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It's a shame that Younger Dryas x Humans is a fringe topic in some circles. I find the conversation regarding humans in this time to be very entertaining and so

It's a shame that Younger Dryas x Humans is a fringe topic in some circles. I find the conversation regarding humans in this time to be very entertaining and somewhat fascinating. Particularly the fringe thesis that humans might have been more advanced then we thought roughly 10-15,000 years ago and that a cosmic/stellar event such as what is theorized to happen during the Younger Dryas set our species back thousands of years. The part I find most fascinating is the explanations of how many religions and stories from many different peoples around the world speak of "biblical" floods and untold destruction around the world at roughly the same time period. How the people who became known as the Egyptians may have inherited those pyramids from a more advanced civilization considering constructions that can be attributed to the Egyptians are usually of lower quality to the Great Pyramid, etc.

ellopoppit 4y ago
>Particularly the fringe thesis that humans might have been more advanced then we thought roughly 10-15,000 years ago Gobekli Tepe has shown this to in fact be the case >the Egyptians may have inherited those pyramids from a more advanced civilization considering constructions that can be attributed to the Egyptians are usually of lower quality to the Great Pyramid, etc. The greatest evidence I've seen for this is the water erosion on the Sphinx. One of the main arguments against the Sphinx water erosion theory put forth by archaelogists was: "there is no evidence whatsoever for a culture capable of building the Great Sphinx much before the traditionally accepted date (2500 bce)" ...which of course was also destroyed by the discovery of Gobekli Tepe
- lumost 4y ago
  It's incredibly difficult to rigorously assess technology levels in antiquity once the pottery is ground to dust, erosion removes an writing, and the cites are overtaken by changing climates. What we have of the neolithic period is mysterious granite objects and other hard stones. These granite pieces are hard to build, but we have no basis to assess whether they were carved with primitive tools over generations or quickly using greater application of labor and better tools. Due to the difficulty in dating granite, it's also unclear "who" made the object - this gets exceptionally pronounced when looking at artifacts in the Andes or northern europe. IMHO the only way this changes is if we get better at marine archeology, detecting signs of civilization via environmental changes (e.g. terra preta in the Amazon) or improve climate modeling to look for places where civilization was but is no longer.
  - AlotOfReading 4y ago
    We can directly date the burial of granite objects with OSL. We can detect human populations with charcoal, pollen analysis, modern genetic studies, or directly with eDNA (among others).
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      OSL establishes a lower bound on age. Numerous events can lead it to read younger than the reality. Yet, the Valley Temple and Menkaure pyramid come out 500 years older than the official numbers. (With wide error bars, it must be said.)
      - AlotOfReading 4y ago
        OSL can read both younger and older than the true age, depending on the error sources. Modern labs will usually apply a correction to deal with underestimation as well.
        ncmncm 4y ago
        Maybe explain how OSL can establish an upper bound on age? It looks impossible to me, except where you can prove the sample was undisturbed.
    - nradov 4y ago
      But still that only tells us when those granite artifacts were last used. In some cases they might have been constructed much earlier, and then reused or modified by later civilizations.
      - towaway15463 4y ago
        Like the cyclopean ruins throughout Europe that no cultures can lay claim to.
        hn_version_0023 4y ago
- bl0rg 4y ago
  The water erosion hypothesis is not supported by enough evidence. A strong piece of counter evidence is that they have dated the temple near the Sphinx (built at the same time according to both pseudo- and real archeologists) and it corresponded perfectly to other estimates. The technique they used is called thermoluminescence dating and is incredibly interesting in itself.
  - tmn 4y ago
    What is the counter evidence for the erosion?
    - osiris-with-ED 4y ago
