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Out-of-Place Artifact
- arbitrage 7y ago> The term is used largely by cryptozoologists, proponents of ancient astronaut theories, young Earth creationists, and paranormal enthusiasts.
- JadeNB 7y agoWhat's the significance of this line?
- sfkdjf9j3j 7y agoIt's not a scientific concept, it's a term used by the aliens-built-the-pyramids crowd.
- PhasmaFelis 7y agoSure, but that's the third sentence of the linked article. It was hardly necessary to call attention to it specifically.
- crooked-v 7y agoI don't see how the most common usage of the term isn't relevant to a page about it.
- PhasmaFelis 7y agoIt's redundant. Anyone who read enough of the page to understand what it is has read that sentence already. Starting a discussion about the silliness of the concept might have been interesting. Quoting the third sentence with no further comment is pointless.
- legohead 7y agoI think he's calling it out suggesting this shouldn't be posted on HN.
- optimalsolver 7y agoThe aliens didn't build the pyramids, they merely advised the human architects by, e.g., imparting knowledge of geometry and metallurgy.
- JJMcJ 7y agoWe see evidence of increasing ability to build larger and larger pyramids over time in Egypt. The construction method is pretty well known by now, big ramps of gravel to roll/push stones up. Gravel spread around, contruction times vs. number of people on site, well known. Another example a group of university students hauled a Stonehenge sized rock from a likely quarry to Stonehenge site in a couple of weeks. We forget what human labor can do.
- irrational 7y ago>We see evidence of increasing ability to build larger and larger pyramids over time in Egypt. That's not totally true, is it? The first pyramid was Djoser's pyramid in saqqara in about 2650BC. The first true pyramid was build around 2590BC (around 60 years later). The largest and greatest of the pyramids was built around 2570BC (only about 80 years after the first pyramid). Things really went downhill from there, but the Egyptian civilization lasted for another 3000 years.
- xenadu02 7y agoThe point is they clearly perfected their techniques over time. We have evidence of failures and mistakes too. There is nothing about the ancient pyramids that lies beyond human capability. There are plenty of videos on youtube of 1-4 people moving 15-ton stone blocks around. Occam's razor: the simplest explanation is humans built the pyramids and no aliens were involved.
- ianai 7y agoOT, but more and more I wonder how prevalent fossil fuels are. We wonder at just how frequent life occurs. But fossil fuels have basically catapulted us in energy production over a very short time.
- not_a_cop75 7y agoAnthropology is hardly driven by scientific proofs. While weird locations of objects work really as shoddy proof at best, there are some locations of some items that lend themselves to solid proof of real and drastic changes. Proof of human habitations around Antarctica and deep underwater come to mind.
- wumms 7y agoCouldn't the Maine Penny just have been transported in an animals stomach?
- PhasmaFelis 7y agoThat seems a lot less likely than either of the current hypotheses (it was carried there directly by Norse explorers vs. it was traded from one group to another across the distance).
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago>> Over 20,000 objects were found over a 15-year period at the Goddard Site in Brooklin, Maine. The sole non-Native artifact was the coin.[8] By frequentist assumptions and given this evidence, the probability that Vikings visited the Americas before Columbus is 0.00005. We can therefore safely conclude that the Vikings never visited the Americas before Columbus. (er, joke)
- jngreenlee 7y agoPost this on twitter and @nntaleb will correct you!
- mc32 7y agoThis is so weird: on the one hand some of these crackpot theories think some things are too advanced (Antikythera dev), other times they want think people were more advanced than known evidence suggest (Baghdad battery). So they are all over the place, but consistent in thinking modern understanding is wrong.
- jerf 7y agoThere is more than one crackpot. Sometimes putting them both in the same space online can result in some epic flamewars. Sometimes they merge their beliefs together. It's fascinating stuff.
- droithomme 7y agoA sophisticated mechanical astronomical computer is no less implausible in that time period than a battery for electroplating. Neither require aliens. The Incas did electroplating. We even have the remnant electroplated artifacts. Did the Incas invent batteries for electroplating first or was it the Greeks? We don't know yet. If Greek electroplated items are found someday then we'll be able to say they did it first.
- 8bitsrule 7y agoAnd yet Antikythera sat gathering dust for 50 years (until Price) because noone knew what to make of it ... "most scholars considered the device to be prochronistic..." (WP) After Price spelled it out, it still took decades for enough scholars to die - and the tech to understand it became available - only then it became more plausible ...
- makz 7y agoIn the same vein of this if you like crackpot theories, research Tartaria and mud floods.
- twic 7y agoIf floods and mud are your thing, check out zermatism: http://unurthed.com/2007/12/23/szukalskis-science-of-zermatism/ http://unurthed.com/2007/12/23/szukalskis-science-of-zermati...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- singularity2001 7y agoI was hoping for a list of real, scientifically accepted out of place artifacts, like the Anau seal. Or Göbekli Tepe.
- 8bitsrule 7y agoSome of the stuff in the books of Charles Fort (1874-1932; kept and published notes about the unusual) has been accepted. Looks like the magazine is still published. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fort#Fortean_phenomena https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fort#Fortean_phenomena https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortean_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortean_Times Original edition of 'Book of the Damned': https://archive.org/details/bookofdamnedbych00fortrich/page/n9 https://archive.org/details/bookofdamnedbych00fortrich/page/...
- oleganza 7y agoI recommend scrolling down to Babylonokia.
- EdwardDiego 7y agoWhat about the fact that the reed boats on Lake Titicaca look like the reed boats Ancient Egyptians used to make? Huh? Huh?! My favourite contentious potential sign of cultural contact is the extensive usage of sweet potato (native to South America) in the Polynesian Triangle. One of the signs that convinced Thor Heyerdahl to launch the Kontiki expedition, but he assumed (for various reasons) that contact must've gone South America -> Polynesia - things like the prevailing currents and winds being east to west. However, given what we know of eastward Polynesian expansion, that it tended to occur during El Ninos when the currents and winds change in the Pacific, I find it more probable that the seafaring Polynesians who settled some of the most remote islands in the world, travelled to South America and then back again.
- FR10 7y agoYes there’s a theory that states that one of the Incas ”Tupac Yupanqui” is believed to have gone to the Polynesia around 1465 with boats and 20 000 crew members