Mind the Shift 142. Atlantis in the Caucasus – Ronnie Gallagher
Exploring the idea of Atlantis is irresistible within the sphere of alternative archaeology. Most independent researchers find irrefutable evidence of a civilization-ending cataclysm some millennia before the ‘official’ start of civilization.
But what areas were affected? Does ‘Atlantis’ refer to sunken lands in the Atlantic, a wiped-out culture in North Africa or a lost global empire? Or something else? And exactly when did it happen? Was it really in the Younger Dryas period?
Independent researcher Ronnie Gallagher offers a few unusual angles to the concept of a lost ancient civilization.
He agrees with others that something extremely dramatic happened to the planet, and that the main part of this catastrophe was a huge flood. But he differs from most in terms of timing, places and cause:
The flood happened some 10,000 years ago, a couple of thousand years later than the Younger Dryas.
The disastrously affected high culture area that the Egyptians (and Plato) refer to was in the Caucasus region.
The cataclysmic flood was most likely caused by a temporary tilting of the Earth, in turn caused by massive solar outbursts tugging on our planet’s magnetic fields.
On the latter point, Ronnie is in some agreement with geophysicist Robert Schoch.
The ‘smoking guns’ are primarily geological and geophysical, such as high strandlines and giant sand waves.
“I’ve kept on being pleasantly surprised by the things I’ve been looking into, getting corroborating evidence”, Ronnie says.
But he has also found cultural similarities between ancient Egypt and the area around the Caspian sea and the Black sea, not least in Azerbaijan. He points out what Plato’s two Atlantis dialogues actually say:
“Atlantis was never an island, it was an isthmus.”
And he refers to the famous 19th century Egyptologist Flinders Petrie:
“Petrie concluded that the early Egyptians had ancestry in the Caucasus.”
The long-term elevated sea level was 100 to 200 meters above today's level, according to Ronnie Gallagher, but it seems that there were short-term tsunamis of over 700 meters. It was one of those that buried the much debated archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe, he believes.
The standard story is that the site was intentionally covered.
“I don't believe that for a moment. The earth around the structures is in evenly distributed layers. It wouldn't have looked like that if people had ritually buried the site.”
Ronnie’s research papers at Researchgate
Ronnie’s research papers at Academia
Episode with Jack Kelly (referenced Atlantis theory)