Article is under this video on the ‘city’.
Off the southern tip of Yonaguni Island, Japan’s westernmost inhabited spot, divers drop into clear water and swim over massive stepped terraces, sharp right angles, and flat platforms that look a lot like the remains of a lost city. Local dive instructor Kihachiro Aratake spotted the formation in 1986 while hunting for hammerhead sharks. It has fueled arguments ever since.
The main structure sits roughly 5 to 25 meters down. Proponents led by marine geologist Masaaki Kimura of the University of the Ryukyus say humans shaped it—possibly as a temple, castle, or city—when sea levels were lower. Kimura has pointed to what he reads as roads, a stadium-like area, tool marks, and even carved figures. Early estimates put the work at 10,000 years ago or more, which would make it older than the first known cities in Mesopotamia. He later adjusted some dates toward 2,000–3,000 years ago, arguing tectonic shifts dropped the site underwater.
Most geologists disagree. Robert Schoch of Boston University dived the site and concluded it is primarily natural. The rock is Miocene sandstone and mudstone, about 20 million years old, that fractures along parallel bedding planes and vertical joints. Earthquakes and erosion in this active zone produce the blocky, stepped look. Schoch found no separate blocks that had been moved and stacked, no clear chisel marks, and no pottery, tools, or other artifacts that would prove people lived there. Similar formations appear on dry land nearby. Mainstream archaeologists treat the “city” claim as unproven.
Online arguments continue. Posts on X show the same split: some highlight the geometry and low sea levels of the late Ice Age as room for an early culture; others note the continuous bedrock and lack of cultural remains. One recent note simply observed that the site stood above water until roughly 9,000 years ago as seas rose.
🏦The Kingdom Under the Sea🏦
Japan’s Enigmatic Yonaguni MonumentA Diver’s Discovery
In 1987, off the coast of Yonaguni, the southernmost of the Ryukyu Islands in Japan, a diver named Kihachiro Aratake stumbled upon an astonishing underwater structure. Massive terraces, stairways, and stone pillars, all appearing carved by human hands, spread across the seafloor.Ancient Man-made Marvel or Natural Wonder?
The Yonaguni Monument, as it came to be known, sparked intense debate among researchers. Was it a man-made structure, perhaps remnants of a long-lost civilization? Or was it a natural formation, sculpted over millennia by the forces of nature?Evidence for Human Involvement
Several features suggest human influence:1. Sharp Edges and Right Angles: Many of the monument’s formations, including vast terraces and rectangular formations, seem too precise to be solely the work of nature.
2. Stone Roads: What appear to be stone pathways and a ring of standing pillars, reminiscent of Stonehenge, further fuel the man-made theory.
3. Carvings: Some claim to identify carvings on the stones, suggesting human influence.
Nature’s Artistry
On the flip side, many geologists argue that the monument is a natural sandstone formation. They point to parallel formations on land, emphasizing how the consistent layering and fractures could be shaped by underwater currents, earthquakes, and other natural processes.Lost Civilization or Geological Oddity?
Some speculate that if man-made, the monument could be a remnant of the mythical lost continent of Mu, often dubbed the “Atlantis of the East.” Though an enticing theory, concrete evidence remains elusive.A Dive into Mystery
Today, the Yonaguni Monument is a popular diving spot, drawing both tourists and researchers. The debate rages on, but whether a testament to an ancient civilization or a marvel of geological processes, the monument remains one of the underwater world’s most intriguing enigmas.— Detective Tiger’s Stories (@Tiger_Detective) August 25, 2023
How the Oceans Rose and Buried the Coasts
The age fight at Yonaguni sits inside a bigger, well-documented process. About 20,000–21,000 years ago, at the peak of the last Ice Age (the Last Glacial Maximum), huge ice sheets locked up water on land. Global sea level sat roughly 120–130 meters (about 400 feet) lower than today. Broad coastal plains that are now under water were dry land. Britain connected to mainland Europe across Doggerland. Large parts of the continental shelves around Asia, the Mediterranean, and elsewhere were exposed.
As the climate warmed, the ice melted. Sea level rose over thousands of years, sometimes in pulses of several meters per century, then slowed. By about 7,000–6,000 years ago, levels were near modern ones in many places. Low-lying villages, hunting grounds, and early settlements along the old coasts went under. The rise was gradual enough in most spots that people could move inland, but entire landscapes disappeared.
Confirmed examples show the pattern:
- Doggerland (North Sea): A low plain of rivers, marshes, and woodlands linked Britain to the continent. Hunter-gatherers lived there. Most of it flooded between roughly 10,000 and 7,000 years ago; a tsunami from a massive Norwegian landslide around 8,150 years ago finished large sections. Fishing boats still dredge up tools and bones.
