Species With Amnesia by Robert Sepehr is about highly advanced civilizations, such as Atlantis, that were destroyed by a global catastrophic event. On page 1, Sepher writes “But for each race that has died out, another has taken its place, with a selected few holding on to the memories and sacred knowledge of the past race.” The author suggests that the Cro-Magnon men were remnants of the original civilization and had advanced knowledge. He believes that the Cro-Magnon cave art verifies that they were an advanced race because it shows an understanding of astronomy. The Cro-Magnon were early Homo sapiens that lived in Europe during the Upper Paleolithic period. They were first discovered in a cave in Southwestern France in 1868. Many have speculated that the Cro-Magnon had a sophisticated culture because of the tools and cave art they produced. Cro-Magnon cave paintings have been found at sites such as Lascaux, Eyzies-de-Tayac, and Altamira. The Grotte de Lascaux site is filled with pictures of animals including a deer with a row of thirteen dots and a square below it. Sepehr cites Lascaux, the Magdalenians View of the Sky, by Chantal Jegues-Wolkiewiez, to support his claim that the Cro-Magnon men possessed divine knowledge. According to Wolkiewiez, the deer with the dots below it shows the lunar cycle. In another part of the cave there is a brown horse with 29 dots under it. She says these dots represent days of the month. These two examples from Lascaux seem to be pretty basic for the supposedly advanced people that Sepehr claims the Cro-Magnon were. All these two examples prove is that the Cro-Magnon people paid attention when the sun and moon rose and set, something that many people around the world have done for a very long time. These two cave paintings do not prove that the Cro-Magnon men came from an advanced precursor civilization.
Many others believe that Paleolithic people knew the patterns of the sun and moon. Cave art might very well show that the Cro-Magnon men looked at the night sky and painted it on the walls. Wolkiewiez and other researchers believe that the cave art might have been pictures of constellations. The Lascaux cave has a picture of a bull with six dots above it and four dots to the left of it. Researchers such as Wolkiewiez believe that the bull is Taurus, the dots to the left are part of Orion's Belt, and the dots above are the cluster of stars known as Pleiades. Bulls are a major part of the Lascaux cave and show that they were important to the Cro-Magnon people who lived in France during that time. The six dots above the bull could represent the Pleiades, but the constellation actually has seven stars. The dots to the left might be Orion's Belt, but the cluster is famous for only having three stars. The dot missing from the cluster above the bull could have faded during the course of 15,000 years, or the painting may not even represent Pleiades at all. It is difficult to explain the extra dot on Orion's Belt. The Lascaux was discovered in 1940 and it was said to be in perfect condition when it was first discovered. The cave was opened in 1948 and had around 100,000 annual visitors. Artificial lighting caused the colors of the walls to fade, and welcomed the growth of algae, bacteria, and crystals. The cave was closed to the public in 1963 and the growth of these organisms halted. In 2001, algae, bacteria, and crystals began to grow again. A great deal of the story may have been lost during this time period. In conclusion, Species With Amnesia attempts to prove that there was an original civilization and a master race that were god-like and had some sort of divine knowledge. Sepehr claims that the Cro-Magnon people were survivors of Atlantis because they had knowledge of astronomy. Sepehr writes "My personal take is that there is definitely astronomy on the walls of Lascaux" (page 40). Because the Lascaux cave is very old, it is difficult to say that the dots under the deer and horse represent the lunar cycle and the days of the month. Although there are some inconsistencies with the so called Taurus drawings on the wall, the theory seems to be possible. The Cro-Magnon cave art could simply represents animals they would have hunted and predators they would have feared. Even if researchers such as Wolkiewiez and Sepehr are right about astronomy being on the walls of the Lascaux, however, this does not mean that the Cro-Magnon men were an advanced and superior race. The truth is, there is still a lot to learn from the cave art.
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