WEBVTT - Did the 'Lost Continent' of Lemuria Really Exist?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey BrainStuff, Lauren

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<v Speaker 1>Vogelbaum here. The mythical lost island of Atlantis isn't the

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<v Speaker 1>only tale of a once great civilization that supposedly sank

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<v Speaker 1>beneath the waves. In the 1800s, serious scientists entertained the

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<v Speaker 1>idea that a lost continent must have once existed in

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<v Speaker 1>the Indian Ocean. The sunken continent was called Lemuria. And

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<v Speaker 1>what started as a straight-laced scientific theory ended up attracting

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<v Speaker 1>all sorts of believers, from Victorian-era occultists to Tamil nationalists

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<v Speaker 1>in colonial and post-colonial India. The story of Lemuria begins

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<v Speaker 1>with a British zoologist by the name of Philip Slater,

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<v Speaker 1>who published an essay in 1864 called The Mammals of Madagascar.

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<v Speaker 1>Madagascar is an island off the eastern coast of Africa

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<v Speaker 1>and home to dozens of species of lemurs, which are

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<v Speaker 1>small primates that have large eyes and long tails. Slater

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<v Speaker 1>wondered how this came to be, while the nearby continents

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<v Speaker 1>of Africa and India had what Slater believed to be

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<v Speaker 1>only a few species of lemurs. In fact, Africa and

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<v Speaker 1>India have no true lemurs at all, as Slater was

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<v Speaker 1>grouping in some other big-eyed primates, including lorises and glagos. Now,

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<v Speaker 1>this was only five years after Charles Darwin published On

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<v Speaker 1>the Origin of Species. And it was long before plate

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<v Speaker 1>tectonics and continental drift were household words. Plate tectonics didn't

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<v Speaker 1>gain traction until the 1920s. And Madagascar is about 250

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<v Speaker 1>miles away from Africa, or 400 kilometers. But it's some

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<v Speaker 1>2,500 miles away from India, or 4,000 kilometers. So... Slater's

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<v Speaker 1>best guess was that lemurs originated on Madagascar and migrated

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<v Speaker 1>to Africa and India over one vast land bridge the

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<v Speaker 1>size of a great continent, which had long since sunk

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<v Speaker 1>into the ocean. Slater wrote, I should propose the name Lemuria,

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<v Speaker 1>naming this hypothetical continent after his furry friends. During the

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<v Speaker 1>mid to late 1800s, land bridges were all the rage.

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<v Speaker 1>For the article this episode is based on, HowStuffWorks spoke

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<v Speaker 1>with Sumati Ramaswamy, a James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of

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<v Speaker 1>History at Duke University and author of the 2004 book

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<v Speaker 1>The Lost Land of Lemuria, Fabulous Geography's Catastrophic Histories. She said,

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<v Speaker 1>land bridges were popping up everywhere. Geologists, geographers, and biologists

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<v Speaker 1>were trying to account for similarities in rock formations and

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<v Speaker 1>similarities in all manner of flora and fauna around the world.

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<v Speaker 1>by arguing that there used to be these kinds of

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<v Speaker 1>land bridges or sunken continents. Charles Darwin published On the

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<v Speaker 1>Origin of Species in 1859, and for those who accepted

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<v Speaker 1>his controversial theory of natural selection, a burning question emerged.

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<v Speaker 1>When and where did the human race first develop? An

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<v Speaker 1>influential German biologist by the name of Ernst Haeckel, inspired

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<v Speaker 1>by Darwin, peddled his own theories of evolution. pinpointing Slater's

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<v Speaker 1>lost continent as the likely cradle of humanity. He wrote

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<v Speaker 1>in 1870, the probable primeval home or paradise is here

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<v Speaker 1>assumed to be Lemuria, a tropical continent at present lying

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<v Speaker 1>below the level of the Indian Ocean, the former existence

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<v Speaker 1>of which in the tertiary period seems very probable from

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<v Speaker 1>numerous facts in animal and vegetable geography. Haeckel also believed

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<v Speaker 1>in biological racism and social Darwinism, which the Nazi Party

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<v Speaker 1>would really pick up later on. Charles Darwin himself, it

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<v Speaker 1>should be noted, promoted neither social Darwinism nor the concept

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<v Speaker 1>of land bridges and sunken continents. Darwin was actually an

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<v Speaker 1>accomplished geologist. He served as the secretary of the Geological

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<v Speaker 1>Society of London after he came back from the voyage

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<v Speaker 1>that took him to the Galapagos, partially because of the

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<v Speaker 1>extensive geological notes that he made on that trip. He

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<v Speaker 1>gave us the theory of how volcanic islands form by

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<v Speaker 1>layers of eruption over time. Darwin had adopted a new

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<v Speaker 1>theory of geology proposed by one Charles Lyell in the 1830s.

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<v Speaker 1>It's said that the layout of our Earth is shaped

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<v Speaker 1>by slow processes over long periods of time, generally not

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<v Speaker 1>by cataclysmic events, which was the prevailing theory back then.

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<v Speaker 1>So Darwin opposed the application of land bridges to solve

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<v Speaker 1>every biological mystery. He believed in the tenacity of plants

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<v Speaker 1>and certainly smaller animals to cross great distances. Also, he

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<v Speaker 1>had grafted Lyell's concept of slow processes into his theory

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<v Speaker 1>of evolution, so he considered the idea of suddenly appearing

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<v Speaker 1>and disappearing landmasses to be superfluous. He once criticized some

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<v Speaker 1>of his contemporaries for, and I quote, sinking imaginary continents

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<v Speaker 1>in quite a reckless manner. But one of the interesting

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<v Speaker 1>things about the theoretical lost continent of Lemuria is how

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<v Speaker 1>it entered the popular imagination of the late 1800s and

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<v Speaker 1>began to take on a life of its own there.