      A few other considerations: >The dream stele in front of the sphinx directly states that it was restored by egypt (specifically dug out) >We don't know who built the Giza complex, but we do know who built ON TO the Giza complex. The pop-science clickbait titles that discuss "THE DAILY LIVES OF PHAROAH'S PYRAMID BUILDERS" are bullshit, to be blunt. This is right up there with the old "the giza pyramids were tombs FOR DA KING AND DA QUEEN!" line, which can be easily disproven by examining the sterile empty interior of the Giza complex and comparing it to ANY OF THE OTHER PYRAMIDS THAT HAD FUNERARY ARTIFACTS PRESENT. Anyone who supports these narratives while slandering the measured scientific work of Robert Shoch and Randall Carlson is misinformed. >The nature of the Sphinx itself has been knowingly lied about. The presence of entrances into the sphinx, however small, was denied and slandered by Hawass and crew until multiple forms of visual evidence in modern day (1980-2015) show people ENTERING the sphinx, one of which shows Hawass himself performing the feat, others (in the form of videos) usually contain comments that the video is being recorded under threat of security apprehension and criminal charges. This fits with the pattern of research permits on controversial topics being denied almost instantaneously. >The mainstream narrative peddled by Zahi Hawass is riddled with blatant fabrications and controversy. Hawass appears to be nearing discrediting himself with his childish refusal to advance his own field. Whether or not this comes down to religious fundamentalism (ie not letting information out that contradicts Hawass' beliefs) or sheer pride, there are more than enough videos of Hawass reacting with door slamming and screaming rage when questioned about inconsistencies in his narrative. Is this appropriate behavior for a world class academic, a leading figure of his field, and someone who is supposed to be the foremost authority on one of the most mysterious civilizations of antiquity? Regardless, it is apparent that the narrative pushed by Hawass that reduces Egypt to a 4000 year old civilization with no deeper connections to any other ancient lineages or sciences is closer to being as unscientific as theories that claim the giza pyramids were time machines! It's worth noting that the Hiwara labyrinth has been discovered in a recoverable, but endangered state, and Hawass has done everything he can to silence any investigation and suppress the results of the recent ground scan. If you are unfamiliar with the labyrinth, please take the time to look up this incredible piece of legendary megalithic architecture, specifically how it was considered THE wonder of Egypt in extremely greater prominence than the Giza complex to the old dynasty Egyptian people. From what I've seen from the ground scan, this thing is another structure akin to Gobekli Tepe: sprawling stone walls, coalescing with themselves in irregular patterns, with a nearly impossible to discern purpose or use. Given that the ancient Egyptians had a mindnumbing reverence for theological history (consider that the same deities in Egypt were worshiped for nearly 4000 years straight with only one break in the Amarna era), could it be that the labyrinth was exalted by the ancient egyptians for being a structure as ancient to themselves as they are to ourselves (ie 12,800bc or so), a structure that survived the most recent changing of ages/cataclysm? The accepted narrative was that the labyrinth was quarried by the Romans, and any digging would only reveal a smooth stone slab where it once stood. We now know that this slab is, in fact, THE ROOF of the structure. The condition of the soil/sand that encloses the labyrinth is extemely acidic, and we are at risk of losing this structure from stubborn pride. For the most part, the only restoration effort needed to preserve this structure would be to dig it out, but alas...
nradov 4y ago
I think some people get hung up on the word "advanced". They jump to assumptions about fringe theories about Atlantis or flying saucers or whatever. But in this context, "advanced" just means a slightly higher level of masonry and some metal tools, perhaps comparable to what we now consider the Bronze Age in Eurasia. It's entirely plausible that such a civilization could be entirely wiped out, leaving few artifacts that could last >10K years.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  The most likely place for such evidence is the sea floor off India and Pakistan, and the bottom of the Persian Gulf (which archaeologists must be careful to call the "Arabian Gulf", in e.g. YT vids of recent work on the area.) The Harappan cities are overwhelmingly more sophisticated than would be consistent with their being the first of anything. The oldest Harappan cities were exhaustively planned before construction started, with central sewers fed from every house, all carefully graded to maintain reliable flow. The Harappans must have had writing, but on stuff that crumbled to dust thousands of years ago. A million square miles of what is now sea floor from Korea to Viet Nam, and south to Java, was rich river-drained bottom land until 20000 years ago, filling in until 8000 years ago. People had lived there for at least 20000 years before the sea began rising. Also, Australia was connected to New Guinea, and again people had lived there for as long. There are still precise oral records of conflicts and resolutions as the water forced people uphill to where other people already lived. There is a very large construction on Java, Gunung Padang, that had been thought to be a natural hill, but it has turned out was built at least 20000 years ago. (Some think a natural hill must be inside, but we really have no idea.)
