Plato's Atlantis My Theory

[Nicole Jimmelson]

Nicole, you are entitled to your opinion as well as your petulant know-it-all attitude. You twist what a person says, to put yourself in a better light, but you are more transparent than you realize. You are not impressing anyone with your snide remarks and your insults.

How would you know? Do you think you are qualified to speak for the whole forum?  Since, this is an Atlantis forum, and I'm a believer, while you aren't, I am guessing that most people would take my side.  So you're wrong there, especially since your whole defense of your "work" is to attack my attitude.

I shall put your childish behavior down to youth and inexperience and can only hope you gain some respect for others and a more diplomatic approach to your "debates" as you gain in age and experience and lose the chippy attitude.

Childish?  Petulant?  Chippy?  You don't see those as personal attacks?  Seems like you need to clean up your own house before giving advice to others.

You call me a liar,

Look back at my comments, I never called you any names, other than "cynic."  It is your conclusions I have attacked, and presented material to back up my assertions. If you see that as a personal attack, you have problems.

Apparently I was too subtle in my attempt to point out to you that just because an article has a bibliography, doesn't make it truth.

You said that only two links had any useful information on them, go check your words.

I am aware that links can disappear. However, YOU were the one who brought up the fact that the article had a bibliography, but now you admit that YOU "don't have to check the links". Are you special then? It's only me that has to check a bibliography, not you?

Apparently in this case.  Why?  Because I already know what Andrew Collins and Professor Santos have to say on Atlantis.  I also know where I can double check volcanism in the Atlantic and the history of the Canary Islands.  You act like just because the links vanished, the author didn't supply the material in the first place.  Weak!

I suggest you stay on topic and quit with the theatrics.

ME stay on topic?  This whole last post has been about YOU! And how you feel you were treated.  There isn't word one about Atlantis in it.

In the spirit of conversation, I asked you if you could link me to the new evidence from archaeological examinations and you come back with a retort of a personal nature. Whether I believe the information or not, since you feel so sorry for my ignorance, I find it strange that you would not supply me with the information that would correct my deplorable condition and educate me.

If you were that interested in it, you wouldn't need me, you would be looking for it yourself already. Since you don't believe in Atlantis, I imagine you aren't going to look for it, so what would be the point in supplying it to you?  So you can find more reasons to ignore it?  Sorry, I have already done that with all the other info here and you haven't even addressed it.

Because I concluded from what I've researched that Atlantis didn't exist, you feel you have to be antagonistic towards me, and cast aspersions on my intelligence?

Oh, come on.  Didn't you tell Bianca that Greg Little and others should be big enough to take some opposition towards their research?  You mean you can't take some oppostion towards your own?  Weak! Maybe you should learn to practice what you preach.

If that is the way you debate, please, go to Graham Hancock's website and debate there. Maybe they will appreciate your hostility there because I don't.

Thanks, if and when this becomes your personal diary, not an internet forum, I will take your advice.  Point is, this is EVERYONE'S forum, not just yours.  If you don't like the way your thoughts are received, don't post them. I notice you are also critical about Riven's theories. Again, maybe you should learn to take criticsm, as opposed to just give it.

[Qoais]

Childish?  Petulant?  Chippy?  You don't see those as personal attacks?  Seems like you need to clean up your own house before giving advice to others.

Well, like you said to me Nicole, don't take it so personally.  You've never chosen to chat with me about Atlantis before, but suddenly, and correct me if I'm wrong, you thought you'd just march over here and come to Riven's defense, because I asked him for proof of something.  Yes, you challenged me with your chippy attitude and didn't like the answers I gave you.  So then you start with the character assassination.  

I was trying to point out to you that I had already studied the Guanches and found that since they had only been on the island since 1000 BC they weren't of Atlantis.  Therefore, the 5 or 6 points that supposedly match the story of Atlantis are redundant.  Irrelevant. Why flog a dead horse?   

I'm not here to "take sides", I'm not here to knock anyone's work.  It's a forum, and if you want to discuss, as I've said before, the facts of the theories of Atlantis, great, if not, I don't need to listen to your opinion of my character.  I did not go into any thread where you were posting and start telling you what you should or shouldn't do, and feigning sympathy for you and implying you were not telling the truth.  This thread, as any other in this forum, is open for discussion, not insults and character put downs.

So - what particular point about Atlantis did you want to discuss?

