The fourth section of Chapter VI of Immanuel Velikovsky’s Earth in Upheaval is concerned with the mysterious South-American city of Tiwanaku, which is situated on the shores of Lake Titicaca, in the Bolivian highlands. The existence of a major city at such an altitude and in such a desolate landscape seems at odds with the conventional chronology of the site. According to current thinking, the site was probably founded no earlier than the 1st century CE, reached its height around 700, and collapsed around 1000. Contrast this with the views expressed by earlier scholars, such as the Austrian scientist Arthur Posnansky, who dated the construction of the city to 15,000 BCE.
In the Andes, at 16° 22' south latitude, a megalithic city was found at an elevation of 12,500 feet [3800 m], in a region where corn will not ripen. The term “megalithic” fits the dead city only in regard to the great size of the stones in its walls, some of which are flattened and joined with precision. It is situated on the Altiplano, the elevated plain between the Western and Eastern Cordilleras, not far from Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America and the highest navigable lake in the world, on the border of Bolivia and Peru.
“There is a mystery still unsolved on the plateau of Lake Titicaca, which, if stones could speak, would reveal a story of deepest interest. Much of the difficulty in the solution of this mystery is caused by the nature of the region, in the present day, where the enigma still defies explanation.” So wrote Sir Clemens Markham in 1910. “Such a region is only capable of sustaining a scanty population of hardy mountaineers and laborers. The mystery consists in the existence of ruins of a great city at the southern side of the lake, the builders being entirely unknown. The city covered a large area, built by highly skilled masons, and with the use of enormous stones.” (Velikovsky 75)
Velikovsky misspells the forename of his first source, Clements Markham, an English geographer and explorer of the 19th century. As President of the Royal Geographical Society, Markham organized the British National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1904, which launched the Polar careers of Robert Scott, Ernest Shackleton, and several other celebrated explorers. An indefatigable explorer in his own right and a prolific author, Markham’s travels took him as far afield as India, South America, Abyssinia and the Polar regions. In 1850 he took part in the search for the missing Franklin Expedition in the Arctic Ocean. In 1875 he returned to the Arctic as a guest of the British National Antarctic Expedition. He left the expedition after three months, when it had reached Disko Island, on the west coast of Greenland. A few months later, his cousin Albert Hastings Markham led the sledging party that set a new record for the Farthest North.
Clements Markham was also a prolific writer and diarist. In addition to the many papers and reports he prepared for the Royal Geographical Society and other learned bodies, he penned dozens of histories, biographies and travelogues. He also translated numerous works from Spanish and compiled a grammar and dictionary for Quechua, the language of the Peruvian Incas. Of these works Velikovsky cites only one, The Incas of Peru, which was first published in London in 1910, when Markham had just turned 80.
On page 37, Markham poses the riddle:
But we must return to the most difficult part of the problem, namely, the climatic conditions. How could such a region as is described at the beginning of this essay, where corn cannot ripen, sustain the population of a great city over 12,000 ft. above the level of the sea? Could the elevation have been less? Is such an idea beyond the bounds of possibility? The height is now 12,500 ft. above the sea level, in latitude 16° 22' S ...
But at a remote geological period there was no South America, only three land masses, separated by great sea inlets, a Guiana, a Brazil, and a La Plata island. There were no Andes. Then came the time when the mountains began to be upheaved. The process appears to have been very slow, gradual, and long continued. The Andes did not exist at all in the Jurassic, or even in the cretaceous period. Comparatively speaking, the Andes are very modern ... When the Andes were lower, the trade wind could carry its moisture over them to the strip of coast land which is now an arid desert, producing arboreal vegetation and the means of supporting gigantic ant-eaters. When mastodons lived at Ulloma, and ant-eaters in Tarapaca, the Andes, slowly rising, were some two or three thousands of feet [600-900 m] lower than they are now. Maize would then ripen in the basin of Lake Titicaca, and the site of the ruins of Tiahuanacu could support the necessary population. If the megalithic builders were living under these conditions, the problem is solved. If this is geologically impossible, the mystery remains unexplained. (Markham 37-38)
Velikovsky recounts an interesting story concerning this possibility:
When the author of the quoted passages posed his question to the scholarly world, Leonard Darwin, then president of the Royal Geographical Society, offered the surmise that the mountain had risen considerably after the city had been built. (Velikovsky 75)
No citation is given for this nugget of information, which was not taken from The Incas of Peru. On 9 May 1910, shortly before the publication of The Incas of Peru, Markham presented a paper on the same subject to the Royal Geographical Society, followed by a discussion among several members. It was during this discussion that the President Leonard Darwin made his remarks, which were included as an appendix to the lecture in Volume 36 of The Geographical Journal:
The PRESIDENT (after the paper): The extremely interesting paper which we have just heard read will, of course, appear in the ordinary course in the Journal. To it will be added a note, drawn up by Mr. Reeves, our Map Curator, giving further information with regard to the compilation and the authorities for the map; and this note will, I am sure, confirm what Sir Clements has said about the extreme difficulty of compiling this map, and as to its being likely to be the best map of Peru for many years to come. As to Sir Clements’ paper, it can hardly fail to give rise to an interesting discussion, as there are so many interesting points in it. One suggestion which he has made is naturally of special interest to me, namely, the suggestion—I may say the almost startling suggestion—that the Andes have risen 1000 feet in height since certain stone remains were deposited there by man, thus causing a material alteration in the climate. It is especially interesting to me, because of the mention of my father’s name in connection with it. In these circumstances I naturally turned to the ‛Voyage of the Beagle,’ and there I found most ample evidence of the very strong impression that had been made on my father’s mind by the evidences on the west coast of South America of great changes in the level of the land. In fact, in the short quotation I propose to read to you, I feel at a loss to know to what extent it should be regarded as sound geology and to what extent as poetic licence. “Daily it is forced home on the mind of the geologist, that nothing, not even the wind that blows, is so unstable as the level of the crust of the Earth.” If that were the literal truth, there would indeed be no difficulty in connection with Sir Clements Markham’s suggestion as to the rise in the Andes.