pmayrgundter 4y ago
Agreed. It's turned into a very fun and interesting side project for me. In particular, the Atlantis story in Plato's Timaeus is historically written off as intentional myth, despite the literal claims to the opposite in the text. If taken as a historical account, it tells of an unprecedented impact, conflagration and deluge within a millennium of the YDIE. "Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals... For there was a time, Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was [preeminent]." The following story tells of a large land in the middle of the Atlantic that sank after the conflagration and deluge. The invasion of the Sea Peoples from the direction of the Atlantic, and the establishment of cities by the remnants of these times. These would used to seem preposterous, before the discovery of the by-far oldest megalithic site at Göbekli Tepe 9500-8000BCE, the same dates given for the founding of Athens and Sais in Timaeus. There's a great literature review channel on YT: [Prehistory Decoded](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx11KXwumf5w8J-GdBGKNVA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx11KXwumf5w8J-GdBGKNVA) And here's some resources I've developed: [The Story of Atlantis](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dQbm3QNHnYD5xDwDjZXm1M8il_69Opq9aRSKwi_29ic/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dQbm3QNHnYD5xDwDjZXm1M8i...) [Comparative Energies of Catastrophic Events](https://docs.google.com/document/d/14EslUTRCwOgc_EobxH6X5e01uVGxN1N58gC-mZlbBac/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/14EslUTRCwOgc_EobxH6X5e01...)
- bitcurious 4y ago
  The invasions of the Sea People was closer to us in time than the Younger Dryas was to them. The timeline just doesn’t work.
  - pmayrgundter 4y ago
    Sorry, yes, I don't mean the invasions during the Bronze Age[1]. I have wondered though if the generic name for them suggests a general origin of the remnants of the Atlantic civilizations that were perhaps destroyed from the YDIE [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples EDIT: yeah fair, I hadn't read thoroughly on them. They're too far away in time to be reasonably related.
Hayvok 4y ago
The comet theory seems to be gaining some traction as the research is done and more data becomes available. A few years ago it certainly seemed fringe-y. Good on them for doing the science. Entertaining and fascinating are the right words to use for the human civ stuff you mentioned - they are fun stories to think about. But right now I don’t buy it. Maybe they’ll end up being correct, but those folks need to get out in the field, gather data, do the research, and put it up for peer review if they’re really serious about overturning the current framework of the development of human civilization. I see lots of blog posts, internet talks, and amateur books published—less so serious research being published and discussed.
- hnfong 4y ago
  Is there actual evidence that these "fun stories" did not happen, or are you mistaking lack of evidence with evidence of absence?
  - Hayvok 4y ago
    If you want to play in the science sandbox and be taken seriously by the other scientists, you don’t get to ask for “evidence of absence”. We haven't done science that way for four hundred years. If you have an issue with that, that’s fine, go start your own community of researchers with your own principles and methods. See how much you discover. But you don’t complain about not being taken seriously by the people that think your approach is deeply flawed.
skykooler 4y ago
Aren't the pyramids about 4,500 years old? How could they be from before the Younger Dryas?
- pmayrgundter 4y ago
  I haven't heard this claim about the Pyramids, but there's a debate about the Sphinx. IIUC the original dating from Egyptologists relied on a comparative chronology with the known dynasties and their symbolism. This was called into doubt by a geologist[1] who noted that the erosion on the sides of the Sphinx excavation pit would have needed much longer to form, esp given that Egypt has been dry for the past 10k years. So perhaps there is a reevaluation of the origin of the Pyramids as well? [1]https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~ashworth/webpages/g491/2001presentations/datingthesphinx/Dating%20the%20Sphinx.htm https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~ashworth/webpages/g491/2001pres...
  - AlotOfReading 4y ago
    We have the capability to directly date the stones to determine when these structures were laid down. That's been done for most of the major Egyptian sites and the results agree with traditional archeological analysis.
    - pmayrgundter 4y ago
