Andrew Collins - Writer, Explorer and Lecturer

Andrew is now writing regular articles for Ancient Origins on the very latest news coming out of the world of archaeology and anthropology

Here is a breakdown of Andrew's articles published on Ancient Origins

Goddess of the Seven Stars: The Rebirth of Sobekneferu

3 November, 2020 - 22:06

Ancient Egypt's first female ruler was Sobekneferu. She reigned for a brief few years around 3800 years ago. As short as her reign was it has had a massive impact on popular consciousness - her memory contained in every female mummy resurrected to live again in blockbuster movies such as 2017's The Mummy and 1980's The Awakening. All these films were inspired by Dracula writer Bram Stoker's "shocking" post-Victorian novel The Jewel of the Seven Stars, published in 1903. He chose Sobekneferu as his role model for the ancient Egyptian queen featured in the story. Read how this came about, and of the ancient stellar beliefs adhered to by Sobekneferu in part one of what will be a three part series on this powerful and highly enigmatic woman who ruled the world's largest ancient empire of its age. The article features a stunning new artistic impression of Sobekneferu by the talented London artist Russell M. Hossain.

Sobekneferu’s Legacy: The Sacred Places of Egypt’s First Female Pharaoh

10 November, 2020 - 18:40

In part one of this feature we saw how Egypt’s first female pharaoh Sobekneferu (also written Neferusobek) has emerged as a major character both in literary fiction and in the cinema. Her mysterious life and devotion to primeval gods such as the crocodile god Sobek no doubt helped foster this romantic image. Despite this, Sobekneferu’s achievements in life remain an enigma. To better understand Sobekneferu’s lasting legacy we examine monuments directly or indirectly associated with her, for these can provide certain clues regarding her actions in life. We look at her father Amenemhet III's funerary complex at Hawara in El Faiyum, which includes the famous Labyrinth of antiquity, as well as Sobekneferu's own pyramid at Mazguneh. We examine also the strange megalithic temple located at Qasr el-Sagha, north of the Qarun Lake in the Faiyum Oasis, one of the most mysterious sites in Egypt. We see how these sites inter-relate reflecting not just an honouring of the Old Kingdom's Pyramid Builders at places like Giza, but also the star Eltanin in the constellation of Draco, the hippo-croc hybrid of ancient Egyptian astronomy.

Durrington Shafts is British archaeology’s greatest enigma for a very long time. But who built it, when, and why? Evidence suggests it was constructed in the first half of the third millennium BCE by the enigmatic Grooved Ware culture, and that is functioned as an enormous sonic temple. Its straight walled shafts most likely acted as sound resonators. What is more, the structure’s overall shape is not that of a perfect circle, but of a Type D flattened circle as defined by Scottish engineer Professor Alexander Thom, the surveyor of around 250 circles across the British Isles. Lastly, it is demonstrated how Durrington Shafts conforms to rigid landscape geometry linked in with other monuments in the Stonehenge-Durrington landscape. A fundamental unit of length was used in this site-to-site relationship equaling 144 feet in old imperial measure, this most likely being a deliberate choice since it corresponds to the wavelength of 7.85 Hz, the fundamental sound frequency calculated in connection with Durrington Shafts.

Andrew Collins discusses the recent announcement that three of the oldest stone enclosures at Göbekli Tepe conform to an underlying geometry featuring an equilateral triangle. He shows how these discoveries - made by two Israeli archaeologists from Tel Aviv University - appear to confirm the orientation of the complex and lend weight to the hypothesis that its enclosures were built to target the stars. This brand new study also reviews earlier evidence indicating that the discovery of a grand design at Göbekli Tepe was perhaps inevitable.

25 April, 2020 - 13:59

Icelanders have noticeable traces of Denisovan DNA. Find out the implications of this incredible discovery and what it means for European prehistory in this new article. Features the Orkney Isles, megaliths, stone circles, the lost world of Doggerland, Swiderians, blade tool technologies, Finno-Ugric language speaking peoples, Göbekli Tepe, Denisovan technology and innovation and, of course, Vikings!

The face of a Siberian Denisovan by George Hernandez (pic credit: G Hernandez).