In considering this question, what we should like to know in the first place is, what is the age of these ancient ruins? On that point there is no evidence whatever, but judging by the age now generally assigned to the pyramids of Egypt, it would not be an outrageous supposition to suggest that these megalithic remains may be 4000 years old. Then as to the changes of level. Referring again to the ‛Voyage of the Beagle,’ one instance is there given of a rise of 11 feet in seventeen years. That, of course, is a much greater rise than is necessary to tally with Sir Clements Markham’s suggestion, and perhaps it is unfair to quote it, as it no doubt took place in a period of exceptional movement. Another case is given where the rise appears to have been close on 19 feet during 220 years. Let us say, then, it does not appear to be out of the question to suppose that land in South America may have risen 20 feet in 200 years, or 400 feet in 4000 years. But this rise was near the coast-line, and there is ample geological evidence to prove that the rise in recent geological times has been much greater inland than at the coast. If the rise at Lake Titicaca were two and a half times the rise at the coast, and the rise at the coast could have amounted to 400 feet in the assumed time, than we have a possible rise at Lake Titicaca of 1000 feet. Thus it seems to me that the facts we know do not, at all events, run counter to Sir Clements Markham’s suggestion. It occurred to me, in considering this question, that if this rise of 1000 feet really took place, it must have shown itself in a tilting of the buildings. This is, however, not the case. If the land near Lake Titicaca rose 1000 feet, whilst the land near the coast remained quite stationary, this would necessitate a tilting of the land to the extent of only five minutes of arc, an amount quite invisible on buildings. But it would, nevertheless, be extremely interesting if any explorer would take the trouble to carefully measure the slopes of the line of masonry in all these ancient buildings, in order to see if there is any indication of any change of slope having occurred. There is only one possible method of noting whether the land near the coast-line is rising or falling, and that is by means of tide-gauges on the west coast of South America, and it is certainly to be hoped that those in charge of them are taking steps to keep such a record as will enable observers in future times thus to obtain the most accurate estimate possible of the movement of the Earth. As to the movements in the interior of the continent, as compared with the coast, I presume the best way of getting at the desired results would be by measurements of vertical angles. Let us hope that the South American surveyors are also keeping this fact in mind, so that by an accurate determination of the vertical angles of some of the highest peaks from the coastline say a hundred years hence, the best possible estimate of this change may be obtainable. I have, I fear, spoken too long, but my excuse is that I have been provoked to it by my late President, whom I could never disobey. (Markham 392-393)
From these remarks, it is clear that it was Markham himself who first suggested that the Andes had been uplifted after the building of the city:
Some miles from the southern shores of Lake Titicaca, once actually on the shore, there are the ruins of a great city, now called Tiahuanacu. In the time of the Incas it was the same ruin as it is now, its origin and history absolutely unknown, and myths were invented to account for the numerous stone statues. The ruins show very advanced proficiency in the masonic art, and there are monoliths which have been conveyed from great distances. The size of these cut and carved stones is unequalled in any other part of the world except Egypt. There must necessarily have been a very large population, and an immense food-supply. The question how a region where corn will not ripen can have been selected as a site for a great city is a problem which seems well worthy of study.
The site is over 12,000 feet above the sea. Cuzco is at an elevation of 11,000 feet. If the Tiahuanacu city flourished when the Andes were still 1000 feet lower, the problem would be solved. The Cordilleras of the Andes, if the grandest and most important mountains in the world, from their vast extent and productiveness, are the most modern. The conclusion of Dr. Reiche is that they had no existence even in so late a geological period as the cretaceous, and there seems to be evidence that the upheaval has been comparatively rapid. Darwin tells us that, in the neighbourhood of Valparaiso there has been a recent rise of 1200 feet. He also found remains, consisting of maize cobs and cotton twine, on the summit of the island of San Lorenzo, proving that the land has risen 80 feet within a time when human inhabitants were cultivating the ]and. This calls to mind the Huarochiri myth which declares that:
“When Viracocha was here our land was Yunca.”
That is to say, that their tradition tells them that, in the golden age, the Huarochiri hills, at no great distance from Darwin’s point of observation at San Lorenzo, were formerly valleys like those on the coast called Yunca. Again, there are numerous skeletons of gigantic ant-eaters in the deserts of Tarapaca. I have presented two to the British Museum. No forests to support them could have existed in Tarapaca, while the Andes were at anything like their present height. These and other interesting geographical problems invite further study and exploration in the Titicaca region. Several lofty peaks are still neither ascended nor measured. (Markham 386-387)
As recently as 1977, the American author Vincent Gaddis, the Fortean writer who popularized the idea of the Bermuda Triangle, revived Markham and Darwin’s hypothesis as the simplest solution to the mysteries of Tiwanaku:
The most likely solution to the Tiahuanaco enigma is startling and runs counter to orthodox geological and archaeological theories. It is simply that the mountain[s] had risen considerably after the city had been built. The conservative view is that mountain making is a slow, continuous process during hundreds of thousands of years. the idea that a large land mass can be raised thousands of feet in a short time, geologically speaking, is rejected. Tiahuanaco challenges this dogma ... At some period in the past, the entire Titicaca plateau was at or below sea level with its lakes forming part of a sea gulf. At a later time, perhaps, a city was built and surrounded by farming terraces on the elevations around it. There was a final upheaval and the plateau was raised to its present height, making the city uninhabitable. (Gaddis 44 ... 45)
Arthur Posnansky
Velikovsky’s next source is the Austrian scientist mentioned above. Arthur Posnansky was a man of many talents. He was by turns soldier and war hero, naval engineer, builder, urban planner, filmmaker, photographer, researcher, writer, historian, miner, explorer, entrepreneur, paleontologist, anthropologist and archaeologist. His only formal training was in naval engineering, and it was in this capacity that he had his first taste of travel. In 1896, when he was 23, he emigrated to South America and explored the Bolivian and Brazilian Amazon. He fought for Bolivia, his adoptive country, in the Acre War of 1899-1903. In the campaign, Posnansky was wounded and captured by the Brazilians, but he escaped and took refuge in Europe, before eventually rejoining his brothers-in-arms.