      Not sure I see this in the wiki page[1]. Citations appreciated! This seems to be the case for the nearby temples, which are traditionally associated with the Sphinx, but not of the Sphinx itself. The temples were laid down with stone probably quarried from the trenches near the Sphinx. And yes, they've been dated to 2k+ BCE. But that's where Schoch and Lehner disagree. Schoch says that the stone of the Sphinx is significantly older (noting that it was encased in similar stone to the temples). What seems to be most significant is that Lehner doesn't treat it as solved from the dating of the stone, but relies on the lack of a sufficiently advanced civilization to explain the much earlier date, and this was enlightened with the discovery of Göbekli. This is noted elsewhere in sibling comments as well and seems to be where the debate stopped. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx_water_erosion_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx_water_erosion_hypothesi...
DiabloD3 4y ago
It's only a fringe topic because people are uncomfortable with the idea that a recurring disaster cycle could exist, and at least a dozen papers every year are published that amount to "yeah, we looked in this location nobody has looked before, and we saw evidence of the cycle here, too".
eloff 4y ago
At the end of the last ice age, around this time, sea levels rose 120 meters. The areas around the Persian gulf, Mediterranean, Red Sea, Nile Delta, etc may have been settled by humans at the time. If they had any civilization or agriculture near the coast in these areas, it's now buried under the water. The black sea was possibly flooded by the Mediterranean in an epic deluge about 5600BCE. I think even without the younger dryas impact, it's possible that early civilization got a reset at this time. When you factor in that the impact would have caused widespread and sustained crop failure, you could easily imagine early agrarian civilization reverting to nomadic hunter gatherers.That's my hunch, but there's little to no evidence supporting this at present.
- fsloth 4y ago
  For evidence based narrative of the oldest known state like agricultural cultures I can't recommend enough James Scott's "Against the grain" https://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-History-Earliest-States/dp/0300182910 https://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-History-Earliest-States... All evidence at this time points that agriculture based city states were challenging to boot into a "proper civilization". If you raised taxes, your citizens would just leave since the area you could control was quite small. And then you get new diseases that suddenly could spread dense in urban population - wars - all that good stuff. Based on the book, maintaining a city state over more than few generations, before the knowledge how to keep it going has been learned, is really, really really hard. This is not to counter the suggestion that there could have been cities at e.g. coasts tens of thousands of years ago, but the fact that they seem to be so frail in the beginning points out that it's not also improbable that first "higher civilizations" were indeed the ones we know of.
  - towaway15463 4y ago
    I’m sure it was difficult but I wouldn’t put it in the category of improbable given that cities were reinvented many times around the globe in hugely varying climates and cultures. I’m also not convinced that people would leave a city for a subsistence life in the country en masse. There are several factors working against that like lack of knowledge and skills needed, the good cleared land already being inhabited, and moving too far would put you in a region where you don’t speak the same dialect and would be seen as an interloper by the local people.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
vkou 4y ago
I find a much simpler explanation to the common meme of biblical floods in religions. Which is that people tend to build their settlements on or around rivers. The same geography that makes an area suitable for trade, transport, fishing and agriculture will have catastrophic floods every few years/decades. Look at where every city of note is, and note how many of them are either on the coasts, or on rivers. Rivers flood.
- towaway15463 4y ago
  I wouldn’t think a regularly occurring flood would be recorded as a once in history event that wipes out almost all of mankind. The Egyptians featured regular flooding of the Nile in their myths but didn’t picture them as apocalyptic.
8bitsrule 4y ago
The ice-core and dendrochron records make it clear that the YD began with a precipitous temp drop, followed in 1200 years by a precipitous temp climb. Any alternative hypotheses have to explain those changes, well-established worldwide, simultaneous Pt and Ir deposits, two well-established gigantic meltwater pulses, and hundreds of well-established megafaunal extinctions, all falling among a period of deglaciation with a fuzzy timeline. For starters. It's a tall order, and recent and ongoing discoveries have made it less-and-less fringey. Fascinating to watch the the responses and what they tell us about 'well-established' orthodoxy.