[Qoais]

I find it interesting for those who are proposing that Atlantis is in the Bahamas or Cuba, that all their gods and goddesses had the same names as the Greek ones.  Even the same gods for that matter.  Poseidon was a Greek God, and so was Atlas.  Yet Atlantis, wherever she was, had the same gods. 

[Qoais]

Andrew Collins
The Myth of Atlantis

Atlantis was said to have been an island empire the size of 'Libya and Asia put together', founded by the sea-god Poseidon. It possessed a cosmopolitan metropolis, with palaces, royal courts, harbor works and waterways that constantly received sea-going vessels from afar.

For many generations Atlantis ruled the Atlantic Ocean as well as parts of the `opposite continent'. Yet soon the empire set its sights on controlling the lands inside the Mediterranean basin. It was at this point that the fair race of Athens rose up against the Atlantean aggressor and in a decisive naval battle defeated its enemy. Some time afterwards the god Zeus unleashed 'earthquakes and floods' that drowned the Athenian navy and submerged the island of Atlantis in one `terrible day and night'. The date given for this catastrophe is post 8570 BC in Plato's dialogue the Timaeus and 9421 BC in its sequel the Critias.

http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/atlantiscuba.htm

Plato tells us that the Atlanteans "held sway" over Western Europe to Tyrennia, Italy, and of North Western Africa to Egypt.  Then, unprovoked, decided to attack Athens and Egypt at a blow. 

Collins says as stated above, that it was when the empire set it's sights on controlling the lands inside the Med., that Athens rose against her.  But Plato says the Atlanteans already had this control.

Next, Collins says there was a decisive Naval battle.  I would ask anyone to point out where in Plato's writings, he said that.  People follow Andrew Collins thinking everything he says is well researched.   I would ask then, why is he misquoting Plato who is the original author of this story. 

We see from the last line of the above paragraph, that Collins is using the timeline of years, and not lunar years as has been suggested.

Therefore, going back to the history of civilization, science tells us that at that point in time, people were just nicely getting free of the last ice age, able to actually plant seeds due to warmer weather conditions, and raise some farm animals.  I've been told over and over again, to consider how hard life must have been for people back then, having to try to stay warm, keep the fires lit not just for warmth, but to keep the wild animals at bay, trying to hunt for food to stay alive so as not to deplete their own fledgling livestock herds, cope with major weather changes, natural catastrophe's as I'm sure there were floods and land slides and storms, all effects of the receding and melting ice. 

So I will ask again, as I have before, which civilizations of that time frame, had the technology to build ocean going vessels?  Not only were they supposedly ocean going vessels, but they plied the ocean back and forth, so that means they could take a real beating on the waves, unlike a Trireme which would be bashed to bits by the action of the Ocean. 

Mr. Collins tells us, the Athenians did. 

He says

Some time afterwards the god Zeus unleashed 'earthquakes and floods' that drowned the Athenian navy and submerged the island of Atlantis in one `terrible day and night'.

So by his reckoning - that Atlantis is in Cuba - this means of course that the Athenian NAVY (which didn't exist in that time frame) had ocean going ships, and were actually across the ocean in Cuba at the time Atlantis sunk. 

[Nicole Jimmelson]

Well, like you said to me Nicole, don't take it so personally.

Just to set the record straight, I don't care what names you call me, heck you can call me every name in the book if it makes you feel any better. My point is, you have one standard for the way you debate people and another standard for the people you are debating..! You can't just rip people's work and expect not to get your own conclusions critiqued, too.

As for a debate on evidence, did there, done that. You don't look at the evidence, you just like to claim that the evidence isn't valid. You aren't interested in Atlantis, you are just interested (apparently) in the attention from saying that Atlantis doesn't exist in a forum of (I assume) mostly believers.

[Nicole Jimmelson]

So then you start with the character assassination. 

If you call naming you a "cynic," character assasination, then you are REALLY think-skinned.

I was trying to point out to you that I had already studied the Guanches and found that since they had only been on the island since 1000 BC they weren't of Atlantis.  Therefore, the 5 or 6 points that supposedly match the story of Atlantis are redundant.  Irrelevant. Why flog a dead horse?

   

4,000 BC.  Like I said most of your experts date things conservatively.  If you don't believe me, ask Greg Little.

I find it interesting for those who are proposing that Atlantis is in the Bahamas or Cuba, that all their gods and goddesses had the same names as the Greek ones.  Even the same gods for that matter.  Poseidon was a Greek God, and so was Atlas.  Yet Atlantis, wherever she was, had the same gods. 