His passion for archaeology was awakened when he began to research and explore Bolivia’s Incan and pre-Incan archaeological sites in the early years of the 20th century. Posnansky is best remembered today for his theories on Tiwanaku. In his final work, Tiahuanacu, the Cradle of the American Man, he argued that the city was constructed around 15,000 BCE and marked the beginning of civilization in the Americas. The first two volumes of this book were published in Spanish and English in 1945, one year before Posnansky’s death. An earlier edition of Volume 1 had actually appeared as early as 1914 under the title Una Metrópoli Prehistórica en la América del Sud [A Prehistoric Metropolis in South America]. Volumes 3 and 4 were published posthumously in 1957. The work remains an invaluable source of data—photographs, drawings, maps, descriptions—on the archaeological site. Few modern archaeologists, however, would go as far as Velikovsky, who refers to Posnansky as an authority on the site (Velikovsky 76).
Posnansky’s views on the origins of civilization and the peopling of the globe are quite unorthodox:
Posnansky sticks to the theory according to which humanity originated in the Polar Region, that there a mild appeared first thus allowing mammalians to live and develop; the Polar Regions were called Arctic and Antarctic. From them man spread gradually over the Earth, even before the Glacial period, moving toward the Equator and establishing themselves in more favorable regions situated in the high plateaus, as the ones of Tibet, Mexico and the Andes. (Posnansky 3:7, Anonymous Introduction)
But Velikovsky is only interested in his opinions on the recentness of the geological changes that led to the abandonment of the city. Posnansky hypothesis that Tiwanaku declined due to malign climatic conditions is generally accepted today, but what Posnansky imputes to adverse geological changes, modern archaeologists impute to climate change:
But nothing endures forever. Great civilizations are destroyed, and new ones are engendered, sometimes inferior, occasionally superior to those that went before. Thus it befell the metropolis of Tiahuanacu. Having reached in very remote times almost the apogee of the civilization then attainable, it declined rapidly because of adverse geological changes. Since the surroundings were impaired, malign climatic conditions arose. Climatic aggression put a walking staff into the hands of the dwellers upon the Altiplano, forcing them to go on and on, until they found suitable locations where they could again establish themselves and enjoy the fruits of their labors. These emigrants then, carrying with them their cultural baggage, spread throughout all those parts of the hemisphere which still remained unaffected by the “climatic aggression,” disseminating as they went their enlightenment and beliefs. (Posnansky 1:2)
In support of his hypothesis Posnansky adduces several pieces of evidence that Lake Titicaca was on the coastline in the recent past:
Water Line
The western part of the continent of South America, or, rather, the coasts of Southern Peru and Chile, show for the moment, as has been pointed out above, a rising movement which carries the mountain ranges with it along with the Andean Altiplano which they flank and surround. The marks of the old water line on all of this coast are seen to be high in certain parts, hundreds of meters above the present level; in other parts they are not so high, traces having been erased in the upper region through erosion. The water line visible at the present time in the Coastal heights is rather recent, since otherwise its last traces would have disappeared through erosion brought about by the continual changes in temperature, wind, water and other factors, as has occurred in the more elevated regions. (Posnansky 1:18-19)
Marine Fauna
That Lake Titicaca is what remains of a great suspended body of ocean water, is evinced by the fact that the fauna of the lake—today completely degenerated— is very similar to that which exists in the sea. (1:28)
As early as 1876, Alexander Agassiz demonstrated the existence of a marine crustaceous fauna in Lake Titicaca. (1:29)
Velikovsky lifts this quotation out of Posnansky and passes it off as his own, as though he came across it while independently researching the writings of Alexander Agassiz, son of the famous proponent of the Ice Age Louis Agassiz. The only change he makes is to alter As early as 1876 to As long ago as 1875. The change of date, however, does suggest that Velikovsky took the trouble to look up Agassiz’ original paper, for, though the paper was published in 1876, Agassiz’ expedition to South America took place in 1875. The citation refers to this passage in Agassiz:
The Crustacea, on the other hand, belong mainly to the Orchestiadæ, forms which thus far have not been found in fresh water at all: their nearest allies are nearly all marine. (Agassiz 287)
Chemistry
The Chemical composition of the water of Lake Titicaca is still similar to that of the sea, as is to be seen in the analysis which follows. (1:29)
Recent Deposits
Evident signs of the existence of such lakes are noted when one travels by airplane. Their last remains are the two lakes of Titicaca and Poopó, the lake and salt bed of Coipaza, the salt beds of Uyuni, and numerous others farther south ... where there is dearly seen the sediment of an enormous lake with but slightly brackish water, in fact almost potable. At this point, at about a meter under the alluvium ... a soft layer of fresh water lime has been found extending over approximately one hundred square kilometers. This stratum is full of characteristic molluscs, such as Paludestrina and Ancylus, which shows that it is, geologically speaking, of relatively modern origin. (1:23)
The phrase geologically speaking covers quite a protracted period of time. The genera Paludestrina and Ancylus are found throughout the Cenozoic Era, which began 66 Mya.
