'''Fingerprints of the Gods''' is a book first published in 1995 by
Graham Hancock, in which he contends that some previously unidentified ancient but highly-advanced civilization had existed in prehistory, one which served as the common progenitor
civilization to all subsequent known
ancient historical ones. Supposedly, sometime after the end of the last
Ice Age this civilization passed on to its inheritors knowledge of such things as
astronomy,
architecture and
mathematics.
The book pivots on three "fingerprints" of these civilizations, evidence of which Hancock finds in the descriptions of civilizing God-Men i.e.
Osiris,
Thoth,
Quetzalcoatl, and
Virachocha. These
creation myths predate history, and Hancock suggests that in 10,450 B.C., a major poleshift took place, before which
Antarctica was further from the South Pole than it is today, and after which it was moved to its present location. This civilization was supposedly centered around Antarctica, and later survivors initiated the
Olmec,
Aztec,
Maya, and
Egyptian cultures.
The
pole shift theory hinges on
Charles Hapgood's theory of
Earth Crustal Displacement which has very few supporters in the geological community compared to the more accepted model of
plate tectonics.
Some readers in the scholarly and scientific community have described the proposals put forward in the book as
pseudoscience and
pseudoarchaeology.
External links
★
Hancock's own page on the book
★
CSICOP review