Page 96 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

the temporary increase in the level of the lake may have been caused in part by
the breaking of the bulwarks on some of the lakes further to the north and
situated at a greater altitude ... thus releasing the waters which descended toward
Lake Titicaca in onrushing and unrestrainable torrents.
9
Posnansky’s evidence that a flood had been the agent of the destruction
of Tiahuanaco included

The discovery of lacustrine flora, Paludestrina culminea, and Paludestrina
andecola, Ancylus titicacensis, Planorbis titicacensis, etc., mixed in the alluvia with
the skeletons of human beings who perished in the cataclysm ... and the discovery
of various skeletons of Orestias, fish of the family of the present bogas, in the
same alluvia which contain the human remains ...
10
In addition, fragments of human and animal skeletons had been found
lying
in chaotic disorder among wrought stones, utensils, tools and an endless variety
of other things. All of this has been moved, broken and accumulated in a confused
heap. Anyone who would dig a trench here two metres deep could not deny that
the destructive force of water, in combination with brusque movements of the
earth, must have accumulated those different kinds of bones, mixing them with
pottery, jewels, tools and utensils ... Layers of alluvium cover the whole field of the
ruins and lacustrine sand mixed with shells from Titicaca, decomposed feldspar
and volcanic ashes have accumulated in the places surrounded by walls ...
11
It had been a terrible catastrophe indeed that had overwhelmed
Tiahuanaco. And if Posnansky was right, it took place more than 12,000
years ago. Thereafter, though the flood waters subsided, ‘the culture of
the Altiplano did not again attain a high point of development but fell
rather into a total and definitive decadence’.
12

Struggle and abandonment

This process was hastened by the fact that the earthquakes which had
caused Lake Titicaca to engulf Tiahuanaco were only the first of many
upheavals in the area. These initially resulted in the lake swelling and
overflowing its banks but they soon began to have the opposite effect,
slowly reducing Titicaca’s depth and surface area. As the years passed,
the lake continued to drain inch by inch, marooning the great city,
remorselessly separating it from the waters which had previously played
such a vital role in its economic life.
At the same time, there was evidence that the climate of the Tihuanaco
area had become colder and much less favourable for the growing of
crops than had previously been the case, so much less favourable that
13

9 Tiahuanacu, I, p. 55.
10 Ibid., I, p. 39.
Ibid., III, pp. 142-3.
11
12 Ibid., I, p. 57.
13 Ibid., I, p. 56, and II, p. 96.

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