H P Moon
In passing, Velikovsky also quotes the Manchester-born biologist Harold Philip Moon in support of the theory that Lake Titicaca was only recently on the sea. Moon worked in the Fisheries Laboratory at the University of Southampton, and was later Assistant Lecturer in Zoology at the University of Manchester. In 1937, he took part in the Percy Sladen Expedition to Lake Titicaca (Gilson 533-538). After the war, he became Professor of Zoology at the University of Leicester:
Once Tiahuanacu was at the water’s edge; then Lake Titicaca was ninety feet [20 m] higher, as its old strandline discloses. But this strand line is tilted and in other places it is more than 360 feet above the present level of the lake. There are numerous raised beaches; and stress was put on “the freshness of many of the strandlines and the modern character of such fossils as occur.” (Velikovsky 76-77)
In its original context, this quotation is not as supportive of Velikovsky’s catastrophist thesis as one might have surmised. The strandlines Moon is referring to are not marine but lacustrine coastlines:
From the numerous examples quoted there is abundant evidence for the existence in geologically recent times of very much more extensive lake systems in the Altiplano than exist to-day. It is probable that the strandlines referred to by so many authors all represent various levels of the two lakes, Minchin and Ballivian. In 1937 the author examined two raised beaches at Pazña, above Lake Poopó. One of these beaches was 30 metres, the other 28 metres above the present lake. Both these beaches probably represent stages in the gradual dwindling of Lake Minchin or Ballivian.
The freshness of many of the strandlines and the modern character of such fossils as occur indicate that the two lake systems described above were recent. It is only possible to give them an approximate date, but they were probably associated with the Quaternary glaciation of the district. The great extent of the two lakes suggests that they were inter-glacial and fed by water from the melting ice of retreating glaciers. Whether they represent two separate inter-glacial periods or fluctuations in a single inter-glacial interval, it is impossible to say. There is, therefore, a time gap between the formation of the Altiplano in the Miocene, and the formation of glacial lakes in the Quaternary. Throughout that period the Altiplano was probably enclosed and admirably suited for the accumulation of the drainage into lakes. Lakes would almost certainly be present, one system succeeding another, but owing to the friable nature of lacustrine deposits, few traces have been left. (Moon 32)
Just three pages later, Moon actually considers and rejects the theory that Lake Titicaca is of marine origin:
So far the Altiplano drainage systems, both recent and ancient, have been considered as a perfectly normal sequence of freshwater lakes and streams. The history of the Altiplano is, however, complicated by the theory of the marine origin of the fauna of Titicaca and Poopó ...
The idea that Titicaca is an elevated arm of the sea and that Hyalella and Orestias represent marine relicts can have no foundation in the light of more recent work. The wide distribution in South America of the genus Hyalella is sufficient to remove any such possibilities. In the case of Orestias there is no evidence of close affinities with the marine genera of the family Cyprinodontidae, to which the genus belongs. Indeed, most genera of the family are fresh-water, a limited number being brackish-water or marine forms.
Moreover, even supposing that Hyalella and Orestias were marine relicts, there is no geological evidence to support the idea that Titicaca is an elevated lagoon of the sea. If this were the case, we would expect to find Tertiary marine deposits in the neighbourhood of the lake, and this is not the case. If a marine inlet ever was raised up in this region, it was almost certainly filled in by detritus during the peneplanation following the first period of uplift. (Moon 35-36)
None of this is mentioned by Velikovsky, who is satisfied that the case has been proven:
Sometime in the remote past the entire Altiplano with its lakes rose from the bottom of the ocean. At some other time point a city was built there and terraces were laid out on the elevation around it; then in another disturbance the mountains were thrust up and the area became uninhabitable. (Velikovsky 77)
Charles Lyell
The Scottish geologist Charles Lyell was one of the 19th century’s leading proponents of the Doctrine of Uniformitarianism. Like Posnansky, he was not formally trained as a geologist, but unlike Posnansky he is still considered today an authority on the subject. His Principles of Geology did for Uniformitarianism what Genesis did for Creationism. He is one of the last sources we would expect Velikovsky to cite:
The barrier of the Cordilleras that separates the Altiplano from the valley to the east was torn apart and gigantic blocks were thrown into the chasm. Lyell, combating the idea of a universal flood, offered the theory that the bursting of the Sierra barrier opened the way for a large lake on the Altiplano, which cascaded down into the valley and caused the aborigines to create the myth of a universal flood. (Velikovsky 77)
The citation is to Volumes I and III of the Principles of Geology:
In speculating on catastrophes by water, we may certainly anticipate great floods in future, and we may therefore presume that they have happened again and again in past times. The existence of enormous seas of fresh-water, such as the North American lakes, the largest of which is elevated more than six hundred feet above the level of the ocean, and is in parts twelve hundred feet deep, is alone sufficient to assure us, that the time will come, however distant, when a deluge will lay waste a considerable part of the American continent. No hypothetical agency is required to cause the sudden escape of the confined waters. Such changes of level, and opening of fissures, as have accompanied earthquakes since the commencement of the present century, or such excavation of ravines as the receding cataract of Niagara is now effecting, might breach the barriers. Notwithstanding, therefore, that we have not witnessed within the last three thousand years the devastation by deluge of a large continent, yet, as we may predict the future occurrence of such catastrophes, we are authorized to regard them as part of the present order of Nature, and they may be introduced into geological speculations respecting the past, provided we do not imagine them to have been more frequent or general than we expect them to be in time to come. (Lyell I:89)
Supposed Effects of the Flood They who have used the terms ante-diluvian and post-diluvian in the manner above adverted to, proceed on the assumption that there are clear and unequivocal marks of the passage of a general flood over all parts of the surface of the globe. It had long been a question among the learned, even before the commencement of geological researches, whether the deluge of the Scriptures was universal in reference to the whole surface of the globe, or only so with respect to that portion of it which was then inhabited by man. If the latter interpretation be admissible, the reader will have seen, in former parts of this work, that there are two classes of phenomena in the configuration of the earth’s surface, which might enable us to account for such an event. First, extensive lakes elevated above the level of the ocean; secondly, large tracts of dry land depressed below that level. When there is an immense lake, having its surface, like Lake Superior, raised 600 feet above the level of the sea, the waters may be suddenly let loose by the rending or sinking down of the barrier during earthquakes, and hereby a region as extensive as the valley of the Mississippi, inhabited by a population of several millions, might be deluged. (Lyell III:270)
Lyell does not actually mention South America’s Altiplano or the bursting of the Sierra barrier in any editions of the Principles of Geology that I have examined (1st, 2nd, 12th). I am at a loss to explain Velikovsky’s text, unless he is simply applying to South America what Lyell wrote about Lake Superior. This is certainly a valid construction to put on Lyell’s words, but Velikovsky’s manner of expressing it leads one to believe that Lyell specifically mentioned the catastrophic draining of a large lake on the Altiplano.