- Atlit-Yam (off Israel’s Carmel Coast): A Neolithic village from about 9,000–8,000 years ago, now 8–12 meters underwater. Divers have mapped houses, a stone circle, an ancient well, burials, and organic remains preserved in the sediment. People farmed, fished, and herded before the rising Mediterranean covered the site.
- Pavlopetri (southern Greece): A Bronze Age town with streets, buildings, and tombs, occupied from roughly 5,000 years ago until about 3,000 years ago. It sits in a few meters of water. Tectonic sinking plus the long-term sea-level rise put it under. It is one of the oldest clearly mapped submerged urban plans.
Other sites, such as the sonar patterns and dredged wood in India’s Gulf of Khambhat (dated around 9,500 years old in some samples), remain disputed for the same reasons as Yonaguni: the material may not be in place, currents rework sediments, and controlled excavation is lacking.
Underwater pyramids of Yonaguni in Japan
Japan is a country of mysteries. These underwater pyramids discovered in 1985 near the western Japanese island of Yonaguni have become another mystery for modern archaeologists.
Who built these megaliths and when? Why were they submerged under water? But not only this caused and causes disputes among scientists. Till now there is no consensus: are these formations man-made or are they the fruit of natural phenomena. Stepped smooth terraces are located at a depth of 25 meters.
It all seems very strange, as there are a decent number of pyramids in the world, both reproduced by nature itself and made “allegedly” by human hands.
— @AndTartary and antiquity (@andtartary2) May 9, 2024
What the Evidence Allows
Yonaguni looks striking. Geometry underwater can fool the eye, especially when currents and light emphasize edges. Without artifacts or clear worked stone that cannot form naturally, the mainstream reading stays geological. The site still matters because it shows how much coastal land vanished after the Ice Age. Plenty of real villages and hunting camps from the same era are now on the seafloor, documented by pottery, tools, and building foundations. Those finds do not require rewriting the start of cities; they fit the timeline of sea-level rise that geologists have measured from coral, sediments, and ice cores.
The debate is open on the fringes because the alternative is tempting: an earlier, advanced culture wiped out by rising water. So far the solid remains sit with the natural explanation and with the ordinary coastal settlements that simply got flooded. Divers keep going back. New mapping could tip the balance one way or the other. Until then, the stepped rock off Yonaguni is a clear reminder that the ocean has claimed a lot of human territory over the last 10,000–20,000 years, and most of those places still sit out of reach.
— The Whatfinger News Crew: Ben and Beth, with Alex, Grok on edits
From the readers…
Massimo: No one can explain this. Off the coast of Japan‘s Yonaguni Island, about 6 meters (20 feet) below the surface, lies an intriguing underwater formation often dubbed the Yonaguni Monument. This structure features what appear to be massive stone terraces, platforms, steps, sharp angles, flat surfaces, and remarkably precise corners—leading some to speculate that it represents the remnants of an ancient, man-made civilization submerged by rising sea levels more than 10,000 years ago. However, the prevailing scientific consensus among geologists holds that the formation is entirely natural.
The rocks consist of medium- to fine-grained sandstones and mudstones from the Lower Miocene Yaeyama Group, deposited roughly 20 million years ago. In tectonically active regions like this—positioned near fault lines and subject to frequent earthquakes—the rock naturally fractures along parallel bedding planes and joints, producing flat, blocky, rectangular shapes. Ongoing erosion from waves, currents, and seismic activity further sharpens these features, creating the illusion of human precision. Proponents of an artificial origin, such as marine geologist Masaaki Kimura (University of the Ryukyus), highlight the site’s scale, symmetry, and apparent modifications (e.g., possible “roads” or “stairs”), suggesting human intervention before submersion.
Yet critics, including geologist Robert M. Schoch (Boston University), emphasize that no definitive artifacts, tools, inscriptions, or human remains have been recovered despite extensive dives. Schoch notes that the sandstone’s well-defined bedding planes and natural fracturing explain the geometry without invoking human agency, and comparable natural formations exist worldwide—such as Ireland’s Giant’s Causeway or Australia’s Tessellated Pavement—where erosion and jointing produce strikingly regular patterns.
Very few peer-reviewed geological studies have directly targeted the site, partly due to the challenges and costs of underwater research. Kimura’s work, including detailed surveys by his Submarine Research Group, argues for anthropogenic features, but mainstream geologists like Schoch and others view the evidence as consistent with natural processes in a fault-prone, erosive environment. The debate persists, fueled by the formation’s visually compelling appearance, but the lack of archaeological corroboration and geological parallels strongly support a natural origin. This enigmatic structure—whether a geological marvel or a “lost city”—serves as a powerful reminder that nature can craft forms so ordered and grand they rival human engineering, blurring the line between myth and reality beneath the waves.
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