Fingerprints of the Gods

Fingerprints of the Gods

Cover of the first American edition
Author	Graham Hancock
Language	English
Subject	Alternative archaeology
Publication date	1995
Media type	Print

Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization is a 1995 book by Graham Hancock, in which he echoes 19th century writer Ignatius Donnelly, author of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882), in contending that some previously enigmatic ancient but highly advanced civilization had existed in prehistory, one which served as the common progenitor civilization to all subsequent known ancient historical ones. The author proposes that sometime around the end of the last Ice Age this civilization ended in cataclysm, but passed on to its inheritors profound knowledge of such things as astronomy, architecture, and mathematics. His theory is based on the idea that mainstream interpretations of archaeological evidence are flawed or incomplete.

The book pivots on "fingerprints" of allegedly influenced civilizations, evidence of which Hancock finds in the descriptions of Godmen like Osiris, Thoth, Quetzalcoatl, and Viracocha. These creation myths predate history, and Hancock suggests that in 10,450 BC, a major pole shift took place, before which Antarctica lay farther from the South Pole than today, and after which it shifted to its present location. This earlier civilization theoretically centered on Antarctica, and later survivors built the Olmec, Aztec, Maya and Egyptian civilizations.

Hancock was influenced by Rose and Rand Flem-Ath's When the Sky Fell: in Search of Atlantis (1995/2009), in which they expand the evidence for Charles Hapgood's theory of earth-crust displacement and propose Antarctica as the site of Atlantis.