A Bizarre Theory
Velikovsky next considers a theory that even he finds bizarre and impossible to accept:
Not so long ago an explanation of the mystery of Lake Titicaca and of the fortress Tiahuanacu on its shore was put forward in the light of Hörbiger’s theory:A moon circled very close to the earth, pulling the waters of the oceans toward the equator; by its gravitational pull, the moon held, day and night, the water of the ocean at the altitude of Tiahuanacu: “The level of the ocean must have been at least 13,000 feet higher.” Then the moon crashed into the earth, and the oceans receded to the poles, leaving the island with its megalithic city as a mountain above the sea bottom, now the continent of the tropical and subtropical Americas. All this happened millions of years before our moon was caught by the earth, and thus the ruins of the megalithic city Tiahuanacu are millions of years old, that is, the city must have been built long “before the Flood.” (Velikovsky 77-78)
Hans Schindler Bellamy was an English professor who taught English in Vienna before the Second World War. He is best remembered for popularizing the Welteislehre, or World Ice Theory, of the Austrian engineer Hanns Hörbiger. The latter believed that our current Moon was the Earth’s sixth icy moon and, like its five predecessors, it would one day fall into the Earth. Hörbiger’s credibility is not helped by his admission that his theories came to him in a vision in 1894.
Velikovsky rejects Bellamy’s theory because even he cannot accept such an age for Tiwanaku:
The geological record indicates a late elevation of the Andes, and the time of its origin is brought ever closer to our time. Archaeological and radiocarbon analyses indicate that the age of the Andean culture and of the city is not much older than four thousand years. (Velikovsky 78)
Velikovsky’s source for this date is F C Hibben, a geologist who was first cited on the second page of Earth in Upheaval in connection with the Alaskan Mud. Frank Cumming Hibben was a professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico and the first director of the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology. His career was marred by allegations of scientific fraud during the excavation of Sandia Cave, New Mexico, in the 1930s and ’40s. His expedition to Alaska also generated controversy.
In Hibben’s Treasure in the Dust, we read:
Most of the great cultures of the New World flowered around the year 1000 a.d. Even the earliest of them in the highlands of the Andes and possibly also in the Mayan area did not begin much before 2000 b.c. Even with a recent series of C14 dates, especially in the Andean area, the investigators of these later levels could not push the antiquity of the high civilizations of the New World back as early as the Pleistocene. There was a seeming gap of several thousands of years between early Ice Age times and the beginning of the high civilizations in the Pueblo area or many of the other New World centers of development. (Hibben 56-57)
Ollantaytambo and Ollantayparubo
Velikovsky next turns his attention to two other archaeological sites in the Andes, Ollantaytambo and Ollantayparubo. But are these two different places or two different names for the same place?
The Incan settlement of Ollantaytambo is located in the valley of the Urubamba River, in southern Peru, at an altitude of 2800 m. It lies about 500 km northwest of Tiwanaku and 50 km northwest of Cuzco:
The ancient stronghold of Ollantaytambo in Peru is built on top of an elevation; it is constructed of blocks of stone twelve to eighteen feet high. “These Cyclopean stones were hewn from the quarry seven miles away ... How the stones were carried down to the river in the valley, shipped on rafts, and carried up to the site of the fortress remains a mystery archaeologists cannot solve.” (Velikovsky 78)
The quotation is taken from an article by Don Ternel that appeared in the magazine Travel in April 1945. This popular journal was founded in 1901 but went bankrupt in 1946. It was revived two years later and continued to publish articles on travel under various names until 2003. I have no idea who Don Ternel was.
Velikovsky describes Ollantayparubo as Another fortress or monastery ... in the Urubamba Valley. But his description, taken from Bellamy’s Built before the Flood, seems to refer to Ollantaytambo, and I have failed to identify any such place as Ollantayparubo. Is this another name for Ollantaytambo? Is it a misspelling of Ollantaytambo? I suppose it is possible that tambo could be misread as parubo. If you google Ollantayparubo, all the search results seem to be related to this passage in Earth in Upheaval. If the spelling is a typo, then who was responsible: Velikovsky or Bellamy? I haven’t been able to lay my hands on a copy of Built before the Flood, so I can’t tell.
Charles Darwin
In 1834 and 1835, during his circumnavigation of the globe on board the HMS Beagle, the young Charles Darwin visited the west coast of South America. He had leisure to study the geology and setting of the South American Cordillera—ie the Andes Mountains—but he never visited the Altiplano.