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<v Speaker 1>Ramaswami said, What happens when scientific knowledge leaves the realm

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<v Speaker 1>of science and disseminates into broader society? How is that

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<v Speaker 1>knowledge taken up and reworked? Slater probably never imagined that

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<v Speaker 1>his hypothetical Land of the Lemurs would be adopted by

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<v Speaker 1>someone like Helena Blavatsky. Blavatsky was a Russian-born occultist who

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<v Speaker 1>co-founded the Theosophical Society in New York City in 1875.

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<v Speaker 1>Theosophists believe that neither science nor religion have captured the

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<v Speaker 1>full truth about the origins of Earth and humankind, but

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<v Speaker 1>that through psychic gifts, people like Blavatsky can access lost wisdom.

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<v Speaker 1>In her 1888 book The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky explained that

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<v Speaker 1>modern humans are the latest in an ancient evolutionary line

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<v Speaker 1>of seven, quote, root races. Lemuria, she said, was the

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<v Speaker 1>home of the third root race, being gigantic humans who

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<v Speaker 1>were once hermaphroditic and laid eggs, before eventually evolving distinct

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<v Speaker 1>sexual organs. She said that dinosaurs lived with them, too.

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<v Speaker 1>From there, Lemuria got wrapped up in other mystic ideas

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<v Speaker 1>of lost civilizations where highly evolved spiritual beings once lived

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<v Speaker 1>in peace and harmony. Those ideas persist today. Ramaswami said,

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<v Speaker 1>When you Google the word Lemuria, the majority of the

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<v Speaker 1>hits are New Age sites talking about writing retreats and

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<v Speaker 1>meditation centers. The legend of Lemuria takes one last unexpected twist.

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<v Speaker 1>Back when India was a British colony, British ethnologists became

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<v Speaker 1>fascinated with trying to trace the ancestry of India's diverse

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<v Speaker 1>racial and ethnic groups, especially the Dravidian-speaking peoples of southern India.

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<v Speaker 1>The Dravidian languages make up an ancient language family with

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<v Speaker 1>long literary histories, including still-spoken languages like Telugu and Tamil.

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<v Speaker 1>And one 19th-century theory was that the Dravidian peoples first

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<v Speaker 1>emerged from Lemuria, perhaps influenced by theosophical society members who

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<v Speaker 1>traveled to the region at the time. Ramaswami said, the

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<v Speaker 1>Tamil people picked up on the colonial speculation that the

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<v Speaker 1>Dravidians came from Lemuria, and they combined it with ancestral

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<v Speaker 1>Tamil myths about Kumari Kandam, a lost Tamil civilization that

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<v Speaker 1>used to exist in the Indian Ocean. This fed into

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<v Speaker 1>Tamil nationalism, in which Tamils see their language as the

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<v Speaker 1>most ancient and Tamils as the oldest and most civilized

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<v Speaker 1>people on earth. Tamil nationalism and the related Dravidian nationalism

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<v Speaker 1>gained momentum starting in the 1930s as movements of cultural

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<v Speaker 1>and political sovereignty emerged. These narratives about Lemuria came up

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<v Speaker 1>amongst Tamils when they were an ethnic minority within a

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<v Speaker 1>larger culture that was itself under the heel of the

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<v Speaker 1>British Empire. And among some, these narratives persist today. Ramaswami

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<v Speaker 1>explains that Lemuria provides a way for a colonized people

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<v Speaker 1>with a rich history to look back to a grander time.

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<v Speaker 1>There have been extensive dissections of the Tamil literature about Kumari,

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<v Speaker 1>and whether it's really referring to an entire continent, and

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<v Speaker 1>how long ago whatever it was might have been lost.

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<v Speaker 1>Because of how truly slow Earth's geologic development moves, any

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<v Speaker 1>major changes to the lands of southern India would predate

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<v Speaker 1>human existence. Scientifically, it's agreed that myths about a great

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<v Speaker 1>lost civilization of Kamari are just that, myths. The existence

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<v Speaker 1>of Lemuria in general has been dismissed by scientists ever

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<v Speaker 1>since plate tectonics explained the movement of the continents that

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<v Speaker 1>now form Africa, India, and Asia. However, Earth's face does,

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<v Speaker 1>of course, change. As of the 20-teens, new evidence from

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<v Speaker 1>the island of Mauritius, itself far out east of Madagascar,

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<v Speaker 1>points to the possibility of a prehistoric lost landmass. Mauritius

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<v Speaker 1>is itself only a few million years old, but researchers

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<v Speaker 1>have found samples of minerals on Mauritius' beaches and in

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<v Speaker 1>its solid rock that are hundreds of millions, if not

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<v Speaker 1>billions of years old. So, the theory goes that it

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<v Speaker 1>got these minerals underground. from a lost microcontinent that drifted

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<v Speaker 1>away from India along with Madagascar some 80 million years ago.

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<v Speaker 1>It's thought that this landmass, referred to as Mauritia, sank

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<v Speaker 1>beneath the developing Indian Ocean and became part of its

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<v Speaker 1>rock bed, stretching from modern-day Mauritius northwest to Seychelles. Mauritia

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<v Speaker 1>may not be as interesting as a lost civilization, but

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<v Speaker 1>it still has a lot to teach us about how

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<v Speaker 1>our planet formed. Today's episode is based on the article,

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<v Speaker 1>Did the Lost Continent of Lemuria Ever Exist? on HowStuffWorks.com,

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<v Speaker 1>written by Dave Ruse. BrainStuff is a production of iHeart

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<v Speaker 1>Podcasts in partnership with HowStuffWorks.com and is produced by Tyler Klang.

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<v Speaker 1>For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app

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<v Speaker 1>Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.