Atlantean civilization was a
Bronze Age civilization that expired in 1159 BC, a victim to subsidence
triggered by a massive quake related to two nearby major faults and subduction
zones.
It had arisen as much as four thousand
years earlier with the beginnings of the use of metal and copper in particular. Yet its primacy is plausibly only during the
last one thousand years of its existence.
This was driven by a combination of seaborne trade and exploitation of
the major copper resources in the Americas . This permitted the emergence of bronze armor
in particular and its immediate descendent the Greek hoplite. Such a system required vast supplies of
copper and tin and this was only possible in one locale in South
East Asia and in the Atlantic littoral.
Most likely, the society was
created in Europe and the Mediterranean . I
bring this up because there is little evidence of such metal work in North America
and South America as indigenous crafts while smelting shows up early in the Old World .
The most creditable scenario is
that sea going Bronze Age Europeans with a primary culture centered around Spain and Morocco
established a colony on the island of Atlantis in order to exploit the metal resources of
the Americas . Mines in the Andes, Mexico , Colorado
and Lake Superior supplied copper and tin for
the bronze industry. The Old world
supplied the market.
As well this society triggered
the creation of a huge gold mining industry that ultimately produced the huge
reserves captured by the Spanish that had resulted from almost five thousand
years of mining. In fact it is not
unreasonable to suppose this also triggered massive artisanal gold mining in
Africa and Rhodesia
in particular. This gold may well have
been used to purchase copper and tin in the Andes for resale into the Mediterranean .
All this was in full operation
for a millennia. All methods used were labor
intensive.
Other writers have attempted to
place Atlantis much further back to around 9500 BC. This has never been viable and most certainly
is a simple error out of antiquity when proper dating was impossible. It has been possible for cultural memories to
pass great time periods but not the type of detail given us by Plato. Written records are particularly vulnerable.
In any event, Stone Age societies
always failed to create far flung trading empires because they had little of
sufficient value to justify it. It was
the rise of metal work that spurred the creation of an Atlantis, Egypt and Sumaria. They all needed a palace based economy that
managed society’s wealth which was in the form of copper alloys.
That is why a bronze protected
Hoplite begs the question of just were did all this metal come from. Cyprus is possible, but it is hard
to believe it was not controlled by enemies most of the time as was most other
sources. Thus an overseas source could anchor a metal clad army without sitting
on a mine.
It is reasonable that the palace
societies of Greece
were Atlantean descended and had substantial bronze reserves on hand when Atlantis
disappeared in 1159 BC. It is also
likely that a number of Greek cities were established with Europeans fleeing
the collapse that came with a climate collapse.
The fact is that a lot of
government issue bronze is available to societies in the West with no other
reasonable exsplanation.
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