What the Denisovans might have looked like has been one of the hottest debates in paleoanthropology since the discovery of this extinct human lineage back in 2010. Andrew Collins working with historical researcher Debbie Cartwright and Californian artist George Hernandez bring together every piece of evidence to recreate the face of a Siberian Denisovan who last walked the earth 45,000 years ago

A new genetic study reveals new information about the Asian genome and the extent of Denisovan ancestry among Asian populations. It also provides new information about the possible presence of the Denisovans on the Indian subcontinent, including the fact that they could well be remembered in mythology as the legendary demon-like race known as the Rakshasas

Andrew reports on the recent discovery of a 45,000 year old mammoth ivory figurine of a cave lion found in Siberia’s Denisova Cave. He speculates on its probable Denisovan origin and how a series of rows of notches upon its polished surface might well indicate a connection between the cave lion and both the moon and the 18-year lunar eclipse cycle.

Andrew looks at new evidence that the Denisovans might well have passed on to anatomical modern humans genetical traits relating to autism. If this is the case, then it also now strengthens the case for the Denisovans themselves having had unique attributes that might in today's terms be classified as either on the autistic spectrum and/or savant-like in nature. This might well have included the ability to calendar count, which originally probably had a more practical function relating to predictions concerning the cycles of the sun and moon, in particular upcoming eclipses.

In this ground breaking article Andrew reviews new archaeological evidence showing that the inhabitants of Israel's Qesem Cave some 400,000 years ago displayed extremely advanced innovation. Yet strangely these archaic humans display clear evidence of having modern human physiological traits, even though the earliest known Homo sapiens date to a much later age. Andrew goes on to propose that the Qesem inhabitants were perhaps the forerunners of the Siberian Denisovans, their interest in swan shamanism accounting for the proliference of swan ancestry and swan shamanism among the indigenous peoples of Siberia and Mongolia from the Upper Paleolithic age through till the modern day.

Andrew reports on the recent discovery of a 420,000 year old swan wing bone in the Qesem Cave near Tel Aviv in modern-day Israel, which is revealing the earliest evidence of shamanism anywhere in the world. The importance of the swan as an animistic totem among the inhabitants of the cave now suggests that even by this time, at the end of the Lower Paleolithic age, the symbol of the bird was being seen as a symbol of the human soul in flight, an incredible discovery with incredible implications for our understanding of the rise of cosmology and shamanism among our most ancient ancestors.

Here Andrew explores the implications of the discovery of a Denisovan jawbone in a cave in Tibet, and how its unique dental traits reveal a unique pattern found among a large number of eastern and southeastern Asians peoples, particularly those at the extreme eastern edge of the Eurasian continent. This new information can provide a new understanding of the migration reach not only of Denisovans, but also their modern-day descendents both on the Eurasian continent and in the Americas.

In this article Andrew works with a team of Chinese volunteers on a grand experiment to test the acoustic properties of the Great Pyramid, with some quite extraordinary results. He explains how this unique experiment came about following a discussion with British engineer Rodney Hale, and how it has shown the acoustic relationship between the pyramid's various different key chambers.

In part two of this important article, Andrew further discusses the results of his Great Pyramid Experiment in February 2019, showing that the dead-end passage in the structure's subterranean chamber functions as a sound resonance tube producing infrasound, something that has been associated with the playing of musical instruments for ritualistic purposes for thousands of years. He shows also that the levels of infrasound detected inside the tube are affected by the presence of human consciousness.

Andrew reports on a trove of new discoveries relating to the Denisovans released at the time of the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists held in Cleveland, Ohio. They include details of a archaic human mandible (lower jawbone) found in Tibet in 1980 and only recently identified as that of a Denisovan. He also breaks down two new genetic studies that show very clear divisions between the Siberian Denisovans of northern and eastern Eurasia and two variants of so-called Australo- or Sunda Denisovans found in the southern and southeastern part of the Eurasian continent. One of these later variants, living in Indonesia, the Phillipines and Papua New Guinea, might well have survived through to anything between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago, in contrast to the Siberian Denisovans who disappear as early as 45,000 years ago.