Hi guys, today I’ll introduce an ancient cave system in China called Wushan Grottoes,
which is a large-scale quarry with over 840 caves. This beautiful scenic site is one of
15 massive ancient quarries located in one region by the West Pacific. All of these quarries
share distinct machine marks dated 1,500-2,000 years old. Could these caves be remnants of
a prehistory lost civilization? If so, then why are there no big stone structures in Ancient
China? Where did the mega-tons of quarried stone end up? Were these caves even intended
to quarry stone? These questions I attempt to answer.
First let’s discuss important background information on the significance of this site
location.
So far 15 large quarries are found in Zhejiang province, which adjoins the East China Sea.
Two thirds of this sea is composed of a largely shallow continental shelf. 11,000 years ago,
the sea level was 40m /131’ lower. 19,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Period,
the sea level was 110m or 360’ lower, which means almost the entire continental shelf
at the East China Sea was above sea level. During this time, the current day Island of
Taiwan and the Japanese archipelago were all connected on land with the Eurasia plain.
Glaciers covered the entirety of Canada, part of America and parts of Europe; though east
China stayed ice free. The Last Glacial Period lasted over 100,000
years; which was plenty of time for a civilization to thrive, and progress.. Here is a map of
East Asia at the peak of the Ice Age, the Last Glacial Maximum, when sea level was about
120m lower. Areas with higher elevations were covered with ice. Today’s submerged continental
shelf was once a green and habitable oasis. Any advanced civilizations during that time
could have excavated the massive quarries to build phenomenal structures now could be
hidden by sand and submerged at the bottom of the sea.
The mysterious underwater city Yonaguni Monument is only 300 miles away from this quarry site.
Currently Yonaguni is 26m below sea level – this means it was above sea level and
connected with the East China plain during the Last Glacial Period. It is much debated
amongst archaeologists on whether it is a man-made structure or naturally formed. Maybe
I will do a future video on this interesting site.
Wushan Grottoes is located in this region next to the East China Sea. It is a large-scale
stone quarry with a myriad of excavated caves, cliffs and pools. It is now a tourist site
since the quarried work has changed an ordinary hill into a stunning majestic landscape. The
cave writings and reliefs were added later as tourist attractions. The porous nature
of the stone might be the reason why there are small holes in some caves. There are many
bell caves and pools, whose depths remain unverified.
The tool marks at Wushan Grottoes are uniformed, continuous and horizontal; very similar to
the ones seen at Changyu Caves. The numerous marks are parallel and tightly placed. It
appears as if someone ran a huge comb with diamond teeth over the stone leaving these
distinct marks. I think this is an obvious sign that the marks were not created by hand
tools. It is unnatural for us to hammer horizontally with chisels which are used for small scale
detailed masonry work. It would be extremely difficult if not impossible for a mason to
use a chisel to carve an accurate, continuous and smooth horizontal mark around the circumference
of a big cave, not to mention creating countless parallel marks. As for pickaxes, how could
a person swing one sideways to make horizontal marks on rock? It’s not possible. Hand tools
can’t achieve this level of accuracy or consistency especially on such a mammoth scale.
So, what kinds of tools were used at this ancient quarry? A clue is that the tool marks
found on site match modern day mining machine marks. Here are side-by-side tool mark comparison
photos of different ancient sites like Baalbeck, Yanshan Quarry, Petra and other sites. The
similarities are uncanny and beg the question: are these tool marks proof of an advanced
prehistory global civilization?
The curved surfaces and corners were most likely created from complex machinery like
a modern-day rotary drum cutter or a continuous miner machine.
Here are some local houses and walls made with quarried stone from parts of Wushan.
They have a rustic charm due to the small stone blocks and rubble. These houses stand
in sharp contrast to the smooth shaved faces at Wushan Grottoes. It’s hard to imagine
that the people who quarried Wushan would build comparatively crude houses. Whoever
made Wushan Grottoes were certainly capable of building impressive structures. Therefore
I believe these stone houses were not made by the creators of Wushan Grottoes but by
local Chinese. The real creators of Wushan could very well be from an advanced lost civilization.
Wushan and similar sites are called quarries, but their original purpose probably was not
to produce stone blocks or slabs. The tool marks at Wushan are very different from the
saw marks typically used to create stone blocks or slabs. Current modern machines that can
create similar tool marks as the ones at Wushan are mining machines that produce aggregate
or crushed stone. So it’s possible that Wushan and other quarries
were producing crushed stone with some ancient mining machinery.
