Short Stuff: The Lost (?) Continent of Lemuria

Why aren't there lemurs in Africa? That question created a whole theory about a lost continent. Turns out it's not true. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:09Josh Clark?

  Hey, I'm welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck. Dave's not here. Jerry's here. And I'll tell you who else is here is Philip Schlotter, his ghost. He's a 19th century British zoologist and he's come across the plane of existence to be here with us today.

• 1:26Speaker 03

  I think you added an H in there, my friend.

• 1:29Josh Clark?

  Skelader?

• 1:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:31Josh Clark?

  He always wished his name was Schlotter.

• 1:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're talking about Philip Skelader, I guess. That's even, that's a weird name. I like Schlotter better too.

• 1:40Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 1:41Speaker 03

  Because he took part in something that was going on in the mid 19th century where

• 1:51Speaker 03

  People were trying to figure out where stuff came from that didn't seem like it belonged there, like in their country. Like, why is this animal here when they were from another continent?

• 2:01Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  Or this plant, that doesn't make a lot of sense. And we've talked about this stuff before in terms of like land bridges and things like that. But he wrote a book in 1864 called The Mammals of Madagascar, no colon, just clean and simple.

• 2:13Josh Clark?

  Good for you, Slater.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  Where he wondered, like, Madagascar is off the east coast of Africa, and they have dozens of species of lemurs. But all of Africa and India have only a few species of lemur. And in fact, it was worse than that. They don't have any species of lemur. He was just mistaken and thought some other big-eyed primates were lemurs. But he was on the right track as far as saying like, what happened here? And he said, I know what it was. There used to be a great continent that connected these things, and that's how they got there. And that thing is now underwater. And I'm even gonna name it Lemuria.

• 2:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, after his lemur friends.

• 2:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and this was the reason that he was coming up with the idea like this. And he wasn't the only one. Apparently, land bridges were very much in vogue at the time. Because we didn't understand, like you were saying, how like, a plant could be on one continent and also on another. And we hadn't figured out continental drift yet. That didn't really get traction until the 1920s.

• 3:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:14Josh Clark?

  So this was an attempt to explain that before the theory of continental drift came along, or drifted along. And this, this continent of Lemuria supposedly was on the bottom of the Indian Ocean now, but basically spanned from India all the way to Africa. And Slater, Slater, yeah. He basically said, this is where lemurs originated, and then they spread out from there. Case closed. And we should say, like, it seems off to us now, but this was a legitimate man of science.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:48Josh Clark?

  Proposing a legitimate hypothesis that may or may not have been able to be tested. I don't, I'm not sure. But like, it wasn't meant to be crackpot. It was the crackpots who took it and turned it into a crackpot theory.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. It kind of gained traction in other circles, and we're gonna talk about a few of those. There was one guy, a German biologist named Ernst Haeckel. And he wrote a book called History of Creation, no colon. They didn't have colons back then.

• 4:16Josh Clark?

  No, they invented the colon with the continental drift theory.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  That's right. He had a theory about evolution that kind of flew in the face of Darwin, where he said, you know what? This Lemuria place that my comrade Sclater came up with, I think not only was that a place, but that was where it all started. That's the cradle of mankind and humanity. There were 12 varieties of men and the first humans evolved from ancient primates and spread from there, and they did so from Lemuria.

• 4:50Josh Clark?

  Right. I mean, this is problematic through and through, but it's also worth saying that Haeckel himself was a respected man of science, too. He was a very accomplished, one of those guys who's like, I'm a biologist. Now I'm a geologist. Now I'm a geographer. What else do you want me to be? He was one of those dudes who really contributed to science. But again, at the time, this was like, it just seems to be like crackpot theories to us now. But they were still just trying to explain what they were seeing. And it just turned out to be kind of wrong. One of the big problems with it was that he based it on Lemuria, which there was no evidence aside from, you know, oh, well, it kind of explains why this plant's here.

• 5:34Josh Clark?

  This lemur's on this continent and these lemurs are on this continent. There was no evidence for it whatsoever. So it's probably faulty to really start basing other hypotheses on this hypothetical sunken continent.

• 5:47Speaker 03

  Right, especially when there weren't even really lemurs at all in either India or Africa.

• 5:52Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Should we take a break?

• 5:54Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 5:55Speaker 03

  All right, we'll be right back.

• 6:09Josh Clark?

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• 7:12Speaker 03

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• 8:25Josh Clark?

  You mentioned Darwin. I can't remember what you said about Haeckel, but I just imagined Haeckel, like b-boy dancing up to Darwin and like running his hand, like waving his hand in between their faces. You know how they do that?

• 8:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:38Josh Clark?

