Yonaguni-Monument
The as the Yonaguni Monument ( also Underwater Pyramids of Yonaguni ) known rock formations are located in the extreme southwest of Japan, near the island of Yonaguni in the East China Sea, little more than 100 km away from Taiwan. Their origin is controversial among archaeologists and geologists.
The area covers about 5 square kilometers and lies since the end of the last ice age about 8,000 years ago under the sea. In 5 to 30 meters deep is the rock formation that is about 200 meters long and 150 meters wide. Since the formations have relatively precise proportions and edges, it is debatable whether they have arisen geological, or whether it is built by man-made structures.
Discovery history
1985 saw the Japanese divers Kihachiro Aratake looking for new dive sites for tourists strange rock formations. After a closer look, he believed that the stone structure had been processed by human hands. The precise edges and the precise angle indicated his view out.
Theses to the emergence
According to the common doctrine is an erosion platform, which was created when the formation was still within the surf zone. With the end of the Ice Age, when sea levels rose again, she was then flooded and so was given its present appearance. The geologist Wolf Wichmann has investigated the formation in several dives and came to the conclusion that it is a natural phenomenon. According to Wichmann all walls and terraces run along natural weaknesses in the rock, can thus be explained by erosion. Robert M. Schoch, geologist at Boston University, also believes in a natural origin, but keeps working for human possible.
According to some archaeologists and geologists, it could be the remnant of a culture that lived during the last ice age in southwestern Japan. They are based mainly on the straight lines and precise angles that might not be of natural origin and a specific processing by humans as an explanation necessitated. In addition, holes would find in the formation, which could be interpreted as column bases. Masaaki Kimura, a marine geologist at the University of Ryukyu, according to it is a natural rock formation that was edited a little more than 2000 years by people.
Since the formation is situated since the end of the Ice Age under water, an anthropogenic origin would mean that the uplifting culture would have existed around 8000 to 10,000 years ago before. This is contrary to university ideas to civilization history and prehistory of Southeast Asia. On the Japanese islands has been found from this period, only simple ceramics of the Jōmon culture.