The legend of Atlantis has haunted mankind for the third millennium, more than 6,000 volumes have been woven about it. But did this mysterious country really exist?
For the first time the mysterious Atlantis was described by Plato. The ancient Greek philosopher told about a mysterious island (or continent) inhabited by a powerful fearless people. According to Plato, the Atlanteans reached the highest level of scientific and technological development and mastered the secret magical knowledge.
In short, their successes were so impressive that they became proud of themselves and rejected their gods! Well, they did not hesitate to take revenge: about 12,000 years ago Atlantis plunged into the depths of the ocean "in one day and a disastrous night" as a result of a tremendous natural disaster, which the ancients, of course, regarded as "God's punishment for the proud."
This is the legend. What is the reality? There is nothing strange and contrary to science in the fact that in ancient times there was a continent or an island, which subsequently plunged into the ocean abyss and took with it the traces of an extinct civilization. The reason for this could be a catastrophe or even a series of catastrophes, possibly of a tectonic nature. Even in the days of the ancient Greeks in the Atlantic area, islands, and quite large ones, went under water: these are Kronos, Poseidonos, and a number of other lands to the east of the Pillars of Hercules. So the legend has a basis.
And if so, Atlantis can and should be sought. The whole question is which one …
PRIMARY BRIDGES
The earth's crust consists of 20 small and large plates or platforms, constantly changing their location. Tectonic plates have a thickness of 60 to 100 km and, like ice floes, they descend and then rise, floating on the surface of the viscous earth's magma. In places of their contact with each other - and the contact, of course, turns out to be tough - fractures of the earth's crust are formed. And this is fraught with earthquakes, as a result of which pieces break off from tectonic plates, which later form islands. This is how the Japanese Islands appeared.
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In addition, in ancient times, between the continents there were so-called "bridges" - a chain of islands connecting Asia, America and Australia. Today they sank to the bottom of the ocean, but in their time they greatly helped primitive people to settle on the planet.
Alas, there is no direct evidence of this, and therefore the existence of Atlantis, Pacifis, Lemuria, Beringia, Okhotia, Melanesis and other lands flooded with water is still in question. However, even the most skeptical researchers have no doubts that the ruins of ancient settlements and cities are hidden in the coastal waters of seas, bays, oceans, mouths of large rivers.
BERINGIA
The hypothesis of a land bridge connecting the Old and New Worlds in the Bering Sea region was developed by scientists in the 19th century: paleontologists, zoologists and botanists noted the striking similarity of the fauna and flora of America and Eurasia. The level of the World Ocean during the period of the greatest glaciation, that is, 15-18 thousand years ago, was lower than the current one by about 135 meters. At that time, on the site of the shelf of the Chukchi and Bering Seas, not to mention the Bering Strait, there was a huge country Beringia: stretching from north to south for one and a half thousand kilometers, it connected Eurasia and America.
It was Beringia that was one of the main "bridges". There is evidence of this. For example, grizzly bears live in North America from Alaska to Mexico, but studies by paleontologists have shown that their ancestor lived in Eurasia and appeared in Alaska only during the last glaciation!
North America, on the other hand, is home to the Asian camel! Fossil remains of camels have been found in the New World in layers several tens of millions of years old.
Why did Beringia die? Perhaps due to the rise in the level of the World Ocean in the postglacial era or as a result of a fracture of the earth's crust.
HUNT AND NIPPONIDA
Another "Atlantis" - Okhotia - sank to the bottom of the Sea of Okhotsk after the subsidence of a block of the mainland crust. The territory of Okhotia was gradually shrinking: in the era of primitive man's existence, some of its sections served, like Beringia, as a "bridge" for the resettlement of plants, animals and people.
The islands of the Japanese archipelago were settled not only through Okhotia, but also through the "Atlantis of the Sea of Japan" - the sunken land of Nipponida, named after the ancient nickname of the Land of the Rising Sun - Nippon. The submerged underwater valleys testify to the past sinking of land in the Sea of Japan. The channels of ancient rivers have been discovered at a depth of 700 meters! This means that here, as in the region of the Sea of Okhotsk, large blocks of the earth's crust subsided.
Researchers associate the death of Nipponida with tectonic processes in this troubled region. Moreover, some parts of the Nipponid were under water as a result of a rapid collapse of the earth's crust - that is, a catastrophe similar to the Atlantic. Cataclysms of this kind occur in Japan to this day: during strong earthquakes, vast areas of land fall through or rise from the bottom of the sea.
THREE IN ONE
Most researchers believe that the earliest inhabitants of Japan were the Ainu - an amazing, now almost completely extinct people, combining the features of three large races - Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid. The originality of the Ainu is so great that they are distinguished into a special small race - the Kuril.
Meanwhile, by their way of life and culture, the Ainu are very reminiscent of the peoples of Indonesia and Oceania: they have practically the same clothes, clearly not adapted to the northern climate, means of transportation, weapons, the main motives of the fine arts …
How is this possible? The answer is among the peoples living in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. According to the legend of the inhabitants of the islands located southwest of New Zealand, in ancient times the ocean swallowed the lands of Ka-ho-upo-o-Kane (Body of the God Kane). And in Polynesian myths, the "Great Land swallowed by the ocean" is often mentioned. The inhabitants of Easter Island talk about the lands of Motu-Mario-Khiva sunk to the bottom of the sea. Moreover, unlike many other legends, these are confirmed by underwater research!
Unusual underwater structures off the coast of Japan
Anthropological studies also prove the southern origin of the Ainu. The inhabitants of the southernmost archipelago of Japan, the Ryukyu Islands, stretching in a chain from Kyushu to Taiwan, are not the most similar to the representatives of the Kuril race.
SUNDA
It turns out that the ancestors of the Ainu settled from south to north, and this became possible thanks to the existence of another "Atlantis" - Sunda!
The now sunken continent of the Sunda was the zone where the formation of the proto-Australoids and their culture took place. From here came, as some researchers think, and the Ainu. After the flooding of the Sunda, Nipponids and Okhotia, they found themselves isolated on the islands of the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin and the Kuriles, thanks to which they preserved the ancient anthropological type that had disappeared on the Asian continent.
As you can see, the search for the mysterious Platonic country brings absolutely real results: to be sure - everyone has their own Atlantis …
Anna BARINOVA
