6 ms·

We're going to find many, many more of these. See also: https://www.amazon.com/America-Before-Earths-Lost-Civilization/dp/1250153735 https://www.amazon.com/Ame

by zarmin 6y ago

We're going to find many, many more of these. See also: https://www.amazon.com/America-Before-Earths-Lost-Civilization/dp/1250153735 https://www.amazon.com/America-Before-Earths-Lost-Civilizati...

antonvs 6y ago
We certainly are likely to find more prehistoric sites, but they're highly unlikely to match the fantasy that Hancock is pushing. Here's an article about why: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt-an-advanced-civilization-12-000-years-ago/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt-an...
- ncmncm 6y ago
  Joke's on them. Turns out there really was a big, widespread comet strike, probably multiple air bursts, and it was also responsible for extinctions in South America and Africa. Evidence of the singular event surfaced as far afield as South Africa, Chile, and Syria. Was there an advanced civilization? First, what do you mean by "advanced"? Any civilization at all preceding known Harappan and Mesopotamian settlements would be a big upset to the current narrative. There are extensively built-up areas known, off the coast of India and south of Harappan sites, that were last above water more than 6000 years ago.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bildung 6y ago
    The "current narrative" already includes pre-mesopotamian civilizations like Göbekli Tepe (10000 BC), Ganj Dareh (8000 BC), Mehrgarh (7000 BC), Tell Abu Hureyra (11000BC, first known crop cultivation), ...
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      Göbekli Tepe was not a civilization. All the evidence indicates no one lived there. Similarly, the other sites: elements that always accompany civilizations happened there, but without cities.
      - fhjdjksksksks6 6y ago
        You clearly lack background knowledge about contemporary archaeological understanding of the palaeolithic and neolithic periods in southwest asia and anatolia. First off, referring to 'civilizations' as basic entities or units of analysis is just nonsense. Sure, there has been some talk about 'social complexity' up to the mid-90s, but (a) that discourse is largely outdated since it tends to be based on justifying prior presumptions regarding the nature and boundaries of societies that were already assumed to be 'civilizations' without adequate reason, (b) that perspective is being replaced by more bottom-up approaches that model various kinds of behaviours and interactions, including possibilities and limits thereof, and as guided by the archaeological evidence, and (c) even when we do talk about so-called 'civilizations', that is typically limited to a period starting around 4000 BCE. You are clearly ignoring (what I consider to be) the most exciting topic of archaeological research, the pre-pottery neolithic. As bildung points out, coherent models about this period have been formulated by drawing on evidence accumulated from dozens of PPN sites. EDIT: Beyond the Ubaid is a fantastic edited volume that touches on this shift, with papers by leading archaeologists: https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/saoc/saoc-63-beyond-ubaid-transformation-and-integration-late-prehistoric https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/saoc/saoc-63-b... EDIT2: See also: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2014.44 https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2014.44 and https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-007-9008-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-007-9008-1 Yes, it is true that Gobekli Tepe has no habitation associated with it, but we do not consider this an unresolved puzzle. Gobleki Tepe is commonly accepted as a great example of the ingenuity of nomadic peoples. Why do you assume that it would be necessary for its builders to have been sedentary?
        ncmncm 6y ago
        I do not assume it would be necessary for its builders to have been sedentary. Neolithic behaviors differing from the modern familiars are all interesting, but when we use the word "civilization", we are definitively talking about cities. Associating onset of civilization with 3-4000 BCE is a conclusion from present evidence, not a definition, and would need to be changed in the face of new evidence of cities. Hints at civilization pre-4000 BCE typified by GT are as interesting as other neolithic phenomena. To be clear: while it is possible, in principle, that GT builders invented all their stonework methods de novo, it is clearly much more likely that they drew on a long history of gradually more sophisticated stonework not yet unearthed, possibly elsewhere. What we know about sea level changes allows that much of such evidence may now