(this material is an exerpt from the book "The Message of the Stones", by Dr. Javier Cabrera)
(EXERPT #7)
WHY STONE WAS USED
The conventional wisdom that man as an intelligent, thinking being only appeared 250,000 years ago leads inevitably to the mistaken notion that before this date, all humanoid or humanlike beings were primitive, pre-human, incapable of intellectuality. It should not surprise, then, that one objection to the contention that in a very remote past a highly advanced humanity existed which recorded its messages for posterity on stone is this: if the civilization was so advanced, why did it leave its mark in such a common, primitive material as stone, rather than in some other medium more appropriate to the society's technological achievements? Modern humanity, after all, threatened by nuclear holocaust, is trying to conserve the most important scientific and technological knowledge on microfilms placed in vacuum tubes which are then buried underground and covered with a layer of concrete. It is on the surface a persuasive objection, since the linking of primitive beings and stone carvings, used to record daily life and to pass time, is strong in the popular imagination.
But this linking, and therefore the objection itself, are not justified. The scientific and technological achievements of the people whose historical documents are the gliptoliths flowed from the constant application of knowledge to the world around them. Their intention was not to leave documents to glorify themselves, but to leave a series of guideposts for future humanity, to show those who would come after them the ways that man can dominate his environment, and to warn that any departure from the pursuit of knowledge could cause regression to the level of animals, a level which could mean the extinction of the human race. If we consider the information contained in some gliptoliths regarding situations in the remote past which endangered human genus (see Chapter Six), the purposes behind the leaving of testimonials become more meaningful: the way in which man can avoid regression to the animal state and avoid extinction is through constant application of knowledge. The question for gliptolithic man became how to ensure the survival of these documents in a future they could not predict. Without spurning the use of other materials (metal, ceramic, wood, textiles, lithic architecture, etc., as we will see), gliptolithic man preferred to use stone. Stone had several advantages. First, it was abundant throughout the world, and therefore would not the likely to be used as a commodity in commerce. Second, stone would not run the risk of being oxidized like metal and would better resist the passage of time with engravings intact. Though they had dominated their environment, they knew it was likely that future men would not know how to control geological upheavals that might destroy the stones. For this reason, and also to protect the stones from the effects of nature (atmospheric gases, rain, heat, cold, radiation, etc.) they decided to protect them in excavated deposits in the most stable regions of the planet. And they took other precautions: they did not modify the nature shaped of the stone, so that it retained its resistence; and they buried the stones in sand so they would not rub up against each other. It is thus that after these remote past, the engraved stones are beautifully preserved.