ellopoppit 4y ago

>Particularly the fringe thesis that humans might have been more advanced then we thought roughly 10-15,000 years ago Gobekli Tepe has shown this to in fact be the case >the Egyptians may have inherited those pyramids from a more advanced civilization considering constructions that can be attributed to the Egyptians are usually of lower quality to the Great Pyramid, etc. The greatest evidence I've seen for this is the water erosion on the Sphinx. One of the main arguments against the Sphinx water erosion theory put forth by archaelogists was: "there is no evidence whatsoever for a culture capable of building the Great Sphinx much before the traditionally accepted date (2500 bce)" ...which of course was also destroyed by the discovery of Gobekli Tepe

lumost 4y ago
It's incredibly difficult to rigorously assess technology levels in antiquity once the pottery is ground to dust, erosion removes an writing, and the cites are overtaken by changing climates. What we have of the neolithic period is mysterious granite objects and other hard stones. These granite pieces are hard to build, but we have no basis to assess whether they were carved with primitive tools over generations or quickly using greater application of labor and better tools. Due to the difficulty in dating granite, it's also unclear "who" made the object - this gets exceptionally pronounced when looking at artifacts in the Andes or northern europe. IMHO the only way this changes is if we get better at marine archeology, detecting signs of civilization via environmental changes (e.g. terra preta in the Amazon) or improve climate modeling to look for places where civilization was but is no longer.
- AlotOfReading 4y ago
  We can directly date the burial of granite objects with OSL. We can detect human populations with charcoal, pollen analysis, modern genetic studies, or directly with eDNA (among others).
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    OSL establishes a lower bound on age. Numerous events can lead it to read younger than the reality. Yet, the Valley Temple and Menkaure pyramid come out 500 years older than the official numbers. (With wide error bars, it must be said.)
    - AlotOfReading 4y ago
      OSL can read both younger and older than the true age, depending on the error sources. Modern labs will usually apply a correction to deal with underestimation as well.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        Maybe explain how OSL can establish an upper bound on age? It looks impossible to me, except where you can prove the sample was undisturbed.
  - nradov 4y ago
    But still that only tells us when those granite artifacts were last used. In some cases they might have been constructed much earlier, and then reused or modified by later civilizations.
    - towaway15463 4y ago
      Like the cyclopean ruins throughout Europe that no cultures can lay claim to.
      - hn_version_0023 4y ago
bl0rg 4y ago
The water erosion hypothesis is not supported by enough evidence. A strong piece of counter evidence is that they have dated the temple near the Sphinx (built at the same time according to both pseudo- and real archeologists) and it corresponded perfectly to other estimates. The technique they used is called thermoluminescence dating and is incredibly interesting in itself.
- tmn 4y ago
  What is the counter evidence for the erosion?
  - osiris-with-ED 4y ago
    A few other considerations: >The dream stele in front of the sphinx directly states that it was restored by egypt (specifically dug out) >We don't know who built the Giza complex, but we do know who built ON TO the Giza complex. The pop-science clickbait titles that discuss "THE DAILY LIVES OF PHAROAH'S PYRAMID BUILDERS" are bullshit, to be blunt. This is right up there with the old "the giza pyramids were tombs FOR DA KING AND DA QUEEN!" line, which can be easily disproven by examining the sterile empty interior of the Giza complex and comparing it to ANY OF THE OTHER PYRAMIDS THAT HAD FUNERARY ARTIFACTS PRESENT. Anyone who supports these narratives while slandering the measured scientific work of Robert Shoch and Randall Carlson is misinformed. >The nature of the Sphinx itself has been knowingly lied about. The presence of entrances into the sphinx, however small, was denied and slandered by Hawass and crew until multiple forms of visual evidence in modern day (1980-2015) show people ENTERING the sphinx, one of which shows Hawass himself performing the feat, others (in the form of videos) usually contain comments that the video is being recorded under threat of security apprehension and criminal charges. This fits with the pattern of research permits on controversial topics being denied almost instantaneously. >The mainstream narrative peddled by Zahi Hawass is riddled with blatant fabrications and controversy. Hawass appears to be nearing discrediting himself with his childish refusal to advance his own field. Whether or not this comes down to religious fundamentalism (ie not letting information out that contradicts Hawass' beliefs) or sheer pride, there are more than enough videos of Hawass reacting with door slamming and screaming rage when questioned about inconsistencies in his narrative. Is this appropriate behavior for a world class academic, a leading figure of his field, and someone who is supposed to be the foremost authority on one of the most mysterious civilizations of antiquity? Regardless, it is apparent that the narrative pushed by Hawass that reduces Egypt to a 4000 year old civilization with no deeper connections to any other ancient lineages or sciences is closer to being as unscientific as theories that claim the giza pyramids were time machines! It's worth noting that the Hiwara labyrinth has been discovered in a recoverable, but endangered state, and Hawass has done everything he can to silence any investigation and suppress the results of the recent ground scan. If you are unfamiliar with the labyrinth, please take the time to look up this incredible piece of legendary megalithic architecture, specifically how it was considered THE wonder of Egypt in extremely greater prominence than the Giza complex to the old dynasty Egyptian people. From what I've seen from the ground scan, this thing is another structure akin to Gobekli Tepe: sprawling stone walls, coalescing with themselves in irregular patterns, with a nearly impossible to discern purpose or use. Given that the ancient Egyptians had a mindnumbing reverence for theological history (consider that the same deities in Egypt were worshiped for nearly 4000 years straight with only one break in the Amarna era), could it be that the labyrinth was exalted by the ancient egyptians for being a structure as ancient to themselves as they are to ourselves (ie 12,800bc or so), a structure that survived the most recent changing of ages/cataclysm? The accepted narrative was that the labyrinth was quarried by the Romans, and any digging would only reveal a smooth stone slab where it once stood. We now know that this slab is, in fact, THE ROOF of the structure. The condition of the soil/sand that encloses the labyrinth is extemely acidic, and we are at risk of losing this structure from stubborn pride. For the most part, the only restoration effort needed to preserve this structure would be to dig it out, but alas...