  And then dancing off?

• 8:39Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 8:40Josh Clark?

  I can't remember what you said, but it triggered that image and it cracked me up. So, thanks for that, Chuck.

• 8:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, kind of that it just flew in the face of what Darwin thought. And apparently Darwin was not a fan of this, any of these theories about continents just sinking.

• 8:52Josh Clark?

  No, he would shoot his TV when it was mentioned on the news.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  He wrote a letter to a guy named Charles Lyell, who's a geologist who also thought that continents sank. He said, if there, this is such a nerd burn, "If there be a lower region for the punishment of geologists, I believe my great master, you will go there."

• 9:11Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm. And Charles Lyell, worth saying, respected man of science, too.

• 9:15Speaker 03

  That's right. You know who was not?

• 9:18Josh Clark?

  I do. Tell everybody.

• 9:20Speaker 03

  A woman named Helena Blavatsky, who was a 19th century Russian occultist, and she founded something called the Theosophical Society that believed that religion or science hadn't fully captured the full truth of the origins of Earth, which I'm like, yeah, I'm down with that. But she thought through psychic gifts that people like herself could access that lost wisdom, and that's where she lost me.

• 9:45Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm. And there's actually few people that fully embody everything I scorn, like Helena Blavatsky does.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:54Josh Clark?

  She wrote a book called The Secret Doctrine, came out in 1888. And by this time, Lemuria is not, it's no longer, like, it's out of the realm of science. It's now into the New Age movement, the theosophists. It was the movement that Blavatsky, Madame Blavatsky, helped found. And I think it was also the basis of spiritualism, too. We did a whole episode on spiritualism. She played a big role in that. But that whole trend of like going to seances and stuff in the Victorian Age, she helped kick that off. And in this book, The Secret Doctrine, she was saying- Hey, I've read Ernest Henkel before, so I kind of understand his idea that Lemuria was the cradle of civilization. He said that there's 12 varieties of men. I'm going

• 10:39Josh Clark?

  to say instead that there's seven. I'm going to call them root races, and Lemuria in particular was home to the third root race. And people say, well, what's the third root race? And she said, read on, dear reader. And in the next passage, she said that they're gigantic humans, they were weren't, who were hermaphroditic and laid eggs. But because we're evolved from them, they eventually grew distinct sexual organs.

• 11:07Speaker 03

  Moving on.

• 11:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, do we even need to comment on that? Besides, it's hysterical.

• 11:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I don't even find it hysterical. Like, it's just, it drives me nuts, man. Yeah.

• 11:18Speaker 03

  No, I'm with you. But this is the 19th century. So, you know.

• 11:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but have you been on YouTube lately? This is so, like, of the moment still, too.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, Lemuria, if you, if you look it up online, there's a lot of new agey sites that are talking about Lemuria and, you know, you can buy Lemurian crystals and things like that to, you know, for the low, low price of $25, that kind of thing. I think what is interesting is this final sort of twist to the story. Back in India, when it was a colony of the Brits, there were some ethnologists from Britain who were, at the time, they were really fascinated, like, where did the, the original Indians come from here? They had, they're so diverse racially and ethnically, like, what were the, was the original ancestry? And they really homed in on the Dravidian-speaking people in southern

• 12:12Speaker 03

  India. One of the languages, Dravidians was a, was a language family, and one of those people that spoke one of those languages were the Tamil people, T-A-M-I-L. And one theory was, oh, those people were the first people, and they were from Lemuria.

• 12:31Josh Clark?

  Yes. So the Tamil people really love that. They actually had a legend already of some, I think it's a Hindu legend about Kumari Kandam. And it's a lost civilization or under the sea, under the Indian Ocean. So they're like, that really kind of jibes. Hey, everybody, we're from Lemuria. That makes us the oldest civilization, which makes us the most civilized civilization, eat that.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. And thus have the oldest language, eat that as well. And apparently today even, if you are, I wouldn't say Tamilian, but I guess just Tamil, there's still apparently this sort of fascination with this sort of lost world that they, their original people came from and they like populated planet Earth.

• 13:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So yeah, I find that more charming than new agey stuff.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, Blavatsky.

• 13:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I know. Yeah. Wow. How much have we like evolved over time? Remember how we used to just be totally into Fortean stuff and like unexplained stuff and like our minds were open and we were curious and we wouldn't poo poo stuff. And now we're just like.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Yeah. Madame Blavaria. Blavaria? Blavatsky? Lemuria? I'm confused now.

• 13:49Josh Clark?

  Lomatsky. Shlamil Shlamozel.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  The short stuff out?

• 13:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 14:00Speaker 04

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• 14:15Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.