Some of the things accomplished by ancient people were astounding. It does make one wonder if there were pockets of humans who are far more advanced than the rest of society. Even when we look at the world today not every area of humanity is as advanced as the next. It has been said there are at least one hundred tribes living in the rain forests in Brazil who are living like Stone Age people. They have had no contact with the outside world and don’t seem to want any. Maybe they are the smart ones, who knows. One thing is for sure, they could benefit health wise from our advanced medical technology, but on the other hand would they be better off in the rat race we call modern life? I remember one native who was taken out of the jungle and he had never seen other humans except for the jungle tribes. He was very excited and wanted to become part of modern society. He began to eat modern food and then he died. I have no way of knowing if the food killed him or his heart just gave out, but I do know modern society was not for him.

Doctor Philip Stoke of the University of Western Ontario, Canada discovered the world’s oldest moon map. It was thought the oldest moon map had been drawn by Leonardo da Vinci about 1505 A.D., but this moon map was over five thousand years old. The map was found in Ireland. The historian Diodorus Siculus wrote about Ireland calling it “island of the Hyperboreans”. He talked about a temple there which was devoted to Apollo and was spherical in shape. He also mentioned the fact people had said when you viewed the moon from this island you got an unobstructed view and the moon looked much closer from there. It was in a tomb where the moon map had been carved into the rock at Knowth, County Meath. These tombs are extremely ancient. The site contains more than one third of all the known megalithic artifacts from the Neolithic Period and was built by Stone Age man. The site has one very large tomb with seventeen smaller ones and the tomb with the moon chiseled into it is estimated to be over five thousand years old.

Scientists have found the world’s oldest flower. The flower is 125 million years old. It is said flowering plants have only been around for 125 million years and this flower is the oldest one ever found. The discovery of this ancient fossilized flower has caused a lot of consternation among scientists, because it disturbs the evolutionary picture of plants and how they affected the development of animals. The definition scientists use of a flower is the fruit contains a single seed and they say this is the defining characteristic of an angiosperm, a flowering plant. Previous to this flower being found it was thought the oldest one was an aquatic plant found in China.

Archaeologists are saying they have found the world’s most inaccessible art and it exists in the Colombian jungle. 20,000 year-old art has been found in the Chiribiquete National Park, in Columbia. A British filmmaker has taken pictures of this art and returned with some extraordinary footage. The area the art was found in is so large it is believed there are still many tribes there who have never made contact with the outside world. Some of these pictures show hunters and animals. It is said there are incredible pictures of jaguars, crocodiles and deer. The paintings were put onto vertical rock faces and are painted in red. The area is largely unexplored. Included in the art are paintings of warriors who are dancing and celebrating. This has been called the land that time forgot.

Usually when important artifacts are found, that is artifacts which were important to the people of that time which usually denote royalty or importance, they are found at the hub of a city or settlement, this was not the case when an incredible Jade pendant was found. The pendant belong to a Mayan King.  One side was covered with hieroglyphics and they were recorded on Jade. It is believed the king would have worn this on his chest ceremonially. The announcement of the find was made by the University of California, San Diego. Experts wonder why it was left in a rainy corner of Belize. One archaeologist said they would’ve expected something like this to be found in one of the biggest cities of the Mayan culture. The archaeologists have found out a lot about the pendant. It was used for the first time in 672 A.D. to  summon the wind and the rain, because these elements were essential for crops. It was felt this artifact had immense power and magic and eventually it was buried.

The island of Jersey is a pretty popular spot, before it was ever Jersey the area was popular. For some reason back as far as 250,000 years ago Neanderthals were flocking to this area. They just kept returning to the Jersey area. It didn’t matter if the climate changed or environmental conditions changed. It sort of reminds me of the legendary elephant graveyard where elephants were said to go to. Neanderthals were exhibiting this behavior before modern humans even existed. Jersey is in the Channel Islands. It is said they lived in the caves and ravines on Jersey from about 250,000 years ago to about 40,000 years ago. Because of their extended visits to this island there are hundreds of thousands of stone tools that were found which belonged to them along with butchered animal bones. Sometimes the Neanderthals would stay in Jersey for a short period of time, but would return frequently. Other times they would stay much longer. Could the Neanderthals have believed there was something sacred about this area?

Speaking of Neanderthals, scientists have found modern humans and Neanderthals lived together for about 5,000 years. The strange part about this is even though there was some human Neanderthal couples, it seems they only had female babies. Scientists are wondering about this and have come to a theory which states either human females were not able to conceive by Neanderthals, or they were not able to carry the half human half Neanderthal fetus to term and it died. Another theory states maybe the immune system of the human female attacked the half Neanderthal fetus killing it.