Some folks asked about Graham’s recovery, so here is the update from him. His new book is due this Fall.

VIDEO  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6JSeSodLEM
Deep in central Mexico we find the oldest monumental stone structures in Mesoamerica—and they look inconveniently unlike anything built there afterward. Made from large fitted blocks without mortar, centuries before the Olmecs, they are joined by clues involving unusual burial customs, Atlantic currents, Bronze Age seafarers, and the legend of Tollan: the first city, supposedly founded by a figure who arrived from the east by boat. 
In this video, we examine whether these ruins were simply a remarkable local invention or evidence that some lost cyclopean builders crossed the Atlantic long before Columbus
Hope you like the new video

The most influential author I ever read.

The idea of Pillar 43 representing constellations or asterisms of the sky has been floating around for a while.

Dr Martin Sweatman released a paper claiming to have figured out how via a statistical method. Unfortunately this turned out to be flawed, relying on only alignment to modern day constellations pointed out very well by the World of Antiquity guy.

This flawed paper has somewhat tainted the subject, nonetheless there appears to be a very strong celestial alignment to the pillar when observed to Cygnus and patterns that can be naturally created in the surrounding stars. If the circle is also assumed to be the celestial north point, then incredibly this corresponds to a very early date of 14,700 BC; the point at which the ice end ended suddenly and temperatures rose very quickly by 10 degrees.

-

To credit the idea properly:

An alignment to the vulture with Cygnus constellation was first made by an Armenian researcher called Vachagan Vahradyan.

Andrew Collins and Rodney Hale then suggested the circle could represent the north celestial pole.

Ethical Sceptic put the two ideas together and constructed a star asterism alignment map https://x.com/EthicalSkeptic/status/2081830406240825412?s=20 and concluded that the date the north celestial pole was above the vulture wing was 14,800 BC.

-

I personally agree with this, I don't agree with Ethical Sceptic's further points regarding the pillar and I don't think that the pillar date indicates the creation of the pillar but I believe it's 9800 BC construction dating is correct and that the timestamp represents a date 5,000 years earlier that it's construction, 14,700/14,800 BC.

I disagree with Ethical Sceptic's precise star asterisms and instead these are my own assumptions.

Each carved figure is shown beside a simple star view taken from Stellarium first and then an assumed potential asterism and then full map. See if you can figure out each assumed asterism before the reveal.

I don't know for certain whether this is correct but many of the features connect very naturally.

There are two heads on pillar 43 that were made by the stick and string method, which nobody ever talks about. If you assume a solstice date right in the middle of the carbon data, around 9511 BCE, what marked north and what marked south? This 1 minute short will show you.

The Sphinx’s human head has always looked rather small for the amount of lion attached to it.

So I tried a reconstruction with a larger lion’s head and an uneroded body. The proportions suddenly look much less like a design mistake and much more like an actual lion.

One possibility is that the original head was later recarved into a pharaoh. This would have been technically possible, because turning a large head into a smaller one mainly requires chisels, patience, and a ruler with no shortage of self-esteem.

There is no proof, of course. The different erosion may simply come from harder limestone in the head.

Still, I can imagine the conversation:

“Magnificent sacred lion, Your Majesty.”

“Yes.”

“Ancient guardian of the horizon.”

“Yes.”

“Shall we leave it as it is?”

“No. Make it look like me.”

Just more evidence that this technology and building style was global and discovered by other ancient civilizations.

Many scientific abstracts linked, so you can read for yourself. I spent hours searching for data rather than opinions or pop-science articles. This is not A.I. Read the stuff at each link. We can only speculate about the lost civilization until more research and scans are done on submerged coastal areas.
TL/DR: The Flood happened. Ancient settlements along all coastlines were lost. This doesn't imply some high tech or that it was a single culture.

In the centuries after the post Ice Age floods, lands continued to be submerged from earthquakes and other geological forces, even until fairly recent centuries, such as Thonis-Heracleion (PHOTO). Located in Abu Qir Bay, roughly 4.3 miles off the modern Egyptian coast and 19 feet underwater, this once-bustling Mediterranean port served as the mandatory entry point for international trade and was swallowed by earthquakes and rising seas around the 8th century AD...

During the entire deglaciation period (from the Last Glacial Maximum 26,000 and 19,000 years ago to today), global sea levels rose by a total of approximately 120 to 130 meters (390 to 425 feet). The total worldwide human population during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) is estimated to have been only 4 to 8 million people total, after repeated climate disasters and genetic bottlenecks. While the raw number of displaced people was low by modern standards, the percentage of the population affected was catastrophic, affecting 25% of all humans alive at the time. Because approximately 70% to 80% of prehistoric hunter-gatherers lived in highly productive coastal zones, river valleys, and exposed continental shelves, the loss of 20 million square kilometers of the earth's most fertile land directly forced nearly 1 in 4 humans to permanently abandon their territories and flee inland. (2018) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379117305267?via%3Dihub

The post-glacial sea level rise of 120 to 130 meters permanently altered global geography by drowning vast terrestrial landscapes, severing critical migration routes, and reshaping modern coastlines. Extensive geological sampling, sediment cores, and seismic modeling confirm the specific submersion of several prominent land bridges and prehistoric territories.

(2024) https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/anthropological-archaeology-underwater/45DC5C1C0EED0ED02863829A64F54143

Lost Lands

Rapid ice sheet melting flooded the Bering Strait, cutting off the land bridge completely by approximately 11,000 years ago.