Among the works that came out of these experiences were Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands and Parts of South America, first published in 1844, and Geological Observations on South America, which appeared two years later. Both volumes were republished together in 1876 as Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands and Parts of South America Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. ‛Beagle’, which is the work from which Velikovsky next quotes:
He found that the former surf line was at an altitude of 1300 feet [400 m]. He was impressed even more by the fact that the sea shells found at this altitude were still undecayed, to him a clear indication that the land had risen 1300 feet from the Pacific Ocean in a very recent period, “within the period during which upraised shells remained undecayed on the surface.” And since only a few intermediary surf lines can be detected, the elevation could not have proceeded little by little. (Velikovsky 79)
When he first made these observations, Darwin had not yet been fully converted to Charles Lyell’s Uniformitarianism. Nevertheless, Velikovsky is possibly guilty of putting words in his mouth. In the chapter cited, he does not really put the catastrophist slant on his words that Velikovsky detects:
The nature and grouping of the shells embedded in the old Tertiary formations of Patagonia and Chile, show us, that the continent at that period must have stood only a few fathoms below its present level, and that afterwards it subsided over a wide area, 700 or 800 feet [200-250 m]. The manner in which it has since been rebrought up to its actual level, was described in detail in the Eighth and Ninth Chapters. It was there shown, that recent shells are found on the shores of the Atlantic, from Tierra del Fuego northward for a space of at least 1180 nautical miles [2200 km], and at the height of about 100 feet [30 m] in La Plata, and of 400 feet [125 m] in Patagonia. The elevatory movements on this side of the continent have been slow; and the coast of Patagonia, up to the height in one part of 950 feet [300 m] and in another of 1200 feet [375 m], is modelled into eight great, step-like, gravel-capped plains, extending for hundreds of miles with the same heights; this fact shows that the periods of denudation (which, judging from the amount of matter removed, must have been long continued) and of elevation were synchronous over surprisingly great lengths of coasts. On the shores of the Pacific, upraised shells of recent species, generally, though not always, in the same proportional numbers as in the adjoining sea, have actually been found over a north and south space of 2075 miles [3300 km], and there is reason to believe that they occur over a space of 2480 miles [4000 km]. The elevation on this western side of the continent has not been equable; at Valparaiso, within the period during which upraised shells have remained undecayed on the surface, it has been 1300 feet [400 m], whilst at Coquimbo, 200 miles northward, it has been within this same period only 252 feet [77 m]. At Lima, the land has been uplifted at least eighty-feet [27 m] since Indian man inhabited that district; but the level within historical times apparently has subsided. At Coquimbo, in a height of 364 feet [110 m], the elevation has been interrupted by five periods of comparative rest. At several places the land has been lately, or still is, rising both insensibly and by sudden starts of a few feet during earthquake-shocks; this shows that these two kinds of upward movement are intimately connected together. For a space of 775 miles [1250 km], upraised recent shells are found on the two opposite sides of the continent; and in the southern half of this space, it may be safely inferred from the slope of the land up to the Cordillera, and from the shells found in the central part of Tierra del Fuego, and high up the river Santa Cruz, that the entire breadth of the continent has been uplifted. From the general occurrence on both coasts of successive lines of escarpments, of sand dunes and marks of erosion, we must conclude that the elevatory movement has been normally interrupted by periods, when the land either was stationary, or when it rose at so slow a rate as not to resist the average denuding power of the waves, or when it subsided. In the case of the present high sea-cliffs of Patagonia and in other analogous instances, we have seen that the difficulty in understanding how strata can be removed at those depths under the sea, at which the currents and oscillations of the water are depositing a smooth surface of mud, sand, and sifted pebbles, leads to the suspicion that the formation or denudation of such cliffs has been accompanied by a sinking movement. (Darwin 598-600)
Velikovsky leaves the second quotation from this work to speak for itself:
I have endeavoured elsewhere to show, that the excessively disturbed condition of the strata in the Cordillera, so far from indicating single periods of extreme violence, presents insuperable difficulties, except on the admission that the masses of once liquefied rocks of the axes were repeatedly injected with intervals sufficiently long for their successive cooling and consolidation. (Darwin 602-603 : Velikovsky 79)
But the remainder of this paragraph does not lend much support to Velikovsky’s catastrophist thesis:
Finally, if we look to the analogies drawn from the changes now in progress in the earth’s crust, whether to the manner in which volcanic matter is erupted, or to the manner in which the land is historically known to have risen and sunk : or again, if we look to the vast amount of denudation which every part of the Cordillera has obviously suffered, the changes through which it has been brought into its present condition, will appear neither to have been too slowly effected, nor to have been too complicated. (Darwin 603)
A Vanished Civilization
Velikovsky is on firmer ground when he next draws attention to another of the undoubted anomalies of the Altiplano: the preponderance of abandoned towns and terraces:
The foothills of the Andes hide numerous deserted towns and abandoned terraces, monuments to a vanished civilization. The terraces that go up the slopes of the Andes, and reach the eternal snow line and continue under the snow to some unidentified altitude prove that it was not a conqueror nor a plague that put the seal of death on gardens and towns. (Velikovsky 79-80)
Velikovsky’s source for this is the paper Climatic Pulsations by Ellsworth Huntington, Professor of Geography at Yale University between 1907 and 1913. This paper was Huntington’s contribution to a collection of papers published in 1935 as a birthday tribute to the Swedish geographer Sven Hedin, who turned 70 on 19 February of that year:
- Hyllningsskrift tillägnad Sven Hedin på hans 70-årsdag den 19 febr. 1935 [Tributary Papers to Sven Hedin on his 70th birthday on 19 February 1935]
Velikovsky or his typesetter misspells the Swedish word Hyllningsskrift as Hylluingsskrift, a mistake that does not seem to have been corrected in any subsequent editions of Earth in Upheaval. The work was published as a supplement to Volume 17 of Geografiska Annaler, a scientific journal published in Stockholm by the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography.
Ellsworth Huntington was a climatic determinist: he believed that climatic and environmental conditions determined the course taken by a society or civilization.