nradov 4y ago

I think some people get hung up on the word "advanced". They jump to assumptions about fringe theories about Atlantis or flying saucers or whatever. But in this context, "advanced" just means a slightly higher level of masonry and some metal tools, perhaps comparable to what we now consider the Bronze Age in Eurasia. It's entirely plausible that such a civilization could be entirely wiped out, leaving few artifacts that could last >10K years.

ncmncm 4y ago
The most likely place for such evidence is the sea floor off India and Pakistan, and the bottom of the Persian Gulf (which archaeologists must be careful to call the "Arabian Gulf", in e.g. YT vids of recent work on the area.) The Harappan cities are overwhelmingly more sophisticated than would be consistent with their being the first of anything. The oldest Harappan cities were exhaustively planned before construction started, with central sewers fed from every house, all carefully graded to maintain reliable flow. The Harappans must have had writing, but on stuff that crumbled to dust thousands of years ago. A million square miles of what is now sea floor from Korea to Viet Nam, and south to Java, was rich river-drained bottom land until 20000 years ago, filling in until 8000 years ago. People had lived there for at least 20000 years before the sea began rising. Also, Australia was connected to New Guinea, and again people had lived there for as long. There are still precise oral records of conflicts and resolutions as the water forced people uphill to where other people already lived. There is a very large construction on Java, Gunung Padang, that had been thought to be a natural hill, but it has turned out was built at least 20000 years ago. (Some think a natural hill must be inside, but we really have no idea.)