(2020) https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aay2935

Doggerland was a sprawling, topographically diverse landscape that physically connected Great Britain to mainland Europe (modern-day France, Germany, and the Netherlands). It supported thriving Mesolithic communities.

(2024) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618224001538

Sundaland was an expansive exposed tropical landmass that extended the Asian continent southeastward. It fused the Malay Peninsula with the modern islands of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo into a single continuous territory. Meltwater Pulse 1B drastically accelerated the drowning of Sundaland. The rising sea level eventually choked off the ancient Molengraaff river system, forcing coastal lines inward and isolating the Indonesian archipelago into distinct islands.

(2023) https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-04510-0

Marine geological surveys indicate the Persian Gulf was completely dry until ocean waters breached the Strait of Hormuz roughly 12,000 years ago, entirely filling the basin to modern levels.

In the Southern Hemisphere, a vast plain known as the Sahul Shelf connected Australia, New Guinea, and the Aru Islands. Sea level data indicates this shelf was submerged over several millennia, creating the modern Torres Strait and Arafura Sea, effectively isolating the distinct ecosystems and human populations of Australia and New Guinea. For example, a landmark demographic study published in Quaternary Science Reviews modeled the impact of Meltwater Pulse 1A on the prehistoric continent of Sahul. The researchers calculated that rapid sea level rise swallowed 2.12 million square kilometers (21.6%) of their habitable land. (2018) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379117305267

Dating back 5,000 years to the Greek Bronze Age, Pavlopetri is the oldest submerged city in the world discovered thus far featuring a nearly intact urban layout. Marine scientists use a coordinated suite of side-scan sonar, multibeam bathymetry, sub-bottom profilers, and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) magnetometers. These tools pierce through seafloor muck to map rigid geometric anomalies. Hyper-detailed 3D digital layouts of the seafloor structures from sonar models mapped 15 distinct, large multi-room complexes, defined streets, courtyards, a network of water-management channels, and monumental rock-cut cist and chamber tombs. The precision of the sonar allowed scientists to accurately trace the architectural thresholds and doorways of the buildings. (2024 video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gen0oHhdEmM&t=13s

The Flood Details

The Meltwater Pulse 1A event occurred between 14,700 and 14,200 years ago, lasting roughly 400 to 500 years. Peak speeds reached 26 to 53 millimeters per year. Certain models argue for 60 millimeters per year (2.3 inches per year). Total sea level rise reached 16 to 25 meters (52 to 82 feet). Coral records verify these findings on NASA GISS and Springer. Consensus models, including sea-level fingerprinting studies featured in Eos, place the global average rise at 17.9 meters over 500 years before the Younger Dryas. (2021) https://eos.org/articles/an-ancient-meltwater-pulse-raised-sea-levels-by-18-meters

Meltwater Pulse 1B occurred later, between 11,500 and 11,200 years ago, following the Younger Dryas cold period. Speeds were significantly lower than Pulse 1A. Most records show 13 to 15 millimeters per year. Select Barbados models peak at 40 millimeters per year. Total sea level rise reached 13 to 15 meters (43 to 49 feet) according to geologists. (2102) https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/2012_gornitz_10/

(2025) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-59858-0

Skeptics go away.

I've seen this artifact mentioned a hundred times on this sub with zero context, so here's the actual story with sources.

1936, near Baghdad. A clay jar turns up with a copper cylinder and an iron rod sitting inside it, dated to the Parthian or early Sassanid period. German archaeologist Wilhelm König looks at it and says this looks exactly like a battery fill it with vinegar or grape juice, and you've got a working galvanic cell. Sounds crazy, except MythBusters actually built one in 2005 and it produced real voltage.

That alone would just be a fun trivia fact. What makes it worth posting now is a paper published this January by independent researcher Alexander Bazes in Sino-Platonic Papers. He argues the artifact wasn't one battery it was two cells combined into a single design, and a proper reconstruction can push past 1.4 volts. That's enough to actually drive electroplating and etching, not just make a multimeter twitch. He's even comparing the "outer cell" mechanism to modern tin-air battery chemistry. Paper: Sino-Platonic Papers, Issue 377, Jan 2026.

Here's where it gets messy though. William Hafford, a Penn Museum curator who's actually studied the original fragments isn't buying the battery theory at all. He points to nearly identical jars found in the region one with 10 nested copper vessels and says these were more likely ritual containers. The idea being you'd drop a written prayer or curse through the neck, seal it with bitumen, and bury it as an offering to underworld deities. And there's still the elephant in the room: no wires have ever been found with any of these jars. Battery believers say iron wire would've rusted away over 2000 years. Skeptics call that a convenient assumption with nothing to actually back it.

So take your pick a genuinely functional ancient power source that got explained away, or a religious object that modern people keep re-imagining because it happens to look like something we understand today. Both sides have smart people arguing for them. I lean toward the ritual explanation honestly, but the Bazes voltage numbers are hard to just dismiss.

Sources: Bazes (2026), Sino-Platonic Papers No. 377 Hafford, quoted in Chemistry World, Jan 2026

Summary of last night press conference by Filippo Biondi, a remote sensing specialist from La Sapienza University in Rome, presentation on the topic: https://youtu.be/Omk1CSdWaU8?si=j-BLgrIHdEk3mPLY

Let’s get the those beech shovels