Voices of the Rocks : A Scientist Looks at Catastrophes and Ancient Civilizations (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "SCIENCE ISN'T WHAT YOUR HIGH-SCHOOL CHEMISTRY TEACHER told you it is..." (more)
Key Phrases: uniformitarian paradigm, true polar wander, continental impact, Great Sphinx, Piri Reis, Bronze Age (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Everything changes. The great 19th-century battle between catastrophists and uniformitarians seemed to end with the notion of global cataclysms being dismissed as a back door to the supernatural. But the catastrophist theory has gradually become more and more plausible, so that now, less than a hundred years later, it is widely believed that mass extinctions are linked to meteor strikes. Geologist Robert M. Schoch believes that if a large meteor or comet could extinguish most of our planet's complex life (just ask the trilobites), then a smaller one could destroy a civilization, and perhaps did. In Voices of the Rocks, he tells us how it may have happened.

Asked to investigate the Sphinx at Giza, Schoch was troubled to find evidence of a much greater age than the 4,500 years suggested by Egyptologists. This led him to examine the possibility of a lost civilization dating back to at least 10,000 B.C. Looking at linguistic, geological, and archaeological evidence from around the world, he proposes an outline of prehistory that differs markedly from our received wisdom--after all, if the Lascaux cave paintings really are star maps, then we've got a lot of catching up to do. Schoch's willingness to dismiss implausible evidence and to use Occam's razor to cut away unnecessary complications is admirable and refreshing in a field in which credulity pays and skepticism is viewed with deep suspicion. Ending on a note of warning, Voices of the Rocks reminds us that by weakening the planet, we have made ourselves much more vulnerable to the next global cataclysm, which may come at any time. --Rob Lightner

From Publishers Weekly

For ardent readers of current science, little is more appealing than stories of discoveries that change the way people view the world. In this volume, Schoch asserts that he is at the vanguard of a paradigm shift, not in his own field of geology, but rather in anthropology. From his geological analysis of the Sphinx, he draws a conclusion that he admits is controversial: that a technologically advanced civilization rose and faded in Egypt long before the time of the pyramids. Adding speculative science and drawing on myth, he asserts that other similarly advanced civilizations flourished around the world, only to be obliterated by global catastrophes brought on by a century-long rain of asteroid impacts. Similar cosmic storms strike once a millennium, he says, triggering or ending ice ages, causing floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions of biblical proportion, precipitating shifts in the earths axis. The 22nd century, Schoch predicts, will be the next era of catastrophe. Our civilization will be especially vulnerable because burning of fossil fuels and other global technological activities may seriously compromise the planets environment. Few readers will be convinced by Shochs web of speculation, although some may find it fascinating nonetheless. Many will dismiss even its most persuasive evidence, because Schoch devotes many pages to pseudoscientific ideas, such as the Face on Mars and the effects of planetary alignments. Although he finally declares them bogus, his readers may wonder why he discussed them at all. 8-page b&w photo insert, not seen by PW. Agents, Sarah Jayne Freymann and Judith Riven.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 258 pages
• Publisher: Harmony; 1st edition (May 11, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609603698
• ISBN-13: 978-0609603697
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #329,658 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New evidence for catastrophism, September 27, 1999

By A Customer

Dr. Robert Schoch's Voices of the Rocks is a scientific expose demonstrating a logical shift from the classical uniformitarian view of the ancient world to one frought with periodic catastrophe. By a combination of hard scientific observation and a more face-value interpretation of mythology and folklore, Dr. Schoch redates the Great Sphinx and pushes back the long held dates of the dawn of civilization. He also attempts to address some mysteries from ancient times. Although, how all those cities burned down at the end of the Bronze Age is still open to debate, Dr. Schoch's hypothesis is intriguing. This is an insightful, information-packed book perfect for the reader who is more inclined to science and less to flights of fancy. I am, however, surprised that Graham Hancock endorsed this book as some of his work is criticized here.

