As related by Jorjani, the Atlantis of which Plato and Bacon wrote falls into line with the work of Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson, describing a technologically advanced pre-historic society which falls before a natural disaster, the Great Flood of Gilgamesh and Noah.
The figure of Zeus [the villain in the stories of Atlas and Prometheus], according to my own reading, is the tyrannical aspect of Indo-European politics, who subjugates the titans and Poseidon, a brother god who previously had been the god of men on horses—remained the horse-breaking god—as he was consigned to the oceans. Zeus seems to represent a second wave of nomad conquest, a wave which absorbed the later wave of nomad conquest represented by Helios-Apollo, who was taken into the mythos as a son of Zeus. In any case, these three sky gods represent the syncretism and nomadic warrior roots inherent in Hellene civilization and also the upward and outward looking aspect of their warrior psychology.
The only statement I take issue with by Jason is his dismissal of the Mayan dismissal of the wheel as a toy, which makes perfect sense in a world which had no suitable beasts of burden to tow a wheeled vehicle. Ironically, the Americas were bereft of such beasts because of the disaster marked by the Younger Dryas Event that eliminated over half of the large animals indigenous to North America [the source of Central- and South American fauna, at about the same date as his date for the Pyramids of Giza]. This brings us full circle to the invisible dragon in human prehistory, which marks the loss of so much knowledge postulated by Jorjani and others searching for what must have been if we are to plumb these myths to their roots.
The links that show up on the You Tube sidebar seem fascinating and I will be listening to as much of Jorjani as I can manage.
He: Gilgamesh: Into the Face of Time
I won't get a chance to listen for weeks and weeks but I wanted to leave a quick response to your comments.
North America had bison, which were comparable to aurochs, and caribou/reindeer which are virtually the same animals in use in Scandinavia. South America had llamas and alpacas which are basically small mountain camels. They were used by the Inca as pack animals. It is possible that with more time, progress might have been made in domesticating these animals. On the other hand, so many technological innovations in the old world only happened when Indo-Europeans showed up, so maybe it wasn't going to happen without IE influence.
For Atlantis and flood legends, look into Doggerland. There used to be dry land in the North Sea between Britain, Europe and Scandinavia. It slowly sank and may have been finally wiped out by a great wave. It is hard to do any archeological studies since it is all under frigid waters now.
Thanks, Lynn.
None of those animals existed in Mesoamerica. The Mayans would have had to harness deer, turkey or jaguar. In the Andean terrain wheeled carts would have been stupid and using lamas and alpacas for pack animals was better than harnessing them to a cart would have been. The wheel was of limited use to the Indo-Europeans and was largely discarded after horses grew large enough to ride. Chariots were essentially just used for ceremony and entertainment.
The other possibility along diffusionist lines is Chinese influence in the early 1400s.
I suppose the distance and potential for failure is part of the point. Only IEs would have had the will and imagination to try it. Innovations are nearly always pointless without the imagination to apply them, hence wheels on toys, not on carts.