pmayrgundter 4y ago

Agreed. It's turned into a very fun and interesting side project for me. In particular, the Atlantis story in Plato's Timaeus is historically written off as intentional myth, despite the literal claims to the opposite in the text. If taken as a historical account, it tells of an unprecedented impact, conflagration and deluge within a millennium of the YDIE. "Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals... For there was a time, Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was [preeminent]." The following story tells of a large land in the middle of the Atlantic that sank after the conflagration and deluge. The invasion of the Sea Peoples from the direction of the Atlantic, and the establishment of cities by the remnants of these times. These would used to seem preposterous, before the discovery of the by-far oldest megalithic site at Göbekli Tepe 9500-8000BCE, the same dates given for the founding of Athens and Sais in Timaeus. There's a great literature review channel on YT: [Prehistory Decoded](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx11KXwumf5w8J-GdBGKNVA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx11KXwumf5w8J-GdBGKNVA) And here's some resources I've developed: [The Story of Atlantis](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dQbm3QNHnYD5xDwDjZXm1M8il_69Opq9aRSKwi_29ic/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dQbm3QNHnYD5xDwDjZXm1M8i...) [Comparative Energies of Catastrophic Events](https://docs.google.com/document/d/14EslUTRCwOgc_EobxH6X5e01uVGxN1N58gC-mZlbBac/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/14EslUTRCwOgc_EobxH6X5e01...)

bitcurious 4y ago
The invasions of the Sea People was closer to us in time than the Younger Dryas was to them. The timeline just doesn’t work.
- pmayrgundter 4y ago
  Sorry, yes, I don't mean the invasions during the Bronze Age[1]. I have wondered though if the generic name for them suggests a general origin of the remnants of the Atlantic civilizations that were perhaps destroyed from the YDIE [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples EDIT: yeah fair, I hadn't read thoroughly on them. They're too far away in time to be reasonably related.

Hayvok 4y ago

The comet theory seems to be gaining some traction as the research is done and more data becomes available. A few years ago it certainly seemed fringe-y. Good on them for doing the science. Entertaining and fascinating are the right words to use for the human civ stuff you mentioned - they are fun stories to think about. But right now I don’t buy it. Maybe they’ll end up being correct, but those folks need to get out in the field, gather data, do the research, and put it up for peer review if they’re really serious about overturning the current framework of the development of human civilization. I see lots of blog posts, internet talks, and amateur books published—less so serious research being published and discussed.

hnfong 4y ago
Is there actual evidence that these "fun stories" did not happen, or are you mistaking lack of evidence with evidence of absence?
- Hayvok 4y ago
  If you want to play in the science sandbox and be taken seriously by the other scientists, you don’t get to ask for “evidence of absence”. We haven't done science that way for four hundred years. If you have an issue with that, that’s fine, go start your own community of researchers with your own principles and methods. See how much you discover. But you don’t complain about not being taken seriously by the people that think your approach is deeply flawed.

skykooler 4y ago

Aren't the pyramids about 4,500 years old? How could they be from before the Younger Dryas?

pmayrgundter 4y ago
I haven't heard this claim about the Pyramids, but there's a debate about the Sphinx. IIUC the original dating from Egyptologists relied on a comparative chronology with the known dynasties and their symbolism. This was called into doubt by a geologist[1] who noted that the erosion on the sides of the Sphinx excavation pit would have needed much longer to form, esp given that Egypt has been dry for the past 10k years. So perhaps there is a reevaluation of the origin of the Pyramids as well? [1]https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~ashworth/webpages/g491/2001presentations/datingthesphinx/Dating%20the%20Sphinx.htm https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~ashworth/webpages/g491/2001pres...
- AlotOfReading 4y ago
  We have the capability to directly date the stones to determine when these structures were laid down. That's been done for most of the major Egyptian sites and the results agree with traditional archeological analysis.
  - pmayrgundter 4y ago
    Not sure I see this in the wiki page[1]. Citations appreciated! This seems to be the case for the nearby temples, which are traditionally associated with the Sphinx, but not of the Sphinx itself. The temples were laid down with stone probably quarried from the trenches near the Sphinx. And yes, they've been dated to 2k+ BCE. But that's where Schoch and Lehner disagree. Schoch says that the stone of the Sphinx is significantly older (noting that it was encased in similar stone to the temples). What seems to be most significant is that Lehner doesn't treat it as solved from the dating of the stone, but relies on the lack of a sufficiently advanced civilization to explain the much earlier date, and this was enlightened with the discovery of Göbekli. This is noted elsewhere in sibling comments as well and seems to be where the debate stopped. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx_water_erosion_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx_water_erosion_hypothesi...

