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Volume 45 - No. 46

November 12, 2015

by Frederick Gomez

A comedian once observed that if “The World of Science” was ever to have a face, it would have to be a face showing complete surprise: “Ever see a person with a bad face lift? A bad face lift shows a face that looks like it’s caught in the middle of a gigantic wind tunnel! It is a face that is stretched back, with eyes and mouth frozen, with a half-smile, half-look of surprise on it! That’s the face of science!” The analogy of science sporting a look of surprise, or shock, is a valid one. After all, history overflows with examples of how the world of science was caught offguard at discovering shocking new facts and discoveries, forcing researchers to constantly replace old ideas with newer ones. Spanish essayist, philosopher, and university professor, Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, summed it up best: “Science is a cemetery of dead ideas.”

And so it is, today, with San Diego County’s first inhabitants, specifically the Kumeyaay Indians. Research scientists have painstakingly compiled reams and reams of data, down through the years, regarding these indigenous people, only to have their scientific apple cart over-turned! Just when the scientific community was racing along, believing their collective research had gathered most of the fundamental answers on the Kumeyaay people – ka-boom! – their fast-moving research vehicle collided head-on with a low-level overpass bridge! All of which gives new life to Albert Einstein’s remark, which he repeated all his life: “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it?

It now seems abundantly clear that San Diego County’s first people, the Kumeyaay Native Americans, keep popping up with unexpected surprises that have stunned researchers from around the world, not once, not twice – but again and again, with no end in sight! The prehistoric Kumeyaay were far beyond being merely hunters and gatherers. They were early scientists, astronomers, horticulturists, and healers. Their ancient culture has proven to be far more advanced and sophisticated than first thought. When the first Europeans sailed into what is now known as San Diego Bay, the early Kumeyaay had 30 separate, independent tribes, which anthropologist classify as “patrilineal clans.” Each clan had a centralized power structure which oper-

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ated within each, independent village. The power structure revolved around a social leader and a shaman (equivalent to today’s priest or priestess). Their religious year was calculated by observing and studying the sky. It is too complex to explain here, but Kumeyaay planting and harvesting activities were carefully based on the solstice and equinox occurrences in our solar system.

And while it is true that the

ancient Phoenician, Egyptian, and Greek mariners studied stellar references for safe navigation, and equally true that such ancient structures such as Stonehenge (in Wiltshire, England), marked the solstice and equinox, it is staggering to put in perspective that the ancient Kumeyaay astronomers existed more than 10,000 years before Stonehenge was even constructed. And over 100 centuries before the legendary Phoencian,

Egyptian, and Greek seafarers!

World experts on ancient civilizations find it intoxicating to ponder that the prehistoric Kumeyaay natives were roaming and studying their environment, as horticulturists, in what is now known as San Diego County, more than 10,000 years before the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (known as The Great Pyramid of Giza) was even built! (Egyptologists confirm that its

San Diego’s First People Continued on Page 2


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