be under water, although it could also be found in the Tepes yet to be excavated. We have absolutely no reason to believe that areas now deluged were unoccupied, or that the people who lived in those places chose to stay there and drown. They would have brought their culture uphill with them. The entire Persian Gulf was recently dry land. Australians retain oral records of the social upheavals when people who lived in the Sahul region between present Australia and New Guinea were obliged to move uphill, to where other people already lived. Similar upheavals must have occurred on the present Indonesian islands and nearby peninsulas, absorbing influx from the hundreds of thousands of square miles of the the now deluged Sundaland. People 6000 years ago, or 11,000 years ago, were no more clever than 20,000 years ago. What was evidently done 6000 years ago could have been done longer ago, given only population density and surplus food production. Undiscovered civilizations are certainly possible: the huge Amazon basin civilization was entirely unsuspected only decades ago.
mjayhn 6y ago
I love Graham Hancock as "ALIENS?!" smut but come on.
fhjdjksksksks6 6y ago
Graham Hancock is a fraud. We certainly underestimate the ingenuity of past peoples, but the way that Hancock frames this discourse is full of shit. Bad Archaeology is a great resource that explains why a wide array of pseudoarchaeological notions and tropes, including those peddled by Hancock, are wrong. Check it out. http://www.badarchaeology.com/ http://www.badarchaeology.com/
- ncmncm 6y ago
  Graham Hancock is always careful to separate his speculations from the facts, and carefully label each. And, he has turned out to be right (about things that are not completely wacky) remarkably often. Most recently, the Younger Dryas Boundary comet strike, that drove 30+ American genera to extinction and wiped out the Clovis culture, has finally been accepted by mainstream geologists. (Neanderthal gatekeepers on Wikipedia have not caught up yet, and probably won't for five or ten more years, and then will insist they were right to stall.) Furthermore, we now are certain that a large civilization farmed the whole Amazon basin for at least 1500 years before it was wiped out by Spanish-delivered smallpox.
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    > Most recently, the Younger Dryas Boundary comet strike, that drove 30+ American genera to extinction and wiped out the Clovis culture, has finally been accepted by mainstream geologists. This statement surprised me because, while I haven't kept any sort of close eye on Younger Dryas research, I had literally never heard of this hypothesis before. A quick search of scholar.google.com for "Younger Dryas impact" focusing on recent papers seems to indicate to me that there is at least an active, ongoing academic dispute between at least two groups over the matter, and I haven't looked at the author lists to figure out if there's only one group on a specific side. At the very least, I'd be very hesitant to say that it "has finally been accepted by mainstream geologists." Edit: I should also mention that I did find an r/AskHistorians post on this topic (https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/du40jl/the_younger_dryas_event/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/du40jl/the_y...) where the archaeologist is clearly not a believer in the hypothesis, linking some articles [including those I found in my aforementioned search] that are critical of the theory. While not gospel truth, it again suggests that "has finally been accepted by mainstream geologists" is not an accurate description of the current status of the hypothesis in the relevant community.
AlotOfReading 6y ago
The SAA has already dedicated most of an issue to debunking this particular book: http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m=16146&i=634462&p=10 http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m=16146&i=634462&p... Hancock is well-known as more than a bit of a crank. He's interesting (in much the same sense that ancient aliens shows are), but please give disclaimers so you don't confuse the unaware.
- specialist 6y ago
  A gamer buddy really liked the Distant Origin scenario (Star Trek Voyager episode). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Origin TLDR: Ancient non-human civilization, prior inhabitant of earth, now long gone. "Where's the hot spots?" "Um, what?" "Any industrial, technical civilization would leave their mark somehow thru their waste and pollution. Even if they left millions of years ago and their cities were built on subduction zones, we'd still detect their nuclear waste dumps." Long pause. "Well, ya." Comparatively, I can kind of imagine groups of humans getting wiped out without a trace. The Sea Peoples didn't leave much behind. It's an accident we know about those lost cities on the steppes, which were completely lost to history. There's 100s (1000s?) of habitats buried under the desert, waiting to be explored. Etc. But not being anything close to an archeologist: Hancock's notions are a bit far fetched, circumstantial. Like he's fooling himself into seeing stuff that's not there. Like seeing animals in the clouds, faces in pictures of martian soil, illuminating patterns in numbers.