Plato says that Solon gave Greek names to the original Atlantean ones.  He says that the GREEK gods destroyed Atlantis, that does not mean that the Atlanteans had the same story.

From Critias:

Yet, before proceeding further in the narrative, I ought to warn you, that you must not be surprised if you should perhaps hear Hellenic names given to foreigners. I will tell you the reason of this: Solon, who was intending to use the tale for his poem, enquired into the meaning of the names, and found that the early Egyptians in writing them down had translated them into their own language, and he recovered the meaning of the several names and when copying them out again translated them into our language. My great-grandfather, Dropides, had the original writing, which is still in my possession, and was carefully studied by me when I was a child. Therefore if you hear names such as are used in this country, you must not be surprised, for I have told how they came to be introduced.

Greek names to Atlantean ones.  He DOES NOT say anywhere in either dialogue that they had the same gods.

Looks like you are one of those people you like to accuse of not reading Plato very closely!   

[Qoais]

If you call naming you a "cynic," character assasination, then you are REALLY think-skinned.

Nicole, I will answer this one last time, and then again, I would appreciate it if you would quit with the personal remarks. 

You called me a cynic which I disagreed with.  I simply said to you that I didn't think I was a cynic and gave the reasons why.
You then implied a number of things, such as you didn't believe I had put as much work in on my research as I said I did, intimating that I'm a liar.  You said if I didn't read the information you linked, that I wouldn't learn anything knew, implying that all the research I had already done, didn't teach me anything.  You never stopped to consider that I've been in this forum since the early days, and have read everything that was posted about Atlantis.  You implied a feeling of sympathy for me that I was in this deplorable uneducated state and yet when I asked you for further information, you refused to give it.  So far, you have NOT made comment on my conclusions based on research, other than to come into this thread and try to change my conclusions, with comments like "well, that's a start", as though there might still be some hope for me yet. 

So yes, I felt turn about was fair play, and with the tone of your remarks, yes, I felt you were being chippy.  I have no axe to grind one way or another about Atlantis.  I have simply stated that from what I studied, it is my conclusion that Atlantis did not exist as Plato stated it.  And no, I don't think people will take sides just because you believe in Atlantis.  I think most mature people will do the research like I did.  This is not a little girls club where the members all have to agree to believe the same things or they can't join.

4,000 BC.  Like I said most of your experts date things conservatively.  If you don't believe me, ask Greg Little.

I think I would rather believe the experts, than you Nicole, unless you ARE an expert in some field related to validating the existence of Atlantis.  They got to be an expert by years of studying. 

I HAVE chatted with Greg Little, and basically his attitude is Que Sera, Sera - what will be, will be.  He tells me he is not at all trained in dating finds, his field of study is psychology and his area of interest is the Mound Builders of America on which he has written books.


Regarding Atlantis
I agree that he said Solon gave the names as he understood their meaning - translating them from Egyptian to Greek.  I understand this to be the names of the people from history, not the gods.  The name of the Atlantean creator was Poseidon - the Greek God - and his sons were the kings of Atlantis, with Atlas being top dog.  So actually, he did give us the names of the Gods of Atlantis.  They were the same as the Greek gods.

Plato

This I infer because Solon said that the priests in their narrative of that war mentioned most of the names which are recorded prior to the time of Theseus, such as Cecrops, and Erechtheus, and Erichthonius, and Erysichthon, and the names of the women in like manner.

Are we to assume then, that you believe these "gods" of the Greeks, were real and could create storms and earthquakes and put hexes on people?  Or do you think maybe it was their way of explaining natural phenomenon?

Origin of the Greek Gods

 “[Diodorus] The gods, they say, had been originally mortal men, but gained their immortality on account of wisdom and public benefits to mankind, some of them having also become kings: and some have the same names, when interpreted, with the heavenly deities, while others have received a name of their own, as Helios, and Kronos, and Rhea, and Zeus,”

http://www.argyrosargyrou.fsnet.co.uk/Myths4.htm

It's not as though there was a divine creature that would fly about the earth and destroy a civilization on the other side of the world.

Therefore, it needs to be explained how a cataclysm in Cuba, could destroy the "war like men" in Athens, if indeed, Cuba was Atlantis.

Or - it needs to be verified that in that time frame, there were civilizations that had ocean going vessels.

