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I lost this post a few paragraphs in, posting anyway: There is only so much that can be gleaned from found evidence. The customs and assumptions of our time a

I lost this post a few paragraphs in, posting anyway: There is only so much that can be gleaned from found evidence. The customs and assumptions of our time also affect the way we reconstruct these stories and civilizations. In many cases, the archaeological evidence is never even recovered: our entire civilization lives above those that came before us. Sometimes, even outright fabrication is allowed for decades[1][2] in the guise of "advancement of Science™". In my opinion, musing about "different populations" on the basis of subtle positioning of things is an exercise in futility. Even with genetic evidence, there is very little that can be said about the relationship between those peoples and the things found -- maybe those were relics carried by outsiders, or remorse by genociders (a population does not just "vanish") or really anything else. Even when closely examining large structures like the Great Pyramid, there's evidence of engineering that far surpasses our own[3][4]. Uncanny coincidences that do not make sense[5] but readily integrate into our myths surround us[6] and are often destroyed by us[7]. So what really is the best way to figure out our past? As with most things, accountability over a long period of time. Humans have trouble keeping history straight over even a few decades. Knowledge lost to out of date customs, or just plain language idiosyncrasies[8] can make even the recent past opaque to most. Even the Epic of Gilgamesh seems to be tampered with: statues of the bull-rider (Enkidu) predate the tablets by many, many years, from before Gilgamesh's reign. We've found that dogs were domesticated over a long period of time. That means there were many, many accidents along the way. Even Woolly Mammoth bones found under cliffs meant there were very intelligent hunters among us. Even the fact that a species survived thousands of years of sub-zero temperatures should stop us in awe. We live in the Holocene, which seems to be life on easy mode: good temperatures, just enough CO2 and conditions favorable to analog information archiving, enabling civilization, hard industry and easy transport, with an easily targetable animal population. This is what I think is true: at some point, the human(oid?)s living in sync with their environment were disrupted by another group, and this group was so fundamentally alien to whatever the norm was, that it quickly conquered most of the planet. Its superiority in numbers seems to have been great enough to enable similar outcomes for groups separated by great distances. Most of the evidence points to that group being us, that we likely genocided many, many humanoid races just to get here. Here's a poem that I like, that seems to convey similar emotion: https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_copybook.htm https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_copybook.htm And at the risk of making this entire post sound like satire (it's not), here's some links to the Finno-Korean Hyperwar of 8245BC[9][10][11][12] [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/feb/19/science.sciencenews https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/feb/19/science.scie... [2]: http://web.archive.org/web/20220516153818/http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/news/protsched.html http://web.archive.org/web/20220516153818/http://johnhawks.n... [3]: https://www.gizapower.com/Advanced/Advanced%20Machining.html https://www.gizapower.com/Advanced/Advanced%20Machining.html [4]: https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-africa/egypt-pyramids-0013249 https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-africa/egypt-... [5]: http://ancientmoons.com/trees.html http://ancientmoons.com/trees.html [6]: https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/dragons-exploring-ancient-origins-mythical-beasts-006407 https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/dragons-explor... [7]: https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-asia/dragon-teeth-hunters-and-mindless-destruction-history-009731 https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-asia/dragon-te... [8]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_joke#cite_note-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_joke#cite_note-1 [9]: https://vixra.org/pdf/1809.0081v1.pdf https://vixra.org/pdf/1809.0081v1.pdf [10]: https://old.reddit.com/r/AlternateHistory/comments/nba85t/today_i_found_out_about_the_finnokorean_hyperwar/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AlternateHistory/comments/nba85t/to... [11]: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2007541-his https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2007541-his [12]: https://old.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/puryu1/eurasia_in_the_midst_of_the_finnokorean_war/ https://old.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/puryu1/euras...

precompute 4y ago
Post went from +2 to -3, could the users downvoting it also leave a comment explaining the downvote?
- jessaustin 4y ago
  Voting on this thread seems crazy. I suspect there are enthusiasts present who aren't keen on close examination of their pet beliefs.
jcranmer 4y ago
> There is only so much that can be gleaned from found evidence. The customs and assumptions of our time also affect the way we reconstruct these stories and civilizations. This is partially true. However, modern anthropologists and historians are very aware of this, and spend a lot of time trying to make sure they do not push bounds of what evidence can suggest. Popular anthropologists and historians generally do not share the same care, and pseudoanthropology dives into extrapolation with abandon. > Even when closely examining large structures like the Great Pyramid, there's evidence of engineering that far surpasses our own[3][4]. Uh... no. There is a tendency to simultaneously underestimate the precision achievable with low technology tools while overestimating the precision of important megalithic architecture. This is what produces hyperbolic claims such as "evidence of engineering that far surpasses our own." The best theories are the ones that can marshal several different kinds of evidence, including experimental archaeology, recovery of artifacts with detailed microstructure analysis, as well as any available cultural evidence. In the case of the pyramids, how they were built is not a mystery, for we have recovered the tools used to build it from the quarries that sourced the stone, and we also have the pictures they painted to depict themselves building it. To ignore all of that evidence in favor of advanced machinery (of which no remains exist) to serve a purpose never hinted at in any literature is lunacy. > Uncanny coincidences that do not make sense[5] Well, the coincidence of hexagonal structure can easily be explained by there existing only three regular polygons that can tile a plane, one of which is a hexagon. Try a random Voronoi diagram (e.g., https://cfbrasz.github.io/Voronoi.html)--things https://cfbrasz.github.io/Voronoi.html)--things tend to end up looking very hexagonal very quickly. Of course, when you get to the claim that trees were 10 miles high...

precompute 4y ago

Post went from +2 to -3, could the users downvoting it also leave a comment explaining the downvote?

jessaustin 4y ago
Voting on this thread seems crazy. I suspect there are enthusiasts present who aren't keen on close examination of their pet beliefs.

jcranmer 4y ago

> There is only so much that can be gleaned from found evidence. The customs and assumptions of our time also affect the way we reconstruct these stories and civilizations. This is partially true. However, modern anthropologists and historians are very aware of this, and spend a lot of time trying to make sure they do not push bounds of what evidence can suggest. Popular anthropologists and historians generally do not share the same care, and pseudoanthropology dives into extrapolation with abandon. > Even when closely examining large structures like the Great Pyramid, there's evidence of engineering that far surpasses our own[3][4]. Uh... no. There is a tendency to simultaneously underestimate the precision achievable with low technology tools while overestimating the precision of important megalithic architecture. This is what produces hyperbolic claims such as "evidence of engineering that far surpasses our own." The best theories are the ones that can marshal several different kinds of evidence, including experimental archaeology, recovery of artifacts with detailed microstructure analysis, as well as any available cultural evidence. In the case of the pyramids, how they were built is not a mystery, for we have recovered the tools used to build it from the quarries that sourced the stone, and we also have the pictures they painted to depict themselves building it. To ignore all of that evidence in favor of advanced machinery (of which no remains exist) to serve a purpose never hinted at in any literature is lunacy. > Uncanny coincidences that do not make sense[5] Well, the coincidence of hexagonal structure can easily be explained by there existing only three regular polygons that can tile a plane, one of which is a hexagon. Try a random Voronoi diagram (e.g., https://cfbrasz.github.io/Voronoi.html)--things https://cfbrasz.github.io/Voronoi.html)--things tend to end up looking very hexagonal very quickly. Of course, when you get to the claim that trees were 10 miles high...