When Ho Hsien-jung (何顯榮) and Lin Sheng-yi's (林勝義) startling publication, Taiwan -- The Cradle of Civilization (台灣 -- 人類文明原鄉), hit bookstores last year neither of them expected it to become a best-seller. They did, however, expect the book to be taken more seriously in academic and governmental circles than it was.
"I expected to get some kind of feedback after I sent copies of the book to various governmental departments and university academics," explained Ho, president and chief investigator of the Taiwan Unidentified Flying Objects Association (TUFOA,
The book puts forward the notion that the first seeds of human civilization in Asia were planted on a landmass known as Mudalu (姆大陸), which once stretched from Taiwan to Hawaii.
By using known geographical and historical dates along with some educated -- or as some believe uneducated -- guesses, Lin and Ho concluded that humankind did not spread to the rest of Asia out of China or islands in the Pacific.
As executive director of the Ketagalan of Taiwan Indigenous Culture Alliance (KTIS, 台灣凱達格蘭文化工作) Lin has spent over a decade researching and cataloging Taiwan's Stone Age past. "It's pretty obvious when you look at the facts. The spread of humanity throughout Asia and the Pacific began on a landmass of which Taiwan was a part," Lin said. "The ancient Ketagalan were an advanced people. From evidence we've uncovered we're sure they were the first people to implement some form of writing, albeit in pictorial form."
While dismissed by local academics, Taiwan -- The Cradle of Civilization did grab the attention of British journalist and author, Graham Hancock, writer of the international bestsellers The Sign and The Seal and Fingerprints of the Gods. The unconventional thinker and eyebrow-raising questioner of humanity's prehistory was so impressed by Lin and Ho's work that he flew to Taiwan in order to meet with both men and learn more about Taiwan's past.
"Hancock was very impressed with what he saw in Taiwan in regards to the probability of the existence of an ancient people with the intelligence to record what they saw on rock faces as well create edifices that were formed with such mathematical precision," Ho explained.
Although not boasting anything on par with internationally recognizable megaliths such as Stonehenge or the giant rock faces on Easter Island, there are according to James Huang (黃朝明), president of the Taiwan Ufology Society (TUS, 台灣飛碟學會), plenty of less grandiose yet equally important ancient stone structures scattered throughout Taiwan.
Extensive research by Lin has to date unearthed over 30 ancient megaliths from Keelung to Pingtung with many more believed to be in existence throughout the nation's less populated mountainous areas where the Ketagalan once lived. It's the ancient structures located in the Taipei area, however, that Lin believes are the key to increasing people's awareness of their long-forgotten past. While proving a slow process, and one that sees members of TUFOA, TUS and KTIS considered little but crackpots in some circles, the idea that Taiwan was once the center of the known world is finding an increasing number of advocates.
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