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mainstream scientists, by virtue of their ubiquitous faith in Darwin,
have interpreted the 350,000-year old engravings from Bilzingsleben
Germany as the work of “ape-men.” At the most, they have granted these early Homo erectus people a simple rudimentary
language—just enough to let them hunt and perhaps build campfires; but
to think like us? Not a chance, because that would suggest that humans
have always had the same level of intelligence, and that would be
contrary to Darwinism which believes that human cognition evolves over
time. Fig. 1. Fig. 16c from The Graphics of Bilzingsleben showing proposed association between Artifact 6 and layout of the Paleolithic campsite, i.e. that the artifact is a representation of the site created by someone who was there 350,000-years ago. Upper left: Drawing of the artifact by Robert Bednarik used w/permission. Right and below: Details of the site by Dietrich and Ursula Mania used and angled w/permission. Circular areas: dwellings. However, unlike the other engravings from Bilzingsleben which are perhaps easier to interpret in mainstream terms, the engravings of Artifact 6 (Figs. 1-8, (Fig. 1) are very obviously the work of a skilled and experienced—if not professional—artist. Despite the rigorous geometric evidence presented in 112 slides at the XV UISPP Congress in Lisbon, 2006, in The Graphics of Bilzingsleben, the science community found it critical to block this paper from publication. Fig. 2. This is Fig. 16b from the Graphics of Bilzingsleben demonstrating at right the 3D quality of the engravings in 1-point perspective (2-point and multi-view perspectives in later issue). Not-to-scale persons were inserted for sense of space. There can be little doubt that the engraving was meant to convey 3-dimensionality. Much of this censorship, apart from a 5-year effort by the Congress editors themselves, was done through anonymous peer review at the Journal of Human Evolution. After 15 years of similar experience this was a final straw. Connecting up with other researchers censored in the same way—and some, like Virginia Steen-McIntyre for 40 years—was how the Pleistocene Coalition was formed to demonstrate that mainstream anthropology cannot be trusted to provide the public with an objective picture of human prehistory. At the UISPP Congress, the nature and exactness of the details in Artifact 6 were proposed to represent something even less believable than Lower Paleolithic art from the evolutionary standpoint—drafting or “technical drawing” of a high caliber including 3D perspective with enough information to create a three-dimensional duplicate in physical space. ‘Artistic’ representations are usually known for their subjective or emotional qualities. Technical or engineering drawings, on the other hand, are known for conveying very specific objective information or facts including measurable elements in several dimensions. It is not common, even in modern times, for both artistic and technical qualities to be expressed freely and equally in cont. on p. 12 |
| one drawing; but when
they are, they point in the direction of artists such as Albrecht Dürer
or Leonardo da Vinci. In other words, if the engravings of Artifact 6 are in any way what they are suggested to be then the old description of early peoples such as Homo erectus as being less intelligent than us is simply no longer tenable. Straight edge use by Homo erectus The few details on the Artifact 6 project presented at the UISPP conference and in the subsequent thesis paper were enough to show the completely modern level of Homo erectus intelligence without any ambiguity. They included 20-30 falsifiable proofs that the engravers at Bilzingsleben used a straight edge. Fig. 3. This is Fig. 16f from the Graphics of Bilzingsleben. Here, the “upper tier” in Artifact 6 was dropped down to the level of the “lower tier” at which point the two tiers were aligned non-arbitrarily by what I took as diagonal ‘registration guides.’ The guide set on the left is from the lower tier and the set on the right is from the upper tier. Both sets are exactly parallel to each other as seen bolded in Fig. 4. (In modern pre-CAD drafting, parallel diagonal lines this accurate were typically done using T-square and triangles.) As it turns out, the direction marked North (N) aligns the triangular elements—regarded as representing the dwellings at the campsite—not only in the exact same relationship as North in the original configuration (see Figs. 1 and 4) but also with the dwellings as depicted in the archaeological map (see Figs. 1 and 5). It is very unlikely that these uncanny correlations are a coincidence. In modern times, prior to the advent of computer-aided design or computer-aided drafting (CAD), the straight edge was the most important drafting tool. With the number and transparency of proofs presented at the UISPP Congress as well as submitted to the Journal of Human Evolution, for these organizations to argue against straight edge use by Homo erectus or to censor the evidence from publication goes squarely against the standards and ethics of free scientific enquiry because the evidence is empirical, openly-testable, and verifiable by anyone—including modern-day drafters. Fig. 4. A non-3D study of Artifact 6. This study is both Fig. 2g and Fig. 16a from The Graphics of Bilzingsleben. It was a central part of the straight edge thesis offered with the caption: “Presence of the special trig angles 30, 45, 60, 90; parallels, diagonals, perpendiculars, and planes (within ±3° deviation).” As 16a it was offered as an objective courtesy to demonstrate the direction we would be going if we chose to interpret Artifact 6 not as a sophisticated three-dimensional map but rather as meaningless scribbles which is how the evolutionary community was required to and attempted to describe the piece. This study was as far backwards (i.e. toward evolutionism) as I was willing to go. Yet even 2D shows Artifact 6 to be one of the most sophisticated prehistoric artifacts ever discovered. Straight edge use by Homo erectus was the central proof of modern-level intelligence provided in The Graphics of Bilzingsleben and likely a main issue in its being blocked from publication by the UISPP and Journal of Human Evolution. As the British