DiabloD3 4y ago

It's only a fringe topic because people are uncomfortable with the idea that a recurring disaster cycle could exist, and at least a dozen papers every year are published that amount to "yeah, we looked in this location nobody has looked before, and we saw evidence of the cycle here, too".

eloff 4y ago

At the end of the last ice age, around this time, sea levels rose 120 meters. The areas around the Persian gulf, Mediterranean, Red Sea, Nile Delta, etc may have been settled by humans at the time. If they had any civilization or agriculture near the coast in these areas, it's now buried under the water. The black sea was possibly flooded by the Mediterranean in an epic deluge about 5600BCE. I think even without the younger dryas impact, it's possible that early civilization got a reset at this time. When you factor in that the impact would have caused widespread and sustained crop failure, you could easily imagine early agrarian civilization reverting to nomadic hunter gatherers.That's my hunch, but there's little to no evidence supporting this at present.

fsloth 4y ago
For evidence based narrative of the oldest known state like agricultural cultures I can't recommend enough James Scott's "Against the grain" https://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-History-Earliest-States/dp/0300182910 https://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-History-Earliest-States... All evidence at this time points that agriculture based city states were challenging to boot into a "proper civilization". If you raised taxes, your citizens would just leave since the area you could control was quite small. And then you get new diseases that suddenly could spread dense in urban population - wars - all that good stuff. Based on the book, maintaining a city state over more than few generations, before the knowledge how to keep it going has been learned, is really, really really hard. This is not to counter the suggestion that there could have been cities at e.g. coasts tens of thousands of years ago, but the fact that they seem to be so frail in the beginning points out that it's not also improbable that first "higher civilizations" were indeed the ones we know of.
- towaway15463 4y ago
  I’m sure it was difficult but I wouldn’t put it in the category of improbable given that cities were reinvented many times around the globe in hugely varying climates and cultures. I’m also not convinced that people would leave a city for a subsistence life in the country en masse. There are several factors working against that like lack of knowledge and skills needed, the good cleared land already being inhabited, and moving too far would put you in a region where you don’t speak the same dialect and would be seen as an interloper by the local people.

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vkou 4y ago

I find a much simpler explanation to the common meme of biblical floods in religions. Which is that people tend to build their settlements on or around rivers. The same geography that makes an area suitable for trade, transport, fishing and agriculture will have catastrophic floods every few years/decades. Look at where every city of note is, and note how many of them are either on the coasts, or on rivers. Rivers flood.

towaway15463 4y ago
I wouldn’t think a regularly occurring flood would be recorded as a once in history event that wipes out almost all of mankind. The Egyptians featured regular flooding of the Nile in their myths but didn’t picture them as apocalyptic.

8bitsrule 4y ago

The ice-core and dendrochron records make it clear that the YD began with a precipitous temp drop, followed in 1200 years by a precipitous temp climb. Any alternative hypotheses have to explain those changes, well-established worldwide, simultaneous Pt and Ir deposits, two well-established gigantic meltwater pulses, and hundreds of well-established megafaunal extinctions, all falling among a period of deglaciation with a fuzzy timeline. For starters. It's a tall order, and recent and ongoing discoveries have made it less-and-less fringey. Fascinating to watch the the responses and what they tell us about 'well-established' orthodoxy.