Recent exploration has added greatly to the size and importance of the depopulated areas which are known to exist in dry regions. In Peru, for example, aerial surveys in the dry belt west of the Andes have shown an unexpected number of old ruins, and an almost incredible number of terraces for cultivation. In 1928 the writer visited the valleys of the Rimac and Chili Rivers. In their drier portions both show the same phenomena of old irrigation ditches on slopes which are now waterless. The region around Arequipa illustrates the matter especially well. This pleasant little city with nearly 50 000 inhabitants, lies at an elevation of about 2 300 meters in the valley of the Rio Chili. The average rainfall amounts to only 106 millimeters per year, and 83 per cent of this comes in January, February, and March. During 17 of the 35 years for which data are available the rainfall has been less than 75 millimeters. Obviously agriculture is impossible without irrigation. The Rio Chili, however, comes from the lofty volcanoes of El Misti, Pichu Pichu, and Chachani, and provides water for abundant gardens. Nevertheless, even in the immediate vicinity of the city there is much idle land which might be cultivated if there were more water. The surrounding slopes at first sight appear utterly barren and uninteresting. Yet for mile after mile and to an altitude of hundreds of meters above the river practically every slope is covered with terraces, canals, and ancient villages. These neglected and undescribed evidences of a former dense population extend for kilometers on all sides and embrace hundreds and probably thousands of hectares. (Huntington 578)
Velikovsky, however, does not quote the following paragraph, which contradicts his thesis:
In addition to changes of climate many other possible causes of the abandonment of these fields have been suggested. These include recent and amazingly rapid uplift of the Andes, but this is impossible because ruins of similar age lie close to sea level. (Huntington 578)
Huntington believed that these sites were abandoned relatively recently due to climate change acting over scales of centuries and millennia:
In spite of the modern emphasis on climatic cycles, the main topic of controversy concerning historic climates is still whether regions apparently now too dry for agriculture were once moist enough to support a considerable population. Periods of aridity, such as probably occurred in the thirteenth and second centuries before Christ and in the seventh and thirteenth after Christ are of course equally worthy of study. Nevertheless, in the present article we shall confine ourselves to the question of whether there is evidence of climatic cycles lasting hundreds or thousands of years during historic times, and whether the moister phases of these cycles, if such there are, have left clear traces. (Huntington 571)
If Huntington’s claim that settlements of comparable age to those abandoned on the Altiplano can still be found at sea level is true, then it is hard to see how this does not refute once and for all the claim that the Andes rose to their current height within the age of man.
Darwin Again
Velikovsky ends this section with a quotation from Darwin’s Journal of Researches, which describes the scene Darwin beheld when he ascended the Andes in the vicinity of Uspallata, about 150 km northeast of Santiago, and looked down on the Argentinian Cuyo from a little forest of petrified trees (at Agua de la Zorra):
It required little geological practice to interpret the marvellous story which this scene at once unfolded; though I confess I was at first so much astonished that I could scarcely believe the plainest evidence. I saw the spot where a cluster of fine trees once waved their branches on the shores of the Atlantic, when that ocean now driven back 700 miles [1100 km] came to the foot of the Andes. I saw that they had sprung from a volcanic soil which had been raised above the level of the sea, and that subsequently this dry land, with its upright trees, had been let down into the depths of the ocean. In these depths, the formerly dry land was covered by sedimentary beds, and these again by enormous streams of submarine lava one such mass attaining the thickness of a thousand feet [300 m]; and these deluges of molten stone and aqueous deposits five times alternately had been spread out. The ocean which received such thick masses must have been profoundly deep; but again the subterranean forces exerted themselves, and now I beheld the bed of that ocean, forming a chain of mountains more than seven thousand feet in height [2100 m] ... Vast, and scarcely comprehensible as such changes must ever appear, yet they have all occurred within a period, recent when compared with the history of the Cordillera; and the Cordillera itself is absolutely modern as compared with many of the fossiliferous strata of Europe and America. (Velikovsky 80 : Darwin 30 March 1835)
The omitted passage, indicated above by the ellipsis, reads:
Nor had those antagonist forces been dormant, which are always at work wearing down the surface of the land: the great piles of strata had been intersected by many wide valleys, and the trees, now changed into silex, were exposed projecting from the volcanic soil, now changed into rock, whence formerly, in a green and budding state, they had raised their lofty heads. Now, all is utterly irreclaimable and desert; even the lichen cannot adhere to the stony caste of former trees. (Darwin 30 March 1835)
This Uniformitarian description of the relentless and ongoing work of nature does not serve Velikovsky’s argument, so it must go.
Velikovsky concludes this section with the briefest of perorations:
But how extremely young the Cordillera of the Andes is, only the research of recent years has brought out. (Velikovsky 80)
Conclusions
In my opinion, Velikovsky does not appear in his best light in this section. The archaeological and geological anomalies of the Altiplano remain a favourite stamping ground of catastrophists to this day, but Velikovsky’s careful pruning and editing of his sources smacks of cherry picking. This policy is unlikely to win any converts to the cause. This section is also marred by a number of misspellings, one of which appears to have conjured up the non-existent Ollantayparubo.
Velikovsky's thesis—that the Andes rose from sea level to their present lofty altitude within the memory of man, carrying with them numerous ancient cities—is not as cogently argued as it might have been. For example, he does not address Huntington’s observation that settlements as old as those abandoned on the Altiplano can still be found at sea level.
Aside from the usual Uniformitarian objections, one of the strongest arguments against the catastrophist hypothesis is the simple fact that, ruined as it is, much of Tiwanaku still stands. Would not the catastrophic upthrust of one of the tallest mountain ranges on the planet shake the city to such an extent that not a single stone would be left standing? Even Posnansky conceded that human hands had wrought greater destruction upon the ruins of Tiwanaku than Nature ever did:
Cieza de León, who personally visited the celebrated ruins of Tiahuanacu in the year 1540, saw still standing great ramparts and walls which have now disappeared from the surface of the ground and the traces of which the archaeologist can establish only by drawing up topographical maps. Since then, centuries have passed over these venerable spots and in the course of this time, clumsy human hands have accomplished a much more destructive work than was effected in thousands of years, either by the ceaseless action of natural phenomena or the tireless and devastating labor of time itself ...
