes 28 bone tools and other
artifacts from Blombos cave, as well as 8,000 pieces
of iron oxide mineral ochre that may have been used for body decorations. Rick
Potts of the Smithsonian even had to admit in human origins program, "We
are seeing many elements of modernity that were developing much earlier, in Africa, and more gradually."
