There can be no greater genre of books for those who love learning and mystery than those that deal with the possibility of lost civilizations. This is not a collection of works that explores the uncontacted tribes of the Amazon but rather deals with the central idea that there have been great civilizations of learning and science that existed more than 12,000 years ago.

Writers such as Graham Hancock and Rand Flem-Ath have brought this subject out of the fringes and almost into the mainstream. Far from tossing out baseless pseudo-science, these researchers have taken the time to investigate history, geology, plate tectonics, and early literature to piece together the clues in what may turn out to be the most worthwhile mystery of human development.

That there was a Great Flood at some point in the ancient past is now commonly accepted, although its cause remains the source of much speculation. Hancock suggests in his writings that there were cultured people with skills beyond that of the hunter-gatherer norm who existed in various locations around the globe before a major climate event put the civilizational clock back.

But where’s the evidence?

For the last 200 years, scholars refuted the idea that there could have been an advanced civilization before the pyramid-builders of Egypt because we had never found monoliths or structures that predated the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods, beginning around 3,000 B.C.  This all changed in 1994 with the discovery of Gobekli Tepe in southern Turkey.

This ancient megalithic temple has proven to be at least 12,000 years old. The structure was discovered during a survey and was, at first, misidentified. Subsequent excavation proved that the site had been buried. According to mainstream archaeologists, Gobekli Tepe was purposely buried by its makers. Prior to its unearthing, scientists and scholars did not believe that humans were capable of creating such structures or of having societies large enough to do so.

What is most astounding is that tests show there are many layers of structures underneath the roughly 5% that has so far been unearthed.

The study of ancient civilizations is no longer a dead science; it is happening right now in the 21st century, and we, as a species, are discovering more and more each year.

Welcome to the adventure.

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Read more from Mark Angelides.