Clues to Civilisations Older Than We Think

We’re often taught that the story of modern humans only goes back about 200,000 years, with the oldest known civilisations, like those in Egypt, Rome, or China, peaking around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. But what if that timeline is way off? What if incredibly advanced societies thrived long before that? Our history books might be blank on this, yet there are fascinating clues suggesting advanced prehistoric civilisations could have existed even millions of years ago.

Here are five surprising finds that make you question everything:

1. The Drill Bit in Coal

Coal is said to have formed on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago. That’s why researchers in the 19th century were shocked when they found what looked exactly like a man-made drill bit encased in a large chunk of coal.

In 1852, John Buchanan presented this mysterious object to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. He reported that the iron instrument was found inside a 22-inch-thick seam of coal, which was buried under seven feet of clay and boulders.

• “I quite agree in the generally received geological view that the coal was formed long before man was introduced upon this planet,” he stated. “But the puzzle is how this implant confessedly of human hands should have found its way into the coal scene overlaid as the latter was by a heavy mass of deluvium and boulders.”

The society considered it might have been a broken piece of the drilling equipment used at the time, but Buchanan’s report indicated the surrounding coal was completely intact, not punctured at all.

2. Adam’s Bridge

According to an ancient Indian legend, a bridge known as Rama Setu or Adam’s Bridge was built between India and Sri Lanka by King Rama 1.7 million years ago to send his troops to rescue his wife. It sounds like a typical myth until you see satellite imagery confirming a clear, bridge-like formation there.

Dr Badrina Rayana, former director of the Geological Survey of India, studied the materials and suggested the structure appears to be man-made. He explained that a sample taken from the structure showed marine sand on top, followed by a mix of corals, calcareous sandstones, and boulder-like materials. Crucially, the boulders on top of the marine sand suggested to him that they must have been artificially placed there.

3. The Klerksdorp Spheres

Found in the mines of South Africa, these strange objects are called Klerksdorp Spheres. Experts date the spheres back about 2.8 billion years, based on the pyrophyllite mineral they were found in.

They have a hard surface, a fibrous structure inside, and a shell that is so hard it cannot be scratched by steel. While some are elliptical, others are incredibly balanced in shape and proportion, featuring fine, straight grooves around them. Researchers find it highly unlikely they could have formed naturally. Interestingly, similar spheres dating back 2 million years were also found in Utah, known as Moqui Marbles, correlating with Native American legends of playing with marbles.

4. The Ica Stones Telescope

Who invented the telescope? Most would say Galileo in 1609. But a collection of stones in the Cabrera Museum in Ica, Peru, suggests it may have existed long before.

There are about 10,000 of these Ica Stones that depict prehistoric humans engaging in advanced activities, such as wearing shoes and headdresses, and even performing complicated medical procedures like C-sections and blood transfusions. One specific stone shows a man looking through what can only be described as a telescope. The catch? This stone is believed to have been carved as far back as 65 million years ago. While some stones may have been faked by a local farmer, most were excavated from ancient tombs and deemed authentic.

5. The Ancient Nuclear Reactor

In 1972, a French factory imported uranium ore from the Gabon Republic in Africa, only to find that the uranium had already been extracted. This was baffling, as no other factory in the region had that capability.

The site of origin was investigated, leading to the discovery of a large-scale, highly advanced nuclear reactor that began operation 1.8 billion years ago and ran for about 500,000 years.

Although many researchers argued it was a natural phenomenon, Nobel Prize winner Dr Glenn T. Seabborg, former head of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, believed it had to be man-made. His reasoning: for a nuclear reaction to occur, extremely precise conditions must be met, including water far purer than what exists naturally, and the presence of $U_{235}$. Reactor specialists agreed that the uranium in Gabon was not rich enough in $U_{235}$ for a natural reaction to take place.

It makes you think: why couldn’t advanced human civilisations have existed tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years ago? If this were true, it would finally explain so much, right?

Consider all the megalithic structures we can’t figure out how people built, the sunken cities, and countless other mysterious discoveries. Time and again, researchers have struggled to explain certain artefacts by saying, “People back then were not supposed to be advanced enough.”

We think modern humans have been around for about 200,000 years, yet we only have about 5,000 years of recorded history. Is it truly inconceivable that a massive flood or some other apocalyptic event wiped out almost everyone, resetting the clock? It shouldn’t be; we worry about such things happening even today.

Do you think advanced human civilisations existed millions of years ago?