[Qoais]

Andrew Collins

In a totally original presentation, based on the first ever proper study of prehistoric underwater archaeology in the Bahamas, Greg offers overwhelming evidence that the archipelago supported a series of prehistoric breakwaters, jetties and quays, where ancient stone anchors have also been discovered and recorded. Working with archaeologist Bill Donato, the Little's research in 2005 was the first discovery confirming an ancient maritime culture at Bimini. These underwater stone structures resemble harbor formations built by the Maya in the Yucatan but are more sophisticated constructions similar to a host of ancient Mediterranean harbors.

Who exactly was responsible for these prehistoric harbours remains a mystery, although it is becoming clear that they are similar to those built by maritime voyagers from Spain, North Africa or the Eastern Mediterranean.

None of this counts as evidence for Atlantis; however, the mere existence of these structure is far reaching, and supports the idea that Plato's Atlantis was indeed inspired by transatlantic journeys prior to his own day.

http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/conference/speakers/GL06.htm

[Qoais]

I do think there was contact with the "opposite" continent, long before Columbus ever set foot here, but I think those that knew about it, didn't share the secret very broadly.  It's been shown that there are Norse remains in Canada, it's possible that someone in Britain had found a passage across the ocean and landed around Maryland, and I think even the Phoenicians, had managed to cross the ocean and land at Central America.  Whether or not they had the wherewithall to build quays and harbors or not, who knows?

If someone WAS travelling back and forth, they would have to bring someone along that knew how to do engineering in order to build the docks and so forth. 

My point is - who could do that 11,000 years ago?

[Qoais]

If it wasn't for the fact that they claim aliens landed here, Atlantis in the Sea of Asov would make more sense than any other location.  It would also explain how a cataclysm destroying Atlantis could destroy the Athenian army, provided of course, we are in a time line when Athens HAD an army. 

However, even this theory does not explain all of Plato's information.  It doesn't explain how people on the inside of the Black Sea, had control or "held sway over"  the Western end of the Mediterranean Sea in the time line we are looking at.  Nor does it explain how Athens had an army in that time frame, or how even "Atlantis" had an army in that time frame as so far, there is no evidence that any culture was that far developed in that time frame.

The Atlantis Motherland book explains that Plato's Atlantis Dialogues revealed that Atlantis was founded on a hill, about six miles from the sea, in the center of the southern edge of a vast, flat, level, and oblong shaped fertile plain. The plain “looked” to the south and faced a magnificent sea. Innumerable rivers meandered across the fertile plain, forming lakes and marshes.

The plain was sheltered from the cold northern blasts of the ice age by the strongest magnetic anomaly on earth. On the northern boundary of this plain stand richly forested mountains, with numerous rivers, streams and meadows. Beyond this fertile plain stretched a "boundless continent."

For over 200,000 years, tribes of Neanderthals, and a myriad of plants and animals, inhabited this lust garden paradise. Rich deposits of minerals, precious metals, coal, oil and natural gas were plentiful. Great reserves of geothermal energy produced numerous natural fountains and hot springs, and rich cold mineral springs bubbled up in abundance.

Then, about 40,000 years ago, there occurred a sudden change in the culture of the primitive tribes.  This primal paradise became the home of an adventurous band of extraterrestrials, from the Sirius Star System. They united with the primitive Earth tribes and began a new civilization, which we now call the empire of Atlantis.

Today, almost 40 millennia later, this hill is known as Mithridat Hill. It now rests on a thin peninsula, known as Kerch Peninsula, in Crimea, Ukraine. The vast fertile plain now rests beneath the Sea of Azov, where it sank during the Great Atlantis Flood. Beneath the Sea of Azov, thousands of years of accumulated alluvial silt now cover the treasures of Atlantis.

http://www.atlantis-motherland.com/atlantis02.html

[Qoais]

I've said before that although I don't think Atlantis existed as Plato sets the story, I do think people knew about the Americas before Columbus.  It's possible that those that knew of North America, didn't actually realize it wasn't part of the "old world".  People from the Northern reaches of the Baltic Sea have been whale hunting for thousands of years, in the northern waters.  To do that, they had to have a vessel that could withstand the ocean activity.  Originally they used dug-out canoes made from logs, and perhaps at first, only hunted the smaller animals.  They did eventually however, develop the technology to create boats made of animal hides and with seemingly no fear of the cold arctic waters, traveled vast distances, hunting the ultimate prize, the whale.

