By Naotomo Umewaka 11 March 2021
In 1987, a local diver exploring off the coast of Japan’s southern Ryukyu Islands stumbled across a startling discovery. Twenty-five metres below the surface, he spotted a series of almost perfectly carved steps with straight edges. Known today as the Yonaguni Monument, this massive 50m-long-by-20m-wide behemoth is one of the world’s most unusual underwater sites.
Nicknamed Japan’s Atlantis , the rectangular, stacked pyramid-like monument is believed to be more than 10,000 years old. Some think it’s all that remains of a long-lost Pacific civilisation, possibly built by Japan’s prehistoric Jomon people who inhabited these islands as early as 12000 BC. Others say that the site resembles natural formations elsewhere around the world with distinctly defined edges and flat surfaces, such as Northern Ireland’s Giant s Causeway, whose thousands of interlocking basalt columns were formed by a volcanic eruption millions of year
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By Geraint Hill & Stitching Pictures 22 January 2021
For one of Venezuela’s remote indigenous communities, sustainability trumps material gain. Amid the nation s ongoing economic and political crisis, the Pemón village of Santa Teresita de Kavanayén (commonly called Kavanayén) has rejected profitable offers to sell its land to mining companies. Instead, villagers are preserving their centuries-old agricultural practices of planting crops on small plots of cleared forest.
The Pemón are an indigenous group residing in parts of Brazil, Guyana and south-eastern Venezuela – including the Gran Sabana, a lush area of vast green plains dotted with spectacular table mountains, where Kavanayén is located. The Gran Sabana covers more than 31,000sq km and is home to immense savannahs and endemic wildlife such as the long-tailed Hispaniolan lizard-cuckoo and the pint-sized rufous-breasted sabrewing hummingbird. It also encompasses the Canaima National Park, where the
By Kirsty B Carter & Joe Harrison 11 December 2020
A two-hour drive north-west from Melbourne is a historical town where, for decades, the local language was Welsh rather than English.
The Welsh migrants of the now-abandoned village of Llanelly arrived in Australia during the 1850s and the 1860s, amidst a population boom in the south-eastern state of Victoria. News of gold discoveries in the region brought thousands of newcomers eager to strike it rich as Victoria and neighbouring New South Wales yielded unprecedented amounts of gold. Among the 500,000 “diggers”, as immigrants arriving during the gold rush explosion were called, were prospectors from Britain, the United States, Poland and China.