Could the ‘Eye of the Sahara’ Be the Lost City of Atlantis?

Richat Structure – Sahara Desert, Ouadane, Mauritania. Image credit: Trodel
Well, the Richat Structure is indeed the location of exceptional accumulations of Acheulean artifacts – stone tools characterized by distinctive oval and pear-shaped “hand-axes” associated with Homo erectus, as well as derived species such as Homo heidelbergensis. But Acheulean technologies first developed about 1.76 million years ago, and although their disappearance is not well defined, they could have lasted until about 130,000 years ago (much earlier than the proposed time of Atlantis’ existence about 12,000 years ago). Also, while indeed many of these artifacts have been found on the outermost depression of this structure, they are generally absent in its innermost depressions.

In fact, neither recognizable midden deposits, nor man-made structures have been recognized and reported from the Richat Structure so far. This most probably indicates that the Richat Structure was used for only short-term hunting and stone tool manufacturing, and the apparent wealth of surface artifacts in places is the result of the concentration and mixing by deflation over multiple glacial-interglacial cycles.