dougk16 6y ago
Great book, highly recommend. Even if you say 90% of it is pseudo-scientific bs, fine, read it like you would fantasy or sci-fi and there's still easily 10% of mind-expanding possibilities in here. I've read many critiques of Hancock's work and there are always arguments and evidence left over that critics don't address. The only way to decide for yourself is to read his work with an open mind. Or don't!
- AlotOfReading 6y ago
  Fantasy stories about archaeology do serious harm. I've mapped dozens of burials looted by people who had bought into similarly fanciful tales of lost treasures and empires. That fantasy didn't make them any richer, but it did desecrate hundreds of graves and destroy a lot of cultural heritage. Please be careful with giving recommendations you know are inaccurate. Not only does it mean archaeologists have to go back and correct those misunderstandings, it contributes to the destruction of the very things we're trying to protect.
  - dougk16 6y ago
    Ok I will stop recommending his books. Thanks for the heads up. I did not know his ideas were causing such destruction. I will still read all his books with an open mind but you don't have to worry about me looting any sites. :)
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      I will not stop recommending Hancock's books. In many cases they are the only source of excellent photography of ancient constructions. Furthermore, Hancock is always very careful to separate factual exposition from his speculations. Finally, he has remarkably often turned out to be right, and his critics badly wrong. The Younger Dryas Boundary comet strike is now mainstream pre-history, supported by excavations as far afield as Chile, South Africa, and Syria. A culture cultivating the whole Amazon basin for at least 1500 years before being wiped out by smallpox 500 years ago is now well established fact, supported by LIDAR surveys revealing hundreds of miles of major earthworks.
alice22 6y ago
I started reading into these supposed "fringe" theories surrounding Hancock and Robert Schoch and the other people talking about these ideas about a year ago and I find some of their arguments credible and not completely nuts and I honestly think there's something more there than what the official, established story is able to explain. Some of the evidence Hancock presents doesn't hold much weight in my mind and I think he's just reaching but other pieces do. For example, I think the Orion Correlation and Sphinx Erosion Hypothesis are interesting to look into. Also Gobekli Tepe. There also doesn't appear to be any indisputable evidence that officially dates the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx to the purported time period of around 2,500 BC, the age of Khufu. It doesn't necessarily have to be that Hancock's theories for what actually happened are right and he's not adamant they are either, only theories, but I think he's raised enough issues with what Egyptologists or Archeologists are saying is canonical to lead me to believe what the mainstream majority Egyptologists or Archeologists claim is certain fact may just be a local maxima based on interpretation of found evidence at the time the theories were first recognized and an unwillingness to change their position unless evidence to contradict them becomes so strong they can't deny it with a straight face. It's also fascinating that many large burial / ancient civilization sites have been discovered even in the last 50 years, e.g., Cerutti Mastodon site, and also Amazon civilization remnants using Lidar, which leads me to hope a lot more could be discovered in the next 50 and greatly change what is purported on wikipedia as true. # Comment Updated.
- glial 6y ago
  Maybe your comment is an earnest, but it sounds like conspiracy theory bait and has no actual content.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    Your comment sounds like conspiracy theory bait and has no actual content.
- turndown 6y ago
  >There also doesn't appear to be any indisputable evidence that officially dates the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx to the purported time period of around 2,500 BC, the age of Khufu. The fact that there isn't any Predynastic pottery at the Great Pyramids severely limits any kind speculation as to when they were built, at least in the backward direction.