A most interesting article with pictures here http://www.paabo.ca/uirala/uini-seagoingskinboats.html

Rock Carvings Showing Whale Hunting in the White Sea as Early as 5000-6000 Years Ago

        The skin boat was designed to deal with the high waves of the open sea. By lengthening the boat it could hold more people, and a large boat with many people was needed to catch the ultimate of sea creatures - the whale.
 


The Lake Onega large boat, obviously made of skins on a frame. The moose head, perhaps now carved of wood instead of a mummified real head is seen at the front. At the front of this image  we see what is pobably a seal.

        The arctic boat people who developed whale hunting, not only created large boats, but their quest for whales took them far into the sea, as they searched for whales. If we speak of the expansion of boat-people throughout the ancient world, then we have to owe it to these people. Only those sea people willing to take on whales would ride the open sea as boldly as the whales themselves. Since whales migrated up and down the Atlantic coasts, these people may followed them southward down the coast of Europe, establishing the early Atlantic coast long range sea peoples associated with what archeologists call the "Megalithic Culture". When successsful, and developing cities, they may have been the source of the legends of Atlantis.
        There is no question that highly developed methods of whale hunting existed as early as 5000-6000 years ago, because they are shown in carvings dated to about that time. The most amazing rock picture is the one shown below (presented here intepreted in black and white, with the whale hunting event set appart from other elements around it for clarity.)

 

Whale hunting from moose-skin boats,  probably on the White Sea (in today's arctic Russia, north of Lake Onega). This image is developed from reproductions from rock carvings that have been dated to between 5000-6000 years ago. (Light grey restores missing, worn, sections)

         The above illustration is very surprising, because it first of all proves that the large boat shown in the Lake Onega rock carvings is not some kind of fantasy boat, as early archeologists said. It really existed. It was needed for whale hunting. Compare this technique  with  that used by Greenland Inuit in the 18th century, as depicted in the following old illustration. It is exactly the same activity, proving that the White Sea whale hunters of 5000-6000 BC were basically the same people.

 

[Qoais]

The fascination with the story of Atlantis seems to come from the fact, that in our modern day and age, our education system does not have a well rounded curriculum.  We are taught, at least when I went to school, that of course CC discovered the New World, and there was no ocean travel until that era.  Perhaps the AWARENESS was not so wide spread, as to what other cultures were doing and what they developed.  We were taught that the Polynesians island hopped their way across the Pacific, and somehow managed to find their way to Hawaii, most likely by accident.  We now know that those people were able to sail the ocean in outrigger canoes having a knowledge of the winds and currents of the ocean.  It's the timelines that need to be sorted out, and I have always said that perhaps science has to re-evaluate the dates they've assigned for certain inventions or the development of man.

Regarding Plato's story, I do believe he compiled information from different things he'd heard and seen and so forth.  People say, well Plato wouldn't lie and he said several times the story was true.  How would he know?  He's just repeating a story supposedly written down by one of his ancestors 180 years or so in the past.  This ancestor supposedly got the story from someone else, so how does Solon, the ancestor know if it's true or not?  HE got it from the Egyptians and where did they get it?  Like the priest supposedly said, they wrote down whatever they heard had happened not only in their own land but in foreign lands as well.  So, even the priests would not know if the story was true or not.  So the question is, did Plato make up the story, or is he just repeating it as he says he is?  If he is just repeating it, he could not possibly know if it was true for sure.

We know that a lot of cultures had a verbal history handed down through a rememberer or through their myths and folktales.  Some left paintings on cave walls giving us clues as to what was happening in their times.  If we take the time to learn about other people and cultures, especially those from the past, we can maybe put together a picture of how the story of Atlantis came to be.  There's too much information in the story for it all to be true at once, but as a composite, each piece is likely based on truth. 

Some people think that Thera was the inspiration for Plato's sinking of Atlantis, but as I've mentioned before, this event did not leave shoals of mud.  He mentions that this land had mountains that protected it from the North winds and allowed for all kinds of wonderful foods to be grown in the temperate climate. 

If you haven't heard of it before, there is a place between England and the mainland of Europe now called Doggerland.  I believe someone started a thread about it some time back, but I don't know if any work has been done on it since.  Doggerland is now underwater, but for quite some time in history before it was inundated, it was what could be termed a perfect paradise, allowing for "easy" existence.  It's possible that the people who occupied this area, spread out and eventually ended up in Ireland, and other places surrounding what was once their homeland. 