Today aggregates or crushed stone are the most mined materials in the world. It is used
to form concrete and asphalt. Concrete has been used as a building material for thousands
of years among different cultures. It’s strong, versatile, easily accessible in most
areas, free from defects and flaws unlike natural stone, and can be cast into almost
any shape. These are excellent reasons for why we use concrete as the main construction
material today.
Quarries like Wushan and Changyu would have produced an astronomical amount of stone.
Where did the stone end up if no large-scale stone structures are found in China? Was the
stone used to extract minerals or metals? I don't think so because the volcanic tuff
stone here is really not special since it lacks metal ores or valuable mineral deposits.
Additionally tuff is common in many areas on the planet.
Was the crushed stone produced at Wushan and other massive quarries transported for global
use then? I say no. Stone is widely spread all around the world. Nowadays with developed
transportation, crushed stone is still sourced locally. Large stone quarries that produce
crushed stone exist near virtually every population center due to the high cost of transportation
relative to the low value of the product. It’s considered to be uneconomical to truck
crushed stone more than 40 kilometers or 25 miles. So the large stone quarries in China
would have been serving local needs. Remember the shallow continental shelf by the East
China Sea? Maybe some grand stone palaces existed but now lay hidden by the rising sea
and shifting sands. It is an exciting thought.
In an earlier video, I discussed the possibility that the megalithic walls in Saqsaywaman,
Peru might be cast ancient concrete. Some material analysis studies suggest that the
Egyptian pyramids’ blocks could also be man-made. Certain Indian researchers hypothesized
that the intricate stone temples in India and Sri Lanka could also be made of geopolymer.
It is possible that some enigmatic structures that we have a hard time comprehending, might
have in fact been built with man-made stone by one or more previous civilizations. This
hypothesis could better explain how such insanely heavy blocks were used to build such fantastic
structures like the great pyramids.
If we consider the possibility that an unknown advanced civilization quarried Wushan and
other massive sites with machinery, then we can speculate that these builders created
their own version of concrete or geopolymer as well.
Was Wushan stone used as a base component for ancient concrete then? I think not.
Commonly used concrete is lime based and lime comes from limestone. The 15 ancient Chinese
quarries with machine marks in the same region, are volcanic tuff, an aluminous and siliceous
stone, which can't extract lime. I haven’t found any ancient limestone quarries in China
with similar machine marks. I think this is a sign that the tuff was not quarried to be
a concrete component, or we would be able to find old Chinese limestone quarries as
well.
Then how about geopolymer? Geopolymer is an innovative material that has many advantages
over the traditional Portland cement. Geopolymers are amorphous alumina-silicate binder materials.
The tuff at Wushan is high in silica and aluminum – which means it would be an ideal material
to make geopolymer.
Comparing the Portland concrete, geopolymers are superior in many aspects: they are fireproof,
resistant to heat and cold, have better compressive and tensile strengths and excellent properties
within both acidic and salt environments. One of the important benefits of geopolymers
is that they can be easily cured at ambient temperatures compared to the Portland cement
or concrete. Geopolymer is gaining popularity now, but
yet to be widely used because it requires special handling due to chemicals, such as
sodium hydroxide which can be harmful to humans.
Concrete with Portland cement cures or hardens at temperatures above 5 degrees Celsius or
41 degrees Fahrenheit. Most concrete poured and placed in cold weather has a much slower
setting and curing time. Fresh concrete needs to be protected from freezing for at least
the first 24 hours, which makes concrete not an ideal construction material for cold regions
especially during a glacial period.
As mentioned earlier, I am considering the possibility that the Wushan Grottoes and other
similar ancient quarries were excavated in prehistory times, probably during the Last
Glacial Period, when the sea level was much lower. Geopolymer would have been an ideal
building material in colder times such as the Last Glacial Period. I think a sophisticated
ancient civilization not only had the ability to quarry these large scale ancient quarries
with complex machinery, but they were capable of mastering the methods to manufacture and
utilize geopolymer. Thus in some regards this past civilization could have potentially surpassed
ours with their unbelievable engineering feats.
To date not many underwater investigations have been done in the Chinese marginal sea,
so we really don’t know whether there are any old stone structures buried underwater.
If there are indeed such treasures hidden under the sea, we might find that they are
made of a sort of geopolymer with the quarried stone from Wushan or Changyu caves.
Ok, let’s wrap it up here. Please let me know what you think of my hypothesis. I would
love to hear from you. If you like my video, please give me a thumbs up and subscribe.
I have a wide range of topics that I want to share with you. This is Curious Being,
I am Tina. Thanks for watching and see you next time!