by zarmin 6y ago

We're going to find many, many more of these. See also: https://www.amazon.com/America-Before-Earths-Lost-Civilization/dp/1250153735 https://www.amazon.com/America-Before-Earths-Lost-Civilizati...

antonvs 6y ago

We certainly are likely to find more prehistoric sites, but they're highly unlikely to match the fantasy that Hancock is pushing. Here's an article about why: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt-an-advanced-civilization-12-000-years-ago/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt-an...

ncmncm 6y ago
Joke's on them. Turns out there really was a big, widespread comet strike, probably multiple air bursts, and it was also responsible for extinctions in South America and Africa. Evidence of the singular event surfaced as far afield as South Africa, Chile, and Syria. Was there an advanced civilization? First, what do you mean by "advanced"? Any civilization at all preceding known Harappan and Mesopotamian settlements would be a big upset to the current narrative. There are extensively built-up areas known, off the coast of India and south of Harappan sites, that were last above water more than 6000 years ago.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bildung 6y ago
  The "current narrative" already includes pre-mesopotamian civilizations like Göbekli Tepe (10000 BC), Ganj Dareh (8000 BC), Mehrgarh (7000 BC), Tell Abu Hureyra (11000BC, first known crop cultivation), ...
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    Göbekli Tepe was not a civilization. All the evidence indicates no one lived there. Similarly, the other sites: elements that always accompany civilizations happened there, but without cities.
    - fhjdjksksksks6 6y ago
      You clearly lack background knowledge about contemporary archaeological understanding of the palaeolithic and neolithic periods in southwest asia and anatolia. First off, referring to 'civilizations' as basic entities or units of analysis is just nonsense. Sure, there has been some talk about 'social complexity' up to the mid-90s, but (a) that discourse is largely outdated since it tends to be based on justifying prior presumptions regarding the nature and boundaries of societies that were already assumed to be 'civilizations' without adequate reason, (b) that perspective is being replaced by more bottom-up approaches that model various kinds of behaviours and interactions, including possibilities and limits thereof, and as guided by the archaeological evidence, and (c) even when we do talk about so-called 'civilizations', that is typically limited to a period starting around 4000 BCE. You are clearly ignoring (what I consider to be) the most exciting topic of archaeological research, the pre-pottery neolithic. As bildung points out, coherent models about this period have been formulated by drawing on evidence accumulated from dozens of PPN sites. EDIT: Beyond the Ubaid is a fantastic edited volume that touches on this shift, with papers by leading archaeologists: https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/saoc/saoc-63-beyond-ubaid-transformation-and-integration-late-prehistoric https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/saoc/saoc-63-b... EDIT2: See also: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2014.44 https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2014.44 and https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-007-9008-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-007-9008-1 Yes, it is true that Gobekli Tepe has no habitation associated with it, but we do not consider this an unresolved puzzle. Gobleki Tepe is commonly accepted as a great example of the ingenuity of nomadic peoples. Why do you assume that it would be necessary for its builders to have been sedentary?
      - ncmncm 6y ago
        I do not assume it would be necessary for its builders to have been sedentary. Neolithic behaviors differing from the modern familiars are all interesting, but when we use the word "civilization", we are definitively talking about cities. Associating onset of civilization with 3-4000 BCE is a conclusion from present evidence, not a definition, and would need to be changed in the face of new evidence of cities. Hints at civilization pre-4000 BCE typified by GT are as interesting as other neolithic phenomena. To be clear: while it is possible, in principle, that GT builders invented all their stonework methods de novo, it is clearly much more likely that they drew on a long history of gradually more sophisticated stonework not yet unearthed, possibly elsewhere. What we know about sea level changes allows that much of such evidence may now be under water, although it could also be found in the Tepes yet to be excavated. We have absolutely no reason to believe that areas now deluged were unoccupied, or that the people who lived in those places chose to stay there and drown. They would have brought their culture uphill with them. The entire Persian Gulf was recently dry land. Australians retain oral records of the social upheavals when people who lived in the Sahul region between present Australia and New Guinea were obliged to move uphill, to where other people already lived. Similar upheavals must have occurred on the present Indonesian islands and nearby peninsulas, absorbing influx from the hundreds of thousands of square miles of the the now deluged Sundaland. People 6000 years ago, or 11,000 years ago, were no more clever than 20,000 years ago. What was evidently done 6000 years ago could have been done longer ago, given only population density and surplus food production. Undiscovered civilizations are certainly possible: the huge Amazon basin civilization was entirely unsuspected only decades ago.

mjayhn 6y ago

I love Graham Hancock as "ALIENS?!" smut but come on.

fhjdjksksksks6 6y ago

Graham Hancock is a fraud. We certainly underestimate the ingenuity of past peoples, but the way that Hancock frames this discourse is full of shit. Bad Archaeology is a great resource that explains why a wide array of pseudoarchaeological notions and tropes, including those peddled by Hancock, are wrong. Check it out. http://www.badarchaeology.com/ http://www.badarchaeology.com/

ncmncm 6y ago
Graham Hancock is always careful to separate his speculations from the facts, and carefully label each. And, he has turned out to be right (about things that are not completely wacky) remarkably often. Most recently, the Younger Dryas Boundary comet strike, that drove 30+ American genera to extinction and wiped out the Clovis culture, has finally been accepted by mainstream geologists. (Neanderthal gatekeepers on Wikipedia have not caught up yet, and probably won't for five or ten more years, and then will insist they were right to stall.) Furthermore, we now are certain that a large civilization farmed the whole Amazon basin for at least 1500 years before it was wiped out by Spanish-delivered smallpox.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  > Most recently, the Younger Dryas Boundary comet strike, that drove 30+ American genera to extinction and wiped out the Clovis culture, has finally been accepted by mainstream geologists. This statement surprised me because, while I haven't kept any sort of close eye on Younger Dryas research, I had literally never heard of this hypothesis before. A quick search of scholar.google.com for "Younger Dryas impact" focusing on recent papers seems to indicate to me that there is at least an active, ongoing academic dispute between at least two groups over the matter, and I haven't looked at the author lists to figure out if there's only one group on a specific side. At the very least, I'd be very hesitant to say that it "has finally been accepted by mainstream geologists." Edit: I should also mention that I did find an r/AskHistorians post on this topic (https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/du40jl/the_younger_dryas_event/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/du40jl/the_y...) where the archaeologist is clearly not a believer in the hypothesis, linking some articles [including those I found in my aforementioned search] that are critical of the theory. While not gospel truth, it again suggests that "has finally been accepted by mainstream geologists" is not an accurate description of the current status of the hypothesis in the relevant community.