But even more damaging for the ruins of Tiahuanacu than the devastating action of time, of natural phenomena, the work of the builders of cities and the zeal of fanatic guardians of the Christian religion, have been the excavations of Georges Courty (1904). Of all that which this inept and unscrupulous searcher may have disinterred in his excavations, there remains today not a stone in its place. (Posnansky 1:59-60)
Could the city have survived, perhaps, a more gradual but none the less catastrophic uplift—one, for example, that was completed in decades or centuries rather than in days, weeks, months or years? Or perhaps these cities were built by the survivors of a megatsunami, who retreated to these altitudes out of fear of a similar catastrophe?
But what, then, of all those abandoned agricultural terraces and irrigation canals? Their presence proves, does it not, that when this region was densely populated, the climate was suitable for large-scale agriculture? And their state of preservation argues against any major alteration in their altitude. They look, in fact, as though they were abandoned very recently. To my mind, catastrophic climate change—a Klimasturz—is a better explanation of these facts than catastrophic orogeny.
Nevertheless, Tiwanaku remains an anomaly, as do the abandoned towns and terraces of the Altiplano. There is still much to learn of this vanished civilization.
And that’s a good place to stop.
References
- Alexander Agassiz, Hydrographic Sketch of Lake Titicaca, Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Volume 11, Pages 283-292, AAA&S, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1876)
- John Barrett (Director General), Bulletin of the Pan American Union, Volume 32, Government Print Office, Washington, DC (1911)
- Hans Schindler Bellamy, Built before the Flood: The Problem of the Tiahuanaco Ruins, (1947)
- Charles Darwin, Journal of Researches, New Edition, John Murray, London (1852)
- Charles Darwin, Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands and Parts of South America Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. ‛Beagle’, Second Edition, Smith, Elder, & Co, London (1876)
- Vincent H Gaddis, American Indian Myths and Mysteries, A Signet Book, New American Library, New York (1978)
- H Cary Gilson, The Percy Sladen Expedition to Lake Titicaca, 1937, The Geographical Journal, Volume 91, Number 6, Pages 533-538, The Royal Geographical Society, London (1938)
- Frank C Hibben, Treasure in the Dust: Exploring Ancient North America, J B Lippincott, Philadelphia (1951)
- Ellsworth Huntington, Climatic Pulsations, Geografiska Annaler, Volume 17, Supplement, Pages 571-608, Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography, Stockholm (1935)
- Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, First Edition, Volume 2, Volume 3, John Murray, London (1830-33)
- Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, 12th Edition, Volume 1, Volume 2, John Murray, London (1875)
- Clements Markham, The Land of the Incas and Discussion, The Geographical Journal, Volume 36, Number 4, The Royal Geographical Society, London (1910)
- Clements Markham, The Incas of Peru, Smith, Elder, and Co, London (1910)
- Harold Philip Moon, The Geology and Physiography of the Altiplano of Peru and Bolivia, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 3rd Series, Volume 1, Issue 1, Pages 27-43, London (1939)
- Arthur Posnansky, Tiahuanacu, the Cradle of the American Man, Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, J J Augustin, New York (1945, 1957)
- Immanuel Velikovsky, Earth in Upheaval, Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, New York (1955, 1977)
Image Credits
- The Sun Gate, Tiwanaku: © Sasha India (photographer), Creative Commons License
- South Peru and North Bolivia: Clements R Markham, South Peru and North Bolivia, Including the Rubber Yielding Montaña (cropped, adapted), Royal Geographical Society, London (1910), Public Domain
- Clements R Markham: Elliott & Fry (photographers), National Portrait Gallery, London, Creative Commons License
- Leonard Darwin: Bain News Service (publisher), George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, Public Domain
- Vincent Gaddis: Anonymous Photograph, Public Domain : American Indian Myths and Mysteries, © Signet (cover art), Fair Use
- Arthur Posnansky: Mhuyustus (photographer), Public Domain
- Lake Titicaca: © Luis Fernando Troncoso Joffré (photographer), Creative Commons License
- Talitrus saltator (A Sandhopper): © Arnold Paul (photographer), Creative Commons License
- Harold Philip Moon at Lake Titicaca: The Royal Geographical Society, Fair Use
- The Hyalella Species-Flock of Lake Titicaca: José A Jurado-Rivera et al, Morphological and Molecular Species Boundaries in the Hyalella Species-Flock of Lake Titicaca (Crustacea: Amphipoda), Figure 1, After Drawings by Chevreux, Coleman & González, Weckel, and Faxon, Creative Commons License
- Charles Lyell: Alexander Craig (artist), Glasgow (1840), Public Domain
- The Altiplano and the Cordillera of the Andes: Anonymous Photograph, Creative Commons License
- Hans Schindler Bellamy: Anonymous Photograph, Fair Use
- Frank C Hibben: © AfricaHunting.com, Fair Use
- The Wall of the Six Monoliths at Ollantaytambo: © Wolfgang Beyer (photographer), Creative Commons License
- Charles Darwin in the Beagle’s Tender (1834): Conrad Martens (artist), Private Collection, Public Domain
- Darwin’s Travels in South America: © Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc, Fair Use
- Abandoned Agricultural Terraces in the Peruvian Andes: © TerraMetrics, GeoEye, DigitalGlobe, Fair Use
- Disused Contour-Based Irrigation Canals in the Peruvian Andes: © GeoEye, Fair Use
- Ellsworth Huntington: Yale University Library, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Public Domain
- Darwin’s Petrified Forest (Agua de la Zorra, Uspallata Pass): © Mariana Brea, Analia E Artabe, Luis Spalletti (photographers), Fair Use