[Qoais]

The description given of Doggerland does not give us mountains as described by Plato, but it does give a vast plain, where food could be grown in abundance and the people could harvest food from the ocean as well.  Approximately around 6100 BC, was the last of what is considered the 3 largest landslides in history, the Storrega slides which occurred at the edge of Norway's continental shelf. causing the loss of this fabulous plain, and sending the people looking for new territories. 

It seems that one of the locations may be Ireland, as in their histories they speak of the Fomorians who were"always" there, and who were believed to have had a network of trade along the river routes of Europe, allowing them to travel for thousands of miles along these waterways.  To do that, they would have had to develop substantial boats that could handle the river currents and carry freight.  In my last post we see that it does not take a huge whaling ship, to whale hunt, it just takes co-operation of the many. 

From the article I linked, we learn that some of the people stayed in the northern reaches all year round, but some came south for the winter.  Here we see where the possibility comes that people could follow the edge of the ice fields from Ireland, to Greenland, to Canada and then possibly down the Eastern coastline as far as they felt like going.  Perhaps because they thought they were following a coast line all along, they did not realize at first that this was a new land, not connected to Europe.  It may not have been for hundreds of years, that anyone realized this fact, until the ice had melted enough for there to be open ocean between the land masses.  It's possible that as the open areas became wider and wider, the people did not risk crossing such an expanse in their boats of hide and eventually, only the stories were handed down of a land farther to the west. 

I have not researched this subject in great detail, but I do think there were those that from time to time did end up in Ireland or Scotland having been blown there from Canada by a storm and vise versa, and although they may have known there was land in the west, they may not have given it much importance.

I think there were a few, who down through the ages, kept the secret and who followed the ancient route, and did find the western continent. 

[Qoais]

I'm going to post this article here, because it's not only so well done, it shows how the whale hunters, not having sails at first, would likely follow the currents, on both sides of the ocean, and likely traveled down the coast of N. America.  To start with, we have a bit of history of boat making.

SEA-GOING SKIN BOATS AND OCEANIC EXPANSION:
The Voyages of the Whale Hunters

by Andres Pääbo
In the far north, where trees were small, it was only possible to make small one-person dugouts (like the Khanti still have). The "Kunda" culture of the Baltic, which - from the large harpoons that have been found - hunted in the sea, was able to make large seaworthy dugouts as their north-south migrations in the east Baltic, allowed them to find the required large trees needed. But when some of them moved north towards the White and Arctic Seas, only small dugouts were possible and seaworthy vessels with high walls had to be made in another way. The skin boat I believe developed in the arctic where the established traditional dugout could not be made large enough for use in the open sea.. My theory is that the inspiration for the boat made of skin on a frame began when someone mistakened a swimming moose for a floating log, and that inspired an attempt to make a moose carcass into a boat. That introduced the principle of using ribs to hold the skin. Over time the priniciple was refined and large boats were developed from sewing skins together; but the source of the skins continued to be honoured by the moosehead (now possibly carved) on the prow.  These new large skin boats could be used to hunt whales, and rock carvings near the White Sea and Lake Onega are testimony to whale hunting about 6000 years ago. Interestingly the Greenland Inuit  appear to have been hunting whales from their large skin boats - although now made of different skins - not long ago, as shown in an illustration in an 18th century book.  Whale hunters, lacking any fear of the open water, and accustomed to travelling long distances and even following whales, were the instrument for the expansion of boat peoples beyond their origins in northern Europe.  The currents of the North Atlantic suggest the North Atlantic was crossed easily and the "Dorset" culture became established when a tribe became established in the current routes of the sea east of Labrador.  The connection between Finnic languages of the region south of the White Sea, and any other people with whaling in their traditions, can be seen in language comparisons. Although not close enough to permit comparative linguistic analysis, comparing the Inuit language with Estonian/Finnish presents similarlities in many fundamental words . But skin boats ventured south as well, and produced such crafts as the birch bark canoe (skin boat using birch bark as skin), and the Pictish skin boat later made of ox hides when the walrus of the northern British Isles were extinct. They also circled the arctic waters (a relatively small distance if you view it on an actual globe and not on a map that stretches the north and south regions.) and descended down Pacific coasts as well.