AlotOfReading 6y ago

The SAA has already dedicated most of an issue to debunking this particular book: http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m=16146&i=634462&p=10 http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m=16146&i=634462&p... Hancock is well-known as more than a bit of a crank. He's interesting (in much the same sense that ancient aliens shows are), but please give disclaimers so you don't confuse the unaware.

specialist 6y ago
A gamer buddy really liked the Distant Origin scenario (Star Trek Voyager episode). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Origin TLDR: Ancient non-human civilization, prior inhabitant of earth, now long gone. "Where's the hot spots?" "Um, what?" "Any industrial, technical civilization would leave their mark somehow thru their waste and pollution. Even if they left millions of years ago and their cities were built on subduction zones, we'd still detect their nuclear waste dumps." Long pause. "Well, ya." Comparatively, I can kind of imagine groups of humans getting wiped out without a trace. The Sea Peoples didn't leave much behind. It's an accident we know about those lost cities on the steppes, which were completely lost to history. There's 100s (1000s?) of habitats buried under the desert, waiting to be explored. Etc. But not being anything close to an archeologist: Hancock's notions are a bit far fetched, circumstantial. Like he's fooling himself into seeing stuff that's not there. Like seeing animals in the clouds, faces in pictures of martian soil, illuminating patterns in numbers.

dougk16 6y ago

Great book, highly recommend. Even if you say 90% of it is pseudo-scientific bs, fine, read it like you would fantasy or sci-fi and there's still easily 10% of mind-expanding possibilities in here. I've read many critiques of Hancock's work and there are always arguments and evidence left over that critics don't address. The only way to decide for yourself is to read his work with an open mind. Or don't!

AlotOfReading 6y ago
Fantasy stories about archaeology do serious harm. I've mapped dozens of burials looted by people who had bought into similarly fanciful tales of lost treasures and empires. That fantasy didn't make them any richer, but it did desecrate hundreds of graves and destroy a lot of cultural heritage. Please be careful with giving recommendations you know are inaccurate. Not only does it mean archaeologists have to go back and correct those misunderstandings, it contributes to the destruction of the very things we're trying to protect.
- dougk16 6y ago
  Ok I will stop recommending his books. Thanks for the heads up. I did not know his ideas were causing such destruction. I will still read all his books with an open mind but you don't have to worry about me looting any sites. :)
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    I will not stop recommending Hancock's books. In many cases they are the only source of excellent photography of ancient constructions. Furthermore, Hancock is always very careful to separate factual exposition from his speculations. Finally, he has remarkably often turned out to be right, and his critics badly wrong. The Younger Dryas Boundary comet strike is now mainstream pre-history, supported by excavations as far afield as Chile, South Africa, and Syria. A culture cultivating the whole Amazon basin for at least 1500 years before being wiped out by smallpox 500 years ago is now well established fact, supported by LIDAR surveys revealing hundreds of miles of major earthworks.

alice22 6y ago

I started reading into these supposed "fringe" theories surrounding Hancock and Robert Schoch and the other people talking about these ideas about a year ago and I find some of their arguments credible and not completely nuts and I honestly think there's something more there than what the official, established story is able to explain. Some of the evidence Hancock presents doesn't hold much weight in my mind and I think he's just reaching but other pieces do. For example, I think the Orion Correlation and Sphinx Erosion Hypothesis are interesting to look into. Also Gobekli Tepe. There also doesn't appear to be any indisputable evidence that officially dates the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx to the purported time period of around 2,500 BC, the age of Khufu. It doesn't necessarily have to be that Hancock's theories for what actually happened are right and he's not adamant they are either, only theories, but I think he's raised enough issues with what Egyptologists or Archeologists are saying is canonical to lead me to believe what the mainstream majority Egyptologists or Archeologists claim is certain fact may just be a local maxima based on interpretation of found evidence at the time the theories were first recognized and an unwillingness to change their position unless evidence to contradict them becomes so strong they can't deny it with a straight face. It's also fascinating that many large burial / ancient civilization sites have been discovered even in the last 50 years, e.g., Cerutti Mastodon site, and also Amazon civilization remnants using Lidar, which leads me to hope a lot more could be discovered in the next 50 and greatly change what is purported on wikipedia as true. # Comment Updated.

glial 6y ago
Maybe your comment is an earnest, but it sounds like conspiracy theory bait and has no actual content.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  Your comment sounds like conspiracy theory bait and has no actual content.
turndown 6y ago
>There also doesn't appear to be any indisputable evidence that officially dates the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx to the purported time period of around 2,500 BC, the age of Khufu. The fact that there isn't any Predynastic pottery at the Great Pyramids severely limits any kind speculation as to when they were built, at least in the backward direction.