Erich Von Daniken - The Gold Of The Gods

3 - Traces Of The Gods In China, Too
and glazed. The walls of one hall, into which several passages led,
were covered with paintings. They represented animals, all fleeing in
one direction, driven by men who held "blow-pipes" to their lips.
Above the fleeing animals, and this is the sensational part of the
account as far as I am concerned, flies a shield on which stand men
holding weapon-like implements which they are aiming at the animals.
The men on the "flying shield," says Mr. Chi Pen Lao, wear modern
jackets and long trousers. Mr. Lynn thinks that scholars have probably
succeeded in establishing the date when the tunnel was built, but news
from Red China only emerges sparingly and after long delays.
The report of the "flying shield" and the men aiming at the animals
from above at once reminded me of a museum piece which had left an
indelible impression on my memory. It was the skeleton of a bison
(Fig. 44), whose brow had been pierced by a neat shot, and I had seen
it in the Museum of Paleontology in Moscow.
The original home of the bison was Russian Asia. The age of my fossil
bison was dated to the Neolithic (8000 to 2700 B.C.), when weapons
were still made by flaking stones, and the most modern weapon created
in that period was the stone axe.
A blow with a stone axe would inevitably have shattered the bison's
skull, but under no circumstances could it have left a bullet hole. A
firearm in the Neolithic? In fact, the idea seems so absurd that the
experts could dismiss it with a wave of the hand, if it were not for the
fact that the Neolithic marksman's bison trophy is on show in Moscow.