anthropologist Kenneth Oakley once pointed out, it is only through studying all aspects of early human culture that we can have any kind of an accurate picture of what our ancestors were like. Any institutions claiming to be scientific that block empirical evidence or new discoveries from the public need to be re-assessed as far as their value to human knowledge is concerned. Fig. 5. This is Fig. 16d from The Graphics of Bilzingsleben comparing arrangement of the ‘upper tier’ of Artifact 6 with the two northernmost dwellings (circular areas) in Mania and Mania’s 1988 Bilzingsleben archaeological site map. The site map was angled w/permission which was done to create a sense of the ground plane suggested in the engraving. North orientation (inserted) is preserved not only in the site map, but also in the artifact by way of its unambiguously engraved 90° corner (upper-left). Stereograms created for seeing Artifact 6 in 3D On a few occasions some friends have mentioned to me that they had difficulty seeing the Artifact 6 engravings as 3D. So, I decided to create a few ‘stereograms’ to assist anyone in seeing the suggested 3D image (Figs. 6-8). They work by looking at an image pair side-by-side while allowing one’s eyes to go “cross-eyed” until one sees three images side-by-side. You can tell when you have successfully lined them up because the middle one will instantly pop out in 3D. Fig. 6 has very little alteration. Fig. 7 has the upper and lower tiers in 3D with the remaining lines ghosted to make it easier to see. Fig. 8 uses a similar technique to that in Fig. 3 except that the original 6-degree slope of the lower plane has been brought to horizontal to match the plane of the upper tier. The lower plane was also slid further back along the ‘registration guide’ to make the 3D easier to see. The images are still in process requiring some tweaks but I thought I would offer a few of them here anyway for this section on Artifact 6. Fig. 8 also includes some text explaining that Artifact 6 cont. on p. 13 |
“Straight edge use by Homo erectus was the central proof of modern-level intelligence provided in The Graphics of Bilzingsleben.“
| was actually found
in the extinct Pleistocene lake just a few meters behind or North of
the campsite proper. This information is added so that the skeptical
reader, no doubt thinking that this 3D map idea is improbable, will not
automatically assume that the interpretation simply came out of the
blue. The suggested map was discovered within a 5-second walk of the
campsite. How it wound up in the lake over 300,000 years ago would be
harder to explain. Fig. 6. Stereogram Step 1: Computer lines are drawn over Artifact 6 engravings. Like the other Bilzingsleben artifacts, the engraved lines were obviously made using a straight edge. Straight edge use by Homo erectus was the central proof of modern-level intelligence provided in The Graphics of Bilzingsleben and likely a main issue in its censorship. Remember, this is the work of a person who lived 350,000 years ago and according to Darwin, early people “must” have been less intelligent than us giving evolutionary academics no choice but to regard such work as just a little beyond the capabilities of apes. Fig. 7. Step 2: Upper and Lower “tiers” and their components are isolated by ghosting other elements. Stereo effect added at this stage. Fig. 8. Top: Engraved Artifact 6 (17 X 10.5 X 5cm), the tarsal joint bone of an extinct straight-tusked elephant from the 350,000-yr. old campsite at Bilzingsleben, central Germany. It was discovered in the Paleolithic lake a few meters north of the campsite at the same archeological level. Bottom: Stereo representation of the two horizontal planes (upper and lower as seen in Fig. 7) and their triangular components brought to the same plane and aligned according to ‘registration guides’ provided in the original engraving. The guides, planes, etc., were explained in The Graphics of Bilzingsleben thesis paper. Conclusion The suggestion is that Artifact 6 was engraved as a very deliberate and extremely accurate multi-dimensional map of the campsite by someone who was actually there sometime 320,000-412,000 years ago (the site’s date range). In a follow-up issue, the interpretation will be given in two-point perspective as well as multi-view projection (i.e. six different views of the 3D image in standard layout)—enough information to reproduce the engraving in physical 3D space. Whether or not you believe the 3D interpretation of Artifact 6, one of the main points in The Graphics of Bilzingsleben paper (perhaps available at your local university if they carry British Archaeological Reports) was that 3D is actually the ‘least’ challenging interpretation (see Fig. 4). The face of the artifact (the opposite side has a similar design) consists of over 75 perfectly-straight parallel and angled lines including the special trig angles 30, 45, 60, 90, perpendiculars and planes all within a mere ± three degrees deviation. Unfortunately, if you are like most who have gone through standard science training, you came out believing that your ancestors were “ape-people.” This kind of training (or ‘indoctrination’ as I prefer to call it since it was done very deliberately) will automatically disincline you from seeing these engravings as the result of a fully-modern mind. However, from the perspective of a long-time artist and designer, I can tell you with the utmost conviction that whoever did these engravings had already done this kind of thing many times before. And like all the Bilzingsleben engravings Artifact 6 has no errors and, in fact, does not show any on-board experimentation but rather has the qualities of a final draft committed to an archival medium. John Feliks has specialized in the study of early human cognition for nearly twenty years using an approach based on geometry and techniques of drafting. Feliks is not a mathematician; however, he uses the mathematics of ancient artifacts to show that human cognition does not evolve. One aspect of Feliks’ experience that has helped to understand artifacts is a background in music; he is a long-time composer in a Bach-like tradition as well as an acoustic-rock songwriter and taught computer music including MIDI, digital audio editing, and music notation in a college music lab for 11 years. |