41 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars DIFFERENT...BUT HARDLY A PARADIGM SHIFT, April 30, 2000

By	no longer a customer (San Antonio, Texas USA) - See all my reviews

In contemplating that Homo Sapiens may be at least one million years old, and yet recorded civilization only 5000 to 6000 years old, the author William S. Burroughs referred to that wide gap of history, "a long question mark". Dr.Schoch's book, however, while absolutely fascinating, sheds little light on the "long question mark". This book is heavy on catastrophes and little about ancient civilizations. Dr.Schoch starts the book by defending his theory that the Sphinx may be twice as old as conventionally thought, then a little about the antiquity of the Lascaux caves and an interesting bit about the possibility that the Magdalenian culture of ancient Europe and Asia Minor culminating in Catal Huyuk may have inspired the myths of Atlantis. All quite interesting and worthy of more in depth analysis; but Dr.Schoch merely throws these theories out with little information on their merits or pitfalls,(though he does go to some lengths to defend his theories about the possible older age of the Sphinx.) Far from being paradigm shifting, well over 75% of the book is an apologia for orthodox scientific thinking in regard to catastrophism and possible pre-historic civilizations. Dr.Schoch even resorts, disappointingly, to calling theories he doesn't agree with, (Hapgood, Velikovsky, Sitchin), as "blather"...the old tried and true tactic of the True Faith: label the heretics as lunatics. This is paradigm shifting? Still, the passages in the book about what happens when large extraterrestrial bodies hit are hair-raising and well worth the price of the book. But paradigm shifting? Hardly...

38 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars More reasonable than not, December 8, 2000

By	Michael Bulger (Rochester, NY, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Prior to the publication of this book, Robert Schoch was best known outside of academic geology as the scientist John Anthony West called in to investigate the idea, by way of Schwaller de Lubicz, that the Sphinx shows signs of water erosion that indicates an age far greater than orthodox Egyptologists are currently willing to consider. As detailed in Chapter Two of "Voices of the Rocks," Schoch came away from his examination convinced both that the Sphinx and its enclosure had been subject to extensive precipitation-induced weathering and that this weathering could only have occurred if the stone had originally been carved at least as far back as 7000-5000 BC, if not earlier, as compared to the previously accepted date of 2700 BC. Anyone looking for a real resolution to the scientific debate that Schoch started with these conclusions will be dissatisfied, as Schoch fails to acknowledge the inconsistencies in his findings (which can be found in Paul Jordan's "Riddles of the Sphinx," among other places), or viable alternative hypotheses, such as one I have seen mentioned on the web that accounts for the Sphinx' characteristic weathering via a model involving its burial in waterlogged sand. Nevertheless, it is this conclusion that Schoch uses as a springboard to consider the possibility of lost civilizations of greater antiquity than Egypt or Sumer, and (more importantly) the concomitant possibility that such civilizations were destroyed by worldwide cataclysms triggered by cometary impacts.

The book is sprinkled throughout with genuine, if most often highly speculative, science, and this distinguishes Schoch's efforts from those of pseudoscientific cranks like Graham Hancock or Rand Flem-Ath. So, for example, Schoch visits the superficially strange underwater "monolith" near Yonaguni, but unlike many (and, most likely, unlike Hancock, who is currently writing a book that will deal with Yonaguni and other underwater "monuments") he concludes that the structure is most likely a product of natural forces of erosion, as evidenced by the processes that can be observed on the beaches of Yonaguni now. Similarly, the notion of "polar shift" first proposed by Charles Hapgood and currently championed by Flem-Ath and Hancock is dealt with summarily here. In these parts of the book, it is refreshing to see a genuinely scientific approach being taken to questions that to date have been given only the most sensationalized and credulous of treatments.

Schoch's approach occasionally falters. Immediately after determining that the Yonaguni "monument" shows erosion and weathering consistent with what is happening naturally on the beaches today, he mentions the fact that this does not altogether rule out the possibility that human hands did have a role in shaping it. In the concluding paragraphs of this chapter, Schoch's narrative suddenly veers away from his scientific perspective as he incorporates a manmade Yonaguni monument into speculative and nearly baseless notions of ancient civilizations existing on the now submerged coasts of Ice Age-era antiquity. Although the possibility of extensive neolithic cultures that have been erased by sea-level rises since the last Ice Age is a real one (see Stephen Oppenheimer's "Eden in the East" for a fair summary of the evidence for this), Schoch completely forgets that he has no evidence whatsoever for a human influence on Yonaguni, and plentiful evidence for natural processes.

Even with such slips, "Voices" is a worthwhile read for anyone looking for a more reasoned and less sensationalized perspective on the question of lost civilizations, the legend of Atlantis and the "facts" that might underlie it, and the possibility that cometary impacts have had profound effects on the course of human history.