Greenland 'Eskimo'  clans meeting to hunt whales
from Description de histoire naturelle du Groenland, by Hans Egede, tr. D.R.D.P. Copenhagen and Geneva, Frere Philibert (This image derived from  Canada's First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from earliest times by O. P. Dickason, Toronto, 1992)

Note in the above illustration the gathering of clans, each clan presumably with its own large skin boat. Whale hunting needs the cooperation of all the clans of a tribe, as in the ancient pictures. The only difference is that the Greenland 'Eskimo' skin boats are unique in appearance, having adapted over thousands of years to the use of skins of other animals than the moose, and other conditions, since they lived far from the land of the moose.

[Qoais]

 Introduction : From Dugouts to Skin Boats

       The theory of the expansion of Boat Peoples from the watery lands south of the Ice Age glaciers ( THE ORIGINS AND EXPANSIONS OF  BOAT-ORIENTED WAYS OF LIFE : Basic Introduction to the Theory ), proposes that the first boats arose from logs converted to carry people - the dugout canoe. Archeologists have not found very many canoes since most  have rotted away. Only a few have been found - or parts of them -  preserved in bogs. The greatest testimony to it are adzes. Stone adzes have been found in great quantity, and for some reason scholars have looked on them as just another tool along with knives and axes, whereas they were the most important tool as it supported the entire growth of the dugout boat based expansion across the north from Britain to the Urals.
      Another misunderstanding that scholars have had about boats is that they assume that any people anywhere can decide to build a boat and suddenly take to the water. Even our modern experience can tell this is not true. Who today can build a sleek dugout like today's Khanti can still build, without actually having a Khanti master show us. Those who have attempted without instruction can only manage a crude trenched log. But even before ANYONE had created a dugout, how would an inventor even know what was needed? If humans have never before glided in a water vehicle, how would they know that this would be useful? How would they know that this new method of getting around will give them greater success than the original method of creating paths and walking?
     It is important to bear in mind that if some  invention is not yet in use, it cannot come into use immediately just because a human can think of it. Human ingenuity can invent something to solve an immediate task, and even invent something exotic for entertainment, but inventions that shape an entire way of life take a long time to evolve. A good example today is the automobile. The automobile could not have come into existence, had it not been for precedents in earlier vehicles drawn by horses. The automobile simply replaced the horse with an engine.  Before that, even the use of a horse took a long time to develop.  Even though humans were entertaining themselves by jumping on the backs of horses for sport from the moment they investigated the animals, it probably took 1000 years for conditions to push societies to develop the horse into the fabric of society. Similarly other beasts of burden like oxen, took some time to become adopted into practical uses. Ironically, North America certainly had animals that could have been similarly domesticated - bison domesticated to pull wagons, or the riding of a large animal like a moose - but it never developed. And yet, within a couple of generations after the Plains Indians saw the Spaniards riding horses, they were suddenly riding horses.
     Why human societies can adopt something almost instantly once its use has already developed in another society is simply explained: It is not the invention that is the difficulty, it is the entire framework of life that surrounds it. There is also the imitation factor. Humans, like apes, are imitators. They can imitate something that is already done. (10,000 artists can create a copy of the Mona Lisa, but only Leonardo da Vinci could create the original out of nothing!!.)
    An automobile could not have developed without the conditions created in the Victorian era, of cities in which everyone moved from place to place in horse-drawn buggies, wagons, and carriages. But after the automobile was invented, every nation in the world could now imitate it, and even manufacture them and become the world leaders, overtaking even the nations in which the automobiles came into first use.
       Thus, applying the theory to the evolution of a boat-oriented way of life: obviously humans had always been able to create boat-like toys from floating bowls in water, and even creating huge boat-like bowls and having a child play around with it in water games. Obviously too whenever ancient tribes found their way blocked by a river or a lake, they were intelligent enough to put together some sort of raft to cross it.  The issue is not in human ingenuity. The issue is in the development of an entire way of life revolving around transportation and hunting using a boat, instead of the traditional ways travelling on foot. If it had never existed before; if humans have previously only hunted and travelled on foot; then doing these things with a boat required a major evolution, perhaps as elaborate as our long evolution today towards the automobile, starting with the horsedrawn wagon, nay-- starting with harnessing the power of a horse!.
      The development of  a boat-using way of life thus had to go through many trial and error developments, and NATURE judged which choices were better and which were worse (Tribes that adopted the better ways were more successful, had more children, and  also found rival tribes copying their methods.)